The Eve Of The 42nd National Day

A month ago in my "Xiao Ren Wu De Xin Sheng (Voices From The Heart)" entry, I touched on "IF" I were to run for politics in Singapore.

It's actually a daydream of mine to visualise what kind of MP I would become.

It would be a calling to serve the people. However, there are the people of the constituency that I represent and there are the people of the country. While there is an overlap, the perspective and motivation from these two angles are vastly different.

Singapore has seen a lot of changes over the years. We struggled initially during the 60s and 70s but we started to ascend rapidly during the 80s and 90s. Lyrics from songs like "Stand Up For Singapore", "One People, One Nation, One Singapore", "Count On Me Singapore" as well as "Five Stars Arising" were cheesy and tacky at best but yet I remembered we sung them with a lot of heart as we believed every word.

Sadly, this feeling is fast fading despite the Gahmen's consistent good marks on the report card. Quite an irony considering the fact this is the very same Gahmen that guided us safely through the Asian financial crisis and yet the discontent is outbreaking like a bad case of acne.

Why is that?

I was watching the movie "Hot Fuzz" and the answer came right up.

Everything was done and implemented in the name of the "greater good". While that may ring true, has the Gahmen ever consult the feelings and opinions of the people that pay their salary?

Everything just go ahead and do. Integrated Resort, GST, ERP just to name a few. Ever paused to check what the people have to say?

Harlow? Eat glass grow up one har? Transparent har?

Yah lah.... everything they say is for the greater good but got check at what price or not? The common people all end up like sacrificial pawns. Machiam our suffering is mere collateral damage to win the greater war.

Then came the latest buzzword. Elites. It is machiam like all these new initiatives are first and foremost for the benefits of the elites and then we get whatever's leftover from there. To top it off, we have to be eternally grateful to the Elites and promise them our corneas, kidneys, livers (unless we opt out).

OK, enough about that and coming back to my day dream. To me, running to be an MP is about the people in my constituency that I represent. Something that Low Thia Kiang and Chiam See Tong has demonstrated to great effect.

For me, I would move and live in my constituency, even if it means paying rental for the entire 5 year of my tenure. More if re-elected. That way, if your rubbish chute is choked. My rubbish chute is choked. If your car is vandalised, my car probably suffers the same fate as well. If your elevator has piss, my elevator has piss.

Ok, I think you get the picture liao.

I would want to be where my people are, drink what my people drink and breathe what my people breathe.
Perhaps I would make a very unambitious politician where I am perhaps simply contented to be a Kampung Chief, enjoying a void deck wedding, rather that climbing my way to a ministerial post. But one thing is for sure, I will refused to go via the GRC backdoor. If want to run, let's do a one-to-one showdown if need be. Not interested in riding the PM, or MM or SM or whateverM's ticket.

Whatever it may be, this is all but a daydream for I foresee my chances of entering politics as close to zero.
Too many scandals lah! =P

Image Credits: https://www.gettyimages.com, http://www.imdb.com

- Voxeros

1. Gary left...

Wednesday, 8 August 2007 8:55 pm

what worries me at the moment is the income gap.. the poor get poorer.. the rich get richer..

2. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 9 August 2007 2:59 pm :: 

Gary: Well, there are 2 types of poor here. One is those who have met with unfortunate circumstances and got beaten down. The other is those who just sit around whine all day about their misfortune. Instead of doing something about it, they just sit around waiting for Gahmen handouts.

I will refuse help to the latter and let them carry on to be poor.

3. sunflower left...

Tuesday, 14 August 2007 11:38 am

I heart Chiam See Tong and Goh Chok Tong and our late president, Ong Teng Cheong. These are all people minister... work for ppl not themselves =)

4. JayWalk left...

Tuesday, 14 August 2007 1:10 pm :: 

Sunflower: Unfortunately, they are near the twilight of their respective careers and I don't see any of the new MPs coming close to what they had achieved.

Walnut To Vegas

In continuation to my earlier entry, I was to embark on a solo drive from Walnut, CA to Las Vegas, NV. My plan was to set off at about 9:30am so that I could arrive at Barstow at around lunch time where I would take a break and go shopping.

During my last trip, I regretted not picking up the 4-PC Samsonite luggage set for USD 299.00. Back then, I was thinking that my current luggage is still in pretty good shape and as such don't see a need to buy new luggage. Besides, I paid full retail for the last one. Well, the luggage is 7 years old and I think it has seen the best of its days. Time to pick up the deal.

