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Back from the land Down Under; Sydney Australia last night. Right in time for New Year's Eve dinner with Dad and then off for count down celebrations.

My standard answer to the trip (to those who have already called) is "it's as good as it can get". There is nothing like spending time with family. Lots of stories, lots of laughter, lots of fun... Took around 4 gig worth of photos. I'm going to be so behind in uploading them!

There's so much unpacking to do. Throwing stuff into the laundry and packing up my room for the New Year. Can't believe it's yet another year. It's true when they say "time flies when you're having fun"!

I have so much to be greatful for this year. And as the year comes to a close... May the New Year touch your heart in a special way... To 2008!

Just in case I don't get to see many of you till the New Year... and I'm sure there will be many many of you... I just want to say what a blast of a year I had in 2007!

Thanks for the fun, care, prayers, friendship and most of all... just sticking by me. I've seen friends go (one literally), fostered old ties and built on new ones. There was growth, experience and learning...

To good health, to good friends, to building relationships...that we all have a quiet heart to hear Our Lord's prompting this Christmas Season... Blessed Christmas everyone!

Ceremonial Program with an entire story to follow! Everything was acted out - Indian Style!

The closest thing I've come to know about Southern Indian culture is along the line of Muthu's Fish Head Curry... Oh... and there's shopping at Mustafa Shopping Centre?!?!

Other Indian related trivia about me include;
- I once dressed up in a lovely black Indian Sari for one of my D&D with a cultural diversity theme. The sari was on loan from Minranda, who also dressed me up. It still baffles me how much cloth needs to be wrapped around and tied...
- It's my yearly affair to visit Little India during Deepavali to soak in the lights and have a nice meal of Tandoori & Naan.

Miranda and Shashi got married over the weekend in an all Indian affair. Shashi was particular that everything about the wedding had to reflect Southern Indian. I for one have absolutely no clue what's the real difference.

On Friday, there was this hour long Indian ceremonial wedding rite at Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple along Serangoon Road. There was this script which depicted a story which the bride and groom with their relatives have to role play. Miranda, in her sari actually looked Indian. I was clueless throughout... I'm sure the ceremony had significance, I just didn't get it... I mean, according to the family members involved, the script can change. It got me to think about our Sacramental Wedding Mass which I'm pretty sure non-Christians will have a hard time understanding. Ultimately, it's a blessed union between their God and the couple. Everyone else are just witnesses...

Both Friday and Sunday; which was the wedding dinner at Ritz Carlton was all about Indian Food. Everything was curry!!! Masala, Mangalore, Dahl... There were 3 - 4 types of curries with Naan and another 3 - 4 different type of curries with Biryani Rice. It was so rich, the flavour was almost over-powering. Definitely not food for the weak of stomach. I did love the white wine served which I drank to my heart's content. As for now... you wouldn't see me opting for Indian food anytime soon...

To the lovely pair, Blessed Wedding!

I can't think of many good ole steak house that consistently delivers juicy quality Prime Rib cooked to medium rare perfection. There is nothing like cutting through a slightly bloody piece of steak that chews tenderly in your mouth. My love with Hog's Breath Cafe steak started way back during my Ozzie days when Simon drove us up north of Perth City, towards Jundalap; to dig into some wholesome Aussie styled steak. You can imagine how ecstatic I was when the franchise came to Singapore.

Wendy and I had wanted to check out the latest Vivo City outlet but the jam into the parking lot made us detour to the CHIJMES branch. Of the many times I've savoured Hog's steaks - slowed cook for up to 18 hours, then finished with high temperature searing on the char grill to seal in the flavour; I've yet to be disappointed.

We were enjoying our steaks to 80s disco hits - 'Funky Town', 'Heaven is a place on Earth', 'I'm walking on Sunshine', 'I want to Break Free'... you can just see our heads bobbing to the tunes as we sheared though the steaks!


Avocado Prime Rib - Prime rib seared on the char grill then topped with an avocado wedge and Bearnaise sauce


El Grande Prime Rib - Seared Prime Rib with Cheese sauce, tomato salsa and sliced jalapenos


Trust me when I say it's this good!

