Cuteness and Agression

The other day, I read an article from popular science (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/science-says-adorable-animals-turn-us-aggressive) that looking at cute animal pictures causes human to react aggressively.
I'm surprised that this wasn't a known knowledge. I always had an urge to bite cute animals in their nose, but of course, I wouldn't really bite it. It is just that cuteness triggers some kind of insatiable reaction to squeeze and bite. It is also interesting that everyone has slightly different taste for cuteness. Of course, if you own the pet, you would love your pet the best, but for example, when I see a cat with extreme flat face, the cuteness factor goes lower for me. However that kind of face is very cute for my daughter. She loves animals with very flat face.
In this article, it says that "... seeing something cute, like a baby, drives us to want to take care of it. But we can't reach through a photograph to cuddle it, so we get frustrated -- and then aggressive.", but in my opinion, that is not exactly true. I do want to squeeze and bite real animals in front of me if they are cute. I don't think frustration of not being able to cuddle would cause the aggression, but the frustration comes when I can't actually do that to the animals. I might kiss the animal, but not really bite.
I am not sure what it is, but I guess this might be some type of natural reaction. I heard about Panda mother eats her new born baby, or sometimes some other animal mothers eat their offspring. I think that might be the aggression to cuteness gone bad. 

Image by seasideshe on flickr

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is a condition of people who have mixed senses. For example, when you hear a sound, you see something. Or you see something, and that triggers you to taste something. This condition hasn't been studied for a long time and they thought such condition was rare, but as internet became accessible to everyone they noticed that this condition is not that rare after all and reported by many. Most common of this condition is number to colour association. People with this type of synesthesia has colours for numbers.
I saw a TV program about synesthesia about 15 years ago. When I saw this, I realized that this thing had a name. From then on, I could read about this condition. My strongest synesthesia was people and colour. Not everyone has a colour, but many people had a colour. Some people have very strong colour, and some people have weak colour. When I was in elementary school, my good friend had very strong dark green colour. It was true that she often wore green, but my association of the colour was so strong that I asked myself why there was such a strong green with her. I haven't seen it in my eyes, but I had such a strong green feeling about her. I also have colours for many things. School subjects always had a colour, so when I make a time table, I always coloured the right subject colour. Sometimes I couldn't find the right pencil, or more than one subjects had similar colour, but as much as I could, I used the right colour for the subject. I also tried match colours of notebooks with the subject, too. I have colours to numbers, weeks, month, and many other things. However this association had weakened over the years. It was very strong when I was younger, but not any more. I also noticed that loud music bothers my visual. When I was in a car, if the radio or music is on, I feel that I can't see very well. It is not that I can't really see, but I just have this feeling that noise interferes with my viewing.
I took different synesthesia tests online. Today, I took one at http://synesthete.org . I didn't remember I ever registered there before, because I took many different tests online in past several years. It turned out that I took the test on this web site in 2009. I recovered my lost password and I took the test again. For number/letter colour association test, I got the score of 0.82. They say that if you get the score of less than 1.0, you are synesthete. I could also see the score I got from 2009. My old score was 0.72. I took a look at the colours I made association in 2009. Most of them are the same, but some are changed. As I said, my synesthesia isn't so strong now, and my strongest association was people to colour. For some symbols, I have stronger association of a colour, but for some other symbols, I don't have strong sense. I have to think and feel which colour the symbol could be. Sometimes I can't say exactly which colour it is because I get more than two right colours. For example, Y. Y is either green or yellow. I think it is green, but sometimes I think it is yellow. When I look at the test results, both 2009 and today, I had associated with both. Many of other associated colours are shade of brown and hard to describe. Some have more reddish brown, and others have more yellowish brown. To feel the distinction between different browns aren't very easy. For today's test, there were more tests than 2009. I tried week, months, sound, Chinese characters tests, too and all were under 1.0 except Chinese character test.
Apparently, this condition could be inherited. My daughter has some form of synesthesia, too. First time I noticed was that she told me that when she hears a word "fish", the back of her foot becomes ticklish. She didn't have any other words that made her feel differently, but then, a few years ago, she reported that she has time lines. Time line is that some people have time ordered in space. I don't have a such thing and when I read about it, I didn't quite get this, but my daughter described me exactly like what I read. So we have totally different types of synesthesia but we both have some.
If you want to try the test yourself, register at http://synesthete.org and go to the synesthesia battery test. Although it makes you tired, it is fun, too.

