Jokes for the last day of 2008

Since it's the last day of 2008, lets end it with a laugh. My colleagues and I were sharing these jokes during break time.

Joke One
1. What is Happy's surname?

Lee. (Happily)

2. What is Happy's occupation?

Nurse. (Happiness)

3. Is Happy a male or a female?

Male. (Happy meal)


Joke Two
An ant, named Derek, was crossing the desert. Now, the question is why was there no foot print but there was a long line instead?

Cause he was riding a bicycle


Joke Three
Chelsea was about to open the door of a fridge but Alvin shouted,"There's an ant inside!" How did he know that?

He saw Derek's bicycle outside.


Hope you find them funny. Joe, you are good.

That Bag I Want

No, this is not a grammatical error. Thatbagiwant.com is a local website for designer bags rental. So what has this gotta do with environmental friendliness? (My girlfriend asked me this last night)

Now, one way of sustainable living is to reduce and to reuse. By sharing the use of the bags, you actually reduce the number of bags needed to be made. (Think carpooling and DVD rentals)What's more, these bags can be reused by another after one got tired of it.

At thatbagiwant.com, branded designer bags can be rented for a fee of around $40 to $125 for a week. Which means you do not need to spend thousands of dollars and end up with a bag you will probably use it for a month only. And you don't have to worry about how to dispose it.

A Prada bag renting at $125 per week at thatbagiwant.com

We do not need a fortune teller to know that the world is in a recession and things are likely to get worse next year. So at times like this, we really welcome such ideas.

Sporty Karung Guni Men

Whoever says sports and recycling don't go hand in hand should be at Woodlands last Saturday. National Junior College canoiests, in their bid to raise funds for the trip to World Dragonboat Championship 2009 in Czech Republic, went around collecting newspaper and old items for recycling.

NJC canoiests turned karung guni men

Trip to Hong Kong

Two weekends back, I took a trip to Hong Kong for a holiday with my friends. It had been quite a while since I last travelled there and wanted to take this opportunity to check out the Hongkies' enviromental friendliness.

Observation 1

While waiting for the bus, which never came, to fetch us to the hotel, I found quite a number of these notices in the carpark. Interestingly, the drivers did abide to this regulation, though not sure if it's out of concern for the environment or the costs of fuel or any other reasons. Whatever the case, we should applaud effort.

Notice at the carpark of Hong Kong Station

Observation 2

In Hong Kong, it is common to see people standing and eating by the streetside stalls. Famous Hong Kong snacks like the "Siew Mai" and "Yu Dan" need not be placed into non-biodegradable plastics and styrofoam containers before consuming. We simply dipped the stewered food into the sauce provided and... yum. This "buy, eat and go" trait is definitely good for the environment. Just imagine how many plastic bags and styrofoam containers can be saved.

Check out Wendy and Elise with their "yu dan"

Earth Hour

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney as a campaign for the Australians to get involved in working towards a sustainable future. The message is simple: "Everyone can make a difference." The action is simpler: "Off the lights for one hour." Interestingly, within a year, the event has grown tremendously such that around 100 million people across 35 countries took part. Earth 2009 promises to be a bigger bang, aiming to reach out to one billion people over 1000 cities around the world.

Earth Hour 2009 Video from WWFDan

Earth Hour Singapore 2009, organised by a group of volunteers from ECO Singapore, will be held on 28 Mar 2009, 830pm to 930pm. Keep it up, people.

Coffins recycled!

Whoever say that there is a limit to what can be recycled must be eating their words now. The guys from Coffin Couches has shown that you just have to be creative when it comes to going green. These coffins costing at USD3500 were not used for burials probably due to cosmetic inconsistencies or were used for display.

Source: Coffin Couches

I'm not too sure my mum will like it though.

China is top CO2 emitter

In a recent article released by Guardian.co.uk, China has toppled U.S to become the No.1 CO2 emitter in the world. The article claims in the EIA's, a U.S government body, latest round of global figures, China top the chart with 6.01 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2006, a 11% increase from the previous year. U.S is 2nd with 5.90 billion tonnes, dropping 2% from 2005. But can this be a case of U.S chanelling more of their manufacturing industries to China? See carbon atlas for carbon emission around the world

source: guardian.co.uk

Singapore stands at No. 33 with 141 million tonnes of CO2, up 5% from 2005. It may seems little in comparison to the big countries but what is shocking is the individual statistics. We are at a high of 31.4 tonnes per person , comparing to Malaysia at 6.7 tonnes and Japan at 9.8 tonne

Let's work on it, shall we?

Fine For Not Recycling

Residents in Gwinnett County, a suburban in Georgia could face a fine of USD500 for not recycling. Apparently, the move is in line with a state policy that local governments develop plans to reduce solid waste by 25 percent. With their "Greener Tomorrow" program, residents will be fined if they are caught throwing recyclables into trash bin or throwing trash into the recycling bin.

“We don’t intend for this to be the garbage gestapo, running around, looking in people’s garbage about what’s there and what’s not there,” said Connie Wiggins, executive director of Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful, which is administering Gwinnett’s waste disposal program. “I believe the fine applies to all categories, and certainly, if we saw excessive abuses of materials being thrown in the garbage.”

