Idyllic scenes of Jalan Chempaka Kuning

Walked to the the post office at Simpang Bedok to inquire on postage to Australia for a buyer and usually I take a slow and lazy walk through Jalan Chempaka Kuning. Its only claim to fame in my mind is that it was formerly a dengue cluster region. I made sure no mosquito came near me.

This area always had an idyllic feel to it and even a kampong feel at times. As I was walking past some very tall hedges I heard a sound and I looked but saw nothing.

 I heard the noise a few more times and peered closer.

I could not believe my eyes, in the hedges was a rooster hiding inside it. It was not cooped up or leashed in anyway. Just hanging around in the shade away from the blistering sun.

I walked around the hedge to get to the other side to take a closer look. There was actually 2 of them and they were free range roosters literally. An open coop was nearby on the left but other than that, they were walking around free. Darn cool but noisy guys. I saw a chicken in another coop as well as I walked by. The whole darn hedge was sheltering a mini chicken population.

On my way back I also saw a couple of lazy cats, so lazy they did not bother to go and "play" with those roosters. First guy had totally no reaction to me as I snapshot it a few times. He was happily concussed.

The other one looked at me and got back to the business of sleeping.

Back at home, my rabbit was joining the cats. I decided to join them and took a snooze upstairs too.

Well that is it from that idyllic scene of Jalan Chempaka Kuning. I am sure there are more interesting things to see in that area and will take photos when I do go by there again.

NEA remain one day behind MSS in regional haze map...why?

Here is the regional haze map of NEA today 29th June at 10am when I last checked. It only has the regional haze map for 27th June.

On the other hand, Meteorological Service Singapore a division under NEA has a map from 28th June here.

In that case, I think NEA should just provide a link to MSS one and eveyrone will get the latest and greatest though it lags 24 hours but the graphic is easy to understand and gives somewhat an idea of what to expect the next day.

One could argue that their statellite imagery is even more updated (15:32hrs Friday 28th June) as shown here and we could use that instead but at times that seems very messy.

Oh well at least we got something to look at and interpret which gets improved by us making guess work looking outside the windows.

Here is the latest compilation of the regional haze map.

Preparing for the next hazing

So the first wave of haze we had before this fortunate respite, most of us were caught with our pants down. Some more so than others. Many felt the Government and various national agencies did not respond fast enough or adequately. Not to mention that press releases certainly did not seem to help. The more important thing though is to be individually prepared so in that line of thought other than getting myself and family N95 respirators, I bought some 3M Filtrete air cleaning filters.

The idea behind it is to try and make the air in one's own room breathable in a more comfortable manner other than wearing an N95 indoors when the PSI goes to a crazy high of 300++. I tried this when the PSI reached 371 and 401 on those fate days. Also due to the nature of the N95, it is practically impossible to sleep with it and in fact one should NOT do it. Unless one wishes to challenge The Devil to a game of chess.

So 3M Filtrete air cleaning filters are made out of electrostatic fibres and hence supposedly filter more fine particles and in general better filters. They come in comes in 2 varieties. One is the standard one and come in a red packaging shown below.

This is the pre-cut type with self adhesives and comes with 4 pieces good for 2 air cons. Dimensions of each piece is 19cm x 30cm. The other type also in red packaging comes with 2 pieces but you would have to tape it yourself and comes in dimensions of 30cm x 60cm. I prefer the latter as it is more flexible for the task I use it for.

Below is the other one in blue packaging. It has added odour reducing carbon filter on it. I just got it yesterday when it was finally re-stocked. Previously I used the red one. I bought the blue to try out the difference and intend to when the next haze attack comes.

So what I did was to take the standard stand fan shown below for modding.

I added the filters to the back of it, held up with simple rubber bands.

Amazingly this works and the smell during those days were noticeably less or even missing from my room and I could sleep relatively well given all the yellow phlegm I was spewing out. You can also see it is starting to yellow even after 2 days of usage. So armed with the blue 3M Filtrete air cleaning filter, I am poised and ready for the next wave.

A company Nordic Pure has a handy guide showing different standards and what levels of particle filtration they do.

On a longer term front, I have purchased a Honeywell 17000 air purifier and will review when it arrive sometime late July. By then if the haze is around I would get to send it to its baptism of fire.

MacDonald's Hello Kitty Fairy Tales Collection: The Singing Bone 27 Jun

For the more observant ones amongst you, you would notice that I did not put the week that The Singing Bone was supposed to be available, I put just the date it was released. Why you may ask why good sir did you do that? Well because it is simple. Singing Bone Hello Kitty was gone on day 1 within a couple of hours of the start of the promotion. Poof. Gone in an instant. Too fast too furious.

