the days before yesterday

so here's the post to what I had been doing since after the 25th til yesterday. I guess i'm writing it down just to remember what crazy stuff I did over the last week of the year.

Loaned a car initially for 3 days, but the company forgot my reservation and I only got it from wed-fri morning. Anyway, it was raining so couldn't really get to do what I wanted (also read as SLACKY) But did errands around town since transport was readily available. Oh yes, meet HY for dinner on wed evening. Headed over to Vivo for a look see but then decided on Thai food over at Siglap. Then headed to Tampines to pass a book to a fren. And then tried my luck to meet C to pass her Christmas present to her. Glad she liked it.

Was back to work on Thursday despite being on leave (siao ah?!) But some things juz had to be done before the year ended so i guess... I juz have to head back to work. Sent C to work in the morning before heading into town. Then thot I meet JY for lunch while I go get my faulty SD card changed, but she had hers already. So she accompanied me as I had mine. Got a call from SLS to collect my nephew's PC which I sent for repair the previous day, so I headed over after lunch. (I was only 2 blocks away, and yes, yes... more errands abound) Unfortunately it was pouring heavily when I got out of SLS.. and got the PC a little wet while scurrying back to the car. WTH! And then it was back to the office.

Updated the progress of my project and left work 'earlier' (hey, I'm on leave!) And then it's kinda back to Bugis area again with another friend whom I'm heading to Nepal with. Thot we could finalise the tickets and lodging that day, but apparently due to some changes and the holiday season, our air tickets aren't finalised yet until next week.

Sent the car back on fri morning. And on fri morning, the rain decided to stop pouring (for at least a day) and t'was all bright and sunny. But lazy me decided to spend the day curled up in bed snoozing the day away.

And oh, went for this seminar at Suntec organized by ClubSnap on Saturday morning. The seminar focused more on post production in digital photography and it was very very insightful to be there for the various topics. Glad I went.

These boots are made for walkin'

Today, the town... Tomorrow, the world!!!!

Anyway, I pampered meself decided that I need a good pair of walking shoes... and since there's a post christmas sale... and that it's a good investment since I'll be walking alot if I ever go on trips... and thus got a new pair of shoes. I suppose it's a good deal, considering I paid the numerical equivalent of the price (shown in USD) in SGD...

Haha! *Happiness*

Anyway, entries are kinda screwed up chronologically. Will (try to) post them later b4 the year ends

Happy New Year's Eve!

it felt like Christmas

the eagerly anticipated Christmas gathering/party/makan session finally came and went. After all the hectic planning, last minute changes and then enthusiastically looking forward to it, it came and went on Christmas evening.

it was a success i would say. Glad everyone enjoyed the gathering. No group games were needed nor any pre-planned programs to keep everyone occupied. (We're all too familar with each other for all that) Just great food and great company while we all catch up with one another on the latest gossips happenings. Each of us had our own war stories to share after not meeting for so long (well, saved for a few)

i guess making it a potluck does get everyone involved and enjoy the get-together. Of coz, the down side to this is that we'll always be left with lotsa leftovers. Perhaps it's a good custom to follow, since it always means abundance in the coming year.. haha! Oh wait, that works only when it's the Chinese New Year. but no matter... having more than enough to eat might not be a bad thing. But it does mean that all the gym sessions are as good as zilch.

it was nice to see everyone again, but unfortunately I guess I didn't have the chance to mingle with everyone there. Thanks to a fren who got back from US for the holiday week, I was able to get my hands on some boardgames we played at Settler's Cafe. (I now have some to call my own! Bwahahaha!)

So yeah... with all the gift exchanges, great food and great company, let us not forget that amidst this festive period, the unfortunately long extended rainy season had caused much distress over many areas. Perhaps when we have the opportunity to help, let us try to do something as much as we can. Surely, there is only that much we can do to help, but it never hurts to lend a helping hand in any way. :)

Sunshine after the rain

The rain finally stopped this morning.

The sun's back high up in the sky again.

After a good night's sleep, it's a new start to everything again.

Time to write those long overdued Christmas cards and finish up on my shopping.

Oh, before all that... I need to go dry my shoes

The past days

Apart from raining cats and dogs for over 3 days til today... it's been... raining cats and dogs for over the past 3 days!

i guess it pretty much dampened the shopping spirit among all the pple here, especially when it's 1 more week til christmas. Somehow im feeling pretty dampened these past weeks so the rain didn't really affect me much. In fact, I love the rain. Although sometimes it's uncomfortable in wet, soggy shoes. It's quite therapeutic actually (I remembered that came from Rain about rains), if one has the time to just stare out the window and watch the droplets fall by or pelt on the glass pane.

That aside, i feel strangly angsty for some time now. Perhaps some illness is striking me again... one with symptoms of short temper, easily irritable and signs of disinterest in daily activities (read: do not mess with the bear) Guess I need to check up on that. But other than that, I'm feeling quite healthy.. hmm... i hav no idea why... And in a way it seemed that I had pissed off a few people with these newfound traits.

I definitely know I get easily irritated by things that I don't normally... and things people say and ask, i get (extremely) cynical, sometimes.

Stress? Post-stress effect from work? nah... I dun even come close to my colleagues at the recent exhibition at Science Centre. Christmas Advent stress? Perhaps? Probably the many things i planned to do but never got them done for Christmas. Still busy arranging appts to meet up wif frens b4 Christmas day itself. And then there are pple (actually jus 1 pax whom I dun wan to meet) trying to arrange appts to meet up b4 Christmas as well. That which im trying to avoid. Now I know how one felt when I kept pestering her the last time (but things are better now.. and this is another story for another day) Sometimes things come a full circle... pple do onto you what u done onto others.

And recently my explosion over something very very trivial just changed everything. So now it's like a broken mug.. mended but one can still see the crack lines there. Perhaps in a way it made us all see things from another perspective. But sadly it had to be done in such a way.

And today again... in the midst of preparing a gathering for friends, I had to change the plans for something which we all agreed upon. Probably eager to accommodate everyone at the same time. At least... i ASS-umed i was doing so. Or was it a desperate attempt to pull everyone closer as best as I can? In the process, did I overlook and 'abandon' those who are close to me already? juz coz I know they'll be there. One thing's for sure, I did pissed off (again) those around me. But at this time of writing... all is well again.

I guess a word of apology to all would be apprpriate here. Gomen~! Gomen~!

So many thots racing at the same time. In some ways, I'm glad it was raining the past few days as the raindrops gave me a soothing rhythm to relax to. So many thots racing... and surely are made up of some redundant ponderings and unfounded worries...

Perhaps sometimes I think too much.

I wish sometimes I wouldn't think so much and juz do what i wanna do. But when it involves more than just myself, i simply hav no balls

Aftermath

I'm guessing the main character isn't aware of the commotion since the previous post. Guess it hadn't reach the ears (and eyes) yet. Maybe. Since afterall, it had only been less than 2 days.

Or maybe this is so trivial that she need not be involved.

i believe it's not about her anymore. It's like what Angelystor mentioned before, about the expectations we'll have when we unknowingly grow closer to one another. About how we'd lower our guard when we think the other party knew us well enough. But then again, how well do we really know each other despite being 'close'? Let's say not couple kind of close, but juz close ordinary friends.

How well do we know about each other's little habits? How well do we know of the nitty gritty things that always trigger us off to blow our tops? How well do we really understand each other through observing each other and not through how we describe ourselves?

Perhaps I didn't reveal enough of myself and then expected others to know about me. Perhaps i drew the line to how much im willing to reveal to others, even the closer ones. Or rather, i expected those who knows me to make an effort to understand me. Expectations... sometimes it cloud our judgement to understand that everyone is different.

I guess I'm more disappointed than upset over the last incident. It was a classic example of listening to only one side of the story and then jumping to conclusions. Not once was I asked about what were the actual words spoken from me.

If i speak my mind, im being blunt. If i dun, i couldn't care less

Oh I'm sorry, I spoke my mind without any tact and empathy.

Ghee... maybe it was better to tell a white lie at a time like this. When many others had spoken the harsh truth, and then hopefully one would feel better when I said otherwise. So it's my words against the many others who had had the same views about it, and then my view alone is supposedly able to make one feel better. Oh wow! The power of MY words! MY 'otherwised' opinions! So wat happens when one does it again because the Power of MY empathised words are encouraging yet untruthful? So I'll have to give my otherwised opinions once again?

Or perhaps I shd be neutral and not say a thing when asked of my opinion. Just in case I said wrongly. Oh wait... then it would be a non-reactive response from moi. Doh! I'm so unconcern of people around me!

Where is the empathy?! Where is the tact?! Where is the love?!

Let's see... perhaps I shd have advised in another way. Beat around the bush and get to my OK... those stuff and u are just not fated to be together. Nice try, but they just dun go well point across. Instead of Man! U sux in that!