And that's when it struck me.

Will the deal still be there after 2 years? Probably not. I was telling myself that perhaps they would have something else in place by then.

As it turned out, Mercantile Way didn't show up on my GPS navigation and I believe the reason for that was that the road was new and the map hasn't been updated since the car was driven out of the VW showroom. The closest on the database was "Barstow Mall" and I thought what the heck, it's probably the same place anyway. Even if not, there would be signs to get me there anyway given the the Outlet Mall, as I last recalled, was a pretty big place.

Wrong.

On hindsight, I made 2 mistakes.

1. The place was not at Barstow but an exit earlier (6 miles) before Barstow Mall i.e. I overshot. As it turned out, Barstow Mall was an entirely different place and when I pulled into the carpark, it felt like a ghost town as there were only a couple of cars in the big parking lot and none of the shops opened.
   
   
2. The place I wanted to goto was not Barstow Outlet, which incidentally, was close to being a ghost town as well. The place that I wanted to go was Tanger Outlet which fortunately was just across the street from Barstow Outlet. I think the ghost town effect from Barstow Outlet and Barstow Mall was because everybody moved to the new and spanking Tanger Outlet location.

Anyway, the 4-PC set offer was long gone but fortunately, there was a new deal in town, a 3-PC Samsonite Luggage set for USD 199.00 (will show picture here later tonight).

After circling the town for about 15 minutes, I gave up the search and pulled into a local diner for a quick lunch before setting off to the second half of my journey.

The second half of the journey was tougher in the terrain-sense where I had to cross the Death Valley before embarking on a 15-mile hill climb. Thank the stars for my V8 engine as I descent to 280-below sea-level before climbing up to over 4,000 ft above sea-level easily overtaking everybody.

Also thanks to Kev's ValentineOne radar detector that allowed me to spot a radar gun from a safe distance away to allow me to slow down to within legal speed limits. Otherwise, I was maintaining a comfortable cruise speed of between 110 to 120 mph (180 to 190 km/h). One thing I have to say about this ValentineOne is that the bladdy thing is damn accurate and the range was damn long. The thing started to beep and I instinctively slowed down and shifted to the right lane, obediently following the rest of the traffic in front of me. I traveled for quite a distance and was wondering if it had been a false alarm before a police car popped into side hiding behind an overhead bridge. Naturally, I drove past it under the radar both literally and figuratively. Another thing I like about it was that it was able to differentiate between real radar gun signals and false positives. Otherwise, I would have to slow down whenever I pass through a town, especially one with shopping centers in it.

Anyway, given that this is the second road trip into Vegas from Los Angeles, there is nothing more to cover from my last trip.

This time round I got a room at the Monte Carlo for a great USD 89.00 per night bargain and they put me on the 31st floor. Woot! The view was fantastic from up there. Click on the picture to enlarge.

More to cover in tomorrow's entry. Stay tuned. 

Image Credit: www.valentine1.com

- Voxeros

1. Ed, Edd & Eddy left...

Tuesday, 7 August 2007 1:28 pm :: http://eddyteo.blogspot.com

Yo, that radar thing is damn cool man. Does it work in detecting speed cameras in Singapore? Not that I'm always speeding. Erm, just asking :P

2. JayWalk left...

Tuesday, 7 August 2007 3:12 pm :: 

Ed: Only if the speed gun is a microwave gun that is commonly used by the mobile traffic police. Mind you, it is illegal in Singapore to be using such a device.

In short, it does not guard you against static detectors like red light cameras. Spitlanders however has an ingenious solution to that. Since the cameras are all static i.e. fixed location, the locations are all uploaded into a database and you buy their GPS device that memorises all the locations. As and when you are about to approach one of the cameras that is listed in their database, the GPS will voice out a warning.

"Ahead 100m, static speed camera approaching, please keep below the limited of 110 km/h."

3. An left...

Wednesday, 8 August 2007 10:51 am :: http://www.xanga.com/aloeve

SG Gps also tells u that there's a speed cam ahead. but as mentioned, I think that's only for the static/stationery type bah... Anyway, that's only for some GPS sys, not all.
I was also thinking tt the radar gun is illegal in sg but it would be so cool to have it. Arwww.... wasted
That's really a nice view from the hotel room! Unblocked! It would probably fetch a premium price if it's a sg house. LOL!!