Image by twitchcraft on flickr

Lumosity

The other day, I saw the commercial of lumosity on TV. It says that by playing games, you can improve your intelligence. So I visited the web site www.lumosity.com to try out. It is free to register, but if you don't pay, you get to play limited types of games every day. You can play the same game over and over, but I noticed that if I play more, my score often gets lower. Unless you didn't know how to play, usually the first few games get the best score.

There was this software for Nintendo DS called Brain Age, that was some what similar. As you play more, your brain works better. Of course, when you play more of these games, you can do better. However I am not too sure some of the games are really that helpful in increasing mental intelligence.
My favorite game from lumosity is called Penguin Pursuit. You will use four keys, left, right, up, down arrows to move your penguin inside the maze to get to the fish in the middle. While you move the arrows, the screen turns around and make you get confused. When I tried for the first time, I got totally confused and couldn't move the penguin properly, but as you get to used to it, this is actually a lot of fun.

To me, some games don't really have much benefit. For example, they have this game to remember the name of the character on the screen, and give them the right items as they order you. If you recall the names of the character from few days ago, your score gets higher. I am not sure if remembering some character face and name from the game would improve anything. They always wear the same clothes and comes with same expression on their faces, so I think this is far from real situation. Well, maybe they just want us to remember something, not necessarily a face.

If you want to try, you can register it at www.lumosity.com for free to start.

Image by By Gustavo da Cunha Pimenta on flickr

Haniwa

Haniwa is the clay doll made by ancient Japanese people. These clay figures are discovered from the ground throughout Japan. There are animals, potteries and many other things, but among them are these simple human like figures with one arm up, the other down, looks like dancing.

I remember some of the social studies text books in elementary school had them on the cover, and somehow these dolls impress me. I even had dreams about them a couple of times. They are just so cute.

According to various scholars, these are used to bury with ruler of the time. They believe that they used to bury actual living human beings with the ruler, to serve him after life, but since it is inhumane, they changed to dolls instead.

The cuteness of Haniwa makes me think that it was in Japanese blood that they love cute things from very long time ago. Now they make Hello Kitty and other character goods within and outside of Japan for people to enjoy, but they made cute things long time ago, too.

Image by onohiroko on flickr

Adding New Language to Windows 7

Several years ago, I bought a new computer with Windows 7. At that time, it was a new operating system. We had all other computers with Windows XP and XP was working fine and I didn't care to have newer operating system, but then, there was no more XP computers found. I heard that Windows 7 was much slower than XP, so I asked to add more RAM than default settings and hoped that it would be as good as XP. The first thing you have to do when you buy the new computer besides creating backup is that to make the internet work, set up the e-mail clients, install all the usual software I use, and of course to set up Japanese language. When I was using XP, language pack was free. You could just download it from Microsoft web site to install, however for Windows 7, I had to buy it. I searched and searched to see if there's any way I could use Japanese without paying, but I couldn't find anything, so I paid to Microsoft to download it.
Yesterday, my daughter was asking if she could type French. She had her French homework and she wanted to type. She used to add accents by hand, but of course, it is better to have the French language installed. I thought it would cost money, but anyway I searched. To my surprise, now you can install any language pack on Windows 7 for free. (See http://www.pcdiy.com/22/windows-7-language-packs-rtm-mui-download ) So now, I have Canadian French and French French installed, too.
I waste lots of money on groceries and other little things. Sometimes I buy things that I don't really need just because I was in a good mood. For some reason, I do resist more on paying money for downloadable software. If it was sold at the store, I might have grabbed the CD and actually bought it. However I don't feel comfortable paying first and download. I think it is because I can not touch it, I don't feel safe. It is similar with music, but then downloadable music would only cost about $1.00 where software costs a lot more money. And eventually, things get leaked and become available online for free. Then, I feel stupid for paying.

