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The Making of..

After picking up some stuff in Ikea with my mum and brother, we dropped
by Ikano’s Pet Safari to purchase 3 Asian Forest Scorpions (Heterometrus spinifer). Here’s the best part, the price just dropped from RM55 to RM35 each. Here’s what I got for my setup:

1> Glass Tank, 44cm x 26cm x 30cm = RM99

2> Bogwood (something I kept from my aquarium days)

3> Exo Terra Desert Sand (Yellow) x 2 = RM28 each

4> Exo Terra Water Dish = RM10.80

5> Asian Forest Scorpion x 3 = RM35 each

Total = RM270.80 (RM252.40 after discount, thanks Nick!)

Tuessday. Wednessday. Thurssday.

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01> 3 SCORPIONS PURCHASED. Fresh out of the box.

02> Me with my favourite. I call her Thurssday.

03> Basic fact: Insects have 6 legs. Arachnids (scorpions & spiders) have 8.

04> I chose sand over soil or peat moss to give a light base colour against their contrasting black.

05> The male (right) grasps the female’s (left) claws during courtship.

06> Tank setup.

07> Who’s the lucky cricket of the day? Win a free trip to paradise!

08> Our lucky winner crushed between Wednessday’s claw.

09> This first batch are very tame and can be handled anytime.

10> SIX NEW SCORPIONS ADDED (10/11/06). Two of them eating a giant cricket and cicada I caught from the Serendah forest.

11> The youngest and tiniest of the six - in defense mode. She has a unique white sting with a black tip.

12> I’ve switched from sand to peat moss. This second batch are ferocious and rather active.

13> Mouth to mouth in the ‘promenade à deux’ courtship dance.

14> A spermatophore is deposited by the male. It enters the female’s genital opercula, which triggers the release of sperm, thus fertilising her.

15> Thurssday brutally murdered and consumed (04/07/07) by the new batch. Tuessday and Wednessday were earlier released and left to die due to poor health conditions. This marks the end of the first trio.

16> A robust female with a greatly increased appetite while gravid has given birth to 20-30 young (13/09/07).

Can You Handle It?

^Thurssday performing her balancing act on my hand hehe..

Quick Tutorial

Here’s a very basic tutorial if you’re interested in keeping scorpions. The Asian Forest Scorpion (Heterometrus spinifer, native to Thailand and Malaysia) is very similar to the Emperor Scorpion (Pandinus imperator, native to Africa) in terms of appearance and habits (an example of what biologists call convergent evolution), thus sharing almost identical care requirements.

Please do a lot of reading and research before running off to the petstore!

Objectives

A. Satisfy satay celup craving.
B. Check out the scorpions sold on Jonker St.

What happened?

4pm - Left Klang after picking Esther up. We wanted satay celup pretty badly la. Bad enough to head to Melaka to eat and come straight back.

5.45pm - Ran out of fuel on Kilometre 197.8 (Ayer Keroh exit). Rang up Plus Highway for assistance. Memorise this number… 1800-88-0000 it’s useful, trust me. They arrived in about 15 minutes (to my surprise), towed my car pass the toll exit and fetched me RM9 worth of petrol. Lesson learned - Not many Shells along Plus. Fuck Bonuslink. Settle for Petronas.

6.45pm - Arrived at the red church. Took pix and helped a group of over-enthusiastic cinabengs snap some pix. Walked across the bridge and..

7.15pm - Arrived at Jonker St. Yayy :P  Half of the vendors just started setting up their stalls. Including the pet stall. Scorpions sighted. Good news: RM30 each, which is half the price of those sold in Ikano. Bad news: 8cm, which is about 3/4 the size of those sold in Ikano. Too tiny!

8pm - Shopping! Bought 2 pairs of slippers, a pair of crafted clogs and some other stuff while sipping on delicious bubble milk tea. Very the enjoy de gan jue. Food here is so damn cheap! Any 4 pieces of siu mai / 1 taiwanese sausage for only RM1.50 and bubble milk tea for RM2.50, that’s freaking cheappp!!!

9.30pm - Headed to Jalan Ong Kim Wee for authentic Melaka satay celup (best of the best).

1am - Got Esther home safely and left Klang still digesting the RM22 worth of satay celup.

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01> The pic that everyone takes to prove that they’re in Melaka.

