OT blues

Source - devianART

It's a Friday night and i'm still stuck in the office, working on stuff that just.never.ends.

Will still need to work a bit over the weekend. Boo.

What a grueling week.

Jay's 2010 Concert

I don't really know what to write about the Jay Chou concert on Saturday because a) I am afraid i won't be doing justice to the experience, b) I would sound like a teenager obsessing over her crush and c) I'm lucky I still have a fiance who wants to marry me, considering how i was gushing (and shrieking) for 2.5 hours at another man, in his presence. Kudos to the man for being so magnanimous :)

Anyway i really wanted to share some of the clips i took, especially the ones of him singing his old songs but this overzealous fan forgot to hold the camera further and ended up capturing her own singing in... almost all the videos. Oh well, will see if i can steal some videos from the sister, without our singing.

Stefanie Sun, was unwittingly placed in the limelight when a camera man decided to focus on her. She sportingly played along and gave facial expressions in response to the lyrics of his song. How cute!

PS (Poor Service) Cafe

The girls and I were at PS Cafe, Palais Renaisance last night. It was an informal farewell dinner for YZ who's going to teach English in Japan (more on that another time) in early August.

We were appalled by the service, or rather the lack of it.

To be fair, it was just one service staff who spoilt our dining experience.

Let me recall the night's events.

We had made a reservation for 7pm. I was the earliest to arrive at 6.40pm and had asked to be seated first. The place wasn't full, with only 2-3 tables of diners. I was directed to a table that was located directly at the crossroad of traffic. A little uncomfortable. I asked politely if i could have change of table. After all, the other tables were still empty. I was told that the cafe was running at full house and the other tables were reserved. Tough luck. I didn't argue with that because i figured we had a lousy table because our reservation was last minutet.

YZ and XL soon arrived and after we ordered our food, XL asked a service staff (let's call her A) if we could have an extra chair for our bags. A pointed to the chair meant for MY and said isn't there an empty chair right here? We told her that it was meant for our friend who was coming, to which A replied that the cafe was very full (again) and she could offer us an extra chair but might have to take it back when the crowd comes in OR, how about a wine rack instead. We took the chair. The wine rack didn't look like it was capable of holding 3 ladies' handbags.

Our food arrived and XL requested for a 4th serving plate for MY who was on her way. The plate was brought over rather reluctantly by A.

5 minutes later, A walked past our table and removed the empty glass and coaster, which was meant for MY. We immediately told her that our friend was coming (for like the 3rd time?), to which she replied almost indignantly that she would bring her a glass of water when she arrived.

10 minutes after MY had arrived and there was still no sight of that elusive glass of water. I spotted A chatting with another service staff, instead of fulfilling the promise she made. We had to ask another service staff for a glass of water. But the incident left us miffed and we decided to head to TCC at International Plaza for dessert instead, where we received much better service.

I'm not someone who believes in the mantra 'the customer is always right' but in our case, we definitely did no wrong. A really had no reason to act in the manner that she did. Was PS Cafe so short of glasses that they had to remove ours? Why couldn't A just admit she shouldn't have taken the glass away and put it back instead? Why didn't A remember that we had a 4th person arriving, despite us telling her previously that the chair was meant for her and also requesting for a 4th serving plate. Why didn't A bother to serve the water even when MY had arrived?

The incident left a bitter taste in our mouths i'm afraid.

We won't be back, for sure.

I'm Not Alone

This article hits home.
It's good to know i'm not the only one struggling with a shopping ban. And i seriously don't think i can survive on the Six Items Or Less web challenge.

Shoppers on a ‘Diet’ Tame the Urge to Buy

By ERIC WILSON

The New York Times

IMAGINE that horrible though all-too-familiar feeling: You are standing before a fully stuffed closet and yet have nothing to wear.

Now, imagine something worse: Your closet contains only six items, and you are restricted to wearing only those six items for an entire month.

Now, if you can bear it, imagine something unspeakable:

No one notices.

