This auntie blogs too

Still on YouTube, I found these videos from Britain’s Got Talent (the audition episodes).  This show is currently airing.  Simon Cowell’s in it too.

I picked these 2 out as I have a soft (motherly) spot for little guys.  These 2 impressed everyone there.

Charlie Green – 10 years old, very handsome lad.  Watch and listen to him sing!

And 13-year-old Andrew Johnston:

And Simon gets ’sabo-ed’ (watch this to the end):

What’ll Simon be in for?  Find out on YouTube.

I hardly watch TV these days ‘cos I hate commercial breaks.

I watch YouTube.  You can almost watch anything there.  Past and current episodes of your favourite sitcoms and dramas, music videos, political commentaries, etc, etc.  Heck, Little Guy has watched various adaptations of the children’s classics Little Red Riding Hood and 3 Little Pigs there too.  I believe that it is a useful tool for him to broaden his perceptions, by watching the various interpretations of his favourite stories.  My only gripe is the speed – sometimes the videos just start and stop too many times.

I watch American Idol entirely on YouTube.  AI fans upload videos of the show while it is being aired in America.  No need to wait for the delayed telecasts here, whether on cable or the crappy Channel 5.  And I don’t have to tolerate those commercial breaks – I spend half the time watching AI on Youtube compared to watching it on TV.

And I watch the latest music videos of my favourite bands and singers on YouTube too.  It’s a great resource for research as it always has what I search for – videos from eons ago or videos just uploaded minutes ago.

Too bad we can’t really dump the TV yet, as Big Guy absolutely needs his fix of ‘live’ football, F1 racing and what other sports (that he absolutely does not do).  And Little Guy needs his fix of Cartoon Network and Disney Channel.

Now, if I had my way, we would be able to save on paying for the stupid Radio and Television Licence. 

I don’t profess to be an English expert but I think I am qualified enough to ‘devise’ this simple test.  To make it relevant, I have picked a few words (and an acronym) commonly used in Singapore, for this test.

Here, say these out loud:

1. ‘H’ as in ‘HDB’
2. ‘red’ as in our ‘little red dot’
3. ‘pizza’ as in ‘Pizza Hut’

Simple?  Now did you say:

1. ‘H’ sounding like ‘heige’ or sounding like ‘eige’?  Listen here.
2. ‘red’ sounding like the past tense of ‘read’?  Listen here.
3. ‘pizza’ as ‘piz-za’ or ‘pit-sa’?  Listen here.

And for the record, it’s ‘an HDB flat’ and not ‘a HDB flat’.  Singaporeans mispronounce many words, thanks to our many incompetent English teachers.

Mispronunciation is not the only problem in our English here.  The usage of words is also a big problem. 

Little Guy who’s in Nursery this year has just started on a literacy programme in school.  This programme includes the reading of a set of books.  Each time he ‘masters’ a book, his teacher will stamp one of those cute cartoon characters on his reading record.

The first time it happened, he came home and said, ‘Look Mum, a chop!’.  Ooooh!  How I cringed!  Obviously that was what his teacher had said, a ‘chop’!

I told him if his teacher ever said that again, ask her if it’s a pork chop or a karate chop…

Well, it was more like Little Guy and Big Guy went to fly kite, and it happened a couple of months ago.  But it was a good outing and I liked the pics.  So here they are.

We were invited to a kite event at Punggol by a kite-enthusiast friend.  I togged Little Guy up in his imitation French football team jersey and we were on our way to the other end of the island.  I put him in his football outfit ‘cos I anticipated that he would be making many runs in the field instead of flying kites.  And I was right, but I don’t want to digress here.  

Why the French jersey?  Well, the simple reason was that it was the only one left in his size when we were at the shop.  This was just as well, ‘cos when we got to the venue, my friend actually had a couple of kite-flying guests from France.  Little Guy, for his fake French patriotism, was promptly rewarded with a kite that had the same Blue-Red-White combination. 

