Scribble Bytes

Perfect Day

2009-10-16T11:07:00.008+08:00

A taste of morning light... Good Mornin'~!!!

Yesterday night, Flora kinda bet with me that I couldn't wake up in time today to return my library book and escape the fine. I insisted that it was all in the mind, and I could if I wanted to. Well... I did. So there you go Flora~!!! 2 lollipops! You promised... HAHA~!

This is the first time in a long while I actually woke up in the morning. It feels good, and the air feels so much crispier since it was raining. You know how we always tend to say "aww.. its raining, so good for sleeping". I tell you what, try waking up to a rainy day. You'll like it much better, AND the groggieness of sleep fades away faster.

So after I returned my stuff at the library, I had a sudden craving for Starbuck's Green Tea Frappe. Nothing beats it~! Good ol' Green Tea Frappe. There was some time on my hands and I decided to head to Holland V for my fix. And the timing was just great because I got to listen to the morning express with Glenn, FD, and Vernetta! Something which I haven't done in a while.

Today, everything is just perfect... Waking up to a rainy day, having more time than usual, and having a relaxed drive down the road sipping my favourite drink as breakfast and listening to my favourite radio station with my favourite DJs. Life should be like that. =)

I saw Flora's MSN nick yesterday. It said "Coffee is my best friend during exam period". It kinda inspired me to take this shot today. Although its not really coffee per se, but still! there's coffee content and its from Starbucks.

And since I'm a very content person today, I shall move on to something else. I was gonna blog about beauty queens about two weeks ago. Triggered by all the rage about Ris Low and everything. It wasn't gonna be an entry to give her more beating than what she already received. I mean... It was already getting kinda boring. I actually meant to blog about beauty queens and public figures in general. But I somehow lost my writing momentum halfway through. So it didn't materialize. To compensate for that, check this out!

Jenson Button's Girlfriend

Model Jessica Michibata~! A mix of Argentine, Spanish, Italian and Japanese Blood. Pretty messed up, but a good concoction nevertheless. She's one of those rare ang mohs that i take fancy to cause I'm not usually an ang moh person. I prefer the softer features of the asian girl. Probably has to do with her Jap blood... Took notice of her during the F1 period with all the news and buzz about Jenson Button. Lucky guy he is. Well, with deep pockets and good looks, its only fitting isn't it?

Haha... Actually I don't know where this entry is going. It's just the kaypoh side of me showing. I have those times too~!

- Okay, Back to study -

A bite into the apple

2009-09-29T03:32:00.025+08:00

The blogger dashboard suddenly looked so foreign to me as i signed in. Two bloody months of hiatus.... and PHEW~! I'm back~! Did you guys miss me? HAHAHA~!

_____________________________________________________

Anyways, I'm not gonna "photo vomit" after the long break, like how Kai Wei always say I do. Nope, for once I'm not. Instead, I'll start with an entry about the MacBook Pro, which I bought earlier in the month. Now now... Apple haters, don't start turning green. I'm not an evangelist. I'm just another... Mac user, a neutral one at that.

I'd have to admit that it was a largely irrational decision to buy it. Critical people would most probably call me a mac-poseur or something along the lines, for wanting to get the MacBook purely for its looks, and the brand status that inadvertently comes with it. But tell me, how can you blame a person for wanting to get a product that exudes such fine elegance on the surface and behaves so technologically advanced in its interface (Surface, Interface. Whee! It rhymes!).

I somehow placed it on the pedestal, convincing myself that the Mac interface was absolutely clean and problem free, and using it was very much like gliding across a glacier. That was the picture they painted in my mind. I thought gone were the days of abrupt error messages, and lagging speeds. But I soon realised that it wasn't all blue skies and sunshine within the first hour of usage.

Reality Check #1

The friggin' super drive (and so Steve Jobs call it, when in fact it really is just a DVD drive) is absolutley the noisiest DVD ROM drive I have ever heard since the 1980s~! Okay... abit of exaggeration, but you get my point. The first disc that went in was the MS Office installation disc and boy it sounded like it was gonna transform into bumblebee. Wait. Thats actually a nice thought~! *sniggers* but yes.... noisy noisy NOISY~!!!

Reality Check #2

The aluminium uni-body that they boast about is creating a very big problem for itself. Heat conduction. Heat generated from the insides of the body gets conducted furiously to the aluminium exterior and as a result, makes it uncomfortable to the touch and impossible to use the laptop on the lap. HAH~!

Reality Check #3

Apple no doubt possesses cutting edge technology and it is evident in their products. But what is it really cutting? My friggin wrists. The edges of the Macbook are so sharp even a meaty person like me feel the pain. Now thats what I call cutting edge technology... Bleah~!

Reality Check #4

Like how most laptops lag when being stressed with resource hogging applications, the Macbook isn't spared as well. While toggling between Safari, Photoshop and MS Words (all with a few windows opened), the Macbook showed minor signs of lag. Wasn't a big issue, but would have preferred if it didn't exist. Shows that it is only ~~human~~ laptop afterall.

Reality Check #5

I was having a meeting with my project mates one day and we decided to take a break. So we started fooling around by taking pictures with photo booth (an application that came with the Macbook). We were having so much fun, we just took picture after picture when finally it decided it was sick of us and threw an error message IN OUR FACES. That was the very first error message i got on the Macbook and my jaw dropped in disbelief. HOW COULD THE MACBOOK HAVE ERROR MESSAGES~!?

Reality Check #6
Mac version of MSN cannot be used to log in, in my school network. Only the windows version of MSN. That is just screwed up. Everyone else gets to fool around in boring lectures by doing MSN, but I can't~! MAJOR BUMMER~! I know there are alternatives to get around the problem, but still~!!!

I don't know why I'm dissing the product that I still love and proud to be using. I guess I did feel a little cheated. But despite all these, there are still so many other things about it that makes me totally sold. Exposé totally turns me on. Yeah... hell yeah!!! Its an application whereby you get to select from a list of hot chicks who you want to see totally exposed and butt naked on live cam. How does it sound guys? Free service brought to you by dunbestupid.com.

Then there is the multi-touch function on the trackpad that allows you to touch multiple areas of the hot chicks on exposé. And it actually feels like the real thing! How cool is that? Different hand signals trigger different functions. You can twist with your thumb and index finger, or sliding your three or four fingers in any of the four directions (up, down, left, right) to trigger certain ~~reactions~~ functions.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!!!!! OMG I'm getting a kick out of this bullshit~!!!

Anyways!!!! Whatever I said about exposé, the multi-touch track pad and the different hand movements are ludicrous bullcrap. They exist though!!! And they serve as awesome functions on the macbook. I just thought they sounded kinky and had different ideas for them. =D Steve Jobs must be fuming right now. Or maybe not... he might actually buy my ideas... HAHAHAHA~!!! Can you imagine him as a pervy old man?

Ok. Actually cannot lah. He is too genius to be put in that light.

I just realised I'm digressing too much. Lolx... Back to the topic. So far so good for the Macbook Pro, except for the little annoyances which can be adapted to and forgiven in time. Its still cool though. Yet to fully understand and utilize its hidden functions, but surface stuff like exposé, the Multi-touch trackpad, iPhoto and other applications are really extremely useful and did I mention instinctive? The whole system is very instinctive and makes usage a breeze. Not only that! Battery life is almost 7 hours under 3/4 screen brightness and normal usage. The keypad feels good to the touch and check out the adjustable backlights! The startup time is about 15 seconds and shutdown time is like 5 seconds? Freaking sleek.

What more can I say?

What does a trillion dollars look like?

2009-07-02T03:01:00.003+08:00

Nothing good comes from being excessively rich

I've been watching the channel 8 drama 双子星 in dribs and drabs. I was rather unconvinced at the start of the series but its definitely getting more exciting now. That aside, the show portrays the very cliche struggle for inheritance of a wealthy, but dying man. It reminds me of an article I read about how happy families got broken up after gaining a certain amount of wealth.

For those who don't know. In the states, their powerball lottery jackpot could snowball into the hundreds of millions and there are "lucky" people who have laid sole claim to the prize money. Well, there are happy endings and there are not-so-happy endings. If my memory serves me, there was a guy who was the sole winner to the USD $300 mil draw. At that point in time, I'm sure he was the envy of many. But now, his life is nothing but a train-wreck. 5 years after he claimed his prize, he is heavily in debt, his family members fought over the money that he once had and are no longer on talking terms. Few of them became druggies or alcoholics. Pretty much what happens in dramas. BUT THIS IS A REAL LIFE STORY. A living example of how money can bring about one's demise.

Which explains my opening statement.

Nothing good comes from being excessively rich. Take the late Micheal Jackson for example. Yes, he was down with heavy debts, faced bankruptcy. But there was a point when he was wealthy, and people had their eyes on his money. I feel thats the problem with being rich. There'll always be people who wants a piece of the cake, and for micheal, even in his death. Its unfortunate, really. I mean, leave the dead guy alone already~! Despite the facade of his stardom, i think he has lead a miserable life because people never understood him, and they never will because he's gone. RIP MJ...

So anyway, back to the topic of a trillion dollars. You've read on the news. US trillion dollar bailout plans for the economy. Trillion this~! Trillion that~!!! But have you ever wondered how a trillion looks like? Well, I recieved a mail a few days ago that showed me what a trillion bucks would look like, and I wanted to share this with you guys.

OK, lets go step by step now. The picture below shows a US hundred dollar bill. This is currently the largest denomination in general circulation:

And below, we have a stack of these hundred dollars bills that would make up $10,000. Its less than 1/2 an inch thick; almost the thickness of your handphone. Definitely more than what most people earn in a month.

This next pile is how a one million dollar pile of $100 notes would look like with an average sized guy standing beside it. Just about bigger than your gaming console. Its shockingly small~!

Next, sitting nicely on a single pellet is a $100 million dollars. Now, thats more like it~!

Ok~! Hold your breath~! Here comes a billion dollars!!! Ten pellets of $100 million dollars. Placed together, it will make a nice deluxe bed. XD

AND Finally.... Behold~!!!!!!! One Trillion Dollars~!!!!!!! What a majestic sight~!!! That, my friends is the image of $1,000,000,000,000. Its a 1, followed by 12 zeros. Its a million, million dollars.

and note that they are double stacked pellets~!

That is what President O is hoping will save the crisis. An ultra expensive defibrillator for the economy.

- Till Next Time~!!! -

The Long Walk

2009-06-13T23:18:00.004+08:00

Every painful step brought me closer to my goal

We decided to do something healthy for the holidays, and we did! After failing to get the numbers who would join us, we (Marilyn, Leo and Me) decided to just go ahead with the plan ourselves, and it proved to be fruitful.

We were blessed with fine weather on the 16th of May. Walking through the southern ridges from Vivocity to the final destination of Clementi central, we walked a total of about 9 kilometers of never ending slopes and stairs. Setting off from Vivo at 9am, we finally reached Clementi central at about 3pm. So you do the math... lolx. The whole journey was a very gruelling one, taking into consideration that I have not been excersizing for almost a year now. By the time we finally reached our destination, Leo seemed to be the only one still going strong. My legs felt like they were on fire and Marilyn was complaining of back pain. Nevertheless we still did it~!!! And I'm proud to say that~!!!

It was all songs, chatter and losing our way during the whole time (I'll admit that I stopped talking completely during the last few kilometers as I was completely drained out). Had fun! and won't mind doing it again. Definitely~!!!

Joke of the day:
Marilyn: Eh~!! I wanna go down that way to see pond leh...
Me: Huh? O.O (thinking crooked)
Leo: Go down that way lah... It will lead us to the pond...
Me: Ohhhh pond... I thought you wanna see porn. XD
Leo & Mar: =.=
Me: Lolx.. go to the pond and see porn. *laughs to myself*

Ok i know its sooo not funny at all... But, whatever!!!

This is where we officially stopped. Opposite the NUS campus @ Clementi woods. And slowly strolled our way across the expressway to clementi central for late lunch. Went home after that and immediately concussed after a nice warm bath. ZZZzzz....

- END -

I'm back from hiatus

2009-05-27T04:17:00.006+08:00

A hearty laugh to drown out the disappointment

I was on my blog hopping routine earlier when i read a post a friend wrote about her day at work. Her entry was about a patient of hers, who was once a promising medical undergrad a couple of months ago, who fell ill to some illness (cancer i think...) and now bedridden, and struggling to even slightly move her limbs. I am usually indifferent when I read stuff like this. Call me heartless, but there is nothing I can do about it, nor does it affect me. But somehow, this entry managed to arouse a sense of regret for this patient.

Maybe its because I can relate to it. I've lost a good friend to brain cancer in the past and the events leading up to his death was nothing less than excruciating for both himself and his family. I saw with my own eyes the gradual manifestation of a disease that soon took away the life force of a once extremely active person. And through the experience i could actually picture how this patient would have looked now.

Actually, come to think of it, I have not visited his grave for quite some time. I should make it a point this year. I hope he's in good hands now. I know he is.

So please friends, take good care of yourselves. Live healthy, live happy. AND CHERYL~!!! Please try to quit smoking. Haha.. I've also started going on my diet now. My "slim wardrobe" is still filled with awesome clothes waiting for me to get back into. = )

____________________________________________________________

Okays~! Lets get back to business. Sorry yet again for lack of updates.

2nd May - Post Exam Makan @ Lau Pa Sat

It was a bloody Saturday and we had to sit for our "organizational behavior" paper. Its the paper that I dread the most because of the amount of information that I had to commit to memory. But nevertheless, after the paper, we threw everything aside and gathered the numbers to have a mini post-exam celebration at lau pa sat and stuffed our face with food. Good food. Good company. And exams are over. What more can we ask for?

Mutton soup. Beli niceee~!!!!

Photo collage courtesy of Marilyn. Xie Xie Ni~!!!

____________________________________________________________

Fang Yi's birthday celebration

Finally, after so loooong of delaying cos of my exams, we got down to arranging a belated birthday celebration for her. We couldn't think of what to get for her. And her blog's wishlist items were waaaaay above budget. Hahaha.. eh babe~! next time lower the standard can? Anyway, we still got her something she wanted on her last year's wishlist. Which was the Burberry Brit perfume. Then something stupid happened. I met up with her and cecilia earlier to wait for the rest to get off work. And as we walked into Sasa, she casually commented that she had too many perfumes sitting at home and wanted to sell some away. I was like =.=... Disappointed and felt stupid for getting her the perfume. But at the restaurant, when we were finally having dinner. I passed her the present and she opened it, she still looked elated to recieve it. So I guess she'd still be using it anyways... = D

____________________________________________________________

Check this out!!!

Knowing how much of a sucker I am for chocolates, Sanjeev brought back from the UK a giant slab. Its from a chocolate specialty shop there called Hotel Chocolat. Yeps, its spelled that way. I especially liked the logo font and the way the pakaged it. Its very classy. Andddd. at the back of the packaging, they printed the story of how their concept of giant slabs came about and stuff. Very interesting~!!!

I got abit intimidated by the fact that he bought me a chilli and orange combination flavoured one though. Andbecause it was so big, i couldn't find a container to put it in. So I had to cut it into small bits. After putting my first piece into my mouth i cringed because it tasted wierd. but after a few more pieces, you'll actually realise that it taste quite tangy... Its absolutely delicious can~!!! WOOO~!!!

__________________________________________________________

To end this post. I just wanna show off my new gadget. All hail the Samsung UltraTouch mobile phone, all equipped with an 8 M.pixel camera and touch screen interface. It is damn sleek and feels good to the touch. It was an impulse buy though. Happen to stumble upon a review of it online and it was love at first sight. Never regretted though. So far so good~!

And the single best thing I like about this phone.... OK...

wait for it...

wait for it...

issss.... this~!

Ability to change the fonts~!!! I know it sounds damn bimbotic and all... cos newer models of samsung phones all have this feature. BUT its still cool, and I still love it anyway. Sue me... lolx...

Test shots:

Don't laugh~!!! It was purely for a test shot...~!!!

Pork knuckles at White Dog's Cafe being torn apart.

Shot from Chinese Garden MRT

Vivi's fake "Hello Kitty" T-Shirt... HAHAHA... took it one day when we were having desert at new york's. That idiot went to delete the unglam photo I took of her. lolx...

A sketch I did as an idea for a council event poster. But I don't think I'll use it cause it looks too unpolished. I'll prolly think of another idea.

Not bad lah the camera. Still lives up to expectations. I am pleased.

Evans out~!

Backdated Entries

2009-05-09T06:07:00.002+08:00

Holidays, finally...

6:10 a.m.: *Buses starting to cause a stir in the background*

Mind: Sleep~!!!
Heart: BLOG~!
Mind: Sleeeeeep~!!!!!
Heart: BLOOOG LAAHHHH~!
Fingers: *neemmmeemmhmmppff* (rouses from sleep)

6:16 a.m.: *Another bus passes*
(fingers start to sleep walk...)

Fast one before i sleep.......

Pre-Exams Party @ Butterfactory

________________________________________

Sidenote: Remember the photoshoot I was talking about? The one for the council organisational chart. Well, I only got my hands on one of em'. The one with me in it of course. =)

- Alright, off to sleep. Will update again tmr. -

Long, Long Blog Entry

2009-04-10T04:09:00.008+08:00

Thank you cher, for giving me the extra nudge i needed to update the blog

I've just submitted my last project assignment for the semester yesterday.

Firstly, cheers to that~!!!! lolx... god, its about time...

Classes have all ended. I'm finally in my study break now before the final hurdle for the semester, and quite frankly, I'm worried. I haven't started my revision and it is scary just thinking about it, as the exams are like 2 weeks away. Well, at least I have my two weeks. Thankfully~! So I guess I'll have to make the best out of it.

So far, for my midterm tests and assignments, I've gotten a mix of high distinctions, distinctions and pass level grades. So everything is still rather okay, apart from the fact that I set out with higher expectations. Its still possible to achieve them, but time is working against me.

With classes ending and the exams drawing near, activity in school has also visibly started to slow down. BUT in the student council, things doesn't really slow down much. Actually, it has started picking up. With outings and events crashing in these few weeks. I don't know what to make of it. And to tell the truth, I've been so involved with council stuff that I've been hanging out with my friends in council more than my lecture group mates, which I'm feeling quite guilty about. People in council are just plain crazy, which is what I like about them. Work hard, play harder~!!! Lolx...

Alot of things have happened the past month or so. I really don't know where to start telling the story. So, I'm just going to group pictures according to the events and throw them in here, in no particular order of date.

_______________________________________________________

Marketing and Promotions Department Internal Gathering

Every department in student council has an internal gathering of thier own during the semester. This is to help freshies get to know other members of the department and vice versa. Ours was held at Beaufort Hotel in Sentosa. But it was held pretty late in the semester, so basically we freshies already knew quite alot of the senior members through our publicity work teams, monthly meetings and casual outings. To us, this event was more like a getaway from school and stress for the weekend.

As my department head, Bernie likes to say that we are different from the other departments, so even internal gathering also must be more atas than other departments. Ours weren't the normal rooms. We booked a suite and squeezed all 30+ of us in. And we had to hide when one of the staff came up at one point to inform us that other guests have complained about our noise level. The event was a success and we really had great fun.

Playing three legged soccer on the beach:

Adrian, my partner for the game. It was freaking energy sapping man, the game.

Bernie, my department head, setting a bad example. Lolx... The girl beside him is Misha, our ex-head who graduated recently. Ohhhh... and, we found out that Bernie's dad and my dad have known each other through work for a very long time already. And now the sons are working together in the student council. How cool is that?

My clique in council. Me taking the pic for them of course... lolx

Someone took a pic of me taking a photo for them.

And this is the resulting photo I took.

The two biggest guys in our department. Haha... He is Vinod. The xtra girl is Adeline. lolx

Playing drinking games...

The Amount of booze we had. Oh.. this is not including the two 5kg kegs of beer.

Yeah... Zhicao happily carrying one of the kegs... :)

I drank ALOT that night. Vomitted terribly like a merlion and after that knocked out totally. They were telling me the next day that they were tickling my nose and taking pictures of me when I was knocked out. But no response from me. lolx... must have been really gone...

__________________________________________________

Joint Birthday Celebration of Yu Hua, Ben and Cher

I organised a birthday bbq celebration for the 3 of them since their birthdates were so close to each other. I invited Cheryl along too~!!! It was my first attempt at organising a bbq at ben's house. I would say it went quite well. Only that the food was an overkill. Really sinful to waste food like that man.

Chocolate truffle cake from Prima. Comes highly recommended =)

I'm glad Cheryl came to attend the event. She enjoyed herself~!!!

Chilling out...

ANTM Season 100... HAHAHAH~!!

Cher forcing us to to alphabets for her. It spells as "LOVE CHER". Damn thick skin... hahaha

________________________________________________

Student council freshies gathering + Movienation

This was the first time the freshies from all the departments held a gathering together, without the senoirs. It was a good chance to interact with freshies from other departments since we still haven't had chances to work together. But most who attended were from the makerting & promotions dept, which i'm in, and student relations dept. Only one member from events department came. It was quite pathetic. Wonder where the rest of the events freshies were.

Me with my M&P clique. We call ourselves "the hood".

Act vain scene, Take 1~!

Me trying to be Charlie... Lolx

Try different angle...

After dinner, it was off to the cinema upstairs at Suntec. Its an event called Movienation. We booked the whole theatre for a screening of Fast & Furious 4 which has just been launched yesterday. I was in the publicity planning team for this event. It was alot of work!!! Had to do proposals, event poster, flyers, ticket design and booth decorations. It was a great learning experience though. This event was actually organised for students of RMIT in SIM because the school subsidised part of the cost, we were selling the tickets at only $5. But in the end, I think more than 60% of the seats were taken by us councilors. Lolx...

Outside the cinema

After the movie, most of the council people stayed behind to mingle around. But I had an assignment to hand in the next day and there was still alot left to do. So I went off early with a few others. The picture below was taken after I left. See how many people from council were there? And not all that were there are in the picture. So in fact, the event was more like organised for ourselves. =.=... HAHA... Oh~!!! you see the poster in the middle being raised up. I designed it... *proud* Lolz...

_________________________________________________

Random Pictures:

The booth decoration that we did for MovieNation. It took us a few hours just to construct and paint the car, and we were so elated after completing it. Look at how relieved everyone is after the work. haha...

My poster being displayed at the booth in school...

Went down on the first day of Movienation booth duty to ensure that the booth was set up to how we intended it to be.

Casual dinner after M&P meeting one night...

A quickly taken picture while in the lift. Told ya council people were crazy... hahaha...

Casual dinner one friday night... I like the effect of this picture...

Our M&P department had a photoshoot recently too. We booked a cafe in holland V, where our photoshoot took place. The photographer was quite skillful and the pictures turned out really really nice. Haven't gotten some of the pictures yet but i've seen them. Will post them up when I get my hands on them.

Till then.... Ciao~!

1st Anniversary

2009-03-08T23:46:00.003+08:00

- Give me a hug will ya? -

Although this entry is dated one day after the actual anniversary, but WHAT BALLS?!?! Its still cause for celebration. This is the first blog that I've actually been able to maintain for a full year. Damn~! I needa give myself a pat on the back.

Anyways, I was planning to mark this occasion with a new skin, but as consequences would have it, I couldn't. I was just too damn busy. Many things in the line up for Scribblebytes though.

- more covers
- new skin
- pictures
- more juicy stuff....

Fuck lah... I can't think of anymore. But yes... They will come in time. Lolx...

What have I been up to?

OK. Before I even bore you with the details of my mundane life. I just wanna say I miss everyone in NYP. My life in NYP was so segmented that I have pockets of friends here and there.

MB0405 people~!!! (check!)
MB0402 people~!!! (check!)
MB0501 people~!!! (check!)
FYP people~!!! (check!)
Huiyee, Karen, Siya, Siti~!!! (check!)

People... I really miss you~!!!

Haha... sorry for the emo moment. I just suddenly feel like I miss NYP so much. Not that my life is shitty now. Actually, it kinda rocks!

So so so...!!!
School has been pretty good. Though rather hectic with a piling amount of work and assignments to do. Nevertheless, I scored a distinction for my stats mid term test which I am rather proud about. Lolx... But I know, its only a midterm test. Don't know if I can hang in there the rest of the sem. Gotta maintain man~!!!

