Stop the Rain

These few days the weather has been absolutely MISERABLE, what with the endless overcast skies, the continuous drizzle, and the upping of the humidity the previous 2 factors have caused. The start of the rainy season in Singapore has started. Oh glory be.

You can tell, I hate rain. I hate it I hate it I hate it. If not for the fact that all life as we know it depends on those pathetic drops for water, I'd be petitioning for an end to rainy weather as we know it.

Why do I hate rain? Well, let's see: I'm either stuck at home when it rains, or I'd have to lug around an umbrella wherever I go in order not to get TOO wet. [note I didn't say 'to get wet'. This is because even if you carry an umbrella when it rains, you will inevitably get wet at one spot of your body or another. Makes me wonder why we carry the bloody things in the first place]

Then, the umbrella doesn't cover your FOOTWEAR. So your feet get stinkin', drippin' wet. If you're wearing open toes, it means that your tootsies get liberally splashed with rainwater while you walk. If you're wearing shoes, it means that all the moisture gets stuck inside, and the resulting stink is likely to kill you and everyone in your vicinity the moment you take off your shoes.

And god help you if you're walking out of the house when you've just washed your hair. The humidity just loves wet hair. So all the stray little water droplets will just rush to your hair, and make their permanent residence there. Your nice, clean hair will end up sticky, grimy, and oily and hereby wasting all the effort you would have spent on it.

And these are just the personal inconveniences. What about the larger effects to the world? Rain causes water. Excess water causes floods. Floods will destroy property, livestock, crops, and generally make a lot of people's lives miserable. Then at sea, you have tsunamis, which lead to ships sinking and damage to the marine cycle, as fish are thrown about and coral reefs are destroyed.

Does all the trouble stop when the rain does? Nooooo.... because after rain, you have mud. And mud causes mudslides, landslides, and a lot of business for greedy spa owners. That's more property, livestock, crops and lives destroyed, because of a whole ton of mud that decided to leave the nest and explore the world.

And even after you clear all the mud, you're at danger of getting fungal infections from all that soil.

You see the danger we're in from rain? Stop rain now.

On the bright side though....

I finally sold one of my funny farm merchandise! Somebody bought a shirt off my cafepress shops, some unknown from the US, and I have my first sale! *Air of happiness*

And I made...... all of US$4.02.

*peng* *bish* *poing*

Well, it's a start... ;)

Btw, I'm doing it for Quet, but there's something that looks off about the goat. Can you all gimme feedback?

Haven't been in here for a while, so looooong post ahead...

First up, here's 2 pix of the crab Candle suggested:



And:



Still trying to think of more though. What on earth would a crab say?

*zen mood* To be One with the Crab......

PS I know crabs have 8 legs k? I was just too lazy to paste an extra pair of legs in... bwahahaha

What else, what else.... has been going in my life....

Well, I watched New Police Story with Dragonfly just on Monday. Erm, we kinda met up for a morning walk at the Park at 8am, [privilege of the student and the slacker] so we walked from my end of the Park all the way down to the other side, after crossing the road. That's like the most exercise I've done for a long, looong time...

Then we walked down to J8, had brunch, and suddenly, he's like, "Hey! Why don't we watch a movie?"

Huh? Ok lor...

One thing about Librans: They are bossy, in a gentle way. Which is to say, they'll tell you what to do, but instead of whacking you with a cane to do it, they'll persuade, they'll plead, all the while holding you with the reins while gently pulling in their direction. [Read this in some Yahoo! Horoscope thing...]

And Pisceans are mutable, fluid, and move where the waves take us. So if you ask me out of the blue to watch a movie, [Right in front of the theatre, to boot] if I can make it, and have the cash to spare, I'm like whatever lor... So we ended up watching New Police Story. [on his suggestion, may I add]

Thank goodness I don't watch much Jackie Chan movies, because general opinion I've heard seems to be that all Jackie Chan movies are the same. So well, at least for me, it's something a bit more refreshing lah. :p

Jackie Chan plays this police inspector who got his entire team killed while going after a gang of bank robbers. Unable to forgive himself, he ends up drinking himself into a pathetic wreck of a man, until he's found by Nicholas Tse, a detective who's been assigned as his partner.