Oh yes, believe me... some pple are very sensitive to the comments of others. And probably feel so depressed and start ranting to close frens of theirs. And then all start to pelt stones at me coz I was being evil and blunt and tactless and simply blurt out how I feel without giving a hoot to how one would feel.

Perhaps I thot I was a 'close fren' who could speak his mind and knowing that the other is able to take that 'harsh' comment. At least... I thot it was constructive.

Oh im sorry, it wasn't about being constructive or not. It was more about being tactful when I open my big mouth to share my views. Being neutral and not saying anything is not allowed

I shot myself tonite

So this is my first attempt at self portraits. Ok so it didn't went smoothly as i thought. And it sux.. (The hair, the pose, etc) Maybe I shd just stay on the other side of the lens. Heh... But really, i have to start somewhere.

The initial pose I wanted didn't came through... coz
1) the slanted light from my nightlight didn't give me the effect i wanted.
2) my lens can't do lowlight photography. (Hey, it's el cheapo kit lens. Good but, well, can't perform when it's too dark)

Hence, I'll just try this one out and then improve from there.


Comments and crits please! Thanks!

Aww.. it was another back to work day

So the photoshoot session that was planned didn't go through coz the couple decided to do it on the actual ROM day. Which makes sense since they'll be all dressed up for the occasion. It's also good since I'll have a little more time to play with the new lens I got.

So i went back to work today and postponed my leave to another day sometime next week i guess. Getting back to work was a good thing too. Requests for new stuff for the upcoming exhibition this weekend were still coming in. Gawd! They think we are all gawds!? All they need is just to ask and we'll have to rush and deliver what they want. Well, I'm sure they are impressed with what we gave them, but then it's not easy to get (their wishlist of) things done in 3 days. And that's excluding the testing.

We can't deliver shoddy work too... it reflects badly on us as well. Just have to work late and then deliver what were requested. I think my 2 other colleagues have it worse... besides taking care of the stuff for exhibition, they had to liaise with the organisers and those in charge of setting up the place... and the communication network seems to be a real mess.

Great ending to a long Monday

Got off work at 8.15pm... Wow! that's 12hrs and 15mins since i woke up.

Had some problems with the model after animating and passed into the Augmented Reality engine... Somehow the vertices are all screwed up at some point of animation.... Finally found out the source after some redoing. Yes yes, inefficiency... hated that.. but then it's the fastest way (that i know) to 'debug' such issues...

and it didn't help when the network drive crashed halfway thru... one of my intermediate saved file was wiped clean.. and I had to redo from a previous saved file.

At least got things to work fine b4 I headed home. And that's about 8.15pm already

P.S. many thanks to Rain for keeping me company... haha! No, u weren't irritating.. although the frustrated side of me might say that to u when the frustrations get the better of me. =P But I'm glad I didn't. Coz im waiting for your pressies of diet cokes! (Chocoballs are optional, although good to have)

P.P.S. caught someone working late as well... and both of us reach home right about the same time too. Hope she's feeling better already. Maybe I shd drop her a line more often...

Midday

Great.... the model might be needed tmr for testing! No word from clientside... communication seems messy...

Juz gotta get this all animated by today. Let's see... planning to stay til around 7pm

Bad start to a long monday

Got up at 8 this morning. Which means... I overslept!

Had a quick breakfast and managed to get out of the house by 830am. Always wanted to leave earlier and start work earlier... but somehow my body is used to such timing already. Ok, except this morning.

Planning to work late today. Hopefully can finish the model needed by this weekend.

Chasing Saturday

An eventful one I'll say.

Perhaps it's one of those days where I packed every little errand that I need to accomplish over the past few days into one.

Even b4 the weekend arrived, I was torn between going Sitex or not. Basically it was more of a 'promise' to go than really having anything to buy. But then nothing was really agreed on so I had to replace that trip with things I need to get done.

So the planning all happened on friday night. First thing on the list was to check out a place to see if it's appropriate for any phototaking to be done there. Ok. So here's the first dilemma... Phototaking to be done in the morning... So the best thing would be to recce that place in the morning, ie, around the same time as I would be there on the actual day. BUT, that would mean skipping my church service (it's a religion thingy... best not to skip if u can) and my gym session at 12 noon (this is a health thingy... best not to postpone if u can too). So if I skipped church, then I would make my way around the few sites to check out the area, and then head over for training at 12noon. Or I would go as usual to church, then gym, then check out the places in the afternoon. Things flowed better this way, but I'd miss the 'actual time' factor at those phototaking venues. But anyway, when morning came, I chose the latter in the end as it was cloudy in the morning. (Somehow HE showed me a sign and guided me along... okok... religion thingy here...)

And then there were the plans for the afternoon. I had wanted to procure a new lens for my camera, so the idea was to head over to the shop in SLS after all the recce. But my cousin, who had bought tix for my mum, aunt and his mother-in-law, ended up with an extra tix to a musical at the Esplanade in the afternoon, coz the mum-in-law fell sick. So not wanting to waste the tix, I agreed to go instead. So my plans were kinda screwed up with this new arrangement.

So after gym, I headed over to Tanjong Pagar Railway station, my intended photoshoot site. But with all the travelling and test shots, it was time to head over to the Esplanade. Esplanade did seem to be an ideal place for photoshoot too, but i just find that it's too 'common' a place already. So anyway, the musical was 2 hours long and was 6 when I left the theatre. The roads around there were already closed for the marathon that was to happen this morning.

Headed over to Cathay Photo @ Peninsular Plaza... but sadly they didn't have the lens I wanted!!! I was pretty desperate determined to get it... so I went over to Alan Photo in SLS. And surprisingly they had what I wanted! A check with the sales dude on the price of the lens brought me further good news. Apparently, the price worked out to be about the same as that in US$. Of coz, i needn't have to think twice since it's way below my estimated budget. Along with that were a few additional accesseries to add to my kit. Though it's only semi-completed, apart from the external flashgun to do indoor shots, I'm a happy bear for now.

Alan Photo did receive quite a bit of bad reviews from a number of customers who visited them, but I felt that the service rendered to me was quite satisfactory. Perhaps I'm only a small time buyer, or maybe they have improved their service standards since then. So I hope the lens do not fail me so soon, and prove me wrong about the reputed bad quality of products sold by AP.

That aside, the fruitful day ended with a scrumptous dinner of Seafood Hor Fun and that Wu Xiang Prawn Cracker whatever-name-u-call-it thingy, all washed down with a can of ice-cold coke!

So, anyone interested to volunteer as models for my photo shoots? Decent, non-artistic ones of coz!

05/06/07112006 Days 3,4,5 - Hongkong

Ok, i think i had delayed this long enuff. Better finish it so that I can continue blogging with ease.

We stayed at Olympic Terrace Suites, bacially a service apartment located near Shan Shui Po MTR station. It was quite out of the town area (rather it's at the fringe of the commercial shopping area) but we were still within short travelling distance. Our first stop on Day 3 was breakfast at one of the local cafes. We decided to screw alter our plans and try a randomly chosen cafe instead of travelling to one of those 'highly recommended' ones. It's still a dimsum breakfast, which it nice by my standards (I eat anything, anyway). The interesting part was the ordering system in the cafe. The tea-lady/waitress/auntie who served us.... All she did was draw circles on the orderlist as we ordered and they got every damn single item right.

After a hearty meal, we headed over to HK Disneyland. Took the usual MTR over to Suny Bay and then switched over to the special Disney train. Didn't went in for the rides though (coz we decided to trade off the $$ and time for shopping instead) So we went around the park and boy was it big! And the noon sun wasn't really helping much, although it wasn't scalding hot and mades u perspired like the sun we have back here. Anyway, we then ventured into the hotel lobby for some shade and rest. I guess we took about an hour to stroll into the hotel from the MTR station. Thankfully there are coach services that shuttle hotel guests to and fro. So back we went (in cool aircon comfort) to the station and then we headed over to Tung Chung. One can catch a cable car ride from Tung Chung to the highest peak on Lantau Island, but we didnt go for it as it was a little out of our way. Went over to Times Square for shopping instead. There was an Esprit outlet and Giordano outlet at Citygate. Initially we thot they were the factory outlets coz of the name and the cheaper price range. Turned out that most of the boutiques there has the "Outlet" suffix. But nonetheless, the items on sale were definitely cheaper. We kinda overstayed and screwed delayed our schedule a little. But then again, schedules are meant to be screwed just a guideline. We headed back to Causeway Bay and wanted to head for The Peak, but then it was quite dark by 6pm so we postponed it to the next evening.

Supposed to look for this highly recommended Roast Meat restuarant but our hunger got the better of us. And we ended up in this Jap fusion restuarant instead. For a mere SGD$30 per person, the set dinner was very very filling. Pungkim schoup, French bread rolls, salad with teriyaki sauce, main course, ice-cream and coffee. If I remembered correctly, much of the other dishes in the menu were fusion, except for the set dinners we ordered. And a short tour of Lan Gui Fang after dinner. We didnt end up drinking there as planned though. It seemed a little rowdy when we were there. And also maybe we had a filling dinner and no more space for any drinks after that.