Nearly a month into what amounted to just such a self-inflicted fast of fashion, Stella Brennan, 31, an insurance sales executive from Kenosha, Wis., realized last week that not even her husband, Kelly, a machinist, had yet figured out that she had been wearing the same six items, over and over, since June 21. The sad punch line is that Mr. Brennan is the one who actually does the laundry in the family.

During her experiment — something called a “shopping diet,” actually — which ended on Wednesday, Ms. Brennan made do with the following: a black blazer and pants from H & M; two button-down shirts, one black and one pink; a pair of Old Navy jeans; and one well-worn pink T-shirt.

How she settled on those items was complicated by the fact that she has two young children, a golden retriever and three cats, and that she was starting a new job last month with an hourlong commute. She said she needed “six items that are animal-hair-, kid-, food- and wrinkle-resistant. I need these items to be professional, but also work for playing football with my son and tea parties.”

She agonized the longest over the T-shirt — the button-down shirts and suit separates were for work, but the right T-shirt could be worn casually with jeans or dressed up with the blazer. Her revelation at the end of 31 days, after her husband still had not noticed, even when she wore her floral-printed pajamas to do yard work: “Obviously, I didn’t need all of these clothes.”

This self-imposed exercise in frugality was prompted by a Web challenge called Six Items or Less (sixitemsorless.com). The premise was to go an entire month wearing only six items already found in your closet (not counting shoes, underwear or accessories). Nearly 100 people around the country, and in faraway places like Dubai and Bangalore, India, were also taking part in the regimen, with motives including a way to trim back on spending, an outright rejection of fashion, and a concern that the mass production and global transportation of increasingly cheap clothing was damaging the environment.

Meanwhile, an even stricter program, the Great American Apparel Diet, which began on Sept. 1, has attracted pledges by more than 150 women and two men to abstain from buying for an entire year. (Again, undies don’t count.) And next month, Gallery Books will publish a self-help guide, called “The Shopping Diet,” by the red-carpet stylist Phillip Bloch. (“Step 1: Admit You’re an Overshopper”... “Step 9: Practice Safe, Responsible Shopping”... “Step 10: Make the Diet a Way of Life.”)

Though their numbers may be small, and their diets extreme, these self-deniers of fashion are representative, in perhaps a notable way, of a broader reckoning of consumers’ spending habits. As the economy begins to improve, shoppers of every income appear to be wrestling with the same questions: Is it safe to go back to our old, pre-recession ways? Or should we? The authors of these diets — including some fashion marketing and advertising executives, interestingly enough — seem to think not.

Sally Bjornsen, the founder of the Great American Apparel Diet (thegreatamericanappareldiet.com), said she was prompted to stop buying clothes for a simple reason: “I was sick and tired of consumerism,” she said.

Last summer, Ms. Bjornsen, 47, said she was thinking about how years of easy credit had led to overspending on cars, homes and luxury goods. Then, looking in her own closet, she realized that she was part of the problem, she said. For her job, as a representative of commercial photographers in Seattle and before that as a marketing executive at fashion companies like Nike and Nordstrom, she’d spent $5,000 to $10,000 a year on clothes.

“I was buying in an egregious way,” Ms. Bjornsen said. “I was just kind of grossed out by the whole thing.”

Independently, the “six items” experiment was conceived by two friends, Heidi Hackemer, 31, a strategic business director at the New York advertising agency BBH, and Tamsin Davies, 34, the head of innovation at Fallon London, after an informal discussion about their desires to pare down their wardrobes. The idea snowballed into a creative challenge, Six Items or Less.

The rules were not hard and fast. If a person owned, for example, several similar black blazers — as Ms. Brennan, the Wisconsin executive, did — she could count them as one item.

“Our whole thing was not to put a philosophy behind it, and not be too preachy,” Ms. Hackemer said. The challenge has proved so popular that she said it would be repeated this fall.

Her six items were a black dress, a pair of black jeggings (a jeans-leggings hybrid), a black tank top, a black blazer, a gray skirt and denim shorts. The combinations she came up with were surprisingly diverse enough to get her through the month, “but once you hit Week 3, you think, You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Sixers, as Six Items or Less enthusiasts call themselves, have formed something of an online fashion support network, especially when they feel tempted to fall off the wagon.

