Zewei’s Blog

Farewell my dear Peanut…
You have been a wonderful addition to the family…
You brought such joy and laughter with your goofiness…
And now you are gone…
Thank you for such wonderful memories…

In memory of Peanut…
Peanut in his favourite food bowl. His favourite food was sardines. He would always go straight for it before any other food.

Ain’t he cute drinking from the container?

And here he was, running in his favourite wheel. He would always like to run in the wheel especially during late nights.

During the days when he was very active, he would like to climb all over the cage. Especially after I clean the cage, Peanut would enthuastically climb along the walls of the cage.

And here we have Peanut trying to escape from the container by pushing his way through. That clever nut was a great escape artist. He would find ways to escape and run around the entire living room whenever he could.

Unforuntately, the good times came to an end on 6th November 2007 when we found him lying on his back and gasping for breath. Months before, he started developing this growth on his left side. And on this fateful day, the doctor deduced that the tumour most likely burst and damaged Peanut’s lungs. As seen in the photo, Peanut was placed into an oxygen environment to let him breathe easily. We were prepared for the worst. Seeing him suffer… we decided to put him to sleep and bid our finale farewell.

So long my dear Peanut. I will miss you…

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to experience this horrid machine that is extremely posionous. And this machine was the UK Civic Type R that my brother owns. We took a few photos of both our vehicles and posted them in the alubm:-

http://zewei.blogs.friendster.com/photos/honda_civic/16102007.html

Well, the moment I sat into that monster, I was hugged by the sports seats. And what got my adrenalin running was when my brother floored the pedal and the machine flew forward! Suddenly, the trees lining the sides were flying past us and the front view was as if I was using a zoom button… everything in front was getting so big… and so fast! OMG!

And when my brother allowed me to test drive it, I was intrigued by the huge rpm meter in front of me. And most of all, it was the monstrous power engine which pulled the vehicle forward that brought such a smile to my face and my heart pumping faster. Oh my… going from 0-100 km/h, I was going from gear 2 to gear 3 when I hit 90+ km/h. Wow! And the rpm was at around 4000-5000+rpm with the i-vtec indicator on.

It was so fun!!! Wow! Although it has been at least 7 years since I last drove a manual car, this was great! With a manual gear, I could maintain the rpm at 5000+rpm and change gear as and when I want. This test drive really made me seriously consider about going for a manual sports car next… and my brother was hinting on the JDM Type R. lol! So…. shall I go for the JDM Type R, Evo X or RX-8? *evil grin* Powerful engines… here I come!

My brother got a new car! And guess what? It’s a type R!!! It’s the UK version of the Honda civic Type R… the FN2R! And it’s black in colour! Wow!

From a black manual Kangoo to a black manual FN2R. That’s what I call a major change and major jump in horse power. Last Sunday when I went to my parents’ home for dinner, I was surprised to see the black FN2R parked at my brother’s usual lot. He got it only the previous Thursday.

And today, he was asking me about where to find rims. Then he commented that the stock rims were not nice and wanted to change. I directed him to Stamford tyres but advised that he should look around on the internet because there are so many kinds of rims available.

Well… that got my heart to be itchy. Lol! Oh dear… not good. =P

Earlier tonight, I had a weird encounter. I received this sms from an unknown handphone number asking "How are you?". Thinking it might be one of my clients who have changed number without informing me, I answered asking "Hi, may I know who are you?" The surprising answer came as one word, "friend". No name, no description or whatsoever.

Thinking this is a joke, I ignored the sms. And about 20 minutes later, it was followed by "Are you boy or girl?"! Ermz…! I felt like replying "I old man, married liaoz… why you want to know?". However, not wanting this to lead to an ongoing sms conversation leading to wasting money over this kind of stupidity, I chose to ignore the person.

Coming to think about it, this kind of situation sounds so much like those stalker stories you hear from news or internet where old ti ko tries to pick up young girls. *sigh* Never expected myself to encounter such a situation. Oh God… help me.

Earlier today Edna and I went for our 2nd last Basic Ballroom class as usual at Bras Basah Complex. To our surprise, inside one of the rooms and learning how to dance Tango was Fann Wong! At first I was just admiring how good their dance steps were… then I noticed that the lady’s face seem quite familiar… only then did I realize it was Fann Wong! Lol! Wow! And she looked…. so thin….