Image by Paul Schultz on flickr

Recycling Thieves

Several years ago, I noticed that sometimes someone takes bottles from our recycling bin. I have seen the lid of everyone's recycling bin open in the morning, or I have noticed missing bottles from our bin, but I also saw someone with bicycle looking into people's recycling bins. I only noticed these things on the day of the recycling collection as everyone leaves the bins at the curve.

Some of the bottles, like beer and liquor bottles could be brought to the beer store and they give you between 5 cents to 15 cents a bottle. If you have a lot of bottles, you could make a few dollars or more. First I thought that maybe street people go through and take bottles for money, and I didn't see too much harm in it. However things got escalated.

One day, I had lots of bottles for recycling. They didn't fit into the bin, so I left them in clear plastic bag as we were supposed to do on the day of the recycling collection. A few hours after I left the plastic bag, I went out and noticed that the bag looks so much smaller than as I left. When I got closer, I saw that someone left holes in the bag and took all the liquor bottles. I was quite upset with this. They could just open the top and take the bottles and close it up, but instead, they made holes, not one but several to get bottles from the plastic bag. If collection comes now, they won't take my bag because things are falling from it, so I had to bring a new bag to put them in. Since that time, I decided to put bottles at the bottom of the bin, and put all the paper recycling on top, so these people can't see and can't take the bottles.

Recently, I decided to keep the bottles for myself and bring them to the beer store myself. So I can get back my money instead of just putting in the recycling bin for free. So I have no more bottles for these people to take. Now they got more and more aggressive with their methods of collecting bottles.

A few times, I saw some stranger in the back of the house. Our neighbors noticed that the strangers are looking into people's garbage bins, not on the day of the recycling, but during the week when the bins are stored at private yard. It is a bit alarming. Strangers going through people's back yard where they aren't supposed to enter. Then, I noticed some odd things last week.

The bins are quite large and heavy. Unless there's a very strong wind, this thing doesn't fall easily. However I noticed that the bin fell on the ground and the lid was open one day when there was no strong wind. First, I thought that maybe some animals knocked down the bin, or maybe some strong wind that I didn't notice. Then this morning at around 6:30 a.m., when there was no wind, still dark outside, I heard that the garbage or recycling bin fell. I was in the kitchen at the time and I know this distinct loud noise of the bin falling. Today is the day before the recycling day. As it gets brighter, I look out. Yes, the recycling bin is on the ground with lid open. So now these people are not just looking into the bin, but make it fall so that they can make sure to spot the bottles at the bottom of the bin.

What would they do next? Entering people's garage or house to look for the bottles? It is so scary but I'm not sure where to report this. Does the police look into this? Probably not.

Image by plagal on flickr

Be Nice to People

When I was a child, I was told that we should be nice to others. We should treat them as we wanted to be treated. As a child, I realized contradictions in this statement and I was deeply concerned that this formula doesn't always work.

"Nice to others"   !=  "Treat others like you wanted to be treated"

Because we all think and feel differently. For example, some people want to receive phone calls from their good friends every other day or so, but others prefer phone calls once a week. More than that would annoy them. So if two friends are in these two different categories then both of them feel not treated right. Because one calls too often and annoy the friend, but the other friend doesn't receive enough calls and feel neglected.

So what would resolve this situation? Honest straight talk? That may or may not work either. For some people, they feel offended if someone says what he thinks and what he wants straight to them. There are different teachings in different cultures, too.

