Renovations UnderWay...

I'm still trying to refurbish my blog, and I'm trying a 2nd attempt at putting pictures up again. *gawk* All pics are taken by my camera phone, so forgive the lousy resolution. Put mouse arrow over picture and see comments.

Meanwhile, the [highly under construction, under renovation, totally not finished yet] links above are [kinda, supposedto, hope they do what they're meant to] working already.

But looks slightly neater, already, eh? ;)

Merry Xmas All!

Yes! Bring out the champagne, turkey, eggnog, misteltoe, and PRESENTS!!!!!

Well, kinda late to be saying that, since as I type this, it's already Dec 27th.... duh.... but Xmas lasts for 12 days no? :p

Anyways, Merry, merry Xmas to all, [esp. those who got me presents when this scrooge here didn't get anything for anybody. Oops!]

May those in school sail through their assignments and pass with flying colours

May those currently unemployed find gainful means of employment soon

May those in jobs they hate either:
1) Get a raise soon
2) Get a promotion soon
3) Get a better job soon
4) Kill their bosses soon

May those out of love find it soon, whether it take the form of:
1) Friendship
2) Family
3) Marital bliss
4) Boy/Girl Friend
5) Pure, unadulterated sex

Er, if you find the last one..... play it safe and spare me the details......

And here's to the New Year ahead!

An Attempt at Bad Pool Poetry

Chalk.
Cue.
Table.
Balls.

Left hand touches
Green mat.
Right grips cue.
Body leans on table.
Eye aims.

Line of sight
from ball to hole.
Angles calculated.
Cue adjusted.

Relax right grip.
Center of white.
Draw back
And hit.

White to coloured.
Grazes the side.
Ball rolls.
Enters hole.

Game is done.
And Won.


Hee..... went for pool game today with libexco..... and won some games...... happy person now....... :)
Necro, I await thy next challenge!

Best of British Blogging

Some of them ain't too bad, especially the ones that are at the top.... Design very good....
Check It Out Guys!

Clang! Clang! Bang! Hiss!

As you guys can see, page is under construction, under construction.... please walk carefully, and watch out for mud puddles and falling bricks.

Look Out Below!

BANG!

*Huff huff huff*

See what I mean?

Nike Vouchers For Sale

When my dad got me my new phone, he got 3 Nike vouchers together with it. They're $50 each and have no minimum-purchase-required, and strangely, no date of expiry either. Does anyone want to buy them? Cos I didn't see anything that I particularly wanted at Nike.

Well, ok, their backpacks look good but I have enuff bags as it is.... :p

If you guys are interested, sms me k?

Infrared argh!

Gods I still can't get my handphone to transfer pics to my laptop..... why? Why? Why? On my laptop it just comes out as a BMP file which I can't read. What the hell is going on here? WHy?

Meow meow....

Just felt like doing that, donno why...

Well, at least got a few more stuff to put up here....

Exposed! Revealed!

As a tribute to LOTR, I bring you The Secret Diaries of LOTR as I found it on Goldfish's weblog. [to GFish: Where the heck do you find these things??] One thing about the diaries? You'd realise that somehow every character has homo tendencies. Yes, dearies, including the dishy elf. :p All for fun, all for fun.... If my AHRM Tolkien-crazy-groupmate is reading this, maybe you could read it and comment? Hahaha.... tell us all if Frodo and Sam really have homo tendencies.... :p

NUS is now paying me

Continuing on, I got the NUS research assistant job.... Meet my fellow RA, now to be known as the Violinist, for lack of a better nick. ( Er, Tenderheart, if you're reading this, pls don tell him that, k? ) Apparently this prof, now known as Dr Fox Mulder, ( His name sounds like that. Really. ) is doing a thesis paper on humour and its effect on work performance. So what he wants me and the Violinist to do is to think of and come up with 3 short videos, then show them to subject pools of hapless Yr1s in March. Very flexible about pay too. Apparently, sitting there in the Mac's being briefed about the project and talking cock with the Violinist earned me 2 hrs of pay. Don't you just love it?

