Baby Bearded Dragon?

Saw this while I was at bus-stop one day... the picture not too clear cos the lizard is really good at camouflage! I nearly didn't realise there is something there.

The lizard quite cute...didn't really move but just stay there and occasionally shifted its head a bit. Done a search online and realise it's call bearded dragon... hmmm or am I wrong? Got such a species of lizard in Singapore ah? Length of the lizard is abt 4-5 inches long, and yupz it was a hot weather then when I saw it on the hot granite floor.

Termites in my room

zzz... have been facing this problem for years... every now and then, especially during rainy periods, there would be these insects flying around. We called them 'jiu bang' in hokkien which translates to be 'water mosquito' simply cos well... when there is water around, you wld see them. These insects are attracted to light... so we wld palce a basin of water near some light source and the insects would get trapped onto the water surface.

Irritating cos they actually eat wooden stuff... and yah I think they are termites swarms actually. Initially I thought they are winged ants, till I found out from the websites they are not. My room got quite some wooden and paper stuff so I'm always irritated when these termites appear. I wld catch them and throw them out of the window... and what's more irritating is that with these termites around... the spiders would come too... and it is weird seeing small spiders catching these termites under my bed... haiz. Then the ants would come... so end up my room is full of funny insects... these termites shed their wings and left little transparent thingy on the ground ... zzz

here's some info I got from 'howstuffworks.com' and the pictures... cos the insects are too small and I can't capture them using my phone camera

Proper meal consists of 1, 2, 4 or more dishes?

Was chatting with some friends about how many dishes make a meal. Seems like some folks decided that only if there are 3 dishes or more then would a meal be considered complete... hmm in view of the recent food prices increase I guess his price of a meal would be a lot more expensive compared to mine... Guess that's time to cut down on food (and more importantly weight!). Oh, is fried egg considered a dish? Dunno...

My dinner today is just 1 'dish' - fried mee hoon.... with egg, carrots, pork slices. Yah pretty satisfactory. Used to add in pork knuckles but seems like those from China are banned for now so too bad. Read an article about seafood from China Fujin... a bit scary... sigh someone must teach me how to 'eat air' if everything edible is also somehow poisonous...zzz... maybe air is also polluted, then how?


Oh since we are on this topic of food... here's some more pics... this is from a stall near Bugis Village, just next to the busstop. 3 bbq squids for $2... yummy... but yah could cause cancer (but I still eat it often ahem).


And here's a nice cake heh heh heh:

Are we prosperous or poor?

Was reading this article ' We can barely stay afloat, say low-income folk' on Asiaone which makes me think that the recent price increases are indeed quite scary... The article talks about people who earns about $1k odd to support their family of a few members. These folks couldn't earn enough to coup with the rising costs of living and have to go to government agencies for handouts. The article also talked about retirees who effectively have shrinking savings in a drastic way cos' the bank interest rates are lower than inflation.

Sigh... it is really true that economy is improving... but not for all living here. The good economy is often used as the main reason for rising costs... I remembered another article that says that with rising wages naturally there would be inflation. However, I guess some people didn't realise that wages may not rise equally for all.

Inflation for luxury items like cars, condo, branded stuff is fine since those who wants it pays for it. There are always alternatives to these luxury goods. Large inflation for simple daily necessities like rice, canned meat, normal drinks is not fine.

From the article we see these

'A loaf of bread now costs 20 cents more and the price of a packet of 20 Milo sachets is up by 40 cents. Even chicken rice and kway teow soup at the hawker centre cost 50 cents more.'

She said: 'A can of luncheon meat used to cost $1.30. Now it's $2.50. Not everyone can afford that, especially the elderly who are not working and depending on handouts.'

Common, that is price increases of more than 5-10%! A retireee was quoted that he only has simple bread and milo for dinner as a result of rising costs!

Thus the prosperous and booming economy seems to favour only the rich and top wage earners. The middle class has wage increases just nice to coup with these rising costs while the poor suffers. Weird... but seriously, using economical theory with less consideration of social impact to formulate national policy would lead to such strange scenarios... big handouts once every 4-5 years is no comfort for the stomach and anxiety of the people in the years in between...

I'm curious to know the percentage of our people living like that (situations in the article)... wonder if DOS got stats.