Look to the right sidebar...

Look carefully and see if there's anything different....

Holy cow! There is! How did I miss that before??? *You slap your forehead*

After all these weeks of non-blogging, and people complaining about dust on my blog, this is my little attempt at housekeeping. [sort of like using a dustbuster to clean a maisonette, but well, at least I tried]

The little dinky service is thanks to Twitter, and I've used it to send updates via handphone to my blog, so at least, even if I'm out, you'll [hopefully] get to hear about what I'm doing. This means you don't have to wait until I actually go home, switch on the laptop, wait for it to boot, IM with friends, read blogs, play Sudoku till I actually blog.... :P

So let's see how this works!

Some Monkey Business

You've gotta love a good concert, especially when the group is the Black Eyed Peas. :) :) :)

I caught the concert on Monday night at the Indoor Stadium, a concert for which I paid a pretty packet, but all so worth it.

Opening act Click Five was so-so-ok-la, but they did manage to get the crowd slightly rowed up, which meant that when the lights went out and the Peas came out, BANG! Everyone started to get really wild!

It's also good that the songs that the Peas sang that night were danceworthy tracks, thumping good songs that made you just have to stand up and shake your humps in your seats! Once it came to the especially popular ones, that was what everyone was doing!

Fergie and Will.I.Am also sang their respective hits, Glamourous, Fergielicious, Big Girls Don't Cry, and I Got It From My Mama. Good to see a group that respects each other's breakaway solo hits as well.

But one thing they did during the concert was really cool: They dimmed the lights, got everyone to take out their handphones and wave left to right in the dark. So we waved our phones [my phone was dead. I waved my IPod] to the beat while Will.I.Am sang "wave your phones, now Singapore... Wave your phones, now Singapore..." [Or something to that effect, I may have forgotten the actual words] The effect was like, well, NDP lightsticks but with better music. :P

And that's why I think I prefer to pay good money for good seats. After all, in concerts and theatres, it's not about getting a product, it's the experience of actually hearing them live that counts. And as long as I can afford to do so, I think I want to maximise that experience as much as I can.

That's good money well spent. :)

A Veritable Library

It's amazing what happens when you haven't been blogging for a while, and then suddenly you find a lot to blog about.

After a week of staying away from the rugrats and the general mayhem of school, I finally found some of my old writing spark. So check out the new arrivals in my blog library:

Chick Lit

After all the worrying and agonising over money I've been doing lately, when I finally became liquid, it was as if the floodgates opened and drowned me and the town red.

I've especially been buying shoes, shoes, shoes, and I don't know why. This is me on a typical shopping trip:

Walk, walk, nice top, argh, not my size, don't have my size, it's unfair, why don't they ever have clothes in plus-sizes for us normal-sized women [excuse the occassional delusion] Aiya this one also very nice... XL? XL? Don't have! [cries] later on better not eat fast food for dinner again, this is getting depressing............

OMG that's a nice bag, but I already have so many bags, and very troublesome to keep changing bags and throwing my stuff from bag to bag, and the last time I did that I left home without Shiroi and nearly died of boredom on the bus... Oh this is cute too, but I told myself last time to wean off the bags already so forget it........

Hmm, this book looks good..... the plotline looks interesting enough, can try, and hey! There's the new book by that author I like so much! But only out in hardcover, quite ex leh, and I'm not sure if this is the kind of book I want to keep for long times..... oh well, there's always the library and if I decide I like the book I can always buy later, hopefully when Kino has a 20% off...

Wait! There's a shoe shop! And an adorable pair of heels in the front! Can go try... throw on ground, it's tight but it's only one size smaller than my usual, bigger one can fit, and can wear for work as well, so not as wasted.... do you have this in 40? You do? It fits? It looks good? Can I pay in NETS?

And there goes...... Now you can understand why I have a harder time resisting shoe shops........

The big problem with shoes, however, is that heels give you blisters. And blisters hurt like hell. So bad, that, in fact after buying and wearing out a new pair of shoes, I had to stop by the URS to buy another pair of shoes to wear to save my poor feet. And then I didn't just buy one, I bought two.

-_-!!!!!! Time to rein in the wallet ropes again......

Next library shelf....

Politics

The Gay issue has come up again, with the recent moves to repeal Section 377A. According to this law, homosexual acts or relationships are illegal and punishable by up to 2 years in jail.

