Fever

It has been a long long time since I last had fever. I had almost forgotten how it felt. And for the first 7 months of this year, I had been healthy, not even catching a cold or flu. Then today is the day, that I am down with fever.

First, I consumed quite a few packets of peanuts :), then I over exercised over the weekend, swimming 1.5km each day in an ice-cold pool (because weather was cloudy), followed by yesterday's consumption of beef & walking in an air-conditioned place for almost 2 hours wearing only shorts & t-shirt.

The doctor gave me two days of medical leave. That's good. I can drink that cough syrup and sleep soundly for the whole day :D

This is called "low cut" :D

I simply couldn't stop laughing after I read this at STOMP, so I would to share with you guys here.

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/viewContent.jsp?id=28603

The guy in the picture really 'pushes boundaries" to the new limit and making a loud fashion statement, may not be in the good way though.

I have questions to ask.

1. How did his front hold up? The back had slipped till so low, how could the front hold position then?

2. Did he feel cold or chill with his 'full moon'? Especially considering the air-con in our MRT trains is really cold.

Ahhh...Never mind, he provided lots of entertainment to people who saw this, free entertainment somemore, so don't complain....:D

Change of Address

Title: Change of Address
Author: Lee Langley
Publisher: Mandarin Paperbacks 1995

It is a story of a mother and daughter, set in the background of the first half of the last century, before, during & after WWII in both India & Britain.

There are two interesting aspects of this book.

First, the historical background of the story. It was a time when the British empire went from the empire of never setting sun to a sun set. With Gandhi leading the independence movement in India, British were finding it less & less to rule this colony. More and more violence against the British. Eventually, as everybody also knows, the British left this Asia sub-continent and returned to their home land. The author didn't depict the events directly, but rather, through a little girls eyes, and mouth, uttered out what life was like for an ordinary British family in that country, at that time.

Second, the book, in great detail, describes a mother who is lazy, over-spending, over-zealous, a woman of no honour, ignorant, negligent about her duty as a mother.

As a whole, I don't like this novel very much. It is a bit boring, not something joyful to read.

Ebene Bio-ray Knee Guard

Since I started to lead a more 'active' life a month ago, what I feared most happened again. My knees. There are pains in them again. I thought my knee pain had been cured but it obviously was not true. Those so-called 'joint food' don't seem to have much effect on me at all. So this time, I decided to try out those new bio-ray knee guard.

Bought a pair on Sat at the price of S$69.30. It is said to have the following efficacies:

1. Stimulate blood and oxygen circulation in knee & leg
2. Promotes metabolism and enhances energy
3. Revitalizes cells, and strengthens bone & soft tissues
4. Relieves knee problems
5. Eliminates water retention in knee & leg

I don't know how actually it works, but for the 5 stated benefits above, I can testify 1, from my 1.5 days experience. It seems like it does stimulate the blood circulation. My knees feel warm (but not sure whether because I have an extra layer of cloth around them) now.

The product also claims guaranteed results after a few minutes, and in 7 days, relieve knee pain. I am only into the 2nd day, so still 5 more days to go before I can tell you whether it really relieve my knee pain. What I can say now is it does help a bit on my knees. They don't feel so cold as before.

By the way, my $69 investment can only last me a mere 9 months. After that, I have to get a new pair. So, within these 9 months, I must make full use of the pair. Hopefully I can also let my mum try. She has worse knee problem than me, so the effect should be more pronounced.

Stay tuned for the results....

Hellboy II - The Golden Army

Watched Hellboy II today at Cathay Causeway Point.

The movie is not bad. It has all the ingredients of a pop movie. Love, romance, emotions, conspiracy, magic, and of course, lots of fighting. It provides lots of entertainment and will not bore you out.

With such a nice movie, you would expect me to enjoy it very much, but to the contrary, I didn't. Not because the movie is bad, but because people are bad.

10 minutes into the movie, I suddenly smell some bad odour. At first I suspected it was my friend who was sitting right next to me. Then after a while, my friend moved from the seat on my left to the seat on my right. He said the couple behind him had bad odour. After that, I asked my friend to move to the right by one more seat so that I could move too. After all these movement, we could still smell the odour! Finally we moved to another row, seperated by the isle.