Ms. Brennan did sound ripe for some kind of fashion intervention. In a recent interview, she spoke of a rack of clothes in the back of her closet that still had the tags on them, and clothes that she has not worn in 15 years but that she cannot stand to part with, and her 72 pairs of “active” shoes (meaning those that she actively wears, not the ones still in the boxes), and a closet full of clothes for her 3-year-old daughter, and, lest she forget, a wardrobe of clothes for her dog.

“My daughter doesn’t care what she wears, and I’m turning her into a monster,” Ms. Brennan said. “We’re ruining the next generation of girls with fashion.”

THE dieters’ comments reflect the complicated and sometimes confused relationships between consumers and their closets — which perhaps was to be expected in a nation where women, on average, own seven pairs of jeans but wear only four regularly, according to the September issue of Consumer Reports’ ShopSmart magazine. One in four women asked by the magazine said she owned 10 pairs or more.

Still, the month has been grueling. One Sixer from Venice, Calif., confessed online to splurging on T-shirts at a James Perse sample sale. Addy, from Milwaukee, wrote that she had become so bored with her six items “that I don’t even have a desire to get up in the morning,” and she complained of mood swings.

But others describe a life-changing experience. Sneha Lakshman, 32, a founder of Dig Design, a Web and mobile products company in Bangalore, said by phone that she had decided, “That’s it, I’m going to wear only black from now on.”

Kelli Bauman, 24, a visual communications student from Indianapolis, said she was facing up to her compulsive-shopping habits. She described herself as the type who gets excited about buying cleaning products; a thrice-weekly shopper at Target. “I feel like I am programmed to want to buy new things,” she said. “When my jeans got a hole in them, I wanted to buy new jeans that instant.”

Just look at how far she has come. “I’ve only been to Target twice this whole time.” On one visit, she bought wasp spray and toothpaste for herself, but splurged on gifts for a bride-to-be — buying for someone else was like a “gateway drug,” she said.

Another Sixer, Dean Kakridas, 42, the director of business development at Frog Design, an innovation firm in Austin, Tex., said that he was obsessed with efficiency. “I kind of question everything,” he said, including why he was spending 20 minutes every morning figuring out what to wear.

He wanted to identify the clothes that made him happiest and fit his lifestyle. He chose a pair of G-Star jeans, two button-down shirts, two short-sleeve polo shirts and, cleverly, a pair of shorts from Life After Denim that are reversible (one side is solid charcoal; the other is plaid). Speaking like a programmer, he said: “Anything that removes complexity or cycles from your day is really valuable. I have freed a lot of bandwidth in my head.” (After three weeks on the program, however, he was quoting Coco Chanel: “I don’t do fashion. I am fashion.”)

The most interesting thing to many of the Sixers was how few people noticed what they were doing. Except, that is, for those who did. Mr. Kakridas said that his wife disapproved.

“My wife jabs at me almost on a daily basis,” he said. “She tries to get me to waver from the commitment and get me to cheat. She hid my Febreze from me.”

As with any diet, abstinence is not for everyone.

Of the 150-plus-people who signed up for the Great American Apparel Diet, about half have given up. Ms. Bjornsen’s own sister quit after four weeks. And she has herself cheated twice, once when she realized she had forgotten to bring her workout clothes to the gym, a second time when her husband told her that her pajamas looked worn out and gross. Though she said she feels no guilt about those indulgences, Ms. Bjornsen said that she was looking forward to the end of the diet on Aug. 31.

She had thought about ways to make money off the diet, she said, but instead she plans to pass on the management of the Web site to continuing and future participants.

“It’s taken about 10 to 20 years to build up the idea that nothing is good unless it is new,” Ms. Bjornsen said. “Five years from now, if the diet is still going, it would be interesting to see how that changes.”

Wedding Eye Candy - Back to Basics

I've always adored small weddings. Like really small.

Which is why this very organic wedding struck a chord with me.

The bride did the groom's hair while the groom bought flowers for the bride. Isn't it lovely?

Photos by Katie Osgood Photography

This is exactly what a wedding should be about. Two people. In love. Ready to start their lives together. Like Big and Carrie in Sex and The City.