Some other info: This is a law that has been decriminalised by the US, and just about every Asian country around us.

Some questions: What is the criminal element in homosexuality? What is the adverse effects on the citizens around a homosexual individual, like his family, his neighbours, his children? Are they temporary, or long lasting?

Next: Is homosexuality a condition that can be passed on from one individual to another? [I doubt so, actually. Cos if sexuality was a transmittable condition, then the hordes of heteros around the homos should have turned them straight a long time ago. If it was really possible to transmit homosexuality, then we're most likely to have a few gays, ie, mutations in the genetic flow, rather than increasing numbers]

Next burning questions: What is democracy to you? If 7 out of 10 citizens of sound and informed minds decides that they are opposed to homosexuality, then should not a democratic society follow the will of these 70% majority? Or is this a case of the tyranny of the majority, enforcing a law on an innocent minority, ala Pharaoh and the Jews?

Last stupid question: After the Jews left Egypt, who was left to build the temples?

For a more insightful [and coherent] view on this, check out the two websites, depending on your point of view:

Repeal 377A!

Keep 377A!

Note: The petitions they are handing out expires on OCt 21, 11:59pm. Cast your vote quickly.

Walk now to the next shelf:

Philosophy

I'm realising how important it is to have a life outside of work, love and, generally, everything. The one week break from the usual work suddenly made me mindful again of all the other things in my life that I wanted to do, and try.

Candle, Juls and I were sitting at Ichiban Boshi, discussing more wacky biz ideas over endless mugs of green tea. A thing you have to realise about Juls and I is that we are bad influences over each other. Once one gets into a weird idea, and the other likes it, we will bounce the idea from one to the other like a softball till it grows and turns into a basketball, and suddenly we're getting ideas of joining the NBA.

Candle steals the ball from us. What about cashflow? What about strategy? What about revenues for the first year in operation? Y'all can't just bounce this ball aimlessly around the court and expect to join the NBA.

A deft snatch from me again. Sometimes it's not about making it work. Sometimes it's about not being sure whether it works, but trying anyway for the heck of it. At times, it's time to get off the paper and actually do it.

I have friends who are too comfortable in their present situations to try anything that would threaten that safety position. Which makes me worried: What if that safety position was taken away from you, through forces not of your making? What would you do in such a situation?

What if you lost your job? What if you lost your savings? What if you lost your spouse?

I'm not sure what I would do in such situations. Probably cry a lot and clean Jul's kitchen and house for him till it was sparkling clean. But what was I going to do after that?

That's why I figured you always need outside stuff. You can't just base your life 7 days a week around one person or thing.

And sometimes, there's only so much you can do on paper. After a while, you just gotta start the game and trust in the strategy and your wits.

Maybe that's why I keep playing these games with Juls and others. When you play these games, you don't have to think about work or the rugrats or whatever. You only concentrate on the game in front of you, and you mentally switch gears in order to do so. In order to do so, you have to let go of the previous worries, and dismiss them as unimportant, or unessential to your game.

And then you start moving around on the court and start playing. And then whatever happens to the game is due to your own skills and play.

I'm not sure whether the basketball metaphor can be understood by everyone. I'm not sure myself that I understand the metaphor myself. But I think I'm figuring out what the impact is on my life.

All I gotta do is keep bouncing.

I have to say, I agree.

"Since when did my life become so BORING??!! I seem to be blogging less and less... or basically, I have NOTHING to blog about!!!" ~ The Slayer

Or rather that I have nothing to blog about, I have tons of stuff I can blog about.

Problem is that some of those stuff involve potentially sensitive information about my sheep, and some of those stuff, well, could get me sued. :p

Once you take away all those potentially interesting stuff, then, well, what you get is the rest of it, which isn't very much to read about.

Well, some simple updates then:

I get one week off from the sheep this week. I'm looking forward to long hours of reading, much more adult interaction, and a lot of menial labour. ( More information when I meet you all )

Work is getting up to a more frentic pace, what with all the end of year mayhem, but I'm still looking forward to week 10 in about 4 weeks time. After that, it's time for some much-needed slacking. ( Ahhhhhhhh....... )

I'm getting used to it, and somewhat getting the hang, though I still make tons of boo-boos, some of which I don't even know how I got myself into.

Life in general........ A lot of friends on one end seem to be getting the hitch. Congrats to all! Especially the one whose lunch I just attended! It's deeply touching to see two people who have decided to commit their all to each other...

