Maybe having a long lifespan had something to do with it.
Nobody told me that if you keep a rather tame terrapin in your balcony, he would always try to break into your room whenever he can, and then find you and run towards you. Run is an understatement.
Which is the idiot who told you that turtles are SLOW.
Oscar dashes like a sprinter. In fact, I've never tried it for myself but I won't be very surprised if he can outrun Joon even.
Allow me to blog at my usual style: one that means that within one blog post, I can be so totally incoherent.
Isn't that what life is about. Suddenly you're talking about one thing and the next moment you're reminded of another incident for no rhyme or reason?
I remembered a particular teacher back from my primary school days. Mr. Lui, more affectionately known as Mr. $. No, it has nothing to do with him being greedy. Just some cheeky primary school kids trying to link every one else's names with something.
In my life, I had never wondered much about hair parting, up until this Mr. $ mentioned casually to a group of students that if you stood on a higher level and looked down at someone with centre-parting, it looks like someone's buttocks.
I was not impressed.
I went home that very day and tried to change to a side-parting. It didn't go very well without the aids of hair clips because the parting I had used since birth was extremely stubborn.
Now, looking back all those years ago.. more than a decade ago,to be exact... I found it extremely funny.
Not about the centre-parting thing but to begin with... Mr. $ himselfhad not much hair to do a parting!
Incoherent story #3:
My Daisy died. I have officially given up trying to keep them. Why the heck does the ones at the nursery ALWAYS look so nice!?
My baby staghorn is still... unknown. If it died, it should have rotted by now, but it isn't.
If it's still alive, it should have grown taller by now, but it hasn't.
As a standby, I already bought ANOTHER Staghorn fern which is 4-5 times its size.
I'm hoping this new fella will last.
Here's a pic of the existing one:
And the new one (yea, the jelly colour looked much nicer I KNOW!):
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 12:00 pm
Pufferfish photo-taking
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The above activity is IMPOSSIBLE using the LG Viewty. Slow capture speed. Blurred image. I somehow wished my 6500 Slide was still with me.
Since this was impossible, I decided to make use of the Video function, and YouTube, once again. I kept the clip short to make sure it does not exceed 10mb so that die die sure can upload onto Youtube. Keep in mind that these puffers aren't always this fat. They are only so because they just ate ALOT before this.
Dog ticks that they are eating in the video is courtesy of Didi.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 7:20 pm
Happy Birthday Darius~
Yesterday was one heck weird of a birthday.
Never have I been to a birthday where the birthdya person hardly smiled. Heck, not even when taking a photo with the birthday cake!!
I wanted to take about this garment steamer that I bought from Carrefour on behalf of my mother.
The fugging thing must have been don't know how many KG. Actually, it's pretty light, but its so bulky that as you walk it drags against your thigh so it weighs down even more.
In addition to that, the blardy ENTIRE CARREFOUR DOES NOT HAVE A BIG PLASTIC BAG. Yea, I know, talk about saving the environment, you would have thought they have a big plastic bag. OR AT LEAST A STICKER THAT SAYS "PAID".
I know assume that Carrefour does not give BIG plastic bag because they all thought that their customers have huge 4WD petrol-burning vehicles parked right behind at the Plaza Singapura carpark.
It's not as if I needed a plastic bag for a little baby packet of potato chips that I bought you know.
This is one big arse sh*t.
I'm never going to buy anything big from Carrefour AGAIN.
I'd rather go Ikea or Courts or even some other competitor who provides better 'carrying' service.
(Ikea doesn't give out free plastic bags anymore BUT AT LEAST they have a freaking taxi stand nearby!!!)
It is no joke when I had to half walk half drag my arse and the steam iron all the way from Plaza Singapura to Takashimaya. Yes, I took the train yes, but it was a frigging Saturday and there were so many people on the train that I couldn't even put the shit down without it landing on someone else's feet!!
Anyway, a little side note, I'm surprised that nobody told me the pufferfish video is not working :(
I figured it out for myself when I was checking my Youtube account.
The two little buggers are doing well. I just did a .. like.. I think 5% water change to the water tank to see if they are able to adapt to it.
I'm a little surprised at how the other tank mates took to them.
My baby Frontosa was like a little thug in the tank, forever bullying my Mono Sabre. Cherry is King of The Tank, undisputably. The Frontosa would flee to some random part of the tank whenever Cherry came out of the cave to look for food. Cherry coming out was like once in a blue moon.
