Self Portrait

Today in my drawing class, I did a self portrait.  It is not good but I am happy to just learn to use the right side of my brain.  Most of us are self critical and all of us feel other people's drawing is better than their own.

I am learning to draw and it is hard work.  But it is fun to interact with the teacher and other students.  I am enjoying the class.

Reading the News

Today's Headlines - Negative on WP
Inside Pages - WP on the bottom left pages

I learned during the course in Advertising Procedures about advertisement prices in the newspapers.  The most expensive page is of course front page.  Next most expensive is back page.  Right pages are higher in price and left pages.

The pricing is set based on research of the reader's eyes.  We pay more attention to the right pages than left.  We also read top down and our attention span is short, so we usually pay cursory attention to the left bottom page or skipped it entirely.

Newspapers are also known to be famously slanted.

The Anticipation

The most exciting part of living the Singapore life is happening these few days.  The announcement of all the candidates standing for elections and all they stand for and what they intend to do.  A lot of candidates say they want to serve.  I have no idea what they are talking about.  What is service if you are paid $16,000 a month for an evening a week work and maybe oversee the town council.  I thought the pay is pretty good for part-time work.  Probably I do not understand the parliamentary system well.  The headline "We are not electing Social Workers" resonates well.  I agree with the journalist that MPs are supposed to be law makers and agree on policies to aid the citizens.

With election coming, I am eagerly waiting in anticipation.  It will be interesting.  Will there be change?  Or will it be the same old same old?  The previous election was "watershed".  It changed the political landscape.  I, on the other hand, thinks it is progress and make the government more friendly toward its citizens.

The challenger is calm and steady under fire.  So, it is possible to gain more ground or will they lose everything they have worked so hard on.  Possibilities can be scary or uplifting for big boy.  Everyone will work hard to get our vote.  So we will vote and see the outcome.

September 12, I am waiting for you to arrive.

Really High Tide

The moon will be full tomorrow soon and the high tide is getting really high.  It will reached 2.8 metres on coming Monday afternoon.  I noticed a lot of sand has been washed off at Punggol Point.  I wonder if this is a recent event or sand has been replenished regularly. 

The water at high tide is usually cleaner than water at low tide.  I wonder why.  I am happy to catch fishes for my arowana and also to refresh my saltwater aquarium.

Concept Confusion

Learning to draw is hard.  The lesson last night was confusing or maybe is a little beyond me.  We have to think of ourself melting into only the eyeballs and then go through  a series of imagery.  After that draw what we have seen.  I have no idea what to draw.  So I just draw gigantic cow grass since as an eyeball the cow grass will looked like a forest of green leaves except I have to do it in charcoal.  I will need to get more fancy charcoal and other drawing pencils. 

The bad workman blames his tools.  This is what I think - A beginning artist needs good tools.

Internet is the Best!

B1 left Changi at 11pm and just landed London at 1:55pm.  I calculated the flight time is 14 hours.  He has a 3 hours layover and then off to New York.  I get to know he landed because there must be free wifi for him to connect.  It is a super long flight with two stopovers.  But no choice as it is the cheapest fare available and even then the airfare is quite high.

I remember the good old days when I first go to Toronto.  I called back home after one week there.   Phone call is $3per min.  So it is hello, everything is fine, how about back home?  Then goodbye and hang up.  With free wifi, we can be reach via whatapps, viber and have free phone calls.

B1 to TO

B1 left for Toronto tonight.  He is flying British Airways as it is the cheapest flight available.  I was unable to send him off as I have the Drawing on the Right Brain lesson to attend.  He is at the gate now doing whatapps.  He will be gone for 4 months.  Good thing is he is very familiar with the city as he went there for long holiday before.

Back to my lesson.  Tonight's lesson is quite challenging.  It is about shading and shadows.  I am always looking at other students work and their always seems to be better than mine.  The lesson is enjoyable as I get to talk to new friends.

The Book Cafe

I had Caesar salad and Alio Olio spagetti for lunch at The Book Cafe in Mohd Sultan.  The food is not bad.  Price is a little on the high side.  There are people have a pot of tea or coffee and spending a few hours working on their computers.  It has nice smell but the couches are well worn and a little dirty albeit comfortable. 

I am glad I tried this place.  It is good place to park myself for a few hours if I am living nearby.  Since I am not, then it is not likely I will try again.