The next day was another shopping day for us as well. Landed at Wong Tai Sin station for a posh Dimsum meal this time in a restuarant. Didn't follow our plan again, but we juz entered the one which is the most crowded among all the restuarant there. After that, headed over to Kwun Tung which seemed like a town centre in SG. Think Tampines or Queensway area, where there's residential nearby and light industrial buildings around. There's this building where the factory outlets of various sports brands and streetwear are located. And that was where we spent most of our afternoon at. Next stop, The Peak, which we missed the previous day. And then the Roast Meat restaurant, which we missed the previous day too. We found Yung Kee after we were done exploring Lan Gui Fang. Initially the waitress told we had to wait for about 30mins before we could get a seat. Thankfully it was only abt 15mins wait (that was when we took funny pics of us dying from our hunger again) until we got our seats.

A short visit to Ladies' Streets after that. RK bought 2 belts and that's pretty much it for the 2 gals. Pretty much for the 2 guys from the factory outlets too. I guess we already bought most of our stuff from the earlier places.

Day 5 was our last day in Hongkong. After checking out at about 11am, we headed over to the nearest shopping mall for brunch. Figured no restuarant would take us in with all those huge bags in tow, we had Yoshinoya instead. Well.. was a good experience... now I know they have nicer and cheaper meals than what we have over here.

Off to look for the pastry shops to buy goodies home and along the way we passed what seemed to me like a private school in a grey 3 to 4 storey building. Seemed to me the school was a convent, albeit a private one. The girls were out buying lunch from the eateries along the streets. Some were even eating-in in the eateries.

After walking for some distance, we figured the shop is rather out of the way and decided to get the pastries from the airport instead. However, flight was at 830pm so we had plenty of time to spend until then. Since we'd be taking the airport transfer from Tsing Yi, we hung around there for a little more shopping until it was almost time.

And the funny thing that happened after that? We were the last 4 people to check-in and it was way way past the last call for our flight. Had to run to the boarding gates right after we cleared the customs, and nooo... the gates weren't just an escalator away. They were like 2 escalators and many steps of running away. So the bus was waiting for the last 4 of us b4 sending the passengers over to the plane. Thankfully no awful stares from the rest of the Singaporeans in the bus. (Of coz, Singaporeans are all nice peeps) The plane got delayed for a further 30mins or so... I guess it's due to us being late and then the other planes took our slot so we had to wait for another takeoff time, so thus ending up delaying for another 30mins. =P

In all, it was an enjoyable trip. Had fun exploring a new place, taking snapshots, speaking the language, and trying some of the foods there. Sadly, only some and not all the foods were tried either we ate too much earlier or didn't have the guts to try. Ok ok, mainly is the former. But nevermind, til next time.. heh! Anyone? LFG for the next holiday trip!

I

Got this from Van's blog.. hehe

Bold the statements that are true to you

Italise the statements that you WISH are true.

Leave the Fibs alone. Then, ask 5 people to do the same test.


I miss somebody right now.

I do not watch tv these days.

I wear glasses or contact lenses.

I love to play video games.

I have tried marijuana.

I have been in a threesome.

I believe honesty is usually the best policy.

I have changed mentally over the last year.

I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

I curse.

I'm totally smart.

HAHAHA!I've broken someone's bones.

I'm paranoid sometimes.

I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free.

I need money right now.

I love sushi.

I talk really, really fast.

I have long hair.

I have lost money in Las Vegas.

I have at least one sibling.

I have worn fake hair/fingernails/eyelashes in the past.

I couldn't survive without Caller ID.

I like the way I look.

I am usually pessimistic.

I have a lot of mood swings.

I have a hidden talent.

I'm always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.

I have a lot of friends.

I have pecked someone of the same sex.

I enjoy talking on the phone.

I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.

I love to shop.

Enjoy window shopping.

I would rather shop than eat.

I don't hate anyone.

I'm a pretty good dancer.

I'm completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.

I have a cell phone.

I believe in God.

I watch MTV on a daily basis.

I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months.

I want to have children in the future.

I have changed a diaper before.

I've called the cops on a friend before.

I'm not allergic to anything.

I have a lot to learn.

I'm shy around members of the opposite sex.

I have made a move on a friend's significant other or crush in the past.

I have tried alcohol before.

I own the South Park movie.

I would die for my best friend.

I think that Pizza Hut has the best pizza.

I have used my sexuality to advance my career.

I love Michael Jackson, scandals and all.

Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.

I watch Spongebob Squarepants and I like it.

I am happy at this moment!

I tie my shoelaces differently from anyone I've ever met.

I study for tests most of the time.

I am comfortable with who I am now.

I have more than just my ears pierced.

I walk barefoot wherever I can.

I have jumped off a bridge.

I love sea turtles.

I spend ridiculous money on makeup.

Plan on achieving a major goal/dream.

I'm proficient in a musical instrument.

I worked at McDonald's restaurant.

I hate office jobs.

I love sci-fi movies.

I think water rules.

I went college out of state.

I like sausages.

I adore bright colours.

I can't live without black eyeliner.

I don't know why the hell I just did this stupid thing.

I usually like covers better than originals.

I can pick up things with my toes.

I can't whistle.

I can move my tongue in waves, much like a snake's slither.

I have ridden/owned a horse.

I still have every journal I've written in.

I can't stick to a diet.

I talk in my sleep.

I try to forget things by drowning them out with loads of distractions.

I have jazz in my blood.

Climbing trees is a brilliant past-time.

I wear a toe ring.

I can't stand at LEAST one person that I work with.

I am a caffeine junkie.

I have been to over 15 conventions.

I will collect anything and the more nonsensical the better.

I'm an artist.

I only clean my room when necessary.

I like a person of the same sex.

I love being happy.

I am an adrenaline junkie.

--------------------------
5 person to do this:

anyone game for it?

Card of the moment

You are The Sun

Happiness, Content, Joy.

The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.

Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.

The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon's Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Of discounted books and cds, friends and Settler's

A sudden splurge in spendings over the past few days. Ack!

So after friday's KTV session, Saturday was shopping spree wif RK at Borders. Armed ourselves wif discount vouchers (only valid til 30th Nov so cannot waste), we set out to purchase a few items hoping to find it cheaper due to the *ahem* vouchers we have.

Well, RK is dying hoping to find her elusive album from Lesiem coz each time she tried to find it, the most of the music store people would always say that it's sold out and waiting for the new stock to arrive. OK, maybe it's true and it takes some time b4 new stock arrives. But anyway she managed to find it. And then she also managed to find the latest release of the comic Sherman's Lagoon.

I was looking for Josh Groban's latest ablum as well as Evanesence's "the Open door". Pretty worth it since we has this "Buy 3 for the price of 2 CDs" vouchers. And then also 2 books for me, Mitch Albom's latest novel For One More Day and 1000 Places to See Before you Die by Patricia Schultz. Both of which I had 25% discount off the full price.

Due to the many items and vouchers we had, the cashier had a little hard time trying to sort out which voucher went wif which item. Hehe... but he did try his best though. Anyway, he's a guy so I wasn't really paying much attention to him except making sure he got the price right. He did scanned some items a few times coz he placed them too near to the scanner.

"Oops, sorry! Let me void that entry. Not to worry" *Attempts to flash a wide grin*

-_-;;;

Ok, nevermind... we all have to start somewhere somehow, so give this novice some leeway....

With that, we finished our aquisition mission satisfactorily and then headed over to meet the rest of the bunch for dinner and an evening of games in Settler's cafe. We had 7 pple this time. And I was eager to recommend this game called Betrayal at House on Haunted Hill to the rest, but alas the game can only take up to a maximum of 6 players. So i was the noobish GM (Game Master) instead... noobish coz i played it only once.

So that lasted us for about an hour and a half. And then we switched to another game, Saboteur, which has a faster pace than the previous one. I guess most of us liked the 2nd game better. As they always say, time flies when u r having fun. We spent 5 hours there and a few baskets of nibbles so that we had a more affordable 'playing time'. Think we all ended up wif a bloated tummy.

We stayed til after midnight, and Cable drove most of us home. SZ left earlier and JJ had to grab a cab home. And I felt a little guilty since I suggested that we stay another hour. Else we all would have left together wif SZ and everyone would be able to get home early to rest.

Like what RK said, Settler's cafe is a nice place to hang and chill out wif some frens over boardgames. It has subtlely rekindled in me the love for boardgaming again... now all i need is to find pple to sit thru a game or two. Heh.

