I woke up this morning hacking away my lungs and I decided enough was enough. Time to honour that promise made to myself and get an MC the moment I was sick this year.

Took me till July to get it, but hey......

And it's taken me long enough too. In a spit of self-justification, I would like to say that in 2 years of service, I've never taken a single MC yet [not counting lectures skipped]. I have endured my little gremlins through bouts of flu, pounding migraines, and even a bout of throat that was so bad once I had to do everything in writing. [and considering my job, no mean feat!] I would like to think that this one day is at least justifiable, from that point of view.

The doctor has diagnosed it as the 'usual' sore throat and cough, going around via the 'usual' bug that commonly hits teachers, students, policemen, and prisoners. [huh] So his advice to me: Lay low, rest and don't use my voice for the next 2 to 3 days.

I could only look at him with eyes upturned, in a 'yea, right' fashion.

Comic book and toy geeks, take note: Today is the last day of the first ever Singapore Toy and Comic Convention.

Slayer and I went down, so for more pix, you can probably check out her blog. Me, I'm gonna blog about the horrendous logistics of the Tokidoki signing. :p

What's a Toy and Comic Con after all if you can't get merchandise [at wildly discounted prices] from your favourite designer?

Rockin' tshirt, retailing at $75 selling at $20.



2 fans, subsequently autographed by Simone Legno.



Great piece of artwork, found in convention programme.



Da man, like, de man. And de autograph.


And also a handful of stickers featuring his characters, not shown here.


But mind you, it was almost a matter of blood, sweat and tears in order to get those signatures from a jet-lagged Simone Legno. For one, I wonder if the organisers of the convention were blindly unprepared for the hordes of nerddom and geekdom descending on Suntec city. There were NO QUEUE LINES for gift redemptions, or signing sessions.

What results thus is ABSOLUTE CHAOS especially when autograph sessions start. When Slayer arrived for the earlier Tokidoki signing, she described it as a horde of fans descending on the glass table where the hapless Legno was frantically signing every piece of his designed merch being thrust at him. [think of 90% off sales at Robinsons]

Then when I came for the second autograph session, I was No 4 at the table. Together with Nos 1 to 3 [order decided by mutual consent and based on proximity to signing table] we marshalled some people into a sorta rough queue behind us. Which, Singaporeans being the queue-disciplined people we are, was formed pretty easily. Until other people decided to cut in front of us from the other side, yelling that they'd been queueing longer than I had. Hey, you were queueing since before 3? That's weird, cos I was there since 3 and I only noticed you coming close at around 330.

I count myself lucky I got my stuff signed and vamoosed before things really got ugly. As it was, before I got my stuff signed, one lady cut in front of me with 2 fans, and I don't even think she was a fan, just coming to sign for the sake of it. [disgust] Then as I put my stuff in front of him, someone else blatantly tried to cut in front of me. -_-!!! Times like this, I thank my dad for the genes for a quarterback frame.

The dumb thing was that all this mayhem could have been avoided with a bit of forward planning, some string and a couple of pieces of paper. All of which were conspicuously missing at the autograph sessions. -_-! And at least I scooted with some autographs. Some other people were pissed off at missing the gift redemptions [after queueing for more than an hour] because other people had cut in front of them.

All in all, great convention, good intentions, bad planning.

Pointless Nostalgic

Pointlessly nostalgic indeed... for the break that is just about almost over. :p Next week I resume my usual job and then the week after that all hell breaks loose again, like it always does.

Not that regretful over it. Well, maybe more than a little regretful. This month is always when I start making plans and when I start breaking all of them over the objective of full-time slack and nothing else. Know the feeling? When you tell yourself stuff like "When I have time I will spend more time at the gym..." "I will read more..." "I will complete that masterpiece I'm supposed to deliver to Sotheby's...." and the so on.... Then when the time is over, and you haven't done a blessed thing, you feel guilty and make more unfulfilled resolutions for the next time.

But this month I made it easier by telling myself "I will slack a lot this month." With a resolution like that, how can you go wrong??

That being said, the slacktime has been good. At the risk of incurring envious wrath amongst my working friends, I've been waking up at 9 [without an alarm!], having leisurely breakfasts, followed by peaceful readings at the library till lunch, and then going home again to read/slack/break my DJ Portable score on the PSP and going out shopping again. Yup, life has been good. :D

What I'm mostly regretful for are the myriad other directions my life could have taken if I had not walked this path. Now that I have the time look over my life properly, I realise I have friends who have opened and are aggressively marketing their own businesses. I have art projects that I should have started ages ago. I have books that should have been read months ago. In other words, now that I 'stopped' working for this time period, I have to ask myself, is this really what I want to work at for the greater majority of my life? Or do I want to do something else instead?

I have regrets that I only properly looked at when I had the energy and leisure to do so. And when you wait for too long to look back at your life and pause to think about the stuff you did, you have to ask, Is it too late??

But I know when I step through those gates again, everything else will just fall into step like it's always done before. I will go to my cubicle knowing what it is I have to do, I will again step into the rhythm of work, and strangely enough, I might just enjoy it. Because on reflection, it is not that I hate what I am doing now, it is just that I wish I could be doing other stuff as well. [the short attention span of the Gen-Ys?]

I have a year to decide the rest of the direction of my life. Do I stay at my job for the necessary monetary benefits, [which the DF reminds me, is still necessary for a lot of day to day living] or do I go back instead to my hippy tuition lifestyle [which I sorely miss] or aim for a mix of both? No matter. My ultimate goal in life is still To Die With No Regrets. Regardless of which path I take, as long as I can do that, I think I can count myself having been self-fulfilled.

3 reasons why Thai women are not fat:

1. Eating dead spicy tom yam soup, green and red curry is a great [and tasty] way to burn calories. Good desserts like mango with sticky rice also ensures that you get your dose of vitamins. And don't worry. Fruits and fruit juice is relatively cheap, at around 10baht [50cent] for one serving in a bottle. And you get your daily servings of vegetables in mango and papaya salads. With such a diet, how not to lose weight?

2. Clothes are darn small. Go to a shopping mall, try asking for XL sizes, and you will understand the motivation behind losing weight in Thailand. Then again, if you make it a habit to go to large shopping malls to shop everyday, that's about 30 mins of cardio exercise just trying to shop from one end to another.

3. Major train stations have escalators. Others just have 2 storey high staircases that you have to walk up and down everyday to go to work, lunch and back home. That's at least 10-20 mins of cardio exercise everyday. Those in Singapore, I say, love your escalators.