In general, these types of wisdom of dealing with people would only work for simple situations. You can safely assume that no one wants to be beaten, so you don't do that to others, but more complicated situations, you need to know the person you are dealing with. If you misjudge, that could create dramas and uncomfortable situations.

People get along better if their values and behaviour are similar. There are less misunderstandings and they can communicate better. What one considers nice is the same for the other. Sometimes there are people who are always fighting each other or getting along very well together. These maybe the type of people who are totally opposite end of values and behaviour patterns. Probably they misunderstand each other and start fighting. When they fight, they don't want to be nice to each other, so they do things they think the other doesn't like, but then that could actually cause the other to misunderstand that they are being nice. Then they might become friends again. I don't know, but it is interesting to think how people form friendship groups.

Image by "Picture Youth" on flickr
   

Coming of Age Day

 
As I was looking at the date, I realized that the second Monday of January was Japanese "coming of age day". It is the day to celebrate people who turned 20 years old. There are different minimum ages for different things, like voting, drinking, driving, marriage and so on, but they consider 20 years old to be an "adult" in general sense. Each city sponsors events and invite new 20 year-olds to attend. Many girls wear traditional Kimono. This is probably the only time for most of the people to actually wear kimono in these days. I never wore it because I didn't find value in doing so at the time, but it is nice to look at them during this season. It is a great photo opportunities for any foreign visitors, too because you can see many young girls in kimono everywhere. If you ever visited Japan, you will noticed that most of the people don't wear kimono. Only people who do are professional geisha or very old people. So this is the once a year opportunity to take photos of young people who are not professional geisha, in kimono.

Image by kaidouminato on flickr 

3 Tips on Buying at eBay Auction

When you want to buy something, you will probably look for it in local stores, but it is often the case that you can find good deals on eBay auction. Not everything on eBay is used. Most of them are actually brand new products. When it is in auction format, it gets tricky. First of all, you can't get it until the bidding ends, unless they have "buy now" option. Even if that is listed as 0.01 dollars as starting bid, it doesn't mean that you can get it for very low price. Sometimes price goes up beyond your reach. So how can you get what you want for the lowest possible price? Here are some tips.

1.  Wait until the last minute --- When you see something you want for a very low bidding price on eBay, do not bid right away. First of all, check the shipping fee, also read condition of the item before you start bidding. Then add in "watch list". Wait until the last minute before the bidding ends, then you should start bidding. Sometimes there are several people interested in bidding on the item. If they are lost on bidding early on, they have time to rethink and bid higher. If you really want the item, for lowest possible price, bid at the last minute of the auction, and set to your maximum amount you will pay.

2. Make sure that you see all of the same item listed --- When you find the item you want on eBay auction, don't start focusing on it right away. First research to make sure that you know the status of the item listed by different sellers, or the same seller at different time. If you are bidding on something, never go over other listing of "Buy Now" price. Once I wanted to get something that was listed as $18.00 for "Buy Now" price by one seller, and there was an auction of the same item started at $5.00. At the end of the auction, another bidder bid for over $18.00, so I stopped there and bought from other seller right away.

3. Try getting a good deal on the item closing during long weekend --- People are often busy during long weekend and don't have time to bid on the last minute. So if you have time, search the item ends during long weekend. You might get something for a good price because no one is bidding against you.

Image by Ryan Fanshaw Photography on flickr

3 Cutest Cat Breeds

Since I made a list about cutest dogs, today I'm listing my favorite cat breeds.
1. Norwegian Forest Cat --- Very long and soft hair makes this cat so adorable.