Neh... that One KTV

Went for KTV session after work this evening. Didn't manage to gather alot of pple, after a recent bout of flu which afflicted quite a few friends, we ended up up with just the four of us. My coll, her friend and another of my friend. My friend was eagerly awaiting this time for KTVing... but alas she was down too wif a bad throat.

It was thru JJ's recommendation that I decided to try out this KTV parlour place. I thot the pricing was good, as the food and drink costs are deducted from the price of the room we paid. Since there were only 4 of us, we took the small room. And wow! it IS really much smaller than all of us expected. I guess we can compare the size to a typical HDB bathroom. yeah, it's that small and cramp. But it housed/roomed the 4 of us comfortably. The other good thing was that there wasn't any feedback despite the small space. Downsides are the songs aren't as updated as KBox and PartyWorld and we had a mic with a loose switch.

We had somewhat a good time, coz we all can't really hit the high notes (except for my colleague who I feel sang pretty well) Oh well, til next time then!

The One KTV @ Meritus Mandarin Hotel

Sweet impulsiveness

Perhaps sometimes acting on implusiveness or on spur of the moment isn't such a bad thing.

C got a bad throat some days back. I msged her on my way home from work juz to ask how she'd been. (No one recovers from loss of voice overnight, but still it's nice that someone asks abt u, no?)

Mentioned to her before that manuka honey helps as it has healing properties. But unfortunately she didn't have any at work and usually work til late and the shops will be closed by the time she goes over. Implusively, I went and grabbed a bottle for her and planned to meet her on the way home. I msged her again and was trying to arrange a time to meet up with her. It turned out she was on MC for the next 2 days and was resting at home. (Honestly, she can't do much since she's croaking half the time, and it doesn't make sense too if she can't rest her throat for a few days. Afterall, she needs her voice in her line of work.)

"Oh you r home! Coming over in 1 hr's time. =)"

"Huh? For wat reason?"

"Passing some stuff to you"

No more replies until a while later, she called. She sounded puzzled as to why I was going over to her place. I didn't want her to talk and strain her vocal cords further, so I said that I'll be reaching soon and we'll talk later. So there I was, right on time with a small (plastic) jar of honey in my hands. And we chatted awhile at the gates, b4 i remembered that she has to rest her vocal cords.

I guess she was happy to receive the bottle of honey. Hope she gets well soon. It's no miracle cure, but at least it does offer some help to the healing process.

04112006 Day 2 - Hongkong! We hath arriveth!

Unfortunately we didn't plan a longer stay in Macau. I'm sure there are many historical and cultural sites which we can visit and also a fair share of yummy local cuisines to tingle our tastebuds. But I guess our agenda wasn't one of cultural visits, but more of shopping in Hongkong. Come to think of it, we didn't even take a peek in any of the many casinoes there too.

But anyway, we headed over to Hongkong on the 2nd morning of the trip. Up at 8, and gone out for breakfast. We had a quick breakfast at Mac's (yes, all the way to Macau but we had Mac's) well, we needed a simple meal in the morning. Nearest localstyle breakfast is back in Senado Sq, which is abt 30mins walk away. So Mac's was the fastest food we could find around us. All of us had Big Breakfast, which somehow i find that it's much much nicer than the version locally. Tastier scrambled eggs, crispy toasted muffin and meatier sausage patty. The milktea was really milky too, typical Macau/Hongkong style it seems. And then we got back before 10am to check out and catch the hotel transfer to the ferry terminal. It ended up as a 10mins ride to the terminal as the driver zipped through town fetching only 4 of us from the hotel to the terminal. Since we got tix for the 11am ferry, we had ample time to idle away there. Being newbies as we are, we were looking for the check-in counter for the usual admin procedures. Well, we ARE leaving Macau for another country. Anyway, we idled about explored around the terminal while waiting for the time to pass. We were able to enter only 15mins to boarding time. And what followed was an hour journey by sea to HK.

Then came yet another adventurous segment of the trip. After we reached HK, we set off to find the GPO (Grey Polar Owl. No... it's the Gen Post Office!) for a sidequest which we all didn't manage to complete by the end of the trip. And then over to the Star Ferry Terminal to grab a ferry over to Kowloon (main chunk of HK). Ferry ride was about SG$1 (or was it HK$1)? Well, anyway, im glad we took the ferry coz a week after we got back. Star Ferry ended its service runs as less and less Hongkongers are taking it and opted for the faster MTR rides instead.

We needed to get to Kowloon's Star Ferry Terminal so that we can find the tourist info centre so that we can grab obtain the tourist info booklet so that we can get the coupons to buy the 3-days-unlimited-MTR-rides-and-1-airport-transfer so that we can ride around anywhere we wanted.

We then trotted (with 2 wheelie luggages in tow) over to the nearest MTR station (Tsim Sha Tsui) and only to find that the tourist tix were only sold at 4 major MTR stations (which I can't remember which 4 ) The nearest station that sells the tourist tix was at Kowloon and we took a train over there to get it. Silly me had to suggest going the long way over to Kowloon station. But the tradeoff was that we need only to cross over to the other platform to transfer, instead of walking thru a long linkway though taking a shorter MTR route.

And after all that running around town, we checked into our service apartment where we'll be bunking for the next few days. And that's abt 4pm in the afternoon. Settled down our stuff, rested our feet and then headed over to Temple Street for dinner and our first shopping spree. Oh, not forgetting Xu Liu Shan which is renowned for it's desserts!

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03112006 Day 1 - Macau

2 weeks and 3 days after I got back, I finally have time to settle down and write something about my recent trip to Macau and HK. It was initially just a straightforward holiday trip : choose a country, decide on a budget, select Companions (to a max of 4 pax) But then after doing some research online, greedy me can't settle on 1 place and had to come across the offer by Tiger Airways. They had offers to a few places and that included Macau. Since the price of it all worked out to be the same as getting a return ticket to HK, we decided to visit Macau as well.

We had only half a day in Macau. Honestly, not much planning done for our 1st stop, so we got kinda lost aimless after we arrived. Was passed noon when we settled down in our hotel room. Then we set off to the nearest landmark around our hotel. We wanted to hail a cab to Senado Sq initially, but then after consulting the map, we figured it wasn't exactly far off, and besides we could take in the sights along the way and enjoy the cool and fresh air in a foreign place. So we all troddled along the streets and headed in the general direction to Senado Sq. Wellll, cool and fresh weren't the right words to describe the air there. Unfortunately, contruction works were abound along the way we took, apparently road works and facelifting were done to the buildings along the route. Tracked for about 30mins b4 we reached Senado Sq. Wasn't really something i expected, until i realised the crowd was mainly tourists. It's a popular hangout place I guess, looking at the number of youngsters who were there too.

Along the way, we chanced upon this makeshift stall which sells this freshly baked dough biscuits. We hav no idea what it's called. The seller has his kneaded dough under a cloth and then nips off a small chunk and place the dough bits in a primitive-looking-waffle-maker-except-that-it's-flat pan, which he places over a charcoal fire. The result, a crispy shell with a soft inside kind of biscuit. Further up the slope (yes, Senado Sq is a rather gradual uphill) towards the famous tourist attraction, we tried the famous (i think, well, that's wat the Companions told me) Pork Cutlet Bun. This version had the grilled pork cutlet... Companions told me about the fried version. But i guess i'm happy with my grilled cutlet.

We finally made our way uphill to the tourist site, which is the Ruins of St Paul (church). It was a church built way back in 1602 and was burnt down in 1835. (more info in the link). There was a small museum and a crypt behind the wall. And we spent sometime looking through the artifacts on display.

We came back to Senado Sq after that and found this one cafe which was listed in the catalogue we took from Tiger Airways. Kind of a must-go dessert shop in Senado Sq. Turns out to be located along a small lane leading into the Sq, and a rather small and old one too. But it had a rather cosy atmosphere despite the size. Though small, it gave me a homely feel to the place. Interestingly, we saw this on the menu, basically they are ice-cream floats with soft-drinks-of-the-day (changes everyday, so the lady boss said) And just as nicely, four different flavours for the four of us, and incidentally as well, the tops we wore corresponded to the colours of the drinks.

We left the Sq close to 5pm, and the sun was already setting. It looked like it's about 7ish here in SG. From there, we headed over to Macau Tower and I think we walked abt an hour before we got there. A visit to the top would cost us abt HKD130 each, so we dropped the idea and instead went shopping around the shops located there. One of the stores which unfortunately had to put up with us tourist was Toys R Us. Hey, what u expect us to do with so many toys lying around? =P And then there's the Nissin Museum that showcased the evolution (evolution? can't find a better word) of it's instant noodles from it's humble beginnings til present.