BTW, he's the Violinist cos he plays the violin and teaches it too. For Candle: Earth hands, like Hellbound's and short thumbnail. Down to earth, practical, sensible and reliable, and sees through most of his projects. Quite the opposite of me. Oh dear. I'll tell you guys more details if I see ya, cos to spill abt him on the Net seems wrong for some reason. :p

Thank god for some cash anyway. Been spending like crazy, esp. since I've started collecting all those kino coupons. *groan* To Necro, I bought Loki, Mythical detective of Ragnarok, and dang, I think you're more suited to it than me. All the characters are the cutesy bigheaded type, and so far, no bloodshed, no murder, no sex, no psychotic characters, no incest, no occult activities..... *yawn*

My New Phone!

And I have a new phone!!!!! My dad used his plan to get me the N3200! It has integrated camera, flashflight, FM radio and a whole buncha other features! So far I've only taken a few pics with it. Granted resolution sucks like crazy, but as a toy it ain't too bad. [good enuff for me to snap the pics off mag covers, i discovered with my FIRST cover of Aragorn] Can change the cover too, so can design my own cover. :D Also came with Nike vouchers! Does anybody want to buy those? Cos there's nothing much at Nike I wanna get.
Of course, the flip side is that we went to J8 just today and saw the model selling for about $150 cheaper than what he got it for. *peng*

Me & Dad: Huh???

Me: So does this mean I pay you less now?

Dad: *cheshire grin* Sorry gal.

Bleah. But least mine comes with the Nike vouchers....... Once I figure out to, I'll try to post some of the pics on the Net.

Hee..... so excited...... :) :) :) I already printed and cut out a new cover for the phone, from an anime wallpaper that I dloaded.... painstakingly cut out all the holes and stuff ( thank god this keypad only has 9 keys altogether. If it had the full 11-12... I'd die ) and den found more cool-looking covers in the box that I'd overlooked. Bleah bleah bleah. Anyway, so now my phone has an anime theme to it, with wallpaper and outside cover. Now I'm just left with the ringtone to dload and transfer whatever old pic msgs were on the old one...

Out of NUSSUX...

My exam results also came out, and I got 2 As!!!!! *champagne pops, confetti flies down. Thank you. Thank you very much* But then again I also got 2 Cs, *bleah* so the whole thing evens out into something like straight Bs. But nevermind! I got As! And in the modules I liked better too! *sniff sniff* Tai4 Gan3 Dong4! And I get to zhao outta NUSSUX with a merit!

The Roll:
AHRM: C+
Service Marketing: C+
OE: A
Internet4Marketing: A ( Despite me last time being 'defensive' during our final presentation...)

Any of my ex-groupmates reading this? How'd you all do for the modules?

Amazing how some people can get so excited about little things like that huh?

Love Me....If You Dare
Wowza! Great show! Refreshing from the usual fluff anyway...... I got so inspired, I went and made a website to the movie. [partly also because my blog's getting clogged, so this way I get more space to dish out my crap. Mwahahaha...] Check it Out! [even though it's very, very amateurly done. I was watching CSI at the same time. :p ]
The First Jeux D'enfants Fansite

And if Sylveracyd's reading this, don't worry! I'm still working on your tiles!

Asia Weblog Awards
Wow, this is how big the blog has gotten. Now there's even an unofficial contest out on the Net. [not that I was ever in the running....] Check it Out Here! cos you seriously have to see some of the blogs. They're great! Especially the ones in the design category! *flash of inspiration before the eyes*

Man, how am I gonna sleep tonight?

I'm so turning into an online voyeur. I hardly go to any websites anymore, and most of my time online is spent reading other people's blogs. Well, mostly that's because people usually update their blogs more frequently than regular websites. Also, it's nice to see what's happening in my frens' and other people's lives. Yup, I'm fulfilling my inner kaypoh.

leaving the house soon to catch a movie, hope Cathay doesn't screw me like the last time, by listing it in the papers and not having it in the movies. ( Great customer service don't you think? State in the papers that you have a movie showing and then not havin it in the theatres when customers go to catch it. ) If I do get it, you guys will hear about it on this blog. And no, it's not LOTR3.

Also, this blog will be going through some intensive construction in the upcoming period. I'm puttin' on my yellow helmut and PCK boots and going tramping around! Hope the whole thing doesn't collapse on me......

Sylveracyd's tiles site is almost ready too.... Just have to tweak the code for the forms a bit......

Thanks to Tenderheart bear, who's thrown me a lifeline by introing me to her sup. who needed a research assistant. Really hope he accepts me, as 1) the job scope is interesting, involves some writing and amateur digital video, and 2) for once, i'd be going to NUSSUX to get paid, rather than paying to be there.

