Calvin Minus Hobbes: Fantasy Or Insanity?

The beauty of art is that it can be interpreted differently, depending on who you asked. Some would consider the works of Picasso genius, while others are insistent that their four year old child is better.

The same can be said for comics, especially Calvin and Hobbes. To the layman, Hobbes is nothing more than the product of a child's imagination. Others would say that Hobbes is very much real, a magical stuffed tiger that only comes to life for Calvin alone. Then there are some that say Hobbes is the manifestation of a troubled youth's insanity.

Taking a cue from Garfield Minus Garfield, Jeff's Ocean replaces Hobbes with its doll form and erased all of his speech bubbles. Suddenly, the strips lost their charm, and offer a bleak view of the possibility of Calvin's mental disability.

For more depressing shit, go here.

Reasons for a Flight Delay

有没有再准一点...when I was flying like 10 flights a month as a stewardess, I've hardly encountered flight delays. Not that they don't happen. In adverse weather conditions like when it was snowing, they had to de-snow or de-ice the wings before we can take off. You'd think it's normal for ice or snow to form on the wings cos the plane flies at such high altitutes and up there it's freezing cold right? Wrong. The plane flies above the clouds so that it is not at risk of frost accumulation during flight. And it is not the weight of the ice/snow which causes the problems, but the surface roughness caused by accumulation of these things. You only need roughness of a fine emery board to destroy the aerodynamics of a plane. Particles of frost or ice as fine as a grain of table salt and distributed as sparsely as one per cm square over an aircraft wing’s upper surface can destroy enough lift to actually prevent it taking off. Scary? I think so.

 De-icing can delay a flight by 2 hours.

But we all know that neither Penang nor Singapore snows...so the problem is not this la...

So I've decided to see what kind of reasons I could think of, or have heard of, from other cabin crew...

• Passenger checked in cargo bag, but that particular passenger did not board the flight.

Now. In aircraft security terms, this is as good as someone possibly planting a blomb onboard. They MUST make sure that when the aircraft door closes, all passengers who have checked in their cargo bags are on board. If not, they will manually go to the cargo hold, and offload THAT particular bag. And this takes time.

•  Weather conditions which make visibility very bad for the pilots. 

Haze? Fog? Very heavy rain? They cannot see clearly, they better not fly. I'd rather keep my life and be late, thank you.

• Loose animals.

I remember this ridiculous incident this crew told me. On one flight, this passenger had her cat checked into the cargo hold. (If you're transporting animals, they go into the cargo hold. I didn't mean that she locked her cat up in her lugagge by accident.) She kept asking the crew to check with the security staff if her cat's in the cargo hold and if she's safe. After much pleading (and possibly causing distress in other passengers), they let her go down physically to the cargo hold to see her cat. Now this woman had to be so damn itchy-handed that she had to open the cage for god-knows-what-reason (Let her cat stretch? Air her cat? WHAT?), the cat sped out of the cage and got lost. We cannot afford to let the cat kide itself in the wheels or something and cause an air crash can we? Letting a cat run loose on the tarmac is just as hazardous (to the planes. The lives of more than 200 passengers more important? Or one cat's?). So there was a few hours' delay while safety and security crew tried to find the cat.  -.-"

• The airport is too busy. 

I remember in New York's JKF Airport, there are too many planes wanting to take off/ land, and not enough runways to cater to the high traffic. So the planes gotta queue up to take off. And land. So if u find your plane circulating and going round and round up in the air, they're just waiting for instructions telling them they can (finally) land.

• Pilots overslept.

You can't fly with just 1 pilot. As with all commercial flights. I don't know about the budget airlines' small planes. But I remember there's always 2. Just in case. And if any one of them, for some reason (clubbing???) overslept and reported late for work, everyone is held up lor. Unless the airline can suddenly activate another pilot to come fly the plane. They damn dua liap hor.

• They found something wrong with the plane. 

Once, during very bad snowy weather, I had to fly a Milan-Barcelona-Milan shuttle. And the snow only got worse upon landing in Barcelona. So much so that we had to wait until the weather is better before we can fly. Then they still have to desnow the wings leh. Okay that took like 2 hours. Then just before we were ready to fly, it was detected that there was something wrong with the brakes. Either that or the brakes broke or something (they wouldn't disclose it), and they had to change that particular part. Worst part was - that part was not available in Barcelona, so they had to wait for that part to be flown in from somewhere else. Close to 6 hours' delay.... That was madness...

The crew had fun on the plane la...it was a 777-300ER plane, and the interior was woot chio!!!! So the crew,while waiting, took plenty of pictures which we would otherwise have had no chance or time to take. We board, prepare the aircraft, board pasengers, work, say bye to passengers, handover the aircraft, and out we go. There's hardly time to do things like hip xiong without someone giving you dirty looks....

