浪漫满池

After seeing mommy watch all those 青春偶像剧, little Jaimie also felt inspired to partake in one too - one where she plays the female lead 黄小媛, who is an innocent, sometimes brash little girl who often indulges in daydreams about meeting her very own Prince Charming. The show is tentatively titled 《浪漫满池》. The undertaking is curently in its pilot episode.

And......ACTION!


Well, here I am. Again. At the pool of romance. Forlornly awaiting my Prince Charming to arrive and sweep me off my feet. I hold in my little hands my precious water-pistol, which I shall present to him, as a token of my feelings of admiration.

Wait. Who is this dashing visage that appears before me? Oh be still, my beating heart!


I've waiting for so long, and it would all be for naught if I have cold feet now. Well, here goes nothing!

Hello....erm....I'm Xiao-Yuan. Oh, please accept this little gift from me. It's my fav water pistol. Hope you like it~!


You're a strange little girl. So, what is it you want from me?


Erm....This may sound abrupt...See, my book of divinity tells me I'd meet my Prince Charming at this pool. I am wondering....Are you him?


Hahahaa! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! I'll keep the water pistol, but as for you, go home and take a look at the mirror ba!


You're a nasty little boy, arn't you? Well, at least now I'm sure you can't possibly be my Prince Charming (who's ever gentle and kind)! Keep the water pistol. And go shoot yourself! Hmmph!


Good thing I have a healthy stock of my fav water pistols! Hee hee!

********** End of Pilot Episode **********

"888" Tag

Thanks to our regular supplier of quality tags - MamaTang, for this latest one, which has no need for further elaborations or explanatory notes. Here we go.

EIGHT THINGS I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT
(Note: "Passionate" is too strong a word for me. I seriously don't think a regular guy such as myself can afford to be "passionate" about more than a couple of things at any particular phase in life. So, the list below are really stuff which I enjoy doing currently lah)

1. Movies
2. Comics
3. Karaoke
4. Photography
5. Electronic gadgets & gizmos
6. Music (Listening to and making)
7. Blogging
8. Fatherhood!

EIGHT THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE

1. Develop the virtue of patience
2. Read more (at least beyond my current literature of Movie/Parenting magazines)
3. Do more serious photography
4. Tour the Silk Road and Tibet with Angie
5. Come up with something of an heirloom to pass down to my daughter
6. Raise my daughter in the best manner I can
7. Be affirmed as a good daddy/hubby by my daughter/wife
8. Truly live Life.

EIGHT THINGS I SAY OFTEN

1. I'm hungry
2. I'm sleepy
3. I'm tired
4. Later, can?
5. Hoh seh boh?
6. Zoon boh?
7. NB
8. Oh, sh*t

EIGHT BOOKS I’VE RECENTLY READ
(Note1: "Recently" is defined in this context as "within the past year". Note2: "Read" shouldn't be confused with "Finished reading" )

1. Notes From an Even Smaller Island
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Learning to See Creatively
4. Super Supervisor Carekit
5. The Physics of Superheroes
6. A Briefer History of Time
7. Da Vinci's Code
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

EIGHT SONGS THAT I COULD LISTEN TO OVER AND OVER

1. 温柔
2. 时光机
3. 私奔到月球
4. 志明与春娇
5. 心中无别人
6. 最重要的小事
7. 憨人
8. Majulah Singapura

EIGHT THINGS THAT ATTRACT ME TO MY BEST FRIENDS

1. Trustworthyness
2. Integrity
3. Sense of humour
4. Punctuality
5. Common hobbies/ interests
6. Honesty
7. Sense of righteousness
8. 义气

EIGHT THINGS I’VE LEARNED THIS PAST YEAR

1. Shooting with a dSLR
2. Playing the electric bass
3. Creating an animated gif image
4. Conducting a Red Teaming exercise
5. That Parenthood is fun (!!)
6. That Parenthood is tiring
7. That Parenthood is a lifelong responsibility and commitment
8. That I'm undeserving of all the blessings that I've received this past year

EIGHT PEOPLE I THINK SHOULD DO CRAZY EIGHT MEME

If there is one more thing that I can add to the immediate 8-list above, it'd be that I've learnt that I do not have 8 persons whom I can forward a Tag to after completing one. So, this shall have to be the end of the road for this particular Tag.

