Mactini - the smallest computer in the world!

This is hilarious!




Spoofs like these go a long way to cheer up pregnant women stuck at home with colds!

Men who do more housework have better sex lives

For the married woman, housework is foreplay!

He who has ears, let him hear!

The Chore Wars

Before having children, most couples find it easier to maintain a neat house and to keep bickering about unmade beds at bay. But having kids means having more clutter to clear, loads of laundry to do, and more meals to make, and it's moms who bear most of the burden: Working women spend about twice as much time as working men on household chores and the care of the children, according to a recent time-use survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not surprisingly, the housework gender gap is a common source of friction: A recent BabyCenter survey of more than 12,000 readers revealed that 63 percent of couples with children at home argue over cleaning. And nearly half of respondents say they resent having to do more housework, cooking, and laundry than their mates.

Not only do dust bunnies lead to marital dustups, but the responsibility for housework can also have harmful effects on women's health. A study by sociologist Chloe E. Bird published in the March 1999 issue of Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that women who do twice as much housework as their spouses have greater anxiety, depression, and worry. The least depressed people in Bird's study, both male and female, were those who split household duties down the middle.

Are men slackers?

If women are clearly doing more around the house, what are men doing? Guys don't appear to be totally slacking: American men in dual-income families handle a third of shopping and meal preparation. Men do roughly 15 percent of the laundry, and while that may not entitle them to bragging rights, it's an improvement over the measly 2 to 5 percent they did back in 1970. And men today are more involved parents: One in four preschoolers with working moms are watched by their fathers. "In general, men try to compare their contributions to their fathers, and compared they look very good, doing four or five times more than their fathers did," says sociologist Scott Coltrane, author of Family Man: Fatherhood, Housework and Gender Equity.

According to several studies, men with a higher education are more likely to pick up and pitch in. Coltrane suggests that more educated men may be more likely to put women on equal footing and assume a balanced role in the household. Interestingly, research also shows men who delay fathering children until their late 20s or early 30s, move away from the neighborhood they grew up in, and have less frequent contact with their parents, or who have been divorced and remarried, are more likely to do housework. Coltrane points out that these men have had to fend for themselves, so it makes sense that they'd continue to help out.

Still, "compared to their wives and partners, men do a lot less," says Coltrane. He points to a range of explanations for the battle of the sexes on the chore front — from cultural expectations about gender roles, to a greater emphasis on a husband's career if he's the primary breadwinner, to some women's difficulty delegating work. Practically speaking, though, the broom stops with whomever spends more time at home, says Coltrane, and that's usually Mom.

Psychologist Joshua Coleman, author of The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework, suggests that men's resistance to housework may start in childhood. From an early age, men are preoccupied with power and status (just look at any boy playing with an action-figure hero), and they may assert their independence by refusing to do something they've been asked to do. And while men feel they look pretty good compared with their fathers, they fail to factor in that their wives are also doing a lot more than their own mothers did, notes Coleman.

Men who do dishes do better in the bedroom

If only men knew what they were missing: Men who do more housework have better sex lives and happier marriages, according to a study by John Gottman, a psychologist who for more than three decades has been researching why relationships succeed or fail. Further research by Gottman suggests that harmony over housework may also yield happier children. His findings reveal that men who do housework frequently have kids who do better socially and academically.

Nine ways to get your partner to do his fair share >>> Full article


Source: babycentre.com

And if all fails... we can wait for this service to be available locally:

Save Your Home, Get 'Husband For Rent'

:D :D :D

One of my favourite TV shows is "Life Transformers" (Mondays, 8pm, Channel 8) where Quan Yi Fong, Christopher Lee and a group of volunteers help under-privileged households in Singapore. It took just one episode of Christopher Lee cleaning, carrying, painting, and the clincher - scrubbing a filthy toilet floor on his hands and knees - to make all the married women in my office (myself included) fall in love with him!

Forget the tuxedo, cuff links and pressed shirts. A toned, sweaty man deeply focused on scrubbing the floor is the new perfect man!

What if Starbucks marketed like the church?