Still reading through my books too.... so much to do, so much to do....

Thank god my blog doesn't keep breaking down the way Quet's does.... although I have to admit, her new blog does look pretty damn cool.... NVM... wait for this one to get the hang of her webdesigning once n for all... hee.... :p

Anyway, anyone read my previous rant on the low birth rates in Singapore? Well, if you see today's Straits Times, there's a little graph there with a line that's shooting all the way to the bottom. Yes that's our birth rates. We need at least 50,000 births to sustain our country's needs, but last way, there were only 40,864 births. ( Wonder if there was something unauspicious about that way. Would explain it a bit. Our country planners could try asking the geomancers for advice instead )

And remember why I said this was the case? Cause everyone was subliminally conditioned into thinking about money first? The paper states that "The poor economy this year probably contributed to the drought, as couples tend to put off having chidren until they think they can afford to." and Ms Tan Yen Nee, 24, says: "We can't expect a decent standard of living with a child. We've got our housing loan and we're saving up for a car."

What this means is that this Ms Tan actually feels that having a decent standard of living, [whatever that may be to her. 5room? Maisonette? Condo?] and a car is currently higher on her family's priority list than having a child is. Could we infer from this also that her material needs come before her maternal ones?

Admittedly, I am utterly blur about Ms Tan's income and her husband's income and her reasons for not wanting a kid at this point of time. [in response to Kairos' comment, this is why I can't write into the forum, cos I'll get totally blasted to bits by other less open-minded souls.] But I really have to question if she's that poor that she can't even fulfil the 2nd level of Maslow's hierarchy. I also have to question what she means exactly by "decent". My parents, at the time that I was born, didn't even have a house of their own. And even after getting a house, they managed to sustain 2 kids at the same time, at a "decent" standard of living, meaning we had food to eat and clothes to wear and a car for Daddy to drive his ungrateful kids off to school.

Better economy then? Simpler way of life? I don't know. ANd the govt's measures aren't helping. Supposedly the gahmen has this entire basket of subsidies and rebates given out to families for their 2nd and 3rd child, so all these should help financially right?

Once again, nipping the symptom, but not the disease. If you look carefully at the stuff they offer, the bulk of the offers come in the form of cash, rebates, subsidies, with the exception being the extended maternity leave. Do they think that just by throwing money at us, we'd be immediately inspired to procreate? ( Hey honey, forget the Pill. Let's just do it and get the cash! )

Yoo-hoo, Mr Gahmen, if we have all those kids you want us to have, how'd you like to take care of them for us? Here's a great plan: You can keep the money, ( Which will only minimally sustain us for the first 6 years of the kid's life, and hereby saving them from paying for the time in the kid's life which gets really expensive ) and take care of our kids for us instead! Open up the Istana every Mon - Fri from 7am to 7pm and turn it into a giant nursery house! With all that space, I'm sure you have enough room for at least 40,000 babies and toddlers. And with the national guards, we sure don't have to worry about security now, do we? Maybe if we did that, you'd have a slight inkling of just what a DAMN HECK OF A TROUBLE it is to raise a kid!

And all that's just when they are toddlers! What happens when they go to Pri Sch? Meet other kids? Meet bullies? Get picked on? Can't do their homework? Can't understand Chinese? Need tutors, cos we, their parents, don't get Chinese as well? Go to Sec Sch? The Os? Get into JC? Meet members of the opposite sex in a co-ed environment ( some, for the first time ) at the most hormonally charged stage of their lives? The As? Uni? Graduation? All this is a freakin' 20-odd year process, of which the gahmen is only helping for the first 6 and then you're on your own! Good luck and try not to trip on the way to nursery school!

Whoever's in charge of this birth rate problem, pls come up with some new measures that'll actually help. We need our CPF. We need shorter work weeks. We need longer maternity. We need more family-friendly measures in the work place. We need bosses that don't see us as asset machinery that lives to work for the corporation alone. And we can't have all this, until you make the right moves in the right direction. If all you can think of is the monetary side, then that's all we, the citizens, are gonna focus on. And we're just gonna end up paying ( No pun intended ) for all this while you sit in your pretty little house with the damn huge golf course and wonder why we're not having more babies.