Anyway, she was learning dance steps from the two bosses of the dance studio. After our dance lesson, we managed to take a look at a demonstration the the couple boss did for Fann. The execution of the dance steps were precise, strong and distinct. It looked great! Wow!

Well, after we left the place, Fann was still practicing… before we arrived she had already started… Makes me wonder how long have she been learning the dance steps. I guess that’s the life of an actress? *shrugs*

A few days ago, I received an sms from my brother saying that he will be booking the UK Civic Type-R from Kah Motors. Wow! That is a wonderful, powerful car…. a manual car though. My brother has been driving a manual vehicle for the past few years, so I guess this is not much of a change except for the increase in horse power.

Well, it makes me think back of the times when I drove my mum’s manual car and even further back, to the times when I was learning to drive. Now, that seems so long ago.

I recall those times of driving when I tried to place in the clutch perfectly without jerking everytime. It was challenging but it makes driving fun. But it was those times when there were not so many jams on the road. Nowadays, with so many cars on the road, there are so many more starts and stops.

There are times when I wonder how nice it will be to drive manual… the fantasy of placing the clutch into gear and feeling the gears engaged in to punch the engine power to the wheels and the sudden soaring of the body towards the front… so nice… and it all comes crushing down with the reality of the next CTE traffic jam. *sigh* How disappointing. *shrugs*

This morning (2nd Sep), I was watching the sevice online and one thing that stayed with me was the line that Pastor Kong shared, "People deserve their leader". Although he was speaking in the context of false prophets and apostles, this line also speaks to other groups of people. The reason false prophets can give false prophesies to affect the lives of people, is because these people allow the false prophets to do so.

Drawing a parallel, in organizations where the leaders are chosen, isn’t it true that the people deserve their leaders? If the leaders are lousy or good, it all depend on the people who chose them. So, those who are unhappy with how things are run, should rise up and take hold of leadership positions to effect changes. If this is not done, then these people will just have to settle for how things are run by the leaders.

Oh well… just some thoughts that I was pondering on… nothing concrete and it may sound abit disorganized… Anyway, time to sleep soon. Got an appointment at 9.30am tomorrow morning.

Last Friday (24th Aug), I noticed an advertisement on the classified ads stating that there was ready stock for Stormy Blue & Pearl White RX-8 at Garage R. Feeling an itchiness in my heart, I rang them up and asked if these cars were in their showroom. The answer was positive.

And so, off I went later in the afternoon to check things out. And wow… seeing the actual vehicle is so much nicer than seeing the pictures. Well, I was quoted $98.8k for each. The difference was that the Stormy Blue had advanced keyless entry - the sensor at the door senses if the key is nearby and unlocks when the door handles is pulled; whereas the Pearl White is a premium colour and so warranted that price - an extra $1k from the base model. Both model’s OMV was around $30k.

From my wife, you will know how often I talk about this car… haiz… to the point I guess it’s like an obsession, which is not good at all. *shrugs* This has been the car I wanted to get even before I got my current Honda FD. But the cost was the deterent factor.

And now… the question was if I should splurge on upgrading my "toy". Face it… in Singapore, a car that is not the cheapest around, can be considered as an expensive toy. Anyway, the problem is that now is also the time when the markets can prove to be a good time to do bargain hunting. So caught in a dilema… the decision made was that if we are to get this car, it will still be there by today (Mon 27th Aug).

By a twist of fate, I read on the rx8club forum, there was this guy who asked if he should choose Stormy Blue or Pearl White. Oh my… and spot on, he chose the Stormy Blue on Sunday (26th Aug). And so… I guess it is not time yet for me to upgrade my toy. *sigh*

Well, to make matters worse, the GR saleslady called me saying that there will be another Stormy Blue coming in in mid-Sep with the advanced keyless entry, Bose sound system and water repellent glass. Cost is $101.8k. And so my heart itches again… but my head is telling me otherwise… Seesh…

"To spend or not to spend, that is the question." lol! Guess they are right to say that when men grow older, their toys just get more expensive.