My new buzzline: Love Your Escalators.

data overload?

Was reading a back issue of Time mag recently where the tech writer
wrote an article about dangers of data addiction.

if you are part of the zombie multitude who simply must check email,
read blogs, update your own blog, and do these not just once a week or
twice but more like once every 2 minutes, yar, you a zombie horde foot
soldier yar.

ok, I'm no zombie foot soldier , but looking at his warning signs,
many of us are taking that dangerous step towards it already. We
already own some of the pretty niftiest wireless gadgets in the world.
we're pretty well-connected in wi-fi, judging by the number of
starbucks n coffee bean outlets with wireless, and the numerous other
buildings as well. Our generation grew with computer technology n now
we check email, write blogs n get music from the net with the ease of
an extra limb. By gosh, we're on the path of zombiehood.

Then I look at my poor blog, underfed, undernourished, gathering dust,
hoping for a smidgen of attention from me. Always longing but always
patiently waiting like the dog waits for its owner to come back after
school. I think that maybe it would benefit from a spot of indulgence.

And then I think of myself talking about my blog, a bundle of unfeeng
code, like an actual sentient being...... -_-! I might be more in this
than I thought......

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

It's not hot. It's simply sweltering.

Hot is one thing. Hot is what you lived with your entire life while living in a tropical city. But now, we have hot and we have no air circulation. That means the only wind in circulation is coming from either your air con or your industrial fan, which right now is blowing at me while I blog.

It's causing a sort of heavy heat fog to hang over the beloved city. Nowadays, you walk out into the street and you don't just feel the heat from the sun. No, not only that but you also walk into a layer of heat and humidity as you exit the building and run for the safety of either the air-conditioned bus or MRT train. Sometimes I feel as if I'm walking into a cushion of hot air when I leave the house or the bathroom, except this cushion isn't the soft cuddly kind I bring to bed at night.

*Sigh* Oh, for some rainfall........

And by the by, I still prefer living in this heat than in winter. In heat, I'm simply uncomfortable. In cold, I think I'll die............... or come pretty close to it.

It's funny, but after a few waves in the career side, which spilled over to the lazy beaches of my social life, I have this feeling of 'life is finally getting back to normal'. Does this sound weird? It feels to me like some major part is over and now the bits and pieces are settling down to what it used to be before. This is even though I can't say much significant things are happening right now in either the work sector or the slack sector.

*weird*

After slightly more than 2 years with my Panasonic, I decided it was time for a change.

*duh duh DUH!!!* *ominous music*

How to describe? Maybe in chick-lit terms, it was simply 'time to move on'. :p The battery was dying at a faster rate than before and you could sense that, well, it didn't have much more longer to go on to. So I decided on a euthanasia and bought a new Nokia.

Yes, going full circle.

Transferring information out is a pain though. When you are transferring from Nokia to Nokia, the transferring is relatively painless. When you are transferring between two incompatible models altogether, the process becomes tedious. Pictures, videos, sounds, even SMSes have to be transferring to PC first, and saved. You have to look through the entire drive of the phone to make sure you didn't leave anything out. Then you have to find some way of transferring everything to the new one, and again make sure you didn't leave anything out.

ARGH!!! This is why I don't change phones often......

Although.... excitement of new phone aside, I do find myself wishing for some of the features the old phone had, say the layout design, the look of the font, the quality of the camera [sadly, Nokia cameras are sadly lacking in photoquality] Just like breaking up, you like the new guy, but you just can't forget the ex that easily...... :p

Anyway, here's a pic of the phone, only difference is mine is black:

My hug0 school project was finally completed yesterday night. We started in a flurry of chaos, went through it in a tornado of insanity, and packed up the place in a disaster of Hurricane-Katrina proportions.

Even then, there's still loads of mopping up to do. We have lost property to find, I still have reports I need to write *groan* and there's a massive stocktake that needs to be done of the stuff that we used.

But, on the greener side, the kids had massive fun. Most of them were bundles of raw nerves before it all started, and when it was finally ended, everyone was giddy with excitement. And for us, we're just glad that the massive part of this project is over.

And the mops for cleaning up, we're only gonna take out on Monday. :p

Do u get sick of cities sometimes?

I get this feeling every time I get onto the bus at the wrong times. This is when there are tons of sardines, oops, sorry, people on it, the whole can of a bus is shaking too hard for you to handle your MP3 player and get the music starting, and everyone just pushes past you like in a bowling ball manner when it reaches a stop.

The worst part of it could just be the sar-, people. People on buses during rush hour turn into either predatory animals or mechanical bulldozers.

Example of a predatory animal - The lady who shoves her way to the front of the bus queue before the bus even reaches the stop. And then who shoves her way into the bus and hurries to the back of the bus to get a seat.

Example of mechanical bulldozer - The ones who pretend there is no one dearly hanging on for life on the bus handles and walks through the aisle pretending not to notice the people they push aside in the process.

It's enough to make me turn to homicide, sometimes.

And everytime this happens in the bus, I can't help but think this is because I'm living in a city, and especially a little red dot of a city with 4 million people jostling for their own personal space. The bus is just one example of a greater picture. When you have that many people who need to be in that space, you get a lot of shoves and a lot of disgruntlement.

This is really frustrating. Once in a while, you get murderous fantasies of jabbing elbows into the peabrain next to you, or aiming your Charles and Keiths into the arsehole of the guy in front of you. Anything, just to create some space around yourself.

And I think this is what I don't like the most about the city. Barbarianism begets barbarianism. When you get enough people pushing and pulling at you, eventually you get real pissed off and you start to push other people back. Because this is the only way to finally get some space to yourself. But then the other person gets pissed off and it goes on and on and on.

If I ever go back to tuitioning, it will be because of this. Because of being able to walk through the streets freely, without having to overtake people, and without incessant 'excuse-mes' because blessedly, there will be no one ahead of me or behind me.

I never thought an empty street would be such a luxury.

Random Ramblings

A week's holiday has passed.

An extra Friday's holiday has passed.

With each holiday, it gets increasingly difficult to go back to work.

*sigh*

The past week I got screwed twice by 2 different colleagues, details of which I have to tell u guys face-to-face so as not to compromise Internet Anonymity. Suffice to say justice was served by a higher authority in one case, and in the other, I'm still waiting for her to get her karma.