If you haven't seen the article, [or don't subscribe to Straits Times, hint hint wink wink tsk tsk], here is the link:
Singapore Sees Lowest Birth Rate in 26 years

It's Official: My exam dates come back on the 19th, so on that date, I can see if I have to continue worrying about getting a job, or worry about seeing my damn lecturers again next sem. My sole comfort is that I don't have to agonize over it over Xmas.....

For the NUS students:
Exam Results Hell Day

Wah Freakin' Lau
Once again I'm stuck deep in HTML mess because I glibly agreed to do SJ's website for her. Talk abt shooting myself in the foot, I think I kicked myself in the arse as well. Bleah. At least this time it ain't so bad, cos I've finally discovered the wonders of Dreamweaver 4.

[angels above: Hallelujah. come to think of it, has anyone ever wondered why we pronounce it "ha-ley-lu-IAH" when's spelt with a J? Hee...]

Now the only thing left is to figure how to get a form online.... urgh.... more trips to the library....... n more javascript madness........ will publish the site on this blog when it's done, cos right now, it's so under construction, it's liable to collapse anytime. [and we sure won't want you to walk around the site with yellow helmuts. Not to mention how incredibly stupid you'd look wearing a yellow helmut in your own house]

Also got a new tuition job, [FINALLY!!!] teaching in Geylang east of all places. The place is abt half an hour's MRT ride from my place, and the pay is less, but I'm despo so who's complaining? The kid is pri 6 come the new school year, and I'm teaching English only. At least there's a library near their place for me to hang out if I reach their area early.....

Watched LXG and Nemo FINALLY! Good movies, though LXG is kinda mindless hollywood entertainment. Animation in Nemo: Fantastic. Kudos.

We Don't Want Kids...Unless they pay their own way
And currently on the News as I hear it, Singapore experiences its lowest birth rate, despite Govt. baby bonus. Like, DUH! With all the education, tuition and other unsavoury influences to worry about, why the heck would I want to raise a child in Singapore and subject him to the same shit that I went through? Why, he could grow up learning Hokkien expletives, be an utter disgrace in Chinese, turn nigh-suicidal from the homework at school, turn into an overly-pragmatic, materialistic, money-grabbing glob [for lack of a better word] and *gasp* vote PAP and wear white his whole life. [while this might mean he could go to RI....]

Ok, forget about the above paragraph. I have nothing against the PAP or RI, so don't blast my mail or my blog. But frankly, there's very little in our society and culture today that's actually helping the birth rate right now. In Europe, they have paternity leave and maternity leave that's way, way longer than ours, and not to mention the shorter work weeks. On the other hand, you have our gahmen, CUTTING CPF, RAISING GST, in order to become more COST competitive with China, and urging us to not be so PICKY in jobs and TAKE what you can while you can..... I have to ask: why are they wondering why we're not having babies? Because it's not COST-EFFECTIVE anymore!

To put it into crudely concrete terms, a child is a money-losing investment these days. You pay for all those years of raising a kid and in the end, when you've drained all your CPF seeing him grow up, he's off making his own millions and leaving you in an old folks' home. [unless you had the foresight to instil a strong sense of filial piety in him] While I doubt that most people think in such monetary terms when it comes to kids, I believe with all the COST, COST and COST being mentioned in the papers today, our gahmen has managed to subliminally condition us into thinking about MONEY, MONEY and MONEY all the time. There are plenty of examples of this. When they ran an article on why service was so lousy in Singapore, they found out it was because we put price and quality over service. Look at the crowds at the Robinson's Sales. And when something is being given out free, you can bet there'll be a queue of people, whether it be free food or free bras.

Everything we do in our lives revolves around money, and how to maximise the money we already. When you've led entire generations to think this way, what makes you think we're gonna have babies? Because frankly, unless you have a really strong sense of parenthood, [not to mention god-like patience and self-sacrifice] you're not really likely to have a kid at all. With the pay we're getting, and the CPF cuts, our generation will be lucky if we can even save up enough cash for retirement if we're SINGLE. What about when we're married? What about when we have kids? If we ourselves are struggling just to earn enough for ourselves, how the heck are we gonna afford kids? The gahmen was so worried about us losing out to China, they forgot to worry about us losing out ourselves. [gee, did that last sentence make sense?]

The gahmen had better think real good about their long term plans for Singapore.