The hierachy was pretty obvious. The Frontosa must have went a little too close to Cherry once because I once noticed a huge bite out of his tail, that could only be the mouth-bite of a pufferfish (They have super sharp teeth. Believe me, I was bitten once).
The Frontosa must have also realised that these 2 new green spotted additions to the tank were somehow related to Cherry in a way (they have quite funny teeth that sticks out like Bugs Bunny. Don't worry, those are not too long. They are fed with dried shrimps almost everyday to keep it trimmed and down.
Pufferfishes, if not fed often enough with hard cruncy feed to wear their teeth, will have teeth that overgrows so much that they cannot close their mouth. In the US, they have vets that actually provide the service of trimming your puffer's teeth if it got too long.
I seriously don't think any local vets provide that type of service.
What? At the risk of being bitten by a pufferfish? No way!
It's not about the poison. Puffers poison doesn't get you unless you eat it. I'm not sure about touching it though because I was never able to 'touch' them. When my finger even goes near to the water, they would swim to it headfirst because they see my finger as food.
How many times have I shared this knowledge with all of you? I can't remember. I just know that I have this infamous habit of saying the same things twice.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:13 am
Nasi Wa Woo Jit Ba Ban......
Friday, June 27, 2008
The blog title is in Hokkien, in case you didn't get it.
I like to sing this song out of nowhere and surprise the crap out of my family.
Speaking of this sticky money issue, I would like to mention the bombardment of stupid junk mail.
Am I the only one down with it? I'm the stingy type that complain alot about it despite hotmail doing its best by filtering I would say 95% of the junk mail to the appropriate junk folder.
I'm so blardy lazy, I find it a hassle to even clear my junk mail folder (despite hotmail having done their best by already providing a shortcut button to clear your entire junkmail folder).
They (the junk mails) should not even be coming in at all!
It's like someone leaked out my email address or something!
Des had recently got me two pufferfishes as well. Finally found a human shop that keeps them in good and FAT condition.
There is a particular shop I'd like to mention. They are exceptionally inhumane.
They have this tank where they always keep some puffers in and from the looks of it, these buggers were NEVER fed.
Their tummies are so skinny that it practically sinks in. And you can see the shape of the puffer's skulls very obvious. It's not only disturbing to look at, because the other next most disgusting thing in the tank are the dead bodies of the other puffers who didn't survive long enough.
I'm telling you, just by the looks of the carcasses you could tell these puffers had been dead for a few days already. Now what is that shop's problem that they cannot JUST clear it!?
I'm telling you, such a shop can only survive in places whereby people are willing to pay LOW price for UNHEALTHY fishes.
I admit I am a guilty party. I had been a customer a few times, but then when I saw how the puffers were treated, it was seriously such a turn-off.
And then I chanced upon another shop located close to it. It was hard to notice though. Their puffers are placed in a tank that was on the floor and on top of its tank was stacked another tank of frogs (food for those aerowana and luohan carnivores).
I was kneeling down to look at a tank of goldfishes and from the corner of my eye noticed alot of movements and an entire school of fishes were trying to come close to my feet.
I looked down. Lo and behold, another I should think, close to 30 over little puffers of different shapes and sizes looked back at me.
If you hadn't noticed them before, well, they looked like little helicopters.
I haven't named them both yet, but you can let me know if you have any great suggestions. *ahem* I said GREAT suggestions.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 9:43 am
Plantomania...
Sunday, June 22, 2008
What do you call one crazy about plants.
I'm trying my luck at my first orchid. I wonder if it will work out.
It's a mini orchid and it only costs $7!! Most of it I've seen cost more than double the price, so I decided to just buy one and try it out first.
Isn't it a beauty?
I'd currently place it in my balcony for the moment because I don't know... Most people with orchids place theirs under some sort of shelter so I guess I'd try the same as well.
By the way, that nursery beside Helping Hand, I think it's called SindoFlora or something like that, has just restocked!! You should go check it out!!
I also bought a favourite of mine, Daisies. Except I think they are called Genbera or something like that according to the price tag.
I bought it from one of the new stocks so they had so many flowers that were going to bloom.
Last night it sort of looked like that:
But this morning, the 2 half-open buds had opened fully!!
By the way, I think I'm SORT OF starting to appreciate my HP camera.
Now I'd like to introduce to all the 3rd generation of my aloe vera plant, the very first plant that I had bought in my life back when I was in Secondary 3. Or was it Sec 4? ..
Oh whatever.
Everyone's favourite Aloe.
I have to admit I threw the original Aloe away because it just got too big and wouldn't stop giving off little Aloes. These 3 you see here are its offsprings.