This is not something I need, what with the Major School Event coming up. I half thought I was going to give myself another migraine episode like last year, but the headaches stopped mercifully when retribution was served.

There are days when I think I may go on doing this for the rest of my life. There are other days, like this, when I find myself wishing I was doing something else. At least something that doesn't require me to wake up before the sun.

There are major pay revisions coming up to ensure that more trained professionals don't leave the line, but judging from the real-life examples of Yenn and Ondine, this is not enough anymore.

Ironically, the needs of the future economy is the very thing chasing us out. To rear enough trained professionals to keep Singapore running, you need equally-if-not-more well-trained professionals. Push the pressure on these trainers, and you more or less keep the economy going. Push too little, you get morons out of school. Push too hard, you get a lot of very good trainers leaving.

And right now, the Gahmen is caught in a kind of ratwheel. It doesn't know how exactly to keep more teachers working in schools, it needs to continually attract people with pay and perks, and yet it needs to stem the flow of those who are sick of all the pressure.

It can give those who want to excel loads of opportunities to climb the ladder, but what about those who just want to perform the simple function of teaching and nothing else?

There is almost nothing for such people, because they want even these mediocre ones to climb th ladder.

So if there is nothing for them, they leave. And the Gahmen has to work at the promotion and the advertising campaigns and recruit another batch of people and go through the same stuff with them again.

It's like everyone is caught in this giant ratwheel that goes nowhere.

I want out one day. That's all I know.

A review of the one week break:

Mon - Slack. Went to work for a while and then in the evening, head for Kebab dinner and drinks at Recess at Old school with uni gang. We then find out that sitting at an outdoors table just after it's been raining is an open invitation for ants to invade our shapely legs.

Tues - Slack. In evening, send Brother to camp and have dinner at Farmart at Chua Chu Kang. Food is ok-ok only, unless you're a starving army man in one of the camps. At night, have artery-clogging glutton's dinner at Miss Clarity Cafe with Quet and Jules.

Wed - Head to leez's office and watch Jules, Candle and Quet fumble in a photoshoot. Ironic how, as much as we try to look natural we always end up looking more artificial. :p Head to City Plaza for fried chicken lunch and then to Goodwood Hotel for diabetic high tea with colleagues. End off with Sushi Tei dinner.

Thurs - Slack. Watch Evangelion, a remake of the classic series. More scenes added to flesh out the plot so it's not as mind-bogglingly confusing as the original series. Plus, watching giant robots fight it out on the big screen is so much more satisfying. :) Foot massage and then late night dessert at Little Part 1 cafe at Upper Thomson Road. Good fries.

Fri - Wake up, wondering where the time has flown. *sigh*

All in all, a good week break, except for the enormous quantities of good food I seem to have eaten. *ahem* Gym sessions start next week...... :p

From a newspaper article, it was estimated that approximately 1000 Singaporeans leave the island each year for greener pastures.

I didn't think the percentage [1000 out of 4 million] was that large till I started really reading the emails and catching up with a group of friends I have, almost all of which were either already staying overseas with significant others, who were foreign, or considering going overseas, or who would stay overseas if they could.

Like, wow. In this group, my civil servant status and Singaporean boyfriend actually makes me the so-called odd one out, though in another group, it makes me the status quo. :S

Let's do a brief stocktake: Of this group, all are dating foreigners, though some have dated local guys, one has already moved to Europe with her boyfriend, one is about to leave for Australia with her boyfriend, and another is staying in Singapore, though if needs be, she may move if her boyfriend does! Now you know why I consider myself the odd one out?

But I guess I know why I'm the odd one out in this sense. Of the 3 mentioned above, all have studied overseas, whereas I've only briefly sojourned overseas, only to come back to Singapore eventually. My entire education was tied up in Singapore, and now even my job is tied up with the Singapore government.

Partly because of this, and partly because of myself, I've always had the need for some kind of security. Moving overseas gives me a too-wide range of mixed feelings, because of the radically different life I could build for myself, outside of the too-comfortable and one-size-fits-all HDB living here, but yet is filled with unknown challenges of racism, work permits, and hiherto utterly unknown lifestyles. [Shops closing at 5??]

But yet, if I never tried, could I stay that I would never succeed? Actually, no. After all, look at my grandmother. She settled successfully in Australia in her late 40s, and she's been there happily till now.

Me, I do get envious when I hear about friends able to go to all these exciting places, live in apartments with BFs, and get the jobs they're happy with and still be able to pay the rent and all. It sounds almost as if they're already married, albeit without the hassle of wedding dinners, ROMs and annoying relatives. I do to a certain extent envy that degree of independence that they have, which makes me seem, frankly, juvenile. 27 and living with my parents. :S

But for me to move.........? Well, not in the near future. My butt is too comfortable where it is. Maybe that's just my lot in life. To live in HDB, and be happy with it. Because I haven't found another place in the world that has manga store, library and wireless broadband all in one. :p

On the last day of school, and the day we're supposed to have a sleepover at Jul's house, I get hit by a travelling flu bug. What's the justice in that?

My nasal was so blocked that I could actually apply tiger balm right beneath my nostrils, and still not be able to smell it. :s Takes a lot of fun out of eating, I can tell you that.

Fortunately, thanks to lots of sleep, and a vitamin boost from Juls, the virus mostly scattered, and I could still go out with DF on Sat, but we went home early because he had to go back to camp, and I was still sluggish.

Now I get a sense of just how often I go out. When I came home on a Saturday night at 530pm, my family stared at me. "How come you're home?!" is my mother's response to her daughter being home early.

Later in my room, both parents take turns to come in and ask if I'm alright, if I'm sick, Am I having flu etc etc etc...... because I'm lying in bed reading my books.

My presence at home is getting increasingly rare, to the point that when it does happen, it must be due to impending death. Sigh.

Bump, crack, groan....

Mas Selamat owes me a few $100s for damages to a guy's car whom I don't even know.

Ok, did that opening line get your attention? Hahaha... Events are as follows:

Because of this whole fugitive business, the DF got caught up in camp for events beyond either him or me. Since the parentals, and the fake husband were also in Malaysia, [convenient, I know] I decided to take the car for one day out to town.

And you know, aside from the usual humps and bumps of driving a car you're unfamiliar with, everything was actually going sui sui... I managed to get the car rolling with stalling, and even remembered the correct exit to take to go to orchard and how to get up the Taka carpark and everything.

Ok, EXCEPT for that last part.