I still don't know why my plane was delayed. Hopefully they'll let us know then I'll share with you guys.
Got a thousand other reasons la...but I need to go board my plane (if it's here). Share with you all these interesting flight details another time k? =D



OfftoPenang,
Silver

Reasons for a Flight Delay

有没有再准一点...when I was flying like 10 flights a month as a stewardess, I've hardly encountered flight delays. Not that they don't happen. In adverse weather conditions like when it was snowing, they had to de-snow or de-ice the wings before we can take off. You'd think it's normal for ice or snow to form on the wings cos the plane flies at such high altitutes and up there it's freezing cold right? Wrong. The plane flies above the clouds so that it is not at risk of frost accumulation during flight. And it is not the weight of the ice/snow which causes the problems, but the surface roughness caused by accumulation of these things. You only need roughness of a fine emery board to destroy the aerodynamics of a plane. Particles of frost or ice as fine as a grain of table salt and distributed as sparsely as one per cm square over an aircraft wing’s upper surface can destroy enough lift to actually prevent it taking off. Scary? I think so.

 De-icing can delay a flight by 2 hours.

But we all know that neither Penang nor Singapore snows...so the problem is not this la...

So I've decided to see what kind of reasons I could think of, or have heard of, from other cabin crew...

• Passenger checked in cargo bag, but that particular passenger did not board the flight.

Now. In aircraft security terms, this is as good as someone possibly planting a blomb onboard. They MUST make sure that when the aircraft door closes, all passengers who have checked in their cargo bags are on board. If not, they will manually go to the cargo hold, and offload THAT particular bag. And this takes time.

•  Weather conditions which make visibility very bad for the pilots. 

Haze? Fog? Very heavy rain? They cannot see clearly, they better not fly. I'd rather keep my life and be late, thank you.

• Loose animals.

I remember this ridiculous incident this crew told me. On one flight, this passenger had her cat checked into the cargo hold. (If you're transporting animals, they go into the cargo hold. I didn't mean that she locked her cat up in her lugagge by accident.) She kept asking the crew to check with the security staff if her cat's in the cargo hold and if she's safe. After much pleading (and possibly causing distress in other passengers), they let her go down physically to the cargo hold to see her cat. Now this woman had to be so damn itchy-handed that she had to open the cage for god-knows-what-reason (Let her cat stretch? Air her cat? WHAT?), the cat sped out of the cage and got lost. We cannot afford to let the cat kide itself in the wheels or something and cause an air crash can we? Letting a cat run loose on the tarmac is just as hazardous (to the planes. The lives of more than 200 passengers more important? Or one cat's?). So there was a few hours' delay while safety and security crew tried to find the cat.  -.-"

• The airport is too busy. 

I remember in New York's JKF Airport, there are too many planes wanting to take off/ land, and not enough runways to cater to the high traffic. So the planes gotta queue up to take off. And land. So if u find your plane circulating and going round and round up in the air, they're just waiting for instructions telling them they can (finally) land.

• Pilots overslept.

You can't fly with just 1 pilot. As with all commercial flights. I don't know about the budget airlines' small planes. But I remember there's always 2. Just in case. And if any one of them, for some reason (clubbing???) overslept and reported late for work, everyone is held up lor. Unless the airline can suddenly activate another pilot to come fly the plane. They damn dua liap hor.

• They found something wrong with the plane. 

Once, during very bad snowy weather, I had to fly a Milan-Barcelona-Milan shuttle. And the snow only got worse upon landing in Barcelona. So much so that we had to wait until the weather is better before we can fly. Then they still have to desnow the wings leh. Okay that took like 2 hours. Then just before we were ready to fly, it was detected that there was something wrong with the brakes. Either that or the brakes broke or something (they wouldn't disclose it), and they had to change that particular part. Worst part was - that part was not available in Barcelona, so they had to wait for that part to be flown in from somewhere else. Close to 6 hours' delay.... That was madness...

The crew had fun on the plane la...it was a 777-300ER plane, and the interior was woot chio!!!! So the crew,while waiting, took plenty of pictures which we would otherwise have had no chance or time to take. We board, prepare the aircraft, board pasengers, work, say bye to passengers, handover the aircraft, and out we go. There's hardly time to do things like hip xiong without someone giving you dirty looks....

