Ria's Joke of the Day (at Sentosa on 29 March 2005)

So we enter Sentosa (after being asked where we were going by the attendent in the ticketing booth... but this is not The Joke) and the car goes over a couple of road humps. Ria says, you know road humps are called "sleeping policemen" in Indonesia? The humpier ones are called "sleeping policewomen".

OBITUARY

In Loving Memory of

All members of the Order

DECAPODA

(true crabs)

departed: usually during low spring visits

who have suffered innocent deaths during all Wildfilms production trips.

Remembered for the way you crunched under our soles,

the way through your death,

we realised the impact of trampling.

~.~.~

A crunchy shell, and mushy insides,

Sometimes you run, but mostly, you hide.

Yet you often get within our stride.

Sometimes big, sometimes tiny,

Pincers a pair and legs many,

Poor little crab

wish you moved quickly!

~.~.~

Forgive my pathetic attempt at poetry. Without these little beings, I would have had less footage of their relatives, would not have been "publicly shamed" for crunching one UNKNOWINGLY with my bootie... and the crew would not have had a good laugh at me... :-S

we had a little intellectual discussion about the commando guy, and the (no) life of a life scientist in singapore - intially i thought it was about the lack of lifeforms in singapore , but it was totally crazy when i shared with those who were there at the post walk roundtable chitchat session. details? you gotta be there to experience it! teeheehee.

as my friend was sending me back via a last minute decision to go somewhere else, i had the distinct honour to watch "the running man live!" in singapore - tom sprinting for a service 31 just opposite bedok interchange. and you thought arnold sch-howdoyouspellhisname was the real star. move over, arnie!

by the way, the gits - get intellectual talk session (wow, everything has an acronym these days!) - is a fantastic opportunity for anyone to catch a dose of stupoks, and i was afflicted when i first came for it after an ojt session.

all of us had crazy new ideas about using monopussy and tripussy as our "stage hands" intended for some "offscreen remote control" to control what happens for the intended program.

from what i understand so far, the project seems like it would become a naturist's version of south park...

of personal highlight was something that popped out of the "little shop of horrors" when i gave a scare to some small 1 cm wide crab with my footsteps at the southern sand bar, so the petrified crab (hey! i don't do cruelty to crustaceeans!) ran backward, and into chek jawa's own "audrey" - remember the "feed me seymour?" plant? i feel so guilty... i'm now wanted for one crab death... haha

Hairy Day at St John's Island

Hairy sea hares were EVERYWHERE today on the reefs of St. John's...

Ming Sheng spotted them first. Tiny ones all over the shore, very sorry-looking as they were out of water. (Eeks, I wondered how many I already stepped on). This one fluffed up when we placed it in a pool of water and zoomed off under a bit of seaweed.

It has hairy bits sticking out, and lilac spots all over.

Ming Sheng soon spotted a bigger one...

It has a striped foot! And much bigger dots that are bright blue.

This sea hare is seasonally abundant. It's the first time we've seen it on the Southern Shores. We saw an explosion of these beasts around the same time last year, while we were at Pulau Ubin. They're everywhere for about a few weeks, then never seen again all year. They are Bursatella leachii. Quite slimy, they release a purple ink when handled.

We look at stones real carefully (as always...for you-know-what). Blossoming among the colourful stones at St. John's are lots of sea anemones in shades of green; from pale to flourescent.

If you look closely, you can see their tentacles are strangely decorated in branching bits, unlike other sea anemones, which have smooth tentacles. I've seen these anemones in all shades of brown, green and even dark brown ones with pink tips.

Sea anemones are not well studied, so I still don't know what it's Scientific Name is. But since it is everywhere, and we've gotten friendly with it, I just casually call it the "Branched tentacle sea anemone".

For me, the highlight of the day was a tiny little flatworm, just coming out from under a stone for the start of its 'day' (flatworms are night party animals).

and a looong Ribbon worm. It was at least 40cm long! And looked like it wore striped pajamas. Here's short piece of it. It's a worm guys, the rest of it looks exactly the same.

Ribbon worms belong to Phylum Nemertia (quite different from the bristleworms we see more often, which belong to Phylum Annelida).