Unlikely my mostly positive experiences and non-too-violent incidents, other places were not so. Take a look at this.

Some even rude exchanges were made in Facebook. Really people do you want to show everyone your moronic side and regress?

 
Okay so The Singing Bone Hello Kitty is noticeably different from all the rest as it is black as it can be.

The theme colour for this round is black.

As always, the artwork is top notch except it has a dose of scary added.

Again the same book pattern is used for the box packaging.

Somehow one has skulls all over the yellow rim. Not sure if that is considered child friendly...

Now looking at the kitty itself, it is like a negative of the usual Hello Kitties. This is black with silver embroidered patterns. This does not have any hood or any other kind of clothing but still manages to make it up with the very nice embroidered patterns. One can tell that it is not that well made, as all the previous ones but seem less deformed especially the ears part where they are usually asymmetrical but are hidden by the hoods. Again for SGD$4.60 on cannot really complain.

On the back, it is the plainest amongst all the 6.

Finally, we end off with the artwork. Maybe it is the black theme but this one certainly looks very Batman to me! But I do love it even though it is quite different from the rest.

Alrighty, the promotion is finally over. It was crazy especially getting this last one but it was at the same time fun but stressful at the same time. I am sure many of those who like me were collecting full sets feel the stress of getting this last piece. Here is a shot of them on my cabinet with my other toys.

Until next time...

Here are the links to the other Kitty Dolls in this series
Wizard of Oz Hello Kitty
McDelivery Hello Kitty 
Little Red Riding Hood Hello Kitty
The Frog Prince Hello Kitty
The Ugly Duckling Hello Kitty
The Wisdom Owl*
*this is released after this one


Here is a link to a set from last year's series
McDonald's Hello Kitty Series 2012

MacDonald's Hello Kitty Fairy Tales Collection: Ultimate Showdown Extravaganza

Like all good shows, the finale has to be a no holds barred showdown of epic proportions. McDonald's has restricted the purchase of Hello Kitty The Singing Bone to 4 per person. Surely this will drive people to purchase 4 per person due to the perceived limited edition status of the last one but even I had no idea how epic this was going to be.

My initial idea was it head down around 2300hrs to join the queue. I thought that Changi City Point (CCP) was a relatively deserted branch and hence I would face little competition for the plush toy. Boy was I wrong, totally dead wrong.

Michelle was pretty excited and wanted to head down earlier but I dissuaded her from doing that. Later though a friend sent a picture if the queue developing at Yew Tee. I dismissed it as a 24-hours branch located near neighbourhood housing estates and hence such branches would face such issues but on the other hand CCP was located in the east and was relatively secluded to IMHO. Nevertheless we went down earlier than planned to try and get into the queue earlier. Here is her leading a fast march towards kitty.

Both of us were carrying bags to stuff the food into. This would become handy as the plan changed later.

We reached around 2215 and a long queue had developed. The queue got pretty long within the next half an hour and the manager of that branch started issuing Kitty Coupons (actually scraps of paper with hello kitty on one side).

Almost half the queue was sorely disappointed that the coupons ran out and as those kitty-less people left some were furious on their mobile phones deciding on their next move. I was lucky! I was standing safely away from that set point. Later we found out from Michelle's colleagues at other 24 hours branches that this was a similar situation elsewhere. Most of her friends sadly failed to get their kitty fix.

Still people kept coming as they did not know that the CCP branch has already reached their kitty limit. Several times I saw the queue grow again to double the length and only to collapse quickly when informed by the staff of the unfortunate news.

An overseas Indian who was working around there had obviously not seen such Kiasu-ness in Singapore before and approached someone in front of me to ask what was going on. Cracked me up.

eBay quickly sprouted sellers of the Singing Bone and outrageous bids like over a 1000 dollars were reached but I did notice that for a lot of them, the first and last letter of the bidder was exactly the same in all bids. Also the buyers' rating were 0. I quickly surmised that someone was spoiling the bids perhaps in frustration at all this scalping going on. 10 Million for Singing Bone Hello Kitty? That is even better than selling property! Haha.

Initial plan was to walk home in order to save costs but Michelle had a change of plans, she was actually short of 3 Singing Bone Hello Kitty! Argh and she badly wanted to get them for her colleagues and friends.Very badly to the point that it was not funny. She had thought that re-queue was a possibility but hell it was not for sure with the high demand. At the same time almost all her friends had failed to secure any as they were late in the game in other 24-hours branches like Woodlands, Queensway.

