a weekend of titanium wonders

gosh i feel bloated. at least it makes me sit down and write instead of lying down on the bed like what i always do whenever i'm at home. seriously, it's as good as if i hang my spinal cords outside the main entrance, i just get horizontal all the time and slack in between these walls.

bless that ocbc titanium card. i signed up for the credit card while i was in nissan showroom a month back and just got this whole bunch of discount vouchers. a lot. from dining to travel to spa treatment, you name it. they must have really wanted people to sign up for this thing.

except most of them expire on july 31st, so i have less than a week to take advantage of them.

which to think about it, it's kind of evil.

still, i managed to drag my friends to sushi-don restaurant near rendezvous hotel just now for dinner to use one of the voucher. we spent $78 and only paid for $48, which was a good deal. at least i managed to fulfill my craving for salmon belly sushi.

ever since i shopped at tampines giants, and bought the salmon belly sushi there, i was hooked. ok addicted more like. it has this sweet creamy taste with soft texture that almost melts in your mouth. i'm not kidding.

i believe some things are just meant to be eaten raw. i mean, that was how our first ancestors ate their food, weren't they? you know, before they discovered fire. and they still managed to evolve and everything.

for one, they didn't get any summons which probably why these days we hardly evolve any more.

we are just stressed nowadays. and we swear a lot. i know at least i do. i went to newton circus hawker center on friday night after work and found out this notice of parking offence being slipped underneath my wiper when i got back to my car.

damn. that was my second time. getting fined i mean.

the only consolation perhaps is that i feel like i've joined the experienced drivers club that pay summonses and fines all the time. in fact, i bet i can always let slipped during those empty talks session with my friends, like, 'oh i must remember to pay my parking fines today'. it gives me this whole bad boy vibe among them.

which is what i so hope my fellow condo mates have realized about me by now. i mean, to ask me to become one of the 9 condo committee members during the annual general meeting is a bit too far-fetched, don't you think? especially after they've seen me for like just 20 seconds.

i was like, 'ok maybe i'll consider'. it was my first time attending this meeting since i moved here 2 years ago, so forgive me for being a bit blur. after all, i was just being polite.

how could i know later, that last year's committee got scrutinized for every little things that they put down in the presentation? i mean, let's just let those people who compared 2006 and 2007 annual reports figures to handle the whole thing, shall we? i really don't feel like volunteering to paint red dot on my chest and write 'shoot here'.

so i left in the middle of the meeting. i just chickened out. i expect when they wanted to call me to give a bit of introduction about myself before opening the voting session, they must be puzzled why i was not there.

good work adie. one of the best.

well, it's not like i have any chance to properly pull out anyway. i might never even see these people again, nor have we braided each other's hair before so it's not like we're gonna miss each other.

although i might really have to think of braiding those that really matters to me. ok i might not need those committe members right now, not directly anyway, but when i wanted to add air pressure for my car tyres just now, i realized i needed my fellow latio friends.

this might be a bit embarassing but i never know how to add tyre's air pressure before. when i asked one of the shell attendant to help, he asked me what pressure value i wanted to put in, and i was like, what?

last time when i used to cycle, i could always press the tyres with my hand to see if it had enough air in it but i guess it's a bit more complicated with cars.

i'm not ignorant you know. at least to what it matters. when people asked me how much is my fuel consumption, like how many kilometers i run with each petrol fill i said i have no idea. i really don't. i mean, we still have to fill the petrol anyway inspite of what the data shows, don't we?

ok maybe later when i decide to change to another car and need to compare but that's like a thousand light years away.

i might as well free my mind off those question marks and read my harry potter and the deathly hallows. i've completed once and now reading for the second.

i'm not a harry potter freak ok. i just like the series in a normal amount. it's like a journey, when you have reached the target destination in a hurry and now merely repeating the same route while appreciating the side scenery that you've missed the first time.

the best thing is, i can even do this in my horizontal mode.



...ed

the end is near

my eyes are tired, can't seem to focus anymore. it's just like when the effect of polyjuice potion wears out and harry needed his glasses back.

i've been reading that new harry potter and the deathly hallow since morning. to think i actualy woke up before 7 and rushed to east point's popular to queue for that book.

so uncool for a non-teenager.

it was a non-event actually. there was this boy that dressed up in robes ala hogwards student but he just paraded between cashier counters to counters without even looking at the customers. what's the point?



there wasn't even too many people out there too it was foolish to even think there'd be some devilish one shouting spoilers like 'harry's dead!!'. seems like i'm never gonna have a chance to practise my avada kedavra spell.

anyway, i've been enjoying the reading. although it's a bit sad when you know it will end once i clear the last page. with every page i turns, there's a danger of someone dying.

which is stupid really. just like when you cry watching, say, bambi. i'm sure it's so sad when the guy stopped drawing the deer.

the supplement i ordered just being delivered at my doorstep. few days ago i read this article from yahoo about 25 ways to fight ageing, and they have taking alpha lipoic acid as the no-2 item.

when i went to plaza singapure for dinner last night, i stopped by GNC and asked about it, you know, just out of interest. man, it costs $128 for a 30 days supplement.

as if they are made from diamond powder or something. how can you improve your overall being after buying that when in the end you'd be led into depression mode anyway once seeing your account statement?

so i tried this local website www.nutritionpark.com which i found while browsing through the internet. one click and before you knew it, it's on your doorstep like magic as if you cried accio supplement! and it's cheap too. barely 50 bucks inclusive of delivery. this is so the way i'm gonna manage my supplements need in the future.

but of course i had my doubts too. i mean, how do you know it's authentic and not some unsafe substance that make your chest grow or something? it's not like it has a shop that you can bang the door on, or drag the police to. but i guess, i have to take my chances.

i know i can't expect this kind of stuff that i really need to just being given to me anyway, you know, as a present or something. last friday, a female colleague of mine didn't know what to buy for her good male friend's birthday so she asked me what was my most memorable birthday gift for tips.

and i was like..

'yeah of course i've received a memorable gift before. it was..'
'wait, what about that time when i received...'
'well there must have been something..'

which by that time she already looked at me with this funny face. gosh have i really ever received one? memorable gift i mean. when it took more than a few minutes cracking my brain to find one, it surely not that memorable, isn't it?

but i'm sure that sounded worse than reality. i mean, i remember that time when my friends brought me out for birthday dinner then in the end ended up eating cake squatting at this roller skating place in orchard because the restaurant didn't allow us to eat external cake.

or that time when they tricked me into going for tea break during work and surprised me with seah street deli's 7-layered chocolate cake that i so craved, which they bought surrepticiously during lunch time. although to think about it, that was actually as a small farewell before i went to oversea outstation, not birthday.

the point is, i'm sure i'm still blessed.

now what i have to find out, is who's not so blessed until ended up being killed in this last harry potter's book installment as rumoured.

maybe in the next page.