Nermerteans are fearsome predators. A Ribbon worm has a proboscis that is prehensile (can grip things!) and retractile (pull it back). Some are armed with a piercing stylet that can inject a toxin. If the prey is worm-shaped, it may be swallowed whole. If not, the worm inserts part of its digestive system into it and sucks up the victim's juices. Ooo...not a worm to mess about with. I've seen Nemerteans that are more than a metre long on some of our Northern shores! Fortunately, they don't eat people.

I'm sure the rest of the team saw other interesting creatures too!

Stone versus Fish: a guide

The key to staying alive as a wildfilms crew member is to know the difference between the two. It's not always easy, so here are photos of the two to help you along...

Perhaps some survivors can share further clues on the blog, about making that critical decision: can step or not?

Next lesson, the difference between a stone and a stoned ...

The Perils of Being a Photographer

Was just going through a whole bunch of photos which hold nostalgic meaning for me and a number of other people unrelated to this blog. Except maybe Weiling. Wow... Five years of photos... And all on film too....

Hah. As a photographer I always relished being behind the lens, capturing the moment. Now, as I look into the past, I realise that I have no photos where I do not appear on my own. Even in the couple that exist, they are candid shots where I'm not aware of the camera, or the photographer. Hence, pretty bad photos all the way!

Now with video, it's even more important that the camera not see my face. However, during logging, extra noise is often heard, so... Even if I never, ever appear on the video, I know that there is a somewhat permanent record of my voice somewhere in our archives. Even if it never makes it onto the final copy!

Well, there are a number of digital still cameras on the crew. I think once we figure out a couple of issues this blog will start getting more exciting! Meaning, the next technology improvement will be photos!

Will try taking some shots on Friday and seeing if they can be uploaded.

Ooooh.... Shiny!

Two coputers, two monitors, and over the weekend, both monitors somehow or other agreed to start acting up...
So.... NO COMPUTER TIME FOR TWO WHOLE LOUSY DAYS!

Anyway, now that I've got a nice 2nd hand Samsung, once the other two come back from servicing, I'll have an extra monitor to set up a dual- monitor system with...

Ooooh..... nice, shiny, dual monitor...
Can't wait.

The Incident Of The Stoneded Fish

First the setting:
We've been working for a week, and now our performance is less than optimal due to lack of sleep for four days in a row. Previously we had observed and filmed a stone fish on Pulau Hantu, and were still excited about it. Perhaps that is why what happened on this particular day happened...

We're working on Sentosa, and perhaps also hoping that we might find something exciting to help wake us up. The coffee that morning wasn't quite working.

There are four people filming. One manning the tripod/camera which weighed 13kg combined, two manning lights, and one spotter/hunter. Someone may want to correct me on the arrangement of people. It's been a while since this happened...

So there we are, filming something or other in knee deep water, then our dear,dear Kok Leong happens to see something move in the waves breaking nearby where we were. The call goes out,"Stonefish! Stonefish!"

So all four of us swing into action, lights go to surround it, tripod is moved closer to the target, camera is adjusted to focus on it, and all get ready to get down to work.

"It's not moving."
"Where is it? Can't see it on viewfinder...."
"Are you sure what you saw?"
"Where is it?"
"There! There!"
"Are you sure that's a stonefish?"
"Someone poke it."
"With what?"
"Your FINGER LAH!"
"YOU CRAZY IS IT?!??"
"I'm sure it is a stonefish!"

Finally, I let go of the camera to make sure, and kick the target with my bootie...
And it was....
....
....
....
A stone....

Hence the name stoneded fish....
Names of the rest of the participants unmentioned so that they don't die of embarassment.
I was behind that big fat camera....

The joke doesn't quite work on the screen I think....
Gets a better reception when there are people gathered round a table of drinks....

Stupoks

If you're curious about the malady that WildThings suffer, the one we call Stupoks, well, here's the explanation.

Our dear, dear Priss started itching one day while we were on Kusu Island, and discovered that she was coming down with Chicken Pox. Being a childhood illness, most of us were not too concerned, except for some of the guys who were concerned about sterilisation. Nobody else got the pox except for Priss.