Drawing on Right Side of the Brain

SG50 is giving out free courses.  I had been interested in developing the right brain through drawing.  So this is the course for me!  Tonight is my first lesson and I am enjoying it.  It is interesting with presentation for half an hour and then after that just keep on drawing.  I am happy to get practical experience.  This is a wonderful course.

B3 goes to Baking Class

ABC cooking school is Japanese.  We saw the school while holiday there.  My wife was very intrigued and impressed.  Many Japanese women attend the class  to cook sushi and other Japanese menu.  So when ABC comes to Singapore, she is the first to sign up together with B3.  B3 showed interest in cooking by learning from Youtube.  He baked cream puff, churned butter and make pancakes.  Not all the attempts are successful but some did produce delicious results encouraging him to attend proper school to improve his skills.

This evening he is learning how to make pizza.  The ABC is a good school.  All the meals are made from scratch.  So B3 can make his own pasta.  I am quite impressed by his cooking skills.

Big Box

I needed to get my namecard from the office and I have a 4 hours conference call on yesterday.  It makes sense to kill two birds with one stone.  I drove there with The Wife as she is going for her relaxation therapy with fringe benefit of making her face smooth and soft. 

After the meeting my colleague brought me to Big Box for lunch.  It is my first time.  Sizewise, I agree it is big.  Price I do not see any significant advantage.  In fact, I think price is higher unless you are buying two or more.  Tropicana Orange Juice is $7.90 instead of $7.20 in regular Fairprice.  Price of potato chips are also higher.  As you can see, I remember only prices of snacks!

Big Box is like Carrefour.  The merchandise are in warehouse style.  The food and drinks are lower in prices.  Other than that I do not see much advantage.  So it is not that exciting a store.

Crazy Queues for Commemorative Notes

Lunch time!  B1 is going to Canada for 4 months exchange.  So we went to the bank to change Canadian for him to pay the accomodation and food.  We decided to go AMK hub as the queue there is better than the queue in Chomp Chomp.  We usually take the escalator in the hub but this time we took the lift as we have a specific errand going to the bank.  When the door opens at 3rd floor, a long queue at Citibank.  Citibank is not popular in AMK.  So it is a big surprise.  Then we turn to DBS and there is a crowd there as well.

It dawn to me that people are queuing up for the Commemorative Notes.  I do not understand why as Straits Times mentioned a few million of the notes were printed. 

But after we finished our transaction, we also jumped into the bandwagon and bought two sets.

Enjoying My Curved TV

Now I am watching news while blogging.  The hottest is resignation of Hazel Poa, Acting Secretary General of NSP.  She disagree with the decision to have 3 party contest in Macpherson.  Steve Chia wanted to contest and manage to get the CEC of NSP to make the decision to allow him to contest.

To me, this is an example of ego.  Most of the opposition political party in Singapore do not go anywhere other then WP.  With this kind of behaviour, it is sending wrong message to the voters.  I think this episode will cause voters to be more careful voting for NSP.

Good luck to them.

Samsung Curved TV

My LG 55" LED TV broke more than two years ago.  It cannot received the regular broadcast station.  I have been looking for replacement since.  Last year during the Harvey Norman Sales in Expo, I negotiated for a UHD 55" Flat Screen at $1950 but finally chicken out.  Thinking price of TV will always go down, I could not find the same deal again.  The problem is also there are several models in the same size and price do vary quite a lot between the different model.

Anyway, two weeks ago Harvey Norman had the same exhibition sales again.  The discount is no longer as good but I decided to go for the display set anyway but bought a curved UHD TV instead.  Now I can watch news again while I work.  The sound system is also far better than old LG set.  The response to the remote is so much faster.  Built-in wifi.  So it is easy to go to internet and also connect to my personal cloud. 

Now I am a step nearer to wired home!

Chui Hang Village

We loved the soup in Chui Hang Village.  It serves authentic Cantonese cusine.  We feel the loss when it closed down suddenly when Asia Hotel was sold and redeveloped into a "bunglow in the sky".  Today, B1 booked a resturant for our Sunday brunch.  This resturant is called Asia Grand Resturant.  The food is very good and meets my wife's very Cantonese palate.  She also noticed some of the waitresses are very old.  So when we get the check, she make a comment to the waitress - "its seems like you all worked here a long time".  She elicit an immediate response.  Yes- the waitress replied:  "We are here long time.  Since Chui Hang Village!"  What a surprise!  My wife says no wonder she says the food meets her standard.