4. JayWalk left...

Wednesday, 8 August 2007 4:04 pm :: 

An: At USD 89 a nite, it was certainly a steal. Hopefully, I can get the same rate again come January but I seriously doubt so as Vegas summer rates are lower in general.

5. Kelly left...

Wednesday, 8 August 2007 5:18 pm :: http://www.kellchan.blogspot.com/

Wah! You high roller ah!
Get such a good room plus cheap room rate!!!

6. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 9 August 2007 3:01 pm :: 

Kelly: High roller is defined as a player who bets USD 200 minimum a pop. I am a USD 25 level player and hardly qualifies as a high roller.

Then again, high rollers get their rooms for free.

I just happened to know the right people at the right time at the right place.

Lucky.

Volkswagen Touareg

I arrived in Los Angeles, en route to Las Vegas when Kev told me that there was a change in plans with the itinerary.

Originally, the plan was for me to fly in on Friday and we drive in together with his S65 AMG, taking turns to cover the 245-mile (394km) journey.

As it turned out, he was leaving for Las Vegas that very afternoon and leaving me the keys to his spare VW Touareg.

I took it for a spin and it was a wonderful piece of work. V8 engine to give you the power you need on the highways and despite the clunky appearance of a typical SUV, this is certainly no slow poke and certainly very limber.

Word has it that the VW Touareg rolls off the same assembly line as the Porsche Cayenne which, if anyone remembered, was a car I was closed to driving on one of my earlier trips. Too bad. I guess this is as close as driving a Porsche as I'd ever get.

Anyway, the interiors are very well done and sans the sunroof, Kev got all the options installed. My only gripe in particular is the GPS taking a darn long time to initiate when you are starting up the car. Still, while it still may be faster than the Kev's wife's Mercedes Benz CL500 but only because the latter's GPS software on board the CL500 was faulty.

Software wise, Mercedes Benz' GPS software is still far superior to that of this VW and the BMW. In general, both will still get you to the destination but it is the Mercedes Benz' attention to details that won me over. One particular example would be that after you key in the City, Street and House Number of your destination, typical GPS navigation would simply tell you that you are reached your destination when you eventually get there. Mercedes Benz' software goes a step further and tell you that your destination is on the left side or right side of the road. This is especially useful when you are unfamiliar with the place and you are driving really slowly coz you can't find the exact spot as you are looking at the wrong side of the road.

Anyway, coming back, while V8 means power, it also means gas guzzling. V8 + SUV = Get Ready To Sell A Kidney. I just fueled up last night ahead of today's trip and an almost full tank (from just below the 1/4 mark) cost me USD 61.00 (SGD 92.17) for 20.7 gallons (76 litres) @ USD 3.039 per gallon (SGD 1.213 per litre). If were in Singapore where the petrol prices are higher, I'd be sure I would be staring at 3 figures everytime I were to fill it up. Ouch.

SUV is definitely a No-No for me if I had a choice. I still think a fuel efficient car is the way to go. Good for the pocket and good for the environment.

Will update more when I start my journey into Las Vegas. I pray for journey's mercy.

- Voxeros

1. spinnee left...

Monday, 30 July 2007 9:20 am

gas prices sucks. y the fuck they keep raising gas prices...ARGH!! hehehe
take care in LA hor...^_

2. slurp! left...

Wednesday, 1 August 2007 12:08 am

WOW! S65 AMG! that's obscene amount of power & $$$ ;P so is Bentley or Maybach his next target?

3. JayWalk left...

Wednesday, 1 August 2007 3:09 am :: 

Spinnee: It is artificially inflated to feed the greed of the oil companies but prices are due to come up even if they stayed honest for fossil fuel is being depleted faster than they are being form at the rate that we are using.

slurp!: Ahhh... finally someone who recognises an AMG. The next car could well be a Bentley or a Ferrari, although not in the immediate future. I will keep everyone posted as soon as I get a chance to test drive it.

Anyway, I am in Las Vegas now and we have swapped cars. I will be driving the S65 AMG back to L.A. later this week. =)

4. Pam left...

Wednesday, 1 August 2007 5:52 pm

Am sure you know this already, but Europe is already paying alot for petrol/diesel. at the mo, we're looking at close to 1 pound (SGD3) per litre. I filled up from almost empty tank last week and it cost me 40+ pounds (> SGD120). The good thing is, my car's pretty good at being fuel efficient (40 miles/gallon). Germany is not far behind in the costs (hence why those living near borders go 'across' to eastern europe to fill up - abit like the singaporean habit oh...10 years ago before the govt stepped in?!!). Unfortunately, most of it is tax and profit though... so the only pple who benefit are the oil co and the govts....We were recently in America where we hired a car and the cost of refueling was ridiculously low, to be honest. and this cost difference has nothing to do with standards of living.