And also....
I made it into the school's student council~!!! Hahaha~!!! I didn't expect to get in though. Cause I thought my interview was quite shitty. Very stressing, cos I was interviewed by a panel of maybe 8-10 people, all with laptops in front of them and there were one or two of them who were furiously typing, like recording everything I said. They consisted of the president of the council, and also all the department heads. Like WTF!?!? And thier questions came in fast and furious~!!! Hahaha... alot to be learnt from the experience though...

But nevertheless, a week after they finished interviewing the candidates, I recieved a call saying that I was selected for council, under the makerting and promotions department. So, Yays~!!! Council is quite active though. So yeah... I've never had the habit of carrying an organiser, but after I joined council, I started carrying one because there was just too many things going on.

I like the fact that the council is structured like a REAL organisation with different departments and heads, all with different roles to play to make things happen. I got to know alot more people, and it really feels like one big family.

OK i'm almost done with the talking. I'm sure you guys will hear more from me about council cause many events are coming up, and I happen to be on the planning team for a couple of them.

Casual dinner with a small group of my council mates on a Friday evening. More pics later... lolx...

____________________________________________________

Outing With The Homies From Poly

Allen was gonna leave for Taiwan for training. So we decided to hold an outing. The last time I saw him was like more than a year ago man. We went KBox-ing before going for shisha at arab street.

When we're still sober

Then, the beer got to us

Total mayhem.... hahaha

Nerd specs.... courtesy of Allen Chin~!!! lolx... Nicely done collage courtesy of Cheryln Woon~!!! Allen says I look like Fang Da Tong... WTH~!

Allen and Shawn doing para para~!!!

Allen and Shawn singing Vengaboys - Boom Boom Boom
Check out the last part of the video man... Kallang wave.... lolx

Me trying to gay... Lolx... damn disgusting!

Arab Street: Shisha

- Totally Rocks~!!! -

Are you part of a lost generation?

2009-02-23T01:20:00.003+08:00

there's still hope, if you follow the light

I came across this video. And really, its very cleverly done. Reversal requires so much more than a click of the mouse. But its spreading the seeds of change very effectively. 3 million views and counting.... Only problem is, can the seeds be cultivated effectively in this 3 million people... and counting? It can. If only you'll give it some light.

ps: lack of updates due to school and anime.... muahaha... blame it on cheryln~!!! She recommended a damn AWESOME series to me. Damn you cher~!!! lolx..... I'll ask the empress to give you a kick in the butt...

pps: I promise more updates soon ya. Don't desert this page~!!! Please~!!!

New year blues...

2009-01-26T02:35:00.007+08:00

旧的不去新的不来
(The old will have to go, to make way for the new)

New Year Blues #1
The top phrase on my billboard has to be this. After making known to people that I have lost my handphone "YET AGAIN" 2 days ago in a fitting room, this phrase have been ringing in my ears, coupled with the incessant nagging from my mum. And there's a reason I put inverted commars on "YET AGAIN". I'll come to that later.

The irony is this. My situation is the exact opposite of the phrase. To begin with, my Razr V9 was a new phone I just acquired about 5 months ago. And the phone I am using as a replacement now is my dad's old Nokia 6300, which coincidentally is also the same phone that I used before I got my Razr. So in this perspective, the new actually made way for the old. Lolz...

I didn't actually lose it like I didn't know where it went. Some bugger of an ah beng conveniently took it and ran off. That I know for sure. Why? I don't wish to explain anymore. He took it, I know it. I feel like I resemble a person now, given the time of the year.

Nooo~!!! You don't say~!!! A pity I've never been at the receiving end.

Anyway, there's this general belief that when your eyelid twitches, it is a bad omen. I usually believe that eyelid twitching is more of a biological phenomenon than anything else. But I have to admit that on that very day, about an hour before the phone got stolen, i was actually complaining to my sis that my eyelids were twitching. What to make of it? I got only this to say: "Proceed with caution~!!!"

Coming to the topic of "Yet Again"

A number of them went along the lines of "huh? you lost it again?"

Errr excuse me? Since when have I ever lost my handphone? Yes, I've lost many other things before, but I don't seem to remember losing a handphone. Maybe I came close to losing my HP a few times before, but they always found their way back to me. So where did all the false impressions come from? I wonder...

New Year Blues #2
Last year's CNY was great! I could get clothes that I liked easily. This year, I wasn't in the mood for shopping. Because I know the only places I could get my clothes were from either Queensway or Excelsior hotel, the Fat man's paradise. And no matter how I dress, I won't look half as good. The general mood at home is also not as "warmed up" as it used to be. Is it just me?

___________________________________________________________

On a totally different note, I was talking on MSN with Ashlyne earlier in the night, and we were talking about CNY, and Ferrero Rocher, and growing fat. And I was suddenly inspired. So out came my camera and the box of rochers sitting in the kitchen. Lolz...

Hahaha... Ash~!!! Thanks for the inspiration~!!!

HAPPY CNY EVERYONE~!!!!

The "compulsory" orientation

2009-01-21T01:56:00.004+08:00

All has been smooth sailing thus far...

I'm into week 3 of school. And everything has been going well for me. The location is very near to my house. I have driven to school everyday. My timetable is spaced out rather nicely. The lecturers are good compared to poly lecturers (I can sit through the 3 hour lectures and still keep my attention from drifting on most occasions). I've met a few old acquaintances on campus. I've been hooked up with a bunch of cool people. And I'm still getting to know new people every other day.

So that is pretty much the story since school started.

Orientation helped alot though. For I would have been alone in my course without it. People who are already in SIM told me that orientation is very important for establishing a network. Because if I don't go, then I'll be very lonely. And group projects will pose a problem. As it turns out.... They were very true. I am glad I made the decision to go for orientation.

Every OG had to come up with a flag of our own using magazines. This was what we came up with. tsk...

SUPER ugly picture of me wearing a stocking over my head in one of the games. Damn~! Now cannot go and rob bank already. The cops will know how I look like with stockings.

Do you trust your OGL's and friends when you go blind?

Getting down and dirty...

Performing on stage during dinner bash. One of the most embarrassing moments...

Team MAJIDE~!!!!

Candid~!!

Reach for the skies~!!!

School life rox~!!!! XD

Happy 2009, people~!!!

2009-01-02T20:19:00.009+08:00

Yo people~!!! First entry of 2009!!!

I've been too slumped back in my own little world that 2009 hasn't really sunken into my thick head yet. But as I was traveling on the train this morning, something I saw really hit me. The train was packed with primary and secondary school students. And the first thing that really caught my attention wasn't so much of the excited chatter, or the lifeless expressions of those snoozing in the early morning train. But it was the sparkly white newness of the shoes they were wearing. It then hit me that it was their first day of school of 2009. I suddenly reminisced about the old times when I used to confidently wear my new pair of Bata shoes which cost only like what? $32?

Yes yes... the good ol' Bata shoes.

Do they even cost $32 now? lolx... god knows....
Anyway, thats not the point. The point is:

Bloody hell~!!!
Its friggin' 2009. No time to lose~!!!

And like a rude awakening, I was brought back to life from my own wonderland. "Welcome back..." A deep, echoing, but somewhat familiar voice spoke in my head. "What are your plans this year, master?" I had none. "Gimme some time!" I retorted. "Just a gentle reminder master, our achievements last year are.........." He hesitated.

"yes?" I was getting impatient with the old fool.

"ZERO!!!" his booming voing was tainted with mockery, I could tell. And it slowly faded off...

A few minutes after, I decided to put it at the back of my mind. I rummaged through my bag to look for my phone, and saw the brown, canvassed organiser which I bought from Starbucks a couple of months ago. It was there, hiding deep in the pockets of my bag. Like a sign calling out to me, I knew what I had to do the moment I reached home.

_____________________________________________

Anyway, if you're wondering what I was doing on the train that early on a Friday morning. I was actually on the way to the airport to send Sanjeev off. Yes, yes... My gay partner, my girlfreind, my... whatever you wanna call. Hahaha... as long as I know both of us are straight.

He is heading for Brighton, UK. To study a year of law foundation before moving to London, where he will pursue his law degree. He will be there for a total of 4 years. Haizzzz... no one to hang around and talk shit anymore....

So, I called Cher and Dee along as well, as the 4 of us started off as a clique right from the beginning of poly. Everyone was dead sure that I would be late, knowing my habit. But as circumstances would have it. I was the first to arrive at the airport. Even before Sanjeev and his family. He was late because of last minute packing.. -.-|| Dee and Cher woke up LATE!!! Cher made it in time by taxi. But Dee missed it totally. The sotong came to the airport but forgot her phone. So she couldn't find us and we couldn't contact her. haiz...

His flight was scheduled for takeoff at 9:05 am... so at 8:40am... He couldn't wait any longer for Dee and we took pictures, said our goodbyes, and he off he went... Hahaha... I could see that the bugger almost cried when he hugged his dad... But he held it in with all his might. He later called me when he was inside the plane before takeoff and confessed... MUAHAHA.... Chill lah dude... It's friggin natural to cry in situations like these. We'll see you back during your holidays... Just make sure you STUDY LIKE CRAZY... and live your dreams of becoming a money laundering lawyer~!!! XD...

Dee's missing~!!! Haiz...

Cher took a pic of me taking a pic for his family. WTH~!!! haha..

I Finally Have A Lawyer Friend!
Now don't pray pray with me hor... If not I sue you ah~!!! LOLZ...

___________________________________

And since we're on the topic of school. Seems like some of you still don't know. But yes, I'll also be starting school AGAIN.

Yeap... AGAIN is the word. I've enrolled myself into SIM. The degree is from RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). Its a Bachelor of Business Management degree. And yeah, I'm looking forward to it, but yet at the same time, dreading school all over again. Its sort of a bitter-sweet feeling.

A new beginning nonetheless. New friends, new environment, new life, new everything~!!! I just hope all goes well this time. Finally, I'm dragged out of my aimless existence. Which I'm rather happy about.

Ganbatte everyone~!!!

ps: The Homer Simpson figurine was a gift from Sanjeev when he went to Lisbon, Portugal, for holiday last year. I thought it'd be appropriate to use it for this entry. Lolx...

I wanna complain !!!!

2008-12-30T23:40:00.003+08:00

Friggin Pringles cheated me of almost an inch or more of chips. This was how empty it was when I opened it~!!! WTF?

Another one bites the dust

2008-12-27T17:36:00.003+08:00

A week ago, I got woken up by a deafening sound of carnage. There was a tyre screech followed by a very loud crash, followed by the horn of the car which didn't go off for a very long time. It was even louder than the fatal crash a few months ago. I cringed and thought "wah... that was it man... another fatal one.." I rushed to my window and the car was in full view. The damage wasn't as bad as it sounded. And soon after, the driver and the passenger came out of the car calmly. The horn continued to sound after a few minutes and I concluded that the system got screwed up already lah. Some nearby joggers came to help disconnect the horn. Being kaypoh... I took out my camera to snap a pic of the scene. Zoomed in to the max, but still can't see much detail. haha...

The thing is... When I left my house that day, I had to pass by near the accident area. And only then did i realise that the lamp post there had been unrooted and fallen flat on the ground. The car had actually rammed into the lamp post and grounded it. Yet, the car itself wasn't too badly damaged and both driver and passenger escaped unscathed. Amazing!

Didn't I tell you guys before the road adjacent to my block was a danger area? See... another one... I've witnessed one too many accidents here...

The long, big entry

2008-12-23T06:41:00.007+08:00

Please give some time for pics to load. Thanks.

So... Finally the post that I've been talking about. Okay, here goes:

I was given the opportunity to work with a production team about a month ago to film an MTV. I was recruited as a runner A.K.A sai gang warrior. The pay was actually very low, and working hours were extremely long and unearthly. But I took up the job as I thought it would be a great experience. And indeed it was~!!! I really had alot of fun and saw things differently after that. We always hear celebs saying on TV that shooting is tough, very tiring, blah blah.... I used to think that they're just exaggerating. But I was very wrong. It was really really very exhausting. ALOT of work has to be done before shooting even starts. And I really mean ALOT. No kiddin. I have a newfound respect for them now. Just a short 4 minutes MTV was crazy work already. I just can't imagine how much more effort goes into filming full fledged movies man.

One of them was asking me "Watch pirated stuff damn shiok rite? So now you know how much effort goes into filming ah? Still wanna watch?"

errr... hahaha....

Anyway, let me introduce you to the artiste whom we shot. Her name is Ming Bridges. 17 this year. For those of you who watch central, you might be able to recognize her. She was the lead actress in one of the dramas called R.E.M awhile ago. The purpose of this shoot was to come out with an MTV for a track in her Christmas album that was released last year. Its a rock remix version of "let it snow! let it snow! let it snow!"

But it was far from snowing outside. The heat was really killing us. Especially on the second day of shooting. Shall not rant on further. Enjoy the pics...

Well... we ended the shot at slightly later than 2am that day. But we were supposed to report back at the Arena at 6am, which is 4 hours later. All of us went home nonetheless, to shower and change into new clothes. Before we left, we were like bidding each other see-you-laters. It was quite funny. Anyway, I had the company transport to drive me home, and to pick me up the few hours later too. So not that bad. I had barely an hour's sleep though. Got back to the Arena finding everybody with stoned faces.

So next day's shoot was still at the Arena. But the pictures of the day's shoot is in another girl's camera. I wasn't able to get her to send it to me in time. So yeah... no pics... which is sad, because after we finished at the arena at about 12 noon, we went over to the esplanade tunnel for a shot there. AND then, for the final shot, we went to Ming's actual house. Which was totally cool. I don't think I will reveal where though, don't wanna invite trouble. But well firstly, the lifts go straight up to her house. The door opens, and presto, you're already inside the house itself. There are two units on each level and guess what? They bought both units on their level and broke down the connecting walls to make ONE big unit. So they actually own the whole level. Coolness. I have a photo of her living room though. Taken with my lousy phone cam.

Yeah... Oh of course the big lightbox belongs to the crew lahh...

Anyways, after the whole shot was over, I was a little sad over that fact that it was over because I really had fun. The crew and the production team are actually different entities altogether. They don't always get to work together. So after everything ended and as everyone was packing up, there were lots of hugs and handshakes and picture taking going on. A job well done~!!! Her mum and dad went around thanking everyone as well. Its like one big family. Again, no pictures because the pics are all with another girl who is currently on holiday overseas. We all were given a copy of Ming's christmas CD. And all of us queued up to get her autograph... lolx~!! Look I got mine~!!!

I followed the production team back to the office where we had to unload all our stuff back to the stores. And after that, we had a small celebration dinner with beer of course. Pics again not with me. I only took one pic of the mugs of beer we had on our tables. Cheers~!!!

The video is already done and it has been screening at the big screen outside shaw house since December 13th. It will be there till Dec 26th, every 30 minutes. For those who won't be going there, don't fret. They've loaded it up on her official website and youtube. For your convenience, I have it embeded here. Enjoy the fruits of our labour.... hahaha....

Oh btw... there is a short footage at the end after the song finishes... That's the scene from her house.

Some of you have commented that its only so-so... Cher said it was amatuerish... But I feel that it was quite well done actually... hahaha... Maybe I felt that way because I actually had a part to play in it... But everyone is entitled to have their own opinions. So yeah...

just a little update...

2008-12-19T16:01:00.003+08:00

I have decided to remove the media box completely, if you haven't already noticed.

It dawned on me that its not actually such a great idea to place a music player on the blog. There are several reasons behind this thought, and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me. These are my 10 good reasons to back my stand.

1) Makes the loading of the blog a tad slower.
Makes sense, doesn't it. Kill your reader's bandwidth with PICTURES~!!! not MUSIC~!!!

2) People have different preference to music.
And if the music doesn't suit the reader's preference, it turns the reader off. C'mon... let em' read the blog in peace.

3) Could give readers a shock if they have forgotten to tone down their speaker volume.
Now count, how many times have you spilled your coke on the keyboard before?

4) Reasons 1, 2 and 3 could make the reader never want to come back to the blog.
Spell it.... B-O-Y-C-O-T-T. Go ahead~! get thrown to the backyard~!

5) Alot of people (including myself) automatically clicks the stop button before the music starts playing.
Oh niceee music. But I've heard the same thing yesterday, the day before, oh wait... actually I've heard the same tune playing from a month ago... Boring~! unless you're hardwaorking enough to change it daily.

6) Most times, it doesn't do any good to the mood of the blog content.
Its conflicting when you are reading an entry about a happy occasion, with sad music playing in the background.

7) Even if readers don't turn the music off, most of them don't even pay attention to the music.
Ouch~!

8) For a short blog entry, the music deosn't even have the chance of completing before the reader finishes reading and hops elsewhere.
you can stand under my umburrella ella ella ella eh eh.... unde... *click*

9) Alot of famous bloggers like Xiaxue, Mr Miyagi and Maddox don't have music on their blog, and they are doing just fine.
Thank me. Thank me now for revealing their trade secret.

10) I'd much rather concentrate on improving blog content.
Thats where the fat, juicy parts lie. The chicken breast meat if you will.

There you go. My 10 big reasons to shut down the media box. Thank you.

ps: A long, long entry is on the way. Tsunami of photos impending. Strap up and and increase your bandwidth if possibble. lolxxx...

Newly acquired axe

2008-12-14T00:01:00.014+08:00

I know I know~!!! The blog has been dead for almost a month. I wasn't being lazy/procrastinating/idle, you name it. Nope... nothing of the sort. I had many things I had wanted to blog about, but I've been waiting for pictures to be sent to me. No picture no talk, you bloggers should know better. I need to get into the habit of bringing my own camera out. LOLx. Anyway, excuses aside, I decided that its time to breathe some fresh air back into it.

Where I have been to...
What I've been doing...
All will be revealed in time to come.

I am officially back from my short hiatus.

So while I'm busy organizing and processing the huge number of photos that's finally arrived, let me keep you pacified with this first update.

If you guys remember, my sis dropped and broke my acoustic guitar a few months back. If you don't. I won't blame you. Who cares right? Hahaha... Well, I have been living without one until last week. I finally decided to sell my electric guitar to finance a new acoustic, since I don't really touch my electric that much. I realized acoustics are so much nicer to play on.

So anyway, I bought it second-hand, at a steal. Its an Alvarez AD-60S, mid-range guitar which originally costs $700. But the owner agreed to let it go at $550.

Whats cool?
Its only 1 month old. And the default plastic saddle has been upgraded and replaced with a custom-made saddle made out of FOSSILIZED MAMMOTH IVORY (FMI), personally handcrafted by a guy called Jarvis, well known by the Singaporean guitaring community. FMI, for those in the know, is well known to improve the guitar's tone tremendrously. And upgrading to FMI saddles usually cost about $120. Thats just sweet~!!!

Sounds fishy?
Not at all. He gave me time to be with the guitar alone, to examine and test it out. While he hung around with a few friends from a distance. I swear I was on it for like twenty minutes and he didn't even come to chase me. Indeed, it was in extremely good condition, and I loved the tone ALOT. Very warm, rich tone. When I brought it home and told my sis, she looked at it and went "huh? This is 2nd hand? It looks brand new..." XD
The owner wanted to let it go because he was going overseas for a mission trip and wanted to get another guitar with a tone that suits his playing style more. So yeah... I'm just happy I got an excellent piece for a steal.

In the spirit of celebrating my new find, I took out my little trusty PnS camera and did a mini "photoshoot" of my new axe.

The headstock and tuning pegs

Bridge pins and saddle

View fromthe nut

The Alvarez logo... niiiceee...

The full length picture...

I had to go through the painful process of waiting for calluses to form on my fingertips again because my old layer of calluses had already subsided after 4 mths without playing. My fingers were swollen and blistered for the whole of last week. Cursed~!

Just so you know, I'm working on another cover now. Won't reveal which song it is. But its by Secondhand Serenade. Stay tuned~!

Christmas is here again!!!

2008-11-23T23:53:00.005+08:00

You have very good observation, people...

Yes!!! I did up a christmas skin for the bloggggg. Christmas IS coming. Aren't you excited?!?!?! I am!!! And I especially love christmas songs. So there you have it! Hmmmm.... How do I wanna celebrate Christmas this year? Christmas has always been a crowded (sometimes ugly) affair for most people, especially in Singapore. This year, I feel like having a quiet, peaceful one. A small gathering with people close to me. Put on the music, light the candles... oooh yeah... I'm feelin' it.

Vivocity - NOO.
Sentosa - NOOO.
Orchard - NOOOOOOO.
City Hall - NOOOOOOOO.
Esplanade - HELLLLL NOOOOOOOO.

Maybe someone's house will do just fine. Any volunteers? LOLZ...

I feel the earth move under my feet

2008-11-21T16:21:00.003+08:00

In the evening haze, I felt the ground
A dark stallion pulled up, dressed in metallic gown
Its heavy footsteps pounded the ground
My able steed, didn't dare to make a sound

I gathered my tools, to paint the picture
Of a beast on rubber, that I could admire after
At the tick of the second, she reared in anger
and galloped off into the dusk, leaving a picture to remember...

Hehs... pardon my cheesy attempt at poetry. But it more or less sums up this entry. Caught this baby at a traffic junction while waiting for the lights to turn green. Its not your normal Lamborghini. Its a Lamborghini Murciélago LP640~!!! You don't get to see these around very often... Ohhh... the ground really shook btw...

ps: They should have a Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 challenge, Subaru style... Hahaha... I wonder how much the record will be pushed further...

I'm on page 25

2008-11-15T22:16:00.023+08:00

Yep~!

If life is like a book, then age is truly just another number. And I am on page 25.

This is a book I never ever want to finish reading. But ladies and gentlemen, let me deliver the final blow, the harsh reality. Every story has an ending, and as the story progresses, the remaining pages will gradually become thinner, as will our fragile little lives. I am scared. Very scared.

It's time to make every page count.

All of us have inadvertently celebrated each turn of our own pages. But why? I want my answer next year to be because the previous one was one helluva ride~! Backtrack, page 25:

Birthday celebrations at Settler's Cafe

It was a last minute arrangement, and I'm so glad they turned up. Ashlyne, Fang Yi, Cecilia, Si Ping, Ben, Yu Hua, Shawn, Jasrie. Thank you guys.

After that, it was shopping with the shopaholics Fang Yi, Ashlyne and Cecilia at Far East before catching Tropic Thunder. Slept through half of it cause I was soooo tired. Haha...

Sepia effect courtesy of Fang Yi.

The Games (reminder: mouse-over the images for bigger pictures)

The Babes

Of course, San was not around that day because he had his Deepavali celebrations at home. But well, we did meet up last week and he gave me a surprise. Haha, that kuku damn funny. We were at Vivocity and we just finished dinner. I wanted to go home after that because I had to wake up early the next day. He persuaded me to chill at Starbucks for awhile, which I relented after that. Vivo has two Starbucks. One on level two, and the other on level one. I don't know what came over me that day, but I chose to go to the level one outlet, which was very far from the place he parked his car. He tried convincing me to go to level two, but I insisted level one. When we settled down there, he told me he needed the toilet and ran off. I felt it was abit strange because I just went a few minutes ago and he was there. Why didn't he do whatever he needed to do when we were there? But I passed it off. He took very long to come back and I started wondering where on earth he went. Then finally when he appeared, he was sweating profusely with a present in his hands. MUAHAHAHA~!!! I laughed my ass off when I realised that he actually had to run the distance to his car to get the present and come back. No wonder he was behaving so suspiciously and tried persuading me to go to the nearer Starbucks so he didn't have to walk so far to the car.

Thanks dude~!!! Anyways, the present he got me was damn exciting. Couldn't guess what it was at first. And when I opened the wrapper, I thought it was a huge bar of chocolates. But its not~!!! Its sort of like a coffee-table book on chocolates, very cleverly designed to look like a big bar of chocolates.

They actually introduce all the different kinds of chocolate in the world, how to properly appreciate and taste them, and 40 over recipes. Very exquisite~!!!

Its really damn exciting and I've never seen it in bookstores. I asked him where he got it from and he refused to tell me. Must have gotten it from some chocolate specialty shop. But anyways, its a very thoughtful gift. Hahahaha... he knows how much of a sucker I am for chocolaty stuff. I have never lived a day without chocolates. Almost never. LOLzzzz...

Oh oh oh.... and wrapped together with it is a planner. Designed specially for procrastinators. Another very interesting gift. On every flip, there would be a page long read-up up on tips and articles on how to get yourself through life on the left page (some very lame, some funny and some very good advice), and the planning calendar on the right page. It still has a column which allows you to list your priorities accordingly to the urgency (eg. Shoud have done this week, Should have done long ago etc...). Damn funny la...

