This auntie blogs too

Yesterday, when I was busy pulling off the skin of the chicken that I was preparing for dinner, I suddenly thought about the times in college, when we (my Biology mates and I) had to do animal dissections.  Perhaps looking at the raw chicken reminded me of the guinea pigs I dissected back then.

Those were fun times and we thought nothing about dissecting frogs, guinea pigs and insects.  Well, at least most of us were gung-ho about it.  My best friend at that time, J, burst into tears the first time we had to dissect a guinea pig.  You know how cute these animals are, right?  But we were taken aback by her outburst as what we had supplied to us were not live guinea pigs but the already chloroformed and fur-less ones (and very stiff ones too).  J was a real trooper though, after that initial outburst, she was cool from that day onwards and would do whatever other dissections we had, without any emotions.  I wonder how she managed to psyche herself up so quickly and easily.  When she earned her Law degree later on in university, I connected the two (know what I mean?)!

I also remember that there was always this smell about the chloroformed animals, that lingers, hours after our lab sessions.  And this always spoilt my appetite.  I will never forget the day when I went home after a guinea pig dissection, and my mum served me pork porridge.  Mum’s a great cook – her sliced pork porridge was always great.  On that day, however, the freshly cooked, thin, soft, slices of pork in the porridge smelled and tasted (I imagined) just like the guinea pig I had left behind in school!  Now, mum’s a fierce woman and I did not dare reject what she had cooked, although I felt nauseous with every piece of the pork I took in with the porridge.  It was a real challenge keeping the porridge in.

Now, dissecting frogs and guinea pigs did not faze me.  But COCKROACHES – now, I really, truly, hate cockroaches!  To have to dissect one and to be in such close proximity with the sickening insect made me want to cry like J did.

First of all, the Biology teacher wanted us to bring our own cockroaches to the lab session.  Me, catch cockroaches?  Over my dead body (I wanted to tell her)!  Some of my classmates and I ignored the teacher’s instructions and went for the session empty-handed, hoping that the carcasses would be supplied to us like those of the guinea pigs.  But we were wrong!  The teacher flew into a rage and sent us out of the lab!  We couldn’t believe it!  Being sent out of class at that age?

Anyway, that meant we missed the lab session, and had to somehow do the dissection by ourselves, outside of the lab, with no teacher supervision.  And worse of all, we still had to catch the cockroaches ourselves.  Luckily for us girls, the boys volunteered to help.  So we got our cockroaches.

Now for the dissection.  I decided that I would do it at home with my dissection kit.  I was smart enough to decide to do it outside the main door – as the cockroach stank and I didn’t want to incur my mum’s wrath (she’s no fan of the insect either).

The reason for the dissection was to study the respiratory and alimentary systems of insects in general.  The cockroach is a good candidate for such studies (which smart alec thought so?).  I think I was also supposed to look at its mandibles (mouth parts).

It’s very difficult to dissect such a small body, when I simply refused to touch the ugly looking thing with my fingers.  In the end (to cut a long story short), I mutilated it and never got to see anything.  Why bother when everything’s detailed in the books, right?  But I did get to see up close how &$@#! UGLY cockroaches really are!  Try it – catch one and examine it in detail – the eyes, mouth, feelers, hairy legs, etc, etc…. so ugly, so hair- and goose-bump-raising.  Eeeee, goose-bumps coming up as I write this!

And not only is it &$@#! UGLY, it’s also &$@#! SMELLY!  Yes, it stinks big time!  Especially when you cut it open and you are just centimetres from it.  Urgh!!  Yucks!  It’s no wonder I mutilated the bugger and fouled up the whole dissection exercise!

It’s so strange how preparing a chicken for dinner can trigger all these memories.  It’s nice though, to remember the good old days…

Now the tussle is about who has been around longer.

Elvis, who was found to have been around some 1,800 years ago?

 
Or Michael Jackson, who probably got some beauty tips from Cleopatra?

Perhaps the Kings have the ability to time-travel?

Thought I could add some fun by shooting random pictures in Singapore and asking you to guess where I was.

So here’s the first one – where was I, you think?

Now, don’t cheat and go Google those names you see in the picture!

I’ll post the answer in Comments in two days!  Check back here if you care to!

Watch this video - although the footage is more than three decades old, it was released only recently on YouTube.  It made me cry and I believe you will cry too! 

Read the story here.

It’s an absolutely touching story right?  Thanks to Otterman, my heart feels really heavy now. 

The touching video is one thing.  The story of George Adamson (the bared-bodied man in the video) is another.  It also left me teary-eyed.