Since we're around the vicinity, we reserved dessert for drinks again at Novus. We've been raving about going back for the 'Forbidden Fruit' berry crushed gin cocktail since the last time we were there. Surprisingly for a December Saturday night the place was really empty. We pretty much had an entire set sang just for us! The usual live Jazzy tunes were substituted for some alternative soft rock singing with acoustic guitars. The gal-dude combi sounded more appropriate for a chill night at Timbre. I had expected Novus to have a little more class. I'm not sure if I enjoyed that it was different, but the dude had a really husky sexy voice... excellent for those slow rock ballets. We were allowed to dedicate songs this time round, in which I requested for Firehouse's 'When I look into your eyes' (they sang 'I live my life for you'; which was nice) and Coldplay's 'Scientist' (they sang...'Yellow'...duh).

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. We've decked the halls with our 2m tall Christmas Tree at the start of Advent. I simply love the way the lights sparkle amidst the festive ornaments. The Christmas Wreath, Stocking and Reindeer are up, and I've also prepared another set of Apple Candles with spreads of hollies and acorn for the house. As of now I can't decide if I want to unbox and display my VeggieTale Christmas Nativity Set. Somehow I can't bear to dismental it from it's pristine packaging.

The tree always look complete when presents start to lay beneath it. This year's wrapping theme is crushed brown paper with pink ribbons. I like how it gives the feel of "recycleness" topped with a touch of sexy pink. So even if you're a guy... you're gonna get pink...

Wendy - this one is for you...
Though I'm not sure if the game is available for SG phones.

I've been given a clean bill of health for the condition of the right ear. The blockage started to subside only after 1 week of consuming Hydergine, a medicine to improve blood circulation. It was a costly medication, with each tablet costing a dollar plus. I was put on an additional 2 weeks of Hydergine before I felt the full effect of recovery.

Since Monday last week I was back to normal. It's easy to forget in the midst of so much activities that feeling good again can so easily be taken for granted.

According to the doc, there is nothing that needs to be done till this ordeal happens again (if it ever returns)...
I took enough Vit B complex from the clinic, good for 2 months to help supplement my condition.

Just want to thank each and everyone of you who offered even the shortest of prayer for me... it means everything to me... from my heart...

Adding a personal touch to Christmas Gifts...



The GUMMY Candy Jar for the folks in the office
Bottle from Tangs, Ribbons from Carrefour and Hollies from The Concourse.




Apples representing the "Fruits of the Holy Spirit" for Adrian's Confirmation. It may not be too obvious, but the apples are actually candles. The bottom of the glass plate is lined with a personal message

BIG Thanks to Celeste for lugging all my ThinkGeek purchases back from New York! YOU RAWK GAL!!!

Wendy piggy backed on my order to pick up a couple of neat stuff for herself. I can't wait to see her Bi-Color LED Blow On-Off Candles! ThinkGeek makes thinking Geek - Cool... real cool...


My Uber Cool ThinkGeek T-shirts

I finally laid my hands on the Digital Angel T-shirt. I really loooourve this T man!
Navy blue 100% cotton babydoll t-shirt. Stretchy and fitted. "DIGITAL ANGEL" printed in white on the front and circuit-board wings printed in white on the back. Great way to declare my capacity for cybergoddess-ness! Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines angel as a spiritual being superior to man in power and intelligence.

Another I had to own was the ThinkGeek Power Symbol T-shirt. The symbol actually glows in the dark! Can't wait to wear it on a night out!

The baby blue is my reminder that "Programmer or not, you should make sure you include love whenever possible".
In C, and C++, the #include directive tells your compiler, "I'm going to be using some stuff in this module, mmkay?" but just putting that directive in your code doesn't actually perform the functions included, it only reminds the compiler that some of those functions might be used. Invoke those functions...

#include

Partner significantOther;
Dinner dinner;
Flowers flowers;

significantOther << dinner << flowers;

The love.h module brings with it lots of added functionality - kiss(object) is greatly enhanced with hooks into the calling object's heartRate and hormoneLevel properties. holdHands(object) has also been overridden.


This is what you get when you fuse Zelda and Heroes! AWESOME!!!




Ice cold drinks just got a whole lot cooler

Say "Hello" to solid ice shot glasses! The two biggest problems in hosting a truly epic party are keeping the drinks cold, and glass breakage. This silicon rubber tray is shaped like the negative of picardie style shotglasses. Just pour in some water, stick them in the fridge for an hour or so, and unmold 4 perfect shotglasses designed to keep two ounces of your favorite alcohol deliciously chilly while keeping your precious Austrian crystal barware safe and sound. If someone breaks one, who cares? It's ice! Toss it in the sink and make another!