5. Kelly left...

Wednesday, 1 August 2007 6:46 pm :: http://www.kellchan.blogspot.com/

Arghhhhh... I miss Las Vegas!!!
Miss the roller coaster ride at New York, Treasure Island and Bellagio!!!

6. slurp! left...

Thursday, 2 August 2007 12:20 am

Ferrari? that a totally different class of car all together leh? BRABUS tuned V12 S Biturbo comes with 750hp .. madness!!!
anyway, this AMG IS definitely bloody FAST, no doubt about it! But I'm really more interested in their very advanced active suspension system. i read that there is a switch that allows you to select amount of body roll you want to reduce.
i think, sometimes, small body roll are desirable as a feedback especially when driven to the extreme
Coolz!... can wait for your updates on the AMG. Drive safely :D

7. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 2 August 2007 1:52 pm :: 

Pam: Well, let's put it this way. I am sure the oil companies have contributed a lot of money into the politician's campaign fund allowing them to get into and become part of the gahmen successfully.

Kelly: Wanted to catch Penn & Teller but my kakis all not interested leh. Other than hitting the tables, I have a cool outing last night at the Roof Bar at Rio (51st floor). Excellent view. Legs got a bit wobbly when I got too close to the side.

Slurp!: No reviews on the S65 AMG this time as I have covered it liao. Click the link in the entry for the review. This time round it was a laid back drive as I maintain the speed at a modest 110 mph (180 km/h).

When it comes to climb up slope from 0 to 4000+ ft above sea level over a distance of 15 miles, I was comfortably overtaking everybody.

Oh yah, we also equipped the car with the ValentineOne, that was super accurate when it comes to detecting traffic police's radar gun. I encountered 3 of them along the way and they were 2 miles ahead which gave me ample time to slow down and avoid getting booked.

Oh My God Coding Bug

We have a security CCTV system network at the factory all the cameras feed video signals back to the server to record onto the harddisk for archive purposes.

One day the recording software crashed as the images on the master monitor (where you can view all the camera feeds on a single screen) froze.

As I went to reset the server and I found out what caused the crash.

It was the "Oh My God" coding bug.

Mann... these SpitLand software programmers have a strange sense of humour. LOL.

- Voxeros

1. Gary left...

Friday, 27 July 2007 12:44 am

lol.. any thought of sending the bug back as "smlj coding bug"??

2. JayWalk left...

Friday, 27 July 2007 1:50 am :: 

Gary: Well, it will take a programmer to hide an easter egg like that. Unfortunately, I don't have the coding know-how to pull something like this.
 

Interesting Restaurant

There is a new restaurant just outside my place and we decided to go check it out over dinner a few Sundays ago. As we entered, we saw rows and rows of these red things.

Wanna make a guess what they are?

Find out the answer in the comments section.

- Voxeros

1. JayWalk left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:40 pm :: 

It is a claypot restaurant and the red coloured "buckets" are actually claypots. The glass receptacles in the lower rolls are claypot soup boilers whereas the ones on the top are claypot (hidden) rice cookers.

Only difference here is that the clay in the claypot is of a different kind that the ones that we are more familiar with as in the picture below.

The clay used here is known as Purple Clay (紫砂 or 朱砂) and we more often find them in the 泡茶 teapots that is especially popular among the older folks in Ta1wan.

As the fare are mostly steamed and very little oil is used, the food is much healthier as most Spitland food are very heavy in oil.

Image Credit: http://www.zisha.cn, http://www.gourmetsleuth.com

2. An left...

Wednesday, 25 July 2007 12:09 pm :: http://www.xanga.com/aloeve

ooo.. I tot it's some herbal stuff... :)

3. Old Beng left...

Wednesday, 25 July 2007 3:17 pm

The food nice bo?
I fit is good, can share the venue?

4. okiedokie left...