If i had my way, we would get married on a beach on a small island. Nothing grand nor excessive. With our immediate family and closest friends. The ones who matter most. We'd make our vows, be pronounced as man and wife, share our first kiss as Mr and Mrs and spend the rest of the night chomping down BBQ-ed seafood followed by midnight dancing under the moonlight.

The Long and Short of It

I've got a love hate relationship with my long hair.

Hate it because i've got an unruly, thick, slightly wavy hair which is un-tameable in Singapore's humidity, which is why i love travelling in temperate climates btw. My hair also takes an extremely long time to wash and dry. And i don't use a hairdryer as it leaves my hair more damaged. Because of that, i only wash my hair before i sleep and not before i go to work. I'd rather spend the extra time sleeping. Most of the time, i tie my hair up in a ponytail because it's neater that way.

Strangely, my hair's straighter and more manageable when it's short.

Why do i still bother?

Besides wanting to have more versatility in terms of hairdos for my wedding (bridezilla alert), i guess in a way i'm fulfilling my childhood 'dream'.

You see, when i was a kid, my Dad, who used to cut my hair (and give me short, helmet hairstyles by the way), didn't allow me to keep my hair long in Primary school because he thought it was hard for me to wash and dry. You can imagine how upset I was, seeing all my friends in school with their ponytails and long, braided hair. But looking back, I know he meant well, as different his thinking might have been from other Dads :)

Then i moved on to a Secondary School, where the Dictator Discipline Master could have been the second Hitler. Knee length skirts, bags no smaller than a certain size plus other ridiculous school rules which i will not scare you with. And hair which SHOULD NOT touch the collar. Because of that, I could never get past the growing-your-hair-long in-between stage. You know, the phase where you can't tie your barely there shoulder length hair without the loose hair coming out. I only managed to keep my hair past my shoulder in Junior College, for the graduation prom. Since then, i've alternated between short and long hair, depending on my mood.

The last time I had short hair was 2 years ago.

June 08

Oh how I miss the low maintenance. I could just wash and go without worrying about frizzy ends.

I can't wait to snip the locks off post-wedding. Another reason to look forward to the big day :)

A date with Jay!

Besides the fact that i can finally spend quality time with the fiance (whose nation serving duties are going to be over), there's another reason why i'm looking forward to this weekend.

24 July 2010.Saturday. 8pm.

Jay Chou's concert, Singapore - 19 January 2008

My Comfort Food

I'm a Teochew girl at heart and on this dreary Tuesday, i just feel like having my comfort food.

Some sweet potato muay (porridge), fishcake, salted egg, steamed fish, braised duck and kor lei chai (braised cabbage).

What's your comfort food?

While he's serving the nation

It's the fiance's second week at Reservist and like him, i can't wait for it to end.

Although he makes the effort to drop me smses and quick phone calls, things are just not the same.

I miss our nightly long phone conversations about our days' details, a ritual which we've adhered to since we started dating. No matter how bad my work day is, he makes it better, just by listening to me.

Can't wait for this weekend.

Epilat and Hada Labo

I found this series of hair removal products by Kracie at Watson's and bought the Epilat Hair Removing Body Tape to try, because i've a tendency to trust all things Japanese :)

I like how it's not messy, unlike traditional wax strips that tend to leave remnants of wax when you're done, which you can only remove with baby oil. My only gripe is the size of the tape is too small and i had to use 2 pieces per leg! At $14.90 per box for 14 strips, it can be a bit hard on the pocket if you plan to use this regularly and especially if your hair growth is fast like mine.

Also bought a product which many have raved about since it hit our shores. The Hada Labo face lotion comes in either a Hydrating or Whitening series. No prizes for guessing which one i chose.

Quest to be Snow White

I've been depriving myself of beach holidays, since our trip to Koh Racha last August AND piling on sunblock (though not diligently), in a bid to stay fair for the big day.

Despite my efforts, my arms are still visibly darker than my face :(

My colleague said she once saw Fann Wong filming and besides a huge umbrella, she had a bottle of Hazeline Snow. Well I'm sure her porcelain skin is due to other factors like daily intake of bird's nest and whatsoever.

