Giant puffs at Biopolis!

No camera tricks! Honest!

My sunflower plant decided to sprout another sunflower... but it's so mini-sized!!

Prometheus : "why was I created?"

Caught Prometheus over the weekend. Haven't seen a movie in quite a while. Lido is crowded even on a Friday at 3pm.

Overall, the movie was a so-so sci-fi flick that runs against conventional Darwinism or The Big Bang.

With a very loose plot and vague story-line, and mediocre special effects and alien monsters, the only highlight for me was it's attempts at fielding philosophical questions about the origin, existence, and purpose of human life.

The statements asked by the humanoid robot, David, seemed a tad bit depressing. For example, David asked why he was created by humans, to which one guy replied, "because we could." David, very much like a human, asked how they would feel if after seeking out their "maker" they got the exact same answer.

"Why was I created?"

Have you asked yourself that? What would be an acceptable answer to you?

For Christians, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, distills from the Bible what we were created for:

Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.

Amen to that!

Can a sunflower plant have 2 flowers?

I was very surprised to learn that a 'sunflower' is actually a mass of many mini flowerlets bounded by large coloured petal leaves, and they're available in orange!

Anyway, the sunflower got attacked by a combination of aphids and lots of ants. For weeks I had been flicking the aphids off with a chopstick, but they kept coming back, and the ants multiplied in number! So i finally got a pesticide and killed them all! Very effective!

Another bud, which looks like the beginnings of another flower, has appeared midway up the stem. I thought each sunflower plant would have only one flower?

Would be interesting to see what appears :)

Thanks-giving for the week

Thank God for the cool weather, after a spell of hot and humid days.

Thank God for small mercies, like easily-found parking spots and table places.

Thank God for family, loved ones, and brothers and sisters in Christ.

Thank God for mercies at work, including colleagues and bosses.

Thank God for His Spirit, which gives us understanding and peace.

Thank God for His Son, through whom we have eternal life and hope.

Just remembering to thank God today!

Which early bird will catch THIS worm? And the Snail

 

I like how these curious creatures always appear after the rain. The worm on the left is thoroughly exposed on the path, but looks like all the birds are still fast asleep in the cool weather. 

More on #Hougangbyelection and another unfortunate red-light running accident at Rochor, right after the shocking Ferrari crash that killed three. Thankfully, this time, noone was seriously hurt, and police arrested the drunk driver on the spot. 

Nowadays, only food in SG is cheap, but not for long

$9 and comes with 2 bowls of noodles

Today I sat down to have a nice breakfast of Kway Chup for two (without innards) and it cost a decent $9. Perhaps recent claims that inflation won't affect the majority of Singaporeans are true.

As long as you bought your flat in the golden days of 100 per sq ft HDB, and are content to take peak-hour public transport (or, by the grace of God, still have a car from the days of 20k COE).

On previous days, I even enjoyed $1.50 meat porridge, and $2.50 fishball noodles with generous portions and huge fishballs! (you can check my earlier blog entries)

But I wondered, how much longer would such low prices at hawker centres like Ghim Moh and Holland Drive last?

And in recent debates about "inclusive growth" and increasing income inequality, is it even fair to be expecting such low food prices from hawkers?

As for me, I'm enjoying the cheap prices, although I know this rosy state of affairs is transient, much like things that are "cheap and good", like high salaries and low cost of living. Do we try and keep attempt to keep the cost of living artificially low by using transient labour from abroad? Or pay more for the sake of inclusive growth?

Anyhow, I think once this current older generation moves on, given the higher opportunity cost of a hawker, and the inevitable increases in rental, $1.50 porridge with real meat will soon belong in the heritage centre :)

$1.50 porridge @ Holland Dr market

Noodles @ Holland Drive market

Enjoying breakfast. Noodle portion is generous for S$2.50! #02-04

For old times' sake

I was reading some of my old blog entries from as far back as 2005, and realised how different things were back then! I even encountered so many comments that I had totally missed out replying to, even some that came in 2-3 years after the post was published!

Maybe blogging still has a place in Web 2.0 / 3.0 after all, for longer pieces that are more thoughtful and self-reflective.

I always get the feeling that social media nowadays is so temporal, like 'grasping at the wind'

Running red lights is against the law and NOT the norm here

Hot on the heels of the recent Ferrari-crash which left three dead, which a very clear, brutal video showed was a brazen run of the red light, another posting appeared on STOMP which showed a car running a red light in the western part of Singapore by TEN SECONDS in broad daylight, to the danger of incoming cars that were turning right at the junction. I myself have witnessed drivers happily going past red lights without the slightest awareness that they were running a light.

This is not a foreigner or PRC-bashing thread. Whether you are Singaporean or not, running a red light is a very basic violation of our driving laws and norms. Maybe in some countries, red lights are only for show, but I won't comment on that. And it has serious consequences (I don't mean the fine) as the norm is everyone here obeys the red lights and drives as though the red lights will be obeyed. We are so obedient that we stop at red lights in the middle of the night even when noone else is in sight.

We should be striving towards better standards in driving, like stopping at yellow lights (which I don't always manage to do, depending on whether I can stop safely).

If people from overseas are not aware that not stopping at the red light is against the law and NOT the norm, we ought to make it clear to them, and not just let them presume other people will just be alert and watch out for them when they do unexpected things. That being said, people I know from developed countries already think Singaporean's driving habits terrible, and I completely agree.

The Traffic Police cannot be everywhere catching everyone, so we really need to impress this basic of obeying the lights on those who are new to our driving environment.