In the name of literary balance, I'm gonna write something light-hearted to compensate for the heaviness below, so here's:

Love Actually Is All Around

I finally caught Love Actually and kudos and credits to Quet for getting the tix at half price. [ha! Nyah nyah to the rest of you!]

NOte about this show: This is definitely something to catch if you have a bf/gf as a companion. Richard Curtis, who also created Bridget Jones' Diary, 4 Weddings, and Notting Hill, produced (I think he produced.... I think) this romantic comedy revolving around these couples who are loosely related. The relationships are something like:

The PM of Britain falls in love with Natalie, and his sister is
Karen is married to Harry, who's attracted to his secretary. Working in Harry's office is Sarah, in love with Carl, hot latin hunk.
Karen is also friends with Daniel, who's stepson is in love with a girl at sch, and Daniel is friends with
Jamie, who's in love with his Portuguese housekeeper, though they don't understand each other linguistically.
Jamie is friends with Mark, who loves his best friend's new bride.

Out of the whole sequence, seemingly, is Colin, self-proclaimed sex god who flies to US for a shag, cos he's convinced that all American girls think British men are hot. And Billy Mack, whose Xmas spoof on Love Is All Around beats Blue's single to become the top single for xmas. [his single is played in snippets throughout the entire show]

V.funny show, though the British slang and accent may mean that you might miss a few jokes. Also amazing is how they managed to sew in the stories of so many disparate characters and yet not make it confusing to watch. [hint to all: don't think about the relationships between the characters. just concentrate on the love that is all around.] Not too many love cliches also, thankfully, but then again, isn't love in the movies a kinda cliche already? The difference is that here, this movie seems to say, "Yea, I'm about love, so what about it? Sod off, mate"

Fluffy, comfy movie. Watching it at xmas is kinda like curling up in front of the fire in a pile of blankets and a mug of hot chocolate and marshmallows. :) Gives you that warm, cosy feeling. [or maybe it was 'cos I was wrapped up in my shawl throughout the whole movie.]

For more pro reviews, check out:
IMDB
The Official Site [ Might take a while to load ]
and for a more balanced view,
Rotten Tomatoes

Can't stand my parents
damn damn DAMN once again I type in a whole chunk of stuff and when I leave to answer a call, the blogger server kicks me out and now I've to rewrite everything. damn damn DAMN!

Ok, as much as I can remember I was griping about my parental units. [i coined that phrase with the slayer] I started off with: My parents have been pushing for me to work in the same place that my cousin does, 'cos they say some money's better than just sitting at home. Downside: My cousin sorts and delivers mail at $5 an hour. That is one damn lot bunch of peanuts.

Q: If I decline this seemingly-generous offer, am I being the picky graduate that everyone picks on in the papers?

The problem with our parents is that they grew up in a totally different environment, with a totally different and narrow perspective, and somehow, they think this infuses with the wisdom of the ages and that it is their sublime and holy duty to make us that us, their offspring, follow their wisdom, otherwise all manner of disaster and mayhem will befall us. This is the problem with my units. From primary One they've been telling me to do things the way they like, only that now that I'm older and obviously have a thinking mind of my own, it's a bit harder for them to do that. Then to them, I become selfish, materialistic, picky and snobbish.

[i'm now posting this para by para so that I don't lose anything]

I missed a tuition offer over the weekend. The agency called when I was in Jap class and I didn't get the call, cos my phone was on silent. A potential channel of future income: Gone. The best thing about it is that they called my house then, so my mum sent me an sms and that's how I finally got to know about it. I couldn't call back the agency cos firstly, it was late [who's at the office at 630 on a sat nite??] and also becos my phone was on low batt again and I wouldn't have been able to talk to the lady for more than 5 sec without it dying. [some of you may know about this curious trait about my phone]

Anyway, I got a bit upset about it when I heard about it, because hello, come Jan, I'm on my own, and I like, really need the income? And my parents' way of comforting me? Telling me that I should have gotten my priorities right. [ie take the call and leave the jap class] So sue me if I follow a basic courtesy practice that HALF the population of Singapore doesn't, even if I've been doing it all my 3 years in NUS.

