Our God is so BIG!

This is the story of how big and mighty God is.


A long long time ago, the Israelites were living in the land of Egypt. The Egyptians (yellow cuffs) were living in harmony with the Israelites (those with scarves).

The Egyptians (yellow cuffs) were living in harmony with the Israelites (those with scarves).


However, a new Pharaoh came into power in Egypt... He thought to himself: if the Israelites continue to grow in number, they will outnumber and overthrow the Egyptians.


So the Pharaoh ordered all Israelites to be enslaved.


The Egyptians treated the Israelites badly. They made them work in the hot Egyptian sun with little rest and food.


Moses asked Pharaoh to release the Israelites but Pharaoh refused. Pharaoh did not believe that God was big and powerful. So Moses prayed: Show Pharaoh how big and powerful you are.


God sent the plague of flies


and the plague of frogs. The Egyptians were suffering from the plagues, but Pharaoh still refused to let the Israelites go.


But it was the last plague that changed Pharaoh's mind. All the first born male in Egypt was struck dead, including Pharaoh's own son! Pharaoh summoned Moses and told him and all the Israelites to leave Egypt.


God lead his people out of Egypt. By day, it was by cloud..


the people had to follow the cloud.


At night, God lead them by a pillar of fire! In this way, the people knew that God was always with them as they travelled out of Egypt.


Back in Egypt, Pharaoh realised that no one was left in Egypt to do the hard work. He decided to chase and capture the Israelites. The Egyptian army chased and chased the Israelites until they were cornered. The only way they could escape from the Egyptians was to cross the Red Sea!


Moses prayed and God told Moses to raise his hands over the Red Sea. Something strange happened: the Red Sea parted. The waters stopped flowing, walls of water formed and the Israelites were able to cross the Red Sea on dry land!


However, when the Egyptians tried to cross, the walls of water formed in Red Sea came tumbling down and Pharaoh together with the Egyptian army drowned!


So this is the story of how our big and powerful God rescued the Israelites from Egypt!

Inefficiency at Audio House

Why can't Audio House implement a cash and carry system for its
products?
Curently, I have to queue to pay up, then join another queue to
collect the items!! Some crap reason about stamping the warrenty card.
Then when I reached the collection counter, they took another few
minutes to find the items i bought. Queued for more than 20 mins
altogether to pay and collect 2 hairdryers.

The Christmas Miracle!

This is entry is also to test the blogging via e-mail function that I've just disocvered.

When you have faith, and your heart is pure, and maybe if you are a bit forgetful and decide to do a little spring cleaning on Christmas eve, MIRACLES CAN HAPPEN!

These are the Hogan shoes that I thought I lost many many months ago. They were my favorite pair coz they just about go with anything. I literally searched my whole house for them, turing out every corner. In the end I couldn't find them and I thought I must have left them at somewhere when I changed out of them.

Then, on Christmas eve last year, I was packing my shoes and I opened my shoe box to put a pair of shoes in and guess what I found in the shoe box? My Hogan shoes!! Turned out, when I bought my shoes, I decided to wear them out of the store and I placed the Hogan shoes in the box and forgotten all about them.

I could have found it any day of the year, but finding it on Christmas eve made it a little more special. Yeah, it is not an exciting story,and it might not be life changing, but now, I have a Christmas miracle to call my own!

The Dinner Party

Yo ho! It's been a long long break since my last post. Well, lots have happened since then. Too much to update in one post.

So lets start from this week. The highlight of this week has got to be when I hosted a dinner party at home. I can only do such things when (a) I am on leave, (b) My parents are away on holiday, (c) and I have the car to drive around to buy the raw materials. SO when all three conditions are met on Tuesday, the stars are aligned and so, a party I hosted!

The party was pretty much impromptu. So for those who felt left out coz you were not invited, I really apologise! (That means you Junhao and Cat Chia) I only decided at 2pm that very day to hold the party.

BUT for those who are invited, count yourselves lucky! There were 10 of us altogether. The 3 Lim brothers; Nicole (Elijah's gf), Sandra (Moses's gf), Sheryl (Sandra's sister) and Daniel, Melissa, Serene and Shuling from church.

The menu was planned in half an hour. Coz the party was quite big, I decided to have 2 appetizers, 2 mains and dessert. At least if one of the dishes fails, there is another one to back it up. From 2pm till when the dinner started was a blur of inviting people, running to the butchery, supermarket, washing the vegetables, chopping the tomatoes, breading the chicken, frying the mushrooms, boiling the potatoes, finding silverware for the party etc etc...

