A Sunny Day at Last!

I've been on leave for the past 2 days and its been raining cats and dogs. Wed and Thu I was alone at home cos Wifey had to work. So ended up mainly sleeping, CSing and doing some chores. The rain was non-stop.

Finally today, there was a break in the rain and the sun finally came out! And I had a pretty action packed day:

Click on the photos below to see the set/slideshow

0800: Woke up.

0920: Dropped Wifey at her main office in Depot Road for a "breakfast party". Since I was not invited, I decided to go exploring in Telok Blangah Hill Park by myself. Good opportunity to enjoy nature and see the little things which we take for granted.



Interestingly, managed to catch up close a small lizard having its breakfast, and also some "not so smart" birds trying to take a bath on the sunroof of the car thinking it was a pool of water! Duh!

1130: Collected Takashimaya vouchers from Citibank. (Thanks to Ivan!)

1250: Brought In-Laws and an aunt to Vivocity for lunch and shopping. They wanted to try pizza so we went to Spizza's.

1400: Vivocity was crowded but wasn't too bad, considering today is not a rainy day and so near the holidays. Didn't buy anything but managed to take a few snapshots.


1630: Brought In-Laws and aunt back home, proceeded to go to Queensway Shopping Centre for some real shopping. Ended up poorer after buying a pair of Levi's 525s and a pair of funky b.u.m. sneakers .... :-P

1810: Decided to go to the new Tiong Bahru market for dinner. Surprisingly, it was not crowded at all on a Friday evening near the holiday season. The rooftop parking is now open. Had raw fish porridge and famous roast meats (char siew, duck and roast pork). Not bad, the roast meats were close but not better than those in HK. Also managed to buy some famous Tiong Bahru Pau for breakfast tomorrow.



1900: Reached home.

1930: Wanted to go swimming but ended up watching the first episode of "Beauty and the Geek" Season 2! Interesting "social experiment" where they pair up beautiful girls with super geeks and compete for $$$. Wifey likes the Chinese guy who is the world Rubik's cube champion. He can solve the Rubik's cube blindfolded by just taking a 10 second look and memorising the placement of the colours!

Anyway, maybe I can relate to the show cos many friends (even Wifey) tell me that people from R are all a bunch of geeks ... :-P

2030: Finished show, went for night swimming. First time I've gone swimming this late at home. Quite refreshing, maybe can do it again sometime.

1100: Started processing and uploading the photos, including typing in this blog entry. By the time I finish, it will be midnite.

+1 0020: Goodnite!

Christmas Gathering 2006 (Family)

The first half of Christmas Day was spent resting at home as well as doing some swimming in the pool. The evening was another gathering, this time at Cousin Helen's place in Clementi.




Highlights of the evening include:

1. Popiah Making Contest - Some were pretty good, others turned out more like super huge dumplings or wontons!


2. Chocolate Eating Contest - Two boxes of Royce (Champagne and Cherry Marnier) with White Wine!


3. Baby Contest - Guess who was the winner?


4. Surprise "Guest"- Danny surprised us all by coming back from Australia without telling anyone except Dad (yeah, else he will have to stay in a hotel) ... and Dad was pretty good at keeping a secret!

Click on Image above for more Photos.

Pre-Christmas Gathering 2006 (Friends)

The day started pretty early. Had lunch with Wifey and Mei2 at the usual Teochew Porridge place at Bukit Timah. After that, we went to Cold Storage to shop for stuff to cook for the gathering. We decided on Fried Rice and oven grilling finger food. Eventually, guess who had to cook the fried rice!

Click on the image below to see the all the photos!


Wifey with a future Korean Drama star!

Official Sony Baby?!

Nikki is back! This time she is on the cover of the latest issue of i-Weekly magazine! Well, not front cover but back cover, and on a Sony advert. This girl's got potential, she's making money even before her first birthday!

Friday before Christmas Weekend

The office started clearing out at 6pm. People were wishing one another Merry Christmas before going off for the long Christmas weekend break.

Anyway, had to stay slightly later cos Wifey was having "massage". Eventually, I was one of the last few to leave. Didn't do any partying. Had a simple dinner at Outram Park before deciding to drive through Orchard Road to look at the lights.

(Click on the Image to the right to see Photos taken from inside the car)

The lights weren't fantastic, coupled with the fact that it was raining, well, it was kinda disappointing. Anyway, looking forward to the coming two weekends for lots of feasting and gatherings. Must make sure I don't gain back the weight which took me a while to lose ...