I still don't know why my plane was delayed. Hopefully they'll let us know then I'll share with you guys.
Got a thousand other reasons la...but I need to go board my plane (if it's here). Share with you all these interesting flight details another time k? =D



OfftoPenang,
Silver

I'm Going to Penang

I'll be away at Blogfest Asia 2010 in Penang! Flying off this afternoon at 3. And I have yet to pack, and officially stayed awake for more than 20 hours. Will go power nap, wake up, pack, and go. Update you guys from Penang!!! Wee~~~~~


SleepDeprived,
Silver

I'm Going to Penang

I'll be away at Blogfest Asia 2010 in Penang! Flying off this afternoon at 3. And I have yet to pack, and officially stayed awake for more than 20 hours. Will go power nap, wake up, pack, and go. Update you guys from Penang!!! Wee~~~~~


SleepDeprived,
Silver

Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen

Really, if there's one person I would really watch to fight, it would be Donnie Yen. Because out of all the other fighter actors (Jacky Chan, Jet Li, Sammi Hung), he's THE eye candy. Because honestly, action movies make me giddy, which is why I hardly watch them. Chick flicks and deeper movies are more my thing. What? Who says an intellectual cannot sometimes be bimbo too? It's a matter of choice okay? Like a "Who do I want to be today thing?". More on that another post.

So anyway, as I was saying, the reason why I would watch an action show has to be either

1. Eye candy
2. I know the director/actor/whoever involved in the production
3. I'm in it (not that I've ever been in one. Yet.)
4. Any of my fave stars are in it. 
5. The whole world says it's so good that I just have to go check it out myself, just to see if it's as good as people say it is, or is it just hype.

So thanks to Omy, I got to watch an eye candy on an action show - Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen.

That's Donnie Yen's silhouette, by the way...

Yeah...check THAT body out~

Obviously, Donnie plays Chen Zhen, the Chinese war hero...

How do you resist a man like that? Especially if he fights the way he does? To be really amazed by Donnie's fighting, you HAVE to watch the show, even it's (another) war show about the Chinese resistance.

FYI: Donnie's been fighting in his shows since as early as 1989. He really knows his kungfu, and is very passionate about it. In Legend of the Fist, he's the action director for the show.

Don't play play...he can kick his own head one okay....

In LOTF, You'll see plenty of gravity-defying kicks and stunts that may put even Bruce Lee to shame.

Watch the trailer to get what I mean...

Saw all his stunts???

If there's one thing I admire about a man, it's that he's great at what he is. (Girls? Agree with me on that?) And Donnie Yen is great at his martial arts. So weee~ooo~weeeet!!!!

Too bad for me (and Qiuting, who delusionally claims Donnie is her bf), Donnie Yen is happily married...

That's him with his lovely leggy wife, Cecilia.

Qiuting...I know you have beautiful legs as well, so you just might land yourself a local version...

If I knew photoshop, I would put my face over Cecilia's....

Okay okay...er hem...*smoothes clothes* *wipes drool*

 Must 保持形象.

Those are his 2 kids! You didn't know he was happily married with 2 kids right? Sorry to burst your bubble girls!

I will still drool at his kungfu....

A lot of people are doing this 造型 hor? Think Jay Chou coming out with a new movie, also dressed like that right? But of course, in the area of martial arts, Jay...er...hmmm...I like your music....so concentrate on impressing me with your music okay? Leave the fighting to Don Don. =D

It is after all, an action movie, a WAR film at that, something which really doesn't turn me on. And if not for Donnie, the show probably wouldn't be half as good. Great casting. And oh, you have another eye candy - Shu Qi, in the show. So there's something for the guys to ogle at too...

She's very hardworking leh...she acted in 45 movies in just 6 years! How I wish I'm born in Hong Kong...here not so much movies to make leh...How? 

*prays*

Visit their official website here.

Oh by the way! Donnie rides a bike too! ;)

BikerEyeCandy,
Silver Ang

Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen

Really, if there's one person I would really watch to fight, it would be Donnie Yen. Because out of all the other fighter actors (Jacky Chan, Jet Li, Sammi Hung), he's THE eye candy. Because honestly, action movies make me giddy, which is why I hardly watch them. Chick flicks and deeper movies are more my thing. What? Who says an intellectual cannot sometimes be bimbo too? It's a matter of choice okay? Like a "Who do I want to be today thing?". More on that another post.

So anyway, as I was saying, the reason why I would watch an action show has to be either

1. Eye candy
2. I know the director/actor/whoever involved in the production
3. I'm in it (not that I've ever been in one. Yet.)
4. Any of my fave stars are in it. 
5. The whole world says it's so good that I just have to go check it out myself, just to see if it's as good as people say it is, or is it just hype.

So thanks to Omy, I got to watch an eye candy on an action show - Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen.

That's Donnie Yen's silhouette, by the way...

Yeah...check THAT body out~

Obviously, Donnie plays Chen Zhen, the Chinese war hero...

How do you resist a man like that? Especially if he fights the way he does? To be really amazed by Donnie's fighting, you HAVE to watch the show, even it's (another) war show about the Chinese resistance.