...ed

my heart is beating keeps on repeating

my brain is in a mess. it's now functioning like a hard disk with the red busy light kept-on-no-make-it-consistently blinking, you know like when all other applications run haywire and you're forced to restart the whole system.

somehow i started to give a thought on every single single little things, analyzing every acts and then checking my phone inbox every now and then with glitters of hope kept on coming and getting dashed all day.

no wonder ppl refers this as affair of the heart. it's an affair, it's meant to be complicated, or in some case, it would even potentially involve a mongolian model and bunch of explosives. maybe this is normal after all.

or maybe i just have too much brain space for unnecesssary activities. take yesterday, everything was good wasn't it when i was all busy? at least i did nothing that i could regret of.

aside from being inactive in the first few hours of the afternoon when i had headache. but again, not that i could control that, couldn't i? i don't know why i had these headcahes lately. maybe i should get my eyes checked or something.

the durian eating escapade in jb was a success. at first, it was close to getting axed because of some miscommunication. it's a long story, i wanted it on saturday instead of sunday so that we have more time to spend but someone already made arrangements for sunday because i never replied when it was suggested via e-mail blah blah blah.

anyway, that's all history. there was this local fruit fair in angsana that we went to. it involved a lot of waiting at first till 3 of us just went ahead munching without the rest joining. i mean, why make a simple task so hard? i wanted to eat there and then go watch movie, it was not really our fault if people got delayed because of house viewing or visiting clinic or whatever.

there was a long line queuing for tickets in tebrau city jusco. apparently most people went for transformers and harry potter. since most of us already watched transformers, and i already have tickets for harry potter on monday (although i didn't mention this to anyone), we settled for die hard 4.0.

which i'm glad we did. that was no doubt the best movie so far this summer. even better than transformers. who cares about car-changing robots when you can have john mc clain? when he hit that black-haired IT-girl bitch hard on the face and pulled her hair off, it felt like christmas. what about when he flew the car to hit that helicopter? never had i applaud violence so much in my life.

then we went to danga bay for a short karaoke session. i think half of johorians were there at danga bay on that saturday night. it was all buzzy with people eating, dating, karaoke-ing and even cycling with carriage-like vehicle. it was so lively.

what's unique, at least for me, for this karaoke is that we pay by number of songs instead of hourly. it's RM2 per song, so we paid for 10 songs. they had this small cage-like mirrored boxed room where you karaoke while people can see you from outside which make you feel a bit like creatures on display. i wonder what would people say when they saw us covering our ears while our more enthusiastic member screamed their lungs out singing. i guess the theme of the night was who could deliver high pitch screaming that could break glasses.

my friend drove me back into singapore after midnight, which was really a relief. i happily tucked in to bed and then realized i left my car in my company. man, how could i forget to bring back my car? i left it there so that i could take my friend's bike to jb in the morning.

i'm such a durr-brain.

the night would have been at least close to perfect despite all of that had i got to make that phone call, or even received a brief morning message but well, sometimes we just need to reboot our brain so we could move on.

i wish.



...ed

excuse me for this i just want a kiss

it's that time in my life again when i feel like living the song lyrics. you know, when suddenly things happen in rhythms and you start waltzing you way through the pathway.

so on the way back from work just now, i stopped by the music store to buy kelly clarkson's my december album. who cares about what crap clive davis was complaining, i so dig her new songs.

maybe not those you-hurt-me-so-i'm-gonna-hunt-your-whole-clan-down numbers, which by the way build most of her album mood, but the other positive notes ones.

i don't know if those melody could break my heart or save me. one thing sure, this fire is getting hot again but i'd still touch the flame 'coz i'm a curious cat.

so far instead of burning, it tingles in a good way. you know, like the after-sensation following that extra wasabi in your sushi piece.

although someimes i'm confusing as hell. i'm north and south. i'll probably never have it all figured out, but what i know is i wasn't meant to walk this world without ever experiencing this.

the only lesson i learned now, the hard way potentially, is that something can never be divided, as abundant as it appears to be.

not equally anyway. that's why we have prime numbers.

anyway, i'm not gonna worry about my timing, i wanna get it right. i hope i creep where i belong and finding not what i knew all along.

man i feel very much alive.

although it feels weird being home on thursday night. normally i'd be at the bowling alley around this time. it's the step ladder final tonight but our team already missed the cut. we could have done better but i guess it's just impossible to have all things to go your way.

i don't wish bad things but i don't wish those bowlers well tonight.

ok maybe this is the time to actually spin those damn-i-hate-you-i'm-gonna-scream numbers.



...ed

a little bit too much foodelicious

i think there's a little baby fat around my tummy. oh sweet lord what have i got myself into?

although it makes sense actually. i had it all coming. think about it, i didn't exactly lead an active life schedule recently. no tennis, no badminton, no swimming. what i did after coming back from work, is slump on my bed and watch friends.

can't really blame myself because i just went through successive hectic weekends. when you're being deprived the luxury of resting on that precious off days, the body kinda tend to compensate during the other 5 weekdays.

i blame the human anatomy.

remember the christina aguilera concert? that was 2 weeks ago on saturday night. i must say christina rocks! my god that girl has a horse power lung, george bush better forget iran and whatever nuclear craps they're building because this baby jane has the original reactor pipes that could blow you away.

a pity that the singaporean concert crowd sucks on an otherwise a perfect night. i mean, i know that the hall looks a bit like lecture theater but that doesn't mean we have to act like being in one. stand up for god's sake. while christina was blasting her moulin rouge number, my legs almost wanted to jump off my pants and people still sit as in detention center?

at least 2 caucasian ladies came up with their senses and stood up to dance but the police came over to ask them to sit because they were obstructing the view. duhh..

anyway i still enjoyed it, although i swear next time i must fly out of this dull-jud city and watch with other fun crowd. or at least take the free standing ticket instead because i guess the way singaporeans see it, unless the ticket states 'standing', they are gonna do what we normally do on seats. sitting.

that was followed by a late night supper at tampines ave 2 because after that rush of energy and adrenaline, we just needed time to calm down and bring our heartbeat to the original level. that black pepper roti john special flooded with mayonnaise didn't seem that sinful then.

on wednesday we had this FoodMoreDelicious team building event for our office department started at 2pm, which meant a short working day. i love team building activity. ok the bonding thing is pretty ok and it's all paid for, but most importantly we can escape work and got regarded as good and supportive employees. it feels like christmas for some people.

what we were supposed to do after being divided into several groups, was to solve 10 given clues that would pinpoint a location and the food each. we must then travel there and eat to get points. it's kinda like the amazing race, except we have our bosses to drive us around, and get to eat all those free famous food.

so among the clues we solved and went to were the yu-tiao, beancurd and durian in geylang, takoyaki in bugis, gelare waffle ice cream in holland V (is gelare originated from australia? someone should question the validity of those clues), paper curry rice in kitchener road, meatball in IKEA and wantan mee in old airport road.

never had i so many food to eat without actually realized the consequences with each bites down my throat. any consolation though, we got 2nd in overall, and that yet rewarded us another large box of food goodies for us to further consume. urghh...

on food hunting around the island

on friday after work i took a bus back to kl because it has been, i dunno, last january?? .. since i last went back to my parents house. plus, my brother just came back from the states for summer holiday cum work practical so we were gonna have a little family reunion. except unlike chinese new year reunion which only happens at dinner, this time it felt a bit like harry potter grand hall dining when the food magically appears on the table around the clock. in a span of 2 days, we had fried macaroni, durian deserts, sandwich, mee jawa, lemang and rendang, roti jala and chicken curry, kfc and chocolate cake, you know, on top of normal rice meals.

home made chocolate cake

it was nice though, being pampered once in awhile like this. until you spot those unwanted bits around your tummy which even the biotherm homme abdoscuplt couldn't not fix. i so must resume my workout regime now.

and yet i still plan for a durian eating escapade in jb this weekend. what was i thinking?