I can't wait try this with my Baileys!

We braved the stormy downpour towards Ju Chun Yuan at Far East Square for some fine authentic Fuzhou Cuisine. The restaurant is supposed to be famous for it's highly priced Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. Due to budget constrains, we had to give the specialty soup a miss.


The special NTF Room

In a spread of small Fuzhou appetizers was Duck's Tongue. Lightly steamed with a traditional sauce. The tongues looked like they were ripped out of Daffy Duck and served on a plate. It was a horrible thought... It took me a while to bite in the taste. A little chewy and rubbery in texture and strange in flavour. I can't say I am a fan of tongues - but this was what people deemed as acquired taste. Each tongue had a small bone within. Looking at it again in pictures, they do look gross!


Digging into Duck's Tongues

We had a variety of other dishes such as Ming Prawns Marinated with Fuzhou Chinese Tea, Deep Fried Cod Fish with Diced Fruits and Tangy Sauce, Wok-fried Chicken with Light Red Vinasse; all of which did not raise any eyebrow.


I still prefer the oily gluey Orh Ni with pumpkin bits

The other 2 more tantalizing dishes was the Orh Ni (or Yam Pudding) which was non-oily and light in flavour. Not too heavy on the over all taste and the Fried Bee Hoon! Yeah... who would have thought the ordinary Bee Hoon topped with a special blend of Garlic Sauce would actually interest me. The Bee Hoon had a nice texture, thinner then what we normally find elsewhere and is flown in all the way from Fuzhou.

Fwah! Now this is what I call "a flashy bag"!

Britepack is offering backpacks in wheeled and unwheeled versions with blinking lights that can make them more visible. Have to admit it will be great for night cycling... but prob in a more sporty design.
The LEDs are motion-sensitive, meaning that they'll automatically turn off when not being jostled around.

The most intelligent robotic pet till date



For USD$349, you can take home a pre-historic PET DINOSAUR!!! Introducing yet another intelligent pet that needs all the love you can offer without the mess and hassle of the real thing!

Like seriously... who wouldn't wanna own a baby dino???

Every Pleo is autonomous. Yes, each one begins life as a newly-hatched baby Camarasaurus, but that's where predictability ends and individuality begins. Like any creature, Pleo feels hunger and fatigue - offset by powerful urges to explore and be nurtured. He'll graze, nap and toddle about on his own -when he feels like it! Pleo dinosaur can change his mind and his mood, just as you do.

They have a USB connection that enables you to download new sounds and behaviors as they update the site, so the toy will be forever changing. Unlike other electronic pet toys that tend to get to the final stage of "development" and stall.



From toy developer UGOBE, Pleo's sophisticated sensory system consists of nearly 40 devices that enable him to see, sense, touch and detect objects in order to move autonomously and explore his environment without requiring any remote control. This robotic dinosaur includes a color camera with a white-light sensor that allows him to detect bright light from dark, see colors, detect motion, track a moving object, and perceive objects in front of him. This unit also includes binaural microphones on the left and right that give him stereophonic hearing, allowing him to detect sound direction and loudness through both ears. An infrared receiver and transmitter allows Pleo to identify, communicate and interact with one another, while another infrared interruptor allows Pleo to detect when something is being placed in his mouth. Meanwhile eight touch sensors on his chin, shoulder, legs, back and head are triggered by touch and allow him to "feel." What's more, this dinosaur has a skin that is constructed of a custom-formulated, soft thermoplastic material that's painted with an incredibly realistic and lifelike coloration.

The Pleo Life Form also has over 100 custom-designed gears, and 14 motors for highly-articulated movement. Each motor has a force feedback sensor that makes them sensitive to forceful grabs at the dinosaur's legs, neck, tail and torso, causing him to shut down during trauma to avoid internal damage. Pleo will actually react to being hurt, perhaps exhibiting a limp, and can recover over time depending on the level of nurturing you exhibit. Ground sensors allow Pleo to know when a foot is on a solid surface or when he has been picked up, while tilt and shake sensors allow him to know if he has fallen or is being held upside down. The sensors will also wake him up after he has fallen "asleep." Both front and rear speakers even enable Pleo to communicate via cute honks and hoots, as well as other fun and natural sounds.

