Year Of The Pig

Barely 3 weeks more and it will be the Year of the Pig. Everywhere you go, you encounter pigs - on ang pows, in pottery shops, in emails, on blogs, in farms and of course in the office.

A fellow blogger received an email which claims that your drawing of a full pig can tell on your personality. As my motto is Taking Up The Challenge as in the title of my blog, I followed the instructions in her post. This is my drawing (and I didn't cheat, okay?):


So according to the analysis, since I drew the pig in the middle of the paper, I am realistic. (Correct. But actually the paper was too small lah because I drew on an envelope, the nearest thing that I could find on my table.)

My pig faces left so I believe in tradition, am friendly and remember dates, birthdays etc. (Correct. I bring home the bacon, have sex in missionary position and only in the bedroom, makes lots of blogo-friends whom I haven't even met before, and have not been admonished by my wife yet for forgetting our wedding anniversary and her birthday. Er... actually, it is more like she doesn't mind that I forget them. She's one very unusual lady but I like her that way.)

My pig has some details but not a lot, so I am only fairly analytical, cautious and distrustful. It has 4 legs showing that I am secure, stubborn and stick to my ideals. (Secure yes but who would admit to being stubborn?)

The pig has tiny ears which means that I am not a good listener. (That explained why I got bored when Chris sms-ed me to say that his washer died. That was also why I took 1 day to reply him.)

The length of the tail indicates the quality of my sex life and once again the longer the better. (Wow, the tail was so long that it had to curl to avoid going out of the page. True or not? Don't tell you, let you guess, haha.)

But here's a little clue - other than the tail part, I think the rest is just crap.

A Happy Lunar New Year To Everyone.

The Monkey Responses To The Dragon

How To Show Off
The proud Dragon	shows off	at every opportunity
All I did was	ask him	how it was done
And the conceited Dragon	gotta go to the extent	to draw it on his blog
I won't ask the Dragon	why the table has white space before it	for I know Chris does know the answer
And I see no reason why I should solve a problem he created

Ann Kok Teaching Sex? Aiyeeeh! Even Dirtier!

WARNING: This entry contains mature theme. Minors please go away ....




Last Saturday, my visit to the barber shop was a hair-raising experience. My regular barber was cutting the hair of another customer. So I sat at the bench and waited for my turn. While waiting, I browsed through the magazines. These two magazines caught my eye because pretty Ann Kok was the cover girl of both magazines:




The magazine on the right looked familiar because Chris had reviewed one of the articles in it:

Incidentally, I wondered why Ann Kok is featured as the cover girl in so many magazines and yet I have never seen Patricia Mok featured as one:

Although Patricia is not as pretty as Ann, her complexion is alright and her acting is good enough to win her a Star Award recently.

Anyway back to the sex articles. The article on sex in the other magazine dated June 2005 is titled 'Poll: Sex During Periods - you love it!':

Inside, the article has a caption 'Would you have sex during your period?'

"No problem, say 70 per cent of the women polled. It's not that our men mind either". And the result of the sex poll is as follows:

24% says "Heavy flow? That's not stopping us."
48% says "I am hornier when I got my period."
62% says "It doesn't bother him one bit that I'm bleeding."

Don't ask me why the percentages add up to more than 100. The 'one man woman, one vote' system obviously doesn't work here. So why are most men not bothered one bit that their partners are bleeding? Maybe they felt that it is less messy than using a self-made sex toy modified from a watermelon or cantaloupe which a blogo-friend recommended?

Actually, Ann Kok wasn't giving tips on sex. The articles were written by journalists. But
sometimes I wonder if journalists really did a poll. Are the figures accurate and do they reflect the general consensus? If a poll was conducted, why not release details on the sample size used and the racial, age and sexual compositions of the sample? (I believe that Asians are generally more conservative about sex.) Was the survey done anonymously and how did they know if the participants were giving honest answers? How come their poll results are always so different from the ones that I have casually conducted with my friends and colleagues? My friends and colleagues mostly claim that they married conservative partners. One respondent even claims that there are certain things that she won't do. Hmm... maybe they are not telling me the whole truth? Or perhaps what they say and what they do are not quite the same?

It looks like every issue of such magazines has at least one such controversial and sexciting article. I believe that its purpose is not so much educational but to improve the sales of the magazine. I also suspect that it is the same reason why Ann Kok is always on the cover and not Patricia Mok.