At 7pm: my critics arrive. The first appetizer comes out: Caprese. Caprese is such a simple dish to prepare - there is practically no cooking involved! Just chop up the tomatoes, chop up the mozzarella, toss them with basil leaves, extra virgin olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar. Coz it's such a simple dish with no cooking, the key for a good caprese is the freshness & quality of the ingredients. The secret for me was the tomatoes on the vine - double the price of regular tomatoes, but worth every penny. This time round, I used regular mozzarella. Next time, I will try it with buffalo mozzarella.

The second appetizer: Chicken Milanese. This also quite a simple dish to make. Fry a breaded chicken breast, put it on top of greens and cherry tomatoes (the same vine ripened ones) and toss it with olive oil and lemon juice. Yup! They loved it too!

The next one was a bit of a disappointment. The dish was a oven roasted, Australian Free Range Veal Loin. It was supposed to be cooked to medium on the outside and then rare in the inside. But I think I left it in the oven for too long. According to the recipe, the meat thermometer was supposed to read about 70 degrees celsius. But when I cooked it to that temperature, the whole thing was well done.

The next one was less of a disappointment. I took it out too early, cut it up, realised it was too bloody to be eaten, so stuck it back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Then it came out perfect!

Verdict on the accompaniments to the mains:

Store bought Mustard - too mild

Horseradish & Sour Cream - the guests loved this with their meats!

Brown sauce - bad! (I think it's coz I used vegetable oil to make it instead of the oil from roasting the meats)

Fried Regular and Sweet Potatoes - Some of the potatoes were undercooked.

Mushrooms - Delicious, too little to go around.

I thought that with such heavy and meaty mains, dessert should be something light and fruity. I wanted sorbet and strawberries but no supermarket in my vicinity sells sorbet! I was so upset. I had no time to make dessert. So I settled for Ben & Jerry's chocolate ice cream. But when Nicole arrived, she brought an Apple Strudel with her. The perfect ending to the meal - something sweet and not too heavy. So I kept the ice cream in the freezer and brought out the strudel for everyone!

Everyone's verdict: Passable.

Lessons Learnt:

If I am going to do it again:

1. Cater more time!! Deciding at 2pm to host a 6 course dinner party for 10 at 7pm is really biting off more than I can chew! I'm quite amazed that I managed to buy all the meats and vegetables and cook them in time for the party.

2. Include a seafood item. Feedback was that having 2 meats as mains was, well, too meaty.

3. I may want to try to do a cheese course. And I also forgot to bring out the wine when the dinner started! I actually chilled a bottle of white to be brought out when the chicken appetizer was served. Forgetful me.

4. Invite people who can help prepare and wash up later! Really, I don't think the dinner will be a success if not for my guests who helped out. Love u all!

Spending money

I was at vivocity today. Walking into all my favorite shops and having the urge to spend money. Everything is either too expensive or not pretty enough to buy. Ended up with the latest Apple OS: Snow Leopard. Not something that I really need coz I read the improvements and upgrades for the OS. Nothing much new!! Anyway, the reviews said that it makes the computer run faster. So I figured at $48 for a faster computer, it was a reasonable buy.

Olson vs Maslow

I was reading TIME magazine article on US health care and it quoted an economist, Mancur Olson, who in 1982 said:"as a democracy matures, special interest grows more entrenched. Their intense dedication to their own specific needs often trumps the broader, but less focused, interests of society."

It made me think... With the woo har over the AWARE saga in mind, has Singapore's democracy progressed to a stage where special interest groups, without government backing, can push a cause so far and wide, with so much media coverage?

Well, I think for our case, it's more like Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Our basic needs are fulfilled (thanks to the state - oh the irony) so we have the capacity to push for special interests.

The perfect Father's Day Gift

When I'm a father, I'm going to show my kid this post in my blog if he needs any gift ideas for Father's Day. And I want the exact number plate.

Oh... come to think of it, my dad's birthday is 12 Aug... a few days time...

Hahaha... taken outside Hyatt hotel in Singapore. I didn't know that they had such number plates in Singapore.

My new toy

Got a new toy recently... the camera's pretty good.
Dinner with church friends on Tuesday @ Ikea..



