TuzkiSnap is one cool App!

I have just downloaded this fun and cute app from the iTunes App Store and can't stop myself from playing with it.

TuzkiSnap is solely made for the iPhone and users can either use a new photo or choose one from their existing library to use the features on the app. For my first shot, I took a picture of the dried grass patch that can be seen from my kitchen. I did mentioned before that the weather is extremely hot these days and I am using this snap to show it. After taking the shot, I can add accessories like frames and little tuzki around the picture. The final result is shown below:

Well, it is not a very fanstastic shot and my photography skills are awful but that's the best I can make do for now. From the picture, you can see that all the grass have turned brown due to lack of water and the extreme hot sun. Looks like we have to endure this sort of weather for quite a while. In fact, our meteorological station had stated that this is the driest February we ever had in 140 years.

Gosh that is so hot and dry! It's as though we are living in a desert. Tropical countries are really pain in the ass to live in, you know? I hope that I can get out of this country when the opportunity comes.

Nonetheless, I have lots of fun playing around with TzukiSnap and I used some old photos for decorations too. Strangely enough, I can't upload those processed photos onto Facebook. Hmm... I wonder what went wrong. In fact, I had to email the above picture to my gmail inbox then save it on desktop before uploading it to a hosting site. That was so much work.

Oh well I shall have to explore further to get the basics of this app. For now, it's snap time! >O<

Hot and humid weather is not my cup of tea

Since the beginning of this year, the weather has been getting really hot and humid. It's making me feeling sticky and yucky all over no matter how many times I bathe in a day.

My fan has been blowing all day long and it still doesn't chases the heat away. Man, I am melting in this horrible weather and it seems like it's going to be this hot until May. I see no relief in my current situation and the only time that I get air-con is when I'm working in the office. However the office is not my favourite place at the moment and I would rather spend all my time at home.

So I have got to bear with the heat and the humidity until the rain clouds decide to visit this sunny island. I wish Singapore is not so hot and humid. That would be so much more pleasant. In Australia, the sun can be glaring but the surrounding air is actually cold during spring, I think.

The key word here has to be humidity. It is the only reason why I am perspiring non-stop. Man, I wish I can get out of Singapore permanently. The longer I stay here, the more insane I get.

Argh! I can't stand the humid!!! Help! X_X

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

This year, I have decided to participate in the Blog Action Day, which focuses on climate change for 2009. You can read more about it here ~ www.blogactionday.org.

Every year, climate change remains an important part of global environmental topics and this year is no different. In Singapore, the National Environment Agency put up its own climate change programme with the slogan, "Fight Climate Change, Conserve Energy, Save Money". You can view the website here ~ National Environment Agency.

Climate change affects humanity in a number of ways. It can range from the change in weather temperature to rising sea levels to increment in cost of food. In relative to Singapore, a change in weather would meant we are getting hotter days/nights and rainier storms. This could have an adverse effect on our health, causing us to suffer from heatstroke or colds and flus.

As for cost of food, we citizens are affected directly in the pocket as we import most of our food from outside countries. Climate change can cause vegetation to wither and die, thus resulting in lesser food and pushing up the selling prices for these vegetables and fruits. Even life-stocks such as meat and fish are not spared either.

This in turn will cause our cost of living to increase and our disposable income will be affected. When that happens, consumer overall spending will decrease and in turn our national GDP will be affected and reduced.

From this we can see how a tiny change in temperature can escalate into serious national problem. When that happens, it could affect the whole global environment. That is why we need to address the issue of climate change urgently in order to prevent such a scenario from happening.

What we can do on our part as a ciziten of this Earth is to use more efficient ways to use energy to reduce our carbon footprints to help fight climate change. NEA provides some little tips that can help us in our daily lives so that we can help in the cause of climate change. There is also a little energy challenge booklet that can be downloaded for more tips on energy saving tips.

