public announcement
i have to sincerely apologise for the lack of posts on my blog lately. while i strived to make it a 1 post a day average, it seems that is not possible currently as i have been really busy with some projects. don't worry, you'll hear bout it as soon as its complete but for now, i guess you'll just have to sit back and relax.
in the mean time, i have uploaded some funny videos. hope you enjoy em as much as i did. more to come soon :D
making money in the US is easy... if you know how to
Sometimes I’m amazed at the creativity of some people who earn a good living filling needs that anyone could do. I was at a gathering today when I struck up a conversation with a man who described his job as a “commute helper.”
“OK, what exactly is a commute helper?” I asked
“I help people have a smooth and quick commute,” he replied.
“How do you do that?” I asked
“I sit in their car, ” he said with a smile.
This is what happened. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the commutes in certain sections are absolutely horrendous. This guy was sitting in a traffic jam one morning watching all the people in the carpool lane drive by while he was moving at snail’s pace. He decided that he needed to get someone else in his car so that he could get to work in a timely manner using the carpool lane, and at first thought that his only option was to start a carpool.
As he thought about it more, however, he thought that he (as in himself and his body) was actually a valuable commodity and he could sell himself and that is exactly what he did. He walked to the freeway entrance and held up a sign that said,
“Traffic is bad. Spend 2 hours or pay me $10 and get there in 20 minutes”
He said the first day he was picked up within 15 minutes. When he got dropped off, he walked to the other side, held up his sign and got paid to go back the other way too. On a typical day he makes 2 to 3 round trips during the morning commute rush hour and 3 - 5 round trips during the evening rush hour. If there is an accident and traffic is really slow, his price doubles. He clears $100 - $300 a day sitting in a car so others can get to work and home faster!
I just had to laugh when I heard his explanation and how brilliantly simple it was.
here's one ringtone we wun be downloading
There's a new ringtone in town, and the older you are, the less likely you are to hear it. Agence France Presse
reports that a ringtone known as "Teen Buzz," originally developed by a British security firm to discourage loitering by youths has "invaded U.S. classrooms." At a frequency of 17 Khz, the tone apparently "falls within the highest of pitches noticeable to humans." But as we age, we lose the ability to hear high-pitched tones. Students can thus delight themselves by text-messaging each other without arousing their aging teacher's suspicions. Of course, the downward glances and furious thumb-typing might still give them away.
New Yorker writer Louis Menand, inspired to a
comical rant, writes that the main news of the story "is not that students are fooling their teachers, which was never news, even in ancient Greece, or that technology is rapidly unraveling the fabric of trust and respect on which civil society depends, which everyone already knows. It is that one more way for middle-aged people to feel that they're losing it has been discovered."
new york new york. the city so nice, i went there twice
off we were to new york today to meet up with abdullah who's currently on an all-expenses paid summer programme to yale which is just north of new york. the day started out real bad and we almost did not make it to new york.
we had spent the night at babe's sister's place as there was a bus service nearby that would take us to new york at USD5 per person per round trip. compare that, in terms of round trip, to the service at chinatown for USD20 per person or USD 28 per person at the greyhound nearby and you'll understand why we took this option. however, when we reached the office of the shop that was suppose to sell the ticket, it was closed. that was at 8am. the schedule said there was suppose to be a bus leaving at 8.30am but it never turned up. finally at 9am, a guy in a pickup truck drives by and told us that the place had closed down for good and was wondering why there were no signs saying so. the thing that got me thinking was that how did this guy, out of the blue, just come out like that to tell us this piece of information?
so off we headed back to chinatown to get our tickets. it was already 10am by the time we got there and we were suppose to meet up with abz at 11. i dunno why but on that day there were no queues formed for those waiting to board the bus. just as well for us as we were already late. and when the bus came, there was just so much pushing and shoving that we both felt lucky to get on it. we got the back seats but that was when we found how unlucky we were. throughout the 2 hour bus ride, we had to deal with the stench of urine and vomit as the toilet was located just behind us. and if that was no tenough, 3 times people got up to use the stenched toilet and that made the atmosphere even worse when it happened.
what do you do when you're caught on a bus with a reallybad stench? well you could cover your nose like this with your arm but it would be really tiring after a while.
or you could use a tissue and cover your nose. more effective but even better when you wet the tissue.
if you're wearing a t-shirt, you could always use the hands-free version and use that to cover your nose. just make sure the t shirt doesnt smell. we learnt our lesson that day and from that day on, make it a point to bring sweets/something sweet smelling on any bus journey that we take.
after meeting up with abz, we walked around and had lunch at this really great place selling kebab. when the guy asked us if we wanted hot sauce, we gladly said yes but i regretted that decision. for when i bit into mine, it was the hottest thing i had tasted in the US, even as spicy as some thai food i had tasted before. i didnt know they had sucj potent stuff there. but abz sure was enjoying his spicy meat which was why he came here in the first place. sorry folks but i dun have photos of that place. will try and get it from abz and post it up here when i see him.
so after lunch we were walking around aimlessly until we reached 5th avenue, shopping haven of the world. if you have loads of moolah that is.
there's rolex ad st. john (i dun think its the HQ of the hospital).
there's edmiraldo zega (dun know if i got that correct) and salvatore ferigamo (dun think i got that spelling right too but you know what i mean :P)
and loads of other shops down the street to your left and right. it looks like this stretch of shopping just never ends.
me and abz
this was a shot taken in new york and not singapore. yes, that's takashimaya, the same one you see at orchard road in singapore.
and what do we have here? TRUMP TOWER!!! woohoooo. finally. i was hoping to catch one of trump's buildings while in new york but to see trump tower, that was like the icing on the cake.
