23 Feb 2019 - Javier's very own Mario Party Games

For those video gamers out there, you would have probably heard of a Nintendo game called Mario Party.  And today, Javier published his very own Mario Party Game on Scratch.  He had spent quite sometimes creating this game.  At this moment, the game allows 1 or 2 players to start.  It consists of 5 mini games with full sound effects.  I was once again being "summoned" to be his beta tester.  After trying out the game, I must say I'm really impressed.  I tried to look at his codes to understand the coding logic and oh my god, it's beyond me.  Click here to try it!

Up till today, he had already created and shared 100 projects on Scratch platform.  And he's still going strong.  Very impressive, Javier!  Keep it up!  :-)

20 Feb 2019 - Supermoon at Dawn

When we left home early this morning, we saw an extremely bright and round full moon in the west direction.  We then realized it's actually a supermoon.  This year we get to witness three supermoons in a row on 21 Jan, 19 Feb and 21 March.

Supermoon appears up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than usual.

Below is a picture presenting some facts about supermoon.  Click to enlarge it.

17 Feb 2019 - CNY Lion Dance and Mom's Birthday

We gathered at my sis's place this afternoon for the Chinese New Year Lion Dance Performance.  This has been an annual event for our family and I started blogging about it since 2008.  When I looked back at those blog posts, it's amazing to see how much the kids have grown.

At the end of the lion dance performance, four Chinese words (财源广进) were formed by oranges on the floor which means "Wealth and Fortune in Abundance".  Huat ah!

Following is a video clip of the lion dance.
Tomorrow is my mom's birthday and we had an early celebration for her after dinner.

祝您， 生日快乐，身体健康，天天开心，万事顺利！

5 Feb 2019 - CNY Visiting (Part 3)

After the CNY gathering session at Loyang Chalet, we drove to Tracy's cousin place for another session.  We again had Lou Hei and the usual photo taking.  Huat ah!

After Lou Hei, all the cousins gathered in a room to play some card games.  Of course, we had our Kacheng photos taken as well.

We left the place at about 2am!  After driving out from the car park, Jerlene and Javier were sound asleep within minutes.

5 Feb 2019 - CNY Visiting (Part 2)

In the evening, we went to Loyang Aloha Chalet where we all gathered to celebrate Chinese New Year.  Since last year, we started a "practice" where all those who are giving out red packets will sit in line and those who are receiving red packets will go through the line to collect their ang baos (red packets).  I think it's a great idea as we will not miss out anyone.  :-)

5 Feb 2019 - CNY Visiting (Part 1)

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Yes, today is the first day of the year of the pig.  Our first CNY visiting is of course my parents' place.  It's always nice to be back to the home where I'd been staying since Primary 6 till I moved out to my own place.  So much memory flashed through my mind.  It's time to take some family photos.

4 Feb 2019 - Reunion Dinner on eve of CNY

Today is Chinese New Year Eve and we had our reunion steamboat with my parents. 

As usual, we prepared two pots of steamboat soups, one laksa which was spicy and the other was chicken soup.  We did not manage to finish all the food as we had probably prepared too much.  But that's a good sign because 年年有余!  :-)

2 Feb 2019 - Reunion Lou Hei (捞鱼生), Huat Ah!

Chinese New Year is three days away and we had an early family reunion gathering this evening.  As usual before our dinner, we had our favourite Lou Hei (捞鱼生) session.  So everybody, HUAT AH!!!!!

Every year, we had to search the internet for the auspicious Chinese phrases to say as we add each ingredient into the salad.  So I decided to post it here which we can refer to in the coming years.

1. In goes the raw fish (生鱼, Sheng Yu)
年年有馀 “Nian Nian You Yu” symbolising abundance ‘excess’ through the new year.

2. Put in the pomelo (柚子, You Zi)
大吉大利 “Da Ji Da Li” which means good fortunes and luck.

3. Sprinkle pepper & cinnamon powder (胡椒粉, Hu Jiao Fen)
招财进宝 “Zhao Cai Jin Bao” to attract more wealth and treasures. This step is a must for business lo hei.

4. Drizzle the oil  (油, You)
You can either use “财原广进 “Cai Yuan Guang Jin” or 一本万利 “Yi Ben Wan Li” while circling the ingredients with the oil to increase all profits 10,000 times and encouraging money to flow in from all directions. Thrill your bosses with this step!

5. Throw in the carrots (红萝卜, Hong Luo Bo)
鸿运当头 “Hong Yun Dang Tou” which means good luck is right at our doorsteps.

6. Put in the shredded green radish (青萝卜, Qing Luo Bo)
青春常驻 “Qing Chun Chang Zhu” for eternal youth. Good to let the ladies have a go at this one.

7. Now goes the shredded white radish (白萝卜, Bai Luo Bo)
风生水起 “Feng Sheng Shui Qi” and 步步高升 “Bu Bu Gao Sheng” which means prosperity in business and promotion at work. This is for all the minions at work.

8. Dust finely chopped peanuts (花生粉, Hua Sheng Fen)
金银满屋 “Jin yin man wu” symbolises a household filled with gold and silver. As an icon of longevity, peanuts also symbolise eternal youth.