02> Happy Esther

03> My pair of freshly crafted wooden clogs and the craftsman himself, Mr Wong of Purple Flowers Handicraft.

04> Satay celup - Mission accomplished.

Show me the money la

Toll - RM40 for return trip
Petrol - bout RM50
Food - bout RM30
Shopping - RM90
Total - RM210

The evolution of clogs

Being half Nyonya, I’d like to highlight one of our heritage’s most popular icon - Clogs. The Wong family of Purple Flowers Handicrafts produces high quality handcrafted clogs and sells them on Jonker St every Fri - Sunday. I’m very pleased with my dragon motiff clogs which I got for RM73 (RRP: RM89.90).

You can get them to do you customised clogs too. Just give them your design. I even saw a pair of snoopy clogs. Wtf? Anyway, Mr Wong is already training his young kid who’s about 11 yrs old. I guess the evolution of clogs is here to stay

Very graphic and may be disturbing to some viewers. Watch at your own discretion.

These are just some of the many exotic pets that are now increasingly popular due to the availability of captive care information over the net.  While the Giant Centipede is not sold locally (sigh), the rest of the predators featured here can be purchased at Ikano’s Pet Safari. At the moment, I’m still making preparations for a purchase of 3 Emperor Scorpions, but I might just end up with 1. Stay tuned.

Giant Centipede (scolopendra gigantea robusta)

Emperor Scorpion (pandinus imperator koch)

Pacman Frog (ceratophrys ornata)

Argentinian Black & White Tegu (tupinambis merianae)

Following the newly reduced price, and the growing annoyance of cleaning dust off my toys, I finally got a Detolf.. yes yes, the super common glass shelf from Ikea. As usual, I wanted mine to be a little different. A little… customised. So I gladly made some minor tweaks.
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The entire setup  lasted from 12.30am to 6am. Pretty damn long I know, but I got everything fixed alone (which is NOT recommended folks. The manual said so). First of all, it was SERIOUSLY heavy, carrying the four panels of glass from my car up to my room. It must have been like.. 35kg. My aunt who dropped by from Singapore tried to help me, but she could barely lift it up ahaha.. Anyway, I managed it all alone.. cos it ain’t DIY unless you DIY baby.
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The minor tweaks:
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Extra DIY 1 - Paint the top/base pieces of wood black. I hated the original colour.. which is neither light nor dark. It was an awful shade of birch which reminded me of cheap bookshelves. Solution: Grab a can of spray paint and instantly turn it into sexy black.
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Extra DIY 2 - Use 2 spotlights instead of 1. Although the Detolf was designed to house 1 spotlight, I attached both lights (they’re sold seperately, and come in pairs. wtf rite?) with UHU glue rather than screw it in which damages the wood. I also didn’t use the spot light’s cover after realising that the dispersion of light works better without it, providing more light and balance.
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Here’s how it looks like under various room lighting conditions:

Detolf = RM199
Non Spotlights = RM50
Spray Paint = RM8.90
DIY Satisfaction = Priceless

You probably have this smash hit Japanese sms ringtone. It’s still spreading like crazy via bluetooth these days. I remember getting it many many months back from my workmate, Eva. Like me, she loves anything and everything Jap  ^__^ V

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According to Winnie’s sister’s Jap teacher, the message says "The person you’re trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave your message after the tone". So des neh..

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What about this very hamsap chinese lady sms ringtone? I’ve been immitating Shenzhen prostitutes speaking cantonese for quite some time now, so I was extremely delighted to have heard this playing from Nee’s phone last night over yumca!

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Anyway, I’ve combined the two ring tones and it’s now officially pimped. Pop style. Che che che che check it out..

Download it right here!

It’s been quite a while since I last wrote a song. Hands itchy d! So I started writing this 3 days ago and managed to figure out the chorus just now. hahaa… yayy… Some parts a bit cacat here and there but I lazy to record again la…

Click here to listen!

Clouds

its a blue eyed day
wish i could stay
but the sun is out
and i’ve gotta go away

see these eyes
see what they say
you think that i’m lying
but believe them anyway

so, dream of clouds and i’ll take ur hand
i’ll take your hand

believe in love
and all things nice
i believe in you
like the sky is blue

hold a little tighter then u’ll understand
hold my hand