That being said, it seems I've also reached the point in my life where more of you seem to be getting hitched, or planning to get hitched, or thinking of getting hitched. I'm still deciding whether this is because of the biological clock, or is this because of the HDB salary ceiling on flat subsidies.

On my end, I don't think I'm quite ready for that move yet. Knowing the slower state of my relationship, I'm still somewhat in the 'honeymoon' stage, I think. When your relationship is going as slowly as mine...... :p But yet I'm not complaining about it. I like being a 26-year old teenager. :p

Maybe I'm just the kind of person who will sedately plod on with life.

NEW CLASSES AT JITTERBUGS SWINGAPORE

POLE DANCE, EXOTIC DANCE & LADIES SALSA STYLING We are very excited to offer Pole Dance, Exotic Dance and Ladies Salsa Styling courses taught by Linna Tan. Linna Tan is the pioneer of pole dance and the first to teach group exotic dance classes in Singapore. She is the only Southeast Asian representative for the International Pole Federation, a regulatory body that looks into standards of teaching and performing pole dance. Linna has been featured in many publications, including The Straits Times, The New Paper, Elle, Shape, Female, IS magazine and Indulgence.) Pole dancing is a form of dancing / gymnastics that takes muscular endurance and coordination as well as sensuality. It involves dancing with a vertical pole where the dancer may simply hold the pole, or use it to perform more athletic moves such as climbs, spins, and body inversions. There are two types of classes for Pole Dance - Pole-xercise and Pole-licious. Click here for more info, start dates of courses and fees! Exotic Dance is an art form that tastefully accentuates the curves on a woman's body through sensual and feminine movements, specially choreographed to help her exude confidence and style as she sheds her inhibitions. This course helps you to look your best, to enhance and draw attention to your assets to make you most desirable to your special someone. Click here for more info, start dates of courses and fees! A course to help ladies to look feminine and attractive on the dance floor; to add style and personality to her dancing by enhancing her basic steps. Suitable for both the ladies without Salsa dance experience and the experienced Salsera. Click here for more info, start dates of courses and fees! NEW CLASSES SPECIAL (25 to 30 Sep 2007) Buy a Pole Dance, Exotic Dance or Ladies Salsa Styling 8-week course and get a free class voucher! Terms & Conditions: 1. For sign-ups for Exotic or Ladies Salsa Styling courses, the free class voucher is applicable for use on any class except for Pole classes. 2. For sign-ups for Pole courses, the free class voucher is applicable for use on any class. 3. Promotion ends 30 Sep 2007. 4. Other terms and conditions apply. NB: For ladies who have signed up and paid up earlier for Pole, Exotic or Ladies Salsa Styling, rest assured we have not forgotten your support. We have kept aside vouchers for you. Please check with the reception when you turn up for class!

For whoever is interested....... Although I probably won't be going... been neglecting my own Lindy Hop too much of late... :( And my blog... And my reading... And my comics........

Something about my job is affecting my personal life, in that if I don't make time for the stuff I want to do, I will never get that particular thing done. So my weekly schedule becomes almost like a school timetable.

Monday: Meet Jules for dinner
Tuesday: Meet Dad for dinner
Wednesday:Eat dinner on own
Thursday:Meet Candle and go for Lindy
Friday:Meet Yenn for dinner
Saturday:Shop in afternoon, reach Int'l Plaza at 2 or 3, and read in BK, then go for Jap and go out for dinner with Yenn
Sunday: Meet DF for lunch and dinner.

And I repeat this pattern every week!!! Where's the spontaneity?? Where's the life??? There are middle-aged retirees out there with more life than this!

I miss going for exhibitions, which I don't go anymore because I have either no time, or something up already on that night.

I miss going for plays, which I've stopped because 1, no nuff money now, and 2, it's not every time I see a play that interests me.

I miss going for long pointless walks, because there is no free day for me to take a long pointless walk the whole afternoon!

In a way, I'm thankful I'm in this line... at least I can wait till the holidays to reclaim whatever is left of my humanity......... :p

incidentally, have you noticed the number of fake Anya Hindmarch bags recently? They've gotten so prolific that 8 Days even has a feature on how to spot the fake from the real:

fake or real?

Some are pretty obvious, though, I mean, when I went to KL, I saw a shop selling the bags where you could get them in 3 different colours?