I had heard of Adamson a long time ago when I was in school, but had never really bothered to find out in detail what he did.  I wished I had, as at that time, Adamson would still be alive and the stories would have been more current (if you know what I mean).  I vaguely recall reading about his death when he was brutally murdered by poachers, but it didn’t affect me at all then.

But after reading so much today through the endless links on the internet, I feel really sad and pensive.

How can anyone ever measure up to him?  Why can lions, an animal of a species so different from us, trust Adamson, a human, so much, while many of us can’t even trust our own brothers (I’m not even going to mention fellow human beings)?

Sigh!  Such is life, huh?

But on a brighter note, the international Born Free Foundation continues to perpetuate Adamson’s legacy by  working throughout the world to stop individual wild animal suffering and protecting threatened species in the wild.

And now, I can’t get the theme from the award winning movie Born Free (about George and Joy Adamson and their lioness Elsa) out of my head (I remember hearing this when I was really little):

Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart…

I remember how the song and its music always made me feel as if I’m some place else – it made me feel a breeze, transporting me to the long green grasses of the African savannah and its huge open spaces.  It’s little wonder why John Barry has won awards after awards (can’t help digressing here – but he’s one of the greats).

I’ll see if I can order the DVDs for Born Free and other Adamson stories on Amazon, and watch them with my family.

Incidentally, the lion is Little Guy’s favourite animal and I hope he gets inspired by Adamson!

Can’t drink at work?  With the iPhone, you can!

(The iPint application is developed by Carling.)

I’m quite surprised at now my blog is turning out.  I’m not really into techie stuff (although I was once in the IT industry).  But I find myself increasingly drawn to news and information on technology.  Ok, maybe not the heavy duty stuff, but still tech stuff, you know.  Go look at my archives for several other posts on technology.

This post mixes religion and technology.  I had to highlight these products because I think that they are just too cool!

1.  The Radio by Ewa Bochen

2.  USB Digital Bible thumb drive keychain

3.  Black Cross MP3 player

4.  Virgin Mary thumb drive

5.  iPod headphones

6.  iBelieve (love the name!) MP3 player

Hallelujah!

Amen!

(Photos are from  fotos.eluniversal.mx) 

In the dark of the night he came… and swept me off my feet…

Sigh!  It was nothing like that at all!  The Dark Knight made several appearances at Takashimaya’s Toys department on Friday and Sunday.  Little Guy and I braved the evening peak hour traffic to catch the last five minutes of his appearance on Friday.  We are super diehard fans.  Ok, ok… I think Little Guy was converted by me, as at his age, his resistance level is, like, zero?  And how can a kid resist superheroes and their toy versions?

It was worth the rush and the cursing and swearing (under my breath, of course) at the bad traffic situation.  We were both blown away by the Batsuit (even though it was not the real thing).  The Dark Knight did look formidable and Little Guy needed some coaxing to finally go near enough for me to snap a picture of them.  I certainly did not want to have to go home with nothing after the big rush through the horrible traffic conditions!

For wearing his own Batman mask and being such a good sport, Little Guy was rewarded with a Batman goodie bag by the minders of The Dark Knight.

Kids were not the only ones who took pictures with the action hero.  Several adults were also staring in awe and had pictures taken with him too.

One guy, I think I can safely say that he is Singaporean, quipped ‘Hey, I’m taller than you!’.

I swear, if I were the one in the Batsuit, I would have hit that guy below the belt (you know the region I’m referring to!).  Why couldn’t you just be quiet?  Yes, I agree that the guy in the Batsuit is not as tall as we expected Batman to be, but he looks miles better than you, you overgrown geek!

I missed out on the photo opportunity with my favourite action hero as Little Guy cannot handle a camera yet.

But guess what?  Big Guy, after hearing us gushing about The Dark Knight, decided we should go meet him again on Sunday.  This time we went in comfort, with Big Guy as our chauffeur.  There were no cursing and swearing, and all of us had our pictures taken with The Dark Knight.

We were surprised too, that this Dark Knight was different from the one we met on Friday.  And yes, he is much taller and an equally good sport (posing and all). 

The range of Batman merchandise was also on full display just next to the photo-taking area. I decided on getting Little Guy a Batman t-shirt instead of a toy (most of them cost above my toy budget). Just wished they had the t-shirts in adult sizes though; after all, The Dark Knight is certainly not a movie meant for little kids?

Batman has sure come a long way and so have the merchandise that come with the character.  Look what I found selling, or rather, sold, for USD 55 on e-Bay:

The Dark Knight must be wiping his brows in relief that he did not end up as a squirt toy.   What were they thinking when they commissioned this?!

Ouch!!