another shot of the entrance. and there was even a sign above the door that said "Open to Public". we definitely needed no further invitation.
an upward shot of the magnificient building.
the famous elevator that we always see on the apprentice. the one of the left goes all the way up to trump's office and thus, were not open to public. the one on the right is for everyone's use to go up or down to the shopping/eating levels.
trump fragrance. you know this guy will put his name on anything and everything he can find. this frangrance was first introduced in the latest season of the apprentice, towards the end of the season, for those of you who have watched it.
trump bar. the place to go for all your meals.
trump's ice cream parlour. located on the ground floor of the building, this place was introduced in the apprentice in season 4 if i remembered correctly.
naturally i had to try some. 1 scoop at USD3, 2 at USD4 and 3 scoops at USD5. i thought the scoops were gonna be small so i bought 3 scoops, considering it was just USD2 more than a 1 scoop. but boy was i wrong about the size. each scoop of ice-cream is just slightly larger than the size of my fist. here you can see the flavours we bought: chocolate, cookies and cream and butter peacon. and the taste? HEAVENLY!!! just like great ice-cream.
after our little outing to the trump tower, we walked out, with full stomachs and went further down 5th avenue. that's GAP store on the right.
the skyline in new york is pretty nice and themix of architechture, both old and new, really gives this city a unique feeling.
a landscape view of the city.
here we are finally reaching grand central station where we would depart ways, me and babe heading back to chinatown to board the bus to philadelphia and abz waiting for his bus nearby that would take him back to yale.
often when i watch movie that have scenes shot inside the grand central station, i always thought they exagerrated the size of the place. but guess what? it really is that big. so big that we got lost and were not sure how to get to our subway. left or right? hmmmm...
finally we found the subway entrance but before reached the platform where we were suppose to take our trains, we heard some loud music and decided to investigate. and there were some guys who were doing break dancing. managed to get a 2 minute video clip of this guys doing their thing and will upload it here at another time. stay tuned!!
the last shot i took of new york. the grand central signboard to tell people who are on the train that they've reached grand central station. till next time folks.
strawberries? no on to them cherries
well i thought i would format my laptop but after much thinking, decided to work on my blog first and upload these photos for everyone's enjoyment. here you go, pictures of us at the cherry farm, which is located just beside the strawberry farm. you'd think that after picking almost 30 pounds (about 15kg) of strawberry, we would head home. well guess again :D
the sweetest cherries are those at the top. why? coz if it were any lower, people would have picked them already. and if they weren't picked, chances are they weren't sweet.
big, juicy cherries. all ripe for the picking.
which babe naturally does as soon as she sees what i was taking a picture of. "doesn't it look better in my hand than on the tree?"
more cherries for the picking. boy oh boy were they the sweetest i've ever had.
the view of the cherry farm from where i was on the tree. sure looks dull to me. from this height, you can pretty much guess that cherry trees aren't that tall to begin with.
after some time of cherry picking, we got bored and found a ladder. so we decided to enact an illegal immigrant working in the cherry farm. probably the kind of job if i decided to work in the US at this time without a valid visa.
"hello hello. some cherries for you today? they are really the good and very the sweet. try one."
"what you are from the New York Times doing a story on how illegal immigrants are working freely in the US? no comments, no comments."
trying to run away and hide from the photographer while still clutching that cherry bucket.
and now it's babe's turn as an illegal immigrant.
i guess male and female illegal immigrants have different ways of hiding themselves when the need arises.
wasn't there a sign that says you are not suppose to tear of the branches from the trees? Gothca now :D
now what can we do with the branch? eat it (the cherries on it) of course!
or use it to escape from the really hot weather.
our picks of the day. 3 buckets weighing in at almost 40 pounds (20kg). but they were 40 pounds of the sweetest and juiciest cherries i have ever tasted. can't wait to get home and mix 'em up with whipped cream and pop 'em into me mouth. YUMMY!!
strawberry picking
after an eventful week of tasks, it was time to unwind for the weekend. we started off by goin to the strawberry/cherry picking farm where you can pick your own strawberry and/or cherry at USD1.35 a pound. really cheap compared to buying them from the market where some people charge as high as USD4 per pound of cherry. plus the fact that they say the best fruits are those that have just been picked gave us more than enough reason to go on this picking spree.
this post has been split into 2 as the many photos would make it a really long one post. so sit back, relax and enjoy part 1: strawberry picking.
this was the view of the route towards the farm when we were going back home. it was this jammed when we went there almost 4 hours earlier and it was still jammed when we made our way back.
the troop all ready for strawberry picking. go! go! go!
well not before we take some shots before picking the strawberries. take note of the box towards the end of the post.
babe, babe, look what i found!
great looking straeberry. and they taste really good too.
a strawberry plant with oh so many strawberries. all ripe for the picking.
another plant that will soon fall victim to my picking hands.
babe, babe, look here.
more great-looking strawberries. wish i could bring some home for you guys to taste how good they are. much much better than those bought in stores. those of you who have picked strawberries before would know what i mean.
what do you do when you have too much strawberries? get creative of course. here's the new spring/summer straeberry earring collection.
the box slowly but surely filling up. oh did i tell you that the temperature at that time was about 30 degrees celcius?
some landscape pictures of the strawberry farm. enjoy!!
looks like this dried out patch has already been picked.
that's not a strawberry plant, right?
after a hard-day's (actually less than an hour) work of strawberry picking. brings a while new meaning to reaping the fruits of your labour.
my turn to get a shots with these babies :D i just couldn't help popping one into my mouth.
here's a close up of the strawberries we picked for the day. all red, ripe and juicy. next up, the cherry picking escapade :D stay tuned!!
