Bus

I don't take the bus much. Most times it is the train or car. Bus? No thanks and there is a perfectly good reason for it.

On Monday, I had an appointment at 3.30 pm at Beach Rd. Rather than take the train, decided to take the bus. From my office in the heart of the business district, it should be a mere 10 mins bus ride. But still kiasu kiasee uncle decides to leave at 3pm with some allowances for waiting time. Reached the bus stop - checked that the bus I was going to take will stop at the bus stop and not be affected by the road closure for the F1. Checked and done and sat down to wait. And wait. And wait. Then a bus came. hope leaps, alas service no 97 - not the bus I want. Immediately behind is another - and yes its **#^#% 97 again! Wait again and again and after 10 minutes another 2 buses came. This time no 75. Yes both 75! What the hell! By now it was 3.30pm, appointment time. What the shit! Where are the buses? Come to think of it, so far only seen 97 and 75. Where are the rest of the services? Went back to check the small little service disruption notice they had there and alamak! All the buses had been diverted away from Robinson Rd? What? This isn't part of the F1 circuit you know!

Sighed...no choice switched to a cab and $8.80 and 30 minutes of traffic jam later, finally reached my destination. 1 hour 10 minutes to reach a place I could have ran to in 20 minutes!
Unbelievably, I decided to give our bus services a second chance. Reached home last evening and decided to take the feeder bus instead of walking. Nowadays, the bus interchange like airport - got electronic board with departure times for each flight, I mean trip. Checked - 7.30pm next departure. Time on my watch - 7.28pm. Goody. And gullible me happily walked to the bus bay to wait. And wait. And wait. WTF, didn't the darned board said 7.30? 7.35 came and gone and finally the bus rolled in at 7.40pm. 10 minutes behind schedule. And guess what, not 1 but 2 of them together!

Seriously, I think our bus service provider got to get their act in order. If they can't even start their journey on time from the interchange, how can they manage with the different road conditions. And what is the point of having bigger and better buses when what most of us want is just a nice comfortable short and sharp ride to our destination and not have to wait hours for a bus to turn up.

It is bad experience like this that makes me avoid buses like the plague. Me think I think I stick to my MRT and car.

It's a small world

You know that cliche` thing that we always said about our little red dot, that its a small world.

There was these 2 strangers who board the same bus to work every morning and has been doing so for quite some time. One day, one of them (let's call her lady A) decided to strike up a conversation with the other lady (lady B). So the conversation goes something like this...

Lady A: You stay around here?
Lady B: Yes you too?
Lady A: No further up the road.
Lady A: Do you know where is Blk XXX? Is is near some school?
Lady B: Yes. It's just somewhere down the road from here.
Lady A: I got a friend staying there
Lady B: Me too. I got a friend staying there as well.
Lady A: My friend just moved from Simei to here.
Lady B: My friend too. He also just moved from Simei to here.
Lady A & Lady B: ????? together: What is your friend's name?

Needless to say, the friend is of course, Uncle me here. Is it a small world or what? When 2 strangers striking up a conversation on a bus can ends up with a mutual friend. Now if these 2 ladies were a man and a lady, this would have been a perfect setting for a romantic story  but alas they are not unless they are..........

Parting the Red Sea

Another Biblical legend proven true? Like the elusive Noah's Ark, scientists, archeologist and all sort of treasure hunters have been trying to prove and find evidence of many of the landmarks and items that were described in the Bible. 

Now researchers and scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder have managed to simulate the parting of the Red Sea. Read more here

So will we see the day when all the miracles of the Bible and other historical tomes are replicated?

Or will it be another controversial thingy like the Noah's Ark which has supposedly been uncovered all over the world?

Or like the Turin's Shroud which is still mired in controversy centuries after it was found.

Me think people should not take away the mystery of miracles. After all, nothing hurts more than the truth and what if the truth is...........

Shit

Seem to be running into shit recently! And I do not mean shitty things or shitheads but literally shit, yes, faeces, the crap that comes out after all the muck that people or animal eats every day!

On Saturday, somewhere between the carpark and the house, I stepped on a pile of shit! And I didn't even realise it. So I got home and after a while, could smell the odour but couldn't find where it was coming from. And poor Toby of course got the blame. It wasn't until M decided to keep my slippers that she saw the pile of shit underneath!

Then yesterday morning, on the way out, the Princess managed to get a whiff of 'smelly tofu' or so she thought! At 6.30am in the morning? And then she opened the door and was greeted by a pile of shit on her slipper! Two bratwurst looking roll of shit! What the shit!

First thought was it must be from the cat downstair but can cat poop so big time? Dogs? but so far no dogs other than Toby on the floor. Er human? Worse, what if it was the work of Ah Long? Did the previous owner owns Ah Long's money?

Poor M - both case she got to clean up the shit (pun intended). But on the bright side, somebody said shit symbolise good fortune so must go buy 4-D! Wish me luck!

Over React?

Me think our gahmen has been overreacting recently.

First the handcuffing of the photographer. Granted the photographer was in the way. But was there really a necessity to handcuff him for his own 'safety'?. Now I don't know what safety issue we are talking about here? Was there a monster in the floodwater and they had to protect him from it?