HUAT AH !!!

Bad Moon Rising

Ice-cream? What ice-cream? Who cares about ice-cream when there's the full moon to howl to?

AWWOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo

You Are a Werewolf

You're unpredictable, moody, and downright freaky. You seem sweet and harmless, until you snap. Then you're a total monster. Very few people can predict if you're going to be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. But for you, all your transformations seem perfectly natural. Your greatest power: Your ability to tap into nature Your greatest weakness: Lack of self control You play well with: Vampires

What Kind of Monster Are You?

Excuse me, are you a Vanilla Ice Cream?

Hi, this is angelcow de rocky road looking for a vanilla friend. If you are one, please drop me a note. Thanks!!

You Are Rocky Road Ice Cream

Unpredictable and wild, you know how to have fun. You're also a trendsetter who takes risks with new things. You know about the latest and greatest - and may have invented it! You are most compatible with vanilla ice cream.

What Flavor Ice Cream Are You?

Jae the Storyteller

I wonder if there are any Guiness Records for baby feats. If there are, I wonder if there are any categories that celebrate revolving babies and talkative ones.

After her record-setting "Round the Pole" attempt when she was 15 months, the now 18-month-old Jae has now ventured into challenges that are somewhat more static - in this case, storytelling.

Again, as in the previous video, the director would like to advice on viewers' discretion. Here, in a single-cut, unedited and uncut, Jae demonstrates the prowess of her 三寸不烂之舌 and her knack at yakking.

If this is a sign of things to come, I must say in all honesty, that I feel sorry for my future son-in-law already...

Dancing Queen

Thanks to Grace for pointing us to this link~

Well, here's Jae the Leesko Lancing Queen!



As it turned out, the little star of the clip above decided to drop by as daddy was just done with it. As per normal, she'd demand to hop onto and share the chair with daddy, as well as 'participate' in whatever was going on in the laptop screen. Watching a pseudo Jae dancing away onscreen inspired the real Jae to wanna also "unleash her moves" - not even being perched precariously on a little corner of the chair was gonna stop her from breaking into spontaneous dance. Give this little fella a real dance floor and one can imagine the possibilities....:P

Halloween@Atlantis@Delta

Here's where it all began: http://www.baybsupplies.net/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=17464

And so, the little creatures of Halloween turned up at the indoor playground Atlantis City@Delta.

The bugs were there - Jae the Bumble-bee and RR the Ladybird.


The Mei-Mei's were there - Kenise and Ilis [Note: Kenise the Garfield holding a special Halloween kids pack courtesy of the Wolf]


The Gor-Gor and Jie-Jie were there too - Iden and wats-her-name who was Iden's neighbour. [Note: Yes, the bog boys and girls love to jump into the ball pit]


And J.I.R. had their first reunion since West Coast Park.


The Girls of Halloween.


Not quite Michael Myers, but the cries of bumble-bee Jae can still be quite unsettling...


Trick or Treat~!

The Duty With No Blog Entry

As I struggle into the wee hours of the day, whilst going through the monthly ordeal that is the 12-hour overnight command post duty, I realised that during each of my duty shifts over the past few months, I'd rather consistently been putting up blog entries (Sure beats watching your toe nails growing, right?). I made a mental note that today is the exception. Because of some pieces of work that I'd been assigned to complete by the end of the week, I was kept busy all the way up till this point. I made another mental note that I would like to register this exception.

So this is it. I'm recording that my current tour of duty has broken the trend where I'd blog everytime I perform one of these monthly duties.

Somehow I sense something isn't quite right here, though. Have a feeling that something is amiss, some logic is askew, somehow...