Now we know what the Ah Sohs, the Ah Niahs and even our wives are reading in such magazines and why they must always rush out to buy a copy whenever a new issue is released.

To Each His Own

If you were to stay up till 2 a.m. and you can only choose one of the following 2 options, which would you rather do?

1. Blogging; or

Photo from www.acclaimimages.com

2. Visit Johor Bahru (JB), after the floods subside, of course.

I need not tell regular bloggers about the joys of blogging. Chris loves it because he finds it therapeutic (as he has several chronic ailments to cure). Chun See seems addicted to it because he loves to write (and the younger generation just won't listen to him when he relates his Ah Gong stories orally). As for Eastcoastlife, I don't really know but I guess it must be because she enjoys being in the limelight for she's always boasting about how popular her blog is becoming (especially when compared to mine). As for me, at first I blog to take up Chris' challenge. After the first few posts, I discovered that blogging is fun, especially when I can recount a story in a fun and humorous way.

Similarly, I don't have to tell regular Singaporean visitors to Malaysia about the advantages of visiting the country but I will do it anyway. Petrol is at half price there. Although you could only fill up one-quarter tank of it, motorists still find it worthwhile to make the trip there just for this purpose. Desperate ones even tilt one corner of the car by driving it up a wooden block so that they could fill in an extra litre or two of petrol! The food and groceries are cheap too. Even car services like polishing and oil servicing are at bargain prices. If you play golf, you will find their green fees are irresistible. And I haven't even mentioned about the prices of their other services that will surely keep the women around our Geylang district off the streets.

You probably would have guessed by now which of the above 2 options I would choose. If it isn't obvious to you, let me say that I have not visited Malaysia for nearly a decade now.

Today I received an email from a colleague whom I shall call MJM. The email, which was also addressed to Chris, contained a Malaysian news article about two socio-political bloggers being sued by New Straits Times Press (NSTP) over postings in their blogs that were deemed defamatory.

Now MJM is known to be a frequent visitor to JB. As for what cheap goods and services he goes to JB for, I really don't know. But I know that he always fills up his petrol tank to the brim, his stomach till it is bursting and his car boot till not even a 5-cent coin could be squeezed in before heading back home.

MJM is aware that Chris and I are avid bloggers. So I read MJM's purpose of sending the email as an indirect way of telling Chris and I to be careful about what we blog and not to end up like the 2 Malaysian bloggers. While MJM's intention is good, I feel that he has greater things to worry about.

I sent MJM the following reply, with cc to Chris:

"Dear MJM,

Thank you for writing to the desks of Chris and yours truly, and for taking an unwanted interest in our private lives.

Incidentally, it might interest your goodself that yesterday, there were separate headline articles in both Today and The New Paper. It was as if both newspapers decided to rebut you on our behalf. I don't know whether it was mere coincidence but both articles were about high crime rates in JB:

a. Today - With 777 cases per 100,000 residents, Johor has the 4th-highest crime rate in Malaysia. Recent examples:

i. Jan 6, 3am: IT consultant Fareed Hassan leaves a restaurant in Danga Bay, 10 minutes from the Causeway. He is attacked by men wielding a parang and a steering lock. When the robbers find just RM10 ($4.40) on him, they ask: "What kind of Singaporean are you?" They take his car, laptop and handphone.

ii. Jan 9, 4.10am: Ms Wati, 27, a mother of two, is hurled from her friend's motorbike and set upon by a group of 12 armed men on motorcycles. She is robbed of her money and belongings worth $1,600.

iii. Jan 10, time unknown: Singaporean hawker Mohamad Bolah is robbed, stabbed and left for dead in a mangrove swamp, just five minutes from where he lived in JB.

2. The New Paper - S'porean refuses to give JB man RM$1 (S$0.45). Man whips out syringe and threatens to jab him with HIV-tainted needle. This is not the first time that such an incident happened. In Feb 2005 and Apr 2005, similar robberies happened to two other Singaporeans in JB.

I wonder who will be the next victim. Just in case that this is the last time you are reading my mail before you go shopping forever in JB, I would like to express my sincere appreciation once again for the stale news article you forwarded to us and also for your unwarranted implicit concern. I am sure that they will be sorely missed when you leave us to go shopping forever in JB.

We remain yours truly,
Chris and Victor."