Tse informs him that the gang of bank robbers has resurfaced, and that he's the only one who can stop him. [yah, duh...] So Chan gets back into action, saving Tse, his girlfriend, and generally the whole of HK in typical, clownish-action-hero stunts.

Stunt choreography is good, not surprising, considering that the Jackie Chan stunt team is very highly skilled. Some stuff really leave you thinking, "Is that possible??" like when Chan scales up walls with his hands and legs, *Jaw drops* or when he fights in a bar, and uses chairs, bartops, bottles, glasses etc etc in order to whack the bad guys to pieces. [Which I'm pretty sure is a signature move of Chan as well]

Plot wise, DUH!!! Some things in the film really left me shaking my head in total disbelief, because it's so bloody incredible that I refuse to believe that such a thing was even possible. Like when he storms the building where the gang is supposed to be hiding with 10 armed men. Wah liao eh! Of course all kena mati lah! The whole thing just screams TRAP! TRAP! TRAP!

But then again, that's why it's a movie. Please surrender part of your brain for entertainment purposes. ;)

On the positive side, though, it's also blardy farnee like nobody's business.... Some parts really left me reeling with laughter, even, apparently, when no one else got the joke...

DF: You know there was one part in the movie, where you were laughing your head off, and yet you were the only one in the theatre laughing?

Me: What? No lah!

DF: Yeah! There was! You were laughing by yourself, and I was wondering what you were laughing at, and then only after a while, the theatre started laughing together with you!

Well... that just proves that I get the joke faster than most people do......

Which reminds me, I owe someone a birthday treat...... and I forgot...... *groan*

Rest of Monday passed by peacefully with tuition...

Then Tues night, I got a sudden call from Candle and Quet for dinner, so went down to Orchard after my tuition.

The scary thing about corporate life is what it does to you. After working in Kaypoh Co. [names changed to avoid me or Candle getting sued] for about a month, Candle's flame seems a bit, well, subdued. [or more plainly, I told her she looked as if she was about to collapse then and there] And this isn't even the peak of the workload for her yet... Hope you have enough vitamin C tablets to see you through, fren....

So it was that they couldn't stay late, and after they left, I went browsing in Borders.

Happy me just got paid for tuition that day, [scent of money so sweet....ahhh] so happy me decided to treat myself to a book, because I hadn't bought a book for a long time.

There were some limitations though. I have to restrict myself to 1 book, and it had to be below $20, because of budget constraints.

WAH FREAKIN' LIAO. It was almost impossible to accomplish lor! I went walking up and down the aisles, and not that there were no books to buy, but WAY TOO MANY books I wanted to buy! Oh, this one, I've been eyeing it for months now, should I get it? But then again, this looked good too, how about this? Oh, and this one! I'm been wanting this for ages! But will I read them again? Should I get fiction? Or something more serious, that I can really use, instead of just read? Photoshop book? Art book? Comic book? Novel? Magazine? What? WHAT? WHAT????

This is why I keep asking for book vouchers on my birthdays......

So in the end, I ended up with this cute little book:



Wicked Japanese, by Howard Tomb! Only $10! And full of totally unconventional Jap phrases that you will probably never see in any other phrase book! Necroz bought this little gem almost last year, and I was so enthralled by it, I made a vow to buy it if I ever saw it again, and here it was!

So why I like the book? Here's a sample of the phrases from it: [Note to Yenn, Krynn, or anyone who understands Jap: The phrases aren't translated exactly as they are in Jap, so some parts may sound a bit wrong, but the rough meaning is there]

For [supposed] use in Japanese religious and business meetings:

Kono okane wa donaru no desu ka?
- Where does the money go?

Kyuka wa namakemono to sashimi mitaini yawana gaijin no kangaeru koto da.
- Vacation is for hooligans and foreigners as soft as sashimi.

For when watching a Noh play:

Harawata no kobore guai ni hin ga atta!
- How gracefully their guts fell to the floor!

kazoku sorrote no seppuku ga yokatta.
- I loved the part where the whole family disemboweled themselves.

And my personal favourite, when eating ambulatory food:

Ebi no idaina saigo desu!
How the honorable shrimp struggle as they choke to death!

Good gods! How can you not love this book??