Interestingly, we opted for a simple dinner of cup noodles instead. -.-;;; Mainly coz we were tempted by the Nissin museum in Macau Tower and also we were too tired to hunt around for food. (Although we did find eateries while searching for the supermarket)

With that we ended our short stay in Macau and got ready for our ferry over to Hongkong the next morning

TGI Cheesecake Friday

So I got myself down to make an unbaked cheesecake for Friday's coffeebreak during work. Since one of my colleagues is lactose-intolerant, i tried to cut down on the cream used by replacing it with soymilk. There's no escaping the cheese portion, but at least I could change the amount of cream i used. Since regular fresh soymilk can't really curd, i tried but using soymilk powder (i adjust the amount of soymilk to water proportions)

And Oreos was one of the most convenient biscuits to use since i can use the cream as part of the sweeting agent for the cake, and leftovers from the cake base can be added into the mixture as well.

nd the resulting cake is as shown in the picture, this was wat's left after 7 pple had taken a portion of it. So I guess i got it right when pples' comments are those of "Hey! U gotta teach me how u got this made!"

Interestingly, nobody had seconds, and I figured
either the portions I gave them were too rich and one's enuff,
or they were embarassed to ask for more
or it sux (which is unlikely... =P)

but anyway, that 1/3 portion of what's left was what I hav for lunch on Friday. Man.... I think I got a knack for making unbaked cheesecakes.

Testing from Performancing plugin

Hmm, so how convenient is this i wonder.



Performancing is a plugin for Firefox browsers and it's a popup window to allow users to blog from any site without switching to blogger page.



Seems very convenient to me ;) anyway it's more than juz a blogging tool... takes a little while to explore what it actually does. And i forgot what I read on Firefox's website :P in any case, it's a neat tool



Just see if this post gets thru.





Technorati Tags: rantings



Ok, and im a total newbie with technorati tags

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MacDonald's, the videogame

Screenshot from the game

Have endless hours in ur hands to kill? Looking for a challenging way to past the time? Check out this game here, where you are the boss of an international corporation and your aim is to make as much $$ as you can and not go bankrupt.

You'll get to manage your resources, run our own restuarant and market the brand to the masses. Basically it's an endless game where you try to avoid bankruptcy and social groups from bringing you down, and to buy your way thru to get things done.

Have what it takes to be the most shrewd successful business person? Able to manipulate the people around you to get things done? Then this game is for you.

what goes around comes around

Karmatic?

Somehow, i knew things like this would happen. Somehow, it was hiding in the shadows waiting for the opportunity to strike. And the opportunity presented itself. I know there is always a price to pay when things got on too smoothly. Things happened too easily... everything just fell into place too nicely. Surely, sometime later, the price to pay for it will come. And usually the price is a big one.

How does it feel when someone do not take your words seriously? Is it the same as saying something and don't mean what you said? So does this mean, in both ways, someone is a hypocrite?

Perhaps, in some ways, i took the relationship a little too lightly. Or rather, I didn't want to get too close, for it seemed to me that I did not want to 'overtake' the friendship between 2 friends. So I drew the line. Was I being biased? To treat the 2 friends differently? Guess it's down to expectations we have for one another, which is a boon as well as a bane. If one was to expect less from a friend, would that be somewhat of looking down on him/her? While on the other hand, when one's expectation of a friend is higher, the likelihood of getting hurt and disappointed by things you-thought-s/he-would-do-but-end-up-didn't-do increases proportionally as well.

So perhaps being a little pessimistic and don't bank on your friends springing you with happy surprises helps to alleviate the pain from the disappointed that might ensue if one hoped for too much. My outlook is definitely bleak. It's a double edge sword then, since if this the way I look at friendship, then that's the way I'm going to treat everyone around me.

But I know I'm not like that. Those who know me well, friends are always b4 myself. But my strengths are limited for I'm only human. There will be times when I overlook and forget. And such times are usually enough to stain the little white book of good deeds which takes a lifetime to fill up. Perhaps in this case, what goes around doesn't exactly comes around.

Post Vacation Sickness

Back from a great holiday trip which left me wanting more. But for now, it's back to the real world again. Need to fill up my coiffers again b4 I can head out for another trip. hehe...

Got back on tues night, additional day leave on wed, and it's back to work for the last 2 days b4 the weekend arrives again. Updates on the trip coming soon i guess.

Man... I miss Hongkong, just as I missed the other countries I went to...

Bags are packed and ready to go

for my long awaited break (since July). Heh...

Well, taking off in another 8 hours time or less in fact. Finally, off on a trip again. Another round of relaxing and getting lost in a foreign land. In some ways, maybe u can say that I can't speak the language there. But again, wif all the signs and familar modes of transportation, one can't really get lost in a bustling city.

Let's see... im there for photo opportunities, exploring, eating and shopping... hmm... oh, and getting lost. ;-)

Time to get some shut eyes too. gonna be a long day ahead and exciting for the next few days.

Be back soon! So soon even before u can say...
Aruba, jamaica ooo I wanna take ya,
Bermuda, bahama come on pretty mama

Ok! ok! Say those words reeeeeal sloooooooowly ya?

Ciaoz!

And the filmcrew came by town

The filmcrew came by today presumably to shoot some documentary of some sort. Initially we were informed that they were just using a room in our premises. But we were told yesterday that some of our projects are going to be showcased as well. They started at about 10am in the morning, beginning with an interview with a Prof and then a postgraduate student pursuing a higher qualification.

It was a complete filmcrew with a makeup artist, lightsman, soundman, some guy who carries the equipment and chests etc... it's really serious stuff.

I don't remember seeing the filmcrew left for lunch. Well, maybe they did, while we were away for ours. Lolz... anyway, it came to our turn after lunch. And seeing our demo room turning into a studio is pretty fascinating and interesting.

Had a good time watching them film our projects. Kinda cool that the stuff we do are actually going on TV soon.

Time never seemed to be enough

Been busy since the last post. Funny how time flies when u needed it most.

Busy with work, catching up with frens who just came back to town, catching up with old friends, and then preparing to fly off for a short holiday this weekend. Just thot I shd practice my violin a little b4 the end of this week. And then there's the stuff to pack for the trip.

Guess i'll hav to plan my time when im in the train to work. Well, at least i got the curency changed. Just left wif the last-minute-packing-and-then-realise-im-missing-stuff hysteria.

On a lighter note, just went pro with my flickr account. 2GB of uploads per mth. That means I dun hav to resize down my pictures when I upload now. Whoo hoo!

Oh ya... Happy Halloween!

OK Pocky! Oh, this is Pretz...

Another one of those Pocky/Pretz adverts from Glico... Must say they never fail to come up with funny, attention grabbing adverts. Not forgetting the fact that the whole advert also has nothing to do with introducing the product. Just... attention-grabbing and nonsensical



Link to video here

it all seemed like yesterday

Met the bunch of guys I knew from scouting back in sec sch days last night. One of them was in Holland for 2 years (which I thot was a little longer) and just finished his studies. So he was finally back in town and we did some catch up together before he fly off again. We met up for dinner at East Coast food centre. Not willing to spend lots on cab fare I timed myself so that I won't be late, and have ample time to get to the beach from my outer-rim workplace, I set off about an hour half to the appointment time. After the bus-train-bus-and-still-need-to-walk-somemore journey, I just needed another 10mins walk to get there. But noooo, i HAD to alight prematurely near Neptune Court and ended up near the chalet at East Coast beach. And that's like another 800m walk to the food centre. Anyway, I managed to reach 30mins after the appointed time, which means I took 2hrs to get there!

The last time we met was at the wedding of one of the guys last year. So this is the next time that we all met again. Had the usual local favourites there, and the prices were not exhuberant as i expected. We then waited for another guy to arrive before adjourning to another location for more catching up.

Then there was a choice between Wine Company, coffee @ Siglap or coffee @ airport. Since 3 (out of 7) of us were driving, wine is rather out of the qn. We decided on coffee somewhere in Siglap when I suggested Settlers' Cafe in Katong. It's somewhere new where most of us hadn't go before, and all welcomed the idea.

Took the Free-flow package which gave us freeflows of coke or green tea and 2hrs free gameplay. The guy at the cafe recommended us Shadows over Camelot. It's quite a confusing game to master in the beginning. Quite a few rules to understand and remember. Each player chooses a Knight and each knight has his own special attributes which allows each player to plan his own strategy of play. It's particularly nice when it's played in such a big group. Amongst all the players, there is one who is a "traitor" and will attempt to foil the main goal of the rest of the players. And trying to find out the "traitor" out of 6 possiblities is definitely interesting. After a few rounds, we all got the hang of it. I must say, being the traitor seemed to be easier, because he has 3 ways to foil the plans of the others. In all we played twice before moving on to another game. Oh, and there was a halftime intercession of Jenga, which somehow is never dull for a short and quick game. We stayed for about 3hrs there before heading for supper back at our old sec sch compound. (Yes, it is a small coffeeshop and a music college now)

Visiting our old sch again certainly brought back all the memories. Truly, it's been like 15 years since we met and joined the same ECA. And now, 15 years later and even though all of us had gone on our ways, we still managed to meet up again. Lost contact with a few others though. Wow, it's certainly been a long while. Now, 2 are already married, another 2 are preparing for theirs next year, while the rest of us are pursuing our careers. Wonder just how it will be like 5 years from now, or maybe just even 3 years down the road, what will we all be busy with then? Can't picture how it would be like when we all have families of our own.