I find this video hilarious because it reflects so much of the church culture in US and Singapore. I think we all have had our fair share of this experience :)

So what do you all think - would you frequent this Starbucks outlet?

"Coffee for Thought" :)

What if Starbucks marketed like the church? - A Parable

Music and spirituality

I believe music is a language which we have to communicate with our Creator. I also believe it's a language that allows us to convey our emotions, deepest beliefs, and our character with other fellow human beings.

This is one of the reasons why I love Jazz. It's a universal language that allows us to communicate things which words are not able to.

Another of my favourite pieces in which the wailing of the sax seems to convey to me the player's desire to connect with God and yearning for His presence:

Dexter Gordon

I love this you tube clip from this jazz movie called "Round Midnight". It features my favourite sax player, Dexter Gordon.

His phrasing is great, improv melodious, tells a story, his tone full, bright, big, rich and focused.

Enjoy his playing of a ballad here in a short clip from the movie!

Dognapped!

My doggy has been dognapped by my mum! When I miss him a lot, I watch videos of crazy Jack Russells on Youtube.

Mood Swings

I had a technically nice day today. Early morning, driving lesson, vacuuming the house, lunch at a restaurant at Great World City with mum, Theresa and Minghui, followed (yes, immediately) by lovely tea with scones and brownies at The Eclectic Attic @ Plaza Singapura, a bit of shopping, then dinner at Panliang's parents' place.

Now I just feel irritable , like the world owes me something big. I didn't sleep well despite being tired last night, I can't eat well despite being hungry, and I just feel tired and lethargic. I just want to curl up on the sofa with a book, but I figure that going out is probably good for me. New spots appearing on the face (due to hormones and beef cravings) doesn't improve one's mood either. Panliang's been a brick. Immeasurably patient, empathetic, sayanging me when I'm grouchy, pampering me, preparing food for me at strange hours of the day while I watch YouTube videos of Jack Russells hunting snakes and catching fish, playing his saxophone and jazz improvisations less (which is a major sacrifice), and keeping the house neat and tidy and up to my anal standards (like pressing the soap dispenser before wetting his hands so the water doesn't drip outside the sink). I must be quite a horror to live and dine with, but Panliang has risen above himself and pumped in enough strength and cheer for the both of us. I have renewed respect for him and I can see him becoming a more of a dad each day.

Thinking about this makes me thankful and I realise I have been blessed in many ways. This first trimester is no honeymoon (it's like a very very very long turbulent plane ride) but I wouldn't trade it for anything. They say the second trimester gets better and the nausea and appetite loss goes away. That would be nice.


Late night entertainment while having my midnight snacks

Akai EWI 4000S

Check this out! It would be great if I had one of these. I would be able to play into the night without being complained about by my beloved wife for excessive wailing :)

Amazing the kind of effects this can have!
But the sound is still not as rich as a real saxophone.

- a salivating lion

Yamaha Tenori-On

I want one! Then I would bask in Orchard MRT with Darcy and earn lots of money. Rex got his in London for 600 pounds!

The Ultimate Authority on Tampons

Look! I am the new authority on tampon insertion! How cool is that? Rex did the animation.

The Camouflaging Octopus

One of the most amazing and mind-boggling creatures we saw was the camouflaging octopus. We were about 14m underwater at the Kapalai house reef when we saw this little octopus, about 25cm long, being stalked by 3 nasty-looking fish. They wouldn't let him out of their sight and blocked off all his escape routes. We hovered there for about 10 minutes, watching in awe as the octopus melted into his surroundings. Settling between a blue, spongy coral with vertical tubular protrusions on his left, and a light and dark brown rock on his right, he seamlessly became both, growing light blue moving tubes on his left and melting into the brown rock on his right.

That was one of the most amazing things I'd even seen. I really wished there and then that I had an underwater video camera. It would have been jaw-dropping if I didn't have to keep my mouth firmly clamped around my regulator to breathe. There we were, clumsy and fully dependent on our big air tank and dive gear, watching effortless underwater magic. Diving always fills me with great awe and respect for creation.