Imagine living in a house with no electricity in these modern day and age.

Not one electrical appliance would be working. Meaning, no tv, no stereo, no computer & internet, no nothing. You can't cook if your cooking appliance runs on electricity. You can't store persihables. You either will have to go to the market everyday for fresh food or stack up on canned goods. You have to do your washing manually. Imagine how sore you will be after after doing a week's laundry. And how are you going to mow your lawn? By manual shearing? That's back breaking.

What about communicating? If your home phone depends solely on electricity for power and you mobile phone runs out of charge?

It will be back to the old age.

I was imagining all of these yesterday when our power supply had to be cut-off. A guy sent by the energy provider came to our door to let us know he has to cut-off our power for safety reasons. Apparently, the two actives in the distribution box has shorted thereby blowing fuses and in return cutting off power to other houses in the block. In a block of five, we are the only ones who has power but it was dangerous to leave it on. This explains why we have globes blowing all the time. There must be power surges every now and then.

Thankfully, my friend Lani accommodated us and let us store our perishables in their fridge. I was also still able to watch Australia win against New Zealand on cricket and Federer breezed through his match against a younger opponent.

Hopefully, power will be fully restored today when the electrician comes.

The operation of a bikini car wash called Kittens at the corner of North and Warrigal Roads here in Melbourne has irked a lot of residents and church groups. The local council has received numerous complaints about the business and the bikini-clad women who are very visible from the street.

Recently, the car wash attracted media attention (again). The owner, who also operates a strip club, plans to expand his business and has lodged applications with two other municipalities.

The business may be legal, but is it morally correct?

Shane and I have opposing opinions on this. He thinks there is nothing wrong with it, it's just women in swimwear trying to earn a living. For me, its demeaning to women. It's exploitation.

When people on the street were asked what they think of the business, almost all men who were asked say they like it, nothing wrong with it. Whereas women gave negative answers.

I think these men are just thinking with their dick. (pardon the language)

When I was a kid, I used to watch Chinese action movies on TV especially Jacky Chan's. I have seen most if not all of his movies even before he became big in Hollywood. The Drunken Master is my all-time favorite. It didn't matter that I didn't understand the dialogues. I was just as happy to sit and watch him do his martial arts antics.

Martial arts is fascinating. One can do it for self-defense, to improve self-confidence or just for fun. Hmmm, for me it would be just for fun.

For years now, Shane has beed doing the Wing Chun Kung Fu, one of the many disciplines of martial arts. He trained at The World Wing Chun Kung Fu Association and later moved to Qian Li Dao Academy where he also trains on Filipino Knife Fighting.

On his encouragement, I tried learning both but lasted only a couple of lessons. I was very frustratred with myself because I can't get the kung fu drills and the knife fighting was too rough. After an hour of training, I went home with sore and bruised forearms. That did it for me. I didn't come back for more.

Qian Li Dao later offered lessons on (Filipino Martial Arts) Arnis or stick fighting. I tried and found this a bit easier than kung fu and knife fighting and enjoyable. The sound of sticks coming together reminds me of Tinikling, the Philippines' national dance. :D I have been to a few classes now and starting to get the hang of it.

The past weekend, Qian Li Dao had its new year kickstart camp in Joseph Harris Scout Park, Mt Martha in the Mornington Peninsula. Shane went but I did not for reasons that the training would consist of the three martial arts disciplines. I was only interested in one. And more importantly, (this probably weighted more on my decision not to join) I didn't want to get up at 6:30 am on a weekend. Way too early for me. He he...

However, I was happy to drive to the camp on Saturday afternoon to join the Arnis training. Thankfully, Sifu Dana accommodated me for a small fee.

PS: Qian Li Dao is read as Chien Li Dao. I should remind myself this too.

As I am writing this, I am watching tv and switching between the Degree Poker Championship in Ontario, Canada (a replay, I think) on ESPN and the Austrlian Open Tennis matches on local channel. An electric fan is wheezing a couple metres away. Our house is not fitted with an airconditioning system. (Hi there, Santa).

It has been a scorching 39C max today with the northerly winds just as hot. With very low humidity, meaning the air moisture content is less, one can feel the penetrating heat when in direct sunlight.

Temperature rose from 24C at 10am to 36C just after midday. Tennis tournament officials were forced to cancel open court matches.

At about 4 pm, I was surfing and whiling the time away at work when power was suddenly cut-off. I learned a few moments later that massive power outage hit Victoria. Parts of Melbourne, Geelong and eastern Victoria lost power. I left early hoping to get home quicker but as expected the trains were delayed owing to the reduction of power being used and traffic lights on most suburbs do not work. Policemen were stationed on most intersections to direct traffic. The 80kph Nepean Highway which is my route to and from work was crawling at 20kph .

Luckily for us, our burb is spared from the outage.

Bush fires had caused this unfortunate event. Read here the full news report.

The last few weeks saw Australia reigned superior over England in the 2007 Cricket Ashes Test. The 5-series tests started at the Gabba in Queensland and culminated at the Sydney Cricket Ground with tests in Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne in between.
Australia "whitewashed" England winning 5-Nil and regained the Ashes which had been lost to England last year. This is only the second time for Australia. The first whitewash happened in 1920. Shane Warne, Justin Langer and Glenn McGrath retired at the end of the series while Damien Martyn suddenly ended his career after the Perth test.

The series also saw a milestone for Shane Warne when he got his 700th Test wicket and 1000th International Test wicket. The feat is a first in the history of cricket worldwide. Shown in the right is Shane Warne being given a victory ride by teammates Andrew Symonds and Matthew hayden after the Melbourne test at the MCG.