The sky's opened up.

It's been raining since sunrise, and its getting gloomy. There was a short break in the afternoon though but heavy clouds looms overhead, heard that it might hinder the rescue efforts over at the tsunami affected areas, hope all would work out well.

What with everyone already feeling gloomy over this recent Act of God, there would not be any New Year celebrations around this region and here in Singapore all celebrations are asked to be toned down too, no big bang fireworks or huge cheers.

Anyway to sum it up, I am glad the year is finally at an end! It's been a very bad year indeed and I hope the New Year does bring more joy and new beginnings. I don't make resolutions, New Year or otherwise so I am not about to do so. But I am truely hoping for things to turn out better, definitly need to be bring in a more substantial amount of dough and hopefully a companion to share life with. As it is now I'm feeling so low and down perhaps things can only start looking up, I truely hope so.

So let the lucky stars shine! And a happy new year one and all!

That's what I call brand image

Apple replaces site's landing page with condolences for victims affected by Tsunami. This is one excellent textbook example, of how a company can give back to the community. At the sametime it also goes to show how Apple have gone beyond just being a company that sells a product. I am sure that at this very point, the many visitors that have visited the site would be made aware of the tragedy that have happen so far from the US. Even the President of United States needed some critics' 'comments' before making a statement about sending contribution and support.

This show of compassion from Apple will go a long way in strengthening their mindshare within the communities across the world.

Hopefully more such influential organisations would chip in to help.

Why this blog started

Realised I never got around to telling why this blog started. The name for the blog -Glassdog Gaze, simply because dogs are so transparent with their emotions, and so unpretentious you can see right through them. I have 2 JRTs and you can find pictures of them in my earlier posts, both are females and their age diff is exactly 1 year apart.

'Gaze' is partly because I had always wanted to indulge in star gazing, but that's not too possible where i live 'cause there is just too much light pollution in this little city that never sleeps.

I started this blog originally to document all the mischiefs that my two JRT causes around the apartment. And at the same time, some of the more globally devastating events and environmental changes in the weather. From summer heat spikes all over France, to mysterious subsequent blackouts across continent(s), meteoroids that are calculated to be drifting pass a few meter too close to earth's atmosphere, stuff like that.

A bone to pick

Michael Paulus illustrated the skeletal systems of a few popular cartoon characters, 22 to be exact.

Underwater seismic activity caused Tusnami off Indonesia

Horror of horrors!
The day after Christmas have turned into a nightmare, when an earthquake (M8.9) early yesterday morning, beneath the Indian Ocean, causing a Tsunami to rip through Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Thailand causing widespeard devastation throughout, worst hit were beach resorts located along the costal areas. This is among the deadliest in recent years, death toll figures are as yet unconfirmed and still rising.

Excerpt from a reporter holidaying in Phuket -
Just as we were being rounded up to get back on the boat, the sea vanished and left the boat stranded on the rocky bed. The startled fish leaped from rock pool to rock pool. The three guides had never seen this before. But as suddenly as the water had vanished, it came rushing back again. Our guides screamed at us to run for the mountainous area behind the beach, and we charged for safety...
[in full]

This reminded me of a scene, from the movie “The Day after Tomorrow". But the video release from a tourist who managed to film the Tsunami, shown over the news seemed somewhat subdue... but devastating none-the-less I take back my words, just saw another news video clip from Phuket, Thailand and the first tsunami wave impact was so high that it smashed right through a small hill at the edge of the beach and the camera person filming this was knocked off his feet when the impact got to the roof that he was on.

I digress - mental note, must remember to get a good waterproof digital camera.

Day after Christmas

One year ago this very same day, I had the hives, urticaria. According to the GP, it's most probably from some Cranberry source or whatever kinda stuffing they shove into the Christmas turkey, which i had for dinner the nite before at some restaurant. So I am quite happy that there's not the slightest sign of the itching hives paying me a visit this year, wooots!

I woke up early - that's before 8am, and feeling well, I pop into chruch for a Sunday morning mass.
The moment the service began, that's when the choir started singing...

Huh??! Surprise, surprise!

I don't understand a word that the choir was singing... familiar tune though.
My first thoughts were - when did the church started celebration mass in 'tongues'? Alas, i reasoned that it is most probably Malay, meant for the 'Baba' community - they are the malay speaking, but every inch chinese looking group of folks. Native Malay community were mainly Islamic.