Maybe not. Maybe it's just me feeling tired after all the hard work. Maybe it's just my mind not functioning optimally at 2:30 in the AM. Maybe I should just click the "Publish Post" button and stop thinking (something I'm not doing particularly well right now) about this.

Maybe....

Science @ Siloso Sentosa

Papa and Mama brought me to Sentosa Siloso Beach for my first science excursion yesterday. Oh, I've learnt a great deal of new things! Such as...

Light has different levels of permeation through different mediums. Some mediums absorb a fraction of the light energy while allowing the rest to pass through it - such as the lens on this pair of sunglasses that I was wearing. The filtering off of some of the light energy meant that my vision of the beautiful beach would be less glaring.

And the shades looked cool on me, too.

The rectilinear propagation of light principle states that beams of light travel in straight lines while in a single medium. Because the light from the sun didn't bend around my body, the area immediately behind it was one that was obscured from the reach of the sunlight.

Hence a shadow was cast on the sandy beach.

Pressure = Force / Area

That means that the smaller the area, the larger the pressure.

Which was why I was able to easily perforate the plastic film of this mineral water cup with the sharp end of the straw. Now I know not to waste my time and poke poke poke with the flat end in the future whenever I want to have a drink.

I realised that I can get the water into my mouth by squeezing the mineral water cup.

The application of pressure onto the malleable body of the plastic recepticle resulted in a reduction of its internal volume. Since pressure is inversely proportional to volume, this meant that what I'd done created a corresponding increase in internal pressure, which in turn pushed the water up through the straw and into my parched throat.

I also discovered this alternate method to ease my thirst. When I sucked through the straw, what I was actually doing was generating a partial vacuum at the end of the straw inside my mouth. This meant that the pressure at this end was substantially lower than that at the other end in the cup.

The principles of fluid dynamics ensured that water would flow from a point of higher pressure to another point where the pressure was lower. That was how the water in the cup gets pushed up the straw and into my mouth!

Squeezing the plastic cup also demonstrated another law of physics - that of gravity.

Observe that I was able to impart an initial upward velocity to the water stream with my pressure application. This upward momentum was just negated by the forces of gravity at the apex of the stream's sinusoidal trajectory (where vel = 0) after which the water stream developed a negative (i.e. downward) velocity in its descent.

Being on the carousel ride taught me the laws of circular motion:

v = rw

where v is velocity, r is radius and w is angular velocity.

This also made me better appreciate the effects of centrifugal forces.

Papa taught me that the moment arm exerted by a cantilever weight is proportional to the distance from the weight to the fulcrum point.

That was why it was way easier for him to carry my 10kg body with his arms bent rather than having them fully straightened.

Papa is strong. But not THAT strong.

Density = Mass/ Volume

The difference in density was demonstrated with the seaweed floating on the water in my pail. The seaweed floated because its density was lower than the water medium that it was placed in.

Lastly, I've learnt the concept of surface tension, which is the phenomenon that allowed Mama's soapy solution to manifest as this pretty bubble!



I really wish I could come back to Sentosa's beaches again, soon. There are just sooo many things to learn!

沙滩宝贝

“媛媛，去冲凉了，好吗？”

“不要！”

“冲了凉，我们去吃饭饭了！”

“不要！要沙！#$!&沙！”

“你要玩沙是吗？”

“是！”

“下次爸爸妈妈再带你玩沙，好吗？今天我们要去冲凉了。我们两个星期后再来！妈妈肚子饿了。妈妈要吃饭饭了。媛媛跟妈妈一起吃饭饭，好不好？”

费了九牛二虎之力，用了三寸不烂之舌，才说服了黄靖媛去冲凉。

今天是我老爸服务了一辈子的吉宝船厂的家庭日。几天前他把票给了我，所以我们又再踏上了圣陶沙的沙。

媛媛在沙滩上玩得很高兴。她好像是一个小小的科学家在认真地做试验，一会儿在研究浇了水之后的沙为什么变得不太一样，一会儿又把沙子抓进装满了水的小水桶，看着沙子“消失”，一会儿又惊讶地看着她老爹怎么那么厉害，能够在沙子上画图画！她简直就是玩得乐不思蜀！