We discussed and decided to take a taxi back to another McDonald's branch but this time the regular branch type that opened in the morning at 7am/8am type. We decided on Parkway branch as it was nearer to our home and I was familiar with the surroundings. One thing is some branches are not directly accessible and are located in the shopping centre but not at the sides. So where to queue in such an instance. At least the Parkway one we knew where the entrance was.

Meanwhile back at the CCP, after almost one and a half hours, we reached the counter and ordered 4 double cheeseburger sets, 4 fillet o fish sets and changed all drinks to ice milo, my favourite drink of all time. EVAR. And of course finally got our Singing Bones. With that, we managed to get a taxi immediately at the taxi stand and asked the driver to wait for us as we got home, packed her work attire with her and I carried a spare bag to stuff the food into and left for round 2! I thought it was crazy but oh well there are those days...

We arrived at Parkway and as expected a queue had already formed. They consisted of those who were disappointed from the other 24-hour branches which I correctly predicted and the "first-timers". This branch had more creature comforts as one of the guys commented. We could sit on nice seats while in the queue overnight.

Staff from the 24-hour East Coast Seafood Centre branch were re-deployed there to help out and the coveted Kitty Coupons. Here is a shot of how it looks like.

This was an even closer shave than round 1 at CCP. We were about the last ten people before the cut-off. So finding ourselves in the "confirmed list", we sat down and tried to prepare for what was surely going to be a long night. I packed 2 double cheeseburgers, 2 fillet o fish, 1 packet of fries and 4 ice milos as a night snack which Michelle once settled down nicely started to dig into. Nom Nom Nom Nom.

Fast forward, skipping the dozing parts, walking around Marine Parade Central in the middle of the freaknig night, killing of cockroaches, 7am could not have come sooner. Some people who were not in the cut-off decided to stay and try their luck as some of those in the confirmed list would give up their places...just like the BTO scheme!

At CCP I did not see any ugly sights of Singaporeans but over at Parkway it was a different story I am sad to say. Some people unhappy for some reason, 2 ladies who came later in the morning argued with the staff but they stayed to try their luck. One of them demanded those in the "confirmed list" to show their coupons to prove that something. To me, she had no right and we need not entertain her. A guy in the queue with me commented typical Singaporean.


1 young girl came like past the 7am timing when the show started rolling,  she begged people to spare her a Kitty. The guy just behind me was a very nice Malaysian just behind me, gave her one ticket which later she said, she was looking for 2 and continued asking around for her...I really not too sure what to say about it. On one hand, she was very very determined on the other hand. People queued like for 7+hours for that hello kitty, people behind the confirmed list are trying out their luck. I felt she was a bit too much, but on the other hand, her persistence paid off? I don't know what to say...it is a tough situation.....she was SO DAMN LATE IN THE GAME WHAT MADE HER THINK SHE COULD BEG AROUND FOR 2??!!

3 aunties kept asking me and those who go the kitties to spare a kitty for their grandchildren or twin grandchildren and so on...sigh I did not know what to say about that situation as well. While we were queuing overnight, the haze and its distinctive BBQ smell started coming back. Oh well we all knew it was a matter of time...

It was home sweet home for me after round 2. Michelle had changed to work clothes earlier before 7am and we took a bus to Paya Lebar MRT and went to work in the other direction. 2 small hiccups to the overall well executed plan. I brought 2 chocolate bars thinking I would be hungry and put it my backpack...then I put the meals in the backpack. Now the aluminium sealed foil has "liquid" all inside it and had to freeze it back. Also, I accidentally put hash brown forgetting the oil will seep out, so my Deuter bag is being sent for washing.

With that I took a long nap. Check out the next post which will be the review of the Singing Bone Hello Kitty itself. Boy was it an adventure and a hoot to get it! Here is the shot of most of the kitties we got lined up and ready to receive their new owners over the next few days as friends and colleagues come and pick them up. 4 of them were already distributed by Michelle. Darn cool if you ask me.

[Update 27th June 2013 2245hrs]: They have released a PR statement on the Hello Kitty promotion which they do not condone staff doing any reselling and that they remove posts on their FaceBook of resellers. If you ask it, things are very hard to control and the main way to kill of reselling is to simply have a very large supply to squash it (like what the G did with N95, they flooded 9 million in, now where are the queues) or alternatively have rounds and rounds of Hello Kitty promotions which will devalue the secondary market.

Hello there and how are you this fine early evening?

While I was out jogging I saw something in the distance straddling across the path.

 

It was a monitor lizard crossing the Park Connector (PCN) path. Timid creature as it was, it quickly slithered away into the bushes as I tried to get closer to it for a better shot. Not surprised, Man is probably the apex of all predators. At least I got a a shot of him. It is of quite a good size though there are bigger ones out there. Maybe he was out for a leisure evening stroll like the rest of us.