But apparently the older generation swears by Hazeline Snow. Remember my grandma using it on her face when i was a little girl.

The same colleague was kind enough to buy me two jars when she passed by a traditional medicine shop during the week.

If it works for Grandma, i hope it works for me!

The secret to Fann's fair beauty?

Wedding Eye Candy - Engagement shoot in the Library

This couple here, featured on Green Wedding Shoes and photographed by Hello Studios, share a love for reading and writing. Hence, the books, library and more books.

Cute!

Down Under Day 5: Great Ocean Road Part 1

There are some places where photos simply don't do justice.

The Great Ocean Road is one of them.

Although i have been told that it's possible to go on the GOR and return to the city in the same day, I'm glad we decided to spread out the drive into 2 days because this is one scenic route you don't want to rush.

Outfit of the day

Another rainbow! Sighted along the 2 hour drive to Torquay, the start of the 243km Great Ocean Road

We had breakfast at Macs and did some quick window shopping at Surf City Plaza

Looking at the surfers catch the swells

Surfer dude at Bells Beach

My trusty driver :)

Split Point Lighthouse

The Great Ocean Road memorial

Beautiful beach at Lorne

Had a late lunch at the Salty Dog Fish n Chippery at Lorne. After our satisfying meal, we took a long winding drive, through the Otway ranges, to the Cape Otway Lightstation. We barely made it before the closing time of 5pm.

The oldest lighthouse in Australia - Cape Otway Lightstation

After the last stop of our day, we checked into The Beachfront Motel & Cottages at Apollo Bay for an early night's rest.

Immortelle

It's finally Friday!

Before diving back into my abyss of work, here are some tips on ageing gracefully, the French way, from a The New York Times article, which XL shared with me.


10 Ways to Age Like a Frenchwoman
Published: July 14, 2010

1 Look out for No. 1: “Frenchwomen are more elegant, more aware of their femininity,” says Dr. Michel Soussaline, a Paris plastic surgeon. “They simply take care of themselves better.”

2 Keep it natural: Heavy makeup emphasizes wrinkles and pores. A little blush, mascara and lip color are all most Frenchwomen use. They spend a lot on skin care and beauty products, but not always on the most expensive brands.

3 No soap: They use lotions and hydrating creams for the face (and body), often applied with a cosmetics sponge that provides enough abrasiveness to remove dead cells but not hurt delicate skin.

4 The wonder of water: Frenchwomen swear by cold-water rinses – after face-cleaning, shampoo or shower. They say it improves circulation, bringing all-important oxygen to the skin cells.

5 Diet: Women of a certain age maintain their weight by eating carefully: fresh, never-processed, foods, especially fruits and vegetables, in small portions. If they do put on the kilos, they take them off immediately — with the aid of pills or other treatments.

6 Exercise: Why? Go to a spa instead.

7 The doctor is in: Frenchwomen love their dermatologists. As one friend put it, why take a chance with over-the-counter skin remedies, when doctors can provide treatments that really work. Besides, the visits are largely covered by the French medical system.

8 The surgeon is in: If Frenchwomen opt for cosmetic surgery, the objective is to look like themselves – not someone 20 years younger.

9 The look: Paris, like New York, is becoming very informal, but Frenchwomen never try to dress like their daughters. Accessories count: good jewelry, fantastic shoes or boots, and a scarf casually wrapped to conceal those neck wattles. And since Frenchwomen tend to have great legs (with help from varicose vein treatments), they wear more skirts and dresses than their American counterparts.

Think sexy: As the French writer Françoise Sagan wrote: “A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off you.” Buy some fun, new underwear.

A Hairy Issue

We had planned for our pre-wedding shoot with Eadwine to be on the Friday before the National Day long weekend.

Well, that's until the fiance dropped a bomb on me on Monday morning which was his first day of Reservist.

"Damn sian still need to cut my hair!"

(He had actually made the effort to get his hair cut 'shorter and with slopes' on last Saturday by the way.)

I guess it wasn't short enough.

According to him, the haircut he is sporting now is REALLY BAD.