The smell was like someone having bad breath, or the smell of vomit. It was disgusting.

Double Exposure

Title: Double Exposure
Author: Carol Smith
Publisher: Warner Books (Reprinted 1999)

Carol Smith obviously has a keen eye for modern life, urban life of the singles above 30, to be more precise. In her novel, she softly describes what those people's life is like to great details.

The apartment was still and as silent as she had left it, the morning
mail strewn across the breakfast counter but no friendly message light
winking to welcome her home. ..... What sort of a life was this, working
all hours yet with nothing to come home to?

Does this lament of Merrily, a high-flyer at Chase Manhattan Bank, sound familiar to you?

What a pathetic pair we are, to be sure, she sometimes reflected as she
microwaved her solitary supper while she watched EastEnders. Working
ourselves into an early grave, letting real life pass us by.

This is another description that I like. Realistic reflection of the modern urban life.

The story started with Jo, a junior medical doctor having holidays alone in a West Indies island. She got to meet news friends Vincent, Lowell, Jessica, Merrily, and mother & daughter Cora Louise & Fontaine. They hit off with each other well, and a tradition began for them to meet one week before Christmas at the same island every year. As they got closer with each other, they started to visit each other's home and had gatherings in different parts of the world.

Just when you think everything is rosy & cosy, a murder mystery had already been woven into the story seemlessly. First it was Vincent, then Jo's ex-boyfriend, Sebastian, was murdered. Merrily was cheated and was fired by Mother Chase. Bad things happened to the group. Hints were given along the way, but the murder was only revealed at the very last chapter of the novel.

I must say this is well-written story.

Bottle Tree Restaurants

We had a farewell lunch at Bottle Tree Village at Sembawang the week before. The setting is not bad. Facing the dirty and smoky Strait of Johor, located deep into the jungle :) You won't be able to reach there unless you have your own transport or by Taxi. Outside the restaurant fence, you can see a sandy beach, with police post setup there, I guess ever since Mr Selamat's runaway.

In terms of food, they serve the typical Singapore style kampong seafood, which means prawns, chilli crab, etc. The typical stuff. One special dish maybe is their fish steam boat, with charcoal. However, I was not very pleased with this dish. The fish is fishy.

Then today, I went for a wedding lunch at Bottle Tree Park at Yishun. The setting is also the same rustic feel with fish/shrimp ponds around to entertain the customers at a price. It is a nice place to spend a lazy afternoon with family & friends fishing shrimps or fish or whatever you can catch in their ponds.

The wedding lunch was buffet. The food seemed to have been prepared long before our arrival and everything was cold. Food quality is acceptable but not fantastic. You can go there for the 'feel' but not really a place where you want to entertain your big account customer or your darling on important dates.

Overall, I can only give 3/5 to these two eating places.

Gay is fashionable

Fashion trends are set by 'far-sighted' people who want to make themselves rich. In these age of gay fashion, everybody wants to make some bucks out of it.

First it was the last emperor of China - Henry Puyi. Ah, everybody knows he didn't even touch his empress or concubines his whole life, which led to the tragic life of his empress Wanrong and his royal concubine's divorce case. This is at least fair.

Then things get more interesting. Some 'cultural' person wrote a book claiming the Chinese poet Quyuan, the one who we remember for during Duanwu festival, was gay. The poet committed suicide because his secret love of the King was not reciprocated. His disappointment with the King was the reason for his death.

As if this is not enough. Another 'cultural' person came up with theories that the early emperors of the east Han Dynasty were all gays, including the famous Emperor Han Wu. It was said his love for his general Wei Qing was the reason why he made Wei Qing's sister empress.

Looks like our 'cultural' people need to dig out gold from the dead. Once a report claimed that Napoleon IS (note: this is present tense) still providing a living for many many people, including those researching on the truth of his death.

There are thousands of ways to make a living. Mysterious death of famous people, some ambiguity, some grey area, some creativity will last you a long way....

Haha.....