The Preo small eyelash curler (Curl Up):
These are the instructions for use - the pad at the bottom for curling the upper lashes, and then flip it over to curl the lower lashes.
Two refill pads!
"Glamacy" is a new makeup line from Twany
, which is a brand under Kanebo. This post says that ""Glamacy"
is a combination of the words "glamor" and "supremacy". The brand
targets those in their thirties, and the items are more about bringing
out the dimension of the face than about keeping up with the trends.""Putting aside the shocking implication that women in their thirties would/should be less trendy(!), the colours from this line reminds me of Bobbi Brown's. Classic, muted, no shocking bright colours. The question is of course, what's the quality and price point? If it's Japanese drugstore prices, and the quality is good, it might be a good line to turn to for the "basics".
Brochures:
The interior:
Very roomy, to put larger items like bottles and jars, and even more compartments. The side panels allow you to open up the bag fully - no scrabbling around the bottom.
The interior seems to be made of a kind of plastic canvas material, and there's piping along the inside and outside seams to seal the bag and give it shape.
From Hakuhinkah Toy Park (a store dedicated to toys, toys, and more toys):
From Narita Airport:
which seems to indicate that it's also a popular souvenir item, but since I don't read Japanese I'm not sure., and this page describes some of the most popular hallmark food items that people get from Tokyo station, of which this cuuute Hiyoko is one. says it's hazelnut puree with eggs and sugar, and some say it's haricot beans. It's even inspired a soft toy, and its shape was the subject of a patent lawsuit (the company tried to copyright it but lost).This is a Dejavu Fibrewig mascara set:
This set is good value - 2100 yen is S$28, and the mascara itself costs S$25 at Sasa. I also like the "Tiny Sniper", which is called the "Finisher" here.
These items were bought at a cosmetics store called ViVi at Ginza.Posting these links here for my own reference:
People's Daily Online
http://english.people.com.cn/
We Just Want The Truth! CNN: The World's Leader of Liars (rather shrill website endeavouring to point out Western media's bias in reporting about China)
http://www.anti-cnn.com/
Well, China's worst fears for the Olympic torch relay has happened - protests in the London and Paris legs have disrupted the relay, and the latest news is that San Francisco is taking its turn. What an embarrassment for the Chinese government.
I have always supported the decision to let the Olympic games be held in Beijing. Not because I'm Chinese, and deem it an honour - friends of mine know that I feel the mainland Chinese and the Chinese in Singapore are a different race - but because this is a great opportunity to make sure most of the population of the PRC are forced to learn and acknowledge what most of the world's democratic countries think of them.
From the time of the nomination, through the crazy physical transformation of Beijing, through socialist efforts to prepare the people for the etiquette of welcoming thousands of foreign guests (learn English, don't spit, don't jump queue), the Chinese have been preparing themselves to present their most "civilised" face to the world. It is a matter of great pride. To host the Olympics is an honour. And boy is the world going to see the best China that China can manufacture.
This is not just the dream of the Communist government - it is the pride of millions of Chinese as well. It is personal to them. Always having been a (sub-rosa) second-class citizen amongst the developed nations, hosting the biggest international event in the world is a chance to show everyone how far China has come. People will be able to see first-hand how rich, innovative, powerful, advanced, cultured, and capable it is. It will now be able to take its rightful place as one of the respected superpowers on the world stage - not because of some lingering Cold War-era concession, but truly because the world is impressed.
Hence any slight to the perfect operation of the Games is taken very personally, very personally indeed, by the Chinese people and the Chinese government. One only has to look at the comments and postings of the Chinese people online to sense the disappointment, anger and frustration the protests in London and Paris have generated. Even those who admit to their country's abysmal human-rights record argue feebly, along with their government, that the Olympics should not be politicised, it is about sport, yadda yadda.
But the truth is that the Olympics has always been politicised. Some examples:
1972 Olympics in Munich - 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists in an event known as the "Munich massacre".
1976 Olympics in Quebec - 28 countries boycotted the Games because the New Zealand rugby team continued to play with South Africa, which had been banned from the Games for its apartheid policies. And most ironically, both the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China boycotted the games over issues concerning the legitimacy of each other. In fact, the PRC pressured Canada to tell the team from the Republic of China (Taiwan) that it could not compete at the Montreal Summer Olympics under the name "Republic of China". Interesting that the PRC is now protesting the "politicisation" of the Olympics! Don't pretend to be outraged if you've done it yourself.
