Henderson Waves

In my recent trip to Singapore (yes, again...), I didn't do much. It's my usual style where when it's an over the weekend type of trip, I would just chill out and relax. So instead of trying to cover as many places as possible; I would sleep till late, check out the shopping complexes and attempt to experience the usual Singaporean life.

As simple as it may seems, I do have highlights in every of my short trips; may it be in Bangkok or Singapore (so far, these are the 2 places that I always go to for short trips). This time around, it was Henderson Waves. No...it's not for surfing... but it is as cool as surfing.

Henderson Waves is a pedestrian bridge that sits high across the Henderson Road. It connects Mount Faber Park to Telok Blangah Hill Park. This bridge is really cool. It is the highest pedestrian bridge in Singapore... and the thing is, it doesn't look like any usual pedestrian bridge that I have seen before.

This bridge is a public facility done up by the Singaporean government for its people. Looking at all these free, beneficial and well maintained public facilities around Singapore, I couldn't help but to think on how well their taxpayers' money are spent; as opposed to us over here who have no single clue where our blood, sweat and tears go to. Sigh...

What's it to you?

I got to know a new friend through Gan yesterday. He is some technology manager for a media company and has started his current job a few months ago.

As the stereotype goes... majority of the guys who are in creative related jobs such as advertising, media, fashion, etc would be gays. So this new friend of mine was almost always been suspected as one although he is straight and has a girlfriend. FYI, he is not effeminate in anyway but is well groomed and carries himself well.

I think my point here is not on whether he is or he is not. I just wonder why we all have this obsession of trying to figure someone out on what his/her sexual orientation is, especially when this person is in a certain industry or doesn't live according to what we perceive as a "normal" lifestyle.

Would knowing someone's orientation change your perception on him/her? If so, why? I don't see any reasons for concern unless you, your friend or a family member is dating that person. Would a person that you respect all along be anything less to you if he/she turned out to be "alternative"? If so, then you have to reflect on this person's qualities that you respected before and ask yourself what has changed.

No matter what choices or "lack of choices" a person takes, before you start judging... ask yourself "What's it to you?"

PhotoHunt: Bright

The weather here has been rather gloomy for the past few months. Imagine when you are leaving your office to go home and you see this dark cloudy sky. Whenever it rains, we know for sure that it's going to be much worse traffic jam on the roads... and the usual non rainy jams are already frustrating enough.

As I was stuck in this kind of traffic jam one day, I saw the cloudy sky slowly cleared up and a bright light shined through. Funny sometimes how your personal mood can be influenced by the weather..cause I suddenly felt much "sunnier" after seeing it.

PhotoHunt

A bagful of skin problems

I brought Axel to the vet last Saturday to get this fungal growth on his right cheek checked. We were attended to after waiting for about 20 minutes by this young vet whom I think is probably fresh from school as I have an impression she didn't know what she was doing. She then called in a more experienced (and louder) lady vet to take a look at Axel.

The first thing this vet said upon seeing Axel was "Ahhhh...a pug, a bagful of skin problems". She appeared very knowledgeable about dogs and I appreciated her lengthy explanation on pugs and their skin problems. She checked Axel and said that Axel actually has good skin as compared to most pugs. However he did have minor fungal growth in his ears, his cheek and paws.

She told us that pugs are very prone to skin diseases.. and there are many reasons how these skin problems come about. Some could be from external factor, some from allergies and some from "internal system attack" within a pug's body. The 3rd reason I mentioned would be the most serious one as they will need to administer steroids if that happens.

Anyhow we will need to find out the reason, by eliminating the possibilities one by one... from the least serious ones to the more serious ones. She took some sample from Axel's fungal patch and ran some tests and couldn't find anything. So now, we need to monitor to see whether it's because of food allergies. I told her Axel is on lamb & rice diet now. She then explained to me that in terms of food, the following are the order from which dog's are most sensitive to, to the least sensitive:

Chicken->Lamb->Fish->Extended Chicken->Vegetarian

The "Extended Chicken" is a processed chicken meat which the body does not recognise as chicken. Canggih leh.... and it is really expensive!! It cost about RM120 for 3kg pack!!!!

Anyway she said it's okay to maintain Axel on lamb and rice for the moment, but have to stop all food with wheat and beef. This means no usual dog biscuits, dog chews etc that are made from such ingredients. I bought Axel some baby carrots as treats after that.

I also asked her about Axel's constant tearing in his eyes. She said it's normal as pug's fold sometimes irritates the eye. The way to solve that is to get the fold removed. We immediately said No! and I added "well...maybe we will buy him goggles".

The vet prescribed some antiseptic wash and cream for the fungal growth and some oily stuff (dunno what's that!) to take. I also bought Malaseb which is the medicated shampoo for dogs and cats.

Total=RM101. Much more expensive than any of my own visits to the doctors! Not cheap to maintain a dog, eh?

