Tuesday, April 20, 2010

This reminds me of someone. (Yes, it's you.)

"Yet when the day of the dinner with David rolled around he was unexpectedly cheerful. He spent the day shopping and making risotto in the time-honored male way, removing all the utensils from the drawers and laying them out like surgical instruments, then decanting all the ingredients into small bowls to maximize the washing up."

--- from A Spot of Bother, by Mark Haddon

Monday, March 15, 2010

I started this week with a smile.


From today's Apple Daily.
________

小貓困軚盤隙縫獲救
2010年03月15日

【本報訊】昨下午 2時許, 31歲姓張客貨車司機駕車途經鯉魚門道時,發現一隻初生小貓瑟縮坑渠邊,擔心小貓受車聲驚嚇跑出馬路被輾斃,於是報警求救。可是他仍不放心,駕車折返撿走小貓,驅車到附近觀塘法院外的有信街。稍後警員到場不見貓蹤致電給他,當時在車廂內的頑皮貓竟鑽進客貨車軚盤底匿藏而被困,警員趕至無計可施召消防員協助。消防員稍後拆開軚盤救出全身沾滿油污的小貓,交愛協人員取走。獲救污糟貓約兩星期大,雄性,愛護動物協會人員稍後到場取走小貓交獸醫檢驗,初步發現小貓並無受傷。

________

What a kind hearted man :)

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

[I am too angry to title it]

Whenever I read the news, the first thing that I do is to scroll down the headlines, and upon seeing no upsetting news, I'd tell myself "hmm, this is a good day after all".

Today is not one of those days.

-----------------

From Apple Daily - 3 March 2010

無意攞命 只想令牠終身痛苦
斷肢殺手再現斬花貓


【本報訊】曾發生斬斷小貓後腳兇案的上水彩園邨,前晚又有花貓遭截肢。動物義工救走一頭拖着血淋淋左前腳的花貓救治,獸醫發現牠的左前腳遭利器齊口切斷報警。對於兇徒再現,關注動物權益組織譴責狂徒殘暴,無意取命只為令貓隻受盡一世痛苦,希望警方嚴辦。
遭截肢花貓約一歲,雄性。獸醫從左前肢部份傷口已結痂來分析,估計小貓 10日前遇毒手,小貓左前腳僅留半截,恐防影響日後活動,獸醫昨晨替牠切除左腳餘下前肢。



左前肢遭狂徒切斷的小花貓 Faith,被送往獸醫診所接受手術(圖)。讀者提供圖片


稱遭警不禮貌對待
07年 11月,彩園邨有狂徒斬斷一個月大的小貓藍藍一對後腳血案,藍藍雖撿回性命卻終生殘障,香港群貓會總幹事陳小姐指,事隔兩年又有虐貓案,雖未能確定是同一人所為,她替前晚大難不死小貓取名「 Faith」(即信念),向「貓殺手」宣示不畏暴行決心。

前晚 6時半,有動物義工到上水彩園邨彩屏樓對開公園餵貓,發現燈光下有一頭拖着血淋淋左前腳花貓蹣跚而行。女義工通知香港群貓會。並將花貓送到旺角一家獸醫診所急救。當時小貓對陌生人十分兇惡,數度想咬護士。獸醫發現其前肢傷口齊整,疑是利器斬傷。義工指狂徒最可惡不是取命,而是斬手腳,令貓隻殘障一生。
昨晚群貓會總幹事陳小姐陪同女義工到旺角警署報案。陳表示當時在警署受到不禮貌對待,她憶述,負責警員質疑貓隻是否剛做完手術逃走出來,又說「邊度發生,去番邊度報警」。她說經歷這次不快經驗已對警方破案不存寄望,但發生虐待動物案,不報警可以怎做?

Friday, February 26, 2010

Be still and know that I am God.