1980 Olympics in Moscow - 62 countries, including Singapore, participated in the American-led boycott of the Games to protest the the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
1984 Olympics in Los Angeles - The Soviets retaliated by leading the boycott of 14 countries.
Hence the Chinese should not be surprised that they are, to put it bluntly, being blackmailed over their human-rights violations and disregard for the environment. It's an irresistible chance for the world to try to shame China into doing what's right. It's huge leverage to pressure the Chinese goverment to open talks with Tibet and release their prisoners of conscience. Even the threats of boycotts are embarrassing enough to make an impact.
So my hope is that all this focus on China will create awareness, awareness amongst the Chinese people themselves that these things are happening in their country that most of the world think are very wrong indeed, and that this would lead to some serious soul-searching. As they condemn the actions of the protesters, they must think about why the protests are happening; as they rage against the threat of boycotts, they must face the reasons why boycotts are being suggested. And deep down, hopefully, they will start to ask themselves: do they have a point? are we wrong? should we change?
I can think of no better way of raising these questions in the minds of 1.3 billion Chinese than to let them host the Olympic Games. It is a brilliant move.
However, this will only work well if the Chinese people realise it is happening, and this leads me to the second big point of this post: press freedom.
Predictably, the press in China has been gagged. Apparently the disruption of the torch relay in Paris wasn't worth a mention on China's CCTV news channel.
However, it's 2008, and press censorship is getting more and more difficult every day. Despite the Great Firewall of China, news-hungry Chinese have found ways of accessing banned sites, and it's difficult to hide anything as big as the Olympics and news associated with it.
And it's a Catch-22 situation for the government - the more they try to ban, imprison, and censor journalists and dissidents, the more reasonable the current protests will seem.
When the Games officially open in Beijing in August, censorship will become more and more difficult, and attempts to do so will look like the government does indeed have something to hide from its own people.
Ah, the Olympics in China. What a huge step it will be to introduce China to the world - and to introduce the world to China.
There’s a show on cable called “Future Weapons“ that’s on TV right now. It features this guy who goes around showcasing the most advanced military weapons in the world. They’re supposed to be cool.
Now, if you think about it, there’s something really sick about a
show that glorifies weapons that kill people and destroy buildings. The
presenter talks about how
“state of the art” the M32 Multiple Grenade Launcher is, for example,
as it can take “the latest ultra-lethal high-explosive and thermobaric
rounds”; how it is “deadly for pinpoint targeting up to 492 feet”.
There are photos on the program’s website that show how cool soldiers in uniform look posing with that huge grenade launcher, complete with sunglasses and attitude. Hello people! That’s a weapon - its purpose is to kill, to destroy lives. How can you be proud of carrying something like that? How can that be “cool”? How does that make you more of a “man”?
So you have a big-ass weapon that can fire all six of its 40mm grenades within three seconds, something you and your mates have nicknamed the “six-pack attack”. Wow. That makes you a really big man, huh? All powerful and indestructible against those sad miserable faceless enemies with their outdated weapons. You pull a trigger, you kill more people than the other guy. That’s...cool?
Sorry man, but that’s just sick. What’s to be proud of, to say that you killed and maimed and wounded people? Why the freak would you want to announce to the world that you’ve destroyed lives and livelihoods and left a place with more misery than it can stand? Isn’t it FREAKING PERVERTED to be PROUD of being someone whose career, whose life, is spent preparing for and executing these horrible deeds?
Yes, I’m not completely mad - there is a need for defence, to protect your country and family from other perverted people. But don’t you think that the attitude should be one of “I hate to have to do this”...? That’s it’s only decent to acknowledge that it’s terrible to be in a situation where you have to kill and destroy, but sometimes there is no choice?
I watch with amazement all these TV shows (and there are a lot of them) which show off tanks, fighter planes, the “top ten fighting ships”, “top ten fighting weapons”...there’s even an entire “Military Channel“ under the Discovery network. And the tone and presentation of the shows are all the same - some guy with a very macho WWF-type voiceover boasts about the weapons and rattle off statistics on how lethal they are, how many people they can kill at once, how feared these machines are. How much more *efficient* and *easy* it is now to kill and destroy than before. It’s surreal, to sit there and listen to it all.
What sort of image does this project about those war-machines? Yup. That like iPhones, they are the latest in cutting-edge technology cool. That being a soldier is the coolest thing ever, because you get to play with these toys. That only really tough soldiers use these aggrandised versions of their penises, because their penises have to be bigger than other guys’....right?