For my own part, I use fan to cool my room instead of an air-con unit but I don't own an air-con unit in my house anyway. I also use energy-saving light bulbs for lightings in my house to reduce the energy usage. These are the small little things that I can help to contribute to fight the climate change.

What about you? Please help to do your part in whatever you can to help save our mother earth. We only have 1 mother earth and it is up to us to save it with our own efforts.

Rainy Weather Equals Gloomy Mood

Today has made me realized how unreliable my colleagues are and that my relationship with them has deteriorated beyond repair.

The weather was harsh this morning, with heavy downpour started even before I reached my destination. Being the lazy pig, I didn't bring along my umbrella and so I thought of calling my department colleagues for some help.

The sad thing is, none of them responded to my calls, which went unanswered. I called at least twice and in each instance, I get no reply from them. One of them didn't even bother to set her phone to ringing mode, but instead auto-direct to voicemail.

Perhaps I am truly a shallow person and hence, I couldn't make any lasting relationship with anybody. My only friend is the internet, where I can roam around aimlessly without an identity. It's kind of disheartening to discover that my naive beliefs had been wrong all along.

I though I had maintained a pretty good working relationship with my colleagues but somehow along the way, I get left out of things. Things that probably don't matter to me anyway but it still kind of bothers me, you see. Perhaps I should just ignore it all. Ignorance is the best medicine to use in the corporate world. Pretend that I didn't see anything or hear anything would be most helpful to me in avoiding unnecessary trouble.

As long as I continue to get my monthly pay, nothing else matters to me. Not even the subject of promotion could make me fluttered, for I know there's little chance of that happening anyway. My future in this company has already been condemned a long time ago and I don't see a way out for me unless I tender my resignation from my position.

In fact, I have no position in this company, especially in my department. I have no proper title, no proper job scope, and in fact, no proper workstation when I first joined the company. I even had to sit far away from my department and hence, no one bothers about me. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. It's a simple enough equation. So the only motivation that makes me going is the measly pay and the dismissal time. Why didn't I move on to a better job? The current economic is so bad that it is better to stay on as I am in the healthcare industry and it's rarely affected by any economic recessions for people fall sick all the time.

Nonetheless, I try to maintain sanity in these tough times purely for my own survival. I won't rely on other people nor will I extend an offer of help to anybody. Neutrality is the way to go to survive in this company. Well there's another way but it's disgusting. You'll have to buy your favour into the good books of the higher management people by playing up to them. In local terms, it's called sucking up to your boss. I am very lousy in pleasing people and making them happy, which is probably a career kamikaze for me since that's how the corporate world works.

Oh well, life is short so it's best I try not to dwell on such things for long periods of time. It's simply not worth the effort though once in a while rambling won't hurt either. My life is very boring and I don't have that many friends either. So I suppose I deserve it anyway since I am not a nice person to start with. *hiak hiak*

Oh well, it's as though it's the end of the world if I don't have any friends in my life. I live for myself, no one can live my life. That's the only way to go for me.

Merlion Hit by Lightning

According to news reports, the iconic Singapore Merlion was hit by lightning during a heavy rain spell yesterday afternoon.

Straits Times picture.

According to witnesses, the lightning bolt was seen to strike the Merlion's mane and sent debris flying all over.

The Merlion was shifted to its current location from the mouth of the Singapore River and remains an important aspect of Singapore's identity.

Looks like nature is fair and square and has no qualms about striking anything in its path. Now the Merlion is undergoing repair works as reported on the news just now on Channel 8.

Rainy Weather Now

After a long season of hot and humid weather in January and early February, the weather is finally letting up with plenty of storms these few weeks.

Mostly the heavy rains would come pouring down during late afternoon or evening time and last till late night. For me I love the rainy weather as it's more cooling and soothing.

Even though the rain is usually associated with gloom and melancholy, its still nice to listen to the raindrops falling and if I could, I would go out and soak myself completely in its embrace. But with my parent around it would not be wise to do that.