Because on the way entering Taka, mind you, not even the spiral route that leads to the level 6 carpark, but at the ENTRANCE, I didn't depress the clutch enough, and the freakin' thing rolled down the slope.

I felt/heard/smelled a *THUNK* at my backside and another *THUD* at the sound of my heart stopping its beating and falling into my pants.

Finally, after a slight assessment of damage, and holding up traffic at Orchard for 5 minutes, I got the clutch grounded and made my way up to the 6th floor, followed by a resigned Subaru Legacy. -___-!!!!!!!! I didn't even realise it was a Subaru till I told Quet the model name later and she identified it as such.

So what to do? Exchange details lor........ Later, after frantic calls to Quet and Juls, I arranged that the guy should go to my dad's mechanic and get it fixed there so he doesn't run an insurance scam on us and all that. And more importantly, call my dad and then resign myself to getting an earful and probably losing close to $1000 for the repairs. -_-!!! -_-!!! -_0!!!!!

Luckily for me, the damage wasn't bad. Turns out the guy had done modifications to the car body, and it was that which had come loose just a little, so my dad estimates maybe less than $500 for the damage. *Giant sigh of relief* So the guy wasn't pissed, and my dad wasn't too pissed and maybe I just lose a few hundred bucks, and treat it as the cost of renting the car.

Anyway, I attribute this to a few factors:

1. Me choosing to park in Taka. Aside from the horrendously expensive parking charges, this also cost me the repairs to that guy's car. Next time I park somewhere else.

2. Me choosing to drive. Next time, GO GREEN and take public transport.

3. Me choosing to go out. Should have stayed at home and played computer games, but as the DF smsed, "You never want to stay at home anyway." -_-!!!

and finally,

4. Mas Selamat, for choosing to escape and imprisoning my boyfriend to camp. If the DF was out, we'd have gone out as usual on PUBLIC TRANSPORT. I attribute YOU as the ultimate cause of my driving fiasco.

Which makes me really hopeful that someone catches him soon......... I don't wanna get into more trouble without the DF.............

I'm turning........... into a huge, formless, spineless blog, existing only to eat, sleep and receive what meagre entertainment I can get from my laptop and wireless Internet. In one corner of my mind, I can vaguely compute that there are things I should be doing, things I can be doing, but I groggily swat at it and turn my fat ass over to another comfortable spot on the bed, my poor excuse for increasing blood circulation...................

Ok, so I'm feeling a little lethargic this weekend.......

Slacking at Starbucks

the first thing I have to do is give a hearty thanks to all who SMSed
me on the B-day. Thankee all... amazing the response u get when yr
bday is listed on your MSN... ;p

after the going-ons on the previous weekend though, the day itself was
pretty dead. I woke, I worked, and I went home. well, at least I put
in dinner with Jules n Turtle n then a haagen dasz dessert...

Birthdays get so mundane as we get older and I seem to be the only
person who finds that sad. everyone is like, "Yar, it's just another
day what..." huh? I can somewhat understand why though... when you
can't take an impromptu holiday on the day [I used to skip classes in
3 yrs of uni] then yeah it becomes another workday alright. [though I
have to admit, I was sorely tempted to take MC for once, but my
irritating integrity won out in the end. damn!]

when I meet responses like that, I always think: Why? why does it have
to be that way for us? Our ancestors used to celebrate birthdays
because that meant they had lived through another year of hardship and
pain, despite the odds. nowadays we still live through some kind of
hardship and pain [as anyone working a full time job can attest to]
but we would rather look forward to our physical release from life in
general than celebrate the fact that we are able to enjoy many more
days of our stint on earth.

to all who will celebrate your birthdays this year: make sure you buy
yourself a slice of your favourite cake. Or that new necklace you've
been eyeing. Or that dress that looks great on you but is too
expensive and you don't know how many times you'd wear it to make it
worthwhile. Heck, just do something to make yourself smile that little
bit. After all, if you have to go through all that work n hardship in
life, you may as well make yourself happy once in a while. ;)

this entry brought to you by wireless@sg at starbucks orchard. long
live free wireless! n green tea lattes!

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

First up, Shinnen Omedetou Gozaimasu....... (^_^)/00 Those two last circles are oranges, if you just imagine a little bit more......

One thing I will certainly be grateful for are the friends in my life who are genuinely concerned for my well-being. This will come in useful if I am ever raped, kidnapped, or involved in a car accident.

Today, it being CNY eve, I left work at 1030 to go home. I had forgotten to charge my handphone the night before, so it was on precariously low batt mode, and I thought, well, leave it at home to charge, and then go get something to eat.

So I did. I went to J8 for lunch, lingered around the library, got a foot massage and then went home.

To find something like 4 SMSes all asking if I was still alive. And 3 missed calls from the same people who sent those SMSes.

It turns out Jules and Turt had called to see if I wanted to lunch together. And when they couldn't reach me, imaginations started flowing. Turt started worrying that I had been raped and left for death in some alley at, oh, a bright sunny 12 o'clock in the afternoon in the highly populated area of Bishan.

As I heard it later, the guys' concern [or hytsteria] apparently became pressing and they called Candle to ask if I was with her. But I wasn't, so Candle now had to call Yenn and DF to ask if I was with them. [Apparently Candle had to call DF, cos Jules was wondering what the real boyfriend would think if the fake boyfriend called him directly asking about the whereabouts of the missing real/fake girlfriend. Yes, I know. It sounds complicated enough even as I type it.]

And while the man[or rather, woman] hunt was going on, I was lying on a recliner chair reading a mag, while my feet were being kneaded by the masseur.

And then I go home and read some of the following SMSes: [amended from the originals]

Where r u? Turt thinks u've been raped or dead

Where r u now? E guys have been calling to look for u

And my favourite:

The others worried sick that cant get thru to you and called me... i was rushing marking and NOT at all worried... [Thanks............. I think...................]

Well, in a way I have to be thankful. At least I know if I ever really got into trouble, [fervently touching a plywood desk] there will be people who will try to hunt me down. Or rather, at least 2 of them will be anyway. :p

Quick cookie bites:

- The roach 'toon I did a while back was actually requested for a story that this guy was doing online about Poverty Olympics. ( Certainly not the original intention of the cartoon ) Hey, I'm published! :p ( futile hopes of an aspiring starving artist )

- Watched Chesty-Nutty-Bang-Bang and Joja Wendt ( jazz pianist ) over the weekend. Chesty-Nutty was hilariously full of the duh-est brainless jokes I ever heard ( sometimes the brain just needs a break ) including a rendition of Rihanna's Umbrella done in Hokkien. That alone I think was worth watching the show for. :p

- Joja Wendt is one of the funniest, charmiest pianist that I ever watched on stage. Full of humour and numerous oblique-yet-not-so references to his overwhelming skill on the piano, this was a refreshing change from the usual staid penguins who usually perform on stage.

