Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
The Singapore Ak Adult Champ and her story ....
Treasure or trash?
THEIRS look like a typical five-room HDB flat in Hougang.
But step into one of the bedrooms and you’re bound to do a double-take.
The room is filled from floor to ceiling with thousands of soft toys packed in plastic bags.
And if you are not careful, you might trigger a soft toy avalanche and be buried under a pile of Lilo and Stitch and Winnie the Pooh toys.
Meet the Wong family, who is obsessed with collecting soft toys.
Said housewife Madeline Wong, 38, with a laugh: “We love collecting soft toys. We are not crazy, we just have a hobby.”
Xavier Wong, 11, in front of
his family’s soft toy room
Mrs Wong and her husband Wong Keng Chong, 41, who works in sales, have two children, Xavier, 11 and Xenith, 9.
Between 2005 and the end of last year, at the height of their obsession, they spent at least five nights a week at an arcade in Hougang playing arcade games to win soft toys. They spent between two to three hours each time.
Mr Wong, who declined to reveal how much he earns, said they sometimes forked out more than $800 a month for the games.
So far, they have spent well over $24,000 trying to win soft toys – and they haven’t stopped.
“It started when Xavier was six years old. He liked the character Stitch from the cartoon Lilo and Stitch. So, we started going to the arcade to collect Stitch soft toys,” said Mrs Wong.
“After you get one, you want to get the entire series. One is just not enough.”
The Wongs have a strategy when they play the arcade games to win the soft toys.
Explained Mrs Wong: “We’ve played the games so many times that we now know which ‘catchers’ have a better grip, so we choose those.”
There were some nights when they would come home with more than 20 soft toys.
Said Xavier: “It’s fun to win and carry them home.”
Mrs Wong said the toys were available only at the arcade, and could not be bought in toy stores here.
Many tries
She added that when they first started playing, it sometimes took them up to 15 tries to win one toy. They won very few toys in the beginning and would display them around the flat.
When their collection grew, they began keeping the toys in a bedroom.
“At first, the toys took up just a small corner, then half the room. But, before long, the entire room was taken up,” she said.
But the Wongs do not go to the arcade as much these days as their children have too much homework on weekdays, she said.
The children’s bedroom has been converted into a soft toy shrine – there is a shelf stacked with over 150 identical Scrump alien dolls, a character from the cartoon Lilo and Stitch.
The children sleep with their parents, so their beds have been used to display another 20 soft toys.
They also collect other toys like Barbie dolls, which are still in boxes, stacked in the corner of the bedroom and other parts of the home.
But cleaning is a big problem, Mrs Wong confessed.
“I keep the windows of the soft toy room closed all the time,” she said. The family does not have a maid.
Every Chinese New Year, Mrs Wong does a thorough cleaning of the soft toy room and has developed a system over the years.
She explained: “I first take out all the soft toys and lay them out on the living room floor. Then I reorganise them into batches and change the plastic bags. I vacuum the room thoroughly and mop the floors. It takes a whole week.”
They have never thrown away a single soft toy. Instead, Mrs Wong has started to give some away.
“I have also donated some soft toys to other game tournaments like the Animal Kaiser tournaments that we have participated in and I want to donate more to welfare homes,” she said.
The family has moved on to collecting other items that do not take as much space, such as arcade game cards.
The New Paper featured the Wong family two Sundays ago on their love for the Animal Kaiser game, an arcade-based game in which you collect cards. They have amassed over 1,000 cards.
Mrs Wong said her mother and sister are also worried about their obsession.
She said: “My mother tells me all the time that the toys are a fire hazard. It is really unsafe. That’s why I want to start donating them.”
But Mr Wong has other ideas.
He said cheekily: “I have a dream, that once I retire, I’ll open a shop and sell them.”
Not abnormal hobby: psychiatrist
WHILE some might think that the Wongs have gone overboard with their hobby, a psychiatrist felt it was not an issue.
Dr R Nagulendran, a psychiatrist in private practice, said the family did not let their hobby interfere with their daily lives.
“The adults take care of themselves and the children’s lives are not affected as well,” said Dr Nagulendran.
“This is not an abnormal hobby.”
He added the family doesn’t suffer from a hoarding problem, which can be a manifestation of a mental illness like schizophrenia or dementia.
He said: “Those with these illnesses start storing rubbish and this really affects their quality of life.”
Psychologist Daniel Koh from Insights Mind Centre also felt that their hobby is well under control.
He said: “It’s actually a good thing as this family does it to stay close and they have developed a special bond. Nowadays, there are not many families who share a hobby together. Most family members tend to pursue individual interests.”