Now, these are the kinds of Dark Knight toys that I want!

Super cool, right?

Madonna’s back with Hard Candy, her eleventh studio album.  Pushing fifty, this hot mama shows no sign of stopping, does she? 

I’ve been following her music since her Holiday days.  Those were the days when some reviewer (from Rolling Stone magazine, if I remember correctly) commented that she sounded like a constipated goat bleating.  I did agree with him, but what the heck, her music and image were infectious.  And let her bleat for all we cared, she would probably just last a few years, or so we thought.  But how wrong we were!  She is still here, and stronger than ever, in more ways than we detractors ever imagined.

And oh, I became a fan too.  I think I was gradually converted as she changed and re-invented herself with each album she made.  Personally, I feel that the biggest change was when she took on the role of Evita.  That was finally when she learnt how to sing!  Her voice became richer and clearer, with a texture that is definitely not of the constipated-bleating-goat kind.

My favourite Madonna album of all time has got to be Ray of Light.  I can’t decide which track is my favourite, though… tough call!

I have not heard all of her tracks on Hard Candy, but I thought 4 Minutes with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland (I like Justin Timberlake – his first album was great), was just, well, ok, so-so.  And  I did not like the video at all. 

Then came her latest single Give it 2 Me.

When I first heard it, I did not like it at all.  It sounded, so… so… retro.  I could not start describe it – I thought it sounded older than retro, if you know what I mean.  But it kept playing on radio and it grew on me, and yes, I like it now (and the video too)!  To me, it’s brave, crazy adventurous, and really just doing what she wants, and not giving a care about what the younger ones might think about the overly retro beat and arrangement.  Comments on the internet have ranged from brilliant; to some calling her an old hag, asking that she retire.  Some teenagers (they identified themselves as seventeen year-olds) gave it the thumbs-up, while some preferred the Oakenfold remixed version, where there is no trace of anything retro.  But I found this version rather dull – lacking in character and a sense of adventure.

One bad thing (at least for me), though, is that it suddenly dawned on me yesterday, why the beat and arrangement made me feel uncomfortable the first few times I heard Give It 2 Me.  Those of you who are old enough, and can recall watching Wang Sa and Ye Fong skits on TV with your parents, might remember them moving their (the comdedians’, not your parents’) shoulders up and down to such music?  Remember?  Too bad I can’t find any videos of them doing that.  But they were simply hilarious.

But back to the diva, well, Madonna, I believe that I can safely say that if women hate you, they must be jealous of the wonderful body that you possess (and also your dancing skills).

I hate you!

Just kidding!  Keep going Ma Madonna!

I’ve read many reports about the increasing number of foreigners working as service staff these days.  My encounters with them were so far limited to those in call-centres employed by banks and several Filipino ones working in restaurants.

The most memorable encounter was at a Thai restaurant in Marina Square – it was staffed, I think, by an all Filipino crew.  I felt weird eating Thai food, being served by Filipinos.  I can’t understand why, because it should feel the same eating Thai food served by Singaporeans, right?  Wrong for me!

I had several foreign talent encounters all in a row today.  I went to the post office to get some packages weighed and posted.  And who should serve me but a young Chinese guy with the surname Yang.  I was thinking, ok, so now they are also working at such places. 

Next, I went to Bossini and picked up some clothes for Little Guy, and I was served by a Filipina (I think) whose accent made me go, huh? when she asked if I had a DBS credit card.

That done, I went to GNC to get some supplements.  I was served by a trainee from China, also surnamed Yang.  The strange thing was that her tag had her name and (China) right beside it.  Why did they need to do that?  I wonder…

So it was a day of foreign encounters.  When I boarded the bus home, I half-suspected that the driver’s a foreign talent too.

Looks like we have been surrounded, left, right and centre.

I had always thought that an umbrella would make a good weapon for self-defense.  Well, I’m half-right – an ordinary umbrella would not do.  We’ll need The Unbreakable Umbrella!

Check out this video demonstration given by Thomas Kurz.

This umbrella is used by the Presidential Security Group (PSG) of the Philippines President, so says The Real Self-Defense website, with pictures as proof too.

I found the video hilarious, particularly the part when the umbrella was used to split the water melon.  Kurz, dressed in cool, all black clothes, whacking the life out of the punching bag, and splitting the water melon somehow made me laugh out loud.  But with a price tag of USD 180, this certainly wasn’t supposed to be funny.

Now I know how Aunt May in Spiderman 2 managed to hold on for dear life with her umbrella.  She probably had one of these!  Hmm… and no money to pay rent?  Looks like Peter Parker is not the only one in the family with a secret?