Is there a louder way to scream "FAKE!!!!!"?

But considering the exclusivity of these bags [less than 50 brought into Singapore, not for public sale, that means no lowlifes like you] I think we can safely assume that most of the bags you see on the MRT are most likely fake lah.

I wouldn't want to carry something too obviously fake. Heck, what for pretend I got the real thing? I'd rather carry something like:

[you saw this first on my blog. If anybody copies me, they're dreadful copycats and pirates! Copyright belongs to me!]

I wanted to print this on tote bags to sell, but Cafepress is pretty sticky on copyrights and stuff. Sheesh.

So I settled for this: [Re: If I can't get a designer bag, I may as well pretend that I don't give a damn about them anyway]

Available at my Cafepress store, but prices are in USD, sorry!

**No copying, no pirating or anything! I did this image and I put it up first! Copyright is mine, mine, mine!

Girl blowing bubbles. Only slackers have the free time to do all this

The closing down of Yahoo! Photos meant that I had to transfer a bunch of photos to Flickr instead. The funny thing is that I didn't even realise that I even had photos on the Yahoo! server :p but since they sent me a mail, well, apparently I did. :p :p :p

But transferring the photos brought me to my old Flickr page, and nostalgically, all the stuff I did during the tuition days, when I was still a full-time slacker.

Yes, another excuse to sigh, sigh, and sigh. The work is ok, but I do wish it left me more time to pursue these again like I used to, instead of sapping out all my energy at the end of the day. :s or greedily snatching every little bit of time that I had. [and I'm still lucky, compared to others in this line] I look at the stuff I used to do, and I wonder why I didn't pursue the potential in that corner enough, but had to wait till it was all taken from me.

Well, I guess you never really miss what you had until you don't have it.

So from the girl above, I guess I've turned to this:


Yes, the good things never come with no strings attached.

It's strange that when I'm working, I always dream of having more time to blog, to write, to draw, to walk, to breathe, even.

And then when it comes to the school hols, and I have the time to do some of the stuff I wanted, I find myself at a loss. :( Without a schedule to tell me what I should be doing at each second, I find myself moping around the house, and at the end of the week, I don't accomplish a thing. Except a lot of shopping and library books.

It's so sad. It's like I got so used to the hamster wheel that when I come off it I still feel as if it should be moving under me, but it's not. So the only thing I can do is munch on peanuts. [Which is what I'm literally doing, btw. It's raining and I was too lazy to go out to find food, so I salvaged a pack of peanuts from the fridge]

If I wanted to put it in another way, I could say that work is a bad habit that I haven't managed to break yet. :)

It says shrimp

I buy a packet of flavoured nuts from the 7-11 during a break in the Jap lesson. Later after lesson, Yenn and I munch on the peanuts.

Yenn looks at the script on the packet:



"Ra... Ka....?? Na....? What the heck does this say?"

"Erm, it says 'shrimp'."

"It does?"

"Yea."

Yenn peers more closely at the packet.

"Oh. Yea."

This is what happens when you pay too much attention during Jap lesson. :p

Incidentally, just started Level 5A with a new sensei [ok] new textbook [oh oh] and new grammar and vocab [argh!!!] Erm, suddenly the prospect of going onto 5B seems smaller..........

Oh, let me drown in a cup of milkshakes and marshmallows.

I had initially planned writing a thought-provoking blog post about how risky a venture child-rearing was, but I realised I was just too tired to do it.

Yes, I know my jobload is light, when compared to some of my compadres in the private sector, but that has not stopped the tolls of stress on me.

Persistent thoughts of work, all the way to the last few minutes before sleep resulted in increasing degrees of insomnia. Insomnia led to tiredness in the morning, no small joke when you consider what time I have to wake up. A quickening of adrenaline upon reaching work [possibly psychologically induced] leads to sheer fatigue at the end of the day, which lasts for weeks and weeks. Short-temperedness and irration follows. A vein starts throbbing at the back of your head, making you wary of impending migraines.

Past a certain point you just feel very, very tired with life. I miss the quiet times in an afternoon, where I could sit somewhere comfortable, drink a good cup of tea, and read a good book, and do nothing else for the day. In these times, such moments of solitude appear far and rare in between.