"Too often we think of prayer as a serious chore, something that must be scheduled around other appointments, shoe-horned in among other pressing activities. We miss the point[...] God is inviting us to take a break, to play truant. We can stop doing all those important things we have to do in our capacity as God, and leave it to him to be God."

--- Prayer by Philip Yancey

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Things that make me giggle.

Happy Year of the Tiger, my loved ones.
________________


I love children's drawing. They always make my day :). This one is from my friend M-Y's lovely kids, Evelyn and Oliver.

Watching Escape to River Cottage one night, BB made a comment about Lulu looking like a pike. They both have the same silly eyes.


This is based on a WFI recipe. BB has been giving me less-than-subtle hints the past three years that maybe I should try making meringues, as they are "super easy". So, here it is, my Valentine's Day dessert. Instead of the plums and pears that the recipe called for, I substituted them with starfruit(!) (homegrown by my dad) and frozen berries. I also skipped the Greek yoghurt, and used brown, not white, caster sugar. It turned out perfectly yummy*. So, it is official - contrary to popular (i.e. BB's) belief, I DO KNOW HOW TO COOK.

*Though, if you want to give this recipe a try, I would suggest you stick to the traditional berry ingredients, unless you also have a father who has given you three humongous star fruit and you need to find a creative way to use them up before they perish.


My Valentine's Day present - chocolate coated almonds from La Maison du Chocolat (BB bought himself a box along the way). Probably the most expensive chocolate I have, and would like to have, tasted. These two little boxes cost a whopping four-digit figure.


When Pepper first joined our family, she was all-out neurotic. I couldn't blame her - shortly after we adopted her, we whisked her to the vet for double surgery. Now, after 15 months, she is totally at ease. One of my daily pleasures is waking up in the morning to find her sleeping by my thigh.

Friday, January 29, 2010

My long overdue new year resolutions.

1. 50 books.
2. pouvez lire des magazines français.
3. more love.
4. more exercise.
5. make an important decision.

------

happy new year, DBJ.



Friday, October 30, 2009

最近。


滿腦子壞思想。“不要讓我們陷於誘惑” 是我近期常禱的告。

*公司出現一些震盪,有些好同事離開或調職,教我有點無奈,亦令我再次開始思考自己在事業上的目標(如有的話)。

*尾龍骨又隱隱作痛,如
兩年前腰痛開始的翻版。

*十月外遊3次,十一月稍稍休息,十二月再次出動。去吉隆坡探望會打牌球的烏龜。

*一向知道自律跟自己沒有太大關係,但當你要再一次承認這個事實時,心裡還是有點不爽。

*不太想社交。好想自己一個人,做甚麼也好。

*終於成為婚禮監禮人。申請的時候躊躇滿志,好像第二個事業一樣,甚麼“嘩嘩嘩每個星期做一單我咪好快發達囉呵呵呵可以買好多包包囉呵呵呵!!!”。現在牌到手了,反而沒有太大感覺。幫朋友主持婚禮我倒是非常樂意的,但其他無關人等都是免了。要做好鬼多文件囉,煩死。

*好憎好憎Donald Tsang。人衰,樣子都醜惡起來。

Another reason why I like Natalie Portman.

How many Hollywood actresses does it take to write something like this?
Answer: One, if you are Natalie Portman.

By the way, Jonathan Safran Foer is one of my favourite young writers too.

--------
Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals Turned Me Vegan


Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist. I've always been shy about being critical of others' choices because I hate when people do that to me. I'm often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., "What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what'll you eat?").

I've also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else -- a historically dangerous stance (I'm often reminded that "Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know"). But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling.

The human cost of factory farming -- both the compromised welfare of slaughterhouse workers and, even more, the environmental effects of the mass production of animals -- is staggering. Foer details the copious amounts of pig shit sprayed into the air that result in great spikes in human respiratory ailments, the development of new bacterial strains due to overuse of antibiotics on farmed animals, and the origins of the swine flu epidemic, whose story has gripped the nation, in factory farms.

