Sebastian's Big Day

My pal, Sebastian got hitched to his girlfriend, Stephanie @ the Registrar of Marriage on 22nd Dec '09.
Congratulations Sebastian and Stephanie!

Happy Aquarium: I Can Now Keep Fish Online

Do electric fish dream of electric dreams?

Facebook is kind enough to introduce Happy Aquarium, an aquarium simulation game, for busy people like me who likes keeping fishes but simply has no time to care for the real fishes.

One of my hobbies is keeping fishes. I dream of owning my marine fish aquarium someday. At the moment, I'll settled for Happy Aquarium. It's an easy to use simulation with a gentle learning curve. Just buy baby fish from the store and keep them. Feed, train them and they will mature into adulthood. Thereafter, you may mate them for extra fish. Sell your extra fishes for a profit so that you can buy more expensive fishes to add to your collect. They also generates a higher profit when sold.

Your fish can fall sick if you don't feed them and clean their tank. Sick fishes will die after three days which means no ROI, so you have to check back on your tank regularly. I usually check on my tank once a day.

To me, success in this game is to keep a complete marine aquarium with a full complement of healthy and colorful marine fishes. Nothing beats looking at happy fishes swimming around beautiful coral like in a reef.

It's a simple application that only requires little time and effort. Cleaning the tank and feeding fishes requires just a few clicks. No need to change water, check filter and test for nitrate level.

The only problem is that freshwater fish like goldfish and betta splendens can be kept with marine fish which spoilt the realism a little. Anyway, it's just for good fun.

At the moment, I have 2 clown fish, 2 Angel fish and 2 Butterfly fish in my tank. I'm hoping to earn enough money so that I can acquire my first clown trigger eventually. =)

Anime Revival: Inachuu Ping Pong Club

Recently, I stumbled upon the entire series of the anime 行け!稲中卓球部 (Go! Inachuu Ping Pong Club) on Youtube and immediately got hooked. I'm currently watching episode 28.

Inachuu Ping Pong club by Furuya Minoru is a 1995 anime about a six member Ping Pong Club in Inachuu High School. The first time I learnt about the anime was through the Japanese Popular Culture module I was taking during my university days. Then, the series was unavailable in it's entirety. After so many years, thanks to P2P technology like You Tube, it was refreshing to be seeing it again and this time finally I get to watch the entire series on demand.

It is an extremely hilarious anime that gained immense popularity in Japan during the 90s and the manga version went on to win the prestigious Kodansha Manga Award. In fact, the series has very few equals. As one You-Tuber puts it, it is like South Park on Crack!

A bit of warning though, the stories contain a lot of perverse hentai humor that only the Japanese can come up with. There are a lot of reference to crap and sexual organs. Characters often exhibit anti-social and eccentric behavior, like dressing up in animal clothings, peeping into women showers, SM bodily acts, body odor attacks and public stripping. (Warning: female nudity in some episodes). Although the depraved acts were done in a light-hearted manner to elicit laughter, there will be others who object to this kind of humor.

The entire series can be viewed on You-Tube (uploaded by a guy called fanofpingpong). You can search Ping Pong Club 1 (1 for episode 1; 2 for episode 2 and so on), or follow this link to fanofpingpong page. English sub-titles are available.

Maeno pulling down his team-mate, Kinoshita's pants

The losers SM club

Maeno and Izawa in animal clothing. A meaningless act that defies logic.

Tanaka going under his teacher's skirt....

And got what he deserves..... hahaha

On The Recent Scuba Diving Tragedy

I read with a tinge of sadness at the news yesterday about the passing of Dr Marcus Lim, on a Scuba diving trip at the 7 Skies wreck in Malaysia.

From what I could understand from the news, Dr Lim, a 37 years old ophthalmologist, was an experienced diver as well as an avid photographer.

Via Google, I was able to find a website that showcases his excellent underwater photography works. (Follow this Link) Looking at his photography is probably one of the ways to remember him by?

The Singapore diving, photography and medical community had indeed lost a young talent.

=============================

Without speculating on whatever happened in the above-mentioned tragedy, I was reminded of my own diving misadventure which was a result of my own complacency and stupidity. It is that kind of complacency that comes along when you begin to think you are getting better at something, and then something bad happens and put you in your rightful place along the learning scale. You start to feel incredibly humble for a while.