这个沙滩宝贝～～


　　　　　　　　　　我们出发咯！

　　　　　　　　　　我明明只带一粒皮球，为什么爸爸还藏一粒在他的肚子里？

　　　　　　　　　“我有一只小毛驴，我从来也不骑，有一天我心血来潮骑着去沙滩～”

　　　　　　　　　　妈妈说天气热，要我多喝水。可是我已经一肚子水了，妈妈～

　　　　　　　　　　没办法，只好趁妈妈没注意，把水挤掉一点。我简直是个天～才～

　妈妈很贪心，新买给我的泳衣太大件了！泳裤根本不能穿，太松了啦！妈妈～拜托啦～

　　　　　　　　　　你看，我又走光了啊！

　　　　　　　　　　爸爸，麻烦你不要跟我抢玩具可以吗？

　　　　　　　　　　我在思考严肃的问题，不要吵我。

　　　　　　　　　　啊？原来要戴上传说中的thinking cap才想得通哦？

　　　　　　　　　　真不明白我妈妈，干嘛要拍这种老套到不行的照片～

Old For New

When I opened the mailbox yesterday, among the other mails was this:



My thoughts immediately went to our 4-year-old Compaq PC, which since middle of the year have been behaving crankily by auto-rebooting every so often, sometimes obstinately refusing to boot-up and protesting with a loud BEEEEP when the power button is depressed, and then eventually dying on us completely when the failure to power-up gradually increased to 100%. We have got this PC shortly after returning from the UK in 2003. Notable upgrades to this unit included an LCD monitor, active speaker set with subwoofer and a quite recent addition of a DVD-writer drive. Anyway, after reading the flyer I remarked...

Me: Acer 有 promotion 可以把旧 PC 和 laptop trade in $700 leh. 要不要把我们的那架坏的电脑换掉，买新的？

Angie: 哇，酱好啊？那当然Ok 啦!

And so this morning we showed up at Funan IT Mall Level 1 Atrium at 10am, after having our breakfast at Maxwell Market. The event was slated to start only at 11am, but already, there was a substantially long queue.

However, we noted that most of those present in the queue didn't have any hardware with them, and quickly realised that they were all there not for the trade-in offer, but rather for the redemption of the free Acer optical mouse (worth $49.90). Wah, got free things leh! No wonder got people queuing since even before 9am lah (I was later informed by a Acer sales staff there)! Since we were there, absolutely no sense in not picking up the freebies too. The redemption of the free mouse was limited to one person per household, and valid to the first 100 households on a first come first serve basis. As the staff went around giving up forms (to record address for verification purposes) to those in the queue, we realised that we were 50th in the line.

At the first sight of the Acer sales staff, I went up to ask...

Me: Hi. I'd like to know if there are any requirements with regard to the condition of the old PC and laptop for trading in?

Sales guy: Any condition.

Me: My old PC has problems with booting up. Would that be elligible for the trade-in?

Sales guy: No problem. You just bring your PC here.

Swee.

What followed then went smoothly too. They took in my old Compaq CPU and LCD, presented me with a $700 voucher, I went ahead to an ATM on Level 3 and withdrew the $$, made payment, and that was it. Our new laptop - the Acer Extensa 4620 - original price $2,098, price after trading-in $1,398.

By the time I was handed the laptop nicely packed up in the free laptop bag, Angie has also received the free Acer wireless optical mouse. Works like a charm with the new laptop.

Swee.

Billingual Baby

MM says we need to be proficient in both English and our mother tongue.

Papa says not everyone whom I play Hide & Seek in the future might understand Chinese.

That is why I am also learning to count 1 thru 10 in angmor.

Nah. Choo. Chwee. For. Fai. Schik. Nana. Aye. Neigh. Chin.