Well, we had our teas and coffees, talked, laughed and reminisced about the good old days we had in school. And it all seemed not so long ago. Almost all the grass had be paved and half of the old school had been turned into a hostel for the students in the music college there, but we can never forget the place where we all spent a good 4 years growing up in.

We all headed home at about 3am in the morning. and i wonder when's the next time we'll all meet up again.

Awww soo cute!

I have this video clip for sometime already. But I figured it can be found on youtube as well. Just have to share it here. Heh... Another reason why I love polarbears so much

So who's the cutest?
1) The polarbear (when it's on the other side of the glass)?
2) The japanese girl in distress?
3) The fur seal hat?
4) All of the above.

Enjoy!

the things I would do for a friend?

This happened about 2 fridays ago.

I was on my way to work when my friend msged me. She was going pass my workplace so tried her luck and see if she could offer me a lift to work. (awww… so nice to be remembered that I work in the outlands.) And so, not wanting to disappoint her for her effort, I arranged to meet her along the way so that I can catch a free ride to work.

Along the journey, she asked, “GPB, ask u ah… U hav a few close gal friends rite?”

“Erm, yah… i guess u can call them close ba. Why?"

She continued, “What if one of the girls have some problems and needed someone to talk to, will u fly down to her immediately, even if it’s late at night?"

"How about if u have a girlfriend liao, will u still do such a thing for a close gal friend?”

That got me pondering a little. Surely to say for now, I suppose I would fly down should someone need a listening ear. But so far, it's always online chats and maybe phonecalls to let my close gal friend bitch rant pour her heart out. But I guess it would be the case that I'm the last bear to turn to. Ok, ok, the girls aren't that mean, but sometimes gal-to-gal talk would be the best remedy for such illness of the heart.

And if I’m attached, I believe I can still lend a listening ear to a friend in need, im sure my Other Half will understand. It’s not an everyday thing that sometimes a friend is troubled by work or financial or relationship problems. So yeah I guess meeting up wif a friend isn’t all that bad.

Well, until the day one of my close gal frens ask me out so that she can bitch rant use me as a listening ear, I see how I'll react to it.

Hmm... many close gal frens.... I'm so envious of myself.

Aye yeat, therefore I yam

Busy with article writing since last week for a report compliation by the research institute. Taking a short breather now after finishing 2 (out of 3) articles to write.

Had a light lunch today, and consists mainly of fruits (and a large bao, thot I need the carbo). And am trying to resist snacking now that im getting a little hungry. Dinner won't be around until at least 8pm generally by the time i get home.

Figured I shd try to cut down the afternoon intake since
1) I dun move about much after lunch
2) I always have a heavy breakfast
3) I m putting on weight

Wonder how long can I put myself through this. haha! Determination young man! Determination!

Hazy days are back for the 2nd week

The haze has finally gotten to me. Been sniffing and coughing for the past few days. And now am down wif a dry/sore/irritated throat. Gone to bed early for the past 2 nights and tried to sleep through the haze. Strangly, it wasn't so bad when night comes. PSI index hovers only around 60-70, giving some much relieved 'fresher' air.

And due to the haze as well, it has gotten more humid and warm. Sometimes even a little difficult to breathe. Ok, maybe not as bad as Beijing, which i heard, is perpetually covered in smog for a good part of the day. But no matter, it's not good if this lingers on.

Friday came and went. Was at the airport, but didn't managed to send her off, for those who are interested to know. But I did get an sms from her when she had landed.

i hadn't been honest wif the people around me.

one lie lead to another. But is it a deceitful lie? Or juz one that was created so as not to complicate things? Or ironically, made things more complicated.

told my parents that im sending a fren off to work in the US. and im heading to the airport to send him off. the truth is, i wanted to see someone else off. but all this deceiving, i know it's not good. i may make a habit out of it next time to the one i love, won't i? yet another ironical situation.

she's flying off for a 2 weeks holiday in a few hours time. she told me abt it months back. but I didn't ask who was in the group that she is going wif, even if that was the first thing that came to my mind. it juz didn't sound appropriate back then. and juz few weeks back, she jokingly said if only i could join them. my heart skipped a beat. i really wished i could. i could juz grab a ticket and join her. but too much work are piled up over these weeks. perhaps God had planned this for me and i felt that this was the chance that im given to better the relationship again. perhaps it's time again to show some action and not just plain thots of those wat-ifs scenarios.

it definite that i can't go for the trip. but i thot it would be so nice if i could send her to the airport. she insisted not since it's wee hours in the morning and i shd be snuggly sleeping in bed. and i backed down. yeah, mabbe it's really silly to do that. i thot about it again. it's an opportunity to do something, even if it turns out silly and redundant and may juz make her upset and frustrated with me again. i juz felt that its a chance i shdn't missed out. im still heading over to the airport... despite her indignant objections. guess im pushing my luck wif her and God now.

im heading out later.

im so silly.

but i still think i shd go.

My Nerd score

I lost the truth about myself

How many times does a person get misunderstood in one lifetime? Perhaps a lifetime is way too long a time period. Certainly many misunderstandings will occur, be it a huge one or a minor one which often can be resolved when both sides tell their versions of the story.

I used to be quite bothered by every little misunderstandings that occured to me, be it through my faults or no faults of my own, and the impression that people have of me from that 'misunderstandings'. But over the years, I kinda stop letting such incidents bother me anymore. I answer to myself, and as long as I did no wrong, I do not hav to fear how others think of me. For those who are just another stranger on the streets, it's one in a 4 millionth chance that we'll meet up again. Even if we do, chances are that we'll see each other in a different light. For those whom I will see often, let time show them the real me, and misunderstandings will fade away.

Or so I thought.

Perhaps it hurts the most to know that those whom u think are the closest and those whom u trust sees u differently.

Yes it really hurts.

It hurts so much that suddenly it makes one ponders if one's character is really like the kind which everyone closest around sees it to be. One tends to lower all the guard and reveal the inner self to those around, and thats when they all see the real you inside. It's painful to know that I leave people with the impression that I have a hidden agenda when getting close to them. Which leads me to ask myself if i really do have such intents. And then I really dun know myself anymore. Maybe people around me see me more clearly than I do. Maybe I'm in denial over some 'agenda' I have set for myself and for the people who I meet.

Being misunderstood hurts.

The truth hurts too.

And being misundestood by the closest people around you, then realising that perhaps it wasn't a misunderstanding at all but rather, what they saw was actually the truth which you had cast away in denial, simply kills you

It's a SunDaisy Flower

A recent debate over MSN with a fren of mine Angelystor to what kind of flower this actually is.

Picture courtesy of www.photos-of-the-year.com

The fren Angelystor was insisting that it's a Sunflower and not anything else. Well, we can all see it IS a daisy! Duh... (Okay, the one we argued over was actually a red one. But I chose an orange-yellow one just to compare with the sunflower. Hehe...)

Of coz, we were just having fun debating. So here's a picture of some sunflowers (to prove my point that the one above is a daisy and sunflowers look like those below)

Picture courtesy of www.lib.utk.edu

Come to think of it. I haven't really seen a real daisy flower before. So which leads me to wonder how big they really are. I saw Sunflowers before, and they are huge! They are happy flowers. That's the impression and feeling they give me. Sometimes people give Sunflowers as a gift to the partner. It's a very neutral flower to give I guess... nothing awkward in saying someone is happy and jovial like a Sunflower. (It's so tempting to paint a happy smilie face right in the middle of a sunflower)

Daisies give me an impression of petite and shyness. Well, i could be wrong, since the only daisies I saw were from pictures. I have yet to discover how big the flower really is. But I know it's definitely much smaller than the sunflower. Daisies also give me the feeling of beauty in its simplicity. It has no velvety petals like the rose, nor any atractive arrangements in it's bloom, but juz simple pastel colours in the many variety of daisies.

Er... what was it again that led me to this flower talk? Duh... nvm... many more posts to come! Juz that they may take a while to appear coz my eyes are watery, nose is runny and throat is dry. All thanks to the haze that's lingering around town for the moment.

Will update soon! Just bear with the bear for feeling 花迟 right now.

Edited: There.. Angelystor, now everyone knows who I was 'debating' wif. hehe...

The Saga Begins

Watch the saga begins here.

Lyrics included =)

Of waterworks, a Forbidden City and the Oktoberfest

Saturday was pretty eventful. Novena service as usual in the morning and then it was off to my aunt’s place to replace her kitchen tap. One of my primary school friends had recently joined us for the weekly service at the church, and I felt kinda weird when my aunt invited her along to her house when we ended the service. Guess coz they needed another player for their mj sessions, since it’s been a while that they last played. I was there to fix the tap so I can’t possibly play (or let them wait for me to be done with the replacement) Anyway, about her... it'll be another story for another day.