It's amazing to talk about plants because there were always tiny and small when you bring them back home.
Soon enough, either they die off, or they explode. I have a 50-50 success rate for the plants I 'tried' to rear.
The succulent I bought from Ikea exploded so much that it totally disappeared from my balcony (actually someone broke the clay pot I kept it, killing the plant.. but I haven't figured out who).
Minty was another success story. Given to me by Hany, who had celebrated her beautiful 21st last night (and I didn't go but yet never inform her.. la la la).
You see, I had earlier on bought a bed for Kilo.
The blardy thing was at HALF-PRICE. Its Usual Price is $86.90 or something like that. I bought it at a mere $40.
Of course, it could cost only $10 for all I care but the stupid dog still WON'T go up the bed.
Thus, in my feeble attempt to carry the 35KG dog up the bed, I sprained my back.
Now the following things I did is with much agony and in certain angles, can even drain the blood from my face:
Bending over the sink while brushing my teeth
Flipping over in bed
Turning myself to the left to look at (whatever it is)
Sitting hunch-back (hey, this sh*t is correcting my posture! Wth, it is an infringement of human rights!!)
Bending down to carry Chubby
Believe me, I am discovering more everyday.
Let me end this painful blog post with Oscar who just wouldn't miss out on the action when I was sitting at the balcony (Yes. Sit! Because I can't squat! Oh yea!! Add that to the list above!!).
He wouldn't stop messing around with me which only result in him being a butter knife and spreading the brown coloured butter (which is actually soil) all over my balcony floor. Up my toes even.
In a stroke of genius, I decided to paste a price tag over him. Behold my dear friends... Oscar costs a miserable $1....
And allow me to modify the 'wise words' of Russell Peters in weird Chinese accent: "You save 50cents here, you save 50 cents at another place, together you will get One Dooor-llah. And you can go to Cindy's house and buy a big arse Terrapin turtle with that One Door-llah!!
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:57 am
Stag!
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Usually the only thing I can think of when you mention the word 'stag' is Stag Night (that guy get-together before one of their wedding the next day).. or an animal related to the reindeer/moose family.
But then I bought this:
Staghorn Fern. Supposedly extinct in the wild (don't ask me why). Kudos to a teacher and her MGS students, who decided to sell it in these vials so as to try to bring back this rare and endangered species of fern.
Stupidly I didn't read the instructions carefully. I brought it home, left the cover open, and went to bed.
Over the course of the next few days, I realised that there were some type of moulds growing in the container too. Hurriedly went to read the instructions.. lo and behold.. I did the first thing that they warned me not to do: open the container, because this lets moulds and other stuff grow in the container, fighting for minerals and etc with the plant.
Ouch.
So I hurried down to a nursery to look for a coconut husk/drift wood with spagnum moss that supposedly serves as a soil to the fern.
First nursery I came to is a popular one. I won't say which. But the spagnum moss costs $40 and is in a HUGE packet, I think you could have planted me in it, not just the fern.
I gave it a miss and came to a much smaller private nusery in which when I asked the uncle whether they sell Spagnum Moss, his reply was: "Simi moss?"
I don't know why but that made me feel stupid. So I said I wanted to get something for my fern, and he asked me to buy some soil instead.
I also bought a coconut that could hold the soil. It is DAMN cute can?
When I brought it home, I realised that it came with something additional: A spider.
I admit I went to the nursery with Desmond, and throughout the whole trip, the guy who is super uninterested in plants was attempting to put this coconut OVER MY HEAD.
He thought it'd be interesting to see me with a coconut helmet with three horns sticking out of it.
Needless to say, I was not too impressed.
Now that I realised there was a spider, it was even luckier for me that I hadn't let him do ANYTHING to the coconut; I wouldn't even let him touch it although there were many other coconuts on the shelf that he tried to throw over me.
I decided to feed it with whatever dog ticks I could find.
Chubby was being very cooperative that night. He lay down straight on his back and allowed me to search him properly for fleas (all the while his eyes were half-closed and he was in pure bliss!).
Couldn't find much because I had applied anti-tick products on him a few days earlier.
The ticks I could find though, were half-dead. I threw those into the coconut anyway and it easily caught onto the web that the spider had weaved.
It was amazing. Do you remember Frodo and Shelob? That scene from Lord Of The Rings? Spiders don't kill instantly. They sting their prey and make them unconscious, and then they bring them to a side and weave them up into a bundle, occasionally sucking blood from it as and when they are hungry. That was exactly what that spider did to the dog tick.