At least my job still leaves me scope for this, if I am willing to sacrifice some things. I'm trying to give myself more 'me' time these days to stop myself getting more tension headaches and potential fat, by leaving work a little earlier, sleeping more during the afternoons, or simply spending more time in the libraries. I think I've officially passed the energetics of the early twenties, and possibly now heading towards the sedateness of the late twenties and the early 30s.

Urgh. Get me my walking stick next.

KL was quite alright, but a few things happened to almost throw all the plans astray.

- Quetz almost didn't make it, only able to leave late in the evening, and arriving in KL at around 2am.

- I got migraines due [probably] to dehydration. I got it on the trip there, and conked out the first night early, at around 8. The next day, the migraine continued [duh] and after a day of shopping, and a massage, I conked out again, at 8! I missed out on good dinners and good suppers on both nights. :( the only consolation is that I also missed out on the calories for those meals. :p

- A queensized bed is too small for 3 women. 'Nuff said.

Although all things considered, as we were driving down the highway, it dawned on me how many times in my life I had been in this same situation. Juls driving, me passenger, zooming down a highway to who-knows-where. At the same time, it also dawned on me how much I liked it. [sigh] How long can I continue to do this backpacking, roadtripping thing, I wonder?

Note: I'll be heading to KL today with Juls, Yenn and Quetz over the weekend, on a trip that has been plagued one way or another.

First, all of us forgot to book hotels, leaving Juls to make a last minute call about, oh, yesterday. -_-!!!

Then it turned out that Juls would be detained in Singapore for some biz, delaying our departure time from morning to afternoon. This also caused Candle to back out, becoz of the possibility that we would be stuck in Singapore.

The last one just hit us today. Quetz remembered too late that she had an appointment at work that couldn't be postponed. -_-!!! She'll be taking the bus down herself in the evening and reaching KL at late night.

The bright side? I always have the unverifiable hypothesis that if all the bad luck happens at the start of the trip, it'll take away the bad luck that was supposed to hit us during the trip. Let's just hope this hypothesis doesn't fail me now. :S Or if it does, well, at least I'm only in KL..........

Anyway, I went to NDP last night with the DF.

( The Slayer has also blogged quite a bit about NDP, complete with better photos than mine, so I'll leave it at that for now. :p [But you were sitting in the same sector in front of me, I think. I recognized the dancing lobster!] )

Security was tight, from the moment you walked through the metal detectors, through to the Esplanade area itself. Heck, in lieu of the recent hairgel-ipod bombing, they even wanted to check all the liquids we had! Which meant the DF being detained for a good time, while they opened the 4 bottles of juice and drinks we had bought along. -_-!!!







The crowd at about 4pm. We managed to watch some pre-parade concert, which consisted of singers from all 4 races, [as politically correct as possible] singing songs from the complimentary NDP CD.







Hands Up! Some guys in uniform put on a military display. This was made interesting by the uncle in pink, who later on proceeded to poke his finger into the rifle butt. [Some photos you just regret not taking]






The crowd after sunset starts to take out their star lights and the stadium is transformed into a sparkling sea of lights.







And then what every Singaporean is really waiting for...

Fireworks!













Other than that, the celebrations were, *shrug* all right. They actually reminded me of the dance shows put on by North Korea, but still all right. The bag was probably the main draw of the event. [DF got me a red one!] It came packed with so much stuff, that DF and I agreed that the economy must be doing better than we thought. :s

Included:
- 2 bottles of Newater, peanuts and 1 pack of sour cream and onion chives
- 1 cheesy Osim animal hat
- the blinking star light
- a mini flag to put on your desk
- an official NDP07 soundtrack
- a trash bag and sticker. The sticker came with a lucky draw number and what you had to do was stick it onto the trash bag with your trash and you were eligible for a lucky draw. I have to admit, I didn't see this in the bag at first, so I was pretty impressed with the way all the trash was cleared so conscientiously by us Singaporeans until I found the lucky draw sticker. Sigh........

But the main draw for me is still.......... the bag. :p

It was a good NDP anyway, and it's pretty cool to be able to tell my kids that I was there on the first River parade, and no, the stage didn't sink.. :p Let's look to more years of independence, and great goodie bags!













Happy National Day!

If Singapore was a person......



I first saw this in the Miyagi blog and am pasting it here 'cos Irene Ang is a fantastic comedic actress, and the whole dialogue is just... plain funny. :p Happy National Day.

What if Singapore was personified anyway? I think......