And since I'm on presents, I met up with Yuhua last week for dinner cause she wanted to pass me my belated present too. We went to NY NY in Ang Mo Kio. During dinner I asked if I can open the present and she said ok. So there I was trying to tear it slowly so as not to destroy the wrapper. I don't know why, but people always try to tear it gently, but end up ripping it off. Hahaha...

So there was this Caucasian family sitting next to our table who were very intently watching me open the present. And I took forever to open it. I looked at them and all four pairs of eyes were fixed on me, smiling and urging me on and waiting in anticipation to see whats inside as well. Then the father got impatient and gestured a "rip it open~!!!" action to me... hahaha... I prolonged his agony by continuing my slow unravelling of the present. When I finally managed to open it, and took out its contents, my face immediately flushed. Because it was a double sided picture frame, and on one side of it was a picture of me and her taken during Chinese New Year. The Caucasian family cheered when they saw what it was and teased us with smooching sounds. LOlzzzz... they must have mistaken us for dating each other. That was just soooo warped, as san would put it.

The other side of the picture was a picture taken during her birthday with Fang Yi, Ash, JJ, me and her in it.

Anyways, it was a nice gesture. And all in good fun, nothing else. Thanks babe~!

Subaru Impreza Chellenge

2008-11-07T17:03:00.003+08:00

Pic extracted from sgauto.com

It's finally here! The long awaited Subaru Impreza Challenge! My chance at winning a Subaru Impreza WRX! Lolz... Well, I would still have to go through one more round of balloting on the day itself, which is tomorrow. If I get through, I'll drop a message to you guys okay (you guys know who you are... Lolx)?

People!!! Please come down to lend your support~!? We really need it... Cheryln will also be there taking part. Remember, its at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza, tomorrow (Saturday). The challenge will start at 1pm. Cya ya guys there~!!!

S.I.N FUL Entry....

2008-10-28T03:58:00.021+08:00

Okay... This is a super duper backdated entry on Super Import Nights 2008 (S.I.N) because it took me awhile to sort out the pictures, re-size, and photoshop.(I took a whopping total of 1000+ pictures for the 4-day event). And to further add to that, my com broke down, and I didn't have a system to work on for about 4 days. Thank god I managed to back up the pictures. Anyways, all is well now~!

So... Like I said before, this was my virgin attempt at DSLR photography. I really like portrait photography, and have been doing alot of reading on the subject. So, for this event, I specially rented a DSLR and a prime lens to test my skills. I'm generally pleased with the results of the photos. And as much as I want to post all the photos I took during the event, it is insanely impossible to do so. Therefore, I had to pick out the ones I think are better and I managed to narrow it down to 40+ pictures.

Taking photos at such an event was no easy task. Every motorshow we went, we had to squeeze and push our way thru throngs and throngs of photographers. We know it all too well, and were mentally prepared for it. But this time, the crowd got really bad at times. For those who have never ever been to a motorshow, I'll show you what I mean:

Vultures #1
Vultures#2
Vultures#3

Hahaha... you see what I mean now? There are times when the crowds got far worse than what you see in the pictures.

Anyway, in order not to make the page stretch too long with the pics. I decided to experiment a little and tried displaying the pics in a gallery form. So basically, all 40+ of the pics will be in the gallery viewer below. All you have to do is click on the left or right arrows. Or alternatively, you can click on the thumbnails. The viewer will take awhile to load because of the huge number of pictures. But i think by the time you finish reading my rubbish above, it would have completed loading.

Amanda Pang
She was one of the more camera-friendly girls at the event.
Racequeen From Thailand
Caught her at a picture-perfect timing.
Racequeen From Thailand
Subtle pose, yet engaging expression. I'm lovin the headband...
Racequeens From Thailand
Three's a crowd~!!!
Amanda
This girl knows how its done luh! Lolz...
Amanda
Amanda has the GTR within her grasp. haha...
Racequeen From Thailand
One of my favourite racequeens at the show. She is of Thai-Italian blood.
Toni Leigh
Racequeen from the USA. The colour of her dress matches very well with her hair colour doncha' think? Yeah, bright dress to match her bright tresses.
Miyake Ng
She's lovin' her candy... Expression of contentment.
Miyake Ng
Pure Bliss... Vignetted the picture abit on photoshop to create the dreamy feeling
Elaine Yuki
Miyake's partner in crime, for stealing the hearts of guys. Lolz...
Racequeen From Thailand
Yep, its her again. I had alot of fun shooting her. She's very spontaneous in front of the camera.
Elle (foreground) & Sindy (background)
The main focus of the picture was on Elle. Purposely threw Sindy out of focus to draw attention to Elle. Haha! Opps...
Racequeen From Thailand
Again, vignetting done to create dreamy effect. The ribbon on the hairband is working for her. =D
Racequeen From Thailand
Clean, bright, subtle shot. Though I find her one sided earring abit distracting... haha...
Racequeen From Thailand
She has an amazingly nice side profile too...
Racequeen From Thailand
She realised I was standing behind her, waiting for a chance to get in a good shot. So she turned her attention away from the whole mass of photographers in front of her to pose for this one. Priceless~!
Racequeen From Thailand
Getting comfortable on the floor... I like her wavy hair~!!!
Bettina
Finally~! Back to our local girls. The lady vampire, obviously pleased with her polaroid picture. Lolz...
Miyake Ng
Beauty and the road-beast, GTR.
"Endless" Racequeen From Japan
They are always game for a good pose...
Racequeen From Thailand
Are you starting to wonder how many Thai racequeens they actually brought in for the show?
Danielle
Definitely not new to the scene. We've seen her at countless shows before...
Iris
Another familiar face that we always see. Danielle's partner for this event.
Cassevonrie
Popping out of the sunroof!
"Endless" Racequeen From Japan
The other Japanese racequeen that had photographers flocking around like vultures.
Elaine Yuki
Yep. Her again. Another familiar face in the local scene.
Amanda Pang
She has endless poses up her sleeves
Hui Rong
She has a very fresh, girl-next-door look.
Racequeen From Thailand
Another one from the land of smiles. Love how the hair is done up too~!!!
Elaine Yuki
"What's up nigger?"
The Dynamic Duo
Miyake's salute to the crowd... haha...
The Dynamic Duo (part 2)
Like I said. One of my favourite shots at the event. They look like they really are enjoying themselves.
Madeleine
The queen of hearts? Lolx...
Sonia
She's also been in the scene for awhile now. I like her eyes.
Evangeline
A "Deal Or No Deal" girl in season 2. Need I intro more?
Sindy
I feel that she's a different class from the rest. I mean it in a good way.
Elle
San mentioned she has a very pageant look. I think he hit it on the spot.
Miyake
Sorry. But it's Miyake again. Haha... In a out-of-bed look
Racequeen From Thailand
DJ Tokio as they all call her. She's the only thai racequeen I know the name of. And yes, she's a DJ back in her hometown. Added the effect in Photoshop.
Racequeen From Thailand
She has a very classy look. So I decided to add a little noise effect to the picture and made it look like a poster Ad and named it Royal Black.
Camy
Bears abit of resemblance to Dawn Yang doesn't she?
Racequeens From The USA
Another 4 import babes from the US. Don't know why they're not in PVC like all the other racequeens though. Haha...
Racequeen From Thailand
She wants to be the next bond girl? "007, here I come!"
Jaslin
Cassevonrie's partner for the event. Another one with a girl-next-door look.
June
OMG! Who is she pouting at?

Now, for my favourite racequeen of the whole event.......... I don't think you guys would need to guess. Yes, she has taken up a large portion of the photos. It is Miyake~! And for that, I've done up a special picture of her... muahahaha~!!! Machiam song album cover with her autograph.

Actually, there are more racequeens at the event than that. Much more. The pictures covered only like 60% of them. But I think posting them up will start to make the blog load up real slowly due to the massive number of photos. So, I'll save it for another time.

Anyway, candid pictures of me and San having fun at the event. Muahaha... Yes, we specially made shirts for the event. It reads "Rule #1: No cars. Only girls." HAHAHA... Cheesy, I know. But thats the whole purpose. We had a few laughs from passer-bys...

Yeah its her~!!! The mixed-blood Thai girl. We didn't manage to get her name though. Managed to catch her before she left for the night, all changed up and ready to go.

Haha... They were amused by the shirts.

Danielle, Iris, Me and San.

Me and Amanda.

- Can't Wait For Next Year's S.I.N -

may the best hand win!!!

2008-10-27T04:51:00.006+08:00

Date: 08 - 12 Nov 2008
Venue: Ngee Ann City (Civic Plaza)

My letter finally came on Saturday from Mediacorp~!!! Now, all I have to worry about is getting past the balloting on the day itself... Will be going for the challenge together with Cher and we're going to kick some serious ass~!!! Lolz... Please come down to support us. We need as much of it as possible. Hahaha... Roooaarrr~!!!

The garden in my backyard

2008-10-26T04:55:00.017+08:00

I don't mean to brag on an on about the beautiful window view of my room. But it never fails to give me surprises. And more often than not, I find myself resisting the urge to take a picture of the view on a glorious day.

My back yard is right behind these curtains... Hahaha... Love teasing...

TADA~!!! My backyard~!!!

OK... Right... I totally missed the point at the starting paragraph of the entry. Whats gotten into me?

What I really wanted to say was...

Most people go to bed when the sky is still dark. I mean, our biological clock is programmed to tell us so. But mine is a little warped. I've been sleeping right about the twilight hours of the morning everyday, recently. I know it will take its toll on the body and all... but hey~! look at what I discovered in the morning of the 16th of October.

A magnificent view of our moon busking in full glory. It was fully round and it was shining SOOO brightly into my room that it was possible to read a book without the lights. No kidding~!!! I was about to go to bed and I switched the lights off. The moment the lights went out, I realized how bright the moon was and went to look out the window. I got dumbfounded by what I saw. It was so captivating that I spent the next 10 minutes staring at it and savouring its beauty in the darkness of my room. Then, not wanting to let the moment slip past, I grabbed my camera and tripod, and snapped away. I watched it till it completely disappeared behind the clouds. Actually, it looked so big and near from my window that I could actually make out just abit of the general contours on its surface. Too bad my camera wasn't good enough to catch the details.

- MY ROOM ROCKS~!!! Haha... -

And the list goes on....

2008-10-25T04:47:00.015+08:00

17.10.2008 (Friday)

After the unfathomable chain of bad things happening to me over the past week. I got really frustrated, but freaked out at the same time. I decided it was time to do something about it. So I made a trip down to the Guan Yin Temple to pray and to ask for blessings. Coincidentally, it was Guan Yin's Birthday, so to speak, that day. The temple was spilling with people. Strangely, when I was standing in front of the altar and reciting my plea, a man walked past me, right in front of my eyes. He was wearing a cap, and there were four numbers embroidered on the sides of the cap. As he walked past me, the numbers flashed past my eyes, as it was at my eye level. If you are Singaporean, or lived here long enough, you'll know what I'm trying to imply. It might be pure coincidence and many other people would have seen it too. But the way it flashed past my eyes as I was reciting my plea was too impactful to ignore. Anyways, I did not bet on the numbers in the end. I did run a check on the winning numbers for saturday though, and the numbers DID REALLY APPEAR IN STARTERS~!!!!!!! Just that the order of the numbers switched. WOW~!

19.10.2008 (Sunday)

Dragged my mum and sis to Guan Yin Temple to pray again because I felt like I didn't do it properly the other time as there were just too many people pushing and shoving. This time I prayed really hard. Hoping all the bad luck will get washed away.

Unfortunately, it didn't. Went to get a new phone to replace my urine-soaked one after leaving the temple. Happily got the phone and found out the next day that the set I got was a little bit faulty as some buttons weren't properly assembled, making them unsensitive. Had to go back to the shop to get an exchange, which with luck, went smoothly.

Ash~!!! Haha... Not only you got new phone. I oso have liao~!!! Time to show mine off. Lolz... Presenting my new Motorola Razr2 V9 (Ferrari Special Edition):

I was experimenting with ways to display my pictures on the blog more effectively. So give me some feedback about what you guys think alright? For this entry, you have to move your mouse over the thumbnails to view the full sized picture.

Then at night, another SUAY charm hit me. Went out to the nearby coffee shop with my sis to get supper. I parked illegally at the parking space behind the coffee shop. Before I got out of the car, I remember looking at the time. It was 11:35pm. Take a close look at what time the freaking ticket was issued.

WTF!!! 11:38??? In my whole 16+ years of living in Jurong, we have never ever gotten fined for parking there. Tons of people park illegally down there everyday and I have never ever seen an attendant in that carpark b4. Furthermore, It was already 11 freaking 40 PM lah... Who would have thought attendants go around at this hour? Well... What can I say?

The day my world came crashing down

2008-10-16T19:45:00.009+08:00

well, at least partially...

The past week or so have been a total crash n' burn for me, really. Bad things have been happening to me one after another so quickly that I barely even have time to recover from the previous one before another befalls. I feel like I'm being strapped to a pole, and rotten eggs are being thrown at my face. And before I can even say "OUUUCH~!!!" the next rotten egg hits my face to shut me up. Yes... Rotten is what I'm feeling right now.

Do you believe in luck? If you don't, you'd better believe it. Cause I've been hit by a bad streak. By now, most of you would know from my last entry that our less-than-one-month old car was being crashed into by some fella while I was driving. That is done and dusted... don't wanna comment further on that.

I was already starting to complain that I've been quite down on my luck these days. And it truly has been. How do I know I'm not just over-reacting to this whole luck thing? All I can say is you'll know it when it hits you. Nothing I do have been going smoothly. From queuing up to pay for things to looking for carpark lots. Let me give you one example. Two days ago, I went to a UNIMAX store because I wanted to print and photocopy some documents. As I was about to reach the shop, about 50 meters away, I saw that all 3 of their computer stations were empty. But in a matter of seconds, 3 people popped out of nowhere and took a station each, at the same time. All I could do was to watch them happily set their arses on the chair. And they took extremely long to get their stuff printed. The Unimax I go to always have at least one station that is free. I have never had to wait to use a com there. It was as if someone had set those three people up there purposely to stall my time. This, is not an isolated case. It is just one of the many rotten eggs my luck have been throwing at me the past week.

Then, as if to further prove its point, it gave me a fatal blow yesterday. My computer completely died on me. Completely. Without any prior warning or symptoms. I turned it on in the evening when I got back home. It started behaving abnormally by restarting itself after 5 minutes of use each time. Then, like after 7-8 restarts, it just completely refused to start. Now, everytime i try to power it on, nothing appears on screen at all. I think either the motherboard or the graphics card has died. Maybe both? God knows... I gotta get it checked. Right now, I'm blogging using my sister's laptop, which she loaned from school for her project work. How sad is that?

You would think that is as bad as it gets. I thought so too. Until today... I drove to town to do some stuff and also to Sim Lim Square to check out the prices for my computer parts. And town, as you know, has a fortress of blood-thirsty, money-sucking ERP gantries. Therefore, I went out of the way to get the cashcard topped up, only to get fined for passing a gantry without the cashcard. I stupidly placed the replenished card into my wallet and forgot to slot it back into the IU unit when I got back to the car. Smaaart.... All that trouble for nothing.

Yes, I cursed at my luck again, and it almost immediately gave me another slap on my face for that. I went to a public toilet with my mobile in my hands as I was sending out an SMS. So, I decided to skip the urinals and went for the cubicles instead, because they always have some sort of a ledge behind the seats for people to put their stuff. Placing my phone on the ledge was a big mistake. After I was done peeing, I reached out for my phone but it somehow slipped my hands and fell right into the toilet bowl. Fully submerged in my own urine. I had to reach down into the mess to retrieve the phone and booooy, it was a nasty feeling. Thinking back now, what was the point of even retrieving it? It is beyond repair anyway.

And nooo... this is not the end of its mockery. My luck was not done fucking me up yet. I wanted to call home to tell them that my phone was gone, in case they couldn't reach me. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't really give a damn about whether they can reach me. But I think my mind got abit screwed by the chain of events and I decided to call. So I looked around for a pay phone and couldn't find one. I asked around and no one seemed to know where the nearest payphone is. When I finally found one, after like 20 minutes, I realised that I didn't have a 10 cent coin. The only coins in my wallet were dollar coins. Not giving a shit anymore, I placed a dollar coin into the slot and tried making the call. ............... NO RING TONE .............. Just to be sure, I checked to make sure they accepted $1 coins, and they did!!! The bloody phone was faulty... so, already feeling damn agitated, I went to ask the info counter where the next nearest phone was and went to it, placed my 2nd dollar into the slot and this time, there was the dial tone, but the coin didn't go through completely. It got stuck somewhere below the slot. Banging the phone didn't help and I did not want to risk another dollar to try and flush the coin out. I was really done at that point. I felt like shit and slammed the phone down so hard that people around the area stared at me. I just couldn't care anymore and gave up, feeling completely train-wrecked. What a day~!!!

Damaged car.

Spoilt computer.

Dead phone.

All within a week. Whats next?

Something has to be done to end this. Maybe I've been doing too many bad things. Maybe its all bad karma returning to settle its scores. Maybe I should try and start doing good deeds, "My name is earl" style. My mum told me to go to the temple to pray. But before there is any sign of "improvement", so to speak, my mum has officially forbid me to touch the loaned car, or our car when it returns from the workshop. Anyways people, I am uncontactable by my mobile in the meantime.

On a happier note, I've got good news. Hahaha... What do you know? I have finally got through to Class 95, and will be eligible for the first round of the Subaru Impreza Challenge 2008!!!! Thank you Jean~!!! Luv Ya~!!! And I wanted to get thru on her show the most, out of the other DJs. Dunno why, but I just like her~!!! She played our conversation on air and I sounded like crap. Dammit~!!! Anyways it will be held on 8th November at Ngee Ann City. Cher! we can go together liao~!!! Hahaha... On the day itself we would still need to draw ping pong balls to see if we actually get to put our hands on the car. Orange balls means you're through to the final round. White balls mean, bye bye... try again next year. So I really hope my luck will gradually improve in the comin weeks. People, pray for me ok? lolx...

being careful is not enough

2008-10-12T02:26:00.012+08:00

It is totally useless to drive with caution on the roads because there will be other idiots who don't~!!!

Yesterday afternoon, my sis texted me to ask if I wanted to have dinner at White Dog's. It was a fine Friday and the weekend was here. I agreed, and asked San to come along. I told him that I'll go pick him up at his place when my sis came home from school since he didn't have his car. So, once my sis was back and ready, we happily set off. It was 6:30pm, and the peak hour jam had already set in on the PIE.

I drove extra cautiously because it was a massive jam, and we just got our car; not even a month old yet. My sis decided to take out the beauty and the beast DVD to watch it on the in-built TV console in the car since we were going to be stuck in the jam for awhile. As we slowly inched our way thru the jam, my sis and I were happily singing to the tunes of the cartoon like idiots. We were about 1 km more to our exit when the traffic in my lane came to a halt. Accordingly, I too, slowly came to a halt. All of a sudden, our car was jolted foward by a great force from behind. Me and my sis were both thrown foward as well. The sound of metallic impact made my heart sink because I knew all too well what had just happened.

First thing that ran through my mind was "Ch** By* driver~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". I was in disarray after that because I was stuck in the middle lane of the PIE during the peak hour. The traffic was already slow moving to begin with and the accident slowed the traffic even further. Honks started sounding from the cars behind us. Both me and the other driver came out of our cars and he suggested that we should move our cars out of the way to the road shoulder to settle the problem. Thank god he wasn't one of those unreasonable drivers who start shouting and shunning responsibility. He was an uncle in his late forties, and immediately apologised and declared full responsibility for the accident. A series of flustered phone calls were made as I told my sis to inform my mum and also san about the accident.

We were quite lucky also, because when the accident happened, the EMAS people were coincidentally right behind us and they immediately took control of the situation. One of the guys came down the truck to tell us to move our cars to the road shoulder first. So, I went back to the car to try and start it. To my horror, it refused to start. I didn't understand why, because the crash happened at the back, so the engine should be able to start. I ran out and shouted to the EMAS guy that the car couldn't start. He was puzzled too, and his colleage came down the truck to block up 3 lanes of the expressway. The other drivers on the road were just staring straight at me as I was holding up like 3/4 of the expressway. The fella was about to position his truck to tow the car when i realised that it couldn't start because I left the gear in "drive" position. I think I was too overwhelmed by the whole situation, thats why. So, with help from the EMAS people, i managed to drive the car to the road shoulder and exchanged information with the other driver.

I think the uncle sensed that I was in disarray, and he tried calming me down. He spoke to me very gently and slowly, giving me his I/C and asking me to take down his particulars while he took mine. We exchanged numbers and he kept apologising, saying that he had wanted to cut into our lane and come behind us but he did not notice that my car had stopped. Both of us took a few pictures of the impacted areas of the two cars and we agreed to settle the damages via his insurance and parted ways. The three of us (my sis, san and me) still went with our plan to go down to White Dog's after that.

Went down to IDAC this morning to report the accident, and took a few clearer shots of the damages:

The car looks perfectly fine on the driver's side right? And look at how crazily glossy the car is. I spent 4 hours polishing and waxing it three days ago!!!! and this had to happen~!!!

Now look at this. >.<..... heart pain~!!!! On the passenger side. There is a perfect hole punched right through the metal on the rear bumper. I don't know how or what could have punched that perfect a hole. Could be his number plate? or maybe the front grills? I don't know man. On top of that is of course the obvious dent and a gap that opened up on the side. The boot door is also out of alignment, which leaves a gap where rain water could easily seep in. Backlights are also jutting out. My mum just brought it down to her friend's workshop today. And definitely, the whole rear bumper has to be changed because of that hole. This is a new model that was parallel imported straight from Japan. Borneo motors, the sole distributor of Toyota cars in Singapore does not bring this model in. So according to the workshop, having the spare rear bumper ordered and shipped from japan would take 6 fucking months~!!! I am SOOOO pissed that I just can't get over it.

They said they will knock back the bumper and fix the rest of the damages first, and we can continue using the car in a week's time while waiting for the spare bumper to arrive. But I just can't stand the idea of having to drive a supposedly spanking new car with a hole in its ARSE~!!! That is just so wrong~!!! It spoils the whole "new car" feeling already. And by the time the stupid spare arrives, the "new car" feeling would have worn off. AND also! It was damn good to know that the car was assembled and MADE IN JAPAAAAAN. you know? MADE IN JAPAAAN. The land of cutting edge technology~!!! The motherland of Toyota cars~!!! Not like the other Toyota's you see on the roads that are assembled in Thailand. Now, the rear of the car will have to be fixed in Singapore. So to me, its like no more "MADE IN JAPAN" anymore. It has partly become "Made in Singapore". The feeling just stinks I tell ya~!!! We waited so fucking painfully long for the car to arrive from Japan, and now it has become a Made in SG car in less than a month. I was just brooding over the whole saga this afternoon. Wasn't in the best of moods. But the damage has been done. There's nothing I can do about it. FUCK~!!!

ps: I was already planning to write a blog entry just for the new car. I did now. But for the wrong reasons.

all set and ready to go!!!

2008-10-11T02:14:00.004+08:00

For a few nights now, I have been keeping vigil beside my radio. Painfully waiting for them to give the cue to call in. Call in for what? The Subaru Impreza Challenge of course!!! As you can see, I have seized all the available phones in my house to prepare for the call out when they play the "CALL NOW" cue on radio. I go to the extent of even punching in the numbers beforehand so that all i have to do is to hit the call button once I get the cue. I think alot of other no life people like myself (haha...) are doing the same thing as it is really hard to get through the phone lines once the cue is sounded. So i decided to raise my chances by using 3 phones to call instead. The cue comes every hour at random timings. I'm absolutely not a radio person. The only time I listen to the radio is when I'm driving. So this whole radio thing is reeaallyy killing me. But I'm not about to give up.

Supposedly, they take in 1 male and 1 female caller every hour. So far I have managed to get through to the DJs 6 times. Thrice with Jean Danker, twice with V. Lo and once with Yasmine. All six times, I was told by them that they already had a male caller and was looking for a female caller. For once, I just felt like being female. I don't understand why there is this phenomenon, but it appears that sometimes, the DJs have to wait like 20 minutes just for a female contestant to call in. Girls just ain't interested? Maybe. I was just ranting away about this whole subaru thing to Ashlyne yesterday, and she said something along the lines of "Its torture! Why do you want to do it?" haha... Ash, by the way, celebrated her 20th birthday yesterday.