Around this time, the rest of the team started noticing strange behaviour in each other. We would be dropping stuff, mostly into water, forgetting to pack essential items, not paying attention to instructions.

Also, the most telling thing was for a person to ask for something or other, and when the whole team has spent 20 minutes searching for said item, it is finally located on the body of the person who asked for it in the first place. (Such an incident is also called doing an Alvin)

At first we thought it was due to sleep deprivation and the fact that we were getting rather comfortable with routine. However, it was also observed to happen during the start of a series of trips when we were all fresh and there was no logical explanation for such things to happen.

As this happened during the period when Priss was down with the Chicken Pox, we decided that the malady that was afflicting us WildThings must be something similar. A Pox of some sort that we got from somewhere. Hence we coined the term Stupoks. Notice the non-traditional spelling of the term. We can't even spell it right. It's that bad!

From our own observations, Stupoks affects almost everyone who comes into contact with us. Even a person who has never been with us before, and we will assume that said person is normally sane, and professional, will start doing the things we do. Hence we think it is highly infectious. Or that everyone is a carrier of the disease, and that it requires a bit of a nudge from an active sufferer in order to become acute.

My next post will be about an incident which all of us on the team find hilarious.

Stay tuned for...

THE ATTACK OF THE STONEDED FISH!
*cue eerie music*

CJ with Prof Dan...Dr. Dan!

Today, we visited CJ with Prof Dan Ritschoff of Duke University, Michigan.
http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/people/faculty/rittschof/
Most of us showed up not knowing what to expect, but it turned out to be such a wonderful session of sharing! Prof Dan has great experience in seashore ecology, and has been visiting Singapore’s nature spots regularly since 1986. He hence knows a lot more than me about our shores! Plus, it’s such a pleasure talking to him! Of cuz, at the end of the trip, we got a mini interview...

We learnt a great many things… a lot about the hermit crabs. In each shell, there not only lives hermit crabs and slipper snails, there are burrowing sponges and burrowing barnacles and a worm that eats the eggs of the crab too! And when a snail dies, the hermit crabs ‘smell’ that death and come in throngs (well, I exaggerate) and a trading sort of takes place. He mentioned something about how they are all size 10 fitting in size 5 shells… and that they would come back and trade shells again! For better fit! Got that all on footage, we can look that up... (yup, he’s done extensive research on these crustaceans).

And... like most biologists, he has a bit of naughty humour too… When Ria picked up a smooth sea cucumber (which was a little shriveled) and decided to give it a wash and soak... he remarked, “oh, you’re gonna fluff it up eh?” *LOL* (not for underaged audience!)

His post grad students were great fun to have too, extremely chatty and friendly, though they could do with a few hunks amongst them (there were none!) C’mon. at least ONE for me to ogle at??? Now, don’t give me that look.

Like almost everyday on CJ, it was a beautiful one… and it was the first time on the Northern arm of the sand bar since the button shells came back! There were gazillions of them! More button shells than sand!

Sidetracking a little.. It has been a long while since I visited CJ.. and a long while since I caught up with Ria and Tom.. It is always a laugh talking to Ria... On the rides she so kindly gives me (good thing I live near her!). And her car aircon was working, except it was freezing at 6am in the morning! Hence, Murphy’s Law:

Addendum #1: If you don’t need something, it will work.
Addendum #2: Even then, it will fail in the end.

Heh heh!! Ok, back to CJ, I love the place.. I missed it! Everytime I return, it has new surprises in store for me, and rejuvenates me. It brings back special memories, which I accumulate with each of these visits. And It has somewhat become a part of me... Time has passed, I’ve been guiding for more than a year!
It’s also the people too, it’s wonderful being able to share the love for CJ with the other guides. It’s the identity of being a CJ guide, a ‘wildthing’!

Since this is my first post, I hope the best for Wildfilms, and cannot wait till the next season of super lows!

Heh heh, I end by saying… now every guide is wondering what AFDs are! Heh heh heh!

Love,
Pris

Hey All!

Hey guys!

i'm away but do like to know what's going on. Will come back in November during vacation.

Cheers

Yandi