...ed

shut up + back to basics

i have a bad mouth.

not physically of course. my lips are wonderfully proportional. at least i think it is.

it's just that sometimes i say things i should not say and it gets me into trouble. it's like a defect. you know, when you purchase something from the shop and it comes with a guarantee period from any anomaly? just that instead of being able to repair this defect, i have to live with it.

and man my mouth was in full force yesterday.

a new female engineer joined our department. it's always an exciting thing when new engineers coming in because people are curious. they'd easily become the topic of our conversations during lunch time crap-talking sessions.

only that this time i made this comment about that new girl, that 'she is a stretched version of this ex-colleague' unknowingly to her own boyfriend, who was having breakfast with us. right on his face.

and guess what, since they were not going public with the relationship it's not that he could say anything to me. but the damage is done. i'm already a bit uncomfortable when he's around.

lesson learned, always check someone's background before making any comment because god knows that person is the person-you-talk-with's girldfriend, or sister, mother, god-mother, pet or anything.

i don't know what they are thinking. people talk about things like this, especially the juicy stuffs. it's only natural. when we always get our brains to solving technical issues, it's the only time we feel like human with decent social lives.

for instance, take yesterday, when the CEO of the company mentioned that our company is not doing very well in the market and so there will be restructuring. then later in the afternoon another mail came, this time from our own managing director, saying that they are now working on 'voluntary workforce renewal' details.

sure enough if you walk through the isles of cubicles that afternoon, you'd see small groups of people appeared out of nowhere like mushrooms after the rain in every isles. it's as if the lecturer just gave the whole class an assignment :-

'voluntary workforce renewal : discuss'.

everybody has their own speculations. it's almost felt festive. only that it's not actually a good news. duh, it's that R word they were talking about.

it's ironic that our company is not doing well when singapore's economy as a whole is booming. booming economy always trailed by increase of prices and stuff, so we are the worse case ones. now that it's unlikely to hope for big increments or bonuses this year, yet we had to face 2% gst increase islandwide, and in case of that damn starhub, a $15 to $25 dollar increase of the monthly sports channel subsription.

man i must learn how to live without sports channel. or do something about this tennis addiction. do they have rehabilitation center for this kind of problem? it's hard. i just don't want to follow federer vs nadal match using internet online live scoreboard. i'd feel like a loser.

it's a relief i've already bought this christina aguilera's back to basic concert tour tickets worth $188 ages ago, bcoz in time of company turmoil like this, purchasing hundreds of dollars for a pop-act ticket is surely an extreme and irresponsible gesture.

the concert is tonight. i'm so excited i'm thinking to go orchard and buy things i can wear to the concert tonight. it has been ages since i last went to one. i mean, i don't even know what people wear to concerts nowadays.

i'm going to changi in half an hour to pickup my friend from bangkok who's going to join me tonight. we are so gonna paint the singapore indoor stadium red.



...ed

louder louder voices in my head

i went to UOB branch in bendemeer road last friday during lunch time. i wanted to ask them to list down all giro deductions from my accounts 'coz i have a feeling money kept being deducted here and there lately.

when i was at the counter, the lady asked me, ' may i see your passport or your work permit?'.

work permit!

i was dumbstrucked. ok i know i don't look like a typical local guy but must they stereotyped me like that? i mean, i'm still ok with the passport thingy, but work permit? what, do i have the work permit holder look or something?

but as always i didn't complain. i just smiled it away.

that's my problem, i am too nice. i'm the kind that keep it all inside, and later go to find some voodoo dolls type of person.

well that's among what living in japan has taught me. the art of being hypocrit.

instead, i went on to meet their financial planner personnel to discuss about my financial plans. after the house, then the car, i figured i really need to start managing my money more systematically. especially after my father blurted out, 'do u have savings for wedding?' the moment i mentioned the car purchase.

so i sit there for 20 minutes hearing this guy explaining about various types of plans but what i could think of was, 'gosh this guy's breath smells'.

i mean, you'd think that being in a customer oriented service like this would make them take care their physical appearance a little bit more carefully. i work in the lab, but i still goggle my mouth with listerine every morning and dab on refresher.

it's just not at the bank. even just now at the saloon, the girl drying my hair has smelly breath too, which was worse because i was strapped down in the chair and couldn't move. i felt like i was being punished. thank god she was only the dryer girl not the hair stylist or else i'd have to find another place.

am i just being ridiculuous? i'm not a clean freak you know, if you drop by my place unannounced you'd find how normal my place is, with groceries left in shopping bags by the door, used cups beside the tv and the bed that never made.

so you see why i'm not so keen to sign up for the financial stuff. i'm on the fence actually but all these minor things just pushes me one side.

although looking at how i spent my money this weekend could undo just that.

yesterday i called the electrician because my ceiling spotlights kept getting burned and that's money down the drain. i wanted to get them changed to 12V bulb type because they are cheaper, consume less electricity and easy to find. hopefully they don'tburn easily too.

little did i know that each bulb needs to be installed with a transformer that costs $18 each. $18 each! and i have like 30 spotlights. that's not gonna work, so i asked them to do only my bedroom 'coz that's where i'm in most of the time anyway. ok $200+ gone.

then i called the carpenter to fix my kitchen worktop, you know, the one being drenched by water from the sink. he quoted $750 and i agreed. i didn't even know how much it would cost, i just prayed hard he was not cheating me or something.

paid my condo maintanence fee for half a year until december too. another $1000+.

man those are a big hole in my pocket it's almost obscene. if there's any consolation, at least all of that are easily justified, right? i mean, it's not like i bought xbox-360 and playstation-3 like this friend of mine in my office. both of them could easily cost the same amount of money that i just spent, and only for some stupid games.

although i did give myself a treat when i bought christina aguilera's back to basics singapore concert tour ticket off sistic last week. the show is going to be on june 30 and i'm going with this friend from bangkok. i'm so excited. i got the next expensive seat for $188, which is expensive but hey, i need to get in touch with my cool side sometimes.

this is totally one off. really.

where i'll be on june 30th at s'pore indoor stadium

so you see why i need the financial planning.

i just don't need people to ask me for work permits.

or buzz my msn saying hi then disappear. what are they thinking? gosh.



...ed

and you love, and you hate, and you wait

'coz one minute goes fast.

and it was a fantastic 4 night last night. for the 2nd time during this summer block buster season, i went out with my colleagues to watch, simply because some other people's schedule just couldn't be anymore wrong.

well anyway, it was still good. you know, the reason i felt upbeat about worklife nowadays is partly because of the company of these wonderful people so it's not like i'm complaining.

not much anyway.


we watched the movie at the cathay beside plaza singapura. the funny thing is, i've never noticed this building before. it's either on my blind spot or just simply very forgettable. it's huge and everything but kinda too whitish so i guess after such lively plaza singapura outlook on the front, this cathay building is just too pale to be noticed.



ok time for my verdict of fantastic 4 - rise of the silver surfer. well, i feel that this fantastic 4 has the same problem as spiderman 3. it has superb actions and cool special effects (i love it when sue storm displayed her energy bind power. i have this thing about strong powerful female to be frank) but the storyline sucks. i mean, and i must warn that this is a spoiler big time, this surfer guy kept destroying planets to save his own but after meeting jessica alba, he resorted to blowing himself up to save the earth, which he could have done long ago. talk about too sudden change of heart.

and lesson derived from this movie, is that suicide bombing saves the world in the end when nothing else does. sounds familiar? now who came up with this storyline i don't know, but this is apparently what hollywood planted on our minds, among other ridiculous ideas. i mean, how bad a storyline you could get?

nevertheless i was still entertained throughout the show. the jokes were good, we laughed a lot and if that was not a good time i don't know what it was. only that, the one suggested the outings was in a hurry to go back after the movie so everybody promptly followed to go back too. it was a bit like, you know, when people rush to dress up and leave immediately after sex that makes you feel they are insincere about the whole thing, leaving you feeling a bit cheated.

so there were we in a what must be one of the hippest place among youngsters on friday night, and we were taking the lift down at 9.30pm? the only consolation, was that there were mostly kids at the cathay. seriously. i felt a bit like i was on a kindergarten outing out there. so when my friend left, i decided to go back too before anybody thought i was babysitting or something. not to mentioned i feel like about a 100 years old there.