Happy Birthday babe~!!!

I hate to say it. But yes... welcome to the club. Now we're talking~!!! LOLz...

We had dinner at this Jap buffet restaurant in UE square with the same old gang, although yesterday was my first time I saw her bestie, Pei Yi. Now, I felt a little bad for giving her false hope. She had wanted hamsters amongst other things in her wishlist for her birthday. It wasn't really such a good idea to be giving pets as birthday gifts, cos pets require lots of commitment. So Fang Yi, Cecilia and I pooled money to get the other stuff on her wishlist. However, I don't know how she got the false impression that we got her the hamsters when I was talking to her on MSN one night. Since she was so insistent that she "knows" we got the hamsters for her. I just played along and pretended to have our secret get "busted". She got really excited about the whole hamster idea and told her folks at home and her colleages. So yesterday, when I presented to her the present that we got for her, she looked a little bit dissappointed. I felt really bad afterwards. I'm sure it would have dampened her birthday mood a little. So sorry ash~!!! Shouldn't have given you false hope. But I hope you like the stuff we got for you instead alrightsss~!!!

Back to the topic... I really wanna take part in the challenge and see how far I can go. I was talking to cher about it on Monday night and we sort of agreed to take part together. AND LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT THIS GIRL RIGHT NOW. In case anyone gets fooled by her looks. She lasted till the final 10th or 15th (can't remember which now) contestant in last year's challenge hor~!!!! Out of like 200 over contestants. She stood for more than 60 hours can~!!! It is such a feat... I asked her wat her breaking point was and she just replied with one word to sum it all up. "Hallucinations" she said. I guess thats pretty much what most of them would experience from standing for 3 days straight, without sleep.

I missed the direct entry route to get into the challenge. Which was held at the Singapore Motorshow last week. I mean, I was at the show for a few days. But i never realised that they were holding the direct entry event at the subaru booth itself, until cher told me on monday. I remember seeing the car with the palm stickers there and had a brief conversation with san about the challenge. It didn't cross my mind that the car was actually on display for a reason~! That was really dumb~!!!

Cher have already gotten thru, again. Ytd afternoon, she sent me an sms to convey the news. I called her and she said she just woke up. =.=.... According to her, she woke up, immediately turned on her radio, and right at that moment when she turned it on, they played the cue to call. She immediately grabbed her phone to call and got thru... Wah lao~!!! Did she eat some lucky pill before going to bed or what?

My day at the F1 Grand Prix

2008-09-30T00:45:00.005+08:00

Firstly, I would like to extend my apologies to those who asked about the passes I was holding on to. Especially Hui Yee, cause she really wanted to go with her BF. But I had already arranged to go down for the event with san. I wished I had more passes so that you guys could come too. It was a great experience. I decided to call in sick for the day, and I could tell my manager wasn't really happy about it. Twice in a week, its really no wonder. But this was too good to give it a miss. So yeah... heck it!

As you can see, our passes were for the Singapore Flyer grandstands. We were sitting right in front of the Flyer. The scenery was exceptionally nice here. Because it was Friday, and there were only a few miscellaenous races like the Porsche Carrera Cup, the BMW race, and the Aston Martin race in the afternoon, and of course the F1 practice sessions at night, the crowd wasn't that overwhelming. Still sizeable, but not overwhelming. Ben sent me an sms that day asking me to take more pictures of the cars. Dude! I'm so sorry, but those machines were way too fast for my camera to catch anything at all. Most of the pictures I attempted to take turned out like the one I took above. Can see the vague colour of the cars but not the shape. Haha... Being the photographer wannabe, i tried adjusting my settings to increase my shutter speed to match the cars speed, and this were the best results I could obtain:

That was as much as a normal point-and-shoot camera could do already lah. In the end I just gave up and took videos instead:

This video was taken when we were still walking towards our grandstand. Because it was a street circuit, there was ALOT of walking to be done to get from point to point even within the circuit compounds. And along the way, we caught a glimpse of the porsche cup race going on. To be honest, at this point I was already quite wowed~! Never did I imagine that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Taken when we just reached the grandstand. The porsche cup was still going on... You could hear the commentators yeah? I thought it was cool that there were loudspeakers placed 30metres away lining the whole stretch of the grandstand. So you can actually listen in to the commentators as well. You're forced to, even if you didn't like it. Lolz...

The big boys come out. Now listen to the difference in the sound of the engines, compared to the earlier videos of the porsches... World of difference!!! The Porsches look like tortises to me now. The sound of the F1 cars were absolutely deafening. San told me to get ear plugs earlier in the day, but I didn't listen to his advice at first. I thought it wouldn't be that bad.... But I was totally wrong. Had to buy a pair in the end because it was almost impossible to watch the race without it. That was how loud they were. You could actually feel the ear drums vibrating wihout the earplugs on.

More F1 action~!!!

This was taken on the second day (Saturday). Was out in town with Fang Yi and Cecilia and we decided to head down to the Marina area after dinner to try and see if we can see anything from outside. There were ALOT of people at the Suntec-Marina area. We walked alot, and tried exploring many areas to find a good vantage point to watch the race. However, the good spots were either jam packed with throngs of people, or barricaded off and guarded by police officers. Of course, they had to ensure that they were being fair to people who actually pay to get in and watch the race. No pay = No watching in peace. Seriously!!! they had it all covered. Its like they removed every possible angle by placing cloths and barricades to block the view. But being the diligent Singaporeans when it comes to getting value for money, or no money at all, to be accurate, we weaved our way thru the sea of humans and finally managed to find a few loopholes. So yeah... exciting weekend!!! Now the pictures do the talking.

The citilink logo, against the backdrop of the circuit floodlights.

People crowding around the outer perimeter, at rafflescity to try and steal a glimpse of the cars.

Look~! the track~!!! Taken as I was still walking towards the Flyer.

Outside suntec...

=)

The view just behind our grandstand~!!! Amazing eh?

The scenery from our seats...

The track...

An F1 fan's wait...

Ushers chilling out...

View of the flyer from our stands

"Cheese~!"

"Singapore Flyer Grandstand"

Chilling out during the break period

Huge bridgestone banner at our stretch of the circuit

Walking back to suntec after the day's programme was over. Empty circuit...

Random shot of the Info balloon...

Singapore has won the F1 contract for the next 5 years. Which means there'll be more F1 action in Singapore at least for the coming 5 years, around the late september period. Will definitely wanna go back to watch the races. Ashlyne~!!! Next year we go la okie??? But no more free passes liao... hahaha gotta buy...

I hope this report of the F1 race is enough to satisfy you guys ah... Ben~! ok or not? Hahaha... I mean, I did my best.

- Next post... S.I.N photos!! -

Fireworks @ Chinese Gardens

2008-09-26T03:33:00.004+08:00

I just remembered that I took a video of the fireworks which was lighted on the last week of the mid-autumn festival at the Chinese Gardens. As most of you would know, my room window faces directly out to the pagoda at the Chinese Gardens. Every year, during mid-autumn or sometimes during Chinese New Year, they would light fireworks to add colour to the occasion. And I get to see it bright and clear from my room window. This year, they lighted fireworks on every saturday night throughout the whole month of the mid-autumn festival. Cool right? Awww... don't be jealous... (muahaha... my unscrupulous way of getting developers to en bloc my estate.) Lolz.. okay not funny.

Singapore F1 Night Race

2008-09-25T01:40:00.003+08:00

Look what I've just got???

Front view:

Back View:

A pair of grandstand passes to the night race on Friday. Though on friday they only have a qualifying event, together with a couple of trial runs and some random races. Oh well, its still better than nothing. It admits from 1pm all the way to 12 midnight, on Friday. They are passes to the Singapore Flyer section of the track, which many say is one of the better spots to watch the race. I don't know man, but its damn exciting to be able to get a spot there.

I got them because my Mum's dutch boss, Mr. Chris Cor, the one I met at the dutch club during Euro 08 bought them, but had a last minute business trip to attend. He therefore offered to give us the ticket. My mum asked him how much they were and wanted to pay him back, but all he said was "The price isn't important". I just ran a check on the website, and voila~!!!:

$698/ticket !!!!

Thats like $1396 for both. I told my mum, no wonder he didn't want to reveal the price. And she said "wah... I still offered to return him the money" with a shocked face. Yah la~!!! Think so cheap meh F1 grandstand passes. So, I have two passes now for friday. My mum and sis were both not very interested in going. Anyone wants to go? Drop me a message man. I can only go in the evening cos I took 2 days leave from work last week and was on MC yesterday. I can't possibly find excuse to get leave from work on Friday liao lah... hahaha... sure tio fired.

I realised I've been blogging alot about car related things lately. Haiz, what to do? The govt is revving up the scene in a build up to the F1 grand prix, so there are like damn alot of events related to cars now. Hope I don't bore you. Oh yah oh yah~!!! And we finally got to collect the new car last Tuesday. More on that soon~!!

Super Import Nights 2008

2008-09-24T12:57:00.009+08:00

Haven't updated for about a week plus now. Have been quite tired after work to think about updates, and also, there was Super Import Nights 2008 from the 18th-21st which was the main highlight of the week for me (and san). Shall elaborate later. I have been reading up abit on taking portrait photography for awhile now, but never had the chance to apply it as I don't have a DSLR. But for this event, I specially went to borrow a DSLR to test out my skills. Not too bad I would say. Now, I'm just waiting to save up enough to get one for myself.

Both me and san went for all the days, and stayed from start till end. I shall boldly just state here that we went there purely for the racequeens, nothing else. You can say we're veterans there, coz we've been going to every single motorshow together since 2004. Lolz... It was nice seeing many familiar faces there, who always modelled in motorshows, and I think a handful of them recognised us as well. Anyways, sg is so small that we know the names of almost all the Singaporean racequeens already. Haha... Most of them were very camera friendly. Kudos to them~!

Oh~! and one more thing... This is the logo they always use for S.I.N and san realised there was something more to it. Look at how the letters "r" and "s" are shaped. They look like silhouettes of girls in very suggestive poses. Maybe its just us, but don't you think so too? haha... as a teaser, I shall just post one of my favourite shots of the event. Guys~! don't drool hor:

Elaine Yuki & Miyake

- More Coming!!!-

Choose your words carefully

2008-09-11T19:27:00.010+08:00

I was scheduled for an interview today at NUH. Being the punctual me (muahaha... what?!?!?! what?!?!) I arrived 15 minutes early, and reported to their HR department. After waiting for about 1/2 an hour, I was told to go down to one of their clinics, called the University Digestive Center, where I "may" be working in if successful. The HR person told me to sit there and observe the people. I knew that they were gonna test my observation when I go in for the interview later. I tried very hard to concentrate, but too much was running thru my mind at that time. And to make things worse, they were playing Mr. Bean on the TV screen with volume at a very audible level. And Mr. Bean as you know.... had background laughters coming in spasms. Errghh...

Finally, I was ushered into a consultation room where I was interviewed by a panel of three people. The HR executive, the clinic manager, and the head of nurses. Well, I would say that the clinic manager injected a great deal of homour into the interview. She is the kind that you can feel confidence and power ooze out of her. Haha. All three asked a barage of question and i could feel they were quite strict about attendence. And asked me to declare to them when are the dates i might be going for holidays, or when i have to take leave, blah... When I told them I didn't have any dates I needed leave from work, the HR exec was damn sharp and pointed out to me:

HR Exec: "Hmm... you sure you dun have other dates that you might not be able to come to work?"
Me: "Yep, absolutely sure!"
HR Exec: "What about 28th October? I noticed that its your birthday and its coming."
Me: "... (stunned... smiled back like an idiot)"
Clinic manager: "Oh yah hor... Whoa! HR is HR la... such small details also can catch (LOLz)"
.
.
.
.
Clinic Manager: "So what did you observe when sitting outside just now?"
Inner self: "DAMN~!!! I saw that coming"
Me: "(describe as best as I could whatever I saw)"
Clinic Manager: "(tries to steer me towards the correct answer)"
Me: "(still trying hard)"
Clinic Manager: "Your answer is quite close. But you missed something very important. The SMILE :) on the faces of every staff. I insist that all my staff have a smile on their faces at all times"
Me: "(LOL)"
.
.
.
(interview went on... and now came the crucial part)
HR Exec: "So when are you ok to start... if you are shortlisted?"

When she said "if you are shortlisted", i thought there might be other candidates coming for the interviews later today, or in days to come. So without much thought I just said "Immediate". And then she started writing a note on her piece of paper.

After the interview, they asked me to sit outside of the room for awhile and wait for them to call me back. About 10 minutes later I was called back to the room.

Clinic Manager: "So.... we have discussed and came to the conclusion that we will hire you. You mentioned that you can start immediately right?"
Me: "yes... (answers abit hesitantly. getting a bad feeling...)"
Clinic Manager: "Yes... so we would really like you to start IMMEDIATELY. Now... Is it okie?"
Me: O.O||
Clinic Manager: " why? got girlfriend appointment issit?"
Me: "Haha... No la... No girlfriend... just taken aback because I didn't see it coming."
Clinic Manager: "No girlfriend ah!? Nevermind, maybe you'll find your SPECIAL ONE here. (laughs)"

hahhaa... I was really taken aback and didn't see this coming at all. But after composing myself for awhile. I was like wat balls lah... Just go for it... So i agreed. Kinda regret the decision though. Clocked in at 10.30am... First day is S-I-A-N.... nothing much to do at all... all I did was:

- sit at the front counter and watch Mr. Bean
- speak to the other front counter ladies
- try to look busy and failing terribly at it
- trying to dodge nurses and other staff darting in and out of the front counter
- trying not to get in the way
- Occasionally getting up to attend to patients and taking their height and weight for them (this is sooo like my previous job at H.O.P.... Arrrgghh)

Its a miserable feeling not having anything to do while the rest of the world are burying their heads in it. My colleages told me to enjoy the moment as these kinda slackness will be hard to come by as time goes on. But I just can't stand the feeling right now.

For the rest of you here. Remember. Watch what you say in an interview next time. If you don't really intend to start IMMEDIATELY. Don't Geh Kiang and say immediate, cause words have teeth and can turn back to bite you in the ass.

Bentley Taxis In Singapore?

2008-09-04T12:28:00.007+08:00

Yesterday night, I walked out alone to Jurong east central to get snacks for my sis and myself. I walked home with bags of bubble tea, snacks and some supper. So my hands were quite full, and adding to that, I was carrying a brolly as it was raining. So, braving the rains, I headed back home. As I went went past my guardhouse, I heard a car being stopped at the barricade and the guard was asking the driver where he he was heading to and giving instructions. "Visitor..." I thought to myself. When I was able to get full view, I turned around to find that it was a taxi. I couldn't be wrong because it had a "TAXI" sign at the top like any other taxis. Normally, I would have just walked to the side of the road to avoid getting in the way of the car, but this taxi caught my attention. The road in my estate is quite dimly lit, so I couldn't make out what kinda cab it was, but it certainly caught my eye because the car didn't take the shape of a conventional cab. It looked very continental and bulky. I was almost sure it was some kinda limousine cab. Shortly after, it zoomed past me and there were three things that registered in my mind.

1) Bulky front
2) Continental shape
3) Logo which looked like Bentley's

I got freaking excited because it was my first time seeing a BENTLEY cab. Jet black one at that. Although some secluded part of my mind was dissing the fact that they put an ugly taxi sign at the top of a bentley. I wanted to take out my handphone to try snapping a quick one. But I had too many things on hand and the car took off and dissappeared very quickly. Shite!

So, I was about to message San when I got home about what I just saw, when my better judgment told me to do some research online before messaging him and making a fool out of myself. I typed Bentley taxis in Singapore. And the closest I came to finding it was an article saying that SMRT just bought a few Chrysler 300C's to add to its limo fleet. It was then that I realised that Chrysler's logo was quite similar to Bentley's; both have wings. So I googled the Chrysler 300C and yes, it gave confirmation that what I saw was indeed a Chrysler, not a Bentley.

Bentley's logo (left) and Chrysler's logo (right). Don't start laughing hor~!!! Because it really looked like a Bentley. And another article further proved it. This is a quote taken from Asiaone.com:

"Although most people think that it looks like a modern-day American 'gangsta' car, its local owners actually like it for its imposing, Bentley-like styling. The 300C also has a spacious cabin, large boot and comfortable ride."

SEE~!!! Hahaha... Anyway, Chrysler sits among the ranks of luxury cars as well la, but it would have been so much more exciting if it was really a Bentley taxi. Lolz...

And since we are on the topic of cars, and me walking out under the rain to buy my stuff at night. Let me just add that I would have driven out under such circumstances. However, two days ago, I drove our family's Camry to the dealer for scraping. Yes, it was time for it to go.... to the scrap-yard. The engine has started to go abit cranky and got overheated on a few occasions, but it has served us well.

My mum actually placed the order for our new car quite awhile back. And it has already arrived in Singapore about 2 months ago. Unfortunately, we are still unable to collect it. WHY???? Because it is still being held at the customs, and yet to be cleared. Apparently, we are not the only ones who are suffering from this inefficiency. Many car buyers have also been waiting for their cars to be cleared for months. I don't understand why the customs are taking so long to give clearance. Talking about so near yet so far. I can't wait for the day to come, when we receive news that wecan collect it! Till then, we have to live with walking out or taking a bus.

Our old Camry... I actually felt like crying on the day I had to drive it to the dealer's place. Not because I wouldn't have a car to drive around anymore, but more because of emotional attachment. The night before, my sis, mum and I went down to the car to clear all our things from it. Then we drove out for the last time to get our snacks. When we came back, my sis said her goodbyes to it, as that was the last time she was gonna see it. She even noted that it has been our companion for so many nights when we went for midnight movies, went out to rent DVDs, or to get supper, or to just go for a ride. It was just like an able steed to us, and we were all so dependent on it. I think over the years, all of us got a little bit emotionally attached to it. I couldn't help but take a few pictures of it on the last day before I drove it down to have it handed over.

Scribblebytes Version 3

2008-09-02T19:03:00.003+08:00

*Pops Confetti*

I couldn't wait to put this on, and decided to put it up today. There you go... Scribblebytes version 3 is up~!!! There are a few things that still needs some tweaking, but i couldn't hold the excitement in any longer. Actually I didn't really think that it would have much readership, but response was beyond my expectations. So I think it was deserving of a face lift. Anyways, stay tuned for more content, and do tag to tell me what you think. *wink*

Drive safe, people~!!!

2008-08-30T04:26:00.006+08:00

4:35am.... I just got home from an accident site.

No... I wasn't involved. I was just there to be a kaypo.

1:45am. My mum and I were discussing something on the computer when a long loud screech came from outside my window, followed by a hair-raising sound of impact and shattered glass. I just knew it was gonna end up like that. For people who have visited my house before, will know that the windows in my room faces the road. This particular road outside my window is a common place for accidents. In my 15 years that I've lived here, I dare say that there has been more than 40 times that I've heard crashes, and many many more times that I've heard screeches which fortunately didn't end up in a crash. Everytime we hear a screech, me and my sis would go "OMG~!!!!" and then we would wince our eyes in anticipation for the BIG BANG.

I came to the conclusion that it is due to "the bend". Many people who are not familiar with this road have the tendency to underestimate it. It is extremely deceiving because if you don't pay attention, it looks like a very soft bend but in actual fact, it swerves quite abit.

This morning's one unfortunately ended with a big bang. I kinda predicted it would end like that, from the sound of the screech. From the years of listening to the sound of screeches, I somehow am able to predict with some accuracy the outcome. So, being the KPO Singaporean, I grabbed my shirt, put it on, my mum took the house keys, my sis changed out of her PJs, and the three of us took off to go downstairs to look at the carnage.

As we got closer to the site, we saw heavy smoke coming out of the car. It crashed head on, onto a tree on the road divider and the whole bonnet was so badly sunken in that it was eating into the driver and passenger seat. The whole road was scattered with the car debris and you could hear the odd crackle of glass and metal everytime a passing car drives past the debris. And already, there were throngs of other kaypos who came down to add to the scene. Many cabbies parked their taxis on the side of the road and got out to look too.

I realised that this was serious when we finally got close enough to see the car. It was an SUV, but I coudn't make out what model it was. And to my horror, i noticed that there was a body lying next to the car. DEAD STILL. Not even breathing movements. DEAD STILL! on the kerb. My mum crossed over to the divider and joined the throng of people there to look at the body. WTH~!?!? I didn't dare, because I had a feeling that "IT" was dead. She had a chat with some of the eye witnesses there and came back to tell me and my sis that "IT" was a girl passenger and she flew out of the car. The car was apparently racing with another car (lets call this car CAR Y) when the accident happened. CAR Y was unharmed and fled the scene after the crash. The driver, was still trapped in the car.

Shortly, an SCDF ambulance arrived, together with a fire engine, a few SCDF cars, and a few police cars. And shortly after that, an SCDF rhino vehicle came as well. The paramedics came, and told everyone to move to the other side of the road. They took like a minute's look at the motionless body, checking the few vital points for any signs of life, took out the black plastic bag and covered the body. I BLOODY KNEW IT. She died on the spot.

They started spraying water on the smoking car, and had to cut the car into pieces to get the trapped driver out.

I was waiting to see if any of their racing friends would turn up at the scene. They didn't take long... First was a pimped up SUV of almost the same make. It was a Mitsubishi Colt. The car zoomed in and parked at the roadside. Both driver and passenger came out and looked like guys in their 20's. They looked very flurried and ran to the crowd to ask for information about the situation. When they found out that the female passenger was gone, they looked at each other in disbelief and started furiously punching the keys on their phones to make phone calls. Within minutes, 8 to 10 other pimped up cars with fierce decals started roaring in one after the other. All of them, in their 20's with lian-ish girls by their sides, and all of them looked shell-shocked. Very soon, there was a sizeable group of at least 25 of their buddy buddys there.

After 1.5 gruelling hours of dissecting the car, the SCDF officers finally got the driver out. He was dead by the time they pulled him out. Both bodies were further covered by blue coloured foldable tents that the police always use to cover dead bodies. Their friends knew then, that both were dead, and they all went silent. Officers started to search the bodies and car for documents to identify the two deceased. They searched through the girl's handbag as well. And combed the area, managing to find a their belongings including a handphone, which they put all into the girl's handbag.

Then the scene started to clear, people started leaving after the bodies were covered by the tents. The SCDF ambulance and rhino, together with a few SCDF cars left. Leaving the job to the police to handle traffic and prolly to wait for the undertakers to come. I also started walking back to my estate when i heard someone shout from the group. He said in chinese "don't let that fella run off!!!" I turned back and saw the group running to a car that have just arrived at the scene. It was a white Mitsubishi lancer, i think. The group angrily knocked on the car's window and shouted at the people inside. I presume at this point that this was CAR Y. The driver of the car did not come out. I think he was hiding in the car for fear of being beaten by the angry pack. I couldn't really hear what was going on after that. The only few words i heard was "Oie!!! 死人 liao hor!!! 不要太过分hor~!! (Oie!!! There are deaths already hor!!! Don't be too much!!!)"... "拿他的号码!!! (Take down his number!!!)" Then, one of them took out their phone to take a picture of CAR Y's number plate. It drove off after that short commotion. And I left too.

Well... Initial D, Fast N Furious, Need For Speed wannabe's... Whatever you're doing gives you a ticket to heaven, or hell, whichever you believe after life to be in.

I am guilty of reckless driving at times as well. But only when I am driving alone... AT TIMES... AT TIMES only lah... When there are friends or other relatives in the car, I don't EVER take chances. When they ask me why I drive like an old man, my reply to them is "If something happens to you, I don't have a son/daughter to repay your parents with". Still, if I wanna take risks on the road, I will only take moderate risks. If its really too risky to cut someone, I will stay behind him even if he is travelling at 40km/h until i find it safe enough.

Anyway, talking about inauspicious dates. My mum just noted that today was the last day of the hungry ghosts festival. And the two poor youths just left like that. Scary indeed.

- R.I.P -

A New Look

2008-08-26T16:58:00.010+08:00

ScribbleBytes is about to get a new look~!!!

*
*
*
*
*

STAY TUNED....

Mama... It's over~!!!

2008-08-26T15:27:00.003+08:00

The Beijing Olympics is over, and thank god my ominous speculations were unfounded. No major tragedies, no bombings, no fuss. It all ended on a good note, especially for us Singaporeans. Never mind if they are imports. They still are a part of us, and fought for our cause. Congrats, and thank you~!