The kites looked very pretty in the cloudy sky and the wind was great for kite-flying.  The sun, though, was another matter.  This auntie doesn’t like to be in the sun.  I suppose I should really go all out (to be an auntie) and get a really wide-brimmed straw hat and match it with a really big-rimmed pair of sunglasses as well.

This is the kind of activity you will want to do with your family, friends or even by yourself, to destress.  Hmm… come to think of it, it’s a bit like fishing?  Tugging at a line that goes up in the sky instead of the water?  I guess the similarity ends at the line… hehehe!

If ever someone tells you to ‘go fly a kite’, thank him or her profusely (and scoot off), as obviously, that person doesn’t know much about kite-flying and what it can do. 

See the pictures better here.

My dialect-speaking-only mum-in-law has 5 grandchildren.

When the eldest, a granddaughter was born, she promptly ‘named’ her as Ah Girl.  This was even though this niece of mine was christened with an easy to pronounce, one-syllable name.  I must admit that I detest people calling anyone Ah Girl and always cringe when I hear this ‘name’ being called out on the streets.  Well, I’m just glad that it’s my niece who received this ‘honour’ and not my daughter (not that I have one anyway).

Then this niece had a baby brother, whom my mum-in-law promptly ‘named’, you guessed it, Ah Boy.  Urrgh!  Cringed again!  Phew!  Thank goodness Little Guy’s not the eldest grandson.

THEN my other bro-in-law had a son and something new happened.  Something I thought would never occur but did – my mum-in-law ‘named’ him Boy-Boy (tagged 1 more ‘Boy’ since this is the second grandson)!  Urrgh!  Worse, this bro-in-law and his wife also call their son Boy-Boy!

Then Little Guy came along and thank goodness, my good ol’ mum-in-law knew when to stop… Little Guy was just Little Guy to her!

I was about to title this post ‘The Scent of Malls’, but after thinking about it, I think ’scent’ is unappropriate.

When VivoCity first opened about 2 years back, I was struck by the smell of the mall.  I suppose it was because many shops were still under renovation and newly opened stores reeked of paint, thinner, glue and what have you.  The smells (or fumes) were hard on my sensitive nose and eyes.

And the hypermart Giant – has this nauseating stench at its fresh food (all sorts of fresh meat, vegetables, fruits) section.  The worst smelling one would be the one at IMM.  The one at VivoCity seems to have cleaned up a bit – otherwise you can make your way to that section just by following the stench!

Toys ‘R’ Us at VivoCity has this strange smell that I can’t quite place.  Maybe it’s from the mix of all the plastics and rubber from the thousands of toys there.  Whatever it is, it smells horrible and toxic to me…

Little Guy sort of confirmed the toxic part.  A  couple of weeks ago, we were in the car, which had stopped at a traffic junction and surrounded by trucks and a few bikes.  The strong smell of exhaust fumes filled the car.

Little Guy:  What’s that smell?

Me:  It’s the smell of the fumes from the trucks.

Little Guy:  Smells like Toys ‘R’ Us.

SCARY…

Little Guy used to be such a mosquito magnet.  It got me very worried and so I bought several of those anti-mosquito gadgets to try out.  One of these was the MOSQUITO KILLER (yes, that’s how it’s referred to in the instruction manual – in caps).  This gadget contains a fan and a tube of blue light in a plastic casing.  I’m not sure if this thing is effective – I still use it, together with an anti-mosquito citronella repellant.

However, I think if I were to read the instruction manual aloud, thousands of mosquito may just collapse in mid-flight and die.  I almost died of laughter when I read the first few lines under the heading ‘Characteristics (Brief)’:

Fly to the fire is one usual and natural case for insects, the special ray allure in the mosquitoes and flies etc.  To make summary of the experience had found in, and combine the current advanced and physical insects arrest technology, which congregate the light, electricity and air flow technology at the same time, we design and open up this MOSQUITO KILLER, bring you into a no mosquito world.

Insects arrest technology to bring us into a no mosquito world indeed!   Wow! 