 

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Norwegian_forest_cat.jpg

2. Persian Cat ---  Another fluffy cat that I love.


 
Image by Magnus Bråth on flickr

3. Abyssinian Cat --- This is a lovely short hair breed.

 
Image by naotakem on flickr

Prosopagnisia

Prosopagnisia is a condition also called face-blindness. The person in this condition cannot recognize people's faces. I heard about these people who had an accident and became one, and I thought that this was a very rare condition. However I discovered that there are people who were born with it, and not completely unable to recognize the faces, but have difficulty recognizing the faces. When I read about this, I noticed all the things that I had difficulties with recognizing faces.
For those people who didn't have an accident and having difficulties, I have read that in some theory, they suspect that eye sight during the young age could contribute. If this theory is true, then my case would fit perfectly. I had horrible eye sight but never used any glasses until 13 or 14. I could not see the blackboard in class at the front seat at that time and I got my contact lenses. So I had lived with bad eyesight for a very long time.
I don't have difficulties with all faces, but some particular type of faces make me very confused. For example, when I was in grade school, there were some skinny boys with glasses. I couldn't distinguish them. When I was helping a teacher to return the result of the quizzes to people, I always had to ask my friend which one was which. I thought that I couldn't recognize them because I didn't play with them and I don't really look at them. But this wasn't the only time.
My husband has lots of friends. Sometimes when we were walking outside, he sees his friend and introduces him to me. Almost 100% of the time, if we see the same person again on the street, I have no memory of his friend's face. My husband thought that I wasn't paying attention, but I just couldn't remember the face of the person I only met few times. I do recognize faces eventually if I see them often enough, but drastic changes could cause problems.
One day, my husband's cousin introduced us to his new girl friend. Brown hair with very striking looking beautiful young lady. We talked together for a while and we decided to see each other at the restaurant in the following week. We spent time together talking, and nothing was particularly odd as we all talked. In a course of three months, we all went out at least three times or so and we saw one another at different occasions. One day, we went to visit his aunt's house. She is the mother of my husband's cousin. He was living alone at different location, so we didn't expect to see him there, but he has several brothers and sisters, so any one of them could be there. When we got to the door, a blond lady opened the door and greeted us. I thought she must be a girl friend of his another cousin because I didn't recall seeing her before. My husband started talking with her and we all sat together and just talked. Since no one mentioned her name, I didn't know who she was but she was very easy going and we just sat and talked like old friends. About one hour passed there, someone says something indicating that this girl is the girl friend of his cousin who I met many times before. My husband says to her that she looks nice in blond, and now I realized that who she was. Thank god that I didn't say anything like asking her name or who she was, because that would be very embarrassing.
Another thing that I noticed was that I think I recognize faces so much slower than others. If I see someone in a mall and if I notice the person is someone I know, he or she already knew. I think often people think that I ignored them at somewhere but probably I didn't recognize them. I had many incidences that I start making friends with someone and after a while they start ignoring me. I might have passed them by somewhere and they thought I ignored them, but I just didn't see them. I might be looking at the direction of them but it doesn't mean that I recognized their faces.
I also have problems with TV and movies if there are many characters. Before I become familiar with them, if they change hairstyle, hair colour or clothes, I get confused. I see the person as a new character, so of course things don't make sense. Once I went to show my daughter children's play at the local theatre. This was a small theatre with a few actors and only about 30 audiences would fill the space. During the play, some actor changes clothes and I had to ask my daughter which character he was. It was a bit difficult for me to follow.
I am never diagnosed with anything, but I suspect that I do have some minor face blindness tendencies. Not sure if that was something to do with my poor eyesight or neurological.

Valentine's Day Tradition in Japan

I notice that some stores in malls are already decorated with Valentine's Day items. Valentine's Day is basically the day to exchange gifts between lovers, but in Japan, this tradition is a bit different. Valentine's Day is supposed to be the day girls declare their love. Only girls would give gifts to guys. The gift is usually chocolate. Guys who receive chocolate on Valentine's Day will return cookies on White Day, which is one month after the Valentine's Day.

 I am not sure if Japanese commercialization of Valentine's Day is better for the retailers or North American version of commercialization is better, but this is the time for different retailers to make money. For flower shops, this is the busiest time of the year to sell roses for high price. In most of the kindergarten and day cares here have activities on Valentine's. They bring cards and maybe chocolate to their classmates and teachers. Cards and chocolates sell well during this period.