So I am just sitting there staring blankly making a mental note to blog this, while the priest is doing his sermon in Malay with much Oomph.
With my limit knowledge of the language i'm still just guessing it's malay.
I reasoned that somehow someone must have forgotten to inform us through the bulletin, that today's Sunday mass would not be in the usual english service.

Japanese winter holiday last year

This is last Christmas' memories when I was in Japan for a few weeks prior to Christmas day itself. Had lotsa pictures taken but never really gotten around to knowing the great stuff a blog can do then, so I'll be posting up more of my photos for memories' sake.

This was taken on a cold winter morning near Mt Fuji, it was snowed in and there's no way to go up Fuji so our tour guide brought us to some observatory to view the amazing Mt Fuji.

I won't be showing my picture of Mt Fuji here, besides all pictures of Mt Fuji taken looks the same. If you really want to see a pic, try Google they have much better photos taken probably by the best photographers living in Japan, arigato!

As with all quided tours, I was also herded together with everyone else to the Nishijin Textile Center in Kyoto. And there, I laid my eyes upon this cleary expensive Kimono, no? The delicate details and fine fine weaving craftmanship, breathtaking. Hai! Hai! Hai! That did nothing to promt me into digging out my trusty mobile phone to calculate how much it really cost.

There was also a trip made to Japan Disney, lotsa teens hanging out here mostly in loving pairs. I find most facination are the beautiful boots with 'high' heels, very sleek. Not much can be said for the rides here though, I still very much prefer Euro Disney in Paris, the ambience is rather different.

Merry merry Christmas

I heard that Santa have taken off on a break this year to do some holidaying on his own and have left some cute Santarina to spread the Christmas joy. At least in Japan that is and she's picked to popping out of your wardrobe.

Anyway, heard that those staying over in Cincinnati is already looking at a white Christmas this year. There's going to be some happy kids over there, and after that there's gonna be some snow shoveling for some very happy people.
Meanwhile, there's not the slightest change in the weather in Singapore. Still as warm and fair weather as any other day.

So HO HO HO, down those Burbon and have a jolly good Christmas!
______________________________

Had a great Christmas party last nite, so much Burbon so little time.
Can't quite remember how much Burbon I had and can't quite recall any of the names of those at the party too. But it's still a great party, there was a game they played '7 up' to help get the girls into the Burbon drinking mood too and somewhere in the mist everyone were laughing and making loud happy noise... I should go to parties like this more often.
Ah, good thing I woke up in a familiar room this morning. The walk home was quite a feeling, like walking on cloud 9, didn't break a sweat.

Refreshing mint drink

That's a drink I missed since returning from Paris, a friend staying there for a brief period of time while studying at the Le Cordon Bleu had introduced the drink, since i don't take anything hot or warm most of the time, besides it's the hottest summer Paris ever had. In fact it is the worst heatwave the whole of the European continent have never had a heat this bad. This was last year(03) sometime August, where hundreds died from the heat, those worst off were mostly the aged or homeless.

Anyway since my friend's into 'chef' school, lunch was prepared by him. The presentation and the food was great I must say, too bad he's not lookin to be a chef. He's somewhere in Beijing, China right now. Maybe I should pop on over to see what he's doing there...

A little wisdom from too much TV

This from a SONY digi-video ad campaign:

It takes 3 sec to fall in love…
but 3 decade to get along.

The music in the ad is Hodoo from the album “Tal Nutag” by Urna Chahartugchi (it's mongolian, yah?…)
Go pop by her website and download the mp3 :P

On being insignificant

I can't believe I had actually missed out on an entire month already!
November was a 'tough' month, had my birthday too, knowing conciously that you're growing older is not a pleasant thought. The whole month seemed to be a real drag...
So anyway now that its out of the way and with Christmas coming along, things will hopfully begin to feel a little more like Christmas... HohoHo :)

Was recently reminded about why I have always been so in awe of the stars. On a clear night if you get to gaze upon all the star in the heaven. You'd realise at some point how suddenly small and insignificant each individual one of us are, in every sense of the word the universe is huge beyond our imagination.
But that in no way means that you or I are any less important.

:P