Wednesday, 25 July 2007 4:04 pm

though is claypot, i still prefer those cooked over charcoal..somehow the soup just taste nicer bcoz all the essence of the ingredients go into the soup (probably due to longer duration as compared to electricity)...
now i wanna eat claypot rice..esp after yesternite show showing claypot rice at chinatown... *drooling*

5. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 26 July 2007 7:43 am :: 

An: Yup, it sure does look like one of those "Liang Teh" shops.

Old Beng The food is not bad and the service is excellent but lest you forget I am in Spitland? The restaurant is in ChangAn. Do you come up to this part of the world often? ]
okiedokie: You already won me over when you said the word charcoal. Everything is nice when it is done over charcoal e.g. kaya toast.

But the way I feel about this, granted that both are technically claypot, you cannot put the two together for comparison as they are apples and oranges. Both have they one distinctive characteristic.

Yah, I too am craving for claypot rice right now. ~growl

6. slurp! left...

Friday, 27 July 2007 9:27 pm

we can get both type here (aiyah, there are generally made in china also hahaha...) the bottom is essentially a double boiler for stewing soup.
you can't get crispy charred rice when cooked with this methods, the heat is too gentle.

7. JayWalk left...

Saturday, 28 July 2007 3:00 pm :: 

Slurp!: My favourite is still the latter and I love especially the burnt part of the rice. I am so going to die of cancer from all the carcinogens I am consuming.

More Flying Woes

More news of air mishaps and what better timing than mere days before I am about to fly? Liew.....

First was an Aero Republica skidded off the runway and ended nose down into the sea.
Reports says that the runway was extremely wet and my speculation is that the poor water drainage system may have been the main culprit on top of the fact that this regional airport's runway length is significantly shorter than that of international airport standards. The runway length at Santa Marta's Simon Bolivar airport is 5,575 ft as compared to Bogota's El Dorado International Airport's 9,850 ft.

Related News:

• XinHua News (17 Jul 2007) - Passenger Jet Skids Off Runway In Colombia
• Mercury News (18 Jul 2007) - Colombia Considers Relocating Airport

Fortunately, there were no fatalities as casualty count was at a lucky 7. However, the same cannot be said of the landing crash in San Paulo, Brazil where the plane landed, skidded off the runway and slamming into a gas station. All 189 passengers on board perished in a great big fireball.

Related News:

• Prensa Latina (21 Jul 2007) -  Brazil's Plane Crash Death Toll Reaches 187
• Yahoo News (18 Jul 2007) - Brazil Plane Crash May Haunt Government

For both incidents, I noticed a common denominator. Both were a result of short runway length with a wet slippery surface.

It was said that the Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport was nicknamed The Aircraft Carrier due to its difficulty to land - that if the plane did not touch down within the first 1,000 ft of the tarmac, the plane must pull and and retry to land again or risk overshooting the short stretch of a mere 6,362 ft of runway.

All these kinda reminded me of the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport where a Ch1na Airline plane did overshoot and landed in the sea back in 1993.

Speaking of Kai Tak Airport, here's a YouTube clip to see how the plane needs to land if it is assigned to land at RunWay 13. Runway 13 is famous for the fact that the plane needs to make a 47-degree right turn in the middle of descend in order to line up with the runway due to the hilly terrain surrounding the airport. The clip shows a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 making the landing but only barely.

Image Credits: http://www.china.org.cn, http://www.airdisaster.com

- Voxeros

1. Gary left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:26 am

Controller: "Flight xx, you are required to land at runway 13!" Pilot: "wah lan eh.. im not that skilled as the japanese pilot in the youtube video leh!"

2. JayWalk left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 2:49 pm :: 

Gary: Most runways have ILS (Instrument Landing System) for the planes to engage "auto-landing" i.e. letting control tower land the plane remotely.


However, due to the terrain surrounding runway 13, plane have to deploy a Visual Approach where the plane will have to look for a small hill checker-marked in red and white (middle marker) where they make an 47 degree right turn upon reaching the marker in order to line up with the runway to make the landing.

Take a bit of skill but nevertheless nothing that the pilots aren't trained for.

3. Pam left...

Wednesday, 25 July 2007 12:27 am

well, I thought about that when I was in Munich on Friday for a day meeting. Our flight back to London was cancelled due to really bad weather (you might have seen/read the flooding in parts of UK and lots of rain). Thankfully, they gave us a hotel room for the night, free dinner etc (even though I didn't have a change of clothes or anything else). Sometimes when it's seen as 'an act of God', they tell you that you just have to hang out at the airport! I got back eventually on Saturday afternoon.

4. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 26 July 2007 7:37 am :: 

Pam: Here's the thing that a lot of passengers do get when they whine and kick up a big ruckus about flight delays and cancellations. It was done to keep you alive.

Only problem is that I personally get frustrated when airline staff deliberately act stupid and keep quiet in their attempt to withhold information. I would have appreciated more if they were more forthcoming and tell us exactly what is going on.

5. Pam left...

Thursday, 26 July 2007 7:28 pm

We didn't kick up a fuss - and everyone got a hotel room, so that was fine. I guess the process could have been a bit faster but hey, at least we were stuck in Germany. I honestly think if we were in a London airport, it would have been a whole lot worse... without a hotel, without food ...much worse.

6. hiaoauntie left...

Friday, 27 July 2007 12:57 am

kai tak airport was known to be one of the world's most challenging airports to land... many times the pilots were damn scared about ending up in the sea... anyway, usually airlines used the more experienced pilots when landing in HK... it used to be that Cathay Pacific had some of the most capable pilots in the world (due to the numerous landing attempts and practice) and they were paid alot too! anyway, now they have the new airport.....

7. JayWalk left...

Friday, 27 July 2007 1:56 am :: 

Pam: Actually, we, if not most of us sans the whiny arseholes, all understand the delays and even the cancellations. Unfortunately, it is the condescending attitude of the airline staff that pisses everybody off.

hiaoauntie: Chap Lap Kok is definitely a much improved airport over Kai Tak. Unfortunately, cross-winds still proved to be a very dangerous challenge for pilots. I was there at the airport when a Ch1na Airline MD-11 flipped over as it failed to land safely.
 

Guess Her Job

I have been at the local land office dealing with some title deed issue over the past few weeks. Due to the efficiency (or rather than lack of) of the already horrendous red tapes that I had to waddle through, it was really exhausting having to make numerous trips. Something as trivia as a typo error means having to make a trip up there.

And to avoid the people jam, we made it a point to go there first thing in the morning and wait for them to open. Funny thing is that while the official hours states 8:30am, you see people behind the glass window walking around, some on MSN, some surfing for web shopping sites. Even the lady at the counter where you stood facing her, ignored you. I guess it's the same for gahmen offices all over the world. Not exclusively just SpitLand.

Problem is since you need them more than they need you and so figuratively, they got you by the balls. You stand there stoically constantly reminding yourself not to make so much of a squeak to piss the NICE lady at the counter off.

As I stood there, my eyes started to wander as I looked around to kill the boredom while waiting for the NICE lady sitting in front of me behind the glass window to be good and ready. That's when I saw this girl sitting in the corner.

I didn't see her sitting there for the first 2 visits but she was there for the rest of my visits.

Guess what her job is.

Click on comments for the answer and the continuation of this story.

- Voxeros

1. JayWalk left...

Monday, 23 July 2007 9:11 am :: 

The answer?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Her designation indicated that she was a customer service officer which I am guessing means to help the applicants fill in the various forms as well as handle the various enquires. I supposed this is targeted at the older folks whom many received little or no education.

However, what I have observed was that she just sat there in the corner doing nothing. Read a book perhaps? I have not seen her get off her ass and ask any of the applicants if they needed assistance.

Perhaps it was already known that the customer service officer is as good as useless that the applicants also don't bother to approaching her either.

How is that for a job? VP, Special Projects. Sorry, your project not special enough. Cannot helpchoo. Sorlie.

2. An left...

Monday, 23 July 2007 9:36 am :: http://www.xanga.com/aloeve

har?! I tot she sit there paste paste paste stuff nia.... Sit there do nothing? Wah... like that super boring leh. How to pass each day? So sianz!

3. Meepoktah Maihiam left...

Monday, 23 July 2007 1:48 pm

Atchery, I thought she is the official stamp licker or a queue number crier. "lumber 23, who ah? Your turn now !!"

4. Gary left...

Monday, 23 July 2007 2:46 pm

i tot she was a person who is reading those documents that got typo error and reject back to you guys.. but doing nothing yet can earn a salary.. i cant do that..

5. JayWalk left...

Monday, 23 July 2007 5:38 pm :: 

An: When I took that picture, I believed she was reading some book. It was quite thin and so I don't think it was Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows.

Meepok: Nope. Not stamps and neither is she a queue caller. SpitLanders don't queue.

Gary: Salary or not. Ask me sit one place don't do anything, I'd go crazy.