plus i need to relax a bit. that's what weekends should be for, right? recharging used up body and mind. i already had a busy day the day before, work and outside work.

there was this departmental meeting on thursday when the boss asked me to present my technical work. i already had the material prepared when i sent my report previously so it was only a matter of converting it to a presentation-for-dummies format. when you present something too technical and dry, people tend to lose it in the middle. after all, we are all normal people, not nerds that get orgasm everytime seeing complicated equations on board. ok most of us not anyway, so i got to make that as simple as i could.

it turned up ok. in fact, i was enjoying it. even threw some jokes around to make it lively. who says technical presentation must be dead serious? it was my one way of calming myself from all the stage fright. other tips would be to consistently remind myself that i was the topic master, and the rest has no clue about it so why should they intimidate me?

i wasn't very lucky at night when we played our bowling league after work. i lost 1-3 in individual but overall my team still won 13-7. i hate to lose. that guy just wacked the balls as hard as he could. i was confident to win until he got 4 strikes in a row in final frames, making me feel like the world was against me. have i offended any bowling lane spirits or something? otherwise tell me how could among my first 6 throws, 3 were splits. my lady luck must be vacationing in the middle east and got blew up or something.

ok i feel that this post gets a bit too wordy. i start to feel as if i'm preaching. to balance it out, here are my pictures of my new goldfish that i bought from qianhu fish farm in chua chu kang last weekend (gold ranchu $25, lionhead black oranda $8). yes i travelled across the whole island just to get 2 tiny lil' fish, call me a fish freak.

golden ranchu. i love this one, should've gotten one long ago

black lionhead oranda. now you see why i said this is hard to see

i kinda regret buying the black oranda because i can't see the fish properly in the tank due to dark wallpaper. i should have gotten a bright coloured more prominent ones. oh well. the golden ranchu was spot on though.

oh btw about the tennis match i wrote about last time, nadal won. yaaayyy!! i sure bragged about it A LOT the next day, now i need a period of repent before i jinxed him further. he already lost in grass court queens tournament yesterday. you see, one minute you win, one minute you lost. as kelly clarkson sings it, nothing ever really lasts.

truly.

...ed

one week and i'm still sober

it's french open men final nadal vs federer now on super sports.

but here i am writing blog instead of following the match. you know, despite having waited the whole day for it.

the truth is, i can't bare to watch. i could have a heart attack. plus, i must stop all this swearings and cursings now otherwise i risk myself becoming an unpleasant person.

wait. ok federer just levelled the match one set to one.

damn.

well, worst comes to worst, it's their lives and not mine. so one will get the 1.3 millon dollars prize, and and the loser about half a million. big deal. i'd still have the same amount of money in my account tomorrow.

ok maybe less $15 to pay for this sports channel monthly subscription.

but still, gosh i hope nadal wins. at least i won't have the urge to chain the main door and pull my trigger tomorrow at work everytime anybody dare to bring up the result.

which they would. totally would. people just need to learn to keep things to themselves sometimes and see how harmonic the world would be. it would be plain boring, but at least it's peaceful.

my parents didn't say anything last week when they first saw my golden striked hair. man, i was scared shit when i went to pick them up at the bus stop. when i greeted them under the hot sun, which surely made my highlighted hair 10 times more obvious, i wished i were a tortoise so that i could pull my head in.

but then there were no comment. as if they thought i was born a blonde. it was a bit like heroes season finale when you anticipated that big blow up in new york city but in the end it never came true.

only that in my case, i never wished anybody to blow up. in fact, i'm grateful because i didn't have to go through the whole prepared reasoning speech.

i guess this is just a stage every parents must go through. 'out of hand children' phases. at least i coloured my hair. not taking drugs, kill people or anything. be grateful.

we attended the wedding ceremony of my father's cousin in tampines and punggol. i must say, i never expected the wedding ceremony here to be so eventful. there were so many performances, i felt like i was on a night out for a concert or something.

you know i never prefer those posh hotel wedding dinners. have you seen your colleagues' face when they were handed the red invitation card? it's like, 'oh no i'm invited. you're not? man, you're so lucky..'.

which truly is. i mean, how can you pray for any couple's long lasting love together when you have to spend late night at their wedding (most of the time during weekdays when you have to work the next day), being pinned to your prearranged seat with zero chance to interact with other people, eating from the mere mercy of the waiters and waitresses, and still being charged a fortune (hong bao) for it?

the only reason we do not curse for a divorce is that we are afraid they would marry again with other people and still invite us.

on the other hand, the wedding held in house blocks are more personal. you get to mingle around and bond between the two families. that's what the whole point is, right?

although i don't think i bonded with anybody that night but still, it was great fun. thanks for inviting me.

happy wedding day!!

now my parents are safely back in their hometown, leaving me alone and full of freedom again in between these stone walls.

which apparently also housed a badly molded kitchen cabinet. urghh. i accidentally discovered it while searching for the plunger underneath the sink. it was so bad that parts of the wood already turned black and fell apart.

man, that surely needs replacement. i can bet it's not cheap. oh this sucks. i use that kitchen like 5 times since i bought this place and it still breaks down. it's almost like no justice already in this world, we might as well pisses off the next person we see.

i don't even know who to call or where to go to get this fixed. add that with a couple of light points that are not working and water flowing too slowly down the drain in the bathroom and it's official i live in a cave. a damn expensive cave that takes my whole prime life to pay for, that is.

a cave with life threatening basement car park that is full with cars that can hit your accurately-inside-the-white-line still-with-a-price-tag beloved car at front, back and sides anytime of the day.

by the way, i just met the guy who hit my car few weeks ago. i was parking mine and he had just parked his hyundai matrix. now see who has the better parking skill, at least i didn't hit anybody.

he was polite as i had expected when he introduced himself. we just corresponded via sms last time so this was the first time we met face to face. i was eager actually to see who is this out-of-this-world responsible person. for all i know, he could be the reincarnation of mahatma gandhi or something.

turned out he's young and good looking too. i wonder that bitch in the front seat know what a good catch she had made.

ok i'm kidding! scratch that last sentence.

i guess i'm just jealous everytime i see a perfect guy. even one with horrible driving skills. i just have to be one. a perfect guy i mean. not one with horrible driving skills. though i don't mind having a horrible driving skills whilst being a perfect guy.

i'm blabbering. i better return to the match, so later..



...ed

i only say it 'coz i can

it's 7am in the morning.

i'm writing on my new chair i bought in IKEA yesterday before my parents arrived. my father kept on dragging the dining chair everytime he wanted to use my pc because the old one was too small for him, so i figured i should buy a bigger one.

plus, i really need to be comfortable in order to get all the creative juice out when i write my blog, you know like jk rowling used to sit in her favourite cafe while writing harry potter. especially when it has been awhile since i last wrote.

not intentionally of course.

blame it on intel motherboard. when i decided to upgrade my pc, my friend was like, 'take intel it's more stable with intel processor'. strike one.

then the shop people (bliss in sim lim square) after he opened my old pc to transfer my hard disk to my new assembled one, 'oh you were using matsonic. lousy motherboard'. strike two.

and so i foolishly agreed. strike three game over.

take this. only in the second night, the 965RX intel motherboard suddenly shut down while in idling mode, kicking my house electric fuse off in the process. whatever happened was so serious that the fuse kept kicking back when i tried to restore the fuse.

i imagine the people in matsonic would laugh off their chair if they know about this. i could go in their advertisement saying how my matsonic never blew up as opposed to this well-known 'brand I'.

i am never gonna use intel mother board again.