Then there was that chap who blogged about the arrest and because he was a police NSF, he was arrested and charged! Again that was uncalled for. As a private citizen, he should be able to comment freely about such matter and his status as an ex-cop should not matter. What was the police so paranoid about in this case? Some skeletons in the water that they don't want anybody to dig out?

Then the sudden rush to implement a slew of housing policy to cool the property market. Was the market heading so sky high that such draconian measures are required. As I recall, prices have not even reach the peak of 1996. And what did they do when properties in prime areas were being snapped up at astronomical prices 2 years ago? Why the need to come up with measures that totally smack of last minute decisions and have not been carefully thought through?

And last but not least, the ban on the bus to the IR? Come on, don't tell me they were not aware of the bus services which has been running for the past few months. One lousy complain and slam bang there goes the buses. Surely they could have taken some time to assess it and maybe get the operators to make some changes to the routes/timing instead of stopping the services totally?

What are they going to do next?

Memories

It's been 5 days since we moved. Do I miss the old home?

I don't know. On the one hand, I am moving into a bigger premise, on the other hand, I miss the lack of facilities like the gym and the pool and the covered carpark. I especially miss the trash chute. At Pasir Ris, what they have is a common chute at one end of the block which means we got to organise the the trash throwing so that we don't have to walk unnecessarily.

Then again it is nice not to have to hear the constant roar of traffic along Simei Ave. But I guess Toby misses the view of the road since there is no bay window here at Pasir Ris. He's been mopping around (literally) and very cringing wanting to be carried for the past few days. I guess like all of us, he has to get use to the place.

On the bright side of things, we get to save $$$ once we manage to sell the old place. Any takers?

Goodbye Adieu

Very soon in a few hours time, it will be adieu Simei, hello Pasir Ris.

It had been wonderful staying here but the place is getting old, things are starting to fall apart and beside we have outgrew the place. Time to move on. But some Kodak moments to remember of this place we called home for the past 10 years.

Our bedroom which is always very cool (for some reasons) we don't really know why

The very used Living Room where things continue to accumulate yearly

The Living Room (from the other direction)

The original Kitchen

The new kitchen which was only done up last year

The swimming pool where I finally managed to get the hang of front crawl swimming

The pool from the other direction

The jacuzzi pool which we hardly use nowadays

Books to Pass On

It's spring cleaning time and I got books to pass on. Here are the full list.

Children Books

Pokemon – Comics – 12 titles

Pokemon – Stories – 5 titles

Captain Underpants – 6 titles

Bookworm Short Stories

Junior Fiction

Goosebumps series – 19 titles

Star Wars – Jedi Apprentice Series – 4 titles

Star Wars – Jedi Quest – 2 titles

Star Wars – Science Adventures

The Boy who Talks to Ghosts by Benny and Alice Wong

3 in 1 Magical Mystery Stories

Roald Dahl – The Twits

The Boxcar Children – 2 titles

The Wongs of Changi

Maggie's Adventures

Ai Lin & her Invisible Friends

Charlotte's Web

Time Surfer – Shock Wave by Tony Abbott

Graveyard School – The Easter Egg Haunt

4 Chinese books

Others Children Non-Fiction

Digimon Official Character Guide

Magic the Gathering Advanced Strategy Guide

Star Wars Jedi Training and Trials Quiz Book

Smelly Jokes for Kids

Pokemon Snap

The Official Pokemon Handbook

Usborne Puzzle Adventure Omnibus

Usborne 2^nd Puzzle Adventure Omnibus

101 Cool Science Experiments

101 Cool Jokes

Adult Novels

Piers Anthoy – A Spell for Chameleon (Fantasy)

Crawford Kilian – Green Magic (Fantasy)

Dark Terrors – Stephen Jones and David Sutton (Horror)

VC Andrews – My Sweet Audrina (Horror)

VC Andrews – Midnight Whispers (Horror)

VC Andrews – Secret of Mornings (Horror)

Robert E Howard's World of Heros (Fantasy)

Lisa See – The Interior (Crime)

Jack The Ripper -Susan Casper & Gardner Dozois

Dark Fortunes – Richard Lee Byers (Crime)

Guy N Smith – Carnivore (Horror)

The Ivanhoe Gambit – Simon Hawke (Fantasy)

James P Blaylock – The Stone Giant (Fantasy)

Boris Starling – Strom (Thriller)

Stephen J annell – Riding the Snake (Crime Triller)

Alexis A Gilliland – Lord of the Troll Bats (Fantasy)

J F Rivkin – Silver Glass Mistress of Ambiguities (Fantasy)

Carl Miller – The Warrior and the Witch (Fantasy)

J F Rivkin – Silver Glass Witch of Rhostshyl

Mark Grant – Mutants Amok (Sc-Fi)

Scare Care – Graham Masterton (Horror)

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales – Michael Chabon (Horror)

Adult Non-Fiction

Everything We Had – Al Santoli

Miriam Stoppard's – Pregnancy and Birth Book

What makes a Champion! - Allan Snyder

The World at your feet – Dale Beaumont & Brent Williams

I am Gifted So Are You – Adam Khoo

Anybody who wants them - just email, pm, sms, call me. It's free but self collect. However, if  you know of any organisation (except Salvation Army) that may want them, let me know. I can send over to them.