So yeah... I can replace the tap. *smug* So can anyone else actually, if they hav the right tools. Well, basically it's a very logical process if one looks into how it works. Thanks to my dad, he had the perfect tools for plumbing works, so changing it was a breeze. Took me exactly an hour to finish the job and put things back in order. Then a short break before heading to the locally produced musical, Forbidden City, at the City Durian Esplanade.

Saturday was the last day of performance, and the bunch of us caught the matinee, ie 2nd last performance. Actually the musical supposed to have ended about 2 weeks earlier, but they extended the run until the 30th. And thanks to cable and gf, we managed to get central seatings in Cat B and we had an adequate distance and good view of the stage.

And yes, the performance was really good. Kit Chan has a superb voice and the props, though simple, were enough to create many different scenes throughout the whole musical. There was a part where the stage lights were used to form a winding path to the back of the stage and that gave it a sense of depth. The actors trudged slowly along the path and zigzagged their way to the back. Somehow the lights gave the effect that they became smaller (and further) as they walked away. Anyway, there's another scene happening in front which also diverted the audience's attention away to where the 'main scene' of the story was.

I'm never good at comparing across musicals, so I can't really say how well this one performed as compared to others. In the first place, I have not watched many musicals to begin with. But Forbidden City's storyline was captivating enough for me to remember it vividly. I remembered watching Oliver! back in about 2002 and the story wasn't exactly that memorable. But like many who had watched Forbidden City, it is truly a remarkable work made in Singapore.

The musical ended at about 5.45pm and we met up wif RK and headed for dinner at Marina Sq's foodcourt. A simple dinner, as we planned to head to Paulaner Brauhaus after that. Was still early after we finished eating so we ended up shopping a little in Marina Sq, and ended up with Cable's gf buying more stuff from some of the shops we entered.

We headed over to the pub right before 8pm, which was almost the end of the happy hour. Luckily, we managed to order the beers at happy hour price (15% cheaper). This week's beer is a little different. Not the usual light and dark lagers but a special brew.. er... specially brewed for the Oktoberfest. The fest ran from 27th Sept til 3rd Oct (in Singapore, longer over in Germany) so i guess we got there at the right time. The beer tasted a bit sweeter than their usual brews, and also higher in alcohol content. The usual house band started at about 9.15pm for half an hour and then came back at 10.15pm for another session. That night was special though, coz there is a German band scheduled to perform at 11pm. Pity JJ left around that time coz he complained of a headache. And so happened the mini 'jubilee' started at the same time.

Met my colleague in the pub too. He was with his bunch of German frens outside the pub (met him while taking a breather from the smoke filled interior) and then came in later when the band started to play. RK find him cute (and later flashed him a seductive grin as we left the pub) Anyway, was nice of him to attempt a translation of the songs the band belted out, despite having to shout out the words on top of all the merry making from almost everyone there. The band consisted of about 5 big burly guys who squeezed onto a small stage with their musical instruments of accordian, trumpet, trumbone, clarinet, drum and an electric guitar! So just imagine how packed they were up there. Anyway, they had a good time playing and we had a good time enjoying the songs. There were also 2 beer girls who went up onto the bar top and got the people to clap along and sing along (if we can) The band played for only about 45mins (but it seemed longer than that) and ended with a Chicken Dance that got faster and faster. Most of us gamely joined in.. i know the four of us did :)

We left after that. I bade farewell to my colleague and RK (who at this pt was feeling a little high from the beers) flashed her grin. Think Cable and gf were high too. I drank less.. hmm... less than a litre in fact. Anyway, the boutiques in Marina Sq were still open then. Some of them were having midnight sales. We headed to Macs for something to sober us up before heading home.

It took us a good half hour to finally flag down a cab over at Esplanade. As usual, many of the cabs were 'hidden' somewhere behind Republic Ave or close by waiting for calls instead of plying the streets.

Oh well, I can go on about this, but I'll leave it for another entry another day

Random stuffs

The haze is back again. Now I know the cause of my dry eyes and itching throat.

Dunked like 3 cups of Nescafe throughout the day coz I thot my eyes were tired. But nothing helped more than washing my eyes under the tap. Though it lasted for less than an hour each time, still it's good to break away from my desk to head to the washroom for a while.

Work just entered a new phase. After the baking's done, now it's the portion of putting it all into the VR engine. And the codes are giving me a headache. Took a while to know what was going on. There's the geometry class... and then there's the logical class... and over there down below is the timer class...

Kept telling myself to continue with the dvds my colleague lent me about 3 weeks ago. It's called The Blue Planet. A documentary that traced the natural history of the oceans and it took them many years to compiled the 8 1-hr episodes which covers different aspects of marine life. I managed to finished only the 1st dvd (ie 2 episodes)

But im here updating my entries instead. Maybe I'll start on the 3rd episode after this. Hmm... but the night seemed pretty cozy despite the hazy. It's one of those times I wish I could watch something in bed

I just called to say...

Actually this happened last night. 24hrs ago to be exact.

My parents had both gone to bed and i'm in my room infront of the googlebox. All was quiet when suddenly the fone rang. Normally we seldom have anyone calling late at night, except for those prank calls and wrong numbers (which happen many times) so it was quite startling to hear the ringing.

Anyway it was a call from my dad's taxi company. And it was from the Lost and Found dept. Sometimes I really don't know whether I should compliment them for their efficiency or complain about their lack of EQ. I guess Com... the Blue Taxi Company always put their passengers' interests at top priority.

*Phone rings*

Me: Hello?
Lady from Blue Taxi company: Hello, is the (Blue taxi) driver at home?
Me: Who is this looking for him? Do you know his name?
Lady: i want to speak to the driver of taxi number xxxx. Im calling from the Blue taxi Company.
Me: Hold on.

*woke my dad to pick up his call*

Turns out that someone lost his/her laptop somewhere and the Lost and Found from Com... Blue Taxi Company is helping to trace where it might be. The lady sounded like she was interrogating where my dad was after 9pm last night. (Sounded like she accusing my dad of taking the laptop) She claimed that the passenger lost the laptop in his car presumably around 9pm. But my dad was home at about 830pm last night, so either the lady got the time wrong, or the complaintiff anyhow humtum a time. Anyway, my dad didn't see anything that was left behind when he was finishing up for the day. So it was either some lucky passenger who go in after took it, or the laptop was simply misplaced elsewhere.

What amazed me were 2 things. Firstly, the Lost and Found Dept from Com.. the taxi company was hellava efficient. They would not hesistate to call even if it's late at night. Or just that 11pm is still pretty early for old folks and they might still be up watching TV after a hard day's work. And also, there is no need to greet and state where and why one is calling from at such late hours. Just simply DEMAND to speak to the person and ASSume the other party will just put one thru without asking. That's very low EQ to me.

The other was the fact that someone can actually LOSE a laptop in a cab. Well, presuming it's a company's laptop and there are sensitive/top secret documents in it, wouldn't one be more careful when carrying that around. Sometimes it amazes me when people are doing things.

"Oh! Oh! I think i lost my laptop! Where is it? In the cab i took just now?!" Oh wow! So u just alight without checking if there was anything left behind, or why it seemed that your hands are suddenly free of stuff to carry? Duh...

It's also one fo those few times my dad responded calmly over the phone. Strangly i was the one pissed at the attitude of the Lost and Found Lady. Haha! Guess it's really apt to say that my dad is one of "those who does no wrong in the day, does not fear the phonecall at midnight"

As for me, I'll be extra careful the next time I take a cab. Lest I'll drop my laptop in one if im not attentive enough

Even when im slacking, im talking about work

Yes, yes, so im taking the time during work to blog again.

Well, the comp is taking some time to crunch values for the light effects in my rooms, so instead of staring at the blank render window most of the time, I can take this time to do up my entries here. I could log into youtube and such, but then the loading will be painfully slow too.

The light effects onto the environment that im working on is nearly done. Simulating light and shadow effects in a virtual world is always the most expensive (in terms of CPU loading time) and time consuming(duh!). And most of the time, we aren't using anything to simulate the environment lights than our own naked eye and perception to gauge the illumination in the environment. So, meaning, it's much of a trial and error way of setting up the light sources and rendering the scene to see if it's 'natural' enough. Else it's gonna be tweaking and rendering to see the effects.

And when the adjusting is done, the next step is to 'paint' the lights and shadows onto the 'skin' of the objects in the environment. And of coz, doing so allows me to remove the light sources since the light and shadow effects are already pre-painted onto everything that's in the environment. So that each time I render it, the CPU doesn't have to calculate (again and again) the algorithm of light angles, light reflections and areas that aren't illuminated, and juz simply reproduce all the objects as how they are seen from the viewing camera.