At the end of June, we went to the pet shop at Suntec and saw this batch of small bunnies which were so cute!! There were 2 chestnut coloured, 1 grey and 1 black with white stripes bunnies. All of them belonged to the super-dwarf breed (as I was told by the pet shop people). In other words, they will only grow to a certain small size and not the usual huge rabbit size. With conviction in our hearts, I chose the less-active chestnut coloured male (which we named ChestNut) while Edna chose the grey one (named Stormy).

ChestNut is a big glutton who loves food above everything else. He is quite a scared rabbit which dare not venture far from the cage. While Stormy was quite the opposite. Stormy was adventurous, willing to venture far from the cage and not afraid of humans.

Our time together was short as we left for Taiwan about 3 weeks after we got them. It was during this 10-day trip that tragedy happened. Stormy apparently jumped down from one of the platforms in the cage and broke his neck. The pet shop people at Suntec took him to the vet and was advised to put Stormy to sleep. As they could not contact us, they took the advice and Stormy was gone from this world. It was only when we returned to Singapore and at the pet shop that we learnt of this. The news shocked us… and with the fatigue of the flight, we were shakened.

Apparently, there was no evidence given to us.. such as photos or death certs. And well… I had to pay for the boarding of Stormy to the day he passed away. On top of that, the pet shop girl was trying to sell us another rabbit to company ChestNut. Being shakened by all this, we could not think straight. As such, I decided to just pay for the expenses, take ChestNut home first, then decide what to do next.

After resting for the night did we recover… but we were still very sad by the loss of Stormy…. Anyway, there is nothing we can do. We can only take the pet shop’s word for it. So, we did what we can do. I started searching the net for perhaps, the same breed of rabbits as ChestNut. It was then that I found www.pets.com.sg. And through that, I found the shop "The Little Pet Shop" at Upper Serangoon.

That Sunday (22nd July), we headed to "The Little Pet Shop" and to our surprise, we found Snowy! Snowy is the same batch and breed as ChestNut & Stormy. Snowy is a red-ruby white and he looked so cute and pretty. Being the only one left, we immediately bought him and brought him home. So now ChestNut has a partner in his cage and no longer act so lathargic.

Although Stormy could not be replaced, Snowy’s character is quite similar to Stormy… adventurous, likes to jump around alot… but still afraid of humans. I guess he is still gettng used to us.

Anyway, from this experience, we are not going back to the pet shop at Suntec to board our rabbits. Besides, the price i paid for Snowy is less than half the price I paid for Stormy.

Finally, in memory of Stormy, his photo is posted in the album together with pictures of ChestNut & Snowy. Don’t they look so cute? =)

http://zewei.blogs.friendster.com/photos/pets/

When I first saw the words of a 1.4 litre engine in a VW Golf, I thought they were coming up with a budget car. Little did I know that this 1.4 litre Golf GT is puny engine car. What caught my attention was the specs that this 1.4 litre engine could do. It can take care from 0-100 km/h in just 7.9 seconds (which is so much faster than my current Civic)! And it’s fuel consumption (claimed) is only 7.2 litres per 100km (once again, is so much better than mine!)! It all sounds too good to be true!

Well, it’s a supercharged and turbocharged engine! Hmmm… the first thing I wonder is if the heat of the engine is going to be manageable. Usually those superchargers and turbo add quite a lot of heat into the engine. But since it comes in one whole package, I guess the VW designers should have known this factor.

But wow! 1.4 litres and with such specs! I am still so flabbergasted. Well, the price for one thing is not easily swallowed… it costs $104k. Other than the price, the other thing I do not quite like is the styling. It is still hugely similar to the Golf. Actually, to me, not much noticeable difference.

Anyway, see see look look is okay. Hmm… maybe can find one day to test drive it (if possible). But I doubt it will be on my list of want-to-have cars.

Oh… and I just realized that my current car has just passed it’s 1st birthday without any problems! =) My previous ride was badly smashed up just one month to it’s 1st birthday by a container truck running a stop line. Haiz. Anyway, that was the past. And well… top on the list currently is still zoom zoom. *grinz* But by the time I will be changing car, I guess many new models would have come out already. We will just see how. =)