Heavenly Bodies

I remembered back in my varsity days in Glasgow, Scotland, there was a TV Program known as "Heavenly Bodies" and it was my favourite. Now, now I am not talking about Heavenly Bodies like the Photo above (that is Bo Derek by the way and she was known as Perfect 10 for obvious reasons) but more of the Photo below (captured by my buddy Kuan Hoong).

Lately there was such a buzz on this Smiley Face from heaven! Something that occurred not too frequently I suppose for this is the first time I ever seen it in my life! I was just reflecting on this rare phenomenon, how the Stars aligned in such a way that gave us this Smiley Face! How about putting things in perspective regarding these Heavenly Bodies?

You can get a sense of how our Planet Earth stack-up with the other Planets. Earth is pretty big here!

Now Earth looks rather small when compared to Jupiter and Saturn.

When the Sun comes into the picture, see how small our Planet Earth is!!!!!

Heard of Arcturus and Pollux?? these were Photos from the Hubble Telescope! Even the Sun sort of disappears when compared to these two giants! Where is Earth now?

With Betelgeuse and Antares in view, Earth literally disappears! Antares is the 15th biggest Star in the Sky and is supposedly to be 1000 Light Years away.

The above Photo is a Hubble Telescope Ultra Deep Field Infrared View of countless Galaxies, billions of Light Years away. Below is a Photo of the Darkest Region of the above Photo and to my amazement there are still Galaxies out there!!!!!

Humbling isn't it? How small and insignificant we are on Planet Earth! Yet Someone knows how many hairs on your head and not even a single sparrow dies apart from His Will! (Matthew 10:29-31)

Now How Big are You? and How Big are the Things that upset you Today?

Keep Life In Perspective!

And

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff!

Woes of China Made Goods

Have been reading too many News Articles from Western Countries about the danger of China made Goods ranging from toys, clothes, eye-glasses, food, melamine contaminated milk products and now slippers or flip-flops!

Personally, I am weary and scared to buy China made Products due to all these bad publicity about China made Goods. China must do something and real quick to check on the quality as well as safety and health hazards of their products or else no one will buy their products!

The latest issue is on 'Slippers' made from China! I am sure many of you might have seen these in your local markets!




Someone bought one of these China made Slippers and due to the poisonous material used, his feet got badly affected! Take a look at the Photos!

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Something so harmless as a pair of slip-on can cause such damaging effects on your skin!!!! Dare you to buy China made Products!!

Christmas comes early for us

Rock is totally jubilant today! Me too! Our daughter Sharlene is back here spending 3 weeks with us before she heads off to Auckland for Christmas with her in-laws and return to London via LA, spending 10 days there! This is sort of yearly pilgrimage for her and her hubby, a short escape from winter in London, visiting families and a short holiday.

She brought us so many gifts for Christmas that we are overwhelmed! got myself a brand new wrist watch too from her and hubby!:) As for rock, she got packages of chocs, biscuits, cookies and all her favourite munchies! Not sure why but my children seems to think that I love Soccer! Have been receiving Football Tees from them every year! I have a Germany, Chelsea, Manchester United and now an England jersey! I am not even a fan of any of them!

Year end is a very joyous month for us. Firstly most of our children are around and the various goodies for Christmas! Next week, our son-in-law will be back and a day later dawn will be arriving too! guess won't have much time blogging and will be kept very busy doing the shopping and eating rounds as usual! so if you don't see me posting I'm sure you kind folks can understand! Oh! some overseas blogger friends are in KL too and some of us are making arrangements for a meet-up! Wow!

Shown below are some photos of my recent Surprise Birthday Bash with the family! Boy! What a Surprise it was!

Copywriting is Serious Business

Copywriting is a much sought after topic on the Web. Every internet marketer will invariably have to learn something about this topic. To me copying Ancient Texts or Manuscripts requires even more attention for a missing 'letter' or 'word' can mean a totally different thing and cause years of hardships! :)

To illustrate the point I'll share an interesting story and also my way of apology for Missing in Action for a week! :)


A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.

He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.

So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing,

"We missed the " R" ! , we missed the " R" !"

His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"

With A choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was...

"CELEB RATE !!! "

Station of Life

There is such a place known as the Station of Life in Malaysia! It is located in Lahad Datu, Sabah which is East Malaysia and is a place where Christians spend 2 weeks to a month to get away from their usual busy schedule, lock themselves in, studying the Bible, prayer and fasting as well as commune with our Lord and for most find their directions in life.