Don’t glorify weapons, people. Don’t glorify tanks and fighter jets and warships. Don’t teach children that it’s noble to be in a profession that destroys in seconds what people spent years building up.These things are not cool. These machines have a terrifying purpose. They should ONLY be used when there is no other choice. And it’s sick to enjoy using them and make TV shows out of them.
How it began
It all began a couple of months ago when we noticed that Tom was losing weight, and his fur was getting thin and patchy in places. The vet snipped off some of his fur and showed us what it looked like under the microscope - it was crawling with mites! It came as a surprise to us, as he hadn't been scratching himself. But good - at least we knew what it was, and it was relatively easy to remedy. A dose of Revolution - a sealed dose of liquid applied to the back of the cat's neck - was all that was needed.
Of course, having four cats in the house necessitated dosing all of them as well. I also went through the house and purged all the cushions and cloths that they had been sleeping on. All should have been well.
But Tom continued to lose weight. I had expected him to start putting on weight, as the vet said that his weight loss could be attributed to the mites (loss of appetite as it's so darn uncomfortable) and while I was away for a week in Changchun and Beijing, I kept msging B to ask how Tom was. He replied that Tom was okay. But when I came home and stroked him from his head to his back, I knew something was wrong. Not only had he not put on weight, he seemed to have lost more. I insisted we had to bring him back to the vet.
The diagnosis
When we weighed him at the vet, I was shocked. He weighed 3.3kg. Tom's normal weight is 5kg or a bit more, so that was the equivalent of a 40% weight loss. He was around 4kg when we first brought him in, and he lost another kilo in one month.
The vet looked at his fur again and said that the mites were gone. So mites weren't the reason for the continued weight loss. At this point I started to feel a little symphathy for the vet; weight loss is a symptom of hundreds of diseases and problems, and diagnosis can be difficult. Firstly, she suggested that it could be worms. We had de-wormed Tom a month back, but she said that the sort of de-wormers we get from pet shops aren't as potent as the ones they had. So, okay...we'll try de-worming.
Then she hemmed and hawed and pinched his neck (checking for dehydration) and looked into his mouth. There was a bit of bleeding gum issue going on on his upper teeth, so brushing his teeth (ha! HA! HA!!) was recommended. (I'd like to see her do it.) Then she suggested a blood test.
We could have tried de-worming first, and if it didn't work, we could then go for the blood test, but we didn't want to pay consultation fees for another visit. So we said okay, go ahead, do the blood test. An assistant held Tom while the vet poked a syringe into an area on top of Tom's paw and drew the plunger back. Nothing...that started a series of pokes and repokes and squeezing of his paw to coax blood out. The first time round she didn't get enough blood for the test, so another syringe was brought out to draw some more. I was giving B the look - what kind of lousy vet was this?!! When she finally decided she had enough blood, she gave the phial to her assistant to test it. And we waited.
In around 10 minutes the results were out. And this time the vet was sure. Tom's creatinine and urea levels were way higher than the normal range of values. And that meant that his kidneys weren't doing their job.
The vet was reassuring. It could be temporary; after all, he was dehydrated and perhaps hadn't been peeing. But he had to be kept in "hospital" for a few days hooked up to a hydrating drip. After that, another blood test would be run to determine if we were looking at chronic renal failure.
Well, we were a little shocked as we hadn't expected not to be bringing our cat home. Tom isn't an old cat, only about 7 years old (I'm not exactly sure as I adopted him as a stray). Isn't that a bit young for his organs to start failing...? Maybe it's me, the food I'd been feeding or not feeding him, or the environment - maybe not enough exercise? And there began the recriminations that have been dogging me to this day.
Tom in hospital
It was very sad seeing him
The inspiration for the sauce comes from how fish is popularly prepared in Veracruz, Mexico. I had no capers or olives or lemons so the fish really is ...distantly inspired :p.
Saute 1 1/2 sliced red onions until soft and translucent. Add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic. Open a can of stewed tomatoes and dump it in the pan (pan should be large enough to fit the whole fish). Add hot water if necessary. Then get creative - I added a handful of raisins, chopped sundried tomatoes, oregano, dill weed, a bit of ketchup, cayenne pepper, etc. (Alternatives are olives, capers, parsley, peppers, anchovies...) I had some oyster mushrooms so I threw those in.
Simmer for a couple of minutes; it should be like a thick, braising-type sauce. Wash and dry snapper. Season inside and out with salt and pepper. Place snapper into pan on to sauce and heap sauce and ingredients over it. Make sure there is enough liquid in the pan, then cover and simmer until fish is done.
You should probably squeeze lemon juice over the top and garnish with white onions or something, but that would be WORK *grin*.