Right now, I'm starting to miss the games already. This past couple of weeks, the games have taken a part of my life. Feeling as much of the adrenaline as the athletes themselves. Switching from channel to channel to catch all the action. Now that its gone, I feel a little unbalanced. The nights seem a little more empty. I guess it'll all get back to normal soon. But for now, the effects have yet to wear off. London 2012. Sigh... seems very far off. Coming to think of it, maybe its just better that way. Because if the Olympics is such a common event that happens ever so often, it just loses its novelty.

Anyway, let me share with you my favourite event item of the olympics.

Gymnastics!!!

Rhythmic gymnastics to be exact. Not the plain gymnastics where they swing around on the uneven bars, somersault on the balancing beam, or jump across the vault. Nope~! not that one. It is the one where the gymnasts have certain apparatus, for example, the ropes, ribbons, clubs and hoops, performing their routines with music. I just love that~!

Ok la... I admit that its partly to ogle at the slender gymnasts in their intricately designed leotards. But apart from that, they never fail to amaze me with what they can do with their bodies. Executing movements which require so much dexterity and precision, and at the same time injecting graciousness into their performances, like ballerinas. Also, some of them have very nice music which makes it so enjoyable visually and... ... ... audibly, if thats the correct word to use. Lolz...

There were two gymnasts who captivated me in this particular games.

Anna Bessonova of the Ukraine:

and Irina Risenzon of Israel:

These two are my favourites. Anna Bessonova won bronze, while Irina Risenzon finished in 9th position. Both very pretty, very elegant. I'll be watching out for them again in London 2012. Anyway, I was wondering how come Singapore doesn't have a rhythmic gymnastics team, or a gymnastics team for that matter. I know we have, but how come they weren't sent to take part in the competition. Thats weird. Maybe they're not ready, but it would have been a good experience for them.

Bye Beijing~! Hi London~!

Fart Art

2008-08-19T01:49:00.005+08:00

Warning: Do not try this at home!!!

Me and my sis were youtube surfing earlier in the evening when we chanced upon a series of videos. Now, we all know for a fact that cow's fart contains methane gas. Just one cow alone can seemingly produce a few hundred litres of methane gas a day. While we are no where near the capacity of these methane dispensers, it is a proven fact that our farts do contain varying amounts of methane and hydrogen, depending on what we eat and the composition of bacteria in our intestines.

Amusingly, it seems that some dork took this information and made his own circus act out of it. And as Youtube becomes one of the main components of pop culture, this act has found its way to the tube, and is getting replicated by throngs of insane people who finds pleasure in, as the old saying goes, getting their ass on fire.

What is this act i'm talking about?
Fart Lighting

No kidding... They actually coined a term for it. Type "Fart Lighting" on wiki, and you'll find information on this potentially olympics-worthy sport. Lighting up their fart which throws out a ball of flame equivalent to that of a mini flame-thrower. And from the barrage of videos i've watched, it seems that the notion of the day is "the bigger the better". The flame produced, that is. No doubt it is a feat, being able to hold it in long enough to be impactful, on your command. But when you are not in full control, the consequences might be a little too much to bear.

When done correctly:

But when it goes wrong... There are two possibilities... this:

OR this:

Have fun people~!!!

2008-08-17T03:19:00.003+08:00

Another week has whizzed by as I still stay slumped on the bedrocks. What~!? Don't look at me as though I've committed a dubious crime. I don't owe anyone an explanation, that's for sure (apart from my mum)... I don't know why, but I don't find myself being very concerned about it. Getting a job, its all a matter of time.

Something worse has been bugging me recently. And San pointed it out with much ease. My loss of steam. I've been binging on food yet again. The excess baggage is gradually starting to show is face again. Yesterday when I was at Vivo with San, we bumped into Miss Leong (think C. elegans). Hahaha.... out in Vivo on a Friday afternoon. Apparently she was on leave that day. The first thing she said was "Eh evans~!!! how come you put on weight again~!?" WTF??? So obvious meh? I asked San and he said yes without much hesitation. Damn~!! I need to find back my resolve. Discipline is a virtue often underestimated.

Anyways, I haven't been all sluggish at home licking dust off the air. These are things that have kept me occupied for the past couple of weeks:

1) I've finally picked up Mahjong
2) Went on a DVD renting rampage and hence, managed to catch up on a good amount of movies i've missed in the past
3) Facials
4) Finally went to get contact lenses
5) Almost completed reading my book
6) Beijing Olympics

Bimbotic you say? Can't be. I'm a guy for pete's sake. Look, I've got testicles and man boobs. *checks to make sure*

For those who have not watched, American Gangster is a really nice show. Its a true story of a guy named Frank Lucas. He was an influential drug lord in New York during the 70's. He is an extremely smart person, and for years he managed to go unnoticed by the police even though the drugs he sold were EVERYWHERE on the street. He even beat the Italian mafia (who were actually in control of the drug trade at that time) to their game. During his peak, he earned like US 1 million dollars PER DAY. And in the 70's, US 1 million is damn big. But like how every super-hero has his nemesis, he got caught eventually by a particular detective who has been tracking his every move. Its a true story, i have to stress. And the actual fella, Frank Lucas is still alive at this very moment. 70+ years old. He lives to tell the tale.

Ohhhh... and talking about the olympics... Channel 5 has this programme at 11pm everyday to show the highlights of the day's events. Mark Richmond and Jade Seah co-hosts the show. I don't wanna diss her or anything, but i think Jade isn't ready for hosting. She's had her fair share of chances. First I remember was on "the dancefloor" co-hosting with Glenn Ong and FD. Then, she went on to host "sweets for my sweet" with Michelle Chong. Honestly, she has occasionally left me with my mouth open from her, for the lack of a better word, quirky comments. Her performance this time round didn't change much. And from the looks on Mark Richmond's face, you can tell that he finds some of her comments baffling at times, too. Okay la... to be fair, maybe that is why channel 5 is trying to give her more exposure...

The women's table tennis team finals is on tonight. Our team singapore heroines go in battle with the home favourites to vie for gold. I really really really hope they can pull this off. No matter how loud the chinese fans might be over there, their voices will never drown out the lion's roar; the roar that comes from every singaporean's heart. GO FOR GOLD~!!!

Still have alot to blog about... but damn tired already... My skin is hurting so bad from sunburn. I think this is like the worst sun burn I've ever experienced. Normally people would use "roasted pig" or "Lobster" or "Chilli Crab" to describe the colour of the skin when it's burnt right? I don't know how to describe mine. Its so severe, its like glowing in peach pink colour. Its really like GLOWING leh~!!! Can't even lie down to sleep without feeling the scorching pain on my back... Got it on Friday when i went swimming with San at the NUS pool. We were in the pool for about 3+ hours and "bam!" came back with burns on my whole body. That idiot of a Sanjeev la~!!! All his fault~!!!

SMS convo went something like this:
San: "eh... so set ah? I'll come pick you up at bouna vista MRT station at 11:45am"
Me: "huh? so you wanna eat first then swim? or you wanna swim first then eat"
San: "swim first la... i was thinking of going before the sun hits us"

KU KU JIAO~!!! pick me up at 11:45am... by the time we reach the pool and start swimming it'll be freaking 12 noon man~!!!! 12-2pm.... thats is the time of the day the sun wields out its UV raygun and go beserk. What does he mean by "going before the sun hits us"? *slaps head* The sun was really bad on Friday. Freaking freaking hot sunny day man. Recieved the UV full blast. My skin is pretty much busted now. ARRRrrrgghh... dun touch me~!!!

Bad feeling about the games...

2008-08-08T03:17:00.003+08:00

Tomorrow, or rather, today, is the official opening of the Beijing Olympics 2008. I don't know why... But I have this ominous feeling that something really really big is going to happen during this event. Something of the magnitude of "Sept 11 2001" or even bigger... Which is somehow rather unsettling to say the least.

As it is, the event has already been plagued by problems after problems in the days running up to the actual start. I really can't imagine, and don't wanna imagine what will happen if that "something big" happens. Lets just hope that all will go well, safely and smoothly.

And also, all the best to Team Singapore~!!!

Broken headstock... broken heart...

2008-08-08T02:34:00.003+08:00

My heart got broken into pieces earlier tonight... I was going to pick up the guitar to practice when i felt something foreign sticking out of the back side of the neck. I was shocked and almost certain it was a crack. Upon closer inspection, i found this:

A humongous crack line stretching across from the left side to the back and to the right side... You can't see the magnitude of the crack from here because the crack stretches even further than what you can see in the picture. And its not a hairline crack, mind you... it is raised by almost 1/2 a millimeter hor.... Immediately i turned to look at my sis and asked her:"Eh... you dropped the guitar right?" And she admitted that she dropped it last evening.

AAaarrgghhh~!!! I just felt like strangling her on the spot. I kept my composure, although the feeling really sucked... right down to the core... She offered to pay for it... but how can I accept it right? She's my younger sister and she's still a student. Her proposal sounded so wrong I don't even wanna consider it. First thing that came up in my mind was "What am I gonna do without the guitar now?" Cause I play on it almost every night, no matter how much time I have... Be it 5 to 10 minutes... or an hour or two... I need my fix of "guitar time"... Getting a new one now is quite out of the question as I'm not working. I can still afford to buy one... but then, in that way, I'll have nothing left after that, which is a no-no... haiz... This isn't the first time Angela (the guitar) was dropped. My sis and grandma together dropped her like a gazillion times before. Why can't they just be more conscious of the guitar's presence? I've never once dropped it although I'm the one who's in my own room most of the time. No point playing the blame game now.

Can it still be played? I'm not entirely sure because it cracked at a fatal point, in guitar sense. It is a point where it plays an important role in countering the strings' pressure when they are tightened. So I don't think I can even tune the strings properly because when tightened, there is alot of pressure being put on that spot where it cracked, which may just cause it to totally give way. I don't think it can be repaired too... I guess I'll just have to get used to living without the guitar for now.

ps: Hope I "tiok" the $8 mil TOTO tmr~!!! Then can buy my dream guitar liao. Hee Hee Hee...

Leaving H.O.P

2008-08-07T00:11:00.002+08:00

Finally ended my 3.5 months as a temp in H.O.P. last week...

There were happy moments
There were frustrating moments,
There were helpless moments,
But with all that said... I made good friends along the way, and I've learnt valuable things, had great experiences...

Thanks for the memories...

Hui Yee & Karen
The first two people that I made friends with after going back to HOP. The three of us pretty much formed an alliance from then on to protect ourselves in the company. Stowing off to the anchorage, holland V and Vivo for lunch together (I guess we're the only one's who have done it in HOP history).The uber loud chit chatting in the despatch room, and the soft whispers of gossip. The two even came out with codenames so that we can speak safely among ourselves. On their last day of attachment, when they left... i remember feeling kinda lonely. I still remember messaging Karen after that to tell her that the office suddenly felt very quiet. lolz...

Siti & Siya
Then came another two students that was to replace Hui Yee and Karen. The double S's... Siti and Siya... I always tell the rest of the people that these are my two god sistas... why? Cause we braved the storms together... rite sistas? Although siya keeps calling me uncle... =.= grrr~!!!

Company's 3rd anniversary dinner

It was H.O.P's 3rd year annivesary, and boss treated all of us to a seafood dinner at orchard hotel. Here, you will see Saajida and Rita, the two new full timers who joined us recently. And also a good buddy, Enoch, who was also there as a temp till his Uni semester starts.

My presentation of food good rite? Can become chef liao... lolz... anyway, I had damn alot of servings of oysters and crayfish that night... Oiiishiii~!!!

There you go... (from left) Saajida, Rita, Me and Enoch...

Group photo...

Guy power!!! hahaha... (top) me and Uncle Raymond (Bottom) Enoch and KK... K.K. not Kay Kay... OKay? lolz

Me and my sistarz...

Last Day
I wore beach-style to office, and everyone was like "WHoa~!!!!" when they saw me, coz i never once wore so casually to office b4... beach-stlye with crocs flip flops okay... dun puay puay!!! hahaha... aiyah dun care lah... since its my last day... But i had a pleasant surprise when the day was about to end and they suddenly took a cake out of the fridge. I was busy doing something when i spotted siya and siti loitering around the pantry... It was then that i found out that my boss had bought a cake and drinks to hold a small farewell celebration. OKay.. sounds wrong, you don't celebrate farewells... but whatever the word is lah... fill it in urselves... Then awhile later, as we were preparing the cake, Siya, Siti and Enoch suspiciously crept into the despatch room and closed the doors. I knew something was up and barged in... Haha... They tried hard to conceal what they were doing but i sorta got it already la... The three of them bought two neckties and a card with their well wishes on it. Thanks guys~!!! And it all came to a good ending after that...

Blackforest Cake from Crystal jade...

I didn't wanna end up like that... They forced me to do the act cute pose...~!!! MUahaha

Some ppl were missing in this picture cause they were busy with their work at that time.

- Officially Out Of Job... Again... -

我不配

2008-07-20T04:11:00.003+08:00

Boring Saturday afternoon.... Was supposed to go Ubin for cycling with Cher and gang. In the end it was canceled because there were last minute pang sehs... So there i was at home with my guitar and feeling all bored. So i decided to play a song that i've been practicing on and load it up here.

I kept NG-ing because i either forgot the lyrics or played wrongly. From 3 in the afternoon I kept trying to perfect the take and it was only until around 8+ that i finally was satisfied with it. I almost played 4 hours at one go. Its been awhile since I played so long on my guitar. My fingers hurt so bad now. I remember only having this feeling when i first started playing the guitar and the strings bit into my flesh because I haven't formed calluses on my fingers yet. Today, I experience that very same feeling, and they feel very sore... even as i'm typing on my keyboard now... But I feel good cause I finally completed my first video... Dedicated to you guys out there... =)

TCC Chalet Gathering (1st July)

2008-07-11T01:05:00.002+08:00

My time working in TCC citylink has been a very fun and fulfilling experience. Made many friends along the way... seen many come... and many go... But everytime there is a gathering, its always good to see these very people coming back to grace the occasion. Anyway, after I left TCC, our citylink branch has been getting the top award for the best performing outlet for a few times in a row already. And everytime we win the award, the outlet gets a reward of $1000 to spend. We would always use this money to organize a gathering, and try to get as many ex-staff back as possible. Doesn't matter if they left, because as they left, they also left a footprint on the outlet. Managers, captains, full-time staff, part-time staff all the same, we're like one big family...... I really miss the times working there...

Desmond has a habit of posing funny in front of the camera....

Me and Siti A.K.A Gila....

Happy moments are always short lived....

-END-

Singapore Toy & Comic Convention 2008

2008-07-07T19:45:00.003+08:00

Had difficulty getting people to go down with me to the convention last Sunday. Everyone seemed busy. However, I didn't want to miss the opportunity and I was curious as to what this convention was all about. Also, I wanted to go trigger insane on my new Lumix to put it to test. Therefore, I had to go alone to brave out the crowds. The crowd was still bearable as compared to the ones at the IT/PC show.

Enough talk, here are some of the pics I took:

Jap Kimono figurines

The figurines were so life-like...

This booth was extremely crowded and people we virtually squeezing and queuing up and stacking up to try to get their shots on the figurines here.

Did some colour manipulation here on photoshop

Look... Very very life-like...

Couldn't help the reflection on the glass... =(

Cartoon artist at work...

The dark army... (experimenting with black & white shots)

Love their expressions...

Lost in toyland...

I dunno... but this looks like a dark side of mickey to me...

Karen's favourite kinda dolls. These dollies cost up to $130 each... hahaha... But I find them quite pretty. Love the colours going on... Now I know why she's so into them...

There are alot more of them actually. But I can't possibly load everything up... haha...

Standing tall.... In the face of the busy crowd.

Cute collection of wedding dolls...

Black and gold complements each other well...

Actually... I know nothing about designer toys. But it was still a good trip down for the experience... Didn't regret going down, even though if it was with myself...

Sorry for the massive amount of pix. =)

-END-

2008-07-03T00:38:00.003+08:00

Had a mini gathering with Stephanie and gang last Saturday as she is going to fly off to Melbourne for her studies in a few days time. We had dinner at Citylink's New York New York. It was a very weird night as everyone seemed very quiet. Even myself. Haha... Jason was the most emo of the lot. Maybe its because that was his first book out day after enlisting into the army. He needed time to absorb and get used to ""colours" once again.

We couldn't decide where to go after dinner for a long time until stephanie suggested this place called Loof. Its at the third floor of Odeon towers. A very nice place to chill out if you ask me. I have always walked past odeon towers to get to bras basah complex or raffles hotel, but never have i stepped into the building itself, except for the Macdonald's on the outside. That night, when we stepped into the lift lobby, we chanced upon the staircase and we got damn excited as the landing was very nice. A few of us decided to take the stairs up instead but found out in the end that the doors on all the floors were locked. So we had to go back down to take the lift again. By then I started sweating... hahaha

Staircase landing from top view. Siew ying, Ben and Daniel all looking up. lolz...

Pictures~!:

Jason looking very red...

My drink... White chocolate martini...

Steph: "Talk to my hand~!"

We wanted to take a group photo and had wanted to get a passerby to do it for us. But in the end i suggested doing it the Zi Pai way. And we managed to fit everyone into the frame. Total coolness.

We started to get trigger happy:

We purposely sat according to our colours for this pic cause we realised that we were all wearing very solemn colours.

Me, siewying and ben doing the london bridge formation. Siew ying is short~! hahaha...

Okay my standing position looks wierd in the pic. But whatever~!

Good luck Steph~!!!
And have fun while there~!!!!

Don't lose your grip...

2008-06-28T01:39:00.003+08:00

on the dreams of the past...

After failing 6 consecutive tries in a row for the SIA interviews. I sorta lost abit of fire for the job. Threw it off somewhere at the back of my mind. Whatever happened today re-lit that fire. I was at Changi Airport today, and it was a special visit. I shan't say what for, because I'm bound by confidentiality about my purpose there. What I can say is, due to the nature of my visit there, I was granted special access to the plane "docks" (I don't exactly know what its called). But its the place that the public can only view from the viewing gallery.

Took this pic off the net. Hahaha... I was somewhere on the grounds below lah... where they were loading the cargo, and engineers were fixing the planes. Damn bloody cool. And its really different viewing it from the galleries and actually seeing the real thing on the grounds itself. I really had the urge to take pictures in there. But its a restricted area and security was TIGHT. Had to be escorted by an officer everywhere we went. No stewardesses to see though... Lolz... All engineers and cargo loaders... But just being there made me remember why I fought to lose so much weight. My dream... at least for now.... I must come back to it, for I will not die in peace knowing I did not fulfill that desire. I must find my way back on track. I will.... conquer the golden bird.

Anyway, my boss drove his Peugeot 307 convertible again. For convertibles, if you are sitting in the front seats, its cool, cause there is the windscreen to break the force of the wind hitting your face. But if you are sitting at the back seat, which i did, your face gets full blast impact. It is painful. And at the end of the journey, you can actually feel pins and needles on your face. To add to that, you'll get a free hair styling by the wind. Just for the sake of fun, i whipped out my phone while we were travelling at 100km/h on the ECP to get a shot of me and my ex-classmate-turned-colleague Saajida. See how my hair is flying and she is holding on to her hair for dear life. Hahaha...

Moments like these, I just wish i was bald. lolz...

Anyways... shall end the post here... Gathering with stephanie and gang tmr for dinner, then might head down to Arena with Ashlyne and JJ and Fanyi and....... more (maybe?)... Aiyah, dunno who'll be there lah... hahaha... just wanna enjoy the weekend...

Shopping Rampage

2008-06-26T00:32:00.003+08:00

The title says it all. I've recently been on a shopping rampage and its becoming addictive. Just last weekend alone, I spent almost $200 on shopping, not inclusive of food. Oh yah~!!! And talking about food, I had fast food for three consecutive days in a row last weekend. That is terrible, taking into consideration that I have stopped my strict exercise regime ever since I did my wisdom tooth extraction. EEErrrgghhh...

Had Carl's Junior for dinner with Ashlyne on Friday night. She's such a darling btw, one last minute call to ask her out for dinner and she's on (although the place we met is very convenient for her lah... hahaha). Then on saturday, had lunch buffet at Allson hotel where my cuzzie celebrated her son's birthday and KFC with my sis and Edwin for dinner. And on Sunday, it was burger king with Hui Yee and Siya. OMG, I've gained so much weight, so much so that I just had to drag myself to restart my running routine today. OK. Enough of the digression.

Back to topic. Yeah. This is what I got over the weekend:

I've found a new love. I was walking around the basement of Raffles City when at the corner of my eye, I spotted something that caught my attention. Upon closer inspection, I realised that it was a boutique that sells handcrafted cufflinks and office wear imported from Europe. The name of the shop is "CUFFZ". I've never seen the shop before, and I found out that they only opened recently. They have 3 boutiques in Malaysia, and this was their first boutique in Singapore. The stuff they sell there are rather exquisite, so I took a look around. I couldn't resist the temptations cause there was a shirt and tie that I really liked. Got slapped with a $125 bill in the end. Total was supposed to be $150+, but they were having a promotion. =). Look, even the packaging looks so exquisite. Hahaha... This won't be my last purchase there for sure. Good service-oriented staff (the girl actually picked the tie colour for me, and the more I look at it now, the more i like it!!!), nice products. *thumbs up*

A wrist band from River Island. I picked this when I was waiting for Hui Yee and Siya to reach on Sunday. I just went in to River Island to have a look-see. And usually look-sees will end up as look-buys. I found this wrist band which I like alot. But they are freaking selling it at a cut throat price of $25. I contemplated for awhile. After lunch with the girls, they accompanied me back to river island to make my purchase. Hahaha... They shook their head in disbelief that I was willing to pay $25 for that. I'm quite surprised myself too.... I actually wanted to get a messenger bag from project shop on that day also. But this month really over spend liao. Totally over did it. Control! >.< I also bought a Netherlands Tee shirt from nike at $37 on Saturday cause I was gonna head down to the dutch club to support holland in their match against Russia. Haiz... But they lost... What a let down. So in total Shirt + Tie from cuffz $125. Wristband from River Island $25. Netherlands Tee Shirt $37. You do the math.

PLUS!!! I got a ring from Uomo about 3 weeks ago. I've always wanted to get a ring. But didn't find any suitable ones. San recommended looking in Uomo. And I really found one that I liked. It had a very rugged, unpolished look. Which was in it own way, attractive. This put me back another $55.

The one that made the biggest hole in my pocket was the camera I got at the PC show. Hui Yee was working as a promoter in the Panasonic booth, selling their lumix cameras. Was actually deciding to get the canon ixus 860is. But in the end, decided to give her some support and bought the Lumix FX-520. She actually recommended me the cheaper FX-36, but I decided to go with the FX-520 because it had manual functions to give better control of how you want your pictures to turn out, it had a larger screen and it was a touch screen. She told me "wah~!!! 600+ you also "she de"(willing) to buy ah?". I want the manual function, and the large lcd la... wat to do??? More than half of my month's salary gone... like that. But she offered to give me an extra battery, on top of the already good freebie package which included a pouch, a cleaning kit, 2 pieces of 4GB memory card, a tripod and what nots. So... ok lah... not that bad.

Actually, the picture quality is quite good for a compact camera. A shot i took of the street outside peninsula plaza:

Of course you can't compare the image quality to that of a DSLR. I will be waiting for comex in September to get my DSLR.... Hopefully...

Oh~!!! and then there is the watch I bought a few weeks ago. My grandma offered to sponsor me $200 to get a new watch as she saw that my old one was not working anymore. That one has been with me for 8 years already la.... Served me well. So I got a watch from Ellese. Haha, was playing around with the camera and tried to take an artistic shot of the watch. Sorry but you can only see half of it. It was $260, so I had to pay the balance myself. lolz...

Oh Oh OH~!!!! Then there is also my Sebastian Xtah crude clay for my hair. The Sebastian brand of hair products are good. Very easy to shape your hair and its non-sticky (which makes it easy to reshape anytime you want), unlike any other brands I use before, etc *atsby, L'orea**. Price is abit steep though. $47 for one small tub like that:

Hahaha... i think I better stop here. Its getting abit scary liao, I don't wanna calculate anymore. I still need to save up for a Japan trip with san. ARRRGGHH~!!! damn~!!!

BYE.