1. He would be a bespectacled middle-class white collar civil servant.

2. Who would grumble if he had to work past 6, and mumble that upper management better give him his overtime pay in the next month's salary.

3. He would work hard for his monthly salary, but discourage others from 'taking risks' or 'doing sales' because it's 'very hard to earn money'.

4. He dutifully goes to work on time, and leaves at 6 [unless he had to work OT] in time to eat dinner with his family and watch Ch 8 dramas.

5. 'Holiday' in his vocabulary is synonymous with 'package tour'. [my personal gripe] Any other kind of holiday to destinations outside of tour package destinations are 'dangerous'.

6. He'd shake his head disapprovingly at any one else who does things differently from he does, because they're all suicidal.

That's Singapore as I see it. How about you?

The Great Greek Adventure - Part 3: The weird, the wonderful and the beautiful

A series of miscellaneous pix taken in Greece, because we were either amused or awestruck.




1. Recycling station. Hand in your old plastic bottles and receive rebates in your bank account. We could use one of these in Singapore. God knows we use enough mineral water bottles.







2. A Greek kacang puteh stall.




3. Roadside stalls: I like roadside stalls. Most of the time, people sell stuff or do stuff that you won't see in regular shopping centres, and to me it's like a visual buffet for the eyes. I just can't stop looking.

This guy, for instance, made these tree sculptures out of wire. He was sitting by the side of the pavement twisting a roll of wire into a winter-struck tree. [no leaves] And if you looked closely, you could even see a little nest twisted into one of the branches!





Look for the nest. [my apologies if they come out sideways. I already rotated them but I don't know why they came out in Blogger like this]

Each tree takes him about 3-4 hours to make, so you gotta admire the patience in this. :p






4. You gotta love bubbles. Everybody loves bubbles.








5. Close friends and acquaintances will know why I find taxi licence plates in Greece so amusing.






6. Do not buy pirated fake watches in Kusadasi, Turkey. Only go for the genuine fake merchandise. Respect the copyright of the pirated merchandise.




Final thoughts:

For every photo that you've seen of Greece on this blog, there are about 30 that you haven't, which I can't put on this blog because the loading will just kill it. The same way, I cannot do a file transfer of all the feelings, emotions, experiences that I went through on this much-too-short journey to Athens.



How to show you the majesty of their ruins and the history they have buried?










The sunsets we saw?







And all these other, little quirky sights that we could only snap in a moment, or let it be lost forever?





It's hard. It's one of those things, where you had to be there.

And everytime I look at my pictures again,



I just wish I was there again.

Someone has called me a sheep *meh* for buying an i-pod.

Because I'm buying a product coveted by apparently half the world, and hence confirming my conformist status. Soon I'll be buying a diamond ring, a house, a car, having kids, blah blah blah.... and walking in line with the rest of the sheep -_-!!!!!

First, ye gods, all I bought was a freakin' MP3 player to play music..............

Secondly, I'm conforming by buying an i-pod like everyone else. But if I'm buying to satifsy my individual needs of music, then doesn't that make me a non-conformist, because I'm putting my individual needs over societal status?

And if I'm refusing to non-conform by conforming to the crowd, does that by default make me a non-conformist among the non-conformist crowd?

(@_@) Yea, I'm twisting words around to make an argument (^_^) But anyway since by default everything we buy - handphones, jeans, t-shirts, Harry Potter books even, [btw was blase about the movie, eagerly waiting the book] - makes us a conformist one way or another, I'm not sure why you even made that statement to me. :p Heh heh heh...... (^_^)

Oh no! I used a conformist smiley! (^haha^)

I danced with the devil in the pale blue light

But all he offered me were empty promises

Word and deed as insubstantial as air

Yearning my soul to be saved

Then his light was cast upon me

And I tasted sweet salvation at last

Now I dance to a different light

More brilliant and technicolour than before

And I pray that my feet keep dancing

To the tunes from this:

>

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Meet Shiroi Version 2.0
[30GB and comes with FM transmitter at a price of 436]

[ok, how many of you out there thought I suddenly had a blast of religious fanaticism?]