In Japan, girls often give chocolate to their male bosses, classmates, too. These are called "giri-choco", meaning "courtesy chocolate", just giving them to make sure that their day doesn't end with no chocolate. Sometimes they pretend that it is "giri-choco" to give someone they actually like very much.

It maybe commercialization by retailers, but it is a nice little event you can enjoy during winter. It is quite depressing to live through a long winter after Christmas is over. 

Image by Annabelle Orozcoon flickr

People Watching

I don't usually spend time observing people outside, but the other day, I was waiting for someone in a mall. I was standing across from some underwear store (I think it was either La Senza or Victoria's Secret). Store had a poster of beautiful models in underwear on the display window.

As I looked at people passing in front of the store, I noticed that almost 100% of men (young or old) looked into the direction of the store. Most of women looked, too, but I would say probably around 80%. Some didn't look at it at all. On the other hand, a father with children, a man with a girl friend, an old man who didn't even care about his own look, all looked at the poster as they passed. They all looked at it longer than women looked at it.

Does this help their business? My guess is that the majority of their customers are women since this is a women's underwear store. To be noticed by both men and women are good thing for the business anyway. Do men buy them these underwear? Maybe. They might use online if they are intimidated by going on their own to the stores, but the important thing maybe that they might remember the name of the store.

Shriken Origami

 

Origami is lots of fun, but the first thing that people get into trouble with Origami is the difficulty of reading the picture instructions. There are symbols for different folds and names for particular routines, but sometimes you just don't get how you go from one step to the next. Finally we have videos on YouTube to show us anything we want to make and it is so much easier to follow the video than the book.

Now I found this shriken origami video at http://youtu.be/EZdp3yoB3ps . Shriken is the thing Ninjas use as a weapon. They throw them against enemies. When I was in elementary school, some children knew how to make them, but I didn't have a book and I always wondered how to make them. I saw them making it but when I make it without watching them making, I could not make a successful shriken. After all these years, I finally found how to make shriken!

Pictures are great to learn something, but video is so much better. Especially of origami instructions. I have a book of animal origami, which has quite complicated instructions. It takes me about an hour to make a lobster. Sometimes I forget how I understood some steps and couldn't figure out later. Probably you don't want to see one hour video of how to make lobster instructions, but future of Origami learners is bright with the help of videos.

4 Tips on Fighting against Common Colds

Flu season is on its way. It is the best if you don't become sick at all, but if you feel something is wrong ; feeling sore throat, muscle aches and so on; try prevent it getting worse. Here are my tips on fighting colds.

1. Gargle with salt and warm water
There's nothing works better than frequent gargling with salt and water for sore throat. If you are at work or at school, you might not be able to do this as frequently as you wish, but when you have very bad sore throat, gargling every half an hour with lots of salt would improve it significantly. Even if you don't have sore throat, if you keep doing it when you come back from outside, or before going to bed, that will prevent you from getting sore throat during flu season.

2. Take Echinacea  tablets
Echinacea tablets are sold at every drug store along with vitamins. Some of some garlic in it, but this works pretty well, too. If you feel like you might be getting a cold, take the tablet.

3. Have vitamin C rich fruits and drinks
Drink lots of lemonade, orange juice, and eat lots of fruits. You can substitute with vitamin C pills, but nothing is better than real thing. If you have fever or dry throat, juice is the best thing.

4. Use Vicks ointment on your back
If you have headaches, feeling sluggish or muscle pain, getting a massage on the upper back, just below and around the shoulder blade area would relieve this somewhat. Ask your family member to give you a bit of massage and rub the Vicks ointment. If you don't have anyone at home, try to rub it on your back by yourself, and go to sleep right after. You will feel much better in the morning.


Image by krossbow on flickr

Borderline Asperger's?