And this technique is known as light baking. It's basically to combine the light effects with object's texture/skin to give a realistic effect without the expensive calculation done by the rendering software. And at this point in time, my PC is crunching numbers for the lights sources that I've juz changed, and the display onscreen looks like im typing in IRC. Things that I typed appear in one chunk of sentence only after a while.

Haha.. ok, i guess people are falling asleep from reading this post.

Kurohige's Kiki Ippatsu (HG version)

Say say say! Hooooo!

I guess many people are quite familiar with that 'warcry' already. Remember the episode where Hard Gay went on to Tomy and demanded that they make a toy (out of him)? OK, so i promised a friend of mine that I'll do up this post for this toy which I bought (out of impulse) on friday.

It's the toy that Hard Gay demanded TOMY to make for him! And it's really here in SG! Maybe it was here for quite awhile already, and maybe I hadn't been shopping like since from the stone age, but somehow i was so thrilled when i saw this being sold here in SG. To cut the long story short, I bought 1 for myself (Yes yes, out of sheer impulse).

How does it work? Basically u have those plastic swords which u hav to slot into the holes on the barrels. So everyone take turns to slot in a sword and whoever pops the figurine out of the barrel wins/loses the game, depending on how u wanna play it. Simple? Well, it IS for ages 8 and up. So this large version of the toy (heard there is a shorter version of it) needs 2x AAA batteries to power the voice effects. Apparently each time u poke in a sword, a tagline (quotes from Hard Gay, of coz) would be played, and the famous "Say say say! HOO!" would be played if u popped him out of the barrel.

Kinda lame and mindless fun... but we need such entertainment sometimes :)

(left) a pic of the box (right) Comparing the toy wif a 500ml beaker

(left) all the contents in the box with the plastic swords and stickers to decorate the barrel
(right) close up of the Hard Gay figurine

For those who missed the video clip for the TOMY episode, well here they are in 2 parts of 6mins each





Kurohige (the pirate figurine in the original Kiki Ippatsu) and Kuroi Gay (Black Gay)... LOLZ... the (close) similarity between them 2. OMG, can't believe I'm also crazy over the toy. Enjoy the videos! While i go enjoy playing with my HARDO GAY *nudge*

Slacky weekend

Finally getting some (idle) time today to continue my blog entries. Been quite busy lately with work and whatnots. I'm glad my violin exam was over last week. At least that's one "major event" down. So the usual sunday class was stopped for a week for us to take a break. That gave me some time to enjoy the weekend at home too.

Cleaned up my room a little, and discovered that the bulk of the mess are a half-setup PC and 2 sets from my old primary sch mate (which seemed long forgotten by her had I not asked again) The half-setup one was meant for another fren actually. But due to my exam and us not being able to find a convenient time for me to sent over.. so it stayed with me til now.

anyway, that gave me more time to tweak with her set. And now it's all ready, just waiting for a time to delivery to her. As for my primary sch fren, she finally replied and decided to upgrade one of the computers.

Oh wow, that sounded like a pretty boring weekend. Heh...

The past 3 weeks of anticipating

Finally, it's the 15th today. Finally, it came and went. And all the anxiety and excitement came and went together as the morning passed.

It was my Grade 3 violin exam in the morning. The anxiety started to build up about 2 weeks ago. More so because this is my first music exam. Well, it's always exciting when it's the first time for everything.

For the uninformed, here's a breakdown of what the exam consists of.
- 3 pieces to play (with piano accompany)
- scales and arppegios
- sight-reading
- oral component (sub-divided into 4 sections)

Each piece carries 30 marks, scale and arppegios for 21 marks, sight-reading 18 marks and oral for 21 marks again. And making a grand total of 30+30+30+21+18+21 = 150 marks. Passing is at 100 marks, which is 66.6% of the total score

Anyway, as i mentioned before, the violin exam required a piano accompaniment, aka accompianist for short, for the 3 exam pieces which I chose (out of 9). I remembered the exam date was announced about 3 weeks before, so the problem came when I needed to confirm the pianist to play for me during the actual day itself. Not forgetting that I'll have to arrange a few sessions prior to that try it out with the pianist. So I finally managed to arrange some time with the pianist (who is my violin teacher's old schoolmate) only earlier this week. I was getting a little nervous last week when my teacher couldnt arrange a timeslot for the few of us. Finally, managed to meet up wif the pianist on Tuesday and then another session on Wed evening. That was cutting a bit too close. Turned out alright, since there is a short downtime between the exam day and the rehersals in this case.

Seemed to me that I had been playing/practising the violin almost everyday for the past 2 weeks. Well, for one obvious thing... it's to pass the exam this once and move on to higher grades the next time. For another reason, it's to make sure I dun waste that freaking $152 (including GST) exam fee and the $240 pianist fee. Hope it's all worth the investment.

So the moment came at 11am this morning. The examiner was a tall Briton and somewhat silent man. I started off with the 3 pieces first. Starting off with the accompianist is always better than starting solo with the scales and oral. Anyway, it was the recommended flow to do pieces first. Not too bad... did them all without any major mistakes. Then came the scales part, where the accompianist left and I'm alone with the examiner. Messed up a few notes for 2 scales, I think that pretty much killed off some points there. 2 out of maybe 6 scales which i needed to play. I dun think much were deducted from there. Sightreading was my most feared segment, but thankfully it wasn't as difficult as those practise pieces. And lastly was the oral segment, which came as quite a stunner to me. Because, it was the norm for the examiner to repeat the pieces twice, but noooo... he played only once and wanted me to answer his questions based on that one time. So all i could do was to answer as best as I could from that one time he played. No sure if it's proper for me to request a repeat though.

Oh well, all i can say now that it's finally over. Time for a break from the anxiety and back to concentrating on work *sobz*

Christmas Canon

Pachelbel's Canon has always been one of my favourite piece.

And this version by Trans-Siberian Orchestra just gave me another reason to love this piece even more. Ok, now I hav TSO in my fav list as well.

Enjoy the clip! Think I can keep replaying it the whole day.



THIS NIGHT
WE PRAY
OUR LIVES WILL SHOW

THIS DREAM HE HAD
EACH CHILD
STILL KNOWS

(repeat from top)

WE ARE WAITING
WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN (2x)

ON THIS NIGHT
ON THIS NIGHT
ON THIS NIGHT
ON THIS VERY CHRISTMAS NIGHT

and a baby makes three

Visited my cousin in the hospital earlier today. His wife just gave birth to a baby girl on friday morning. She'sItheir first born and got quite a few of us (namely my aunt, my mum and I) excited over the new arrival.

So we popped by the hospital around lunchtime since my aunt is helping to get lunch for my cousin brother. Everyone was in the room when we got there. The Baby was snoozing contently in the plastic crib thingy, and she was placed next to the bed by her mum. The Dad was pretty delighted from what I can see. (Well, a day after she's born and The Dad is already engaging in baby talk with her) My sister-in-law seemed pretty well enough to get off the bed already, considering she did a caesarian just the morning before. She wasn't feeling any pain from the wound in fact, but anyway had a strap around the tummy to keep the wound from opening.

The Dad was in the delivery room and took some pics of the newborn's arrival. The Mum had only local anesthetic done to the lower body, meaning that she was conscious throughout the delivery too.

We all were chatting rather loudly around the crib and I got a little concerned over whether we would wake the baby up. Surprisingly, she was still dozing (or attempted to nap) and quite like the company of having more people around her. My aunt got to carry her for a while, my mum chickened out kindly declined, saying she'll get the chance when The Baby gets home. Hm... they didnt let the bear try to hold the baby. (I dun mind since i might panick when holding that little imp) Most of the time, I poked and caressed stroke her tiny head while she was in her crib.

Really a sweet looking baby (even when she's asleep). She has chubby and rosy cheeks that does look very enticing to pinch. (everybody altogether now... Awwww) Oh, and a little button nose with white freckles-looking flakes, which according to all the mums present in that room, will go away after a while. The Baby also has her cute little hands clenched into cute little fists. Somehow in the snuggly wrapped swaddle cloth, she managed to pull out her right arm into a position that looked like she was propping her head wif it. Throughout this while, she was fidgeting in crib, and my aunt thot that she (the baby, not herself) had soiled her diapers. But it turned out that because of that little propping head posture, The Baby was feeling a little chilly. The Dad then came by to put her little hand back properly and the Baby fell back to sleep again.

We left a while later when it's feeding time for the baby again. She is fed every 3 hourly on both the mum's milk and milk powder.

I guess it's always good news to see the arrival of a new born baby. For a moment, the thot that life is ever so magical crossed my mind. And ever so vunerable in every stage thereafter. But for now, it's a new beginning for a little girl whom I just got aquainted with today.

And by the way, literal translation of her name, it means 'the candle maker from the ash tree fields'.