99% Bitter ...

Of all the office Christmas gifts received, one of the more interesting ones was from Cel, which is a 99% Bitter Chocolate Bar. Apparently Cactus likes it but I am still trying to figure out how to eat it without leaving too much of a bitter taste in the mouth.

So far, the only success I have is to mix it with Milo and Cereal, and the result is not too bad!

With this post I would like to wish all Friends and Family (who somehow can find the time to read this blog) a very Merry Christmas!

May all find true joy, peace and happiness during this season and in the coming New Year!

mmm........mocha....

mmm........mocha....
Originally uploaded by snapsforgeisha.

Where can I get such YUMMY looking mocha in Singapore?!

Canon Ixus 850 IS

After using it for almost a week or so and comparing it with my current Ricoh R3, general feedback is:

1. Macro shots cannot beat the Ricoh in terms of super closeup and macro flash capability. Ivan from RecentRunes have the same comments.
2. General non-macro shots are better than the Ricoh in terms of noise reduction.
3. Because of the AF assist lamp and more powerful flash, low light general photography is better with the Canon. However, that said, the latest Ricoh R5 comes with AF assist so it may be as good as the Canon.
4. The Canon flash seems to produce a yellowish tinge for closeup and macro photos.

BTW, Ricoh Singapore has 3 year warranty on the R3 while Canon only has 1 year + 3 months (if you register online)

I am expecting the Canon to perform better at taking people with its face detection technology and all. Will be using it over the next 2 weeks during the Christmas and New Year gatherings to see how it performs.

More sample shots from the Canon Ixus 850 IS.

Saturday ... "Thanksgiving"

Dunno why but woke up early today and decided to get out of bed instead of the usual "snooze". Today was the visit to the "temple" to give thanks for a peaceful 2006.

Anyway, left the house pretty early, I didn't expect it would turn out to be such a long day!

Lunch is almost always with in-laws on Saturday afternoon. Took the chance to do more test shots with the new Canon IXUS 850 IS.



After lunch, it was straight to Waterloo Street. Today must have been an auspicious day cos there was lots of people there. Didn't manage to take any photos though.

Anyway, we did not go to a temple, but instead to a shop near the temple where you can "outsource" your prayers! Basically, its run like a clinic:

1. Queue for consultancy.
2. Consult the expert on what "services" you need.
   (or is recommended based on your Chinese zodiac for this year)
3. Pay for recommended service.
4. Go into prayer room and wait for your turn.
   (prayer room is noisy, hot and smoky from all the praying and incense)
5. Once your turn, tell your personal details to the "pray-er" (a person) and she will do all the "talking".
6. Once finish, put any additional donations into tin, wash hands, leave.

And you also get to keep the mandarin oranges that were used as offerings ... so convenient!

IQ Test

Was fooling around with the new digicam.
Try to read the red text in the picture to determine your IQ.

The Gym

Wifey bet 10 bucks that I would not be able to wake up and go to the gym this morning. Well, I'm just back from the gym after a refreshing workout. It's been really a while since I've been to my home gym, almost 2 years in fact since the accident. Had the whole gym to myself as most normal people should be on the way to work by now :-)

Anyway, time to collect my $$$ ...

C3 Videos

There's going to be a major milestone in one of my projects next week, so I am trying to take whatever opportunity I can to relax before the 3 days of presentation & review with the customer.

Anyway, in between chores today, I was fooling around on YouTube searching for videos of the C3. Managed to find some cool and funny ones:

• Dolce & Gabanna (D&G) Edition
• Happy Days (starring the Fonz!)
• C3 Anime (My personal favourite)
• Doing 175km/h

Wireless@SG

Wifey is having facial so it is waiting time again. Armed with newspapers and a wireless PDA, I set off to CentrePoint McDonalds for the one hour wait while wifey has her beauty treatment. (ok, I admit, so I didnt really bring the newpapers cos I didnt want to look like an uncle ok...)

Anyway, now I am in front of McCafe having a mango smoothie. There is some sort of manager here briefing the Mac staff. Lots of ppl here on a Sat morning but unfortunately too early for any chiobus. Most are casually dressed family, tourists or students.

Being the kiasu Singaporean, I have signed up for all 3 of the free Wireless Surfing accounts available in Singapore (SingNet, Qmax & iCell). Now I am logged on thru QMax. The wireless signal doesnt seem to be very strong but still usable. Anyway, since it is free, I have no complaints!

Wifey should be calling anytime soon, think Ill go Robinsons and take a look around.