How Safe Are Singapore's Tourist Attractions?

Any Singaporean above 30 years' old is likely to remember the cable car accident that happened in 1983. In that accident, the derrick of the drilling ship Eniwetok strucked one of the cables of the cable car system while the ship was being towed. Two cable cars were dislodged and fell into the sea. Seven people were killed but 13 other people, who were literally hanging on for their dear lives, were eventually rescued by helicopter from another 4 cable cars. A two-year-old boy was rescued alive from the water but was seriously injured. That was the first and only fatal accident involving our cable car system and it was horrific news.

I vaguely remember fatal accidents that happened before at other now defunct attractions - at the roller coaster ride in the Wonderland Amusement Park in Kallang and also at the Wet And Wild Theme Park in Sentosa. Well to be fair, some fatalities are caused by the riders themselves because they failed to observe safety rules.

In May last year, I also blogged about the incident in which one of the cords of the G-Max reverse bungy ride at Clarke Quay snapped. Luckily in that incident, no one was injured.

On 13 Jan 2007, I was at Little India. What I saw there prompted me to write this post. From where I was standing, the DHL balloon looked like it was drifting dangerously close to a very sharp object. When the balloon virtually touched the sharp object, I very nearly covered my ears instinctively in anticipation of hearing a loud explosion. I didn't only because I was holding my camera in my hands to take the following series of photos:

Out of curiosity, I checked out the safety instruction at the balloon site the next day and this is what it says:

Admission Age - Flight is suitable for all ages. Please consult your physician if in doubt.

Flight Conditions - Safety is paramount and flight will be suspended if weather is not conducive for smooth flight. We will 'wait-out' for rain, lightning, wind gust condition. Gondola's capacity will be reduced in windy condition.

The balloon was built by the French 'Aerophile Group' which has maintained an 'impeccable safety record' of no incidents since 1994 when the group was established. The local company that operates the balloon is Aerophile Balloon (S) Pte Ltd, a 'duck and hippo' company. Incidentally, the tagline for the DHL balloon is 'U Can Fly' while that for the Duck Tour is 'Ride The Wacky Duck' and the Hippo Bus' ham sap (cheeky) tagline is 'It Is Hip To Go Topless'.

Despite what the safety records show, history has proven that accidents can and do happen. I have cited several incidents above. Consider the following possible risks:

1. Lightning strike - Although the balloon does not fly in foul weather, lightning can strike in fine weather too. Though uncommon, there have been people killed by lightning strikes that happened in not too foul weather. Remember the case of the Sinchi football player who was fatally struck by lightning during a light rain in Mar 2004? Therefore, it is hard to predict when and where a lightning will strike. After all, Aerophile itself admitted on a banner displayed at the gate that it was 'far from God'. When a lightning strikes, such a huge balloon in flight is a sitting duck.

2. Restraining rope snaps - Although regularly inspected and maintained, the rope can still snap unexpectedly. This was exactly what happened in the G-Max incident. If that happens, then you really 'can fly' (and never come back).

3. Sabotage/terrorism - Just like nobody expected a man-made incident like the NKF scandal to happen in Singapore, sabotage and terrorism is very real. It nearly happened in Singapore 5 years ago if not for the vigilance of our security agencies. I shudder to think that even a blind terrorist might be able to fire a rocket from his shoulder and not miss such a huge target in the sky.

As I am very kiasi (afraid to die), I haven't taken a ride on this balloon before. Not only because I fear for my life but I also fear for my pocket. You see, at $23.00 for an adult and $13.00 for a child, a 7-10 minute ride for my family of 4 would cost a whopping $82, enough to buy a promotional return air ticket to Bangkok on a budget airline. For those who still want to take in the aerial view of the city, I recommend a ride up one of the bubble lifts of the nearby Pan Pacific Hotel instead. This I have done before and I can assure you that the ride is just as breathtaking, free-of-charge but best of all, a lot safer.

However, don't despair as not all hopes are lost. Despite voicing my many concerns for the safety of the balloon, I can say safely (pun intended) that the likelihood of the balloon being pricked by a lightning conductor is well, quite remote.

Now Who Has Poor Eyesight?