6. slurp! left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 1:03 am

is she pretty? she might have gotten that easy job via her good connections?

7. Ruok left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 10:24 am

dang my guess is she's a porn actress.

8. JayWalk left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 10:39 am :: 

slurp!: She is normal looking but I seriously doubt if she got the job via special connections coz imagine a bank where everyone is behind the glass and she being the only one on the outside.

More like being tekan than having special privileges.

ruok: Dang..... you and your Spitland hairy armpit fetish........ sheesh.....

Recycle vs Recycle

Spitland has been recently commended for their efforts in recycling paper and successfully stemming the depletion of trees for paper.

Read article here.

BUT.

While the Spitlanders are to be applauded, there is a bunch of unscrupulous people taking "recycling" a step too far and risking the lives of their fellow countrymen. All for the greed to make money.

These bastards are going to burn in hell.

I am referring to the recent exposé of mixing cardboard into the filling of buns. Mind you, these are cardboards that were picked off the streets. I suspect is these guys got the street bums/beggars/garang guni men to bring them the cardboard from the garbage and then paying them by the kg. Next step in the recipe is to soak them in industrial caustic soda (also known as Sodium Hydroxide NaOH) to accelerate the decomposition i.e. softening of the cardboard, which is toxic to the human body.

A formula of 60% cardboard and 40% fatty meat is then mixed together to be the filling for the buns before going into the steamer.

What pisses me off was the manufacturer's comment where he said he wouldn't eat them. This comes to show that he is aware that the buns are not fit for human consumption and yet he was selling them to the unsuspecting public?

According to R3gular, this has been going on for years (I can't verify this though) and I wonder how many lives have been lost from this?

WTF??

Has this guy no conscience? These idiots ought to be shot. I'll pay for the bullets.



Check out the video clip here (Microsoft Internet Explorer only. Firefox not supported)

and

Here.

Related News:

• CNN (12 Jul 2007) - Chinese Food Made From Cardboard 

 
Afternote: As it turned out, the above report was a fake. The whole story was staged by a reporter (perhaps for the sake of boosting TV ratings?). As if things aren't bad enough already as Spitland as been reeling from a recent spates of tainted food incidents and now we have a dishonest journalist sparking a public panic with a stunt like this.

Well, good news is that this reporter together with a few other collaborators have been arrested and will be charged in court soon. I think a prison sentence is unavoidable. Only a matter of how long.

Related News:

• The Star (18 Jul 2007) - Reporter Detained For Faking Cardboard Bun Story.
• CNN (19 Jul 2007) -  China Reporter Held Over Cardboard-In-Buns Story.
• Ch1na Daily (19 Jul 2007) - TV Report On Cardboard Buns 'Fabricated'.

Image Credit: http://www.cnn.com, http://english.aljazeera.net

- Voxeros

More Lake Woes

If you think 100,000 kg worth of fish is a lot, wait till you see 2,200,000,000 field mice (by my calculation should weigh a total of 88,000,000 kg!).

With heavy fall in recent months, has flooded the burrows that the mice usually live and as a result is forcing them to come further inland and chomping their way through the crops AND not to mention furiously multiplying along the way.

The locals are setting dike walls and ditches to trap these mice and imagine a ditch of 30 to 60 cm filled with swarming mice.

Imagine the ditch as a stream with brown water and quick ripples. Problem is that the brown water are actually the brown mice and the quick ripples are just the energetic squirming of the mice.

On the bright side, the field mice are not as harmful as their city cousins as far as diseases are concerned but given that they are moving nearer and nearer towards civilisation, we have a potential plague time bomb on our hands and that is after that have devoured all the crops meant for human consumption supply. Imagine famine and plague striking at the same time?

Reports says that so far 90 tonnes of mice has been killed and again by my calculation, that probably accounts for 0.1% of the mice problem. I won't be surprise that if you throw all the cats into the ditch, it would be the cats ending up as food rather than the other way round.

• NBC News (20 Jul 2007) - Mmm, Rodents! China Feasts On Rat Infestation

And true to the spirit of the Ch1nese of eating everything, news reports are popping out several days later where restaurants in Guangd0ng are putting these mice back on their tables, given that they are now so cheap, so abundant and so FRESH!

Ewwwwwwwwww...