The irritating thing about my parents is that they think that their narrow perspective on life has somehow given them the wisdom of seniority, and that if I don't follow that wisdom, I will be struck down by God or something. Never mind that they grew up in totally different eras, or that they are 2 different people from me, or that they didn't follow the same educational path that I did, they somehow think that they can impose their way of thinking over me, because they're always right and I'm always wrong or at best, misguided. They're always harping about 'my priorities' when it's perfectly clear that they don't know what my priorities are, and couldn't care less, unless it was out of line with what they think it should be. They did it in pri sch, after my Os, after my As, and now they're doing it after I graduate.

Like, screw you. I have my own goals in life, and I don't need you to decide them for me.

Now I can only pursue my goals in silence, cos if I tell them what I really want to do with my life, their response will be so predictable. MONEY. It's always about MONEY and even though I know there's some truth in it, I'm sick of the way they keep harping on it, and the way they keep pulling me to join their path of monkeyhood. I know I need money to survive but I don't see why I have to become a damn wage monkey to a multi-billion corporation who's more interested in their shareholders than the needs of their employees. [and that I have NO illusions about, becos that's exactly what they taught us in bizad]. There are more than one ways of pursuing money, why can't I, for now, try a different way?

The worse thing about my parents is that they don't give a heck about my priorities, unless it's out of line with what they think it should be.

My pix don't work!!! I donno why cos I swear I typed the URL and everything correctly and quet tells me all she sees are 2 little red crosses on the screen and candle doesn't even seem to see the new entries........ oh gawds above kill me.... kill me now and end it all now........

Singapore's famous once again.......... for creating the world's first genetically-altered pet (!!) banned in California of all places. I mean geesh, what percentage of the population there is already genetically altered? Read it here!

The good thing is that I finally got the hang of colouring manga images in photoshop, although my final work tends to look AMATEUR. Nevermind, it's all a matter of practice............. My blog is long overdue for an image makeover and I also intend to make a website showcasing more of my AMATEUR work. The pic on the left is my latest self-tutorial, YM B/W pic coloured in Photoshop, using marquees, paint buckets and lots of dodge, burn and smudge.

Finally I've been let on the Net! I swear my modem is female, cos yesterday she went on PMS and refused to let me come online AT ALL! She'd blink orange, yellow, then yellow, blank, yellow, blank, and just as I hold my breath in anticipation she switches back to orange yellow mode again! ARGH! Modems are FEMALE i tell you!

Cos the silly thing is that now that I've finally accessed my blog I realise........ I have nothing of substance or crap to mention. Bleah. These few days I've been out, out and out. Out one day for interview, then quet n candle came over for photoshop crash course, [luv photoshop. learn something new everyday i use it] ladies nite at london nite, boat quay. [not too bad. sat outside where it's nice and airy and drinks of cors' free for us. ha!] and yesterday met candle aft. her iv and met the eggies for dinner at sanur. [good bbq sotong. very, very good. though i know there are some pple who'd accuse me of cannibalism.] Ack! and today i'm supposed to go to a groupmate's house for dinner and hopefully squeeze in a few mins with the Slayer who's coming home from Australia today. Where did all the time go?? I still have 3 movies to watch [1 pirated VCD and 2 on the hard drive] and my photoshop [i've learned how to colour manga images. Yay!] and my freehand! And I still have to find my eat rice money!

hourglass turned upside down. sand trickles down.

Anyway, for your entertainment, anyone heard the song Stacie's Mom by Busted? [i tink it's by them anyway] Well, me in a state of boredslacker-dom came up with the following female version. Enjoy:

(Disclaimer: I do not know any Casey or his father. I just used the name cos it rhymes.)

Casey's Dad ( sung to the tune of Stacie's Mom )

Casey's Dad, he's really quite a man (X2)

Casey can I come over after school
We can hang around or swim in the pool
Is your father back from his business trip?
Is he there or is he trying to gimme the slip?

And I'm not the little girl that I used to be
I'm all grown up now baby can't you see?

Chorus:
Casey's Dad, he's really quite a man
He's all I want, and I need him so bad
Casey can't you see, you're just not enough for me
I know I might be mad, but I'm in love with Casey's Dad

Casey's Dad, he's really not too bad (X2)

Casey do you remember when we sat on your lawn?
Your dad came out with just a towel on
I could tell he liked me from the way he stared
And from the way he said, "That's a fine looking girl over there"

And I know you think it's just a fantasy
But since your mom walked out your dad could use a girl like me

Chorus

Lots of stuff, lots of stuff......easter egg.....seafood sukiyaki......and rice money.... scroll down lots guys....