why the hell that it took a week (which equals to like forever in my life without a working pc) to get a replacement? i mean, what if i were the man in pentagon in front of a red button with the word 'press to launch missile' written in bold on it? do i get a week off because the damn replacament motherboard has yet to arrive?

it's ridiculous. and just to get replacement. i shudder to think how long it takes to get it repaired next time.

by the time i got back my life, i mean my pc running, i already got back my car from the workshop so there was little left to bitch about what happened in the car park earlier.

actually, not that i would. bitch about i mean. well not much anyway. it all started when i went down to the basement carpark one innocent saturday afternoon to go out to buy lunch and i saw my car front bumper dented.

my car was hit! my not-even-3-months-old car. apparently the car parking at the side brushed it off when pulling out of the car park.

so there was i standing didn't know what to do and was about to cry out loud 'oh god why me' when i spotted this white paper slipped under the wiper.

it reads, 'knocked into your front bumper. please contact me. XXXXXXX roy'.

and so i did. the culprit was actually a hyundai matrix car with a 28 years old owner who later, finished each of his phone messages to me with 'sorry for causing such inconvenience'.

that, my friend, in metropolitan singapore social life, is equivalent to a dalai lama act.

how can i swear to such a person? i almost wanted to take him as my godbrother instead.

he offered to pay me himself if the repair cost was about $200 but when you go to the original workshop, they aren't exactly gonna have cost-cutting in mind when repairing. it ended up a whopping... you know i don't even know how much it really costs. the other party is the one going to pay anyway so does it really matter for me?

"my 'defeated car'
thereafter when i was on the road driving the nissan sunny temporarily provided by my insurans company, i'd look longingly everytime i spotted a black latio on the road.

and it does leave a dent phsycologically in me too. it's like you had sex the first time and think you'll never be virgin again. everything changed. now everytme i park my car, i'd chose the spot with a wall or pillar on the non-exit side so none will brush off my car ever again. the last thing i want, is to go nissan workshop and being greeted, 'oh you again', innocent or guilty.

the second last thing i want? for this dry season to go on.

oh god.


...ed

good things come for boys who wait

i feel like i'm on a dry spell season.

it's one of those time when it seems like everybody around me is suddenly busy with something and i'm left in my own time zone. alone, with a phone that never beeps i had to make sure the message service is working.

have i taken too many ppl for granted during my happy hours?

i just know there must be something wrong in my system when i actually look forward to go to work tomorrow just to enjoy my colleagues' company.

i mean, that can't just be right. people should loathe their workplace.

like this 2 engineers who just quit this month. for our department, that was a bit too drastic. obviously they hated it there. one decided to divorce engineering and take business, while the other, well he quit after barely half a year, surely he won't be singing the company love song.

but the thing is, recently my outer associates were not the very best of a company, if you know what i mean. it's as if they were brainwashed or something, or have a sudden selective memory. for all i know, they could be singing that fob's 'thnks fr th mmrs' and i'm sure it's about me.

although i definitely don't mind being on the singing side of the microphone.

i think i must go out more. like detour a bit on the way back from work or something. i must stop getting home on time to catch a show or just to be online. this lots of talk and no play is making me a dull dull boy. the next time ppl buzz me up on saturday night asking why i'm not out, i better don't have to come up with lame excuses and feel like a loser.

ok that'll be my life plan. at least until my parents come to visit me end of this month.

one of my relatives, my father's cousin who lives nearby is getting married early next month and she invited my parents. my parents were like, 'oh good, we never attend a wedding in singapore before'.

the truth is, i always feel like i'm going back 10 years whenever i'm with them. emotionally i mean. they are parents, i will always have to act by the book. not that i'm so like a villain without their presence, it's like i have to wake up early in the morning, and have shower before 7 kind of things.

and the book also says you should not colour your hair. so i bought that black dye hair spray when i was in mustafa center the other day. only after that i sat down and realized, what the hell was i thinking? spray my hair black everytime after shower?

i am so screwed.

tomorrow we'll have our 7th round of bowling league match after work. as the captain, i'm proud to say that we're 4th in the standing now. although i'm a bit worried about tomorrow's game. i tried very hard to balance the strategy to win, and being political to let weaker member play at the same time.

win or lose, at least i'll not be alone with my phone that never beeps then.


...ed

the amazing incidents

i watched spiderman 3 at plaza singapura yesterday after work. man it's hard to get hold of the tickets, isn't it? i had to cancel the plan to watch on friday because they were sold out. can you believe that? we have like a billion cinemas here in singapore and there were still not enough.

i like the movie, entertainment wise. storyline is not so good, i think the 2nd sequel was better. it's hard not to choose doc oc over that boring cum gloomy sandman and that 'how-the-hell-you-could-become-venom' venom.

one thing i learned from spiderman 3 is that if you pray hard enough, help will fell from above.. in terms of black foreign paranormal substance that can turn you into a superhuman so you can beat your enemies to death.

of course that's in a perfect world. or at least the world where people just pray hard. in our present world, we had to bare all the difficulty ourselves.

you know i never thought stress could kill you, but apparently this local HP girl who recently died after 8 hours working non-stop on her laptop proved otherwise. to think that she consistently woke up at 3.30am and started working at 4.30am, she must be a real life superwoman.

i sincerely hope she gets the rest she deserved now.

i am so blessed that the only common thing i have with her is probably the fact that we write blogs. sometime ago i took this online test to check if i'm under stress.

do you feel stressful at work? no
do you worry about your health?
do you lose sleep thinking about something? no
do you worry about your financial capabilities? no
do you worry about your family? no...
..etc etc

ok maybe a little for that last one, if they pester me about marriage. but the fact is, it's official i'm 'understress'. come on, i took this test during working hours, how stressful could i get?

even so after our little trip to batam island last weekend. finally i can say i'm a true singaporean. PR i mean. in the end all of us could make it to the trip. and the rain chose to stop falling too! i felt like everything just fell into place.

ok maybe not totally. ok so we were kinda conned into eating expensive tourist-price nasi padang lunch after we arrived but that's ok. after all it was just like 8 dollars per person. not even enough to buy a carl's juniour set.

then 3 of us decided to go back before nightime. duh. talk about anti-climax. i mean, you paid 30 dollars for the ferry so might as well make the trip worth it, right? at least my memory of batam does not mainly based on getting conned by the nasi padang restaurant.

at night, we paid the entrance fee to the live band executive club when we as the hotel guest should get in free. still ok too. it was just 5 dollars. did i mention the band was good? the voices were good it was a pity the music was a bit too loud. this is the first time i entered a club and able recognize half the song played.

other than those small little tiny blunders, we also went to this spa on top of formosa hotel, and tried the whole body scrub massage or lulur as the local calls it. it was only 16 dollars for 1.5 hours! cheaper than bangkok.

after they massaged you apparently to loosen your skin, they put this sandy grainy substance on your skin and began scrubbing. it felt good at first, until the liquid evaporated making you feel like a piece of plywood being scrubbed by sandpaper. i was like, oh god my legs gonna get pointy skinny.

at least in the end i felt relaxed (as if i was ever stressed-out) and more importantly my skin felt a few years younger. not that i needed it, the messeurs already thought i was 27. hmmm i must be ageing a lot within these few months because just last april, this guy in tanjong pagar club thought i was 24.

i tried the locally famous avocado chocolate too. it was good, although to tell you the truth, i think the sudden headache i got after that was caused by that drink. i'm not sure how, but must be the high calories content sent the blood rush all over my head or something.

we paid this street band to play us songs, and it was good

these kids enjoyed having their photos taken while one of their brothers working

before we went back the next day, i bought myself a sk8er shirt ($10), a korean-made adidas shoes ($24) and chocolate brownie kukus ($3, which all my colleagues loved it).

see who says you need to go madagascar to have fun? after the kenya airlines nairobi-bound plane crash few days ago in africa, i'm not that eager anymore to go ahead with nairobi trip plan.

that is at least until some black foreign paranormal substance drop onto me and turn me into some kind of superhuman.


