Attack of the Cheek Swipers : Dugong Fumes

To all my faithful readers and my most critical reader, my dearest wifey, sincere apologies for the long absence. We all understand how work sometimes zaps up most of our time, and I do want to maintain the quality of the content I put up here for my dear readers :)

We have just returned from a 3-day cruise to nowhere on board the Superstar Virgo over the weekend. Excellent ship, facilities, my kudos to the excellent service attitude of every single international staff on-board. They make you feel right at home, hmmm...that doesn't really sound too accurate, since we seldom do experience such good service attitudes here at home. I'll rephrase that to : "They make you feel so glad to be away from home". If you're wondering how I can justify that statement, just look at the number of Singaporean staff they have on their on-board crew, also noting that Star Cruise has an office in every major city including Singapore where they do their recruitment. Yup...a big fat zero. Special mention goes out to the male crew working in the Galaxy of the Stars club; he was dressed as an angel during the Chariot Race and the Bingo game. We really enjoyed your rendition of a fairy, when you were trying to entertain Terelle after the game.

The three of us had an excellent time on board, the unlimited-food wasn't great, it was ok, but at least it was unlimited. There was breakfast, mid-morning tea (to flush down breakfast in time for..), lunch, dinner and finally supper (for the gambling ghosts to re-energise themselves to continue contributing to the economy of the ship owners). Amidst these frequent mealtimes; during which its pretty evident the Singaporeans get pretty well-fed, we were indeed appalled to see certain "mou-mou" Singaporeans doing "take-aways" with their empty Gardenia Bread wrappers and even their wet swimming towels!!! I have never felt such a strong urge to stand up and sing the national anthem. Yup, even in international waters far far away from home, our people keep our flag flying high....

I'll dedicate the next paragraph solely to the Cheek Swipers...what are they? Talking about them certainly makes my blood boil. You know the kind of people who come up to a cute-baby, with super cute and chubby cheeks like my little Terelle (ok..i'm bias...sue me...), well at a blink-of-an-eye, they launch their two thick potato-wedges-like fingers, clasp them around the baby's cheeks, and swipe with one swift motion, leaving the cheeks vibrating violently in the wind.....They then let off their evil victory cry "MUA HA HA...SO CUTE THIS BABY!!!"....and then march off into the sun, without batting an eyelid and a look of acknowledgement at the parent. Yes.....I'm sure we are all guilty at some point of our lives, but I swear I've seen the worst on board the ship. The least they can do is acknowledge the parents, compliment the baby and ask for permission to play with the baby. Biggest lesson learnt for me on this trip : Parents, you are the gate-keepers to your baby's well-being....you should always keep a look-out and be aware of the things and people around you. If you see something which you feel your baby might not like being done to him/her, you have the right to speak up and say no. Either that or you teach your baby to bite hard at fingers or better still, you bite. :)

Dugong Sports Update

Here's a semi-regular score update of the sports and teams I like and support; for the times when you don't see any updates here, please go look for the scores somewhere else. This column aims to develop "breadth" among sports junkies like me. In my opinion, local sports junkies watch too much soccer and nothing else. Sport ON!!

Baseball

Barry Bonds return for the San Francisco Giants for only his second game against the San Diego Padres. The Padres are leading the National League West and the Giants are now only 5 games behind after today's 5-4 home win in SBC Park. The only way the Giants will qualify for the post-season will be if they run out league winners. They are way behind in the wild-card race.

American Football

The Philadelphia Eagles kicked off their season with a 10-14 away loss to the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons gained sweet revenge against the team whom they lost to in the NFC Finals last year. Terell Owens registered 100+ yards for the game but the Eagles was not able to reverse the two-touchdowns which they gave away in the first quarter.

Soccer

Liverpool charged through the gates in their first round group match of the Champions League away to Real Betis. Two quick goals scored within the first 20 minutes by Florent Sinama-Pongolle and Luis Garcia, followed by sheer defensive defiance, were enough to earn them the 3 points with a 1-2 win over Betis. This was an all-important start to the group phase and Liverpool continues to prove their detractors wrong by churning out hard-fought victories, especially on the European stage. Looks like they are all out to prove that last season's Champions League victory was no fluke.

Dugong Thinks...