After banning sharp items, flammables and your 800ml bottle of shampoo on board flights, now airline authorities have a new item to consider on the list of dangerous items:

Apparently now, you can make a highly dangerous weapon using newspapers. They call it the Millwall Brick:

Newspapers were rolled up tightly to form the so-called Millwall Brick and another trick was to make a knuckleduster out of pennies held in place by a wrapped around paper. You could hardly be pulled up for having a bit of loose change in your pocket and a Daily Mirror under your arm.^[4]

Read more on Wikipedia

And here are more innocuous everyday items that are potentially life-threatening in the wrong hands:

• Clothing accessories (belts or scarves for choking, walking sticks, umbrellas, finger rings (used as knuckle-dusters), steel-toed boots, chain-wallets, spike bands. shoe laces and belts can also be used as an improvised whip, a common form of domestic abuse, unlikely, but not impossible, that one would have enough time to remove it in an actual fight)
• Musical instruments (cymbals, drum sticks, piano wires (for strangulation), guitars or any stringed instrument with a long neck)
• Cleaning and janitorial equipment (broom/mop sticks, plunger handles, dust pans, squeegees, long thick handled brushes, litter sticks

Now that I've posted this up, I hope I don't get ISA pple knocking on my door to 'politely' ask me a few questions................

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

http://boredslacker.blogspot.com is hereby rated suitable for children and adults of all ages, regardless of whether you think the author of this blog is suitable company for your kids.

The Great Greek Adventure Part 2 - Chompin' away!

Let's get down to some of what Singaporeans are most interested in when in a foreign country, namely, the food.

The food there is actually pretty healthy, what with the Greek salad and just about everything else fried and slathered generously with olive oil. [one of their main exports] In one week, I think I ate more veg than I ever did in Singapore in a month, because almost everything was so fresh and good.

This is only applicable to the real Greek food, though, and not MacDonald's, Starbucks, or other dubious Chinese restaurants on other holiday islands. [attesting to the level of openness of the Greek economy]

The ironic thing is that in Greece, the most common junk food you'll find comes from Turkey:


Meet the humble slovaki. A piece of pita bread wrapped around lettuce, tomato, chicken [or beef, or pork] and yoghurt sauce. This is the local 'junk food', as referred to by a local we asked for directions. Anyway, in Syntagma Square, this is a pretty decent place to buy some slovakis:


Yes, it even looks like a fast food chain.

The islands were where we got our taste of Greek seafood, all salted with the sea.

Some of the places we ate at:

Patmos: Pantelis Tavern



This place was recommended by Lonely Planet, and by now, my motto is "Always Listen to Lonely Planet". Because this was a great place to eat!

The food came fast, and hot and the ambience of the place was great. Patmos being a small island, the town wasn't crowded at all and we had an outdoor table. It was a great place to sit, eat, stone and wish you weren't going back to work the next week.


Ok u see these? They look good? It was salty as the sea which the octopus came from. :S I could still eat them, but I ended up downing gallons of water while doing so. -_-!! Still I ate some of the best calamari rings I ever did. :D


Athens: Diros Restaurant



We were brought here by friends, and if you're looking for authentic Greek food, this is a great place to check out.

If I remembered the address, that is. -_-!!!!!

This is my favourite dish in Athens: Moussaka. A lasagna style dish made with potatoes and eggplants. Now you all know why I like it so much. :p



Rhodes: Very Special Greek Salad

I had to type that cos I wasn't sure of the name of the place... Bleah...

On Rhodes, we had driven to Petaloudes, which was supposed to be a butterfly sanctuary, obviously to see, well, butterflies.

We ended up walking through a Bukit Timah-style trail and seeing 2 moths. -_-!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The uplifting part about it was discovering this place at the top of the sanctuary:

She was selling what she dubbed 'the best orange juice in Greece' on top of the hill, so why not buy a glass and chat with the lady? Not to mention after climbing a hill for 30 minutes, ANY orange juice would have tasted good. :p

But she did have some other good stuff there:

Our entire meal

Loumades - Doughballs covered in a sweet sauce. Great dessert.


This really is the BEST Greek salad I ate there. The sauce is perfect for dunking your bread in, and its chockful of onions and tomatoes and sprinkled generously with olive oil.

But no goat cheese for me, sorry.

Actually, if you like your seafood and your carbs, Greece could be just right for you. Every meal came with bread and olive oil, a la Cafe Cartel, [but no free flow] and the calamari rings were always cooked just right, fried nicely to a crisp. I also loved the fried potatoes, chunks of cut potato, [NOT the processed wedge or crinkle fries, REAL potatoes] fried in olive oil, which I'm pretty sure I'll never see selling anywhere in Singapore. -_-!!!!