Pleo Theme Song
Hear it Here

A tiny spark of life
A little bit of joy
A baby dino made into a toy
For every girl and boy

Imagination's pride
And curious blue eyes
A gentle friend that's come to play
Pleo will take your breath away

I've waited so long
I'll make a place for you
Inside my home
There's nothing left to do but say
Remember the heart of a child knows
That love goes with Pleo

With Pleo, the baby dino wants to play with you

Pleos are currently on back order till next year...
Now I want both a GUPI and a PLEO. Am sure a guinea pig and dinosaur will make great pals!

GEEK! GEEK! GEEK! GEEK! GEEK! GEEK! GEEK! GEEK! GEEK!
I am Nintendo Geek, Trek Geek, Film Geek, Outdoor Geek and Gadget Geek!

We were at the Singapore Design Festival Hub at City Hall after the Standard Chartered Marathon in the morning. Initiated in 2005 by the DesignSingapore Council, the Singapore Design Festival is a biennial platform to promote design and the design industry in Singapore, create opportunities for networking and exchange of ideas, and enhance Singapore as a vibrant and creative international design city.

At the Utterubbish: A Collection of UseLess Ideas, designs were exhibited on an incredible multi-disciplinary collection of more than 30 international and local designers / presentations. With an entrance fee of SGD$5, the exhibits covered 2,000 sq metres on the 4th floor of the City Hall.


UseLess memorabilia and books from Basheer at the UseLess Shop


Designer cardboard wastepaper baskets going at SGD$12

The theme for the Festival: "Always a Better Way", is inspired by the essence of design-thinking: through design, design challenges itself to find a better solution or alternative. With a theme like this, its easy to fall into the mold of the much talked about "Saving Gaia" global environment designs. There were few designs and concepts that really stood out with an underlining meaning to bring home.

Personally, I liked these:
Mads Hagstrøm - FLOWmarket


The FLOWmarket room which I thought could have better been displayed like a real supermarket with grocery trolleys, shelves and even a cashier


FLOWmarket 'grocery' items which we took to pose with

FLOWmarket was initiated in 2004 and is the working label of danish designer Mads Hagstrøem (b.1976). FLOWmarket works within the field of sustainability, design and commercialism. FLOWmarket has due to its simple and universal form been able to succesfully cross cultural boundries between Europe, US and Asia where it has recieved numerous recognitions.

FLOWmarket is a shop designed to inspire consumers to think, live and consume more holistic. The core of FLOWmarket is the scarcity goods collection where present imbalances from the 3 FLOW dimensions (individual, collective and environmental flow) have been adressed and transformed into physical products. Scarcity goods products in the shape of aesthetically designed (empty) packings with humorous and thought awakening prints that consumers can buy in the venueshops or via the online shop. Further on FLOWmarket collaborate with designers and artists around the globe that fits with our mindset, humour and aestetichs.


Jonathan Harris - We Feel Fine

Jonathan Harris my personal hero. I have noticed and admired his work way back in 2004. He is an artist and storyteller working primarily on the Internet. One part computer science, one part anthropology, and one part visual art, his work seeks to explore and understand the human world through the artifacts people leave behind on the Web.

We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles' properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

The We Feel Fine project is still capturing data daily, each experience on the site will be a new refreshing one. It give you a sense of what the world is feeling... He is one of those dudes that makes Flash go WOW!

Harris has made projects about human emotion (wefeelfine.org), human desire (love-lines.org), modern mythology (univese.daylife.com), science (phylotaxis.com), news (tenbyten.org), anonymity (justcurio.us) and language (wordcount.org), and created the world's largest time capsule (timecapsule.yahoo.com), which was translated into 10 languages. He studied computer science at Princeton University, and was awarded a 2004 Fabrica fellowship. The winner of two 2005 Webby Awards, Harris' work has also been recognized by AIGA, Ars Electronica, ID Magazine, and the State of Vermont, has been featured by CNN, BBC, Reuters, NPR, USA Today, Metropolis and Wired, and has been exhibited at Le Centre Pompidou (Paris), and The Museum of Modern Art (New York).