The royal orange

2008-06-24T00:10:00.003+08:00

People who know me well enough, will know that I have always been supporting the Netherlands (Holland) ever since the times of Dennis Bergkamp. Don't ask me "why them?", because I have no idea myself. Maybe its the unique colour of their jersey, maybe its because of Dennis Bergkamp, maybe because the dutch once had a little influence on Singapore before Sir Stamford Raffles and gang came to establish British rule.

2 fridays ago, my mum asked if I wanted to go to the dutch club that night to watch the Netherlands VS France match since I was a fan of the Netherlands . Her boss was a dutch and he was a member there, so he could get us entry. I thought it was a great idea and down we went, together with my sis. It was situated at camden park, along adam road. Its actually called the "Hollandse Club". The match was supposed to start at 2.45am, but we reached about 2am. There weren't many people then, and we could get good seats. 95% of the people there were dutch people. DUH~!

As seen here, the crowd was still small...

Packets of dutch people hanging around the bar and getting their beers.

By 2:30am, it started to get crowded....

and by the time the match started, it was fully packed...

The dutch are extremely tall~!!! An average dutch lady is almost my height, and an average dutch man is taller then me. I got a little bit intimidated because almost the whole crowd there were dutch people, and they were standing so tall. Luckily we went early and manage to get good seats in front. During the match, i looked around and saw alot of them behind standing on chairs in order to see the screen. I felt abit out of place cos i wasn't in orange as the decision to go there was an impromptu thing, and i had no orange shirts in my wardrobe. The atmosphere was extremely good. ALMOST everyone was in orange shirts, some with orange wigs and tall hats. Some had painted their faces with the dutch flags... and there was cheering and chanting and what nots...

OH by the way. I realised that Dutch ladies are very pretty. They have very nice facial features and I was totally loving it there. Of course not all of them, but i spotted alot of pretty ones. I told my mum I want to go Holland to look for a wife now. Haha...

The most memorable part was when they played the national anthem of Holland. Every single person stood up and sung their national anthem in unison. Never have I heard Singaporeans sing our national anthem with such gusto. We stood up, and hummed along too. Really really felt like I was standing in the actual stadium. During the match, every near goal, save, foul on the dutch players got a very strong response. Alot of "OOoooooohhh's" , "AAAaaaaahhhh's" and "Yaaaaaaaay's"...

Met my mum's boss Mr Cor. Very nice person with a fun personality. He was very proud of his country too and told us alot about holland. And I found out from him, the reason why Holland's jersey is orange in colour although their flag colour is made up of only red, blue and white. It is because their present queen, Queen Beatrix is the princess of the royal house of Orange-Nassau. In fact all of the predecessors were also from the royal house of Orange-Nassau. So orange is actually the name of the royal house and therefore, the colour orange is seen in high regard in Holland.

Mr. Cor with me and my sis. Haha.. he was one of the rare dutchman on that night without an orange shirt on.

Holland won 4-1 against France that night and the crowd was ecstatic. So was I. It beats watching from home. They were singing and dancing around after the match. Very fun.

I actually went down again on Saturday (21st June) with my mum and Mr Cor to watch the Quarter-finals where they met Russia. I specially bought a fan T-shirt for the occasion. This time round, My mum and I arrived late and the crowd was like double that of the first time we came. We were sandwiched right at the back of the towering crowd. Could barely see the screen during the first half. Luckily there were no goals then. At the half time break, many people went to the loo, so we tried to squeeze our way to a better spot. Holland lost that night, but the crowd was very sporting and continued cheering their boys on during the match even when they were a goal behind. When the referee blowed the final whistle, they applauded their team although they lost. Very nice of them, the Dutch. I was really dissappointed with the results though. But never mind. They'll still have my support in World cup 2010~!!! Till then~!!!

A wedding affair

2008-06-23T22:50:00.004+08:00

Finally, I have reached the age where my peers around me would start to get married. First of the lot was Weiwen, my fellow recovery mechanic in 42 SAR during my NS. This is the first time where I actually had to attend a friend's wedding, so it felt a little bit different from previous weddings i have attended (mostly of relatives'). News of his wedding came as a shock to me, as we do occasionally meet up every now and then, but i never knew he had a girlfriend, much less a fiancee. EEk... what a lousy friend I am eh?

Anyway, it was held on father's day (15th June). The wedding was at the Hilltop Garden Restaurant, which is in the Civil service club. It was held in their crystal ballroom and it wasn't too shabby at all. It actually kind of resembled the ballroom in Marriot hotel where my JC prom night was held.

I thought the whole gang of our 'B' vehicle mechanics would be there, but when i got there, i realized most of them pang seh-ed... In the end only me, Ronald and Jack turned up. Pathetic! The three of us were wondering what happen to the rest of them. We were assigned to table 42, and i told ronald "wah lao, we can never escape from the number 42 eh?" (could have been coincidental, but I really feel that Weiwen did it on purpose lor... hahaha...).

Because there were only the three of us that came, we were assigned to sit together with strangers we never knew. So haiz... must maintain image. Must use the serving spoon to take the food. Must observe proper table manners... So troublesome... kekeke...

Watching my friend walk down the aisle with his soulmate, I couldn't help but feel a little lonely... I get emotional at times like these i have to admit. Oh well. *Natasha bedingfield's soulmate is actually playing in my head right now* Hahaha...

Anyways, I just wanna wish him the best in his new found life.

hahaha... totally have no idea where the little girl appeared from. (from left: mysterious girl, me, weiwen, his wife ying ying, and ronald.)

ps: Sorry ah, jack, i know you will definitely say how come i didn't ask you to take the picture together. But you were nowhere to be found when we wanted to go and take the picture. LOLZ~!!!

A very patronising entry

2008-06-23T00:18:00.003+08:00

Have been too tired to blog recently... That explains the lack of updates.

Work has been draining my energy and everyday after I come home from the office, i just feel like taking a nice warm bath and snuggling under my sheets after that. Most days I doze off at 7-8pm... and wake back up at around 10-11ish to log on, because the night is so wasted without being online for at least a while. Lolz... And every time I do, i face a nagging voice in my mind to blog because the last entry has been so outdated. I've got so many updates, but yet, all I feel like doing is to read through my regular forums, and do a little chatting on MSN. I'd feel so detached, going one night without logging on.

But today, I feel like kicking the dust and breaking out of this hiatus. Finally....

First post however, will be a very patronizing entry. I have been tagged by Cher to complete this questionnaire. Well, chain questionnaires always have their way of proliferating and making their way around no matter how much people diss them.

Actually, I feel that there is something lacking in this chain questionnaire. And that is a threating message which forces people to play the game of tag. A very cliche one you'll probably find is "Please pass this on within XX hours or something very bad will happen to you." So I am going to personally incorporate my own threating meassage into the questionnaire and throw out the stink bomb. XD... So here goes....:

A) People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs & replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

B) Tag 8 people to do this quiz & those who are tagged cannot refuse, as by doing so would result in permanent hair loss on their heads and extreme growth in facial hair (be it guy or girl). LOLZ... These people must state who they were tagged by & cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by. Continue this game by sending it to other people or you will receive the same fate.

#1 If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Give her my blessings.

#2 If you can have a dream to come true, what would it be?
To tour every corner of the earth.

#3 What will your dream house be like?
Mansionette looking out to the sea. Big enough to accommodate at least 5 different themes in different sections of the house. Luxury pool with a jacuzzi incorporated at the side. Fountain at the front porch. Underground mini movie theater.

#4 Are you hungry?
Hell yeah. 24 hours a day... 7 days a week...

#5 What’s your ideal lover like?
I think I make a very boring partner. So someone who embraces my flaws and loves me for who I am, i guess... High sex appeal is a plus. LOLz...

#6 Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
Being loved by someone, definitely. Why? Because you can simply give your love to someone you choose to love. But you can't simply force someone who doesn't love you to love you. Makes sense?

#7 How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
Waiting changes nothing. Take action now! And if all else fails, move on. Life is short.

#8 If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Sow discord. Heh heh heh... *evil grin*

#9 Is there anything that has made you happy today?
Yes. Food, shopping & good company.

#10 Is being in a school fun?
There is nothing more fun than schooling.

#11 How do you see yourself in ten years time?
5 words. Taking The World By Storm.

#12 What is currently the most important thing to you?
MONEY....

#13 What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Fun loving. Understanding. A dear to be with. Easy going. Laid-back at times. Wierd at times. hahaha..

#14 Do you believe in miracles?
Of course. I create them.

#15 Would you rather be single & rich or married but poor?
If i could, I wanna be married and rich. But its not always your choice to make in life, so between this two, I'd say single and rich. Being married and poor is a very bad scenario. Imagine being poor and still having to worry about feeding your hungry wife and seedlings if there are any.

#16 What’s the first thing you do every morning?
Hit the snooze button.

#17 Would you give all in a relationship?
Y.E.S...

#18 If you fall in love with two people simultaneously, who would you pick?
The chio-er one. XD... I can be rather shallow at times.

#19 What type of people do you like to make friends with?
Chatty and outgoing. Bursting with energy. I'm usually the quieter one in the group and I do release negative energy sometimes. So a chatty and outgoing person usually negates that effect, and it feels good to be in the company of people like that.

#20 What type of people do you dislike?
Unfriendly and snobbish. Know-it-alls.

I can't tag 8 people, cause I don't know many people who reads the blog and also have blogs themselves. So I'll just name whoever I can think of:

1) Ashlyne
2) Fangyi
3) Jasrie
4) Steph
5) Chris

Thats it. I'm done with it. Its getting late.

Proper updates tomorrow, I promise.

Just let me die~!!!

2008-06-04T20:10:00.003+08:00

Yes... That was all i could think of when i had my wisdom tooth extracted yesterday night.

I've went under the knife twice before. Suffered a degenerated spinal disc before. Suffered tonsilitis like a hundred times before (in fact, tonsilitis is extremely bearable, but san who ever suffered from it once in his life said it was his worst experience... Haha...). But yesterday's experience is by far the MOST TRAUMATIC experience I've ever had in my life. I really mean it.

People... Please take proper care of your teeth. And pray hard that your wisdom tooth doesn't grow the wrong way. And if need be, please please please, go to a reputable dentist in the case where you really have to get your teeth extracted. I am not exaggerating, it is really really a painful experience. I am not trying to scare anyone, or further aggravate dental phobia.

It all started when i began to experience extreme pain at night a few weeks ago. Pain that woke me up from my sleep. Pain that lasted throughout, causing sleepless nights. I didn't think much of it at first. Then it got worse, so on monday night i decided to consult a dentist. I don't have a regular dentist, so I just went to a random dentist that seemed very friendly. He looked young, but i trusted him. I was told the pain was due to my wisdom tooth which grew out the wrong way and, my last molar which was being pushed upwards by my wisdom tooth.

As you can see.... for my case, its a case of angular eruption. So he told me to settle things in the office before I decided to do the surgery because I will have to be on 7 days MC after that. I was still contemplating then, whether to go for it or not. But on that night itself, I couldn't fall asleep again. The pain was so immense I couldn't take it any longer I decided to go for it the next day.

I did my own research, from people who did it before, and online. According to most people, even my sister's BF, the most painful part of the surgery is when you are being injected with the anesthetic. Because the needle is freaking thick and long... This is exactly what it looked like:

Fucking scary i tell ya...

So, I went in to the room. Did an X-Ray to give the dentist a clearer view of how my teeth were positioned in the gum. Then he advised me to extract the last molar too as it won't last long and might give alot of problems in future (I broke it before two months ago and had it patched). So i agreed and my nightmare began.

Was first injected with anesthetic. Initially, he poked me a total of about 6-8 times at different locations of the gum (according to alot of people who did the surgery before they were poked only once or twice). That itself was painful and i squirmed, but it was still bearable. After he was done with the anesthetic, he said to me "ok... thats probably the most painful part of the surgery" I was very relieved to hear that and I thought it wasn't so bad after all.

Half of my mouth was numb after that. He then let me rest awhile to let the anesthetic take full effect. Shortly, he got down to business. At first, he used some tool to lightly knock on both the tooth to be extracted and asked me if it was painful. I felt stinging sensations when he did that. (I thought I was supposed to feel nothing after the anesthetic~!?!?!?!!?) I began getting worried. He then asked the nurse to give him more anesthetic and he shot me two more times on the gums (son of a gun!!!!). He told me "ok, i'm going to extract ur molar first, to get that out of our way". Then he took out a tool which looked like a mini pounder and pressed it down real hard on my molar and did some grinding action. The pain was EXCRUCIATING, I just let out a cry. He still could ask me "huh? pain ah?"

WTF~!?!?!?

Pain is an understatement. I answered him with a "yurgh..." (you know how you can't talk properly when the dentist is working on you.) He then told me "bear with it for awhile.." and continued the grinding. Finally, he took his plier out.... He plied my molar and shook it around to try and get it loose, and i could hear the crackle of my bones, like the tooth got broken off from my jaw bone. By this time, my body was uncontrollably trembling in pain already and cold sweat started rolling down my forehead. He looked at me and said, "abit more, it's almost out already" I was thinking "speed up, I'm almost dying already". Finally with one last tug, he managed to get it out. At this time, i got damn scared because, it wasn't even the wisdom tooth yet. It was just the molar, and it was such pain. The wisdom would be hell. And i guessed right.

After the first tooth came out, he said "ok, I let you rest awhile, we are going to extract the wisdom tooth shortly." I tried to calm my nerves after whatever just happened. The few minutes of rest seemed damn short, he came back to me shortly and said "ok? can ah, we'll continue with the wisdom" I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and prayed hard it'll not be as bad. He started with the knocking and grinding first. Which was almost the same amount of pain as the previous tooth, but when he took out the pliers to try and ply the tooth out, I REALLY WISHED THAT I COULD JUST DIE THERE. It was soooo painful, my whole body started trembling vigorously. The nurse had to hold my head down on numerous occasions, telling me to keep it still. The feeling was terrible, i looked up, and all i could see were the flash lights shining on me, and three people dressed fully in surgical gowns and masks (one dentist and two nurses) all holding on to wat looked like tools of torture and manhandling me. The dentist.. he seemed puzzled at my pain and asked again "its still very painful?" I was in such trauma i couldn't even answer him. All i could do was squirm and let out gasps of pain. He saw the pain in my face and told his nurse "ok... give me 8%" or something along the lines of that. And jabbed me with more anesthetic. I counldn't believe how many times he had to jab me with anesthetic. Its not even working. Yes i feel no sensation to my lower lip and tongue. But it still hurts like hell at the tooth. He continued to try and ply the tooth out. Shaking it around in all directions like how a bullfighter would wrestle a bull by the horns. By this time, tears started rolling down. I felt like telling him to stop the surgery. He had difficulty getting the tooth out, and i could sense abit of anxiety in him too that the tooth didn't seem to budge. He started changing tools alot and trying different ways to get it out. As for me, I could feel my soul almost lifting up from my body, I was on the verge of a breakdown already. The trembling continued, now even more prominent than ever... my toes curled up, my hands were gripping on to the chair handles for dear life and my whole back was drenched in cold sweat. After what seemed like eternal hell, he managed to free the fella and took it out. he examined the tooth and went "wahhh... no wonder...." apparently, the roots of my wisdom tooth were grown in a hook shape, thats why it didn't budge.

The pictures are probably gonna gross most people out. Sorry... haha... and yes... those are the culprits that got extracted. I wanna keep it to remind myself to keep a good oral hygiene from this day onwards.

After that, the wound got cleaned up and the dentist ended up stitching my gums twice because he screwed it up on his first attempt, and had to remove the stitches and redo it again. =.=... spare me the trauma already... After the surgery, my whole left face felt very very swollen and the pain was still intense and lingering. It gave me a very bad headache. I was put on this medication:

Three different kinds of antibiotics, painkillers, antiseptic mouthwashes, gastric protection pills. I took so much medicine, my urine had a blueish tint the next day and it smelt strongly of medicine. I wonder if my liver can really cope with all this medication. Total bill was $700++....

According to most people, the most painful parts of the surgery is during the injection of the anesthetic and after the operation, when the anesthetic dies off. everything between that can't really be felt. For me, i don't know why the anesthetic didn't work even though i was jabbed more than 8 times with it. The thought of it still sends shivers down my spine. It was a terrible terrible experience. My worst so far. If I were asked to rate the dreadfulness of this surgery on a scale of 10, i would give it a 12.... seriously...

Going back on saturday to have my stitches removed. Still can't really move my jaw too much now. Feels very stiff and swollen and i taste blood the whole day, like theres a piece of rusted metal in my mouth. Yucks...

At least i get to sleep without the pain now. Sigh...

My life thus far

2008-05-28T02:04:00.002+08:00

Grad Day was on the 21st of May. I couldn't make up my mind whether or not to attend it until the very last minute. The result was having to rush to order the graduation gown and confirm my attendance with the lecturer-in-charge. That being said, I think I made the right decision to go. Because I never felt like I missed school so much until that day.

The ceremony itself was extremely long and draggy. While waiting for the whole thing to end, numerous flashbacks of poly life kept playing in my head. I miss my FYP days, working with Miss Nilar, and slacking once in a while in the Zebrafish room with Ash and Fang Yi. I miss the bumming around in school after lectures with the gang. I miss the "being able to go to the school pool to suntan in the middle of the day" freedom. I miss camp focus. I miss Guitar Club. I miss the project discussions in the library discussion rooms which always turn out to be non-constructive. I miss the blatant passing around of tid-bits during lectures in the mornings to keep ourselves awake from the boring lectures. I miss fooling around during lab practicals.

But there I was, taking half a day off from WORK to attend a ceremony which actually marks the end of that carefree life. Nevertheless, I was thankful to actually have one more day in school to reminisce.

There was another thought that hit me. When it was about time for my row to go up the stage to collect our certs, we were asked to line up by the side of the auditorium. There were people there to check our attire to make sure everything is worn nice and proper. In short, smart. I actually tried to trigger a little bit of pride at that moment, but I couldn't. Sadly, I came to this conclusion that I didn't really deserve this. I know most of the people standing around me worked hard for it, but sadly, I know I didn't. I pulled through by a thread. Then it dawned upon me that I have yet to do something in life that I could really be proud of. I have under-achieved.

Something must be sending a message to me. I had a conversation with Hui Yee and Karen at the office the other day, and we were talking about salaries. Then we calculated my annual salary if i were to continue working in HOP with the pay I'm getting now. I know its hypothetical because my pay wouldn't be the same if I were working full time, but just for the sake of the topic, we did the calculation. When they saw the amount, they shook their heads and said to each other, "haiz... not up to standard.. cannot cannot." I totally know what they mean. And i don't blame them. Sanjeev just recently started talking about something along the lines of this topic. And I think something, god maybe, is sending me a message to wake up. I know money shouldn't be used as a measure of a person's success. But such is the reality of life today, whether we like it or not, its gonna come haunting us.

OK. This entry is becoming damn glum. Time to brighten it up with pics~!

(haha... the original photo was very dark and i tried using photoshop to brighten it. But ended using this effect instead.)

I think they need no introduction. They have been a big part of my life recently. Ash! Fang Yi! If you are seeing this: I just wanna say I'm really thankful to you girls for making FYP life so much more enjoyable. And I'm very glad that the 3 months in FYP brought us closer.

Since both of you wrote touching words on your blogs about our time together in FYP, i just thought that I should reciprocate and do the same. LOLZ... No lah.. kidding... I really meant what I said.

Waiting for the ceremony to start...

Yuhua... Someone I also got to know better during FYP. =)