Once during a dive, I forgot to ask for a buddy check as per standard procedure. The water condition was choppy so our instructor instructed us to descend immediately to five meters upon exiting the dive boat. This was to avoid staying on the surface as the strong choppy water might pull the group apart.

Once out of the boat, I release all the air in the BCD and descended immediately. I breathed in and suddenly realized that there was no air coming out of my regulator. I had forgotten to turn on my air!

Fortunately, I only panicked a little and began finning a little to keep myself stabilized at a certain depth. I was contemplating losing my weight belt and finning to the surface with whatever air left in my lungs when I spotted my dive buddy. Quickly, I signaled to him I was out of air and also showed him that no air was coming out of my regulator piece. My buddy promptly shared his air as he turned on my tank's air valve.

Reminded of this incident, I'd learnt to become more vigilant in checking my equipments before each dive. Also, I think I need to acquire more training to better enjoy diving.

That being said, I believe that no amount of training and experience can prepare us 100% for freak occurrences. There are always some risks involved in any sporting activity, which training and experience can only manage but not eradicate. The best thing to do when dealing with a life threatening situation is to try an keep a clear head so that training and practice can kick in to deal with it.

Anyway, life is about doing what you enjoy while being mindful of how to deal with the risks involved. Being fearful of risks and consequently not doing what you enjoy for the sake of life preservation is pathetic and not living at all. The Mel Gibson line in "Braveheart" said it all: "Every man dies, but not every man really lives."

Another NHSS Gathering 24 Oct '09

...another Nan Hua alumni gathering. This time, it was a much bigger cast consisting of school mates from 4E3, 4E6, 4E7, 4E9 & of course 4E8. Nice!

How I Went Under The Knife To Remove My Lipoma

Recently, I underwent a day surgical procedure to remove a lipoma on my neck for almost two years.

A lipoma is a benign tumor consist of fatty tissue.

In medical parlance, lipoma is considered harmless but a slight bump is evident on my right neck. At the insistence of my mother, I agreed to have it removed. She feared that it might become malignant.

The entire process began two months ago in August after a visit to the neighborhood polyclinic to get a referral letter and an appointment date at a hospital of my choice. Getting a referral via the polyclinic could offset a significant portion of the cost the hospital would normally charge.

Fast forward to October, I dutifully went for my appointment at Clinic C, Singapore General Hospital. The staff were generally helpful but the number of patients were too many so I had to wait for a long time before my turn. Interestingly, the hospital now has an innovative way to inform patients of their turns. I receive an sms when I'm fourth in line to see the medical officer.

The medical officer basically gave me a rudimentary examination, a diagnosis and a proposal of treatment by surgery. I was then promptly send to schedule a surgery date with the nurse.

Two weeks later, I found myself lying on the surgery table with my back facing up and my head turned right to expose my right neck. At that moment, deep regret for conceding to the surgery did cross my mind as I'd never experience someone holding a knife so near to my neck before. Fortunately, I wouldn't be able to see because the nurses covered me up in hospital cloth with only my neck exposed.

Anesthetics were administered locally so I didn't feel any pain. However, I could tell when the scalpel was cutting in as there was a lot of pressure and then the sound of suction (presumably to suck away blood?).

There was a single moment when the scalpel cut up a part of my skin that was probably not well anesthetized and I felt a searing excruciating pain. When I told the surgeon how I felt, that area was anesthetized again and the pain went away.

Except for that, the surgery otherwise went smoothly. The stitching was also quite painful. The doc told me that since it was a deep cut, they had to sew up from the inside and then the outside. I overheard the surgeon chatting with his nurses about his choice of stitching thread as he went along. He likes to use thread that self dissolved. Yey! That meant I didn't have to get the stitches removed.

I couldn't remember how long was the procedure but later found out it lasted about 45 minutes. Right after the surgery, I was talking with the surgeon. I asked to be shown the removed lipoma which would be sent for pathological testing. The surgeon described it to be 3 cm by diameter. The lump of yellow fat looked like an egg yolk with blood trails on the surface. I very much wanted to take a snap shot of it and post it here but unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to bring in my phone camera into the operation theater.

That was the last time I saw my lipoma after it was lodged in my neck for 2 years.

Today was the follow-up appointment. I returned to Clinic C and met with another medical officer. It was another long afternoon of waiting. This medical officer was as prompt as the previous. She just gave my surgery wound a cursory examination, told me that my lump wasn't cancerous and promptly discharge me.


Oct 6: Taken just after the surgery. My wound was dressed by a big woolly waterproof bandage

Oct 11: Taken 4 days after the surgery, the external bandage has been removed. The wound is still covered by small strips of bandage. The faint but visible blue circle was marked by the surgeon to indicate the lipoma lump and where to incise


Oct 22: Taken after the follow-up examination. The remaining bandage were removed. The wound was swabbed clean with alcohol. It looks like the stitching had healed well. What is left is a 2.5 inch stitch

Singaporeans In Algeria

Finally, there is press coverage on Singaporeans who are willing to "rough it out" in Algeria. During our Prime Minister Rally Speech on 16 Aug, he made special mention of Singaporean men and women who are ready to face challenges in working in the distant land.

The article kind of evoke a special feeling in me and made me want to shout out: "I've been there and done that! Woohoooo!!!!"


The Straits Times - 17 August 2009

Singaporeans are ready to rough it out - even 'in the middle of nowhere'
By Sue-Ann Chia

(Picture: Singaporeans employed by local firm Hyflux are helping to build the world's largest seawater desalination plant in a remote village in Algeria. In yesterday's Rally speech, PM Lee noted the willingness of the team in Souk Tleta to face challenges to keep up the bottom line. - Photo: Hyflux)

They are employees of local water treatment company Hyflux, which is building the world's largest seawater desalination plant in the village in Algeria.

The village is in Souk Tleta, near the Algerian border with Morocco.

It is a long way from Singapore, but local companies such as Hyflux are growing and flexing their muscles abroad, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his National Day Rally yesterday.

He was giving an example of how some Singapore companies are doing well despite the downturn.

Relating his exchange with a Hyflux engineer last month, Mr Lee said he found out that the company was seeking new business opportunities to build water facilities all over the world.

He asked which was the most challenging project, and the engineer replied that it was the one in Algeria.

It is 'in the middle of nowhere', said Mr Lee, showing a picture of the remote village. 'The nearest town is three hours' drive away on a bad road.'

The 22 Singaporeans - including two women - live in dormitories, and play basketball and computer games for leisure.

'There is no alcohol,' he added, as Algeria is a Muslim country.

But the hardship is worth it.

'Because of this and other projects, Hyflux is doing well and hiring engineers,' he said.

'It shows there is work to be had, if we are prepared to rough it out.'

Robot Chicken Star Wars

I came across this Star Wars spoof on youtube recently. It's called Robot Chicken Star Wars special and it features the vocal talent of Seth Green.

My favorite scene was the exchange on Cloud City where Darth Vader told Lando Calrissian, "I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further!"

Watch the video uploaded by Eualalia via this link. It's really hilarious!

For some reasons, part 1 cannot be loaded. If you are interested in more clips, you can go directly to adult swim dot com for more Robot Chicken Star Wars clips.

On another note, life has been pretty hectic for me. Most of my weekends are burned. I enjoy my current job/business very much even though at this stage, I haven't seen my rewards yet. Neverthless, I like what I'm doing and I am confident that eventually, I will be quite successful if I keep at it! =)

Mother's Day Dinner

We celebrated Mother's Day a week later @ New York New York @ AMK Hub yesterday. My sister has the membership and a discount voucher. It was my first Mother's Day dinner since 2005 when I left for overseas. It looks as though I am going to be a heartlander from now on...=P

The food was not as good as the Citylink branch but Amy the waitress waiting at our table was a real world class service professional.

A simple family dinner: all about the family, not about the food

Angus the nephew pigging out

My nephews enjoying their free cotton candy

Meeting My Old School Mates From Nan Hua (17 April)

A few of us had not met after parting ways since we graduated from Nan Hua secondary school at 15 years old. Now we're in our 30s and we found each other using Facebook. I'm hoping for more reunions to come and more ex-classmates to join.