Later, after dinner I had to medicate the rabbit. This rabbit hates being medicated and is being a handful each time that we try and it seems to be increasingly getting irritated. Oh well, no choice, if the eye infection is to go away, it has to got to take the bitter pills while we took the bitter bill! Anyways, here is him lounging around with his precious next to him before being rudely interrupted by me.

Looks like a little bit of a mess we have here...

While my sister was away on vacation with my dad, I was asked to popy by every 2-3 days to check out her place and make sure commando cat's cat litter was poop free. So far it has been, which leads us to suspect commando cat is not more and he has no heirs to take over his legacy.

Now the first visit last weekend was uneventful and I took back a carton of sugar free soya bena milk for my "efforts". Today I decided to pop by again with Liza and slum around while she cleaned up the area.

Upon opening the door, this was the fabulous scene that greeted me.

It seems that some unknown stress within the skirting tiles have force these 2 to pop out. This was just outside the unused guest room.

As a precaution I checked out the other tiles on the left. They seem quite firm still. This was done by the previous owner so maybe it has been so old that inevitably the cement gave up the ghost.

Great Scott! We are surrounded in a cloud of haze

As shown from the animation below of a collage of regional haze maps 20th June to 25th June, the has almost flanked our island from almost all quarters except the South East direction. So it looks like it will be a matter of a few days more until we start to experience hazy conditions again. Sadly, no hail on the east side. Shucks and I thought things were just about to get a tad bit exciting around here.

Meanwhile the 3M Filtrete seem to be sold out still in Home Fix. I eagerly await the 3M Filtrete Room Air Conditioner Filter to arrive so as to test out the higher MPR one.

Although the skies are clearer now, there is no doubt there is still quite a bit of crud in the air as I still occasionally cough out super thick yellow phlegm.

To end off on a more light hearted note, here is someone's rendition of the PSI Index according to Hello Kitty Fairy Tale series. Witch Kitty is first I guess as she does not wear any hood on her head. The next four features hoods and masks, going from green to red, like a traffic light status. Finally with super high PSI of more than 500, we will all become black like the Singing Bone one and yes tomorrow is the finale to this exciting crazy chase for all the kitties.

Nice clear weather with a chance of hail

In the west, we have reports of small sized hail coming down from the sky. Wow. I wonder if that is the first time on our island that we had reports of hail. If the east side rains hail, I will definitely take some video of it.

Anyway, as mention in an earlier post, NEA has changed it reporting format. So people have gone out to look for other sources of PSI and the like. One that is quite good I find is this. It provides hours updates and even the different regions in Singapore. Pretty good and it even has widgets for various OS like Android and iOS. Go get it if you want track the air quality around the island.

Another strange thing is the regional haze map on NEA's website has stopped updating from 23rd June 2013. Not sure if it is an oversight but after some digging, I found it under the Meteorological Service of Singapore. We can see that the south-easterly winds seem to be weakening. So maybe even as early as tomorrow we might be in the less dense haze cloud. Ouch. What is equally troubling is that the hotspots have increased dramatically though NEA statement on that is one major contributing factor could be they are now recording those that were previously undetected.

Perigee 2013

It was the closest moon for the year and it looked great. Here is a shot of it. Maybe I might get a chance to take an apogee shot to compare again next time.

Funny looking tree and a haze takes the weekend off

On my way back today, I suddenly notice my neighbour has a very interesting looking tree. So took out the Canon with tripod and took a picture and this is what I got.

Based on what I can decipher, a bougainvillea creeper has grown all over the tree, making it look like it is flowering.

Yeah there is a good chance that we will get to see the full moon tonight. Keeping my fingers crossed until evening time. PSI has been mostly below the 100 range for the whole day now. In fact, it has been mostly around 70s and 80s. I am very sure retailers are very grateful for this respite. NTUC Unity is still doing brisk business on the N95 masks. We bought sufficient for ourselves last night and today's queue is the same as before, moderately long only. So no need to panic people.

As shown below over a series of days, the haze become less dense for us over the weekend but that does not mean we are totally clear! The dense haze is hanging around and a change in winds is expected to bring the dense haze back to the little red dot. So let us enjoy our good fortune while it last. For some it might mean getting out for exercise, other might be to go and get the best deals during this GSS (Great Singapore Sale) period. Others like me who have lousy respiratory systems, it is sleeping without hacking out half a lung with yellow phlegm that can act as a binding agent.

The last graphic, er it has a "distinctive" shape, maybe giving a nasty greeting to the people in that region. Also it seems to indicate the wind direction is blowing the haze into a curve and maybe we will get clean air for the next few days!