- If you've read Hellbound's blog, we're both hoping that we passed another Jap test by the skin on our teeth.

- Have joined Amore fitness with the intention of deflating the spare tyre, but instead ending up stretching muscles I never used, or never even knew existed, and generally wishing that I was dead.

That has to be all for now, 'cos I'm tired and tomorrow's just one more long day till the CNY weekend. Gong Hee all!

Boredom is defined, not as not having anything to do, but as the inability to latch onto anything to do.

Which makes sense. In our time and society, since when is there nothing to do?? As I type this on a Sunday morning, I can feel almost a sense of boredom, but in actuality, there are tons of stuff for me to do. I am typing this blog entry while listening/watching to MTV, I have a magazine waiting to be read, several more books and magazines in my room waiting to be read, a wardrobe to be cleaned out, and... and .... and.......... Aiyah you get it lah.

[Make a mental inventory next time you feel 'bored'. perchance there are stuff waiting to be done.]

But that doesn't help us much, does it? If there were stuff to be done, we shouldn't be feeling bored what. All we have to do is choose one, just one, and then get going to do it! Get our butts off that sofa and do it! [since I'm blogging, I have the luxury of keeping my butt on this sofa]

Herein comes the problem.

Let's take out the stuff that we have to do, but would much rather not. This includes laundry, wardrobe, and any other physically exerting domestic chores. For some of you, this might erase more than half the things on your things-to-do list. So what we are left with are stuff that we might want to do.

Might want to, but either didn't, or can't bring ourselves to. Why?

I blame this partly on our work lifestyle. By the time you come home from one wonderfully productive day at work [bleargh!] how much energy do you have left to do the stuff you want to do? Even for me, where I have the luxury of [sometimes] coming home before 5, I sometimes just don't have the energy to do anything other than plonk onto my bed and make up for having to wake up at 6 in the morning. [those who think my job is not as bad as theirs should try it first, before saying anything.]

We're exhausted. And by the end of the day, we don't want to do any creative, enriching, mind-stimulating activities. We want to collapse, recharge, and let our brains do mind-numbing TV-watching activities.

Then comes our modern lifestyle, with its myriad choices.

More choices good, right? Nowadays, you can either watch TV, surf the Net, listen to music, learn a new language, learn a musical instrument, connect with friends on Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, Maplestory, Second Life, watch a movie, go shopping, read, listen to music, get a massage, get a manicure, get a pedicure, watch a play, watch a concert, watch a film, watch a musical, set up a business, set up a blog, make a blog, make a video, make some pretty photographs, make a scrapbook......

Ok, try choosing from that. Writing that list alone already makes me want to give up, and vegetate in front of the TV with some Twisties. Choice is good. Too much choice gives you a headache.

That's why, sometimes I find myself staring at my laptop screen for moments, having to think of what to do. I know I want to create a new illustration. I know I want a new blog post. I know I want to do all this, despite the time and effort needed.

But I end up playing endless rounds of Sudoku instead. :p~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's a strange kind of mental ennui. That given all the choice in the world, if you don't latch onto something quickly, your brain refuses to take in any more mental input and shuts itself down. Then you end up couchpotatoing on your sofa, pretending that this is what you want in life.

*Hai* Already I feel myself rambling on just to keep this blog post going so I don't have to do anything else. Ok, stopping blog post now,

Resuming rest of ordinary life.

*click*

It's easier to draw when you're just... drawing. It's easier to come up with images when you just let your pen move freely over the paper first, then worry about perfection later. When you try to make every stroke perfect from the start, that's when you get real problems when drawing. To allow the creativity to come out, you have to let it out in its unbridled form, rather than control the flow to a standstill.

This is evidenced when I tried an illust on Bamboo. The previous times, I had problems because I was still trying to make it come out with exactly the kind of lines that I wanted. This time, I simply let the pen flow first, and then made the adjustments later. I ended up with a style that looked alright, and yet had that rough, raw feeling to it.

Anyway, here is Feb's illust early, inspired by Yenn's taleban battles:

How she makes a mundane encounter with a cockroach sound downright epic is beyond me, but it's a great laugh. :p

Yes, I did get another expensive piece of frivolous technology, as some would call it. With some of my bonus, I got myself a pretty fun piece of bamboo.

But hey it does help. As you can see, I'm trying very hard to keep to my NY resolution of blogging and drawing more often [as opposed to my real need to, say, get a pile of marking done on time] , and [I think, I hope, I pray] that this'll help me keep to it. Well, make it easier a bit, I guess. No more fiddling with the little red nipple on my laptop or cussing at the scanner.

For this month's illustration and blog entry I slightly cheated [I suppose] and combined both to show my state of mind at the start of work again, after a month of rest:

I can do better, I know. Gimme time, it's only Jan. :p

One of the resolutions being to blog at least once a month, here's my contribution for this month:

Some of you probably read from Slayer's blog about the NYE stayover at Jubilee's house. Yea, it was great. :) No, I did not get wasted. No, I did not get drunk. No, I didn't fulfill stupid dares and go bartop dancing or kissing strange guys in the street or something or watch any erotic movies.

We just stayed at her place and played board games the whole night.

Somehow, I know there are some people who wouldn't quite believe that of me. Heck, even after typing it out, I don't even believe it myself!! ["You screwin' me or somethin'? You played Monopoly on NYE?? Oh get off my case you!"]

But it was fun. And what made it more fun was probably the simplicity of it all. A bunch of old friends together, with enough soft drinks and junk food to keep us well-fed through the night and enough board games for entertainment.

The high of the evening was getting locked in.

Before she left to church, [yes, I actually have friends who go to church. Regularly] Jubilee told me, "If you guys want to bathe, use the kitchen toilet. Keep this door closed, because of the heat from the heater. Aircon remotes are here, TV remotes are here, and if you want, lock the door from the inside but DON'T lock the gate, in case you guys need to get out."

And guess what I did right after she walked out. -_-!!! Yes, I LOCKED THE PADLOCK ON THE GATE.