The resturant is more pricey than Imperial Treasure.  B1 like to try out new place all the time.  He is tired of Imperial Treasure as that is our regular haunt.

Dim Sum in Geyland

B1 search the internet and want to try out this dim sum place in Sims Avenue.  So when B3 finishes his sports training, we pick up him up and headed there.  It is between Geylang  Lorong 15 and Lorong 16.  The dim sum menu is quite different.  We tried deep fried char siew pau, paper chicken, prawn fritters and plenty more.  The chocolate sesame is unique and deep fried mango banana puree in popiah skin is not available elsewhere.

The place has aircon and it is quite cramped giving it a character.  It reminds me of Victor's Kitchen in Sunshine Plaza.  3 persons, the meal comes to $63.

Fav - BBQ Ribs

My favorite food is bbq baby back ribs.  Prolific blogger, Boh Tong posted a picture of bbq back ribs in Ikea.  The price looked pretty reasonable.  So I promised myself to check this out.

I just bought 3 racks of Tony Romas BBQ Baby Back Ribs from Cold Storage.  It is going on special as the expiry date is in two weeks.  Tony Romas ribs taste pretty good.  All I have to do is to heat and serve.  I will need to fry french fries and make a side salad, then the meal is complete!

Staunch Supporter

I am lucky to make a very successful blogger and he helped us and another new blogger on how to set up and maintain a blog.  This is a few years ago.  Today, Boh Tong is a successful author with his book "Fasten Your Seatbelt".  His cabin crew stories are interesting, engaging and even spicy!  He has a food blog which I have a link in this blog.

I ramble about my daily activities and sometimes complain.  I love to share my new hobby - fishing with a net at the Punggol seaside.  It is hard to face the blank page and to fill up with something for my readers and record for my kids in case they ever get interested to tell their kids what grandpa do.

I am happy to get a loyal reader and this makes me motivated to keep writing.  Thank you, BT!

Performance Review

I have my performance review today.  Yesterday, my boss called and asked me to do self appraisal and send in by last night.  It is kind of short notice.  I did it up quickly by pulling out my old PRs.  He is fine with it and we had a call.  He asked if I like to put in anything else.  I told him I appreciate him remembering more of what I had done.  So it is over very quickly. 

I am happy in my current job, so it is fine.  No need to climb up the hierarchy anymore.

Interesting Times

Election times is interesting times.  Plenty of articles on the internet make better reading than good novels or any bestsellers.  The joys of competing on ideas and hearts of the electorate makes my evening of surfing the net so much fun.  Straits Times in so staid, so serious, so pro... that put me to tears of boredom.  I still like the advertisements so that I can look for deals!!

Every election is a "watershed" election.  I heard it so often and I don't what it mean.  Nothing changes other than price increases, higher sin taxes, more investment in traffic cameras for the safety of motorists, blah blah blah.  The consistent hint that election is close is when we get "goodies" like CPF top-ups, maid's levies reduction and this year even better - price of MRT and bus fares dropping.  First time in history indeed and in deed!

The adenaline high will be over once election is over.  Like a drug addict, if every election is like this then I do not mind election every year.  We get free excitement in our city-state.

Facing the Blank Page

I took the easy way out in the last few days by posting pictures and videos I captured on the PCN.  Now I understand the writer's block.  I promised to myself to write everyday so that I can improve my writing.  I thought writing a diary is easy.  All I have to do is to write my activities for the day.  Well it is so routine and boring.  It is hard to write as it is repetitive as well.

I do not want to write about controversial subjects or politics which I have no interest in.  I love science but not so much to write about it.  I enjoys reading and do blog about sales discount and books I read.  But my summary is short as I am not very detailed and always distill it to the essence.  I enjoys management as a skill and subject but it is not something I write about.  So what to write when facing the blank page.

I read about it in books on writing.  For the last few years I experienced it many times.  It is easy when I am in China as blogger is blocked there, so I need not write.  Now that I do not go China often, no more excuse.

