My Waterbabies

Growing so big and so fast!

And now they're swimming on their own!

Wow!

Pokemon GO Addiction II

When the whole family plays #pokemongo

Can you guess the four Pokemons?

Drawn by the boy :)

Fatherhood Reflections XXVII - And Then And Then And Then

My boy is growing up so fast.

Just today, he said rattled off his longest sentence, which took a good five minutes.

All because he kept using the two words 'and then'.

It was like,"...so papa took off his shirt, and then he looked in the mirror, and then, and then there was a bucket of water above, and then it splashed on him, and then he fell asleep in the bathtub, and then he had a dream, and then he woke up, and then he thought he pee-peed..." And so on for a good five minutes! No kidding!

It was so funny that mummy, the girl, and I just kept laughing.

Good times are made of these.

Golf @ Padang Sukajadi, Batam

This was our second installment of the group format within the department. We've always called it the Saxo Texas Scramble.

This time it was won by my team with a gross score of 84! Plus I won the nearest-to-pin mini competition at hole 4!

Entirely sunburnt but a very good outing for me nonetheless :) 

So happy!

Can you identify who the below are?

Eugene, Edmund, Mark, Darius

328 Katong Laksa - 2016 Review

I can't even remember the last time I ate here. I've always thought the laksa here inferior to my favourite Katong Janggut Laksa, but since it was late already, I decided to give it a shot.

The store has shrunk, which was rather surprising given all the accolades and plaudits it had won before even if it didn't feel deserved. It used to occupied double the space.

Price was super expensive at almost $6 for a small bowl. Added a packet of nasi lemak, otah and drink, and the total bill came up to $10+. Very pricey IMHO.

It didn't taste as good either. Very run of the mill spicy laksa that tasted overly diluted (maybe since it was evening), while they rejected my request to heat up the nasi lemak and otah (even though it's been lying there for dunno how long).

All in all not the most satisfying meal. Suffice to say I won't be visiting any time soon. 

Wonder how they earned all those awards?

Pokemon GO Addiction

Granted, the novelty has worn off quite abit. Still that didn't stop me from starting my second account and bumping it all the way to Level 20 in a simple matter of days!

Let's see how far these two accounts will go!

Gotta catch 'em all!

Clash Of Clans Addiction IV

Surprise! Thought Pokemon Go has taken over? It hasn't, even if interest has slowed somewhat.

My three accounts at now TH10, TH9, TH10 respectively. Why in that order? Because the 3rd account is a no defence account (one mandatory cannon and hidden defenses only).

Here's a look!

A Car Accident

Was just on my way out of office when I received the call from the wifey. My dearest 小红 just had her bum kissed by a taxi!

Ultimate xianzness.

Rushed over and made sure the kids were ok. Wifey had a bit of whiplash. The damage didn't look so severe, but the back bumper is slightly dislocated and the boot cannot be closed.

The wifey had stopped at a traffic light and the taxi that was waiting behind probably accidentally stepped on the accelerator thinking the light had turned green, and immediately rammed into 小红's behind.

Luckily we also had the car-cam which captured everything. Hopefully my NCD won't take a hit since this is obviously of no fault of ours.

Unfortunately the car workshops are all closed and we were advised to wait till tomorrow morning to go to the nearest workshop and make an accident report and claim.

Thankful that I'm not overseas and I could rush down once it happened.

Thankful that the minute wifey called I was able to pick up and help calm her down.

Thankful none of them were injured in any way (aside from some whiplash) although a little frightened.

Thankful that poor wifey had to face it all alone with the kids and yet did everything (I've previously nagged at her in case of accident) right. 

Thankful I rejected the temptation to have late night drinks with colleagues.

Thankful I rejected that dinner at Kinki with those bigwigs in town tonight.

Thankful that the whole family is safe and sound at home right now.

Copenhagen, Denmark 2016

This is probably my fourth or fifth time there and this week has been very intense. My last trip was about a year and a half ago. The weather this time was perfect, Summer has just ended and Autumn is upon us. 13-19 degree weather all round.

Nonetheless still managed to take some time to soak in the sights together with good company.

This time we transited via Frankfurt.

The T Rex is still there.

The office looks the same both from the outside and inside.

It's become a Pokestop :)

Nyhavn and Stroget still look beautiful and unchanged.

It really helped that we stayed at the St Petri this time, which is a lot nicer and right in the heart of the city.

Visited a 300-year old pub even! Which was opposite a synagogue, so security was tight!

Even caught myself a rare Pokemon found only in Europe!

Some Fancy History Lesson

This has been circling around Facebook and the Internet for a long time, and yet whenever I try to find stuff about it, I can't seem to. Don't even know who wrote this or who to credit it to, but this is brilliant to know.

___________

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof... Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive... So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

And that's the truth....Now, whoever said History was boring?