Well I'm not talking about that SOL but more of pondering on the name for I see life is like an inner city train circuit that made many stops at various stations and one gets on and off. Of course you get back on the train to complete all your accorded tasks in life before you end your journey at the Home Station!

This week, we enter another station in our life with a double celebration! Firstly, celebrated my recent birthday with a group of new found friends from the blogosphere, as well as our youngest daughter's graduation! I am grateful and thankful to the Lord for arranging these friends during my 3 years as caregiver, often shut-up at home, they keep in touch weekly and we spend many nights together sharing and learning at my place, for my convenience! What sweet friends they are! Furthermore, I just get to know another friend from Hong Kong on FB and she sent rock a bunch of flowers on my birthday! Wow!

We both see rock's stroke as another station in life where every aspect of our life was totally changed in a twinkle of the eye so to say! How good is God to arrange new friends to accompany us through the last 3 years! Since we live so far from everyone, the Lord knowing our loneliness, our need for human contact, warmth, He arranged these kind souls to journey with us as our companions!

There is a Chinese saying that goes like this; 'when you are poor, no one notice you even in a busy market! but when you are rich, even if you live deep on a mountain, there will be relatives who come visiting.' I think it is so very true! the late Tansri Lim Goh Tong' is the example, he lived on top of a mountain call Genting and yet so many friends and relatives visit him there! So whether you are rich or poor, true friends never mind the distance! hehe!

Our group is significant in the sense that mostly are seniors with the exception of one or two who are in their early 30's while the oldest being me and others hovering round 50 and mid 50's! To have a group of seniors trying to learn and handle technology is hilarious!! I call the oldies the motley crew! ha!ha! but it was fun and we become such great buddies! We share, help and encourage one another and mind you, its not easy for seniors to grapple with fast changing technology on the internet! Before we fully understand how this thingy works something new comes along and repeat the whole cycle again! Whew!

The other significant part is that our responsibilities as a parent to the last of our children ended with dawn graduating on my birthday! What a coincidence! To us we finally enter real freedom in our early 60's. Well is not that now we do not care anymore but our duty to provide for them till they can start their own lives is now finito! Earn their own living so to say! Oh! we are not that hard and of course we will still be helping her until she gets herself a job!

What a timing in trying to get a job! Just like me, I started working life in a 'depression' too! Not as bad as this current one but at that time jobs were scarce! Anyway we trust our Lord to provide and lead in the current situation. so, we are waiting at the station of life for the next train to take us on our journey and hopefully no more stops until the Home Station!

Lemon Grass Research

Another post on Health Matters regarding Lemon Grass (locally known as Serai) use in treatment of Cancer. I guess this can be classified under Alternative Medicine.


It all began when researchers at Ben Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev discovered last year that the lemon aroma in herbs like lemon grass kills cancer cells in vitro, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

The research team was led by Dr. Rivka Ofir and Prof. Yakov Weinstein, incumbent of the Albert Katz Chair in Cell-Differentiation and Malignant Diseases, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at BGU.

Citral is the key component that gives the lemony aroma and taste in several herbal plants such as lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus), melissa (Melissa officinalis) and verbena (Verbena officinalis.

Why does it work? Nobody knows for certain, but the BGU scientists have a theory.

"In each cell in our body, there is a genetic program which causes programmed cell death. When something goes wrong, the cells divide with no control and become cancer cells. In normal cells, when the cell discovers that the control system is not operating correctly - for example, when it recognizes that a cell contains faulty genetic material following cell division - it triggers cell death," explains Weinstein. "This research may explain the medical benefit of these herbs."

The success of their research led them to the conclusion that herbs containing citral may be consumed as a preventative measure against certain cancerous cells.

As they learned of the BGU findings in the press, many physicians in Israel began to believe that while the research certainly needed to be explored further, in the meantime it would be advisable for their patients, who were looking for any possible tool to fight their condition, to try to harness the cancer-destroying properties of citral.

According to Dr. Weinstein at Ben-Gurion University, he recommended to put the loose grass in hot water, and drink about eight glasses each day. Here is another local preparation method.

Take 3 stalks of lemon grass – use only the white part. Boil with 300cc water for about 1 hour. This recipe will give one glass of lemon grass drink for 1 person.

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What a Beauty

Take a look at her! Don't you agree with me that she is sooooo beautiful! She is from Land of The Smiles or commonly known as Thailand! Any guy would fall in love with her looks and any gal would love to have her beauty!

Anyway it is a He by the way and he was elected as the Champion among the Best Drag Queens in Thailand!!! Yeah, we live in a strange and fast changing World!