Now, who says Singapore is a "FINE" city...

Singapore Marathon 2008

Congratulations to the two members of Team TTH (Tri Too Hard) for completing the Singapore Marathon 2008! Chelsea Chan and Chin Leng, well done. Now for Sundown Marathon 2009 on 30 May.

Nice Christmas Gifts

Since we have a list of Christmas gifts which people do not want, now here's a list of websites where we can find nice Christmas Gifts.

1. Heifer International
2. World Gifts 3. Adopt a Tree Today

Heifer International and World Gifts fight poverty by helping people obtain a substainable source of food and income. They believe it is better to teach the people how to fish so they can feed themselves, than to give them a fish which can only feed them once.

Adopt a Tree allows you, through the comfort of your home, plant and own a tree. You can name the tree yourself and even visit it at the plantation. The choice of plantations are located at countries near us like in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc...

These "feel good" gifts can bring smiles to your friends and colleagues' faces(I hope), while doing a part to help others and the environment.

What's more, you can reduce the use of paper wrappers.

Top 5 Most Unwanted Christmas Gifts

The results are out.

The Top 5 most unwanted Christmas Gifts in Singapore:
*Survey was done with a group of working professionals (age between 23 to 35 years old)

Conclusion: Stop buying all these gifts to your friends and colleagues. They don't want them. It may be the thought that counts but it's not a good thought if these gifts are simply wasted, lying in the storeroom or even discarded in your neighbourhood rubbish bins. Think about all the resources and materials used to making these gifts. What is more environmental unfriendly than to create stuff to be thrown away. So let us try to make an effort and get gifts that our friends really need or enjoy using. Eh, I would love a Nokia E71. Anyone?

Can we have car free day in Singapore?

As you know, every 22 Sep is World's Car Free Day but somehow the event didn't really kick off in Singapore. It seems living one day without the use of cars can be too unbearable to most of us.

I'm one of the guilty ones. My 2008 resolution was to cycle to work and reduce the use of car. So 6 months back, I bought a Giant TCR3. Brought it to West Coast for a little ride and the meter has stayed at 6km ever since.

My Giant TCR3-小巨人

Other than the "lazy" factor, another reason for me not riding to work is because of the risk involved. Singaporean drivers seems to have zero tolerance to cyclists (another negative trait of Singaporeans: hate to share. Think foreign workers, car pool...etc)

Even adding a side mirror (much to the amusement of Chelsea, a cycling fanatic) doesn't increase my confidence.

However, with more and more people taking up cycling, pretty sure there will be more awareness. One day, we might really see car free days in Singapore.

Green Joke!

One of my favourite "green" jokes:

There once was a little green man living in a little green house on the top of a little green hill. One day the little green man wanted to take a bath so he went and took his little green bottle of shampoo and his little green bar of soap and also his little green towel and into his little green bathroom he went. As he took off his little green shirt and his little green pair of shorts, he stepped under his little green tap and started to bathe.

Just then a saleswoman came to the front of the little green man's house and rang on his little green bell. "Ding Dong". The little green man heard his little green bell and he thought that his pizza had arrived so he hastily took his little green towel, wrapped it around his little green waist and rushed to the door.As he opened his little green door, his little green towel came undone, and dropped onto his little green doormat, exposing his little green, uuh...never mind. The saleswoman gave a shriek and rushed out of the little green house. In all her haste and all her horror, she did not see the Truck coming at 120 mph which struck her, killing her on the spot.

QUESTION: What is the Moral of the Story?


ANSWER: DON'T CROSS THE ROAD WHEN THE GREEN MAN IS FLASHING

Cutting unneccessary power

Today, Alvin, my colleague, asked me whether there is a device that can cut off all the power in the house when not in use (except our refridgerator, of course). This is the closest I can find: Smart Strip Power Strip

Apparently, you can plug your appliances into it, e.g pc, speakers, printers, etc.. and when you shut off and after a set idle time, all appliances will be shut off too.

How to make battery life last longer?

Didn't know it will come to a time where I cannot live without my handphone. Left it at home once and the whole day I felt so vulnerable. But there is still one major flaw of the handphone: the battery cannot last as long as I need it to be.
So I searched the web and found a number of tips to make battery last longer.

1. Optimise the energy saving settings
Cut down on the brightness and reduce the interval the backlight stays on.

2. Remove the animated wallpaper
Animated wallpapers are battery suckers.

3. Turn stuff off
Programs like Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi, email or anything that searches for updates are best turned off when not in use. They drink battery life like water

4. Talk is cheap
It seems that talk uses lesser battery power than emailing. A whopping 2-4 times lesser!

These are only some of the many many tips I found.
Anyway where all else fails, just get a solar charger. You can charge anywhere in our tropical island.

Are Singaporeans environmental conscious?

I have been pondering over these questions. Are we doing enough to help the environment? Can we do more? Not that we are not concerned but it seems like we are waiting for the government to give the cue on what to do to help. One suggestion, if government puts recycling bins right at our doorstep, I'm pretty sure many items will be recycled.

Recycling Bin in the HDB estate