I've always had this knack for putting thought into how I would and should react if I were in certain situations in life, even though there's like a remote chance of 1in a million. (Strangely, most of them are food-related) Don't know what I'm talking about? For eg. what would you do if you won a million dollars in next week's TOTO? Hmm, not that good an example since I'm sure many of you do harbor that desire every week and have thought about this before. How about what would you do if you had to choose between eating a bowl of elephant dung or licking someone's sweaty armpits (thoroughly)? The failure to do either one would result in a bullet through your cranium. It's food for thought - my rationale is that it kinda prepares you for the situation when it really happens. Of course, this also makes good conversation starters, or it can get you ridiculed but I swear I've seen people's eyes glaze over in deep thought when posed these questions.

Which kinda brings me nicely into my topic for the day. I've just watched thelatest episode of FEAR FACTOR - TWIN CHALLENGE. Replace that bullet with a measly 50 Grand, and you'd be amazed at what people will do to win that money. And I must emphasize, it's not even guaranteed. There's another 2-3 more deranged pairs of contestants waiting to snatch that away from you. It's not so much the physical challenges, but the things they make you eat : the latest was cow "slop" (what the hell is that??). Is there even such a word? Let me add : the "slop" was also maggot infested, and served on cow bones, which means you had to yank the "slop" off the bones with your teeth. At this point, I"m thinking "slop" = decomposed raw beef? Then you have to crawl through a pool of cow innards, dump the "slop" in a meat grinder which happily churns the "slop" into even sloppier "slop" which then falls into a tall glass. And yes, you guessed it, the last part is to drink + eat + SWALLOW the semi-solid sloppy "slop". I wonder what the after-taste of that is like....There were 2 male teams and 2 female teams. Both the male teams got through it with minor irritation and grimacing. One of the female team was half-way through it, then decided to swear off beef for the rest of their lives. Interestingly, the only team who had the guts and brains and self-pride to walk away from the challenge were the blonde twins!! (People who write blonde jokes - are you reading this?) Two things must have crossed their minds : (1) We can make the 50 grand in a smarter way, (2) There was no point in going into something knowing that we will not be able to complete it. Either way, my personal opinion, it was smart of them. Anyway, they've had their 15minutes of fame on national television, how many of us can boast that we've been on FEAR FACTOR? I personally feel some of us should really try to get on the FEAR FACTOR game some time in our lives. Write to Jerry Bruckheimer or something.... I guarantee you that after that, no matter how disgusting and lame your acting or multi-linguistic capabilities are, theres a high chance our Singapore television corporation will still hire you for roles in their drama serials......read a certain Mr Wu...:)

Food Fight Dugong-Style!!

Ever tried feeding semi-solid food to a 5-month old baby sitting in a BUMBO chair? Here's evidence of how messy and fun it gets. :)


An update on Baby Terelle for all our friends : She's growing up nice and strong, extremely interactive baby. We have started her on semi-solid food, probably a cause of her more-frequent 'mudslides' but we're only guessing. She's almost able to sit up fully on her own and she's got one-hell of a grip. Her favorite toy, for the moment, is a neck-extendable, lullaby-crooning, nice and soft yellow giraffe. It's my favorite too. :)

I think she's already trying to speak, and according to books, we should imitate the many sounds and gurggles she makes : they say it gives her confidence to speak. She spends a lot of time now playing and looking at her fingers, must be really fascinating to have ten stubby stick-like things moving independently of each other and yet obeying your every command. Hmm, that reminds me of a good fren of mine with similar stubby-like fingers even at age 29. Hehehe. We get a really good laugh seeing her do that, especially when she reminds us of the signature move of this one Wrestler : BOOKER-T. We say she's in the BOOKER-Terelle phase. I'm wondering if she picked this 'skill' up during the numerous night feeds, when I would cradle and bottle feed her in my arms while sitting in front of the TV watching WWE Wrestling. Come on, that's the only program worth watching in the wee-hours of the morning!!

Dugong Going Back to Work...

FREAKONOMICS.