...ed

under my umbrella

i'm a bit pissed off.

i mean, we've been planning this batam trip since like forever. this is like, a meet-up since the last bbq party ages ago. when we finally managed to get a date that everyone could make it, why must there be someone that has to pull out?

i know sometimes we need to save money, need to pay car, house and perhaps feed the whole african continents, but it's batam for gods sake. how much can you spend there?

like 50 cents.

anyway, i'm still going. i'm never the one that acts depending on other people. some people may find it unbrearable eating on their own but if i'm hungry and alone, i'd rather eat by myself than ended up being alone,hungry and feeling sorry for myself.

plus, down 1 to 6 people is barely a big deal. i almost think i can end this silent treatment by sunday.

so according to plan, we'll board the ferry on saturday morning. all set and ready to go. in theory at least. i haven't pack, i haven't changed my money and everything but again, it's batam, not madagascar.

i'm just afraid that it rains this weekend. today, we had to cancel the ultimate frisbee again after it rained too last week. such a bummer. especially since i've already set my working mind to stop at 3pm.

this time the rain was even heavier, and up till late afternoon when we were supposed to depart for marina park, as if giving us message, 'so whatchu you gonna do about it??'.

talk about the weather bitch.

so no frisbee. i believe if it's not meant to be, it won't be. everything happens for a reason, that's what i learned from lost. that, and never take flight from sydney.

today during lunch, my friend informed me of singapore airlines 60th anniversary discount, which includes ticket to perth for 60 dollars. cheap right? but when i simulated the booking, apparently the taxes, fuel surcharge etc etc totalled up to 576 dollars.

where's the logic in that?

at least when phil stacey was voted out from american idol today, i felt like finally things are restored into order.

after the show i cleaned my house a bit, and mopped the floor. i'll have visitors tomorrow and i won't want them to come to a dusty and messy house. coz this is what i do, put a good show in front of people.

even if they screw me up by pulling out from our holiday plan.


...ed

i'm going verklempt

we were supposed to have the ultimate frisbee game after work last thursday but it got cancelled because of heavy rain in the morning. it was part of our department's on-going team building activities throughout the first half of the year.

it must have been love... (ok can't resist that hehe).. it must have been ages, since i last hold a frisbee, no, make it ages since i last saw a frisbee.

i don't know where you come from but in singapore, frisbee is a kind of thing you might find in the museum. you know, unless it is made into some playstation or nintendo wii fi games in the future. i even have to explain to this friend what a frisbee is, 'that plate thing that you throw away like a flying saucer', and he was like, 'what's so great about that?'.

i guess that's why not many of them were keen to play, especially those married ones. i don't know, seems like marriage not only turning you into sudden unattractive, out-of-shaped and rapid-ageing person, apparently it makes you boring too.

anyway, i was going to have my fun when the damn rain spoiled the day. i mean, where is the damn rain when i needed to take a nap in the blazing hot afternoon just now?

at least because of that, i managed to finish prison break season one. at last michael and the gang managed to get out of the prison but unfortunately missed the flight to get away from the vicinity. damn.

lucky i'm not watching it on first prime time show, imagine have to wait the whole summer to know what happens next.

but i did watch lost last week the prime time show, when they found this girl who had just dropped into the island by parachute, and mentioned to her that they are the survivors of that crashed sydney-bound flight. to which, this girl replies, 'but that's impossible. they found the plane, and there were no survivors'.

dang! and then that irritating makes-you-wanna-burn-your-tv 'to be continued' sign. double damn.

i'm supposed to survey the facts about batam tonight since we plan to go there this coming weekend, but it's already 11pm and i'm not even done with this blog yet. plus, i really want to find out what happens to micheal, did he manage to cross the border to mexico?

it's just batam anyway. no big deal. it's near, we can always return. it's not like it's madagascar.

talking about madagascar, i remember watching american idol 'idol gives back' last week, when they featured all those horrible and ugly sides of poor african people who have not enough to eat and medicine to stay healthy.

man, it was heart-breaking. i mean, i went to east point challenger just now, again, to survey the desktop pc that they have on display, thinking hard if i better buy the components in bundle from sim lim square instead and upgrade my pc, when apparently what those poor african people have in their minds always is how to survive the next day.

even when i was there in madagascar, seeing all those poor bare-footed kids who followed us around when we walked though their village, we should have given them something. like food or money. instead, what did we do? busy taking photos.

what a depressing thought.

urghh i'm going verklempt. talk among yourselves, i'll give you a topic...



...ed

one is such a lonely number

i don't understand why johorians working in singapore always have to cross the causeway going back to their hometown everytime they are not working.

it's like, 'hey what are you doing this weekend?' and they'll be like, 'oh i'm going back jb'. then i'll be like, 'didn't you just go back 5 minutes ago?'.

seriously. i mean, i have family too, but i don't the urge to meet them every single week, or every month for that matter. and i do love them a lot.

plus, everytime i cross the causeway i get headache. i don't know why. maybe because it's messy and all over the place, or the fact that i feel like i'm being watched as if i'm carrying $100,000 inside my wallet. or just that i'm a big dickhead in my own country.

so i'd never made a trip there without a box of that red panadol extra, which ironically never been sold in malaysia. i guess it's specially for those like me that tend to behave like fish in shallow water everytime we passed through customs.

and so there were just usual nothing-to-boast-about-or-say-i'm-cool activities over last weekend with my non-johorians friend. i wish i had the gut to go and try this water skiing at east coast park, but the thought of being thrown over and then have to swim all the way to the shore is just a little bit too much to bear.

so instead, i resorted to playing bowling in yishun, then tennis at my place. now that rafael nadal is winning again, tennis is back at the frontline of my life. last night's match when he spanked federer in monte carlo final is really a match to behold.

that kid is already like a multi millionaire, isn't he? and i'm not even in a place to comfortably buy his rackets. i could actually, but i'd rather settle down with a cheaper version. in US today, a 13 year old won $25k by being the fastest text messager in the states. even at home in suntec city yesterday, a 21 year old girl student won herself a chevrolet by closely guessing the number of kisses on car competition.

made me think what the hell i'm doing at work when there's so much way to get money outside the office nowadays.

for me, the only time when i'm outside the office, is to spend money. on sunday i almost purchased a new pc desktop at east point challenger. it's embedded with intel core 2 duo processor (which i have no idea exactly what's the new technology is all about except it's fast, and more importantly, latest), 512 ddr ram, 250G hard disk and 512MB graphic card.

in short, the spec is awesome. when the salesman said they could minus off $300 if i let go the flatscreen monitor since i already have one at home, i felt like snow white just being offered the red poison apple by the evil witch. and bare in mind that was after i bitched so much when i found out all latest pc comes with vista.

the thing is, i'm not sure my current softwares and peripherals are compatible with it. for instance, my hp ipaq active sync. remember, that thing that runs my life? now if this one is not working later with vista, i'll really be like a fish in shallow water.

even with that red panadol extra in my hand.