Mon, Aug 30, 2010
The New Paper
by Veena Bhawani
Tsunami children hunt for parents
More than 8,000 people have been confirmed dead following the earthquake and tsunami, but some 13,000 are still missing.
In the town of Rikuzen Takata most of the children were in school when the tsunami struck, ensuring they survived, but many of their parents are missing.
Damian Grammaticas reports.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Siberia plans 'institute to study yetis'
MOSCOW - Officials in a Siberian region on Wednesday announced plans to open a scientific institute for researchers to study yetis, despite opposition from academics.
"Organising an institute or a scientific centre would be a logical continuation of research into the yeti," the administration of the Russian coal-mining region of Kemerovo in western Siberia said.
The region will announce its final decision after hosting an international conference on yetis later this year, the statement said, citing the regional government's education and science department.
"The town of Tashtagol will host an international conference with leading experts into hominids. Based on its results, we will take a decision on opening a scientific research institute to study the yeti."
Yetis, or Abominable Snowmen, are hairy ape-like creatures of popular myth, that are generally held to inhabit the Himalayas.
But some believe Russia also holds a population of yetis, which it calls Snow Men, in remote areas of Siberia such as the mountains in the southern part of Kemerovo around Tashtagol.
Kemerovo officials cited yeti researcher Igor Burtsev as saying that around 30 Russian scientists are studying yetis and could work together at the planned institute.
"We think that the yeti is a separate branch of human evolution. It lives in harmony with nature," Burtsev was quoted as saying.
Burtsev earlier told the ITAR-TASS news agency that the institute was planned to open as part of the region's state university.
The university swiftly denied the claim in a statement, saying that "studying yetis is not among the research interests of the scientific teams at Kemerovo State University".
The Kemerovo region has used its reputation for sightings of yetis to promote tourism. It holds an annual Yeti Day and this year it will run an ice sculpture competition called "In the World of the Yeti".
AFP
Wed, Mar 23, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Will this be our next Ver 7 ????
Understand this will be the next Ver 7 ,,,
AK evolution , lot of animal , lot of funs......
LOL !!!!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Day 3 Adult Tournament ....@ the animal fesita
The Namco Planner busy signing autogarph
Me and my technical advisor (both knockout in day 3 ..(so ma ru)......
AK hunter seeking revenge after a kill by me in Zone X...
The battle begins...
The scorch seems to be winning ......so all balls @ the scorch...
The support and the crowds are all still there .........
No, super moon didn't cause any disasters
KUALA LUMPUR: Contrary to popular belief, the "super moon" phenomenon does not cause earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis and other natural disasters.
Neither does it cause purple unicorns to trailblaze across the sky.
The super moon, or the perigee moon, is a phenomenon when the moon's orbit is closest to the Earth. It occurred last night, with the moon coming nearest to Earth in the past 18 years, giving it the appearance that it had grown in size.
An article on the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration website explained that full moons vary in size because of the elliptical shape of the moon's orbit.
One side (the perigee) is about 50,000km closer to Earth than the other (the apogee), resulting in a full moon that is about 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than "lesser" moons that occur on the apogee side of the moon's orbit.
Universiti Sains Malaysia Astronomy and Atmospheric Science Research Unit lecturer and astronomy club adviser Associate Professor Dr Chong Hon Yew said last night was particularly significant because the alignment of the moon, the Earth, the Sun and all the other planets formed roughly a straight line at a 50º angle.
Chong said if you imagined the Earth as a dot on a piece of paper, the moon was to its left and further to the left was Saturn while on the right side of the Earth was the Sun and further lined up towards the right were the other planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
"This is called a 'planetary alignment'. It is an odd occurrence but it does not result in disasters as predicted by doomsayers," said Chong.
However, the planetary alignment would not be visible because they would be in the daytime sky with the exception of Saturn, located in the nighttime sky.
He explained that the tides yesterday were a bit higher than usual because of the closer proximity of the moon (resulting in a stronger gravitational pull).
"The only significant effect it had was on the psychology of humans."
- The New Straits Times
Friday, March 18, 2011
Ver 6 Full Seq
With Great Sequence come Great way to Make $$$$$
All for $50
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Deck E : http://www.mediafire.com/?554g2kj948hnytm
Deck F : http://www.mediafire.com/?cxaeef7261m4jxn
Deck G : http://www.mediafire.com/?p81thab886w3kav
Deck H : http://www.mediafire.com/?0ii8x4oumvco474
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The machine is still Ver 5 ????
Due to the earthquake in Japan , the stock is delayed... there is panic everywhere ??? where is ver 6 ????
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