There are more hilarious instructions, my favourite are these:

When you use this unit, no body in the room is the suggestion.  Because the people’s smell is much more attractive than the unit…

High building:  The grass mosquito is soft and is tractive by the light much more than the mosquito in the city.  The city mosquito’s quantity is few but strong, can fly to high floor of the building.  These insect in the day and come out to bite people in the evening, not easy to kill (hmm… sort of like vampires?!).  So if you use it in high building, shut down the window is the ask.

I’m the type who hate to read instruction manuals, but this one’s so funny I read every word of it. 

Maybe I should try reading it to the pesky ants I’m trying to get rid of in my kitchen…

I’m impressed by how Jordan’s beautiful Queen Rania is reaching out to the world to try to dispel any misconceptions people may have of the Arab world.  She is asking for people to send her ‘your stereotypes’.

So far the video has been viewed more than 1.3M times. 

I’ve also watched some of responses people have sent and found this one that makes much sense:

And the queen has so far posted 2 responses, one of them on Arab women:

I’m looking forward to more of her responses.  She is so easy on the eyes and ears and most importantly, she came across as very intelligent and very committed.

I wonder if our men in white would do YouTube too?  After all, this is the age when even aunties youtube (hmm… new noun?).

Yes, this auntie watches American Idol too!  And I had never imagined that I would actually be blogging about this show.  It’s kind of a frivolous type of show isn’t it?  Well let’s be frivolous then!  I’m doing this because of Michael Johns (MJ) who was voted off last week.

I mean, what was America thinking?!  Look at this guy performing with the band The Rising (never mind the awful long hair) and you’ll know what I mean.

And here with the band Film:

I reckoned that he may not win AI (due to AI audiences’ very conventional tastes) but he should have at least made the top 3.  I read somewhere that The Rising was once signed to Maverick (record label started by Madonna) but dropped at the last minute.   Well, I guess Maverick has lost a big one ‘cos fans of MJ predict he could become as big as Daughtry, a band fronted by Chris Daughtry, another AI ‘loser’ from 2 seasons ago.  Daughtry had the best selling album in the US in 2007.  I do hope MJ releases an album with a band – they should very well.

While at this frivolous topic, I might as well give my 2 cents worth about the remaining contestants:

1. David Cook - my other favourite.  I hope he wins AI, i.e. if he doesn’t explode first.  I suppose the stress of having a very sick brother and having to outdo himself each time must be terribly tremendous.
2. David Archuleta - this guy is a great singer and probably the aunties’ favourite.  It’s probably a David-David final and the voting power of aunties cannot be underestimated.  But I can’t imagine listening to an entire album of his songs – either I’ll get very depressed or fall asleep, or both!
3. Syesha Mercado - always technically perfect.  But I find her boring.  Already lots of such singers around.  And I don’t feel any warmth when listening to her.
4. Brooke White - very pretty and apparently wholesome girl.  Liked her at first, but getting pretty boring as well.  I think whatever happens, she will do well after AI, given her appeal.
5. Jason Castro - very pretty boy, sings ok, but his is the kind of music I would play in the background when reading a book.
6. Carly Smithson - this girl has a big voice but not very confident about using it.  She’s too mindful of what Simon has to say.  And also, I think she appeared at the wrong place and wrong time – now that the music world has Leona Lewis (The X Factor 2006 Winner), Carly is no longer relevant.
7. Kristy Lee Cook - yes this girl is finally gone, but I just have to say something – she’s got the most auntie eyebrows of all – looks awful on her young and pretty face.  Oh, and good riddance, at last! 

The ‘perils’ of being an auntie with a kid is that I have to constantly think of ways to keep the very active Little Guy happy.  One of the ways is to visit parks and playgrounds.  The latter is his favourite.

Well HortPark is a good mix of the two.  Although its byline is ‘The Gardening Hub’, it is also playground heaven.

Kids will love this place for sure.  And so will adults who like plants and flowers and green things.

There are other things to see and do too:

And the rest of the park is just as pretty as the flowers.  On a Saturday morning, we were only 1 of 2 families there!

Very pretty, right?  See more pics here.

Tip:  We saved on paying for parking by parking (illegally) near the side gate at Alexandra Terrace.