...ed

Gimme' that Sunday school answer

my heart deeply goes to those perished in virginia tech campus shooting and their immediate family and friends.

it was all just plain wrong. school classrooms should be the place to nurture our future but yesterday it became the place where the present ended.

tragically.

i know this was the outcome of a seriously disturbed person, but look at the world that turned him into the beast that he became.

i tell you, the world that finds movies like the hostel and turistas entertaining, and filled with people who finds physically crushed bodies from various misfortunes in forwarded e-mails amusing and worth forwarding further.

which is just sickening. apparently i can no longer eat meat nowadays thank you very much.

there are tonnes of other things to share, right? nicer things. like, i don't know, good wishes, a guide to painting your neighbour's trash gold, or even how to survive a day long boring lectures without losing our minds.

i had one today at work. apparently we were to leave all in-hand assignments, which would potentially cause us trouble in next monday's weekly update meeting, and head to this training session conducted by this guy who flew all the way from the phillipines.

don't get me wrong, i'm all for upgrading ourselves to new knowlegde you know, but what good it could give when half way through the class i started imagining if the lecturer had 4 more arms attached on his back he'd look very much like dr octavious?

then what i could think was gosh i wanted to go off early, catch american idol and continue watching that borat movie at home.

not that i'm supportive over that movie's idea of making fun of people by pulling offensive stunts. this is exactly what screwing up our world that i mentioned earlier, but hey i'm just curious to see what's it all about. i mean, how can you correct things that you never know how it goes wrong, right?

plus, it's not that i'm watching it in the cinema or even buy the dvd anyway.

on a quiet night like this, it made my day when i found out there's actually people out there that wanted to link my blog to theirs. ok it's only one person but i'm still happy nevertheless. i'm just sorry i couldn't reply to that request earlier.

since i stupidly hardreset-ed my hp ipaq without knowing the effect thereafter, my life has been a bit of an upside down. since when i became so dependant of the pda calender, i've never realized till now. it's like having my own secretary in my pocket and not blowing me off.

now i have no idea when to top up my loans bank accounts, when to change my goldfish aquarium filter, or when to call my mother. since i higlighted my hair bright brown and thus can no longer go back to kl to visit them until new hair grows, the least i can do is to just ask them if everything's well over there.

'coz in case you haven't notice, it's a scary scary world out there.



...ed

why do all good things come to an end

today we had a small birthday celebration in office cafeteria hall during lunch for those of us that were born around this month, which includes me. they ordered in canadian pizza (mainly because its buy 1 for 1 free policy), some calamaries, garlic breads and of course, (and i'm so glad it's not fruit) chocolate cake.

i'm fortunate to have such group of friends as colleagues. it makes life in the office not as dreadful. not that it's a living hell in the office but at least it gave something to look forward to today other than the american idol with jennifer lopez. we already missed 'heroes' as they are busy creating hype for its finale end of the month.

i enjoyed the food. ok, considering the calories i consumed from all the cheesy pizza and sinfully-creamed cake especially now that i'm already lack of exercise after my everyday car trip takes away my power walk when i used to commute, i think i enjoyed the gathering more.

more so than the fact that it's my birthday. gone are the days i would wait till the clock striked 12 at midnight before sleeping and wear bright coloured underwear for good luck going to work the next morning. i guess, we all get used to birthdays after some time in our lives to only treat it just like any other day. i mean, do you see an 80-year old blowing candles? (which is a good thing, really. imagine how many smoke detectors would get ignited everytime there are birthday celebrations?).

instead, during my actual birthday, we went to see this movie "sunshine" after work, starring, well, some guys and michelle yeoh. to tell you the truth i've never heard about this movie before, definitely not the way i'm anticipating spiderman 3 or the latest pirates of the carribean movie. i actually won this movie tickets from this shaw contest website that my friend sent me the link to.

which in my life's context, is very unusual. i rarely win anything. ever. well except movie tickets from starhub periodically but that was because i'm their hub club member. if any, i hope this win would be the indication of what my luck will be this year. i mean, could there be any more optimistic movie title than sunshine?

although the movie was just ok for me. they talked too much. einstein could have spoken less explaning his theories. i guess when the whole movie is based inside the spaceship (and about a second or two on the sun surface), there isn't much space to create actions into. one moment michelle yeoh was holding this plant and before you know it, she was stabbed from behind and die. where's the excitement??

luckily i already got all the excitement i've ever yearned (for now at least) during my bbq party the week before, so you see i was not expecting much. hey at least this is much better than 4 weddings and a funeral which i fall asleep to. and have i mentioned they got michelle yeoh?

i organized the bbq by the pool at my place on saturday night. i ordered satay and sambal stingray from bbqwholesale.com, prepared fried macaroni myself so at least i have something personal to take credit for and i got this popular strawberry chocolate cheesecake from cheesecake cafe in siglap (i know this place from surveying forums in the net).

but the real blast was my dearest friends, including 2 from bangkok who flew over specially to attend this. could there be friends any cooler? not only that, this guy pulled a santa clause later that night distributing presents to us from bangkok, obviously regardless to the fact that we were definitely not being holy last year. it was not even winter.

i got a cool home planetarium. gosh i just love it. now instead of pathetic cartoon-like fake-looking 2-seconds-glowing thingy i have on my bedroom ceilings, i can have a galaxy worth of stars. now i wish for shooting stars.

i swear it looks better on my ceiling than here, but you got the idea

ok back to the bbq. we bbq'ed (if that's a word) and ate intensively for like half an hour and then acted crazy for the next 2 hours. we laughed 99% of the time it was a wonder we could munched food in between those howlings that made a banshee sounded sentimental. i ever glanced at the next pit and they looked all quiet and dull. i mean, it's a bbq for god's sake, not a funeral.

i think all the surrounding blocks could hear us playing poker card game bluffing, which i ended up becoming the champion. never did i know that i'm such a natural at lying. i must remember to incorporate this talent more frequently in my daily life, or at least in my resume.


the strawberry chocolate cheesecake we had

not wanting the night to end so soon, we then decided to head up for karaoke in orchard cineleasure k-box the whole night. it was an impulse. in normal day, being potentially deprived of the night sleep and yet being charged 30 dollars for it almost sounds blasphemous, but that night it felt like a right thing to do.

well, until the next morning anyway. i have had my share of a party hangover before but not as bad as this. my gastric pain kicked in, either from the screamings all night long which simon cowell could drop dead to, or from overeating during the bbq.

i don't know. what i knew was it made me not even able to stand straight, nor consume any food without feeling nauseous. if i don't know better, i'd say i'm having morning sickness. to my horor, on my way back after deciding i could not accompany my bangkok friends to roam around town any longer, i even almost dozed off while driving alone the PIE.

i am very lucky to be alive.

and that's something worth celebrating for. you know, for not being dead rather than just being born.

that's what works for me now.