Easter Egg Found!
congrats [i tink] to eastpaw who's the first one ever to find an easter egg blog. And who's probably the only one of my friends who know what it was I'm talking about. :p

FYI an easter egg, in techie-talk, is an additional feature that is usually written into video games and is not mentioned anywhere in the manuals. For example, imagine you're playing final fantasy, and when you enter a strange room and walk into the corner, u suddenly find treasure. It's a hidden feature that usually is a treat for the gamer, hence the name "easter egg". Now that you all are enlightened, can you please find it already??

Seafood gets massacred by Sukiyaki Egg
I kid you not. This really happened at Er's steamboat dinner just this Sun. The Little Plastic Castle has some info on the event, but here are some more little details:

Who: Me, Jul, Daf, Krystal, Er, and Goldfish ( ok, goldfish uses diff nicks, but i like originality ) plus some of Er's NIE frens
WHat: Steamboat dinner at Er's house
When: Sunday nite
Why: Um, he missed us?

So during the dinner, Jul and Gfish do this sukiyaki egg thing. This is really, really good in a steamboat BBQ. You crack a raw egg, stir in some soy sauce and pepper, and you dip all your food in it. Gawds it was good. We dipped chicken, fish, sotong, sotong ball, veg-thingy in it and btw the 5 of us, we used like 4 eggs. Oh, the cholestrol......

Then someone got the bright idea to dip the raw food in egg and then cook it on the BBQ. And it tasted great too! Soon, our side of the table were happily making little crabmeat omelettes on our side of the steamboat, with the NIE side looking on in a restrained, polite way, the way people do when someone is doing something stupid and out of courtesy to the host you don't wanna say anything. [recipe for crab meat omelette: Unroll crabstick, and pour abovesaid egg mixture all over it. Great!]

The best part was when they cooked the tentacle part. WOw! You know, when you put the pile of tentacles on the grill, the heat causes it to move and it looks like it's alive? I could just imagine my tentacles going "Noooooo.................I don't wanna die............... " and I even did this matrix-squiddie-robot impersonation with it and attacked Gfish's tofu by crawling all over it. I guess you could say, [in chinese] my tentacles ate her tofu................................

Ok, lame-o joke. Couldn't resist at that moment. Hee.

[Er's other frens quietly ignore us somemore, then quietly exit the house and talk outside.]

So we continue talking and laughing and chatting and laughing and crapping and laughing and laughing and laughing........ It got so bad, his aunt, sitting in the room watching tv told us that we were making too much noise and though she'd already increased the volume several times, she still couldn't hear maksim playing. Oops. Gfish didn't even know she was there in the first place............. We think the final straw for her was when maksim was playing the Hungarian Rhapsody and Jul said it was something he heard on Tom and Jerry.............. We then quietly make our exit out of the house and sit by the pool to continue the hilarity.

And after a while, a security guard comes over and brings Er to one side.

[hush hush whisper whisper]

Apparently we were making too much noise too, and some residents had complained about us. We spared the aunt, but subjected the entire block to our laughter instead. And Jul wanted to let loose a string of guffaws to get back at the block, but krystal and I stopped him. Anyway by that time, it was late and we all had to go.

I can't remember the last time I got scolded at a friend's house for making too much noise while playing. And judging how quickly the security guards raised the barrier to let Jul's car exit... we think they were really, really glad we were gone.

Good steamboat, although we may never be allowed into Er's place again. :p :p :p

[Are all my frends like that? I remember Vday at Suntec with the FWFC and how we 8 single gals kept talking about blood tests and gross stuff and divorce rates with all the couples around us..... ]

Eat Rice Money hopefully come in....?
My interview for the Retail Management Trainee is tom.... Glorified Sales Assistant....... and yes, I got my dream bag and shoes..... although dream shoes gave me a blister on big toe when I wore it for the first time today...... :p :p Went to Metro with the Turtle and found dream bag too.... although had to go from Metro Paragon to Metro Marina Square becos at the M.Paragon, when I asked for the brand I wanted, they told me, "We don't carry such cheap stuff here."

I admit it, I'm broke, and thanks to the additional boost to my ego, you $5-an-hour-and-hopefully-commission-once-in-a-while sales assistant you.

Photostating certs on copier now, abt to write resume.

