Achievement of the day

Yay! (That's a strip of peel for one whole apple, by the way).

Extra! Extra!

She was licking her nose, hence the red thing around her mouth in the picture.

Introducing "Duo yu", literally meaning "extra" in mandarin, the oldest (8.5 years old) female canine in the family. She is no doubt the smartest dog in our household, as evident by her ability to open her own cage from both inside and outside, which kinda moots the purpose of a cage.

Naturally, she is also incredibly cunning yet adorable at the same time.

It's ALIVE!!

Remember the previous post about my dying chili plant? It seems that it was not quite ready to go yet.

Shortly before that post, I had actually just transferred it from a pot to the ground. After the move, things were still not looking up so I thought it was not working. But a few weeks later, lo and behold, the yellowish leaves have been replaced with fresh, healthy green leaves!

Before & After

It seems that a little care goes a long way after all :)

On another note, it seems that our yard has a penchant to grow things on it's own. For example, these lovely curry leaves inexplicably appeared in our yard a few months ago and have since grew to become a prominent resident. Needless to say, we are more than delighted with it.

Curry leaves. Named after the dish. Or vice versa.

Vacancy - Neighbour needed

First of all, I feel I owe my readers an apology for the lack of updates on this blog. Work life always catch up with me when I am having fun, and when it does it is often relentless. In any case, I promise I will try my best to post something new at least twice or thrice a week.

I just read about Chatterbox's nosy neighbour from her blog post and it reminded me about the owner of the piece of land next to my house. At first, we learnt that our supposed new neighbour makes dumpling for a living. He was thinking of tearing down the dilapidated wooden house that was occupying the land and build a new one. Later, rumors has it that he was not doing well financially and health-wise, and thought that the piece of land and the house is cursed. Last we heard, he was looking for a new buyer.

Even though his affairs are none of our business, the abandonment of this plot of land next to ours brought us a lot of problems. Unchecked, the grass were growing out of control and became breeding grounds for rats and snakes. Especially troublesome were the rats who would pay our house a visit every night. As a result, we can't put the food around the house like we used to, not even our dog biscuits. All foodstuffs have to be placed inside a container or a locked cupboard. We even have to install another layer of netting around Rabbit's cage to keep the rats out. Mouse traps were set around the house but it looks like they are getting smarter and not that easy to bait now.

I suppose one of the neighbours contacted him about the problem and every now and then he would send someone to have a look and cut the grass. The situation has improved somewhat, but it is still an eyesore in our neighbourhood.

2012 - Possible spoilers!

A few weeks ago we won a couple of tickets to an opening weekend private screening of Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic film 2012. Even if you are not familiar with Emmerich, you probably have seen or heard about his work, namely Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. Claiming that this would be his last disaster movie, Emmerich decides to throw everything in: Where he put half of the US in ice age in his previous movie, he went ahead and sunk the whole country in this one.

In a nutshell, 2012 is about the world coming to an end due to a catastrophic calamity caused, in part, by our sun. Much of the story follows the journey of Jackson Curtis (portrayed by John Cusack) and his family in their bid to survive the event. On the other hand, there is also the unfolding White House drama, complete with the villainous politician and heroic scientist.

2012 is pretty much the formulaic disaster movie one would come to expect: over the top destruction sequences, inappropriately comedic moments, impossible odds and the corny speech that inspires everyone in the movie but the audience.

Without a doubt, the visual effects are astounding, but that's about the only merit I'm willing to give the film. Gone are the human dramas that actually intrigue us nor any sense of impending doom because we all know that the main characters will always come out on top despite incredible odds. But going into an Emmerich film, one would be foolish to expect anything else. I have come to consider it an impressive 158 minutes long visual effects showreel.

If you're looking for mindless fun and loud thrills, 2012 is for you. Just remember to check your brain at the ticket counter.

View trailer below:

Long absence

It's been almost a week now since I last updated this blog. My laptop was so sick that it refused to wake up when I tried to turn it on. So, I had no choice but to send it to the ICU for a few days. Luckily, almost all of the important files can be recovered. I was informed that the computer was diagnosed with a "corruption" of some sort.

Glad to be back after a few days of clearing the backlogs of work!