Was on leave today
'Cos car's power window gave way
With bicycle hung behind car
Sent boys to school and wife to Novena

Yet arrived workshop early
Left car at Leng Kee
Around town on bicycle I roamed
All of Civic District I combed

Weather wasn't kind today
It's been raining whole day
Since in town with time to spare
Might as well take up the dare

Visited Adelphi 2nd floor
Dared not knock on door
Saw woman putting up a streamer
Must be decorating for Lunar New year

Dared not pose as customer
Heard such people got beaten up, by her?
So quietly a photo I took
And she didn't even give me one look.

Nihon Mura

I must confess that I'm not as domesticated as Chris. I don't know how to make popiah or cook glutinous rice. I only know how to eat. But even so, Chris always says that I am a poor food-taster because I have proven to be unable to tell good food from bad. Unlike Chris, I am certainly no foodie because I eat to live and not live to eat.

I also don't help out much with the house work (my in-laws do most of that). Neither do I tutor my kids much as I can afford to pay for tuition.

It is an irony that while I can bring home the bacon, I can't cook it. Neither can my wife. However, I can always bring my family out to eat cooked bacon and all kinds of other food.

Last Saturday, my wife asked me to try out this new Japanese restaurant at Revenue House.




I don't like to visit the Revenue House where the Inland Revenue is located. I believe a lot people share my sentiment because visiting the Inland Revenue is like visiting the Integrated Resort - you will lose a lot of money. (No wonder both share the same initials IR, haha.) So I used to visit Inland Revenue only once a year, very close to 15 April each year, the traditional deadline for submitting my tax returns. Ever since on-line submission of tax returns was implemented several years ago, I have been submitting my tax returns on-line.

Usually, the Revenue House is desserted after office hours. But since the restaurant opened its doors last month, diners have been steadily streaming into the restaurant even after office hours. The restaurant can seat about 200 diners. When I was there last Saturday, the restaurant was about three-quarter full which is quite an impressive feat. In fact, we met one of my wife's colleague at the restaurant. (She lives in Tampines where there is another branch of the same restaurant.) She told us that she made her way to the Revenue House branch because the Tampines branch had a very long queue of customers waiting outside it.

The restaurant is called Nihon Mura. (The name sounds like a Japanese ship, doesn't it?) It belongs to the Suki group of restaurants. All types of Japanese foods are served - tempura, udon, ramen, sushi, sashimi, charcoal grilled food, nabe yaki, donburi, etc. Worth highlighting is the sushi - all of them are selling at only 99 cents per plate.


They are displayed on moving conveyor belts just like in Sakae Sushi. You just pick what you fancy off the conveyor belts.


For other types of food, you just need to pick up 'ice-cream sticks' from the food display and hand them to the waitresses. Food is served quickly enough to justify the 10% service charge.

Our family of four ordered:

Yasai Miso Soup - $3.90
Fried Tofu - $1.50
Enoki Bacon - $4.90 (told you there was cooked bacon)
Nabeyaki Udon - $9.90
17 plates of sushi - $16.83

Together with service charge and 5% GST, the bill came up to $42.75, very attractive pricing by all standards. So I didn't lose a lot of money for this visit to Inland Revenue, hehe. Ah... the 'Mura' in the restaurant's name could well have been 'Murah' which means 'cheap' in Malay.

As for the quality of the food, I would not say that it is out of this world. But for the price that you are paying, the food is good enough. Especially to Elaine who loves Japanese food, go try out the restaurant for yourself and prove Chris either right or wrong that I am no foodie.

Nihon Mura

55 Newton Road #02-02 Revenue House
Tel 62532469
Operating
hours: 11.30 am - 9.30 pm

505 Tampines Ave 5 #01-03/04 Tampines Swimming
Complex
Tel 62608197
Operating hours: 12.00 noon - 9.30 pm

Removal of Cbox Tagboard

I have decided to remove the Cbox tagboard which allows visitors to my blog another way to leave a comment. The reason for the removal is that recently, the tagboard made me look like I am both a strong supporter of the integrated resorts as well as a health freak.

But thanks to the unwanted tags, I now know that phentermine is a weight loss pill and keno is a game of chance.

Well as always, you lose some and you gain some. There is no such thing as a free lunch. So before they start advertising viagra, cialis, hair loss and wrinkle solutions, or 4D and Toto, I'd better remove it.

Please leave any comment you may have in my latest post. (For those who don't know it yet, Blogspot will notify the blog owner via an email whenever a new comment is posted in the blog so that it will never be missed.)