Volleyball on Wednesday at the Clementi court!

Shock.

It was bound to happen. But I'm still shocked nonetheless. My dad is on facebook. Wonder how long it will take for him to add me as a friend...

Crocodile farming

http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalLuxury09/idUSTRE5573QI20090608

Hermes opens a crocodile farm to keep up with demand for their exotic skin bags.
At €35,000 per bag, and with a waiting list still, what recession is there?

It happens in France too!

One gibe of public housing is how residents hang their laundry in the common areas and on the outside of their buildings, spoiling the nice facade of the estate.

Now in France, it came as a surprise when I saw that they too hang their laundry out to dry. Taken in the little village of Grasse, even residents of a village square facing unit have no qualms on hanging their laundry out to dry. We're talking about a village which is somewhat a tourist attraction.

Perhaps in the spirit of the Green movement sweeping across the planet, I should be ambivalent about clothes and sheets drying in public. But I do draw the line at under garments. What is hidden when worn in public should remain hidden while being laundered.

Skinny is OUT!

This morning, I read news that might as well have shook the gound below me. ChannelNewsAsia.com declared that in the world of Men's fashion, Skinny is Out!
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/beautynfashion/view/439120/1/.html

According to Paris, the new look is a looser silhouette that 'liberates men from strict dress codes'.

Nooooo!!!! Joshua does not work in a full silhouette. Sigh.. all the slim fit shirts, jeans and pants I bought haven't got their full milage! Dior cannot do this to me! I cannot walk round looking like a rapper from a music video, with my pants half way down my butt.

To add salt to the wound, the look of the moment is 'muscles and physique' and not 'sapling thin'. I thought I did the thin & preppy look quite well. Now, it's off with carrots and celery! Chicken breast and egg whites, here I come!

My first A380 flight!

I'm quite interested in airports and airlines. So flying on the A380 was an experience that I was looking forward to. And the verdict? It is a fantastic aircraft!


First and foremost, kudos to Emirates for their excellent food. I think that the food that they dished out was the best I've ever tasted on an airplane. Outdoing even SIA! Pictured here was breakfast on the A380. Egg rolls, hash browns corn and creamed spinach.


But, the entertainment system - ICE, cannot be compared to SIA's Krisworld. And on one flight, we weren't able to have video-on-demand. Service wise, the staff were warm and friendly.


The ambience of the aircraft is excellent. High ceilings and wider seats makes the passenger feel less claustrophobic. And the ride was very smooth and noise from the engine was minimal. Great aircraft!

From the Fear East to the Middle East

Well, after a 7 hour flight, I'm in Dubai Airport.

Flew Emirates. Not too impressed with the airline. Food - bad. Service - impersonal. Cost - CHEEEEEAP! That's why I'm flying Emirates. Cost trumps everything. Including time - waiting for 3 hours for the transit flight. Well, on the bright side, the next Dubai-London flight is on the A380. So that is something to look forward to. First time on the A380! Woo hoo!

Dubai's airport seems bustling with life. These pictures were taken at 5:30am and ALL the shops were open! The other time I took a 6am flight form Changi, the shops were still closed, except for the cosmetics counters. Changi can learn something from Dubai - since Singapore prides itself as a shopper's paradise.

Ok, that's all for now I guess... 2 more hours to go before the next flight. Watch this space! Next up: how to get to Central London from Heathrow when the Tube service is on strike: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/11970.aspx
Now that would be an adventure.

what am I doing?

I was reading Time magazine's latest issue. Time 100 World's Most Influential People. And one of them struck a chord in me: Jon Favreau, 27. Speech writer for Obama.

This chap is the same age as me. And he's writing speeches for the President of the USA. Wow! And I have heard some speeches that Obama made. Elegant, straight forward and rousing beautiful prose. I know - it's one thing to write, another thing to write a speech and to write an elegant, straight forward and rousing speech. That is a feat. And it's coming out from a man the same age as me! Awesome.

There comes a time when one realises that the people in the news are younger than himself. Actors, singers, entrepreneurs and even news makers (those people who climb Everest or take a year off to go biking around the world), they are kinda getting younger! Or is it me getting older? So it makes me think. Have I done anything that is worthy of mention? Worthy of being in Time's 100 most influential people in the world magazine? Will I ever accomplish such a thing? Maybe not. But I must never sit and be contented with life as it is. Onward and Upward!