It was such an unconscious action that I didn't even realise it myself, until Slayer needed to get out, and then something clicked inside me.

"I... think I locked the gate."

"You what?"

"Where's the key??"

"Er.... Jubilee has the key."

"You mean I can't get out???"

"........."

Slayer the actress-in-training tries the lock, tries several spare keys lying around to no avail, and then, faced with the possibility, no, reality of being locked in, rattles the gate, shouting, "HELP!!! I'M LOCKED IN!!! LET ME OUT!!!" And I have to pull her away before some well-meaning neighbour calls the police.

"Will you relax??"

"ARGH I WANT MY DOG! WHAT IF A FIRE BREAKS OUT?? WE'LL BE TRAPPED LIKE RATS!!!!!"

Eventually, though, Jubilee does return, lets us out, before we really do get burned to death in her apartment. And yes, right after midnight, so we managed to cross into 2008 without being roasted.

Zen Lesson of the year: Do not be trapped in potential fire hazards.

During a wedding celebration for Mr Er, his well-meaning friends [including Juls and I] decide to suan the bride and groom on stage.

Juls: "The game is as played! We will blindfold the bride, and then our friends will get 3 men on stage to kiss the bride on the cheek. What she has to do is to guess which one is her husband!"

And so we get the bride's father, a male relative and a 3 year old boy carried by his father. And she gets it!

Juls: "Congrats to the bride! And now for the groom's turn!"

But we are not as bad as that. To give the groom a good sporting chance, we don't get any other women on stage, but get the bride to kiss him 4 times instead. And who does the groom say his bride is?

Mr Er: "Er, I don't think any of them are my wife."

Audience's jaws drop. Audience is stunned into silence for a minute. And then

"WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OOORRRRRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Juls takes off the blindfold off the groom. Who immediately sees that the same woman, ie his WIFE, has been kissing him all this while. Who then slumps back into his chair with this expression on his face (!-_-!)

I swear, we couldn't do it better if we had tried. ;)

Me: "So what did you get me for Xmas?"

Him: "I'm not telling you! You'll have to wait till Xmas."

Me: "A LeSportsac bag? That Armani bag I wanted?"

Him: "........."

Me: "Well, I hope you didn't get me jewellery anyway. You know I don't really wear it all that much."

And guess what he gets me anyway. :p Oh well, I still like it.

In 2007, I...

Good question, what have I done?

Or rather, what have I done?

There is a difference between the two, you know.

I would have done a lot of things. I would have gone to work for 45 weeks, done all that was required, had a hand in some meaningless little projects, marked thousands of work, counselled a few kids etc etc etc.

But then, that one that pays my monthly salary, my bonuses and gives me job security and enables me to plan for the future is not that important. [well, not in the way I'm thinking anyway] I'm more concerned about the others. Thus, here are the:

Things I'm Happy About

I would also have watched a number of films, read thousands of books [ok, maybe more like a couple hundred] read that same number of comics, walked millions of shopping miles [why can't they give frequent shopper miles?] and spend billions of hours gossipping, complaining, whining, laughing, guffawing and collapsing over helpless laughter with friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

I learnt to swing my butt, both in Lindy and Exotic. :p though none of you will be seeing the exotic moves anytime soon, [and I forgot them anyway] I did manage to take away other things from that class. How to move, how to stand, how to thrust your butt out, though the degree of flatteringness really depends on the butt. :s

I watched 2 great concerts, Linkin Park and the Black-Eyed Peas. I paid for it the next day with my lack of sleep, but I still think they were worth it. :p

I acquired a new camera, a new bag and a PDA. They all cost me a crazy amount of money but considering how much I've used them, more than made up for what I paid, so I'm happy. :)

I had my heart trampled on on Valentine's Day, and then healed subsequently. I'm glad to say that as a couple, I think the DF and I are really moving on. :)

Things I'm NOT happy about

I did NOT fulfill half my resolutions from last year, namely to lose weight [yea, right] and to go to the gym. [yea, YEA right] Either it's time for more resolution, or for realistic resolutions where it concerns my weight. :p

Resolution: To join at least 1 fitness class once a week. And to actually LOSE WEIGHT.

I did NOT draw much, write much or blog much for that matter. The blog suffered, the art suffered and my creativity as a whole suffered. Maybe it didn't make a difference to my paycheck or my stomach, but I felt the difference to my mind and my heart. Life was not as satisfying, and even lacking something.

Resolution: To blog at least once a month, not counting Twitter updates, and

Resolution: To complete one illustration once a month.

And I still need to save money and increase the value of my portfolio. I refuse to retire in bankruptcy!

Resolution: To continue saving my income at the same rate.

Other than that, I also want to keep my relationships alive. I'm lapsing into the bad habit of getting into a social rut and I end up doing a lot of the same stuff every week. I would like to go to Pitstop more often, for one, and I would also like to meet up with some of my friends more often than on the usual birthdays. :p

Resolution: To actually call people, instead of waiting for people to call me.

Other than that, I've got nothing else to wish for the new year. Oh yeah, other than the usual love, peace and heaps of blessings upon everyone. :) Doomo arigatou gozaimasu for continuing to read my humble blog and please continue reading!

[heck, I know that with some of you, that's the best and only way you keep in contact with me anyhow......]

Hey all! Thanks to my dad, Candle and Yenn who came down on Saturday to see the stall.

We had a dinky little table and umbrella to ourselves on Saturday, but feng shui wasn't good. They placed us towards the back of the fair. Grrr.... The way I saw it, most people came, looked around the first few stalls and went back to Cineleisure. Damn! We had a few *interesting* characters who looked around the stall, including a garrulous Chinaman who came twice to our stall, talked a lot about film and DVDs and codes, but didn't buy anything [???]

Not helping was the rain as well. There was a light drizzle at first and then this torrential shower came at 4pm. :s By then I had decided to pack up anyway cos ain't nobody gonna buy stuff in this shower. I think Slayer packed up somewhat after I did.

BUT! On the bright side, I managed to make the rent on the pieces I sold [barely :p] so not a total loss. In a way, I was kinda doing this for *fun* rather than money. This being a selling game whereby your points come in dollar form instead. :p So I made a few bucks, sales-talked to a bunch of people and learnt to set up a proper stall to attract customer eyes. Not a total loss, and a good deal of a bargain as compared to my biz degree :p

Will I do this again? Yea, I think I would. It's...... invigorating talking to the various customers, trying out different approaches and seeing what was the one line that would click the sale for me. Plenty of eye candy and different things to keep me occupied. And the money at the end of the day is a good motivating factor too. :p

Gimme a few more days and I'll be posting up the stuff I didn't manage to sell. Anyone out there needs to buy a cheap and good gift for someone? Hehehe.........