When I was young, I felt that I was different from others. Probably many people feel that way, too, but somehow I thought there was something wrong with me. In particular, when I started going to school, I had difficulty following things that others could easily follow. I realized that this was because I concentrate on things deeper than others and I don't hear things when I'm doing something. For example, when the teacher gives us instructions to work on something, I start working on it. When the teacher says stop and do something else, I don't hear it because I'm concentrating on my work. After a while I realize that I'm doing something that other people aren't doing.

This caused a lot of problems during the library time. When we go to the library, we pick a book and read until the end of the class, but once I start reading, I don't hear nothing. When someone tells me that the class is over, I have to think where I was and what I was doing because I'm totally into the book and I don't exist during the reading. Teachers say that it is important to concentrate on your work, but I had to try not to concentrate too much. So I try to keep myself away from the story when I read, and often had to check during the library hour that I am not too much concentrating into it.

Once I heard about autism in the news when I was a teenager. I thought that I was autistic when I heard about the description, but then when I saw them on TV, I knew I wasn't. I wasn't behaving like them, at least to my knowledge. No adults thought anything was wrong with me.

After I became an adult, I heard about Asperger's syndrome. It is a mild form of autism and most of the people function almost normally except social awkwardness and some minor issues. As I read some description, some are perfect fit for me, and some are not. For example, I do have difficulties with motor coordination. I can't ride a bicycle and I can't drive a car. I do well on math. I never get jokes. These are types of things you find in the list of symptoms in Asperger's syndrome.

So I took some online test. I got borderline result normal. According to this site, if you get the score of 32 or more then, you are Asperger's, and I got 31. Anything between 26 to 31 is borderline. I'm not surprised.

I have to say that my condition had become much milder as I grow older. Daily effort of trying to fit in did make me less deep into concentration. I am not sure if that is truly a good thing because when you concentrate, you can do things better, but to live in normal society, you have to know what time it is and you have to do things according to what you are expected to do at certain time. I also miss the sense of being able to go into the story and live as I read fiction as a child. I can not do that any more. When I read a story, now I have myself separated from the story, and honestly, I don't really read so much fiction any more.

Image by BinaryApe on flickr

3 Cutest Dog Breed

There is nothing cuter than little furry animals. I like both cats and dogs, but I wanted to list the cutest dog breeds. Of course, there are many other cute dogs, but I personally like medium to smaller dogs.
1. Chihuahua


(Image by apdk on flickr)
Pointy ears with skinny small body. Chihuahuas are adorable. They were once famous by Taco Bell commercials,  and continue to show us their cuteness through pictures and videos. Although they are small, they are quite fierce and strong. If the owner let them, they could become a little tyrant at home.

2. Corgie


Image by stuart001uk on flickr
Known as the Queen Elizabeth II's faithful companion, corgies are lovely medium size dog. Very good nature and friendly, they are great as family pets.

3. Miniature Doberman

 Image by glenn_e_wilson on flickr

Doberman looks quite scary if you don't know them, but have you seen the miniature version of them? They are just so cute! 

No More Penny

In Canada, the production of pennies had already stopped but we've been using them in 2012. Now finally we will stop using them this year. As of February 4th, stores will automatically round up or down to nearest 5 cents, so we don't have to carry pennies any more. They say that we can use pennies forever so your pennies won't become useless all of a sudden.

Pennies are quite annoying for many people. Takes lots of space in a wallet and heavy. When you pay things using cash, you will accumulate lots of them. So people don't take care of pennies and they are everywhere on the ground. Most of us wouldn't even pick up pennies if you find one on the street. Only a little child would be happy to find it.

The pennies may be collectible item in ten years or so. I don't think I would collect them. It would be better if I can get rid of them and never receive them back in return. How much could this worth eventually? Rare Canadian penny for 5 cents?

Happy New Year

I just realized 2013 is the year of snake. Hope it is a great year for everyone!

 Image by Olga Kuba on flickr