BON ODORI 2008

Attended the Bon Odori Festival at the Panasonic Sports Complex on July 12. Here are some of the pictures. I know, I know... After more than 2 weeks! :P

Boys preparing for the drum act.

Girls preparing for their dance.

Boys in action.

Girls in action. I absolutely love the kimonos, so sweet and pretty.

These 2 sisters are simply adorable.... There were so many people fighting just to have their photos taken. I guess that explains their facial expressions. Poor things. Hehehee...

They were stuck at the spot for a long time ‘cus the crowd was surrounding them. Best part was that their mother was so nice, smiling all the way and coaxing the girls to just hang on for a while more. And in case you're wondering, they're not objects of exhibition - they're only visitors just like the rest of us. So there's absolutely no obligation whatsoever. :D

RED WINE OR WHITE WINE ?

In general, people would choose red wine over white wine due to several reasons :
1. Health benefits – rich in antioxidants, thus aids in preventing coronary heart disease and some cancers, lowering the cholesterol level, etc
2. The body a.k.a. the weight
3. It’s just more popular

What’s the difference between red wine and white wine anyway, other than the distinguished difference in colour and some commonly known facts? Well... For red wine, red or purple grapes are used and fermented together with skins, seeds and sometimes even stems – which contribute to its weight a.k.a. woody taste a.k.a. tannin. On the other hand, white wine uses green or yellow grapes and fermented only with the flesh and nothing else – reason why it’s lighter and sweeter.

As to the health benefits, a science article produced in year 2006 wrote that “the flesh of grapes is equally as cardioprotective with respect to the skins”. In other words, white wine is as good as red wine - contrary to the common belief that cardioprotective compound (polyphenolic antioxidants) is only present in red wine, due to the grape skins and seeds content. Hrmm...

So red or white? It’s a matter of choice, I guess...

All that said, what does the writer a.k.a. me, prefer? I’m a fan of white, of course. And I love late harvest. :>

REASON WHY U SHOULD LISTEN TO YOUR WIFE

This is classic, man... :D

When everybody on earth was dead and waiting to enter Paradise, God appeared and said, "I want the men to make two lines. One line for the men who were true heads of their household, and the other line for the men who were dominated by their women. I want all the women to report to St. Peter."

Soon, the women were gone, and there were two lines of men.

The line of the men who were dominated by their wives was 100 miles long, and in the line of men who truly were heads of their household, there was only one man.

God said, "You men should be ashamed of yourselves, I created you to be the head of your household! You have been disobedient and have not fulfilled your purpose! Of all of you, only one obeyed. Learn from him."

God turned to the one man, "How did you manage to be the only one in this line?"

The man replied, "My wife told me to stand here."

Moral of the story :

1. All men listen to their wives

2. You'll never go wrong when you listen to your wife

LOOKING THROUGH THE SMALL WINDOW

Looking through the small window, what do you see?
Colorful rainbow, beautiful flowers and happy children

Looking back into this small dark room, what do you see?
Money, fame and loneliness

Wishing hard that you could turn back time
Be back where you used to be
But alas, everything is honey and sugar dust coated
Only the owner knows its true worth

So where is where, and what is what?

WHEN FUEL PRICES GO HIGH...

This was sent to me from a friend quite some time ago.

Yeah... "Change your lifestyle, people!"

MORE ABOUT “THE BITCH”

Ok, I’ve been receiving inquiries as to why she is labeled as the ‘well-established bitch’ - other than because of the ‘Property Invasion’ story. There must be more to it.

Well, indeed. It all began like 1-2 years ago, when everyone was just getting the house keys and renovation in progress. This family a.k.a. bitch’s family had the habit of parking their cars right in the middle of people’s gates, especially ours, since we’re right next door. The thing is, their own driveway and compounds would be free of obstacles ‘cus they don’t park there, and they would rather obstruct other people’s gates. For what reason? I have several. :P

1. To make way for her big fat butt to strut around
2. They have the fixation to invade people’s space, which is incurable
3. They’re just plain sick and ignorant (don’t give a damn attitude)

Worse is that even when they see the other house owners driving up the driveway and couldn’t enter the house ‘cus they’re obstructing, they’ll just pretend not to see anything and carry on with whatever trivial thing that they’re doing. So the poor house owners will have to park elsewhere, as in the roadsides or wherever possible.

So back to me and B. Being sane people, we just let them be since we are neighbours. Won’t want the first ever sentence to them to be “Hi, excuse me. I need to enter my house. So... Ermm...” – if you know what I mean.

Anyway, totally different from the rest of the community, if you remember I mentioned, this family is like total snobs! My gawd! There’re stories about this also. So I’m sure you can guess, there’s no social contact whatsoever till to date.

Ok, the juiciest part of the story. Both families have not moved in ‘cus renovation was still on-going. So one fine day, we happened to park our car a little more to their side – like what, 20cm? In other words, their gate was unobstructed and they could still enter their house. And it’s so minor that we hardly noticed.

Then came the bitch driving along. She suddenly stopped right in front of our house and gave us the lioness look. Not having any clue, we were like “Huh?” And she stayed there, staring till we figured out why, no words said. If she hated it so much, she could’ve said something, straight to the point and we’d get it. Instead, she had to stay there and stare.

She continued to stare as we went into the house to get the car keys. And still stared while B moved the car. And continued staring even after the car was out of the way. The staring went on till she had enough and decided to continue driving. Thereafter, we were like “Gawd... What was that? And that’s supposed to be our neighbour. How on earth do we get so lucky?”

So that’s her story. A well-established bitch. I have more to tell, if you’re interested. :D But not gonna write more 'cus she's not worth the effort. :P

CHLOE THE CRIMINAL

As the title suggests, this little criminal of ours did something very, very bad. And she did it twice.

Everyday after dinner, she’d be sitting around with us, watching TV – to be specific, she rests on my lap. Whenever there’s a need to do her business or have a drink, she’d squirm, a signal to go down – so she can run to her room. Very good girl.

So last night, the same thing happened. Very normal that we didn’t suspect anything.

However, during commercial break, we started to wonder on her whereabout ‘cus she’d usually come back to me after she’s finished. But she’s not back. So we called out to her, to which she will come running – but no response. Something is not right.

We went to look for her and to our shock, half of her body was inside her big bag of puppy food. There she was, happily eating away. It turned out that B had forgotten to close the bag after feeding her earlier. As we picked her up, we felt her tummy and it was hard! All filled with food. Very bad puppy, it’s only gonna make her sick.

The very next day, when we got home after work, a happy little face greeted us at the door. She has broken out of her room! So we went around, checking to see whether she has created any mess, but everything looks fine. But when we went to get her dinner, we found a big hole in her bag of food. Turned out that this little criminal has bitten a hole in it and hosted a feast for herself throughout the day. Imagine that! Again, we checked her tummy and it’s swelling like a balloon, worse compared to yesterday.

Put her into her room to reflect on her crime and found that she has not poo and shue for the day. Very suspicious! And there’s nothing around the house when we checked earlier. Then it dawned upon us that the mess could be upstairs.

So up we went and found 7 spots of poo and 3 spots of shue! It’s all around! Crime scenes include our bedroom, walk-in wardrobe, ironing board, family area and wallpaper! Yes, wallpaper, you got that right. I wonder how she managed to leave a whole strip of poo on the wall, just sticking there like a monkey’s tail.

Normally, she’d only poo once after breakfast and another time after dinner. But today, there were 7 poo spots and we have yet to feed her dinner. That only shows how much she has eaten the night before and today. Bad baby!

All that said, she is now inside her room, grounded until further notice.