Now that the shoot has been rescheduled, I hope his hair will grow out in time. Yikes.

No More Dreaded Mondays

Mrs C is probably one of the most inspirational women i've met. I'm honoured and thankful to have had the chance to work with her.

About 2 months ago, she gave me this book, together with a card, to thank me for my help with an event and to serve as a form of motivation, as she had heard from another colleague that i have been feeling disheartened due to some challenges at work.

An excerpt from her card goes:
"....Sometimes our work gets tough and at times we may feel discouraged but if we see this as a mission and not just a job, we will find the work worthwhile..."

I haven't touched the book as i've been distracted by magazines and chick lit. But with the recent 11 hour work days that i have been putting in AND the insane, unwelcome amount of number crunching at work (i loathe numbers and never expected this to be part of my job scope), i think it's time to start my bedtime reading.

No more Monday blues? We'll see.

¡Viva España!

WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So proud of the Spanish boys :) Now, if only Arsenal could do us proud the next season. Sigh.

Wild Honey

The fiancé and I met up with the buddies for a catch up and crooning session yesterday.

The plan was to go to Ippudo Ramen for dinner, but the queue was snaking long and we only had an hour to grab dinner.

So we checked out Wild Honey. An all-day breakfast establishment which created an online hoo-ha earlier this year, among some disgruntled foodies, who couldn't comprehend why they had to pay service charge when they had to queue to place their orders.

Here are my two cents' worth.

Service

I've got no complaints on the self order at the cashier concept, because there are other popular F&B outlets which charge for service and make you go to the counter to pay when you're done. To me, that's no different.

The staff at Wild Honey, were quite attentive, refilling our water frequently but other than that, it was not exceptional.

Atmosphere

I like the relaxed vibe of the cafe, but the crowd was young and definitely a place for the young ones to see and be seen.

Food

A good variety to choose from ranging from Scandinavian to Japanese to Yemen.

I enjoyed my European set, which consisted of eggs benedict with mushrooms, prosciutto and Hollandaise sauce. Very tasty and loved the soft, fluffy brioche which came with it but i wish they had used Portobello mushrooms instead of button (i think) mushrooms. Could also have been a more generous serving of mushrooms. I only counted a total of 4 pieces in mine. The others had the English set, with eggs, sausage, bacon, tomato, baked beans mushrooms and toast. That's definitely a more value for money set, judging by the portions.

English vs European

Price

We paid about SGD$20-25 each in total, which to me, is pretty pricey for 'breakfast'.

Would i go back?

Though I really like the all-day breakfast concept and the above average quality of food, probably not, because the price is a bit of a turn off. I would rather go to Spruce instead for a heartier breakfast. I'd only be a regular customer if it were tucked away in another nook of Singapore and they didn't have to charge such prices to cover their exorbitant rent.

Urban Warrior and Utility collection from H&M

Saw this on the H&M Facebook Fan page.

I.NEED.H&M.NOW!

Separated at Birth?

If I had to name one website i couldn't live a single day without, it would have to be Arseblog.
And no, he doesn't blog about posteriors.

LOVE his dry wit.

I had to stop myself from bursting out in laughter, when i read this on my bus journey home.

"Spain went through to the World Cup final last night without so much as a hint of Cesc. A goal from Sarah Jessica Parker (tip of hat to sexay and Tom) put them through."

I wouldn't have noticed the resemblance if he hadn't pointed it out.

I'm never going to look at SJP or Carles Puyol in the same way again.

Peta the Trendsetta

When i first met Peta-Gay on my first day at Dutch Funnel Cakes, i thought she didn't like me. (Maybe she really didn't? I never got around to asking her about it but that no longer matters.) She didn't give me a single smile and i thought she was bossy because she kept giving everyone, including me, instructions.

But when you're working at the same place, it's inevitable that you engage in small talk eventually and i soon realised that's just how Peta was. Aloof and slow to warm up to strangers. The moment she opened up, we really hit it off. I had a whole summer of fun working with this confident female who's not afraid to speak her mind, who's also a great, loyal friend. The title of this post is what she used to call herself, unabashedly.

It's been 4 years since we met during my Work & Travel stint, and i'm glad we're still in touch.