I read the chapter on animal shit aloud to two friends -- one is from Iowa and has asthma and the other is a North Carolinian who couldn't eat fish from her local river because animal waste had been dumped in it as described in the book. They had never truly thought about the connection between their environmental conditions and their food. The story of the mass farming of animals had more impact on them when they realized it had ruined their own backyards.

But what Foer most bravely details is how eating animal pollutes not only our backyards, but also our beliefs. He reminds us that our food is symbolic of what we believe in, and that eating is how we demonstrate to ourselves and to others our beliefs: Catholics take communion -- in which food and drink represent body and blood. Jews use salty water on Passover to remind them of the slaves' bitter tears. And on Thanksgiving, Americans use succotash and slaughter to tell our own creation myth -- how the Pilgrims learned from Native Americans to harvest this land and make it their own.

And as we use food to impart our beliefs to our children, the point from which Foer lifts off, what stories do we want to tell our children through their food?

I remember in college, a professor asked our class to consider what our grandchildren would look back on as being backward behavior or thinking in our generation, the way we are shocked by the kind of misogyny, racism, and sexism we know was commonplace in our grandparents' world. He urged us to use this principle to examine the behaviors in our lives and our societies that we should be a part of changing. Factory farming of animals will be one of the things we look back on as a relic of a less-evolved age.

I say that Foer's ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just "This is tasty, and that's why I do it." He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).

But Foer makes his most impactful gesture as a peacemaker, when he unites the two sides of the animal eating debate in their reasoning. Both sides argue: We are not them. Those who refrain from eating animals argue: We don't have to go through what they go through -- we are not them. We are capable of making distinctions between what to eat and what not to eat (Americans eat cow but not dog, Hindus eat chicken but not cow, etc.). We are capable of considering others' minds and others' pain. We are not them. Whereas those who justify eating animals say the same thing: We are not them. They do not merit the same value of being as us. They are not us.

And so Foer shows us, through Eating Animals, that we are all thinking along the same lines: We are not them. But, he urges, how will we define who we are?

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

District 9.


"If they were from another country, I could understand, but they're not even from this planet."

--- a human resident on why human cannot tolerate the aliens


The movie is disturbing on so many levels, and that's why I like it so much.



Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Friday, August 28, 2009

ha.

Jane: Oh, come on. You are not telling me you believe she's an actual witch.

Cho: No, of course not. But I mean if dark force did exist, it stands to reason there could be people who control them for their own ends.

Jane: They're called investment bankers.

--- The Mentalist, episode 12 (US air date: 13 January 2009)

Monday, August 24, 2009

Saturday, August 15, 2009

On bravery.

BB and I went on a boat trip yesterday with some friends in Sai Kung, and I came back with a not-so-nice tan, a floating feeling which lasted for the rest of the evening and a silly sense of accomplishment.

While lounging on the top deck of the junk, I, who have always been a bit intimidated by the vast and bottomless water and never a good swimmer, was encouraged by my friend A to jump off the top deck into the sea. After hesitating for 5 minutes - mentally calculating the height of the deck and the depth of the sea, wondering how much my butt would hurt if I hit the water the wrong way, and struggling if I should squeeze my nose to prevent water from rushing into the nostrils - I summoned enough courage and just let myself go, and it felt great (and no, it didn't hurt at all; and yes, I squeezed my nose but still water managed to rush into the nostrils).

It's the good 5-minute hesitation that got me thinking.

Since when did we get so scared of everything? I had bungee jumped in my younger years, I was a fan of all kinds of roller coaster rides (my favourite was the free falls), and I used to love those dodgy street foods. But now I cannot walk a block of street without looking up to check if anything is falling from above (like acid bottles, or even worse, air-conditioners) and aiming at my head.

My bravery is diminished by age - and the wisdom and experience that comes with it.

But sometimes, taking the plunge is fun, which is what life should be, most of the time anyway.



Friday, July 17, 2009

Do Re Mi Fa.

I am obviously running out of things to post. So cats it has to be.