MiKE: mosquito graveyard, and strange burbling

I cannot be sure what caused it, but given its correlation with that single incidence of heavy rain about a week or so ago, I am pretty sure the mosquitoes did their breeding in, you know, what the propaganda in singapore had been advising - those upturned containers and stuck drains where stagnant water can pool. Oh and by the way, when I say heavy, I mean, yes, by singaporean standards, cos that's the only one I know. I also know that most of the time, rain here is mild in comparison, and unusually short lived, even though I live within a mortar bomb of the lake.

And the other thing I did when I cleaned my windows was to not replace the fly screen. Big mistake, though I still do not feel like replacing them, cos I think that to do so cuts down the amount of light, and makes the windows look like a prison cell of sorts.

So. The mosquitoes have been invading, in the night. But the strange thing is that these mozzies do not bite. Either I am not labelling them correctly, or I have been consistently getting a huge swarm of male mosquitoes, or mosquitoes in Canada do not leave itchy bites. They seem to be attracted to the 100W equivalent CFL bulb that I have beside my desk; and like moths to the flame, somehow either get blinded, burnt on contact, or both, and they land on my desk, in a somewhat neat pile. Like this:


Well, I did some organising to make sure they "line up correctly" for camera, but it's not as if I went out and trapped mosquitoes for this photo shoot. How do I know they do not suck blood? Besides me having no itches, I accidentally crushed a couple of these bugs, and there was no blood (hurray!?). Gross eh?

And then this morning, I heard a gurgling, burbling noise. Sounded like pipes were being filled with water, against their wishes, and there was some bit of choking, air being displaced, that sort of thing. The last time I heard it, I was in serene's apartment, and the waste pipes had choked, the kitchen sink backflowed and started to flood with generally icky stuff. So, I had reason to be worried - Could it be that the pipes here were also getting clogged? I started to get worried, especially because yesterday there was a scheduled water supply interruption.

Turned off Aunty Beeb (BBC world service) streaming off my computer, then listened carefully to find out the sound coming from this:

(the slipper is there for scale purposes!)

And then I started to get relieved. And then worried again. And then relieved. And then blasé. Let me explain: Initial relief was that I found out the source of the noise. Then worried that, since this meant that they were filling the radiators (with water) that meant that they (the landlord/property managers) were expecting the cold season to be coming soon. Then relieved that - hey at least at this place, I'd be warm.

Then I decided to be blasé about the whole thing - it's not as if any amount of worry on my part can change the weather. The last few days have been simply brilliant: bright cloudless skies, 27C noontimes, 50-55% humidity, coming together to give luscious azure blue skies and deep golden sunsets when viewed from OISE building which is one of the taller buildings in the neighbourhood.

If it's going to be cold, so be it.