Nonetheless, I hope the rain will still continue and envelope me in its soothing rhythm for now.

It's Raining Heavily Now...

It's raining heavily outside now and judging from the thunders booming, there must have been a lot of lightning striking across the night sky too.

I wish I had a camera with the most advanced technology so that I can take pictures of the lightning. But these cameras are usually priced out of my reach. So I can only contend myself with lightning pictures posted by other photographers on the internet. See some of the interesting lightning pictures that I found just now:












They are so lovely and well-taken! Kudos to the photographers. I couldn't have taken such excellent photos myself, man. To take lightning pictures, you will need the right amount of time and especially luck. Lightning strikes anywhere in the skies and there could be some difficulty in pinpointing the exact strike location of the lightning.

I don't have much skills to talk about. Perhaps the experts will shed more light on that. Hmmm... I will need to do some research on the technique of taking lightning pictures. Then in the near future, I could take some lightning pictures of my own.

For now, my flu seems to have gotten worse and I hope the weather won't be making it worse. *sighs*

MRT Service Disruption at Bedok Station

Today is simply not a day for travelling.

The first that registered my mind when I woke up this morning was the rain pouring heavily outside my home. The rain continued well onto my journey to work. Hence the bus arrived late and the driver drived very slowly. By the time I reached the Bedok MRT Station it was already 8am.

Another setback was awaiting for me upon my arrival at the MRT control station. There was chaos at the station due to a train service disruption at Paya Lebar MRT Station and the repercussions travelled all the way to Bedok.

We could not enter the MRT platform as the station had closed up the entry tapping points. As minutes ticked by, more people arrived and cramped the station. It was only about 8.10am that they finally allowed the commuters to enter the platforms.

When I finally reached the platforms, I was faced with trains that were too overcrowded to board. At 8.15am, 3 trains passed by before I could managed to get onto the 4th train and even then, it made a tight squeeze. It was a great effort trying to remain upright while the train moved and jerked at a slow pace.

My only consolation is that by the time the train reached Raffles Place Station, most of the crowd would have already left the train and I could find a seat to rest before I reach my destination at Commonwealth Station.

The thing is, by the time my train reached Commonwealth Station, it was raining heavily around the area and that sort of dampened my spirits. The small road in front of my work building is notorious for serious water flooding during heavy rainfall and I was hoping that today it would not flood. In my life, I have never encountered any water flooding until I started work here. Life never fails to amaze me.

Much to my relief, it was indeed clear though there were lots of water puddles around. At least I could still cross the road to my building and not having to waddle through knee-high muddy water.

And so that marked the end of my morning journey to work and by the time I reached office, it was already 9.15am.

Gosh!

Raining non-stop once more

For the past few days, the weather has been pretty bad. Rain has been coming on strongly for hours on end and it show no signs of stopping either.

As it's the weekends, I can just stay at home without venturing outside. It's nice to be able to spend time alone by myself without any troubles nor worries. Besides, I have very few friends and most of these friends usually have other engagements to tend to, so I'm pretty much a loner these days.

Well, at least for now I have my MSI Wind by my side and the rain outside to keep me company. It's pathetic but that's how my life goes.

^.^

It's raining heavily now *sighs*

The weather has not been so good these few days. Most of the time, it would be raining heavily and it's hard to get out anywhere as traffic jams would mount upon the descent of the rain.

Now the rain is coming non-stop in my area and only god knows how long it will take to finish up whatever water droplets it has in those big clouds.

Yet to me, it's soothing and seems to cool myself efficiently. I like the sound of rain and I personally prefer rainy days to sunny days.

Being indoors all day when I'm not working has partly contributed to the liking of rain factor. With no one else to go out with, being at home is the most favourite pastime that I like to do in my free time. Having the rain means having a companion too. Its sounds soothes my nerves and calms me down. The smell of rain makes me feel refreshed and light-headed.

In short, I love the rain and hopes that it likes me back too. *sighs*

=)