9. Sprinkle sesame seeds over quickly (芝麻, Zhi Ma)
生意兴隆 “Sheng Yi Xing Long” for a flourishing business.

10. Throw in Golden Crackers (薄脆饼干, Bo Cui Bing Gan)
遍地黄金 “Bian Di Huang Jin” for hope of riches that literally fill the whole floor with gold.

11. In flows the plum sauce (酸梅酱, Suan Mei Jiang)
甜甜蜜蜜 “Tian Tian Mi Mi” for sweet and loving relationships for everyone.

12. Toss The Yusheng
Shout 发啊 “Huat Ah” and toss the salad for an auspicious 7 times for great luck and wealth in the new year.

27 Jan 2019 - The "Grand" and the "Great" Gathering

We celebrated my grandmother's birthday today at Ganso Manekineko KTV.  It's the time of the year where all her children, grand children and great grand children gather.  The strength of her great grand children has grown over the years.  I believe more will be added moving forward.

外婆，祝您生日快乐，身体健康！

26 Jan 2019 - Edusave Good Progress Award

In the past 2 years, Javier had received the CDC-CCC Education Merit Award for his good academic results.  Today, he is once again receiving an award, but a different one.  He's receiving Edusave Good Progress Award for improvement in his academic results and demonstrating good conduct.  Unlike in the past where the award ceremony was held in Community Club, this time it's held in the Club House at our place.

Other than the award, the prize that he received is also different.  Instead of $80 Popular book voucher that he got for past 2 years, this time round it was a $100 cash cheque.

Well done once again, Javier!  Keep it up!

25 Jan 2019 - My Little Princess has turned 12!

Today is Jerlene's 12 years old birthday.  My little princess is no longer little.  Not just her age, but also her height as she is almost as tall as her mommy now.  Time really flies and the image of me carrying her in one hand 12 years ago is still very fresh in my mind.  Now even using two hands to carry her will be difficult.

We bought a cake for her and had a mini celebration together with my parents, sister and her family.

Jerlene, I hope you had enjoyed your birthday and may your wish comes true.  12 years old is a very important year because in a few months time, you will be busy preparing for your PSLE examination.  Having said that, do find time to enjoy yourself as it is equally important to have a balanced lifestyle.

I started blogging when Jerlene was borned.  In other words, I have been blogging consistently for 12 years.  Though it's a lot of hard work and took up a substantial amount of my time, I enjoyed it.  Every time when I looked back at those earlier blog posts, I will put on a smile uncontrollably.  So glad that I've captured all those moments.  :-)

14 Jan 2019 - Leaders of Tomorrow

Notice something extra on Javier's shirt collar?  Yes it's a badge that identifies a student as a Student Councillor.  Javier had gone for the necessary briefing and training in the past week.  Today was his first time performing his duty as a Student Councillor.  According to Javier, every Student Councillor has an area of focus on top of all the generic assignment.  His focus is in the area of "Health" so whenever there is any activity related to Health, he may be called in to help out.

Hopefully with this, he will learn and improve on his leadership skill which is very essential when entering into the work force.  Good job!

13 Jan 2019 - New assignment during Taekwando grading

As Javier had passed his Junior Black Belt grading three month ago, he had a new assignment in today's grading.  He was playing the role as one of the assistant coaches during warm-up.  While those going for grading were practicing their patterns, he went around "correcting" their mistakes and even demonstrated the correct moves.  It's amazing that he could still remember the patterns for all the different colour belts.

Today's grading was held at Jurong East Sports Hall.

Other than being an assistant coach, he had been practising to be a referee during sparring.  However, he did not get a chance to be one today as there were too many full black belts around.  Maybe next time.

5 Jan 2019 - Mastering Scratch 3.0 in hours

This afternoon, I noticed Javier was busy typing in front of his computer desktop.  Based on the way he typed, he did not seem to be playing games.  So I went over and asked what he was doing.  He told me that Scratch just released a new version and he was trying out all the new features.  In the new Scratch 3.0, there are many new features such as
- New Paint Editor and Sound Editor
- Pen, Video Sensing and Music blocks
- New fonts
- New extension: Text to Speech, Translate, Micro:bit
- and more.....
Within few hours, Javier created a few games making use of some of the new features.  It's great to see that he has so much passion in Scratch programming and continue to "upgrade" himself with all the new knowledge.

By the way, I have not been monitoring his progress in Scratch programming and I'm very surprised when I saw that he had already published 85 projects so far.  I tried looking into his projects to see how he coded those games but I'm totally lost.  It's so complicated that I no longer understand his coding.  In fact, some of his projects contain a few hundred scripts!  Being his beta tester, what amazes me is that whenever I found some programming defects, he knows exactly where went wrong and fixed it immediately.

Well done, Javier!  Keep it up!

1 Jan 2019 - Happy New Year to all and Goodbye Analog TV!

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a very HAPPY and PROSPEROUS 2019!

One major event that happened tonight was the "death" of Analog TV.  I stayed up late tonight just to catch this "once in a lifetime" moment.

Below shows my TV screen at 2359hrs when there was still pictures.

At 0001hrs sharp, the screen simply blacked out and that marked the end of Analog TV era, at least in Singapore.  :~(