Erik Kessels - do box


I think we really "killed" this exhibit with all the aggressive punches and flying kicks! In some ways I felt bad... but the project is called "do box"

Combine extreme brutality and recycling. do box is a new way to practice Gross Bodily Harm and save the world at the same time. Where conventional punchbags come filled with foam or sand, do invites you to bring a more considered approach to mindless violence. Why not fill your environmentally friendly boxing bag with worn-out shirts, tea-stained cushions or difficult employers? Pound old news- papers into pulp. Karate chop all those plastic bags accumulating under the sink. Transform yourself into a globally aware Chuck Norris with do box.

By the time we had our fill of messing around, we left the room with a couple of boxing bags dangling on 1 or 2 supports.

Other crazy inputs we contributed at the festival:

My Tank design from a couple of pictures and shapes


Some emo dude drew a french fry kid and we decided to rival it with a Wuppet!

The other levels of the Design Festival included the 'Brazilian Design Perspectives' Exhibition and Archifest 2007; Anne felt right at home at this one.
I realised that unless the showcase of architecture is ridiculously outstanding or have a space-age or sci-fi angle to it... I honestly ain't too interested. I ended up spending some time looking through interior design books for my upcoming Chongqing Apartment. Sort of decided on the modern wood look that is both practical and classic.

After many hours walking around the exhibition, Wendy and I decided to chill for some ice-cream after mass at Dome. I still love the outlet at the old SJI, now Singapore Arts Museum. It's never too crowded and has an old charm to the deco. I ordered myself a 3 scoop Gelato Banana Split. It was so satisfying... that was all I had for dinner...

More Singapore Design Festival 2007 Pictures

The last leg of the Standard Chartered Marathon 2007 at the Padang


Runners crossing through the finishing line

40,000 participants, a 42km marathon distance, a 100m dash to the grand finishing line - 6 crazy friends who took the challenge to "run their own race".
Well, it's more like 2 insane friends - Adrian and PJ who were at the flag off in the wee morning hours at 5.30am to attempt the grueling 42km run. Daylight has not even broke through yet. The thought to attempt the full marathon is courage in itself.
It was Adrian's 3rd marathon and PJ's 1st. That gal's got serious balls!

Des, Des and Karen took on the more leisurely paced 10km run bringing them through nice shady surroundings of the Marina Bay area and Shenton Way. Wei Sian opted for the 1/2 marathon (21km) which was in his opinion - just nice.

I arrived slightly before 8.30am at the last stretch of the Padang leading up to the finishing line. Herds of 10km and 21km participants were already pounding the tarmac as they dashed towards the end of the run. It was almost a stampede awaiting to happen and pretty much impossible to catch a glimpse of anyone you know coming in. Des and Karen had already completed their 10km run in about 1hr 15mins. As I was watching out for any familiar faces running in, Wei Sian called that he had just passed the finishing line and collected his 21km medal.

We met at the Padang grounds to pick up bananas and 100 plus. It was a great carnival atmosphere with games for the kids and Adidas photographers snapping participants and supporters. By this time, runners who completed the run were spilling in and we headed over to City Hall for breakfast.


Silly encouragement notes runners wrote pinned to their backs

Char Kuey Teow would have been a heartier meal then the really lousy BK breakfast. Maybe the staff were just too overwhelmed with the large crowd pouring in. We had waiting almost 45mins in the queue.

We headed back to the Padang around 11am to catch the full marathon runners come in at around 5hrs. 2 girls were holding their hands in the air as they crossed the finishing line - that's what I call "Girl Power"! The DJ had to play Will I Am's "I got it from my Mama" on seeing that. There were some Ah Jeks limping in and it was a really exhilarating watch as the DJ counted down for runners to come in within the 5hrs 30mins mark. Adrian was no where in sight and came in around 6hrs 15mins.

At the end of the day, the event captured the spirit of a personal challenge. It was truly evident in the smiles of so many strangers' faces. Even if for the next couple of days - many would have a seriously hard time walking! Everyone of those participants could have slept in on a lovely Sunday morning, but their will power to complete the run is sheer admiration in itself. Whatever the timing was - each one of you should be really proud of yourselves!

See you next year... if all goes as planned... I will attempt the 10km run! Wendy, you should be on the grounds running in; instead of the sides looking in...

More Standard Chartered Marathon 2007 Pictures