PhotoHunt: Water

I took this picture using my 2 megapixels camera phone and I loved how it turned out although a bit blurry.

I was lost at The Gardens (a huge shopping complex) and came to this floor where an exclusive spa was located. There was this really pretty looking water feature by the spiral staircase and I couldn't help myself from taking out my phone and start snapping.

Thank goodness nobody chased me away... after all it was an exclusive spa, and I was in my three quarter pants and flip flop.

PhotoHunt

Don't microwave your phone!!

I know time is bad and phone bills can cost a lot...but never never microwave your phone. See the video on the consequence!

Turbulence

With the increase in petrol prices, the rest of everything is following suit as well. Even the economy rice aunty near my office has increased the prices. Previously I usually get away with lunch for around RM3 from that stall. Now, at least RM3.50... even when I bring my own plastic container and spoon.

Cost of living is getting higher here and everywhere else, no doubt about it. Changing of lifestyle is inevitable... as what our "beloved" Abdullah has continuosly "bestowed" to us.

I started to think... for me who is single and earning an average pay, I am already feeling the pinch. What more about those who earn less and with kids to feed? These families usually need cars to ferry them around... not as if they have a choice. How to bring the whole family out by public transport?... especially with our damn horrible, terrible, vegetable type of public transport systems?!

I talked to a friend recently and shared with him this view of mine. He disagreed. He said that we are the ones (FYI, he earns much more than me) who will be affected most because we he has higher commitments (you know... luxurious car and the house) and pay higher taxes.

Well, I stand by my point. There are people out there who will be starving because of this. Who gives a damn about the luxurious stuff that we need to support! We may have the option to settle for something less. There are people out there who doesn't.

Anyhow, it's going to be a turbulent ride for all of us. Just hope the ride will not be a long and catastrophic one.

When the cat is away...

My boss was on leave today. As many people would think, when the cat is away, the rats will come out to play. I guess that was why after I told my MSN-mates that my boss was not around, they kept asking me how come I was still in the office. They said, "Aiya your boss is not around, go home early lah!".

I replied by saying, "Yes my boss is not around.... but that doesn't change anything on my deadlines!".

What If?

In my current company, all engineers need to be on 24 hours technical support duty for a week in every month. Whenever it is my turn, all I could think of is how much I hate this part of my job (i.e. this horrible technical support thingy) although there are many other parts which I still like. Because I usually get so engrossed in this negativity, this would be the time when I would start going through the recruitment sites and sending out my applications. When my technical support week's duty is over, I would be back to normal until the next time when I need to do it again.

Although most of the time there isn't any support cases, I have encountered a very bad week end of last year. That week had traumatised me so much that whenever I am on this stupid duty, I wouldn't be able to sleep well and feel so stressed thinking about the beeping pager. What doesn't help is that we are supporting an old product which I am not at all familiar with, plus the fact that I am not a very technical person!

Well..it is my turn again next week and I am already stressing about it now.

Anyhow this is also the time when I tend to think a lot about the past. An ex-colleague recently asked me whether I regretted leaving this ex-company in which I was doing pretty well. I thought about it for a while and told her that I think it was a mistake for me to leave that company to join another company which I refer to as "hell" (FYI, this is not my current company!).

I was tempted by "hell" during that time because a friend who was working there told me about how good it was (well she was supposed to get referral fee if I join); and the money was way better than what I was earning then. I lasted only 4 months in "hell". The office politics there was crazy, and turnover rate was very high. The worst thing of all was that when these people left, I was the one who had to pick up their mess although I was still in the midst of culture shock! It came to a point that I couldn't take it anymore and took the drastic action to resign without a job in hand. 4 months after leaving "hell", I joined my current company.

Looking back, that period of time was really like a very black patch in my career. Because of that one mistake, I felt as if I am starting all over again. I do wonder at times, what if I have not made this mistake? Would I be where I want myself to be now?

I know, there is no point to cry over spilled milk. I made the decision, therefore I need to bear the consequences. After all, it's already 2 years.

Well... I am sure I will not be thinking so much about this once my support duty is over. I just need to remind myself to be patient for that time to come.

PhotoHunt: Emotion(s)

2 opposite emotions:

PhotoHunt

Happy Working Song

Feeling demotivated at work?
...or frustrated?
...or stressed?
...or bored?

Time for a Happy Working Song!!!



Update:
Due to copyright issue, imeem is only playing 30 secs of the song. So I am including a Youtube video of this song.



Happy Working!!

Viva somebody

It is becoming rather scary that nowadays packing lunch and eating at the office pantry has became a routine for us. This usually means we are really THAT busy until we can't spare any time to drive out like what we used to do many months ago.

Anyhow no matter where we were at for lunch, we usually got to learn something... may it be about movies that we watched, current issues, celebrities, latest gadgets and many more. Sometimes we even learn new words to add to our limited vocabulary.