...ed

a pill a day makes the sin goes away

yes. that was what written on the label of this small bottle that looked every bit like a health product, only it was inside this gift shop at plaza singapura.

i had wanted so many things in the past, but wow, this is on top of my list now. well, since last friday. who cares about recent findings about the 9th planet in our solar system, or outstanding achievements like becoming the first asian female to cross the antartica? because tell me how could those contribute to the benefit of the mankind?

invent a pill like this and you'll be helping lots, and i do mean lots, lots of people. i mean, i could go to bangkok for a 3-day trip, and all i need is 3 pills to enjoy 3 days worth of 'innocent' pain-the-town-red-no-make-it-bloody-red partying.

i'd like to go in and inspect further but the shop was closed. for all i know this could be one of those mysterious shops you always see in the movies. you know, those that owned by a spooky old lady in witch-like dress selling innocent antique stuff, which then turned out to be some sort of powerful magical artifact that was passed down from generations or something.

it was already half past 10 on that friday night when we came across this shop after late dinner at thai express. i was there to watch teenage mutant ninja turtle the movie after work. i don't think it was very nice. the movie i mean. i'd give it, say, 6/10. it was not bad actually, pretty entertaining but it didn't get me jump off my cinema chair (not that i ever done that but i heard people actually gave standing ovations to jennifer hudson after her show-stopping 'and i'm telling you i'm not going' number in dreamgirls).

like simon cowell always say, it's forgettable. after all, what could you expect from a bunch of bipedal turtles and a rat with a walking stick? i mean, the only thing i remembered after that movie was how much cheese nachos i ate and gosh, i'd have to work out over the weekend to shed those extra fats i consumed.

having a car which serves you few steps from your house elevator all the way to the your workplace elevator obviously doesn't do you any good. other than losing the chance join in the fun grabbing a free copy of todays newspaper every morning at the mrt station, i also now lost the luxury of absent-minded eatings while still maintaining proportional figure.

nevertheless, i'm proud to say that my car already hit 1000km mark today while i was on my way to mc ritchie reservoir, on my car's 23rd day.

i drove quite a distant. first from simei to braddel(my friend's place), then braddel to west coast(to visit haw par tiger balm park but turned out it was under construction. damn!), then to mc ritchie reservoir(no reason, it was on impulse), back to braddel(to get rid of my old tv inside my car bonnet to my friend's house), to tampines ikea(to check out newly opened giants, which was so crowded with people we eventually left the half full shopping cart behind those queueing customers at the cashiers, wasting my one dollar cart deposit), back to braddel(sent off my friend) and finally returned to simei.

not counting yesterday's quest, which went simei to yishun(to my friends' house), to ang mo kio(for karaoke), to east coast(for dinner), back to simei(my friend wanted to borrow some songs), to yishun(to send my friends off) before reaching back simei nearly 2am sunday morning.

i expect these could be a very good resume if i ever decide to become a taxi driver after retirement.

during brief stopover in mc ritchie, my first photos with my new car


the karaoke in ang mo kio k-box was fun, the 4 hours we were in there felt just like 40 minutes. ok we spent like an hour trying to figure how to search songs using the remote (call me old-fashioned but i beg to have the old song books system for browse through, which i think more user friendly), but after that was all quality singing and feel good time. by the end of the session when our souls returned to our bodies, we found out we were already standing on the sofas.

think about it, we didn't even need any sin-eraser pills.


...ed

i (who have nothing)

i forgot there'd be departmental meeting at 9am just now. i already had my breakfast, which was a waste considering they always have refreshments prepared. this morning we had tuna sandwich, that rolled-bread pastry thingy, which was quite nice, and of course coffee to keep everybody's awake. i must remember to put my hp ipaq alert more than 15 minutes before the next meeting.

as usual, the highlight of the meeting was the refreshments. mainly because i didn't bother to attend the technical presentations following the general update by our big boss. first, the topics presented were not related to my job scopes and second, i'd rather leave and work in the lab which would determine the amount of bonus money i'd get at the end of the quarter.

in fact, after sitting through almost an hour for the general update, you know, on how the company is doing, the market share percentages blah blah blah... i concluded that this should have been skipped too. i mean, what good could come from seeing Nand price consistent free-falling trend shown on the screen? it was so demoralizing, we might as well slack around attending meeting the whole morning instead of working our asses off. oh wait, we were already doing that!

well, almost anyway. normally we'd go for lunch at 11.30am so there was nothing much to do in between. i love lunch time because we get to eat like 5 minutes and then talk crap for half an hour, when we discuss about everything under the sun with work related stuff strictly prohibited. well, juicy gossips about our fellow colleagues are still heartily most welcomed though.

today's topics included about tv license, triggered by me after receiving notice of payment advice yesterday in my mailbox. should we or should we not pay, because it's so damn expensive. do you know they charge $110 per year for those crappy tv programs from which you watch heroes half a season late and bree still slim and not pregnant? i mean, even american idol is shown after it becomes old news considering reviews already written all over the net by the time it's on air.

talking about american idol, gosh i just love jordin sparks rendition of "i (who have nothing)" last night. what a dramatic number. how come they don't make that kind of songs nowadays? one that makes u wanna jump off the bridge and die? songs nowadays are so lame. who wants to hear how to spell 'glamourous' over and over again? or yodelling for that matter?

today after work we had our 2nd bowling league match. i did not playing this time but i promised i'd be there to support my teammates, and most importantly to join the practise game before the actual kick-off. however, when the clock striked 5.15pm just now i realized i have almost 2 hours before they'd meet at bowling alley to practise, and another hour before the match started. so what should i do? i drove back instead.

i'm sure they'd do fine without me. even if they don't, their opponent tonight was the team which thrashed all the way to victory with almost perfect 19-1 score last week, so tell me what can we expect this week? plus, i planned to go swimming now that i lost my daily power walk from my house to the train station to go to work after i got my car, and i just ate one hole stick of crunch ice-cream at tea break, not to mention double breakfast i had in the morning.

but it was raining when i reached home.in the end, i just laze around in front of tv watching sumo which i taped off nhk channel, and then american idol result. lame.

now i really do feel like jumping off a bridge.



...ed

top marks for not tryin'

when i take mrt, seems like everybody has their ears plugged with earphones. seriously, almost everybody. i expect even if you scream a vulgar word in the midle of the coach, it could be left unnoticed.

not that i blame them, because i do it too.

there's nothing much to do in within those lengthy ride. it's not like we can engange in a conversation with fellow commuters. in an asian country like this, even a friendly smile would be mistaken as ill-intention gesture.

and we cannot sleep too, because in case a heavily pregnant lady comes in and happen to stand in front of us, someone would take photo of us and post it in stomp.com.sg.

that was why when i was browsing through tebrau city mall with my friends last saturday, i found it very hard to resist the mp3 player that i saw. i'm proud to say i managed to refrain myself, until the next day when i ended up buying in tampines best denki.

the outings in jb was fun. actually the sole reason was to attend our friend's engangement ceremony in her house in permas jaya shortly after noon. ok actually quite a lengthy after noon we almost afraid the groom might not come, we were about to start stone-paper-scissors to select the replacement.

i just wish someone would tell me what an engangement ceremony was all about, so i wouldn't have missed taking the ring giving photos. how should i know, i'm sure even in my previous life i've never been through an engangement ceremony before. plus, the living room was so full with female relatives i felt like they were invading the world.

my poor friend was all red and steam, which fully pardonable considering i have just ruined the most important day of her life. ok she did not explode, but next time i must remember to ask for details whenever anybody requested my expertise to take their function photos. i should really start treating this task like a pro.

other than that unfortunate glitch, everything else was a blast, we already made plans for next outings while chatting after dinner at that steamboat restaurant in tebrau city 3rd floor. i'm dying for a karaoke session, i don't even remember when i had my last one. god knows i have plenty of practise from motor-mouthing since i got my car.

the only outings i'm sure not to put my foot in, is the ADLians reunion gathering. i kept on receiving their mails regarding the matter in between analysing failed parts in the lab today.

the problem with these people, who are my fellow hostel friends when i was in high school in kl, is that they keep on pointing fingers to find gathering organizers. in the end, nothing happens. so this is a very rare occasion that someone actually suggested something. i would go and buy 4D today if it was not prohibited.

anyway, i'm not going. first, they plan to do it in cherating. shoot me but i don't even know where that is. second, we were not close anyway. it's a long story but let's just say all of us were too immature then to appreciate each others' presence.

and lastly, the fact that it was a family day gathering. i mean, they expect ppl to buy colouring books as a present for their kids' games. colouring books! it's the last thing in my shopping list, it's almost taboo.

whose kids use colouring books nowadays anyway, or those join-the-dots craps. they hear to fall out boys.

just look in the mrt.



...ed