LIME Bazaar 22nd Dec 11am to 7pm
[Next to Cineleisure]

If you haven't seen my shameless self-promotion efforts by now, you wouldn't have known that Slayer and I are setting up a stall on 22nd Dec from 11am to 7pm next to Cineleisure.

In the name of shameless self-promotion, therefore, here are the stuff I'll be selling:

Shiny dangling pendants. Comes with black leather thong [not seen]

Necklaces with beads and black leather thong. I converted these from dangly earrings.

Beaded strings. I was unsure at first whether to make these necklaces, bracelets or belts, but I decided if I left them untied, then they could be used as all 3.

I'll be selling these along with some beaded bracelets [not shown] so let your friends know, and pop by! The Slayer will also be selling DVDs, shirts and beanies that have been hardly used, so you're bound to find something at our store.

Hey, if anything, at least you'll leave with some cheap presentable gifts for the xmas parties. :p

Melbourne Part 3: The Wild, The Wonderful and the Just Plain Weird
The 3rd part of my trip was really a wild shopping trip all over Queen Victoria Market and much of the shopping Swanston street [sheepish grin] Instead of subjecting you guys to that, here's a short list of miscellaneous photos taken in Melbourne:


Taken at Grandma's house. I think this is where I got my work attitude from.


I love Australia's frank humour in advertising.


A fountain. Looks unassuming till you get near it and notice the detail.


"Aw f'crissakes! Stop pissin' on me!!!" Those are some evil cherubs, alright.


At a nature reserve: 2 walking feathered balls. Someone call KFC and report 2 pieces of escaped popcorn mutant chicken.

At same nature reserve: The first albino peacock I ever saw. Ain't she a beauty??

And my all-time favourite:


Return of the Psycho Kanga!!! This guy looks as though he could be in some Australian-Chucky-the-Kangaroo flick.

Final thoughts on Melbourne:

This is a city that I must come back again, and not entirely for the usual family reasons either. There are several things about the experience in Melbourne that I would just love to see again.

People here are friendly. In most of the shops I went to, even the most jaded shop assistant still managed to put a somewhat friendly tone in her voice, and they don't trail you all over the store as if you were a potential shoplifter. It also helps that Melbourne has a very diverse population, almost similar to Singapore, and Asians here don't stand out as much.

Shopping is FABFABFABBABY. Unlike Singapore, which is dominated by large shopping malls with the same number of large brands in each mall, Melbourne city has a lot of small stores and small brands each with its own unique brand identity and look. I LOVE this. It means you can walk from one end of the street to the other and shop in about a dozen different stores with different stuff. It also means you are in grave danger of burning out your credit card.

Strangely enough, I also like the cattle and sheep. I'm a city slicker through and through. I lived in urban space all my life, and if I ever had to seriously live in the country for an extended period of time, yes, I will die real bad. But while I'm on a temporary trip, and taking my time to drive through the country, I cannot get enough of green rolling hills, and herds of cattle and sheep just grazing idly, because I have never seen so much GREENSPACE before.

And having been to a number of cities, I daresay each one, although being an urban jungle, has its own character and identity unique to itself. By the same logic, Melbourne has its own look, its own personality that you cannot find in London, Paris or Berlin. Its a smart casual kind of city that knows how to work hard and slack hard as well. They work through the day, but they know when to switch off the PCs and head for the pubs. No wonder everyone else finds us Singaporeans incurable workaholics. Melbourne is the city, for us slackers. :)

I realise the part 2 of my Melbourne trip took me ages to publish. Apologies. :p I've been preparing for the LIME bazaar on Saturday 22nd Dec where I'll be selling my self-made jewellery alongside Slayer's DVDs and beanies from 12pm to 4pm. Slayer will continue from 4pm onwards. We're hoping our stuff will be sold, because they're all in good condition, and would make great gifts for the right person.

Yes, shameless self-promotion over. Here's Part 2.

Melbourne Part 2: Birds, Penguins, and one psychotic Santa Kanga

Melbourne's summer weather means that it's a great time to get outside and view the flora and fauna. This is also where I saw some of the most beautiful blooms I have seen.

So it was that part of our trip was a sort of nature retreat, away from the traffic and noise [and temptful shopping] of the city. For this, we took a day tour outside of the city to the Dandenong ranges, to feed birds, sit an old steam train and see the penguins on Philip Island.

Our first stop was the Dandenong ranges, a 'young' forest where the trees reached 6km into the air. :s [If those are young trees, I wonder about the old ones]


There we stopped for morning tea and scones [tasting like a slightly buttery muffin, but excellent with jam and cream] but the real draw for me was to feed the birds.

I like this part! The guide gets a bowl of bird seed, and you put some in your hand and let the birds eat out of it.Watch out for the white cockatoos, though! That bugger in the photo above became too greedy and bit my finger, thinking it was some kind of worm. Argh!

The cockatoos are really the big bullies of the playground. Every time people threw seed around, it would troop over in a big-boss kind of way and the little red and pink ones would scuttle in fear out of its path.

After the Dandenong ranges, our next stop was Puffing Billy.

This was not an exhausted bird, but rather an old steam engine ran by and preserved by volunteers.

The volunteer conductor who stayed in our carriage.

Now our carriage was probably a first-class carriage, since you can see from the photo above that there were seats for us, like in the Hogwarts Express. However, if you were flat broke and you had to sit in one of the cheaper carriages, you might end up in a tight squeeze during your ride. Or if you were too poor to buy tickets, you might try to hitch a free ride. In either case, you ended up sitting in the lower class carriages, like this:
See the legs???

The DF thought it a highly dangerous activity. Which is of course, why I thought it rather grand. :p

Then we stopped by an animal farm for a while, before heading to Philip Island.

Philip Island is a great place for animal-watching. The three most popular spots there are the koalas, the seals and the penguins.

Koalas are one of the laziest creatures alive. When you look at a gum tree, the koala is basically that lump of grey fur lodged in the crook between the branches. They spend their days stuck in the tree, chewing on nearby gum leaves, and only moving when the leaves around them are done and the nearest food is out of paw's reach.