Even the salads tasted good. I'm not sure whether its due to the olive oil, or whether the veg really tasted fresher there, [as sworn by Irene, who bought a handful of cucumbers!] but damn, I never thought I'd say this about a salad, but they were good. :p

Oh, and sorry for the lack of photos for this salivating post. We ate up a lot of meals before we realised we had to take photos. >D

Due to the bucketfuls of experiences we had over in Athens, the only way to tell you all about it is to divide it into sections, so here goes Part 1...

**WARNING: picture heavy blog post!

The Great Greek Adventure 1 - Ruin Fatigue

We touched down at Athens Airport on a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon.
Greece is famous most for the rich wealth of myth and legends it gave birth to. Lots of us would remember names like Zeus, Hera, Hercules, Icarus and so on. We also remember the historical figures like Odysseus, Homer, Socrates, Plato and so on. We also remember the Hollywood stars like Brad Pitt who made Troy famous, and the movie 300 for making Leonidas famous. :p

So in my opinion, a trip to Greece is all about its myth, its history and thus, that means scampering a bunch of rubble that used to be somebody's palace.


Marble rubble that presumably used to be something

It makes one feel like Indiana Jones. Except that I never got hit by rolling boulders or chased by angry swordsmen or Nazi soldiers. -_-!!! Which leaves me that much more time and leisure to explore the ruins left behind by the great Greek civilisation.

The most famous of all, of course, being the Parthenon, located in the middle of the Acropolis...

Now the Parthenon used to be one of the most important buildings in Athens, so in ancient civilisations, the most important buildings have to kept safe from enemies, right? And what better way to keep it safe, than to build it on the highest damn hill you can find in Athens.


Argh! Bloddy high!!

So after a gruelling half n hour trek, we finally make it up to the Acropolis.


Some of the best marble flooring you will get in Athens

Magnificent views you will get up there, though, when you finally make it up... The Parthenon itself is famous for the optical illusion employed in its construction to make it look more regal and grand than it would have been.

Notice how it seems to be leaning away from you? That's not an effect by the camera, it's partly because of the architecural illusion as well.
Damn, those ancient Greeks were blardy smart......

Another set of ruins that were interesting were those at Ephesus, in Kusadasi, Turkey.

Brief history lesson: Before the sea receded several miles inland, Ephesus was actually an important harbour town, with thousands of people living in it, temples, bathhouses, and even a grand library and theatre, where St Paul was supposed to have preached.

Which of course all disappeared when the sea went away, cause what point is a seaside town without, er, a sea?? After a long while, the town became buried in sand until rediscovered.

And what ruins they discovered!


Ancient mosaic floor
Ancient engraving, wonderfully preserved
Ancient shops, after a highly anticipated ancient sale


Our guide demonstrates the use of an ancient public toilet, not that it needed much explaining

The most magnificent structures, though, had to be the library and the theatre.
The library, or the front facade that was left. Many people complained that they weren't able to find the book they wanted.
Quetzal preaches to an enthusiastic audience in the ancient theatre

Other ruins visited were the Palace at Knossos, on Crete, and the Temple of Poseidon, on Cape Sounion, mainland Greece, but these 2 were the most remarkable of the lot, because of the cultural importance of the structure, [Parthenon, Acropolis] and the amount that has been preserved [Ephesus].

If ever you visit Greece, or Kusadasi, Turkey, I highly recommend these two to visit.

Things NOT to do when visiting ruins:

1. Smoke, use aerosol sprays, or use other ozone-unfriendly products

The Parthenon is slowly being corroded due to acid rain falling on the structure. Since presumably the ancient Greeks did not use hair spray, their structures are thus not designed to withstand such environmental corrosion. Save the Past. Be green.

2. Do some decorating of your own
You may not agree with the decor scheme of the ancients. Nevermind about it. This structure has lasted longer than 200 generations of your family. HAVE SOME RESPECT!!!

3. Block other people's photo taking.


ARGH!!! Always look around first to make sure you aren't blocking other people's cameras. Your rump isn't so photogenic that I just have to have it in my photo. -_-!!!

Ok that's all for the ruins, because towards the end of the trip, Jules and Quet declared 'Ruin Fatigue', being, the viewing of too many piles of rock already. ^_^!!! More next time on Greece if I find the time!