Actually, if you seriously thing about it, all these are just our own doing. With the snakes entirely harvested for the restaurants, the mice have thus no more natural enemies to keep their population in check. We messed with Mother Nature by breaking the natural order of the food chain and now we are paying the price for it with the invasion of billions of mice.

Rats. (No pun intended).

Afternote: A later report said that the number of mice is set to rise even further as we enter the monsoon months starting August, where the water level in D0ngT1ng Lake, from the increase rainfall is likely to rise even further and thus, forcing even more mice to surface.

Siao Liao.

"If Adam and Eve had been Ch1nese" - Click here to enlarge
 

p.s. My thanks to Little Dowager* for introducing Wulffmorgenthaler. I love it!

Image Credit: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/, http://www.scmp.com; http://www.wulffmorgenthaler.com

 - Voxeros

1. Lil Dow left...

Thursday, 19 July 2007 2:18 pm :: http://littledowager.blogsome.com

I sure if they replace all chicken with mice and sell them cheap cheap, this problem will be old news in a week.
bet they taste just like chicken. ;)

2. Kelly left...

Thursday, 19 July 2007 7:51 pm :: http://kellchan.blogspot.com/

I hate rats!!!

3. akk left...

Thursday, 19 July 2007 9:39 pm

what's wrong with eating them? they feed on grain and crops. don't waste the protein mah, better to eat them rather than just kill them.

4. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 19 July 2007 10:06 pm :: 

Little Dowager*: I recall a news article a few years ago where they use alley rats and cut them up, dye them and roast them to look like roasted pigeon.

In Ta1wan, there used to be push carts where they operate a dice gaming stall. Win and you get their grill sausages. It has been rumoured that some of these stalls use alley rat meat to make those sausages.

Kelly: Yeah. Me too. Not a big fan. I use to trap rats when I was living in landed property. Cage traps are definitely better than the snap traps. The latter can get very messy.

Akk: Yes they may be field mice but given the badly polluted environment that they are breeding in, I don't think it's a good idea to be consuming these critters.

5. slurp! left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 1:19 am

eeeeeeeeeek, they don't bite back? minced them & make into dumplings, let's it don't look that gross hahahaha

6. JayWalk left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 10:41 am :: 

slurp!: Mice are generally timid. The "bite back" one are usually the larger rats but only when threatened. Very rare though.

Blue Algae Blues

While we are on the topic of the sorry state of rivers and lakes in Spitland as per yesterday's entry, let me take you to Wux1 where the crisis is even more severe. While WuHàn's problem only threatened the local marine life (can you use the word "marine" since it is fresh water and not sea water?), Wux1's problem has escalated all the way to threatening human existence.

Ok, Ok, not like people are dying or going to die but at the very least we have already taken that alarming first step towards it already. Not good.

The growth spike of the blue algae is a combination of polluted waste discharges into the lake and coupled with the strong summer weather. While blue algae itself is not harmful except that it starves the water of oxygen, it is only when the algae dies that the problem starts. Dead blue algae is toxic and smells of dead rotten corpse. This is when the water becomes unfit for human consumption. You can't even use the water to wash, let alone drink.

Sure, the local gahmen may have announced that the water crisis has been averted and that the water is now safe to drink, the known fact that the local gahmen has all along been a corrupt one seems to have shot all their credibility to bits.

Suuure it's safe. Riiiight...... let's see you drink it then, shall we?
 
The clip above tells of the current Wux1 situation with a little coverage at the back on the recent X1amen PX protest. (Read here for my earlier coverage)

Anyway (note how often the female narrator says AIR-NEE-WAY?), I shan't talk about the X1amen incident as that was over and done with. It was a victory for the people and the good news is that the central gahmen does listen to the people, but only if the people can get pass the suppression of the local gahmens. Still, with the central gahmen starting to sit up and take notice of the alarming increase of protests by their people against the corrupt local gahmens, you can be assured that cleaning up is in progress. It may be slow but at least it is moving in the right direction.

For that I salute the leaderships of Wen and Hu.

Related News: NBC News (31 May 2007) - Algae Smother Chinese Lake, Millions Panic

- Voxeros

1. slurp! left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 1:15 am

Terrible! i hope they find solutions for these environment & corruption issues soon

2. JayWalk left...

Tuesday, 24 July 2007 10:43 am :: 

Slurp!: Oh they are as we are reading busting cases on the papers pretty often. However, given the sheer number of cases out there, it is going to take a while to get them all resolved.

Only question is "a while" means how long?

Nobody knows, unfortunately.