Despite living in a different continent and time zone, I appreciate how she still drops me a note via Facebook or MSN, once in a while to check on how B and i are doing.

Just yesterday, she almost went berserk when she found out that we're getting married next January.

Petabyte: "FINALLY!!!! I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU GUYS!

We chatted about other daily stuff like work, before she ended the conversation with her usual question.

"When are you coming to Jamaica?"

Someday, someday, i hope :)

Wedding Eye Candy: Food Trucks

Source - 100 Layer Cake

Wouldn't it be cool to have an ice cream cart or even a Milo van at your wedding? :)

The octopus has spoken!

I certainly hope Paul will not be made into sashimi, paella or whatever by the angry Germans!

On another note, i'm absolutely stoked that Spain is in the final! *fingers and toes crossed*
==========================

Germany's 'Octopus oracle' keeps perfect record

AFP - Thursday, July 8

BERLIN (AFP) - – It won't come as much of a consolation to heartbroken German fans, but at least Paul, Germany's now world-famous "Octopus oracle", has maintained his perfect record.

The "psychic" creature has correctly predicted all six of Germany's World Cup games and, amid excruciating drama broadcast live on national television on Tuesday, plumped for Spain, causing anguish up and down the country.

And the eight-legged soccer soothsayer was spot on Wednesday, as Carles Puyol's semi-final header shattered Germany's dreams of winning their fourth World Cup.

Two plastic boxes, one with a German flag and one with a Spanish, were lowered into Paul's tank at an aquarium in western Germany, each with a tasty morsel of food inside.

The box which Paul opens first is adjudged to be his predicted winner.

But with classic fickleness, German fans turned against their beloved octopus after he forecast a Spanish win.

According to "Der Western" daily paper, there have been "a host of comments on Facebook, Twitter ... suggesting Paul should be fried, barbequed or turned into a seafood salad or paella."

"Others wanted to throw him into the shark tank," the paper reported on its website.

And on Berlin's "fan-mile", some sections of the crowd also turned against their former hero. Anti-octopus songs were sung.

I'd rather pay more than stand

Tiger Airways to introduce standing-room on flights?

AsiaOne | Wed, Jul 7 2010

Airline says it could follow European low-cost carrier Ryanair in offering a 'vertical-seating' option.

BUDGET airline Tiger Airways may consider a lower-fare standing option for its passengers, Australian media reported.

It could take a page from European low-cost carrier Ryanair, whose chief executive Michael O’ Leary announced plans last week to have the ‘vertical seats’ made available in the next two years.

“We continue to look at ways of making our operation more efficient so we can offer even lower fares than we do now,” Tiger Airways director Steve Burns was quoted as saying in a news.com.au report.

“Everything we do is about offering the lowest possible fare then allowing our customers to choose what, if any, extras they wish to pay for,” he added.

Ryanair’s proposed standing-room option, which has yet to be approved by aviation regulatory bodies, was put to a poll involving 120,000 passengers in July last year.

Some 66 per cent said they would be willing to stand for a one-hour flight if the fare was free, while 42 per cent would do so if the airfare was half of a seated passenger.

During the poll, Ryanair also released a graphic of how the ‘vertical-seating’ would look like, with passengers strapped down in a “secure upright position”.

However many doubt if the idea will ever take flight, dubbing it a Ryanair publicity stunt. Danny Rogers, editor of PR week, quotes a statement by aircraft manufacturer Boeing explaining why it’s not feasible.

“Among other things, stringent regulatory requirements - including seats capable of withstanding a force of 16 Gs - pretty much preclude such an arrangement,” said the spokesperson.

Wedding Eye Candy: A 1920s inspired wedding

Loved how the bride and the bridal party pulled off the 1920s flapper style, immaculately.

Wow.

Photos from Green Wedding Shoes

Wedding Eye Candy: A Khmer Wedding

I was pleasantly surprised to see this wedding on Once Wed because it's not every day you get to see an Asian-influenced wedding being featured on the American wedding blogs.

Having spent a month in Cambodia for our FYP in university, the Khmer culture tapestry has always had a special place in my heart.