FYI: Donnie's been fighting in his shows since as early as 1989. He really knows his kungfu, and is very passionate about it. In Legend of the Fist, he's the action director for the show.

Don't play play...he can kick his own head one okay....

In LOTF, You'll see plenty of gravity-defying kicks and stunts that may put even Bruce Lee to shame.

Watch the trailer to get what I mean...

Saw all his stunts???

If there's one thing I admire about a man, it's that he's great at what he is. (Girls? Agree with me on that?) And Donnie Yen is great at his martial arts. So weee~ooo~weeeet!!!!

Too bad for me (and Qiuting, who delusionally claims Donnie is her bf), Donnie Yen is happily married...

That's him with his lovely leggy wife, Cecilia.

Qiuting...I know you have beautiful legs as well, so you just might land yourself a local version...

If I knew photoshop, I would put my face over Cecilia's....

Okay okay...er hem...*smoothes clothes* *wipes drool*

 Must 保持形象.

Those are his 2 kids! You didn't know he was happily married with 2 kids right? Sorry to burst your bubble girls!

I will still drool at his kungfu....

A lot of people are doing this 造型 hor? Think Jay Chou coming out with a new movie, also dressed like that right? But of course, in the area of martial arts, Jay...er...hmmm...I like your music....so concentrate on impressing me with your music okay? Leave the fighting to Don Don. =D

It is after all, an action movie, a WAR film at that, something which really doesn't turn me on. And if not for Donnie, the show probably wouldn't be half as good. Great casting. And oh, you have another eye candy - Shu Qi, in the show. So there's something for the guys to ogle at too...

She's very hardworking leh...she acted in 45 movies in just 6 years! How I wish I'm born in Hong Kong...here not so much movies to make leh...How? 

*prays*

Visit their official website here.

Oh by the way! Donnie rides a bike too! ;)

BikerEyeCandy,
Silver Ang

Fei Fei Wanton Mee, & the Slim Patches

I'm on a wanton mee frenzy...lol~!!!

Friday, 24Sep2010

1st Meal @ 1400: Japanese Food. At Ichiban. Salmon Teriyaki with rice, Agedashi Tofu, and 1slice of Orange.

Snack: Jelly Mooncake - 1/2

2nd Meal @ 0145: FEI FEI WANTON MEE at Joo Chiat Place!!!

 Decievingly bland...with loads of chilli. I had both chilli and ketchup.

 All the liaos are underneath!

This is good, with the noodles being very Q. 

Though I think I prefer yesterday's wanton mee at JB. Different kinds of noodles, different styles, so can't really compare la. But both are good. =D

I received the slim patch I ordered from Mingo, who claimed hers is the original one as compared to the others who were selling it cheaper. Hers were priced at $17.90 for 10pc while the rest are $11.90 or even cheaper.

I can't tell the difference in the packaging. I was trying to see if the 'non-original' had a more faded print. Same leh....In fact, it's the mingo one with lighter ink colours.

The difference lies in what's inside...

This is the supposed 'non-original':

And this is the one from Mingo (mingo is the seller name on ebay):

The texture is thicker, it's easier to peel off the plastic backing, and the patch feels like a koyok. 

See the difference?

Now what puzzles me is this...

Notice one says Slim Patch and the other "Sharpe Slim Patch"? And the "CAFFEINE 新配合"?

The one on the bottom is mingo's. Does it mean mingo is selling the newer one with improved formula that's why it's different? Beats me. Upon closer inspection of the package, I noticed that the telephone numbers printed belong to 2 different countries. -.-"

 The scratched area with a lot of numbers is where you can scratch off to reveal a string of numbers used to verify if your product is authentic when you call the numbers stated.

How? Which is authentic? I would go for the thicker one. It claims to be authentic while the rest of the others have no such claim. Even if all of them were authentic, I suppose the thicker one is an improved formula. Why use an inferior formula? Then again, it's up to you. I'm merely providing an observation comparison. =)

Oh, just for fun, I ordered from this guy selling 100 pcs for $20.89. A China seller. The one by mingo, if it's $17.90 for 10 pcs, would mean each piece costs $1.79. This 100-pc-pack??? $0.20 per pc??? The difference is so big it sparked off my curiosity...

The guy did mention in his page that if it came direct from the manufacturer, it may be delivered in non-retail packaging.

Thinner than mingo's, thicker than the first ones I bought.

 

See how thin the first batch I bought are? 

The 100pc ones were easier to peel off from the plastic backing. 

Here's the China seller's link.

Here's mingo's. If you can't find it search for 'diet slimming patch'. You should then see it. Which one works? I'm restarting the use of them properly, starting with Mingo's. They say results take about a month. Pls pray I remember to use them EVERY NIGHT.

要减肥真麻烦，

Silver