Tag: An Idol You Were Really Crazy About When You Were In Your Teens

Allllrightttt~~~!! Here's Angie starting another tag.

The title is self explainatory, so i guess we need not do the tag rules here.

I admire lots of artists when I was in my teens but I was those "sensible" types who would not spend lots of money to buy their photos or go to their concerts etc... because i was a poor student! I didnt even buy magazines. I had a JC classmate who bought almost all the entertainment magazines he could find in the newspaper stand. I was one of his closer friends so he would tear out the pages which contains the news/ photos of the artists I like and give them to me. So thankful I had such a friend!!! hahaha~~~

In my JC days, I was totally crazy about Hacken Lee.李克勤. I adored him after I watched a Cantonese Drama series《淘气双子星》shown in RTM2, i think? At one point in time I even wanted to become an entertainment news journalist so that I might get a chance to meet him in person! However the editor of an entertainment magazine whom I spoke to asked me to "forget it" because I had "good paper qualifications". Errr....? Well....

Okie, people, show and tell time, who was the artist you were totally crazy about when you were a young chap?

1. Clement
2. Astee
3. MamaTang

Freedom of Speech

During the car journey to 奶奶's place on Wednesday evening, Jaimie yanked out one of the pictorial books that mommy uses to keep the little one entertained while on the road, and started 'reading' it all by herself!

Like the Duracell Rabbit, she just went on and on and on. The clip below captures a portion of her rather animated recital (in Jaemish, of course). Here's what I'd call speaking in free style. ;)

老二的哲学

最近工作方面比较空闲，看了好些书，包括《刘德华画传》（黄晓阳著，金城出版社）。

里面相当详细地描述了刘德华在演艺圈的成长，他的事业，他的生活，他的爱情，他的个性等。我印象最深刻的，是刘德华的“老二的哲学”。

在刘德华年轻的时候，有人批评刘德华说，他演戏比不上周润发，唱歌比不上张学友，跳舞跳不过梅艳芳。在演艺圈，他注定没有出头的一天。

性格好强的刘德华说，只要他非常努力，他演戏可以排第二，唱歌可以排第二，跳舞也可以排第二。很多个“第二”加起来，就是第一了。

这样的看法，我觉得非常有意思。山外有山，天外有天。何必去争第一？“第一”的定义，何止于“第一”？很多个“第二”，其实比“只有一个第一”重要。

很简单的道理，但是我却从来没有想过以这样的观点看待事情。难怪刘德华是许多人的精神偶像。

Short Stroll on Sunny Sunday

Weather this morning was too wonderful for us to idle it away at home. Mommy suggested that we bring little Jaimie out, to a place she hasn't been before.


Daddy's Princess all dressed up for her maiden trip to...


...the Singapore Botanic Gardens! It's been some time since our last visit here several years ago, and the changes made were really pretty significant. The main entrance area was totally unrecognisable. The old metal gates were gone and there're now large kois swimming merrily in ponds, welcoming visitors and attracting numerous avid photographers too. Jae got quite excited over seeing the fishes.


Yes yes....the place has indeed changed alot, dear. Not to worry though, we can still find our way around. There's no need for you to start playing tour guide and get all pointy about the routes to take. T_T


Ahh...a familiar sight at last. There are some things that have not changed, after all.


When it involves things she really likes, Jae can be very buey-paiseh...like how she didn't need any invitation to join her "new friend" in playing bubbles.


Jae fell down while running on a rough cement tar track. My heart wrenched when I saw her raw skin on her right knee. The little one didn't so much as utter a sound of complaint as she picked herself up from the ground, merely calling out for me to brush away the sand particles on her hands and legs. She's one tough cookie, this girl.


We managed to only venture to this location, near the NParks HQ, before mommy suggested that we take a break and then head home.


Here's Jaimie....taking a break.


Guess what? Just as we were about to journey back, we bumped into little Darryl's family. Wonder if they eventually did manage to visit the Jacob Ballas Children Playground or not....