Miss Thye~!!! Hahaha... just had to take a photo with her. The cutest lecturer in my course. You have to listen to the way she talks and her mannerisms to understand why.

~~~I MISS SCHOOL~~~

___________________________________________________________________

Me @ Work...

Me, Yani and Karen...

Saryn, Me, Karen....

I don't know why I look so bloated in the photos. Oh well... Maybe I'm really like that... Anyway, these photos were taken during one of our company's projects. At Singapore Power. Damn cool place... we did the project at an underground place with NASA style rooms with a whole panel of smaller TVs monitoring stuff all around singapore.

___________________________________________________________________

Daihatsu Copen

Spotted a very cute car on the roads that day. I think its a daihatsu copen. Love the colour. Love the look. Very vintage feel, with a touch of moderness to it.

___________________________________________________________________

Ok... the picture doesn't look very appealing i know. But was at Da paolo's last week for dinner with San. He ordered the tiramisu for dessert. All I can say is that they serve a mean slice of tiramisu. It was almost like soaked in rum... hahaha... NICE~! you guys should go and try it someday.
___________________________________________________________________

Ok... something I took out of my window sometime ago as i got ready to go to work. Wasn't supposed to be like that. There was supposed to be a very long thin ray of very very strong sunlight that came through the dark clouds. It was a very phenomenal view. Nothing like i've seen before. But by the time i took out my phone, the ray had already subsided. But nice view nonetheless.

2008-05-26T22:25:00.003+08:00

Can you tell the difference between the real dog and the fake?

Ok la... haha... Of course you can. But the differences are very subtle. The dog on the left is a CAKE... CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!? I happened to stumble upon this website called confetti cakes. These people specialize in doing cake sculptures, and they look extremely pretty. They happened to have a youtube video on how they did the dog cake too.

Take a look at some of their works... Amazing!

Here's their website. Do check it out....
http://confetticakes.blogspot.com/

_____________________________________________________________

On a side note, haven't been updating for the longest time cause I've been feeling damn tired recently after work. But for the sake of keeping it alive i shall. Post on the graduation ceremony coming up tmr...!!!

Mother's Day Dishes...

2008-05-11T23:01:00.003+08:00

Firstly, happy mother's day to all mothers out there. =)

This year's mum's day was no different from last year's. My mum wanted us (me and my sis) to whip up something for her in the kitchen rather than to spend money buying stuff. This is good for us in a way that we don't need to spend too much money. But the whole process of thinking through what we wanna come up with and the preparations are quite taxing actually. After we had finished cooking, the three of us (Me, my sis and her BF) fell right asleep in the room as we were watching TV. Hahaha... thats how taxing it was on us. Again, the kitchen was thrown into a mess.

My dish last year was a disaster; I made crayfish pasta and made the whole kitchen stink like a fish market. My sis made chicken chop with mushroom sauce and whipped potatoes. This year, I decided to have a go at making Oreo cheesecake, and my sis, Shitake mushroom pasta (with the help of her BF). Hahaha... half the time, her BF was doing the job la... The pasta came out quite well though... However, my Oreo cheesecake was... a failure. Lolz

Crushing digestive biscuits to make the crust for my cheesecake...

Had lunch with my sis's (and her BF's) master piece... It was damn nice actually. Just that it didn't look too presentable. Lolz...

My cheesecake had to be chilled for at least four hours... so it won't be ready till near dinner time... After dinner, we checked out my master piece, the oreo cheesecake:

My sis inspecting the cheesecake. "hmmm.... is it edible?"

My mum cuts the cake. My sis looks on with a very skeptical expression. Idiot~!

Final verdict: Not edible at all.... It is too damn sour and bitter. And i realised i added WAAAY to litle sugar. Its like eating pure cream cheese. I forced myself to eat 2 slices though. It is my own creation anyway. My mum gave face and ate 1/2 a slice. My sis totally shunned it. Lolz... damn~! I'll perfect it one day okay....

We threw the rest of the cake away. It was really a waste, but it really can't be eaten lah... haha...
Oh well... at least my mum ate 1/2 a slice. =)

The wrath of women kind

2008-05-11T00:26:00.007+08:00

I've been following this season's Survivor very closely, and every week, the display of female craftiness gets more and more evident. The men just gets slit in the throat without the slightest hint of whats coming. Such is the power of women. Such is how the game unfolds in this season's Survivor.

Yesterday's episode was absolutely crazy. For those who watched, you'd know. I was literally tearing my hair out when Eric gave his individual immunity to Nat. Nat is known to be a b*tch. She is known to be very pro-girl-power. And Eric, being the only guy left in the the remaining 5 survivors really should have known better. Its 4 girls against 1 guy. They've got the numbers and the only edge he has over them is physical strength. And that is exactly how he got his individual immunity. Sadly, his insecurities got the better of him.

4 very sour girls after losing immunity to Eric.

The only surviving guy.... guaranteed final 4... NOT!!!

The four girls now plan their next move. All seems like a checkmate for Natalie until Cirie says "I wonder if he would give Nat his necklace... probably not huh?" A moment of silence, before the girls realize that it was not all that impossible. Exhilaration soon pours in as the girls plan out their act.

Nat dishes out her "plan" to Eric in a bid to convince him to give immunity to her.

"...if Eric takes that necklace off... his torch will be snuffed so quick, i don't think he can even have time to blink his eyes."

Cirie further instigates Eric to give up immunity, for his "own good".

At Tribal Council...

Eric decides to give his immunity to Nat. Game was over for him, the moment he did that... That went down as the dumbest move ever made in Survivor history.

James couldn't help but laugh his ass off....

Jason was amused by what just happened. For him, he knows how the girls play their game, as he was once in Eric's shoes. He knows too well... He gave the look of sympathy for Eric...

For Ozzy, it was also "been there, done that"... He has nothing to say but shake his head in disbelief..

Eliza couldn't believe her eyes...

Parvati: "Hee Hee... That idiot took our bait..."

Amanda: "Our crazy little plan worked~?!?!?!?"

Natalie: "Well well.... Boys will be boys"

The moment Eric got up to cast his vote. Parvati gave Nat a victory kiss as Eric had his back facing them.

The boy still thought he had Parvati pinned down.

The master mind of this whole blindside, Cirie. "My mother always told me. You may not be able to beat him with these (points to biceps) all the time, but you can always beat him with these(points to brain)."

Eric crosses his fingers as the rest of the girls went up one by one to cast their votes.

Him in dismay as it was officially announced that he was being voted out. "You guys drive me crazy..." he said in a teary voice as he got up to leave.

What just happened in the past few minutes caused a stir in the jury. Eric became the laughing stock of everyone... james threw his hands up in the air and said "I lost my reign as the dumbest survivor ever" to the chuckles of the rest of the jury.

The girls bid farewell to the person they just blindsided.

Jeff Probst made a teasing remark "I think that is what you call... a life lesson"

The girls.... all smiles on their faces as their crazy plan went through...

Haiz... It was really funny... but at the same time, I really really symphatize with him. He was a very simple minded person, very naive, from the start. His insecurities about not having jury votes if he got into final 3 cost him the million bucks. And it was this very feeling of insecurity that the girls worked on, to make his heart waver. The girls were very good at their craft, and i think all women more or less have this instinct in them. First it was Ozzy. Then they got Jason. James was next on their chopping block. Luckily enuff for him, he was spared the humiliation, as his finger injury got him out of the game. Finally, Eric. One more guy to their "conquered" list.

No wonder they say "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" Its totally terrible... And like Sanjeev always says "Women are the biggest downfall of men" but we like them all them same. Hahaha...

I've recently taken interest in the greek mythology of Pandora's Box. It came about because one day, I was in front of the computer reading an article, it made reference to pandora's box. Then it occured to me that I always hear people talking about pandora's box but I never really knew what it was all about. So I googled it, and off i went to read up about the story behind the padora's box. Very very interesting. And according to it, women are actually made by the gods as a punishment to mankind.

The story goes like this....
Atop mount olympus, twelve gods lived, they were also known as the 12 olympians. Zeus was the ruler of the gods. So he is like the most tua pai up there. The rest were:

Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, Hades, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Hermes, Hephaestus.

Each having different abilities. Like hades was the lord of death and the underworld, and Apollo was the god of the sun and light.

I shall not go into details as its quite a long and complicated story. But there was another group of Titans who wanted to stop Zeus and his gang from gaining power. One of the Titans, called Prometheus managed to steal fire from Zeus, and gave it to mankind. Infuriated by the fact that Prometheus stole fire from him, and also the fact that mankind accepted the gift from Prometheus, Zeus ordered his gods to mould a being from earth and water, and to make sure this being is perfect, to be a "beautiful evil" to torment the race of mankind. Athena taught her needlework and weaving, and clothed her; Aphrodite shed grace upon the being; Hermes gave it the power of speech, filling it with lies and crafty words, giving it a deceitful nature; Demeter showed her how to tend a garden; Hera gave her the quality of curiousity; and the other gods each gave something to this being to make it perfect. This being is what we all know as women. And this first woman was named Pandora. She was presented to Prometheus's brother, Epimetheus, and although prometheus had warned him not to accept any gifts from the gods, Pandora's beauty was too much to resist. He accepted pandora from the gods. Now, before she was sent to earth, Hermes gave her a beautifully crafted box. But he warned her never to open it. The tricky part was, Hera endowed her with the quality of curiosity. So how? After being married to epimetheus, she gave in to her curiosity and opened the box. This box actually contains a whole list of burdensome toil and sickness that will bring death to men. And she promptly scattered the contents of it by opening the box. By the time she realized that she did something wrong and quickly placed the lid back, it was too late. Almost all the contents had escaped from the box already. There was only one thing left that didn't manage to escape. It was called hope. That is the reason why this world is plagued with sickness and disease, wars and natural disasters now...

Hesiod, an early greek poet said of Pandora:

"From her is the race of women and female kind:
of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who
live amongst mortal men to their great trouble,
no help meets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth."

Its certainly true to an extent, i think. Guys would know. We all had our times when we were blindly mesmerized by our female counterparts. Knees weak and all... Well, god gave them to us as a punishment, but boy I'm loving it. Lolz...

2008-05-07T23:31:00.010+08:00

Its been some time since i really sat down to update the blog. It didn't occur to me, until I suddenly thought about it today. Have no idea why. So I thought I'd just be random today and blog about random thoughts and happenings in the past few weeks.

Street House 4 @ Kandi Bar

It was Ashlyne's first event as a model of NBTD. So I thought I'd just make it down to give her some support. Luckily enough, I managed to get Siping to go down with me cause it was a thursday night and no one else wanted to go as the next day is a working day. By the time I got there, ash was busy with her stuff, so me and Siping just entertained ourselves. Ash looked beautiful that day, maybe becuz of the liquid foundation she got a few days b4. Lolz... Anyway, didn't manage to take much photos that night cause ash left her cam in her bag and couldn't get it coz she was busy. And my phone camera... it just sucks under that lighting. Haha...

It was my first time to Kandi Bar. It's a nice place to hang out really. Love the psychedelic lights of the floor panels there. And it was sort of a modelling event... so yeah... lots of girls to oogle at. Haha... Me and Siping kept assessing all the models there.... lolz...

The fruit punches we got as complimentary drinks...

Tried to take a nice shot of the place, but as I said. My phone cam sucks.

The psychedelic floor lighting that i mentioned... damn nice right??

Me and Siping got the best spot, i felt. We were sitting right at the place where the models would walk past. The middle of the mini-runway. No obstruction watsoever. And Ashlyne walked past us a few times without realising we were just there. Her face looked so serious... like she was gonna kill someone. Damn funny... I tried to take a shot of her, during one of her walks, but again... my phone cam failed me...

This is for you ash~! haha... although its super blur...

and since I mentioned my sucky phone cam... I shall move on to cameras... haha

Camera and photography

My interest in photography was stimulated by the research I did on cameras recently. I lost my mum's camera recently and I have done abit of research on the different cameras out there and their specifications. The more I read up, the more interest I took. Now, I'm trying to get myself familiarized with the technicalities. I was actually planning to buy a prosumer camera, which is the in-between of your normal compact camera and the DSLRs. But after physically touching and playing around with the DSLRs and seeing the images they produce, I made up my mind to get a DSLR. This coming PC Show, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get something. I guess every guy will have a point in time where they will want to have their own SLR cameras. My uncles all do. lolz...

Currently, I have shortlisted 3 models which I think would be great for a beginner like me. So far I've actually played around with the Sony and Canon ones already, at their respective showrooms. Yet to touch the Nikon one.

Sony Alpha A350

Canon EOS 400D

Nikon D60

All three of them are sort of entry level DSLRs, and fall in around the same price range. $1200 - $1400....

Not forgetting, I also have to get a replacement for my mum's camera, which I lost. Dammit. I've read up, and went around to try the cameras. One particular camera really catches my eye. Its the Canon IXUS 860IS. A very sleek looking camera, and takes quite mean photos. Best of both worlds. Its definitely in my list. haha...

Introducing Angela

This guitar has been with me for almost 5 years now. It has served me well. For the past 4 years, I've been constantly trying to find a name for it. Like they always say, your guitar sings better when you form a close bond with it. Most guitarists have names for their guitars. But I've never found a suitable one. Until about three weeks back. I didn't name her actually. She told me her name, bleach style.... hahaha. Don't tell me i've been watching too much of bleach. Because I really heard her shouting her name to me. 0.0... Absurd, i know. But thats how it went.

I was sleeping that night, with her right next to me. Suddenly I heard the name angela being shouted out, and i woke up. The moment I opened my eyes, the first thing i saw was her. =) From that day on... Her name was Angela.

During the free time I had before I started my job now, I self learned a couple of songs and had wanted to make videos of my performance and post them up here. But my current mic and webcam totally sucks. I need to get better ones when my pay comes... Haha..

Oh yah~!!!!
PAY DAY IS TMR~!!!! YAYS~!!!
FINALLY~!!!

Talking about dreams. I had a super ass scary experience just a few days ago. My mum and dad were both out of the country. So my sis had to sleep alone. She was scared and asked me to sleep with her in the master bedroom, which i did. That night, I had a nightmare.

I was in the shopping mall, and this ghostly looking person stared at me and smiled. I knew he was gonna do something to me and i tried running away. But he caught up, grabbed me and squeezed me damn tight... i tried calling out but nothing came out of my mouth. He then released his grip awhile later and i ran away. All of a sudden, my location changed (you know how dreams change locations all of a sudden). I dreamt that i was asleep. I know... crazy right~!?!?! then someone woke me up and when i woke up, that person was right beside me. This time he strngled me by the neck. I again tried shouting out... but nothing could come out of my mouth. So, I gathered up all my strength and shouted as hard as I could. This time, I managed to shout quite loud. Apparently, I really did shout, and my sis got woken up. she slapped me awake and asked me why i was shouting. It was then that i realized that i just had a nightmare.

According to my sis, I was shouting at the top of my voice. And she slapped me for a very long time before i woke up. She initially thought i was being possesed as i had a distressed look on my face. After the incident the both of us started laughing ourselves silly. LOLZ

Ice cream parade

For the past week, I've been eating alot of ice-cream. Even when I fell sick, and had abit of sore throat, I continued the ice-cream spree. Of course I didn't take a picture of every ice-cream I ate, but the more glamorous ones are:

Waffle ice-cream at Sketches. This was when I had dinner with Fangyi on the eve of labour day. When we were set to meet her other friends for clubbing later that night to celebrate her birthday...

This... Just two nights ago. On Monday. Yuhua wanted to meet for dinner after work. After dinner, we decided to have ice cream at hagen daaz. Chocolate ice-cream with brownies. Was still having abit of sore throat that night... but some things are just worth the pain. muahaha... It was quite expensive though. $18.90++ for that plate alone.

Well thats all for now. BYE~!

ps: Actually I have so much more to say... but I have to wake up at 5AM tmr. Will save the rest of the updates for later. hahah

Happy Mayday (Labour Day), people...

2008-05-01T07:13:00.002+08:00

Its May~!!!

Happy labour day people... Hope everyone enjoys their well deserved holiday today. I think thats all I'm gonna say for now. Its 7:15AM right now man... Just reached home, and I'm in a rather sour mood actually (too many things just happened in the past 24 hours). I'm just trying to sound upbeat cos its labour day today and the weekend is one more workday away. I guess thats the only way to psyche myself and remain positive. Right now, I am friggin tired. I just want some rest...

Cher's Birthday (late post)

2008-04-22T01:53:00.003+08:00

Finally, got the pics from both Sanjeev and Cher. Anyways, I can't remember the details very clearly anymore. Its been quite some time. So, I'll just let the pics do most of the talking~!

Dee in her cutesy jumpers. And Cher looking casually pretty as always. Sry, i just had to jump in during the last minute to spoil the pic. lolx...

Well.... the homies....

Ok... i got caught in the act. Muahaha.... Eh, the chocolate truffles were the best man... too bad everybody went for it. And there wasn't much left. And those that were left, were not on the platter for long. LOLZ...

I was actually holding a fork... But due to the angling, it didn't appear on the pic. Beware!!! Cher bites!!

Hahaha.... this pic is damn funny. Dee said to me "eh dude~! Lets cam whore~!!!" then i was like "HOKAY~!!" so i jumped beside her. And then suddenly, dunno why.... everyone started jumping in. Jamie, Shi Ming, Steven, Hock, and Wai Kit... all of them suddenly jumped in beside us... And hence, the candidness and messiness of the photo... I was like WTH~!!! so i covered my face with the paper plate. Look at dee~!!!! Hahaha... She has that "WTH?" reaction too... LOLX...

After most of Cher's guests have left. Me, Dee, Sanjeev and Cher decided to head to T3 to chill out. Hock was going there to send his friend off too. So he joined us later. Chilled at T3's Coffee bean till 3 plus in the morning....

Cher, with the small birthday cake that me and San bought for her at coffee bean. It was a make up cake, cos when they sang the birthday song and cut the cake at the chalet, me and sanjeev happened to have just walked off to the car to get some air-con cause it was damn friggin humid outside. They tried calling our phones but mine was lost, i only realised i dropped it just outside the car after 2 hours. Luckily it was dark and nobody would have seen it. And san's one was in silent mode... i think.... so we missed her cake cutting and felt really bad. So yeah.... we bought her a cake at coffee bean and lit up a candle to sing her a birthday song again. Look how happy she is now... LOLX

I was trying on the cap that cher recieved from Jasrie and Shi Ming as her birthday present. Its quite nice actually. But this picture just proves that i'm not a cap person. Caps just don't suit my face.

Random shot....

Hahaha... we all started to get cranky and did all sorts of weird poses....

My sitting position

Hock's sitting position

San's sitting position

After that, we just decided to fool around the T3 premises before going home. But before we embarked on that, the girls wanted to go to the toilet. So we waited for them... and they took damn long to come out. We were wondering what on earth they were doing inside....

CAMWHORING IN THE TOILET~!!! WAH LAO... And this is only like one of the many shots they took inside.... hahaha... no wonder they took so long to come out...

Kids on the loose......

We became damn lame and started playing some very lame game. We had to walk foward by only stepping on the black floor tiles. So we were like jumping around and maneuvering in awkward positions. Oh... the primary school days....

Anyway, after that was home. Cher went back to her chalet where she was gonna stay over night with her relatives. San gave the rest of us a lift home.

- Peace Out -

Officially pissed with bus service 198

2008-04-18T19:23:00.004+08:00

I can't believe it. I was 45 minutes late for work because I couldn't get up the bus I was supposed to get on to. Its not the first time though. I go through this ordeal almost everyday. Just that today takes the cake. I am not happy!

I was happily waiting for my bus at 7:50am at the stop. One <198> comes... Sorry, too full. It didn't stop. The second one comes. Opppss.. still too full. Didn't stop. Third one comes. Exactly the same thing happened. I got fed up, so i decided to take <178> which would take me to jurong library where alot of people will get down from <198>. <178> came by.... TOO BLOODY FULL... it didn't stop as well.

In the end, I had no choice, I made my way to the library on foot, which took me 15-20 mins to get there. Then I had to wait again for the next <198>. And when I finally managed to get on the bus, i saw the faces of many others at the subsequent bus stops who were not able to board. I'm sure <198> isn't the only bus service with this problem.

I officially hate <198>. Not only does it always fails to accommodate passengers. The bus drivers usually have a foul look on their faces. And their driving is sometimes, really horrendous.

In a time where the government is trying to promote public transport, we should be expecting better efficiency, in terms of crowd management. We can do away with the sofa seats in buses. Please~! It actually hinders space efficiency (which never should be compromised, in such a densely populated country). I don't see how placing bulky sofa seats in buses is an improvement to the public transport system. Its just a cheesy gimmick they're trying to pull off, in my opinion.

If this goes on, I think I'd be better off with a car (When I have the means to get one).

BBQs and more BBQs

2008-04-15T18:55:00.003+08:00

The past week or more has been "busy". I don't know why, but everything just seemed to wanna fall during that period. So here's an update of what has been up.

Saturday (5th of April) :
Cher held her birthday party at a east coast's Costa Sands. She wanted to have a pajama-movie-night kinda thing on Friday night though. Her idea was to stroll into LIDO in PAJAMAS and catch a late night movie. HOW MAD IS THAT? Luckily for me, the response wasn't good and she called it off. I can still recall how we just strolled into Yio Chu Kang MRT station in our halloween outfits last year. The amount of attention generated is suffocating, and even thats an understatement. People who have not actually experienced it, real life, will never understand. And although it was a very fun experience, i was dreading it was gonna be re-lived. Because well, Halloween is halloween la. But strolling into town with jammies takes it to a new level man.

Anyway, yeap, we went down to her chalet that night. Saw a bunch of old friends. Met her folks and her relatives. The typical birthday gathering . In the end, we just didn't have enough and a bunch of us (including cher) made our way to T3 to chill. Its no fun explaining details here without pictures. So i'm gonna stop here. Will make a new entry for this when I actually receive the photos which are all in Sanjeev's camera. Everyone is like waiting for him to send the bloody pictures... sigh...

Tuesday (8th of April):
I promised to help Siping with her birthday preparations today. There were two other people, Ming Fui and Xue Ni, who were supposed to go to her house to help her out too. Had to carry all the stuff to the chalet. Was supposed to reach her house at 3pm. But I was a little late and I recieved a call from her at 3. I thought she was gonna scold me for being late... but NO~!! It was a bloody S.O.S call. She said that her comb had stuck in her hair, and it refused to come off, and that Xue Ni and Ming Fui backed out at the last minute, saying that they would go to the chalet straight. I had no choice but to cab down to her place because she was alone at home and there was absolutely no one to help her. And look what I saw when i got there?

A tangled mess of hair on a comb.

Poor thing la she. She was all dolled up for her birthday in her cute lil black dress and white hairband. And she just came back from the salon, to get her hair messed up. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to undo the hair from the comb, but it was to tightly wound, I couldn't save much. In the end, we had to resort to cutting it off.

Anyway, once we settled the hair, I played around with her chiwawa, Lucky. Damn cute!!!

Lucky inspecting my bag...

It was hard to keep her still to take a picture

Trying to get a closer look at my phone... lolz...

It was pouring when we left her house. And carrying bags and bags of frozen food and stuff to look for a cab was difficult. What a day to celebrate the birthday.

Anyway, when we got there, Desmond was already waiting for us at the bus stop outside the chalet. The both of us quickly tried starting up the fire.... we got it started, but then it died all of a sudden. So we tried again. This time, it worked up to become a steady fire, but guess what? It started raining again. I didn't want our efforts wasted, so i quickly covered the pit with aluminum foil to reduce the damage, and it worked, cause the rain stop shortly after. YAYS~!

Siping was afraid that there wasn't going to be enough food for the people coming later so she went into the kitchen to cook, in her birthday dress. haha... Seriously, I never seen the birthday girl run around doing things like that in their nice birthday dresses before. I think she didn't plan the stuff properly la. Everything was too last minute.

And despite her worrys about having not enough food. There were only 5 people at the chalet up till 8:30pm. Me, Siping, Mingfui, Xue Ni and Desmond. Before the rest of her friends started coming in. By that time, we've already cooked damn alot of food, and there was no cause for concern. Anyway, pictures:

I don't know what we were laughing at. But i like how this photo looks damn candid.

Me, Ying, and her BF

Ming Fui, Me and Ying's BF (sorry!!! I forgot the name)

Birthday girl...

Cuts her cake~!!!

Pardon the sweaty hair... hahah

It was gonna be my first day at work the next morning, but I missed the last train home. And taking a cab from pasir ris to jurong will cost around $35 at least. Didn't wanna waste that kinda money, so i stayed over. Only Me, Siping, Ming Fui and Xue Ni stayed over. We just chatted until 4:50 am before it was time for me to leave to take the first train home. Rushed home after that to change and went straight out to work.

Friday (11th of April):
Linda and Eugene organized a BBQ gathering at Dr. Henry A.K.A uncle's house. I didn't know that Uncle stayed at the NYP hostels. Until now. It was also the first time going in to the hostel area, having studied in NYP for 4 years. lolz... The bulidings and their layout looks just like a regular HDB estate.

This will definitely be one of the most memorable BBQs that I have had. The fire just couldn't start. We started working on the fire at 6pm... at 9:10pm, the fire still couldn't start, and the aunty from the pit next to us took pity and asked us to use their pit instead as they were leaving. OMG~!!! Sia SUay~!!!

Finally~!!! Fire to cook...

Sherine doing all the BBQing... haha

Ben looks hungry liao...

We didn't have enough cups, so everyone is only entitled to one styrofoam cup. And our names were carved onto the styrofoam cups with a pen. -.-... haha... (picture quality sucks though... I need a camera~!!!)

Trying to pull off a mashimaro..

Me with Eugene~!!! This pic rocks~!!!

With Yuhua~!!!!

And kenny~!!!! He looks like a small boy~!!

Me, Miao Hui, Linda, Yuhua and Uncle....

Luckily, kenny and linda stayed in the west also. Shared a cab home....

2008-04-14T23:50:00.003+08:00

A mini argument broke out over the phone earlier in the evening. Which really left me feeling very disturbed.

Certain things happened recently that made you wanna change yourself. Change for the better. And that is good, because you really put your words into action, and i see the change. Giving yourself a nudge every now and then keeps you on your toes. But when it gets unhealthy and you push yourself too hard, your mental well being is affected. I don't have to tell you this. You have witnessed what it has done. Maybe you haven't realized, but i've been trying to tell you that you are becoming more and more easily agitated with minor hindrances that appear every now and then. You lose your cool, and your mood gets drenched at the slightest interference.