Today, we learned about the word "Viva".

My colleague was flipping to the newpaper pages and came across this headline with the word Viva. I think it's Viva somebody but I can't remember the details as it was in the Sports section (I never give a damn about sports). So this colleague asked us what "Viva" means.

None of us knew... and I said, "well..there is this song by Spice Girls called Viva Forever. Dunno what it meant though".

Then I took out my PDA phone and searched for this word in my very cool english dictionary program which I installed. Here is what I saw and read out:

"No, no...that can't be it", somebody said. Hmm... but my dictionary did not have any other alternative meaning. Not so cool after all, eh?

So we left it as that and I forgot all about it until now. I checked the meaning from Cambridge Dictionaries Online and found this:

viva (APPROVAL)
exclamation MAINLY US
used to express approval or good wishes:
Throngs of his supporters were shouting "Viva, Ollie, viva!"

Oooooo...Now the headline and Spice Girl's song make perfect sense...

Leg Massage

Nothing beats a good "leg massage", don't you agree?

PhotoHunt: Bad Hair

This is my dog, Axel with a "bad hair", hehehe....

PhotoHunt

It's better to say sorry than ...

Recently I was introduced to this phrase:
It's better to say sorry than to ask for permission

My interpretation of this phrase is: Just go ahead and do what you want to do and if the affected party finds out and doesn't like it, then just apologize. This would be easier than to ask the affected party on whether you can do the "thing" or not.

Like any actions, there are always the consequences. In my opinion....Yes, you can say "Sorry" and try to make it the "sincerest" possible... but you still run the risk that the other party may not forgive you.

In business, practising this on your customers may end up with lots of rework. I guess some management do forget that rework incurs effort and cost too....

Is it really so difficult to just ask?

So Hardworking?

Me: It's 8.45pm now and I am still in the office.
Me: Wahhhh....so hardworking...
Me: No la... traffic jam everywhere la.
Me: Oh! How come?
Me: Because of all these cars queueing at the petrol stations lo.
Me: Why?
Me: Abdullah announced that petrol price will go up to RM2.70 per litre starting midnight ma.
Me: Oooooooo

I need to stop talking to myself.



Update:
9.54pm: It's now 9.54pm and from LLM Trafik website, the jams have not gotten any better. Gosh.... do I need to overnight here tonight????? My poor Axel, he must be so so hungry by now.

10.59pm: Still in the office. My colleague's wife took 1 hour to move from Western Digital to the cable bridge on LDP which in normal traffic takes less than 2 minutes!!! Don't care already. Going to try Federal Highway to get back.

IQ Question

I remember this IQ question that was asked to me many years ago and it suddenly came back to my mind. Try it and see whether you can figure it out:

There is this string of a certain length that takes 60 minutes to burn from one end to the other when in horizontal position. However the rate of burning along the length of the string is not consistent, meaning that if it burned half of its length, it doesn't mean 30 minutes have passed.

So lets say you are given 2 of such strings with same behavior and same length as mentioned above; how do you use them (by burning them of course!) to time 45 minutes?

P/S No...you may not refer to the clock or watch or whatever that can tell you the time!

Fish Spa

I have heard of Fish Spa for a while now but have not given it any thought until yesterday. While window shopping in Midvalley, we came across Kenko Reflexology & Fish Spa and decided to give it a try. The fish spa treatment is not really so expensive, it's RM38 for half an hour... and this is only for the feet treatment.


Every customer will be issued an access card which serves as your time keeper. After washing your legs (yes... they do not want your smelly feet to kill those fish!), you will scan your access card to enter into the treatment area. 30 minutes after that, your number and name will be flashed on the LCD monitor to tell you that your time is up.

There were 2 round and 3 rectagular pools where these so called Doctor Fish were. Different pools have different sizes of fish. When I dipped my feet into the first one, it was so ticklish that I could not help shrieking. The aunty who shared the same pool as me looked at me with suppressed laughter.



I didn't want to embarrass myself further, so I concentrated and focused on something else...taking pictures. After a while, I got used to the sensation and tried the different pools there. Those fish were really a hungry bunch as once you dipped your feet in, a whole school of them would be nibbling away.


I am not sure how effective it is but I have to say that after the treatment, the soles of my feet did actually feel smoother.

After I reached home, I did some reading on this Fish Spa craze. Do click on the link for more info.

There are these debates going around about how most of the spas here are not using the original Doctor Fish which originated from Turkey. Most of these outlets are using a cheaper alternative called the "Chin Chin" from China which to us is known as "Tilapia". Those which nibbled on my feet yesterday were definitely baby tilapias.

Oh well... I am not really sure whether this should be bothering me. I guess as long as they do the job and nibble away my dead skins, I am fine with it.... oh and as long as they are NOT from the following species: