Sunday, September 24, 2006

Almost summer

It was a nice day today. Summer is almost here. For the first time in ages, I went out today without any jacket or sweatshirt. The sun was shining.

Got the chance to finally catch up on some gardening this weekend. My herb patch is overgrown, thanks to the Vietnamese mint plant given to me by a work friend, Shane. This thing grows like a weed. The snails have been busy. There seem to be so many of them so I decided to spread some poison pellets for them to feast on. Sounds barbaric but they are pests after all. I'm also glad to see my chilli plant is starting to sprout some new leaves again - chemical damage....a different story. Oh yes, since it is spring, my garden is in bloom for a few weeks now. It started off with the cherry blossom trees then the roses are now full of buds which should all open in the next week. The weeping maple tree we bought a few weeks ago is also sprouting new leaves.


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What else happened today...? Oh yes... I got email messages from two old friends from school back from wehn I was still in the Philippines. This is pretty much a continuation of my friendster post a few weeks ago. I contacted some people, added them to my friends list, some replied and accepted while others whom you expect to reply didn't quite. An old friend added me to his list. I didn't realise he was on it in fact. His name is Steinberg Tan. I new him back in elementary school. He use to live 3 blocks from my house. I use to go to his place (huge house), bring my fighting cock and we would "sabong" he fighter with his. That's the only thing I remember about him back then. When we were in grade 3 his family moved to Perth Australia and he's been living there ever since. I occasionally receive emails from him however, our interests have changed so much and I have not spoken to him in a while. After moving to Australia he became a guitar enthusiast. Much more I would say. He loves playing the guitar. He's got several. I think he and his siblings formed a family band of some kind. Anyway more info about himj on his site.

I sent him a message back and am waiting for his email reply.

The other person who contacted me was Roselle Teodosio. At least that was her name back then. She's now married to a guy named Kelvin Chan so she's changed her name to Roselle Chan. She's a mother of three now, 2 boys and a girl. She's been helping out in Kelvin's family business (Petron) and she just started her own with a business partner. It's a hotel. She opened up a hotel called Phoenix Suites in Makati last december. Her brother, also was an old friend, is in charge as manager. His name is Richardson Teodosio.

Now Roselle and Richardson were both my classmates. Roselle is younger by around 11 months or something. Richie was born in Jan and Sel was born in december. If I'm not mistaken I think The exact dates were Jan 19 and December 23.

Anyway, Sel and I hang out quite a bit in high school especially just before coming here to NZ. We were really close buddies. Her brother didn't quite like it though but we were still friends. I think it was also this reason that Sel stopped talking to just before I came to NZ. Richie was among the last people I saw and said good bye to before I came here. I still have the photo of that last day.

In our email conversations, I reminded Sel that I remembered the times when she used to pick my white hair. She would kneel on the sofa beside me and go through my hair. There were several things I remember. I went snorkling with them once. Them and there uncle. We went to Zambales. It is unforgettable not only because we had a lot of fun but it was also the time someone almost died. I've told this story quite a few times and I don't even remember to whom. Basically while we were snorkling we saw this beautiful white coral. It was a tall coral about a metre in height. For some reason we were trying to reach it. I think we wanted to take it home with us (of course at the time i didn't know anything much about caring for the reef). I don;t think Sel was there. Richie and his uncle was though. So the three of us took turns taking deep breaths and diving down. His uncle was the last person to go down and he was a few inches away from it when he felt he needed to get up for air. So he flipped up and headed towards the surface. Unfortunately in doing so, his snorkel snapped around the mouthpiece so as soon as he surfaced, the silicon mouthpiece of the snorkel was facing down and acted like a straw. He must have sucked half a glass of seawater. He started panicking. Richie and I was beside him. He grabbed both of us out of panic and we were both pushed down. Richie got away and signalled the boat to come get us. Fortunately for me, I was able to stay afloat just enough for my snorkel to stay above water. I clamly stayed under as his support.

Richie and I were gonna take up a PADI course and sit our PADI open water licence when we get back to Manila but Richie's mum heard of this news and disapproved and we never got to do our open water course. One day I will but not now..too cold here in NZ. Perhaps when Shakoo is emperor and he grants me some pacific island territories.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Food Review: The Pancake Parlour (Bourke Street Mall)


we normally love eating at the Pancake Parlour in Melbourne. The Jam Factory branch is brilliant with the service and menu. But when we ate at the one in Bourke Street Mall in central Melbourne, we were greatly disappointed.

wheely rubbish bins were carted right in front of us from the (dirty) kitchen to the front of the shop and they weren't even presentable, if that's a word to describe rubbish bins. The service took longer than usual... there were dozens of people behind the counter, but no one was ready to welcome incoming guests.

when the food got served, the bacons were missing from the Canadian Pancake meal, and the pancakes themselves were mini-me's of how we used to remember them. the ham steak was still good and tasty. skinny latte was terrible. the diet coke was watered down. oooh, did we mention the fruit flies that were flying all around when tables weren't cleaned up after patrons have left? all 5 tables within sight, tsk, tsk.

this one's definitely a big disappointment for us, right from the trip down the escalator, past the funny mirror, to the giant chess board within the restaurant.

we're not going back again. 1 out of 5 stars.

Why moms don't give little boys dolls

Friday, September 15, 2006

ALT TV and Nicky Watson

Ever since I had my tv aerial moved to the top of my roof, I was able to receive UHF signals and watch channels like Prime, Juice TV, and ALT TV.

I don't normally watch ALT TV because I don't think the music they play are that good compared to C4 or maybe Juice TV. Well I listen to all types of music but more pop, hip hop, and RnB.

However, last night I was flicking channels and accidentally flicked over to ALT TV and saw Nicky Watson. She didn't really look like herself for some reason...hmm..she looked older...maybe due to the lack of photoshop polishing magazines normally do and she does have that oversized boobs (which help identify her.

She was hosting this show/segment called "Let there be rock" and boy did she sucked! I ended up watching her for a few minutes. I don't know if something was wrong but she seemed absent minded...she was trying to introduce the next video right...then she forgot something - "Shit...I'm suppose to do something..." flicked over her sweater/whatever that was beside her and held up this clipboard. "I'm suppose to do these ad libs" she says..."that's what you call them in tv land..."

She carried on reading the "news item"...or that's right it was an announcment about a Peter Brock convoy that was suppose to run through Queen street then to pukekohe.

Her inexperience and absent mindedness was showing really bad. She was trying to be a cool rock chick showing the devil hand gesture which didnt really suit her.

She then struggled her way to introduce the next rock music video. She mentioned "I like the lead singer of this group. I have her in my bedroom wall...I have a collage of everything good on my bedroom wall and it is like 5 metres high" - hmmm.. a 5 metre high bedroom...funded by Eric Watson? or Matthew Ridge? or perhaps she doesn't know the difference between feet and metres.

I've seen her in person. She came into our office a couple of times. She's about 5'7" maybe...I wonder if she tells people that she's 5.7 metres tall.

Anyway...there was a time when I thought that blonde girl in C4 sucked really bad and nicky sucked even more.

OBEEE1: King of the road

On my journey to work today, I encountered OBEEE1 with Kim and Corbett in the morning. There I was driving and out of the blue this truck drove pass beside me on the Lincoln road on ramp. I got a wave from Corby (waved back Hello Corby!). It caught me by surprise actually and for a few seconds there, I almost hit OBEEE1!

I was already listening to 91.8 then but since I just turned on the radio, I didn't know they were on the Northwestern motorway!

I followed them for a while. Traffic was slowing down as we reach the tail end of the rush hour traffic towards the city. I decided to take a photo of OBEEE1 with Kim and Corbett facing out the back window. Took several tries but in the end, the traffic stopped and I was a couple of metres away.



There's Kim waving at me :)

Kim and Corbett (and Hilary) if you are reading this, I'd like to say that me and the wife love your show in the mornings. I wish I can listen to you more but I normally ride a motorbike and obviously it does not have a radio. This morning I was driving my wife's car (red rav 4) when I took your photo.

We love listening to "Battle of the Sexes". I'd like to point out that Hilary can be quite mean with her questions sometimes. But it's all good. The men can tackle it. Kim and Corbett, sometimes your questions can be too easy. :)

By the way, where can I get those Hilary Barry springy heads?

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Kuya Club

Subject: FW: A good way to save the airlines

Dump the male flight attendants. No one wanted them in the first place. Replace all the female flight attendants with good-looking strippers! What the hell -- they don't even serve food anymore, so what's the loss? The strippers would at least triple the alcohol sales and get a "party atmosphere" going in the cabin. And, of course, every businessman in this country would start flying again, hoping to see naked women. Because of the tips, female flight attendants wouldn't need a salary, thus saving even more money. I suspect tips would be so good that we could charge the women for working the plane and have them kick back 20% of the tips, including lap dances and "special services." Muslims would be afraid to get on the planes for fear of seeing naked women. Hijackings would come to a screeching halt, and the airline industry would see record revenues. This is definitely a win-winsituation if we handle it right -- a golden opportunity to turn a liability into an asset.

Why didn't Bush think of this?! Why do I still have to do everything myself?!

Sincerely,
Bill Clinton

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

The new money clip music player

Apple unveiled the the new iPod range today which includes an 80GB iPod, a new set of iPod nanos, and the latest and smallest mp3 player thus far - the iPod Shuffle (above) with a 2GB capacity.

Awesome little toy. It can double as a tie clip, too.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Kava - the secret remedy?

League: Kava may be secret remedy for Asotasi

The link above goes to a news article regarding the medicinal properties of kava, and how professional rugby league players swear by it's curative properties


I remember the first time that I heard about kava - we were still living in Thames, and we had a school trip to the big smoke ^_^ basically, we went to St. Joseph's school in Otara, and were billeted with a family for one night :-) now back in the day, there were no polynesians in Thames, hell we were the only asian kids in town (not counting the young half-casts of course)... as a project in preparation of going to Otara to submerse ourselves in polynesian culture, we were given topics to research in groups... my group of three had to do a presentation on kava... so off we went to the library and of course the encyclopedia britannica... thinking back on it now, it makes me wonder how the class we had to present to didn't crack up at our interpretation of what was in the text...



Now, when did i first drink myself legless? probably shortly after i started working we had an afternoon tea for something or other and one of the fijians that i worked with brought kava to celebrate the occasion... so we did the whole sitting on the ground around the kava bowl thing, drinking out of a coconut shell, the whole clap thing before and after receiving and drinking kava...

Started off with tingling lips (the taste leaves much to be desired) and after a few rounds, ended up with nearly all of us not being to get up off the ground due to how relaxed our muscles had become... a rather interesting alternative to going out on the piss, that's for sure :-)

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Binky's Xrays

I got Binky's xrays today. It will better illustrate Binky's condition, why she was in pain and why she needed surgery. Originally the vet thoguht it was a problem with her knee cap (sliding to the side) So the specialist vet took an xray (below) and it clearly shows her leg bones are straight and that the knee cap is not sliding. The knee cap is the egg shaped bone just above the knee.

The problem lies with the head of the femur(FH), the ball shaped portion of the thigh bone that connects to the hip bone. As you can see above, the FH of the right leg does not fit snuggly to the hip sockets like it does o the left leg. During movement, this causes pain on the joint. Sort of like rubbing sandpaper on your skin all the time.

Above is a slightly different view. The legs are spread open to show the extent of the malformed FH. According to the vet, this was most likely caused by an injury approximately 8 weeks before this xray was taken (i.e. around june). We suspect it could have been thetime when we took Binky to puppy classes. What happens is an injury stops the bloodflow to this area of the body. The FH stops growing due to lack of oxygen and nutrients. W while later, the bone starts growing again after the injury fixes itself. But y this time it is too late, this bone is already behind development and will always remain that way. I forgot the medical term for this and it happens to humans as well, more commonly among boys.


Here's a side view of Binky's right leg to illustrate that her knee cap is on the right place. In fact, if it wasn't for this FH injury, her legs are very straight and perfectly normal.

The surgery, as I'v mentioned in a previous post, is called Femoral Head Ostectomy (FHO) and the procedure involves removal of the FH (the ball). See above the thigh bone without the FH.

I had some questions about this procedure and one of them was.."What happens after you remove this bone, will the leg be able to support the dog?" The answer to this was that by removing the bone, the body will adapt by forming a false joint with limited flexibility. This false joint is enough to support a dog like Binky who only ways approx 3kgs. For bigger dogs, this may not be recommended due to their weight and a hip replacement therapy (HRT) is preferred.

HRT was one of Binky's optins too but the smallest stainless steel hip replacement you can get is for a border collie, about 2-3 times Binky's bone size.

Binky is now recovering. She's started to put some weight on her right leg and getting back to her self. Hopefully she will have almost full use of her right leg in a few more months.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Instant weight lost!

They say the camera adds ten pounds. Here's a new camera from HP that will do the reverse!


They are called HP Digital Cameras with Slimming Effect. How cool is that. I wonder how many times you can apply this 'slimming effect' once the photo is taken...

BMW went up in flames

Just on the corner of Beaumont and Fanshawe St outside my work. Happened around 1.25pm today (7th Sept 2006)


Guy was driving down towards motorway on ramp, stopped at traffic light and the engine caught on fire.

5 minutes later...


Caught some of the fumes and water spray...burning rubber stinks!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Croc Hunter is dead

This news is so sad!

I just got out of a meeting and found out that the croc hunter died this morning. He was killed by a stingray barb that went through the left side of his chest.

In one article, they said that Terry (his American wife) doesn't even know about it yet (that was around 2pm NZ time) because she was trekking in Tasmania or someplace like that.


I always thought Steve would have lived a very long life. He'll be like Sir Edmund Hillary. But he's always been cavalier and sometimes reckless in his videos but he knows what he's doing. It would be very interesting to know exactly what happened while he was shooting this documentary near Port Douglas.

The whole world will miss him.