If you have not heard of this book before, I'd like to urge you to go get it. Number 1 on the non-fiction charts for God-knows how many weeks, it's gotta be good. I got a copy as a present for my out-going manager a couple of weeks back. Looking back, I should have gotten the book earlier, read it first, then give it away. I hope this lady does not notice me reading over her shoulders in the train now. Lesson 1 for the week : Do not take for granted you will get a copy of TODAY newspaper at the train station. Keep a book with you all the time. If not, you'll be relegated to a 'reading material' amoeba, reading over people's shoulders. And I know that's freaking irritating.

An advice to all smokers, don't smoke. If you like to know why, go speak to my dad. To be brutally honest, he's lucky to be alive today and you, the other smoker, is lucky to have a living testimonial to speak to. Call me to make appointments. FYI : His exact words were : "It's like dying and then coming back to life."

To all the well-wishers out there; my fellow 'brothers' and 'sisters', thanks so much for being around. My dad's recovering well, they've moved him to the general ward yesterday. If he continues his speed of recovery, he could be out of hospital end this week. Yippee!!

*A BIG WET DUGONG SLOPPERY KISS FOR ALL*

Worried Dugong Part III

(written on 8th September)

The times you pray the hardest, are the times when you're at your wits end. When you witness the degree of fear in your dad’s eyes for the very first time and you can’t do anything to make things better, it qualifies as one of those times. My dad has always been a fighter, meticulously plotted battle plans, zero-risk taker. U'll get better odds betting singapore to win the world cup than convincing him to go try a new restaurant downtown on saturday. But that’s exactly why he's been able to provide us with such a comfortable family life. He's the 'safest' as 'safest' gets. Going into the operating theatre for a triple bypass, that’s gotta be the biggest involuntary gamble he has ever made. I reminded him he was a fighter, a no-nonsense tough guy before he was wheeled in, and that I was going to see him in the morning. He must have remembered, because he came through after 4 hours, 1 arterial and 3 ventral bypasses. That's just one too many vessels you'd want replaced in your body.

Worried Dugong Part II

(written on 7th September)

Invasion of the pretty nurses from China. Lots of them, scurrying around the hospital, going about their jobs. Most of them have really good service attitudes too, although some could really get on your nerves. One was trying to explain to me that I will be the single point of contact between the hospital and our family. She took 3 minutes to explain tat to me, then asked me; "You understand what I just said?" I should have given her a moronic look, do a dugong flip in the air and made her do the explanation again.

NUH has a kinda neat but whacky way of welcoming their open surgery cardiac patients. They've got this photo album of all the equipment, procedures, which they use to 'walk' the patient through the itinerary for the next few days. Thoughtful, but kinda scary I feel, although some patients might want to dream about these things the night before their big surgery. Acquired taste I have to say.

Worried Dugong Part I

(written on 7th September)

Ever wondered about the fragility of life, tat despite feeling and looking healthy, something 'bad' is just hiding deep beneath your system waiting for the right time to pounce on you? I'm not saying I’m justifying my strictly carnivorous diet, but in any case, I’ve given my word to start eating 'grass' when Terelle starts having to eat hers. Triple by-pass operation, tat's wats been lined-up for my dad tomorrow. It's open heart surgery, but the surgeon sure makes it sound routine. I'm praying for a speedy recovery for my dad, i'll bring my omnivorous days forward to the day of his discharge. It's for my own good anyway.

Dugong Awaken....

(written on 7th September)

It's natural to feel totally incensed when your baby daughter starts to cry at 2am in the morning. Especially when she hasn't done that for months and this particular night, milk didn’t seem to have that magical effect. The lack of sleep does make you say 'nasty' things to your wife like, "I'm going to think twice 'bout having a 2nd kid". Then morning comes and I get a call from my brother-in-law tellimg me my dad has been hospitalised for a minor heart attack early morning. I then look at my baby girl kicking around in her crib, is she psychic?? Tat's probably something I may never find out but it sure as hell felt tat way. I gave her a bigger kiss than usual before I left for the hospital.

Greetings from Dugong Land....

...ark..ark...ark...ark....ark...I'm assuming that's how a Dugong sounds like....

This blog is inspired by my beautiful wife Li-Anne and my ever cute daughter Terelle. I better also mention my ONLY two "good-looking" friends Alvin and Labia Tan. And of course, there's Angela too.

That's all for my first entry, i'm glad this blog site is easier to use than my previous one...Dugong Leong signing off....