I'm surprisingly [calm] abt the whole thing. The funny thing is that after answering the call and accepting the interview, I realised that I didn't really want to work in retail all that much. Should have tot of that before you sent in the resume Considering retail hours, [12 hour workdays + weekends + public holidays + peanuts] I won't really have a lot of time to work on the stuff I want to do. Does this really gel with my long term career goals? er, your long term career goals are about.... 2 years..... I'm not gonna have time to practice, and I might not even be able to go for Jap class.

O well, treat it as an experience and see how it goes. And if not..... well, the shoes and bag can always be used for shopping......... :p

And kudos to the power of the blog. I mentioned in a previous entry if anyone wanted simple + cheap website design and Tenderheart actually emailed me saying her father wanted one and asked me my price. ($$) Can I actually carry this off? *crosses my fingers and hopes that nothing attacks self-esteem at this point of time*

Jul has also gotten back to me with the RC teaching offer and he said that I'm pretty free to choose whatever it is I want to teach, and the hours are pretty flexi at that too. Which means I may even have my own manga class? ( Manga drawing being the only [specialized] teaching subject I can prob do ) Suddenly I have a lot more options in my life. Can I do it all? Can I really do it all?

Sideline: All gaming freaks watch out. Playstation has released The EyeToy.
According to my copy of Newsweek,

"When you connect the EyeToy to your PS2 via a USB port, your image appears on screen. The camera lets PS2 track your movements, which means that you can now use your hands, knees, feet and other extremities to interact with games that take advantage of this new peripheral."

From the pic, it looks like a little webcam that sits on top of your tv, so when you move, it captures your image. How accurate it is, I'm not too sure, but it definitely takes gaming to a new level of cool. :) Unfortunately, according to the website, it's only available in the States, or from online. Funny thing is that there's not much info on the website about it. Why won't PS wanna promote a toy like that? It's pretty cool what....

I can imagine the local usage of it though. Para-para-ing.....

Unbeknownst to the rest of you, this is actually the 2nd time I'm writing this, the first draft having been erased when my browser hung. Sheesh.......

My Life As It Is
Er, boring? :p Well here are the highlights so far....

I have an interview!
Yes, remember those 2 resumes I sent out? I actually got a reply from one of them, the Retail Management Trainee. They called me up a few minutes ago and asked me to come down for an interview. [they wanted today, I stalled, and it's fixed for Tues]

So..... I have an interview and I'm scared stiff. I'm reconsidering whether I wanna become a monkey, whether I'm gonna get peanuts, I'm wondering what's gonna happen to my time, can I still persuade my graphic design, and I'm wondering why the heck I did this to myself. I also realised that I have no bag to carry, the majority of my bags being for casual use. Awl Gawd.............. [banging head on table, taking care I don't hit my laptop]

At least now I know that the 'French boutique' is actually that shop in Suntec city that's opposite to Polo Ralph, and not some dingy moulin-rouge-wannabe in Geylang........ yeesh........

watashi wa saru desu?

My [graphic design]
Freehand has been a bit easier to learn than I thought it would be. I can now do simple line drawings and add some colour with it. It's not photoshop, but it is a lot easier to draw with it, than Photoshop.

Your graphic design career's gonna take a while, huh?

Oh shut up.

The Books I've Read
One interesting one I've borrowed from the library is The Looks Book. It's created by the same people who did gURL.com. It's a very interesting look at beauty, what people have done for beauty, and goes through all the major female body parts. [sorry guys] For example:

Skin Care Through the Ages [or what people have put on their faces in the name of beauty]:

Ancient Egypt - hippopotamus fat, curhsed donkeys' teeth
Ancient Syria - camels' lungs
Ancient Greece - the urine and saliva of virginal female slaves [sickos]
Ancient Rome - crocodile dung
19th Century America - horseradish and sour milk
North and Central American folklore - the "warm urine of a little boy"
And during the late 14th century, the future French Queen Isabel of Bavaria washed her face with a concoction that included boar brains, wolf blood, and crocodile glands

eeeewwwwww..........

Ok, besides these, the book also talks about body decorations, modifications, and the different fashion styles today. It has a really funky wild design and the arrangement of the contents remind me of a website. Like, if you're reading about skin, they'll tell you to go to page XX to read more about skincare, something like that. Fun to read, even if the book is targeted at teens. ;)