Since it is quite common to see innovation and re-inventions in the areas of Information Technology, gadgets, toys, etc., I must admit I was rather surprised to see one notable and creative innovation in the healthcare industry, specifically in the gas chamber equipment. This is the gadget used to pump in gasous medications like Salamol, Ventamol, Seretide, etc.

The latest canister of Seritide comes with a manual dosage counter!

Cool, huh?

Now we’d be able to keep track of how many puffs are left in the canister….instead of puffing empty air into our kids!

Aperture priority; 1/800s; f/5.7; ISO 160; Focal length 172.8mm

Aperture priority; 1/640s; f/5.7; ISO 160; Focal length 110.1mm

Aperture priority; 1/640s; f/5.7; ISO 160; Focal length 144mm

Things to do in the Garden (by Messi)

1. Dig a hole

2. Dig a trench

3. Bury bones

4. Play with a ball

5. Eat leaves

6. Eat grass

7. Eat passion fruit (yuck!)

8. Fight with Rotti

9. Steal Rotti’s food (nyek nyek nyek..)

10. Kill snakes (2 to date; second one was a small one and not too heroic enough to blog about it..)

11. Kill bats (1 to date)

12. Kill cockroaches (20+ to date)

13. Kill snails (10+ to date)

14. Kill rats (1 to date)

15. Catch a bird (*^&*^%&^$ they are fast and can FLY! )

16. Catch a butterfly

17. Mark territory on car tyres..

18. Splash water!

19. Bark at and scared off postman

20. Barked at and scared off garbage truck

21. Bite wired fence

22. Plant a tree

23. Found buried trasure

24. Climbed a tree

25. Catch an iguana

26. Clean the drain

27. Mow the lawn

28. Hang clothes to dry

29. Paint graffitti

30. Wash the car..

31. Escaped from house compounds (harder now because I can barely fit under the gate dy..)

Phew…so much has been done…much more to do..

…All in a days work for a dog..:-D

I’ve had my fair share of encounters with rats….a memorable one was when I was renting a room during my my university days. I should have known there would be more encounters with the scurrying kind…

Just last week, my wife thought she saw a rat scurrying around in our house…

…and since we had taken care of their natural predators - the snakes – much earlier, we had to catch the rat ourselves then.

I managed to pop over to Ace Hardware and got a typical cage trap that evening. Being a considerate ‘hunter’, I chose to load up the trap bait with some pieces of ‘bak gwa’. My wife then said that we’d still need some kind of fragrant, alluring smell to make it more effective. She suggested I burn up the ‘bak gwa’ a bit.

Presto! Suddenly the burnt aroma of the dried meat was surely enticing enough…

I carefully placed the trap in a strategic location and waited…

…and waited….

…and waited….

…and waited….

Sigh. Decided that sleep was much more important..

In the morning, we were quite surprised that the rat had NOT taken the bait!

Gasp! Could it be a vegan rat?!! :-O

Anyway, I left for work still puzzled at the failed trap. Later that morning, I got a message from my wife..

“Guess why the rat did not take the bait?”

“Errr….the ants got it first?”

“No, the dog got it (the rat) first…”

“Eeewwwwwww”

Yay Messi – multi-purpose insect-reptile-pest killer!

Some moon shots taken with my Nikon P500 during the recent Chap Goh Meh. Weather conditions were not quite favourable with the strong winds blowing some clusters of clouds that blocked the view of the full moon every now and then. Anyway….

ISO 3200; 1/3s; f/6.3; Focal length 28.4mm

ISO 500; 1/30s; f/5.6; Focal length 38.2mm

ISO 500; 1/125s; f/5.7; Focal length 144mm

Cropped image of the previous shot..:-D

Taking good, clean photos of butterflies is never easy because they flutter so much and will easily fly away if you are focusing too close.

However, the task is made simpler with good sunlight and the superzoom of the Nikon P500:

Aperture priority;  ISO 200; 1/160s; f/5.7; Focal Length 102.8mm

Aperture priority; ISO 160; 1/200s; f/5.7; Focal Length  95.6mm

Whew! How time flies! It seemed like only yesterday that the La Liga players were involved in some strike which threatened a shut down of this season from happening.

Suddenly, we’ve already just completed Gameweek (GW) 20 of Football Fantasy:La Liga Version, which is roughly the midway point of the entire season. So I felt I needed to review and update my performance of my rookie year in FF:La Liga.

It’s of no surprise that not many of my friends have joined FF:La Liga, mainly because it is not so heavily or popularly followed in my country, compared to BPL, that is. Tsk tsk. This year, I noted there are only three (including me) from my football crazy friends who tried out their luck in FF: La Liga.

What is surprising is that after GW20, I am sitting pretty comfortable at the top from my two other friends with 922.3 points. What is even more surprising is that I am in position 1087 overall with a global ranking of 0.6%. Over 20 games, I have only managed to increase my cap by $7.5M to $157.5M.

Wow! I’m honestly pretty pleased with my team’s performance considering my knowledge of La Liga was centered around Ronaldo-Messi-Forlan before this season started. Heck, I even bought Forlan on my team to start the season! (tip: need to follow news too!):-p Probably that would explain why it was so difficult to make good punts on players who will increase in value or even make realistic match predictions to strategically place my players week in week out. Now, I could easily spew out a few more players like Corzola, Michu, Munua, etc.

So, what have I learnt so far after going through 20 games in FF: La Liga?

1. Get Messi and Ronaldo on your team! Unlike BPL, La Liga is essentially a two-horse race from the beginning and arguably the world’s top two players must be on your team. A quick scan on the stats will show both of them accumulating far many points compared to other players. One of my rookie mistakes in FF:La Liga was to buy only one of them to start off the season. I soon realised my folly and worked towards getting both on my team ASAP. Never looked back since.

2. I also realised the yellow and red cards are flashed more often in La Liga compared to BPL. I wonder why? Anyway, what this means is that average or cheap players would be able to contribute just as much points as the more expensive ones…in the long run of course. I still have not found a site to track and monitor all these cards and card suspensions though..

3. Just like BPL, injuries are bound to happen in La Liga as well. Currently I am using this list from Soccerfreakz to help me select players who not injured and also to monitor their injury status. Do let me know if you can find one that tells me their card suspension status, yeah?! ;-P

And that’s the mid-season wrap. Will share more tips at the end of season since the season is still on-going and my friends can still catch up!

Hope I can continue to maintain my form for the remaining games!

When we came back home after the long Chinese New Year break, we discovered that our house had a power trip! It must have happened during one of those days when we were away…couldn’t really pin point the exact day because even our neighbour said that our house was already in pitch black when they returned to KL some 2-3 days ago.

Immediately, we started to rummage the fridge to see if there was anything left to salvage…

Although the fridge was still quite ‘cool’ and not all of the ice had melted, we decided to play it safe and discard almost everything we felt was not safe for us to consume anymore…

Things like…

meatballs, chicken meat, taufoo, etc...

and..

salami, fish, ham, etc.

In the end, we actually filled up an entire Indian pot of goodies!

yes, even some bak chang!

With quick action, we put the pot to heat in a desperate attempt to keep it edible, at least for our dogs…

Don’t think I’ve ever smelt so much meat and other unknowns boiled together before…:-P

So, whilst we humans enjoyed a feast of yummy goodies over the CNY period, we sorta ensured our dogs will also usher in the Year of the Dragon with a yummy feast to last the next few days, at least..:-D

…is knocked out of the FA Cup last weekend?

…

…

SIGH….:-(