My Apologies!!

To all of you who have posted comments to my previous write-ups, my sincere apologies for not publishing your comments sooner! I hadn't realised that I had enabled comments moderation until someone alerted me to the fact that their comments were never published. That's when I went to Blogger Help to find out what's going on and found a whole lot of comments in my Moderate Comments page. Thanks very much kuro.shiro.neko for telling me about this problem. I'm so embarrassed! It's been 7 months since I started blogging and I've only just realised my mistake. :P

Ve Ching in a Bucket

Last week, the aircon in my bedroom was dripping a little, so I put a bucket underneath it to collect the water. Sloppy housewife that I am, I'd left the bucket where it is since then, even though the dripping had long stopped. Last night, Ve Ching decided to investigate the bucket and ended up sitting in it. He only came out when Tigger came along and he thought it would be more fun to chase Tigger than to sit in an ol' bucket!

Help!

When I was a little girl, my family would take a vacation in Malaysia almost every year. When I was about 8 or 9 (I think), we drove up to Genting Highlands and stayed in the hotel there. We slept with the windows open as the air was very cool and fresh in those days. The first morning I was there, I woke up to a horrifying, petrifying sight. There was an eeky, ugly, HUGE, praying mantis on my bed looking right at me! I screamed and my dad woke up and immediately came over to pick the mantis up and show it the door (or in this case, the window). Since then, I've always been creeped out by insects, especially the praying mantis.

So it is with a great deal of self control that I sit here writing this posting calmly as an eeky, ugly, HUGE praying mantis haunts my living room. Harmony is bravely stalking it, of course, but she hasn't had much luck catching it, as it's on the ceiling. I saw it there when I woke up this morning (it wasn't there last night) and it must have been there for a long time 'cos the cats are all kind of bored with it already. I hope it decides to leave soon.

Here's a picture of it, but I'm afraid it's not a very good one, as I'm too scared to go near it and my camera phone does not have a zoom lens!

Pet Please

I know this item was listed in Sunday Time's Lifestyle section last weekend, but I've had these pictures for more than a week now and have been meaning to post them all of last week. Really.

This spongy door stopper is currently being used on my study door. While my bedroom door has a cat flap for the cats to enter and exit at will when the aircon is on and the door is shut, the same cannot be said of our study door. The aircon in the study is not often on, so when we do switch it on, we just wait for the cats to indicate when they want to come in or go out (they scratch or meow) and get up from our computers to open the door for them. But with global warming, the too-hot-to-bear days are becoming more frequent. So when we saw this little contraption at NTUC's Liberty Market in Junction 8, we decided to buy it to keep the study door slightly ajar when the aircon is on. It works pretty well in that the cats can push their way in with the Pet Please in place. But unfortunately, when they do so, the door tend to swing open wide, allowing the cold air to escape. So in the end, I would still have to get up to move the door back to its original position. But at least I can do so at my own timing instead of being pressured to do so immediately by the persistent meowing and scratching of little furry people who can't open their own doors!

McCafe Cappuccino

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the McCafe outside Isetan supermarket at Shaw Centre. I was just looking for a quick bite to eat and coffee to keep me awake. I ordered a cappuccino and was very surprised by how decorative it turned out to be. But a beautiful cuppa like this comes at a price though. The price is patience, quite a bit of it.

When the barista had finished making the cappuccino, he asked if I would like chocolate or cinnamon on top. I selected chocolate, expecting chocolate powder to be lightly dusted on the foam. Instead, he took out a squeeze bottle and used it to draw 2 consecutive circles of chocolate sauce on top of my coffee. I thought, now my cuppa looks like it can be used for target practice, except that it's short of a centre. Not very creative. But it didn't stop there. He next took a little stirrer and started drawing lines from the rim to the centre of the cup. He would wipe the stirrer after every one of the 7 lines that he drew. As I was feeling extremely sleepy and in desperate need of my caffiene, this seemed to take forever. When he finally finished drawing and my cappucino now looked like a flower, I wanted to snatch the cup from him, but alas, it was not to be. He now started to draw more lines, this time from the centre to the rim of the cup, once again wiping down the stirrer with a napkin between each.. and.. every.. slow, long, line.

By the time he had finished his masterpiece, I had become desperate to drink it. Thank goodness I was the only one in the queue at the time. If I was the last person in a long queue that day and he was still mucking about with my drink, I would probably have done him an injury.

Working with Canadians eh.

Since producing some fairly decent satirical podcasts during the recent elections here, Tarsier Girl has been reading Mr Brown's blog. A few days ago he suggested that Singaporeans produce some patriotic podcasts after being inspired by the Molson beer "I am Canadian" commercial.

As a lot of my colleagues are Canadian, I felt a kinship with Joe's sentiments. But it's ironic that he says that he doesn't know "Jimmy, Sally or Suzy" as on my first trip to Canada, (in '94), the immigration officer, (the nicest I've ever come across), did ask me if I knew some people back in England!

Molson also produced a couple of other adverts. Although the jacket pulling looks weird to us non Canadians, a Canadian colleague told me that this is the second step in the pre-fight ritual during an (ice) hockey match, (the first step is dropping the gloves on to the ice), and so is instantly recognisable to them. Another colleague told me that when he was in the southern states a lady in all sincerity did ask if he lived in an igloo!

No additional Canadian culture info for this one, it's just funny and our favourite.