Global Warming

Over the Chinese New Year weekend, I watched the second half of An Inconvenient Truth on DVD (read about it here).

All the news about global warming from the media should get us sitting on our chair's edge. This film neatly summarizes the problems global warming is causing, and how the culprits of global warming - you and I - can help stop it.

It was a great film. I admire Al Gore, the presenter of the film, who was truly concerned. He did a really great job researching and presenting the facts that I suspect he will be receiving a lot of counter attacks.

And I can understand why.

Just read about the actions that we can take to help stop the phenomena, and you'll start to gripe about the inconveniences that they'll bring to our lives. Just like I did.

No matter, it is a serious issue. Let's be concerned.

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Enjoy this cute video :^)

新年快乐！

The new year begins with a piece of good news!

Sis-in-law gave birth to cute baby nephew on 15th Feb 2007.
That makes me a new aunt! :D

家里刚添了个小宝宝。小侄儿在 2007年 2月15日 早晨出世。

小侄儿选在靠近农历新年出生使得我们大家忙得要命，尤其是爸爸妈妈。
不过, 我们也忙得开心。^_^

在这欢乐的气氛里, 我想祝愿大家:

吉祥如意

步步高升

财源广进

发大财！

合家安康, 新年快乐。

Kuih Balu

I was out shopping for Chinese New Year goodies when I realised what a joke was made out of my mom's favourite cake.

Mom was making a special lookout for this sort of small tea cake, because my brothers loved it too. It's a shame that I didn't know what it is called, until now. I only remember my aunt used to give a lot of these to us when we were small. Mom said it's called kuih balu, or 鸡蛋糕.


We saw the kuih balu in almost every mall or cake shop we went to.

"Is this kuih balu?" Mom asked.
"No, it's kuih bulu." I answered.
"But it looks like kuih balu to me."
I pointed at the label "Kuih Bulu".

Next shop.

"Look ma, this one's kuih balu on the label."
"Yes, yes, it is."

Next shop.

"This one's kuih baulu, ma."
"Eh?"

Next shop.

"This one's kuih balulu, ma."
"Ehh??"
We burst out laughing.


It turns out that the kuih balu mom's been searching for has its name morphed into several variations. This led me to think about how the spoken language of a language can affect the language itself. One possible combination could be this: someone heard it as kuih balu; the next person as kuih baulu; then another as kuih balulu. Therefore, in the Malay language, there are 4 possible nouns denoting the same tea cake. (Or perhaps more?)

According to a native Indonesian, the original name of the cake is kuih bulu. Then again, how would I know if this is truly original? Others, like my mom, might argue kuih bulu is just but another accidental spoken derivative of kuih balu.

Anyway, that's for linguists to find out.

For now, I'm very contented savouring the fragrant sweetness of my 鸡蛋糕 :P

Wives

A colleague emailed me some quotes about "wives".


My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
Rodney Dangerfield

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
Milton Berle

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthdayis to forget it once...
Anonymous

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
Sacha Guitry


So bad!
2 more that caught my eye (didn't know philosophers can be so humorous):


The great question ... which I have not been able to answer ... is, "What does a woman want?"
Sigmund Freud

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates


So so bad.