I understand your concern that life is short and every minute lost, is lost for good. And that lost time could have been put to better use. But i cannot believe the fact that you are actually accounting for lost time by the minutes. NO ONE DOES THAT... Because that is just insane~!!! It is scary, and it is turning into an obsession... I am pleading with you... snap out of it~!!!

And I got quite offended when you questioned the way I chose to spend my time, especially during the past 1 month. Yes, I wasn't doing much I admit. But not doing much doesn't equate to doing nothing. What do you know about the things I do at home? What do you know about the things I'm doing when I'm out? What do you know about the things i'm planning to do?.......... So why don't you say time spent hanging out with you is also a waste of time because usually nothing constructive comes out of it?

After saying so much, I just hope that you'll start to let loose a little.

You say: "life is short, time is of the essence..."

I say: "life is short. Enjoy it."

And to enjoy it, I personally feel that you have to learn to be at peace with yourself and your surroundings. Don't let small little hindrances disturb you. Sometimes, you just have to embrace the fact that life has its imperfections. You can't expect everything to go your way. Of course, you are entitled to disagree with me.

The phone rings

2008-04-05T04:08:00.008+08:00

Phone: *ring ring*

Me: *Recieves the call* Hello?

KK: Hello... Evans?

Me: Yeah! speaking... Hi KK!!!

KK: Hey, I spoke to boss already. He said he'll see you at the office on Monday.

Me: Alright! No problem. What time should I be there?

KK: Come at 9:30...

Me: Okay. Can...

KK: Yeap. So I shall see you on Monday then.

Me: Okay. See you on Monday... Thanks alot KK!!!

SweeeeeeeT...=)

A Day At Keppel Bay

2008-04-03T03:20:00.004+08:00

"A day at keppel bay"... it rhymes so well! Yes!!! Hidden in a secluded spot near harbour front is a marina called Keppel Bay Marina. Just further off the "Caribbean" residences. I found out about the place when my ex-TCC manager told me that they had set up a new outlet there, and asked me to drop by two months ago. Finding it wasn't easy at first, because it was way inside. You need a car~!!! Walking in would take you maybe 15-20 minutes to get there from harbour front. But when I got there, i was quite impressed with the place. Very nice scenery.

Therefore, on Sunday, I made an impromptu decision while we were on our way driving to vivocity to swing around to Keppel Bay first. As the sun was blazing that day, San got hit quite badly as he was mis-attired, wearing a long sleeved shirt. He kept blaming me for not telling him before hand, but it really was an impromptu decision lor~!!! LOLz... anyway, although I was wearing a singlet, it did not help much as I was sweating just as bad...

Pictures:

Idiot San wanted to take this pic while he was driving. I managed to get him to stop the car before taking it... Wah lao~!! wanna get me killed ah~!! Luckily for us, the road was extremely empty.

We were trying to take artistic shots. Our skills are getting better each time. Now all we need is a proper camera. =)

Trying to impersonate the raffles' statue... far from it...

Well... I think he's trying to tell the ladies "come to me~!!"... eh... but I don't think its working... lolz

Ma~!!! Someone stole my fishing rod~!!!!!

We found treasure~!!!

Okay... lame pose....

Got 69? XD

Looks like we're in Monaco...
Anyway, the residences you see in the background is the Caribbean. Most of the boat owners in the Marina actually stay there. Haiz... rich people... How cool is that! Go downstairs and voila~! Your boat is there waiting.

Made to look artistic... I like how it turned out. And San was so afraid that i would drop his N95 into the sea... hahaha... I was even more scared la~!!! I am the one holding it and taking the picture leh...

After spending like 40+ minutes in the scorching sun, we sought shelter in TCC. The place is prettily furnished. And it has a nice view of the docks.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

FOOD PICS...

Sorry... The tiramisu was so tempting I just gobbled it up before remembering to take a pic of it. TCC tiramisu is one of the better tiramisus i had.

Papadum rolls from Go India!... Damn nice rite? the way the picture turned out. I swear I did not photoshop it at all. The lighting in the restaurant was fully responsible for the effect. Because the general lighting was quite dim in the restaurant to begin with. Then on every table, there would be a spot light shining a beam of ray onto the middle. It sort of had a "holy light" effect. So when the food came, we tried using the holy light to 'illuminate" the dish. And this is what we got, in its rawest form. Cool~!

Yuhua's Birthday Party

2008-04-02T02:32:00.004+08:00

First and foremost... I really would like to extend my apologies to everyone on that day for having to wait for me to start dinner. 1 full hour. I AM TERRIBLY SORRY!!! Yuhua said she insisted that the rest waited for me before they ordered their food. So when I arrived, I saw 12 pairs of starving eyes looking at me. I have no excuses. Guilty as charged.

Anyway, that day was an ultra humid day, and me being a sweat bag, was suffering. My sweat glands didn't stop working for a second that night. Dinner was at Swensen's Orchard, and it didn't help that their aircon was almost non-existent at the corner we were sitting. Fangyi suggested ice-cream, but it didn't help much either XD. I think that I was abit nonchalant towards Fangyi that day, as I was a little out of sorts due to the heat. It wasn't intentional. Sorry...

After dinner, a bunch of us decided to go to Dempsey Road to chill out. We settled at a place called Angel's Share. They chose to go alfresco, and in my mind I was like "Noooooo~! not on a humid humid night!!!" No choice, the rest were fine with it. Made acquaintances with two of Yuhua's friends that night. Daniel and Shimin (if I didn't recall wrongly... =X). And also Ash's boyfriend, JJ (I finally see the other side of her when she's with her boyfrined). But I was too out of my mood to socialize that night because I was absolutely being tormented by the humidity.

Pictures (at Angel's Share):

with Fangyi... She commented on her blog that one day we must take a nice shot together. The photos that I've taken with her so far didn't turn out very well.

With the birthday girl

The ex-poly retainees... XD

Haha... The expression on my face for most of the pictures show "save me from this heat~!!!"

____________________________________________________________________

Just to side track.

Ashlyne passed to me a bag of goodies from Taiwan, which she brought back from her trip there. It was a small gesture, but I appreciate it. Thought I'd give it some airtime on the blog. Oh... i totally love what's in that orange coloured box. I have no idea what it is, but its some kinda flour thingy with very thick and sweet paste in the middle. I'm sure I have eaten something like this before, just can't recall. Anyway, thanks Ash~!

____________________________________________________________________

Finally

I've been watching 青蛙王子拜金女 on Channel U for the past week. The only reason I watch it, is:

엄정화 (Ohm Jung-Hwa). She is............ beautifully charming, in my opinion. The epitome of eye candy. And even when she is behind the facade of her comical, bubbly character in the show, she exudes some kind of sophisticated, womanly aura. Her facial features are what draws me the most. And I love her lips alot. The kind that are plump and has a well defined cupid's bow, and where the upper and lower lips meet at both sides with a subtle nook. I'd die in peace to have a ~~girl~~ woman like her. Haha!!! I am dreaming.

Happy April Fools' Day!

2008-04-01T06:20:00.003+08:00

Happy April Fools' Day to everyone~!!! It's freaking 6:30AM now. I couldn't really get to sleep just now, so I just took out a marker and a piece of paper and started doodling. The result??? An ugly piece of drawing for April Fools' Day. And i realized that i put the aprostophy (') before the S.

"Damn!!!"

Scanned the picture in to the com, did a little photoshop-ing to erase the crease lines on the paper and make it more presentable. Photoshop works like magic... I love it sooo much. Anyways, time is flying. We're in April already. Felt like CNY just passed. Haiz...

Ok the sleepiness is finally starting to kick in a little. Shall make my 2nd attempt to sleep now.

ps: Watermarks are a form of protection for your original works. =)

Untitled... For the lack of a suitable title

2008-03-28T02:06:00.004+08:00

Thursday (20th March 2008)

As the following day is the start of a long weekend for most people, being Good Friday, Sanjeev and I decided to head down to T3 for dinner and to chill after that. We've been there countless times. LOVE the place. Love the serenity, relative to your usual hangout in town. Love the cleanliness. Love the 24 hour-ness. Love the stewardesses. XD

Anyway, was supposed to meet him at 7:30 there. Was a little late but he was later. He called to say "something had cropped up, I'll tell you later"... I thought it was another excuse for his dilly dallying. But when he arrived, it turned out that he actually had a road accident on his way to the airport. The idiot crashed his car into a taxi. Luckily it wasn't very severe. I looked at the pictures he took with his camera, and the taxi's damage was extremely minimal. Only abit of dent in the boot. But for Sanjeev's car, his front bumper was quite badly busted. And one of his head lamps were dangling out from the sockets. It was still good enough to drive though, so he settled things with the cabbie, drove back home, parked the car, informed his dad, and took a cab to the airport.

So, we settled at Coffee Bean, where I could have my favourite caramel latte, while having pasta from their dinner menu. Our modus operandi was always to stay there till slightly past midnight before we made a move. BUT the fella wasted his car earlier, so we had to leave earlier today to catch the last train. I kept thinking the last train leaving from there is at 11:30pm. To our horror, the last train to the city leaves at 11:15pm. Too late! We were stranded, and decided to stay over night in T3 till the morning train starts. We then went around exploring every nook and crevice of T3, and Sanjeev pointed out something interesting to me. One of the gents in T3 actually only used leaves to cover the urinal area!!!

We took a few photos in that particular toilet:

Freaking spacious!!! What you see in this picture is like only 1/3 of the toilet space.

Look! Urinals covered by leaves only.

Closer look

Even closer look!!! See, can see the outside of the airport liao. Wah, applying army field tactics eh... Cover and concealment: make sure you can see the enemy, but the enemy cannot see you...

This boy ah... Stand behind urinal also wanna smile until like taking passport photo like that.

Must relac~!!! like me....

Attempting to dog pee...

The toilet is damn nice la. Must admire myself in its pristine mirrors also.

We were planning to cam whore the night through, all around T3. But unfortunately, both our phones had died of low battery life while we were leaving the toilet. Damn~! We decided to come back another day for more.

Anyway, at the odd hours of the morning, as we were roaming the place, we bumped into a number of groups of people we knew. I thought we were the only morons who would be roaming the airport at such weird hours. But there were others, apparently. Lolz...

Sunday (23th March 2008)

It was Vivocity on Sunday, with Sanjeev AGAIN. Yah, many people always say we're like a gay couple. Its bullshit. We just go out together very often, because we are on the exact wavelength in so many ways. He knows exactly how my mind works and vice versa. And, I've already lost count of how many times we actually happened to say the same things, at the same time, with the same tone when we talk to each other, or to other people. He's the kind of friend you know you'll have for the rest of your life. And I count my blessings because friends like that are really hard to come by. We're absolutely far from being gay. Sanjeev is homophobic by the way!!! Haha! 1/2 of the time, our conversations revolve around girls. More often than not, while in conversation, ours eyes stray whenever a subject of visual indulgence walks past. And I think thats the mechanism that our relationship runs on. Thats how the "Sanjeev and Evans" effect works.

Back to Vivocity. Its like our weekend beach house. We've been there so many times, we have actually made friends with people working there. Belinda, who used to work at awfully chocolate. A few of the staff at Starbucks (Not really friends, but we frequent enough for them to recognize us as regulars and remember our drink preference). Another guy from River Island, I didn't take note of his name, but he remembered us and came over to say hi when he saw us at the Raffles City branch. Our regular waitress at White Dog Cafe, called Beefu (unique name!!!). And of course not forgetting the boss of Mussel Guys, Evelyn, who graciously plays her part as an excellent host whenever we visit her restaurant.

Okay okay back to topic. So we had a bite at White Dog's, before heading to Starbucks for some coffee. And... ... ... ... I realized nothing much interesting happened on that day. Except for when we were leaving the place. As always, 95% of the shops will be closed when we leave, and we came across a podium-like thing as we were heading to the station. It actually belongs to a novelty shop, but it was placed outside their shutters, so we decided to place our heads up for sale. Haha~!

Ahem~! Welcome to today's auction. Items of the day, blockheads...

First up! The infamous blockhead of Sanjeevland... Starting bid at $0.50... Lolz

Next up! The more sought after Asian Boy... Starting bid, $100 grand!

Okay this is getting boring...

Monday (24th March 2008)

Met Ashlyne and Fangyi on Monday to go shopping for Yuhua's birthday present. Both Ash and I were late, and poor Fangyi was standing outside Heeren waiting for us in the heat. She gave us that "Haiz... late again" face. Really sorry, babe. Before we got down to our mission for the day, they decided to go for some karaoke, at Orchard's Partyworld. Its been a long time since I last K-ed. Like maybe half a year already. So off we went. It was my first time in Partyworld, as I've always went to K-Box and K-ster in the past. But it was a rather pleasing experience as the price was alright, the refreshments were up to standard, and the karaoke system was good. And with company of two ~~babes~~ good friends, what more could I ask for. LOLX... Pictures!!!

Ashlyne and me...

Sticking our tongues out. My nostrils are flaring like hell... Beware of fire!!!

Fangyi and me. We took quite alot, but I think the other pictures didn't make the cut because either Fangyi had her eyes half closed due to the flash, or I was too ugly in it. Hahaha~!

We tried taking a photo with all three of us in it. But my face was cut into half. We didn't have time for another shot cause Fangyi's song was starting. Wanted to try again after that, but we forgot =(

Anyways, nice picture of both of them... How come my photos don't turn out like that. Not fair!!!

We finally got down to shopping for Yuhua's prezzie after that. Had a big headache as we just went around the malls, cracking our heads on what to get for her. After much deliberation, AND walking, we settled on a *** (shouldn't reveal it now, as she might come on to the blog). Haha...

Tired and famished, we went down to Taka's basement to grab some donuts and sit down at the now dysfunct fountian to rest. Ash had an interview to attend after that at the Forum, but when we left, we realized there was a 'storm' going on outside. It was impossible, even with an umbrella to get to Forum without getting wet. We made a few calls to see if friends who drove were nearby. Drew a blank. So we accompanied Ash to join the snaking queue at the taxi stand at peak hour!!! To our surprise though, the queue was long but it moved quite fast too. She hopped on to her cab relatively fast and zoomed off while me and Fangyi headed home on the train.

Steph's Birthday Celebration

This happened like two weeks ago already la. Siew Ying only sent the pictures a couple of days ago. Siew Ying~!!! Haha... Anyway, due to the fact that there were only 6 pictures taken that day (I dunno how come also...), and that Stephanie wanted to be visually anonymous, I shall respect her decision and alas, two pictures to sum up the day's proceedings... and end this long entry.

Half of the table with me.... the other half has steph in the picture. So, that didn't make it past censorship. lolz...

Steph wiping off a chunk of cake thrown on her hair. Culprit: Jason...

The tragedy

2008-03-23T09:16:00.006+08:00

People who know me well will know I have this weird fetish. The fetish of biting and chewing on the soft bones of chicken when I'm eating them. I love chicken~! And when I eat them, I pulverize them. After I'm done, all thats left are the solid bones, no skin, no flesh, no cartilage will be spared. My grandma always scolds me when she hears the popping sound of bones in my mouth, saying that one day my teeth is gonna pop with them. I never gave heed to that.

Yesterday, during brunch, I was having chicken soup which my mum boiled. As usual, I was reading the papers, while happily savaging the chicken. Suddenly I felt a very hard pop from the left molar. It didn't feel pain, but I had a bad feeling that some part of my molar decided not to have anything to do with me anymore. I immediately spit everything out on a piece of tissue but only the chicken bits came falling out. I used my tongue to feel my molar and i got cut by the corner of it which broke. The broken pieces were still hanging by the sides and they were caught in some corner. It took me awhile to fully detach them.

When I finally managed to take them out, I was absolutely shocked. Two huge chunks of my last molar actually came off. They were extremely huge chunks. I think those two broken pieces could form 1/4 of my entire molar. This was how big they were (I placed my guitar pick beside them for reference to the size... Yah, its pink. Sue me...).

I couldn't talk properly at first. Cause when i talk, my tongue moves into a position where it scrapes across the sharp part. OUCH~! Had to go to the dentist's, the slaughterhouse, for many people. Was greeted by a F-ing rude nurse. She gave me my queue number, and it read 117. I looked at the number on the display and it read 112. I politely asked how long it will probably take. Without even looking at me, she just said, the numbers go in order. FINE~! I thought, 5 patients wouldn't take THAT long. One and a half hours went by and I was still nowhere near. I noticed that the numbers didn't get called in order and it went like 112, 103, 105, 307, 311... I was feeling quite annoyed and so were another pair of sisters sitting beside me. Their numbers were 115 and 116, just before me. They got up and questioned the nurse, and the nurse just told them off, saying that those ppl who went in first made appointment. GO FREAKING DIE~!!! I would totally understand that people who made appointment will be given the privilege to go first (IF they come on time). BUT if that was the case, she shouldn't have told us the numbers go in order. She should have given us an estimate timing of how long it would take to get to our turn or how many people have an appointment at that given timing, so that we can decide whether we want to go home first, or stay, or walk around the vicinity.

In the end, my wait came up to about 3 hours. Luckily, I brought my book along to read. Imagine if I didn't have my book. I would have really gone crazy. Even during payment, the stupid nurse kept showing attitude. Really felt like strangling her. Oh well... $90 gone just like that. Anyway, enough of her.

Did I just mention my book? Haha... Yeah, this book I'm reading now is called "Another man's life" By Greg Williams. Its a very interesting read. The story is about a pair of twins who have very different characters and lead very different lives.

Tom has two boys, and a wife. He has lost 2 of his jobs in 2 years, and is unable to find another job. So he stays at home now, as a house-husband, while his wife, a strong career woman, brings in the money. His ego is getting drained by the days. He slowly slouch deeper into despair, his kids drain out all his energy everyday, his wife starts to find him a useless bum. He is the typical case of a man in a mid-life crisis.

Sean, on the other hand is leading what people would call "the high life". He is single. He owns a company which gives him the riches. He goes to all the posh restaurants. Frequent the right clubs. Mingle around in parties and events with all the right people. Drives the right cars. Sleeps with a different woman every other night. He has IT ALL.

There's just one twist though. Both of them are unhappy with their lives. Tom wants his life to have more colour, to be more fanciful. Sean, on the other hand, craves for domestic bliss and stability. He wants a fulfilling family life, with a loving wife and kids. The brothers are actually craving for each other's lives. Therefore, one day, they reach breaking point and decide to switch identities for two weeks while Tom's wife, Sara, is away on business.

That's where the interesting part starts, Sara returns before schedule. Tom realizes that Sean's business is facing problems although it looks extremely successful on the surface. Sean, on the other side, has developed a huge crush on another mum at the boys' school. Soon, the identity switch slowly reveals its loopholes, and the brothers slowly realize what they actually want in their lives.

I'm 1/3 through the book now, and they are about to switch identities. Really in anticipation of what's gonna happen. This story actually hits the spot in so many ways. There is always this age old dilemma of men in general. Do you want to settle down to family life, have a trophy wife, with a couple of cute little kids? Or do you want to stay a rich bachelor, lead a high life, and play the field with no commitment and consequence? Both have their pros and cons, but what do you REALLY want in the end?

Random stuff

2008-03-21T11:56:00.003+08:00

Feeling extremely sleepy now, as I have just reached home after spending the night at Changi's terminal 3, without sleep, that is. But the lure of blogger just gave me that extra speck of strength enough to type a short paragraph before I entirely lose my consciousness. Anyway, I had a crazy night at Changi yesterday, which I will update later tonight(maybe), all because we missed the last train and didn't wanna spend on the ridiculously expensive midnight cab fare.

Oh, I just joined Viwawa.com a few days ago after Fangyi and Ash recommended to me the website. Its got a number of games most people will be familiar with but with an added twist. Refreshing idea I would say. However, I spotted grammer mistakes on the site a couple of times. I don't know if the mistakes were on purpose, cause they only seem to appear in the speech bubbles. Oh well, I'm just being quite anal to point out the mistakes lah... This was one of it, circled in red:

I have to sleep now lah... My eyes are showing the auto-shutdown warning already. Gotta catch Survivor: Micronesia tonight~!!! I really really hope Cirie will be booted tonight (for those who actually watch). Irritating WOMAN!!!

Graduation woes

2008-03-18T14:58:00.007+08:00

毕业 = 失业

I was chatting with Jessie on MSN yesterday. She asked what I was doing after finishing my course in Poly. Well, like a typical graduate, I said "I haven't found a job". She laughed and then she said this to me. "毕业 = 失业".... How true man. And for the benefit of those who are not very proficient in chinese, it reads "bi ye = shi ye" which translates to "graduation = loss of job"... Lolx, I just realised the effect is not there when you say it in english because it doesn't rhyme at all.

5 songs to get you started

2008-03-17T17:15:00.006+08:00

After losing a considerable amount of weight, many people have asked me how I did it. I really don't mean to brag, rather, I feel its something to be proud of. Anyway, there's really no secret to how I did it. It is plain and simple, Exercise more, eat moderately. No pills, no weight loss agencies, no puking of food. Just a little bit of steroids to add the Omph!!!. Music steroids I mean. I'm not kidding, music does wonders. The right kind of music will get you pumped up enough to make you wanna start exercising RIGHT AWAY~!!! You won't even realise how influential a piece of music can be on your mood. It is very very powerful, and they were part of how I got myself motivated enough to do what i did. I know everybody has a different preference for the kind of music they listen to. So, for that, you'll just have to find the songs that push your buttons. As for me, these 5 are some of the songs which pushed my buttons, and in brackets, the lyrics in them that really caught me,. Just to share:

Remember the name - By Fort Minor
(This is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will)

Frontline - By Pillar
(Everybody with your fist raised high, let me hear your battlecry tonight, stand beside or step aside, we're on the frontline!)

Eye of the tiger - By Survivor
(Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, you must fight just to keep them alive)

Fired up - By Hush
(Start runnin your times' up, Cuz when my crew ride up, The sky's gonna light up, Everybody get fired up!!!)

Lux aeterna - By Clint Mansell
(This is a instrumental piece. The one they used damn alot in lord of the rings trailers, so, no lyrics... lolx)

ps: Miss Woon J. W!! Cannot laugh at me liao!!! I change hairstyle already... =p

Update: via my iPod touch

2008-03-16T11:35:00.005+08:00

I'm in raffles city's Starbucks now sipping my latte and feeling all emo... And I found out that I can actually blog with my iPod touch in hand... This rocks... As you can guess, it was another failed attempt at the S.I.A interview... This really sucks!!! 6th attempt and I still can't get it... I guess I'll stay away from the interviews for awhile to really dig deep and do some soul searching... Make substantial improvement before I try again... I'll stay away for awhile, but they won't see the last of me...

Ashlyne!!! I might just join you later in May for the interviews after your 2 month ban ends...

Ps: I still can't get over the fact that I can blog with my iPod touch... Lolx... This is damn cool can?!?!

What a Fhectic day!

2008-03-16T01:29:00.005+08:00

Yes, you didn't read the title wrong. I just coined this term today. How it came about was because today (15th Dec, Saturday) was a super ass hectic day. Hectic was an understatement of what I actually went through today. But I can't think of any better word to replace it. So if Fugly was the exaggerated term for ugly, I shall today declare Fhectic to be the exaggerated term for hectic. That was how messed up today was.

I woke up just past noon i think, ate my breakfast while watching the latest episode of Survivor: Micronesia which I downloaded the day before. Once that was done, I rushed down to IMM to get the boxes for Germ's and Steph's prezzies. By rush, i really mean rush, as in almost at running speed cause I didn't have the car. Got the boxes and in the same fashion, rushed back home to finalize the prezzies. after that, I looked at the clock, it read 5:55pm. I knew I was not gonna make it cause I'm supposed to meet Steph and gang at 6:15pm at Plaza Sing. Took a rushed shower, changed, and flew down my house. I had no other choice but to hail a CAB. Reached Plaza Sing at about 6:45pm and found out the gang had just ordered. Thank god~! As we got up to leave Swensen's, I suddenly realized my mum's camera which I lugged along when I left the house, was missing. It then dawned upon me that I freaking left it on the seat of the cab I took. I immediately called Comfort Cab to report the missing camera, but apparently there's still no news of a found camera yet. I'm so dead!!! I haven't told my mum yet. She's prolly gonna clobber me to death with, i dunno... A frying pan?

After that the gang decided to sit and chill at the PS Starbucks. I left my stuff (Germ's and Steph's prezzie) there to go shopping for a shirt and dress pants for tomorrow's SIA interview. My current shirts and pants have all become too loose for me. Darted around the shops in PS and i realized PS was a wrong place to shop for men's formal wear. I went to G2000, Marks & Spencer, John Little.... No go... I liked a shirt they have at G2000 from their Black Label range, but the guy at the PS branch said that their branch no longer take in their Black Label range. WHY~!?!?!?!?! My heart beated faster as I raced against time. Shutters went down one after another. And Steph called to say they were leaving so I had to go back down to grab Germ's prezzie. And because I gave Steph my paper bag, i had to hold Germ's prezzie (a large box at that) in hand while shopping for my clothes. My hands were so full and clumsy, cause I was holding my mobile and wallet on one hand, Germ's prezzie on the other, and I was perspiring like no one's business. It became from anxiety to frustration.

Somehow, I bumped into two old friends, while in all this mess. Ben and Rachel from poly. It was nice seeing them again, and they even accompanied me while I looked for my shirt. It was really nice of them. Anyway, as everything was already half closed, I had no choice but to settle for a not-so-nice shirt (something I wouldn't even have touched if I had the time) and a not-so-nice tie at John Little. I really hate myself for buying those items now. ARRRGHH!!!

Anyway, after that, it was another rush against time to meet Germaine at Vivocity to give her the present, as her group of friends and her were almost going to head down to St. James. I told her to wait at Vivocity and I flew down by train. Reached there finding Germ and her group of friends all waiting. Sorry!!! After that, it was finally home.

I felt crazily tired after all that rush. But while I was on the train home, I realized everything boiled down to one simple truth. Poor time management. If i had gotten up earlier, i wouldn't have to rush to get the boxes. I most probably would even have the time to shop for my clothes after getting the boxes. Then, I would'nt be late for the dinner and take a cab. And if I didn't take the cab, I wouldn't have lost the camera. Then, I wouldn't have a mad rush to get my clothes. Then, I could have slowly made my way to vivo to give Germaine her prezzie. Screw sleep man!!! If ever there was one thing that would bring me to my downfall, that would be sleep!!!

Now, I just hope that some kind soul found the camera and informed the driver. And the driver would kindly fetch it back to the headquarters. I just hope.

S.I.A interview is in around 7 hours time. I better go to sleep. This will be my 6th try at S.I.A's interview. And so far, I've only gotten through the 1st round once. I'm super unprepared this time. I really want this job BADLY, but when it comes to the interviews, I've become numb. Sick and numb!!! I don't feel any anxiety or fear or whatever messed up emotions I had last time. When I walk in to the freaking group interview room, it becomes just another routine for me. The only tinge of anxiety now when I go for the interview is the moment when the admin lady reveals the names of those who get through. Always, I will be crossing my fingers and praying and hoping my name gets called. But usually, I end up with nothing more than a sinking feeling. There was this line I read from a book after failing the previous interview. It went something like "the more difficult a situation becomes for a person, the more that person will rise to the occasion." I don't know why, but it left an impression on me.

Will I rise to the occasion today? I certainly hope so.