So onwards and forward!  Keep writing.  I am actually amazed when I looked back, I have written a lot.  The quality is not good since the traffic is low.  Rather, nobody is interested in what I write.  My friend, Boh Tong is different.  His blog is very interesting.  So the traffic is high.  Now that Adsense change its way of calculating i.e. no more cumulative or ytd earnings, I have not earn enough to cut a cheque yet since my last cheque from Google.

Aggressive Female Cobra

Baby of a White Breasted Waterhen

Monkey on PCN

This is old picture dated 29 Nov 2014.  It is the first time I saw a monkey on the PCN.  The location is near Sengkang Sport Center.  It was seen again by my neighbour a few days after.  I have not seen it since.

Mating Pair Horseshoe Crabs

Mating Cobras along PCN

Malay Couple in Punggol Point

The Malay couple in Punggol Point who is always there is gone.  I asked one of the Certis police and like me he noticed the couple has not been around for a few days.  This morning, a fisherman who is the first guy on the jetty greet me with "the man who catches small fishes".  He asked what do I do with the fishes and I told him for my arowana.  I also asked him about the Malay couple.  He told me they were lovers and not husband and wife.  He said they were "arrested".  I am not sure if arrested is a good translation of the Hokkien term "teo liak" or got caught.  The couple are living at the jetty and homeless.  So they must be caught by social service and sent to a home.

Pesticides in Vegetables

My wife was very sick with vertigo and hearing loss.  Then B1 has allergy issue.  Recently, B3 also has allergy.  Both B1 and B3's allergies happened after dinner.  My wife start doing research in the net as B3 is quite serious where it affects his throat and breathing.   Our maid cooks dinner every night.  My wife starts observing how she prepares and clean the vegetables.  The maid has been taught before but did not follow instruction.  She uses a small pot to wash the vegetable which mean it is not very clean.  This maid is pretty stubborn and refuses to follow simple basic instructions on how to wash.  She says it will take long time. Basically, it is an impossible task to train her.  So my wife cooks now and guess what?  B3's allergy that occurs every night in the last few months stopped! 

Pesticides in vegetables can cause hearing loss, memory loss and allergies.  So it is very important to wash your vegetables thoroughly and ensure every possible mean to clear the pesticides.  We are eating more organic vegetables as well.

Kinokuniya Does Not Treat Loyal Customers Well

Kinokuniya is and was my favorite bookstore.  Is because I still like to visit and browse books there.  Was because I do not buy as many books from them.  I was at Kino main branch during lunch.  I overheard a group of 3 young men talking.  One of the says Kino does not treat loyal customers well.  I am in total agreeement with this statement.  I had bought many books in Kino through the years.  I must always purchase the membership which is $20/year.  The membership gives me 10% discount and twice a year 20%.  It does not matter how much  I spent.  $20 is needed to renew.  At 10% discount, you have to purchase $200 worth of books before any savings kick in.  The books are priced much higher than those available on the internet. 

Today it is 10% for non-member and 20% for members.  Kino also use to have 20% storewide whether you are member or not for 3 days.  I do not see any 20% discount anymore.  Previously, whenever there is a 20% for members, there are long queues of customers buying.  Today, it looked like business as usual.

Fun Bag

My Wife is excited about the National Day "Fun Pack".  She went out with our neighbour to collect our "One per Household" all important SG50 National Day Fun Pack.  I went fishing as usual.  When I returned home, I casually ask her about the pack as I saw a snack bag worth 20cents and a Super 3-in-1 coffee packet on our snack bar.  She says there is nothing but a few junk items.  I think she is disappointed with the fun pack.  I, on the other hand, is not disappointed as I do not have any expectation.

There is a paper ball and chatek, real cheap toys which I grew up in but not my wife.  She plays zero-point and five stones.  So nothing for her to remind her about the childhood days.

Dinner in Pizza Hut Seletar Mall

I have not been to Pizza Hut for ages.  B2 has a dinner voucher for his confinement during BMT.  Yeah, you heard right!  A Pizza Hut voucher for meal for 4 to compensate for the first weekend he is in Civil Defence BMT.  Civil Defence is so much more civilized than Army!  They do know about motivation and recognition.

The set consist 4 soups, 4 sodas, 10 chicken wings, one large pizza and two pasta.  We ordered additional pizza, my favorite salad caesar with chicken and deep fried mozzarella cheese sticks.  The food is not bad.  Chicken wings is too salty.  Service is slow like before.