Now the thing is, I would like to share with all of you that.. what is poisonous enough to kill dog ticks.. can also easily kill a spider.
I found Spidey dead the next day :(
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:24 am
Too Busy For A Friend
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Credits to Liming.
One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.
Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.
It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.
That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.
On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.
Several years later, one of the students was killed in
Vietnam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.
The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.
As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Mark talked about you a lot.'
After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.
'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.'
Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.
'Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said. 'As you can see, Mark treasured it.'
All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home.'
Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.'
'I have mine too,' Marilyn said. 'It's in my diary'
Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists'
That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.
The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.
So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:03 pm
Get Smart!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
This movie opened today. I think everyone should go catch it. The world is in need of funny shows. By the way, is Kungfu Panda THAT good!? Everyone seems to be laughing about random joke about it e.g. Jo suddenly gave a loud laugh when we were dragging our tired self up the stairs to Level D of the carpark. Said she suddenly recall about the show when climbing stairs... which in turn made Dan give out a snort of laughter.
But for today it was my turn to laugh with everyone else too.
While walking back from lunch today, Yang (okay, he's like the 3rd Yang) suddenly shouted out the F word.
We spun around in fright because we thought what happened.
"Something dropped on my head!! Confirm is bird shit!" He said.
We were consumed by laughter and the next thing I know, we all had our camera phones trained on him and were busy clicking away.....
Xiao Di who was game enough (and in the mood) to pose like L from Death Note
When we turned to look up at where the poo came from, we realised that the guilty bird was still standing on the wire, looking down at us!!!
Hahahahaha!!
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 9:49 pm
Tankew You!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Kana scolded by another customer again.
Wa biang eh. Super pissed.
Then I found out that this customer is a *censored*. *Insert colourful vulgarity*.... CHEAPskate... *Insert more vulgarities* lah! You think you *censored*. I seriously look at the *censored* and I don't care because you're just a *censored*.
Whoa. Think of it also hot. If not for every single miserable cent that I am earning I will *censored* and tell this to your face that you can go ahead and *censored* for all I care because you're just a *censored*.
I seriously ar...
Wa lau...
Anyway I'd like to give a shoutout to my friends who had helped fill in the survey for my school project. In no particular order:
- Feline-loving Zhenbang - Steady Pom Pee Pee Javier - Forever shopping but took time off to complete the survey, Jesslin - Hardcore hard liquor supporter, Joshua - Forever aiming that PINK hat from One Piece, Junwei - Land cheonging, air-parachuting Commando Keith - Currently changing the worLd... Leon - In the middle of a career switch but still sent in a completed survey de Manda - My mind-reading 'twin' brother, Shawn - Everyone's favourite lamb chop, Ming Yang aka Xiao Di - Forever sending out weird links to virus sites.... Yohan - Zhenbang's Fren #1... - Zhenbang's Fren #2... ... - Zhenbang's Fren #3 (Okay, okay fine Bang, I owe you prata) - The foreer happy-go-lucky, fiercely loving and loyal to girlfriend, Zhiwang - TP-gathering's unofficial and (self-proclaimed) sexy organiser, Zixiang
Thank you to every one of you :) I truly appreciated it. Seriously. Despite how some of you carelessly or super purposely skipped SOME QUESTIONS (especially the ones that took more time to fill in!).. haha...
*mmmmuackz*... <-- Kiss courtesy of Kilo Lim... *wags tail*
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:10 pm
OSIM Blanketoooooooooooo
Monday, June 09, 2008
I finally finally got my own OSIM blanket last evening :)
Took a rather long time to choose the colours though. Because it was kinda bulky, we paid for the item first and then left it at the shop, telling the very nice sales girl that we would come back and collect it.
I ought to have taken note of her name to write in a complimentary letter to OSIM though. She was very sweet and not pushy at all and let me take my time choosing the colours and giving me recommendations.
Finally I settled for the Latte colour.
And it looks something like that:
I am unable to describe to you how the blanket feels. But cos you all know I am a very 'novelty-loving' person, I'd probably squeeze the blanket into my bag and bring it everywhere I go with me for this period of time so the next time you see me just ask me to let you touch it.
The fabric is.. FWHOA..... I tell you. I really can't describe it. It's soft beyond anything in this world (silk included)!!
OSIM imported it from this brand called Brookstone. A brand that is imported from the USA but was actually made in (guess?)... China.
See.. oh now as I type Chubby is making a depression in the blanket so as to sleep right smack in the centre of it.