------------------- Update: 9 Dec 2006, 9:30 pm --------------------

Robinsons is having a storewide 20% sale, and there is an additional 20% off for Robinsons card holders. End up buying 3 pairs of pants! :-D

Murphy's Law

Yesterday was fine until the end of the day when Murphy decided to show up, and he showed up at the worst time possible!

I was at a customer's premises on Pulau Brani, quite an inaccessible place without a vehicle. Lo and behold, just after parking the car, the first symptoms showed up. The car cannot be locked with the remote key. After fiddling around for a while, tried starting the car and the car refused to start as well! @#$%!

Managed to somehow lock all the doors manually and went for the meeting (late of course). The meeting was pretty short and in a while I was back at the car again. Finally, decided to call it a day and come back the next day with a spare key. I suspect the car is not able to recognise/detect the current key that I have, meaning I cannot remotely lock/unlock the doors and also the immobiliser is active.

On the way home, Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" was playing in my head almost through the whole journey on the train.

Today I am going back with the spare key and pray that it works. If not, the plan will be to get security clearance for a tow truck. Freaking Super Sianz!

------------------- Update: 7 Dec 2006 8:21 pm --------------------

The spare key didn't work and it was a mini project by itself trying to rescue Bubbles off the island.

Bubbles is now resting in the hospital at Leng Kee. Hopefully she will get well enough to go home tomorrow ...

------------------- Update: 8 Dec 2006 4:26 pm --------------------

Bubbles had to be brainwashed at the hospital to regain her sanity. She is now safely back with me at the office, will take her for a nice dinner and bath later on.

16 Personality Factors

Found a survey on a site which has a FREE online assessment based Cattell's 16 Personality Factors. The following are my results:

Cattell 16 Factor Test Results
Warmth||||||||||||||||||||||||74%
Intellect|||||||||||||||||||||70%
Emotional Stability||||||||||||||||||54%
Liveliness||||||||||||||||||58%
Dutifulness||||||||||||||||||||||||78%
Social Assertiveness||||||||||||||||||58%
Sensitivity|||||||||||||||||||||62%
Paranoia||||||||||||||||||54%
Introversion||||||||||||||||||||||||||||90%
Openmindedness|||||||||||||||||||||62%
Independence||||||||||||||||||||||||||||86%
Perfectionism||||||||||||||||||||||||78%
Tension|||||||||30%
Aggressiveness|||||||||||||||||||||62%
Abstractness||||||||||||||||||58%
Anxiety||||||||||||||||||58%

You can also take the test HERE.

I think in general the scores are pretty well distributed except for 2 particularly high and one low score. They are tension (low), introversion (high) and independence (high).

The scores probably explains why everyone I know seems to think I am a "cool man", and also why instead of having many friends, I prefer to have only a few close ones.

I am also getting wifey to do it too!

-----------------------------------------------------

Wifey's Results are here:

Warmth ||||||||||||||||||||| 62%
Intellect |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74%
Emotional Stability ||||||||||||||| 50%
Aggressiveness ||||||||||||||| 42%
Liveliness ||||||||||||||| 46%
Dutifulness |||||||||||||||||| 58%
Social Assertiveness |||||||||||||||||| 58%
Sensitivity ||||||||||||||||||||| 70%
Paranoia |||||||||||| 38%
Abstractness ||||||||||||||| 50%
Introversion ||||||||||||||| 46%
Anxiety |||||||||||||||||| 54%
Openmindedness |||||||||||| 38%
Independence ||||||||||||||| 42%
Perfectionism |||||||||||||||||| 58%
Tension ||||||||||||||| 50%

Paris second time round

Wifey just came back today after a cold week in Paris for some work, which means I had to take care of most of the household chores last week. Managed to complete all of them by the final milestone today :-)

To see what Paris is like at this time of year, click HERE.

And apparently she was brave enough (i.e. conned) into trying the French andouillette sausage. (Which apparently has a disgusting faecal like aroma!)

Of all the stuff you see in the picture, she only managed to finish the potato...

Dominic's Birthday

Took some photos from Dominic's birthday dinner last Saturday (25th November) at Jumbo Seafood but didn't have time to post them online. Dinner was ok but was spoilt by the fact that they forgot our order for the Pepper Crab despite REPEATEDLY being REMINDED at least 5-6 times over a period of nearly an hour!

Have added the photos to Nikki's folder. Happy 33rd Birthday Dom, er, I mean Dominic! :-P