Smart dog.
Today since I was on MC from my out-of-nowhere flu that started after that fateful SMU visit (that place is downright tech-savvy and nice but I don't think I would like to go back there within the next few months)...
(SHUT UP ABOUT MY CAMERA QUALITY. I KNOW OKAY.. I KNOW!)
Oops. Now where was I....
Taking full advantage of the unofficial rest day of mine (although I know at the back of my mind the amount of sh*t that is piling up on my workdesk right now), I went to see the sinseh too. A Chinese Doctor, one whom we usually go to see when we sprain our leg, neck, or any part of our limbs that can be sprained *snigger*.
I specifically went to the one located at the 1st floor of Kovan Centre, located a floor below my mother's office, thinking that she was going to 'rub my leg' as my mother put it.
Who knows, after the diagnose, it was considered a very old injury caused possibly due to my younger soccer-playing days. Apparently normaly 'rubbing' wasn't going to help reach the wound or anything because it had something to do with the tissue located behind the kneecap having been injured and is now 'uneven'.
It was going to come back anyway because I should have sought treatment when it had happened (all those years ago, how was I to know? The pain went away by itself after a few days).
"So.. I'd just put in some needles and we'd see how it goes" the sinseh said matter-of-factly. I looked at her as if she had just grown two horns with a long forked tail behind her under her motherly smile.
There I stood, shocked beyond words with my feet planted on the floor, toes facing the door ready to dart out of the place should she further impose the acupuncturing idea on me while my mother tried to explain that we had chosen her because we thought she does not perform acupuncture on her clients.
She explained that it was the only way out if we had wanted to do something, anything to my feet.
I asked if I could stop the treatment whenever I wanted, have the needles removed whenever I wanted and she agreed... so we went ahead with everything as planned..
My statue of Liberty knee-cap!!
The whole thing was quite cool you know.. Though I have to admit I didn't dare to look when she put in the needles (duh!).
It wasn't as pain as I thought it would be though I did wince and said "Pain pain pain!" simultaneously a few hundred times when she twisted the needle to push it deeper behind the knee.
I think overall it is very extremely bearable and if you ever had to go through it due to some injury or another... then.. be a man! Do the right thing!
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 3:41 pm
Kio Sai
Saturday, June 07, 2008
I used to think that managers is a tough job. More like senior management actually. Like, when guests come from overseas you have to entertain them.
Back in that previous attachment company I was attached with, I pitied the MD because while we went back to rest in the hotel, he still had to entertain the guests at Planet Hollywood late into the night.
Now, I don't really think so...
The company I'm in made a huge blunder recently.
After finding out that our accounts receivable numbered to millions of dollars (I am beginning to doubt the accuracy of this figure!!), they decided to just issue out lawyer letters to whoever has an outstanding amount and has owed us for more than 6 months.
This would seem like a pretty good idea to collect back the debts once and for all... but get this. Some of these customers have already stopped service with us for 2 years already, and yet for some weird psychotic reason, it was not reflected in their account with us. If you check you could tell the date of the last service was all those years ago! But then because it was still an 'existing' account, the system recognised it as an outstanding debt that has yet to be paid for 2 years, so there a lawyer letter was shot.
These few days has been a chore. Waking up, even when you look at the mirror brushing your teeth in the morning, it was all done with dread!
The dreading that you will be going to work only to answer those calls!
I'm telling you many people don't give a damn about what they say when they are pissed. F word, whatsoever, it will all come out. And we are the ones who get it because our under-staffed Finance is unable to handle the call volume (how smart!!).
The customers refuse to put down, you are unable to pick up other calls (that are, not surprisingly all related to the lawyer letter), and Finance, needless to say, are not picking up either. Their lines are all engaged you can't even get through!!
The only reason that forces me to work is:
1) The salary. Miserable amount is better than null.
2) My obligation to my department because I am the only person of that designation.
3) Me knowing that if I go, there is at least one more person to handle the scolding other than dumping it on my other colleagues. 100 F-You calls divide by 4 girls is 25 calls per person. 100 F-You Calls divide by 5 girls is 20 calls per person. The drastic drop of 5 F-You calls.
And the thing was, throughout it all, we are getting it, our direct managers are getting it, but the top is breathing in the fresh air because these calls are filtered out or handled by the lower level before it ever reaches them. Ever.
My dear readers, once you get your arse out and start working, CLIMB UP THE CORPORATE LADDER. JUST CLIMB! As high as you can go!!!