I envy them. :(

How do you spot the koalas? You walk through the park and look at where everyone is pointing their cameras.

Bingo!!! Took all the powers in my camera to take this shot, they were that high up.

The next animals you try to see are the seals at Seal Rock. Although it must have been the wrong time or something, because when we went there, the only thing we saw were seagulls. The place should have been named Seagull Rock.


Nonetheless, the view of the rock is pretty good.


The only animals seen at Seal Rock. Sheesh.

However, I confess, I only went to Philip Island to look at penguins. The island is littered with penguin burrows, and every morning, the father goes out to sea with all his penguin dudes to look for food for the wife and kids. Then at night, they come back in huge groups to feed the kids. This nightly return is what tourists [like us] flock to Philip Island every night for.

Pic from http://www.affiliate.viator.com/brochure/product_show.jsp?ID=1010&PRODUCTID=1016&CODE=2230M10&AUID=3830

This is not my photo, because tourist photography is forbidden there. Reasons being that if you were to use your cam and the flash came on in the dim evening light, the flash would blind one of the poor critters.

This has more consequences than one flash-shocked penguin. The penguin could be blinded for life, and once that happens, it is unable make its way back to its burrow to feed its mate and kids. This means the whole family goes hungry for that night. And penguins mate for life, [no penguin divorce lawyers] so even if the mate doesn't come back, the wife doesn't look for a new man, but instead waits futilely for its own mate, even if they starve in the burrow. :(

Nonetheless, even with repeated warnings, there are still idiot tourists who will insist on taking their own shots of the penguins. And a couple of times, we saw a few heartbreaking scenes of dazed penguins wandering around after some dumbbell used a camera on him.

Boredslacker always advocates RESPONSIBLE TOURISM. Please always respect local rules and wildlife.

Else risk being killed by psychotic kanga killers.

Melbourne Chapter1: Meeting the Grands

I got back from glorious Melbourne summers, cool in the mornings and evenings, and wonderfully warm and dry in the afternoons with clear blue skies, colourful birds and some of the most stunning blooms I have ever seen --- Back to a Singaporean winter, where the snow melts before it reaches us on the ground, resulting in endless wet rainy days, where the sun don't shine, and the clothes don't dry.

Should I start hunting for airtickets back?

But yea, it's good to be back home in a way. Blog updates will be forthcoming, so let's start off with Chapter 1: Meeting the Grands

**Image heavy! Let your browser load!**

We arrived at Melbourne on the morning of the 2nd Dec, and rent a car from the airport. We drove around the city first, and then we go to my grands' house.

Which turns out to be about 6 hours drive, since the DF is also terrified of getting slapped with hefty speeding fines, so he sticks strictly to the speed limit all the way. :s

And despite the speed limit, we still kill an ungodly number of flies on the way there. Something about the weather makes them more sluggish than our local flies. You could almost touch one of their wings, and they wouldn't fly off until you were actually touching them. Weird huh?

Which also explains why, our rented car:


Kills this many flies.


Gross eh? And that's just the licence plate. You should've seen the windscreen.

Anyway we reach my grands' hometown, Casterton towards the evening.


Casterton is a town dedicated to... a dog. The kelpie, one of the smartest breeds in Australia.


My Grands' house. About the size of the first floor of my house but large enough for them, 2 Singaporean visitors and the dog.


My Grands' dog, Butch. The poor thing is diabetic, and completely blind, but can acutely smell food dangling from your hand under the dinner table, and can acutely hear his collar and leash dangling from your hand, signalling the start of a walkie.

I think the DF and the Grands are all right with each other, though my Ma's lasting impression of the DF is now how he a) doesn't eat pork and b) doesn't touch alcohol. She was up on the phone that first night exclaiming to my mother in dialect about how he didn't eat pork! My god! I've never met a Chinese who didn't eat pork! while both of us stifled our laughter behind her.

Ma is a great cook and I think one of her greatest satisfaction is seeing people enjoy her cooking, as evidenced by our conversation:

Ma: "You should lose some weight! Look at you!"

Me: "Yes, Ma."

Ma: "You're gonna have an Aussie bum in no time if you continue like this! Better eat less and exercise more!"

Me: "Yes, Ma."

Ma: [peers at my plate, where I've almost finished eating a hefty portion] "You want more mashed potatoes? There are some more in the bowl."

I stare at her. "I thought you said I had to lose weight?"

"Here in my house you eat as much as you like! When you go back then you lose weight!"

"..............................."

But then again, you gotta love the Grands. They have a sign with my name on it on the front gate, over 20 years old, they put photos of you all over the place, even the ones of you in awkward phases you'd rather forget, and they grow your favourite potatoes in their garden.

Yup, Grands are always the best. :)

Next chapter: Birds, Penguins and one Psychotic Santa Kanga

Away From Blog

Owner away on holiday, 1st Dec to 8th Dec.

Will not be back on blog till jet lag fully recedes.

In this period of time, owner may prove uncontactable.

Please leave well-wishes, comments or requests in comments field, or in email.

Senders of spam are asked to leave the mail in the trash bin.

Will be back with photos, and stories. :)

Any rich Santas out there?

I swear, watching the first few seconds of the Youtube video almost made me cough out my phlegm in ecstasy. [Not the most endearing of images, I know]

I love the design. I love the stand behind. I love the fact that I can draw anything I want directly onto the screen no need for scanning no need for mouse drawing colour shading everything directly on to it

But I hate that it's only available in Europe. -_-! And that it looks blardy horrendously expensive -_-!!!!!!!

*sigh* Back to the paper and pencil and plenty of dreaming..................

note: Due to changes in blog, loading may take slightly longer than usual. Gomen! Tell me if you encounter any real problems in viewing this blog: boredslacker@gmail.com

Renovations in progress

I'm finally getting down and dirty again with HTML and Fireworks to work on some long-overdue renovations to my blog, and my first thought is: I'm getting too old for this. -_-!!!!!

The HTML changes were simple enough, because they were relatively minor. I've cleaned up some of the really old links to the right, and updated some of them. Some of the changes:

- The Twitter blogroll has a spanking new image of a bird. [hey, either u get the pun or you don't.]

- Portfolios have been rearranged so that they are all arranged in one tidy line. Added a rolling image of my Artwanted portfolio as well. [Now when am I gonna add new images to that portfolio.....?]

- Next big change is the Bloglines blogroll. I've been using this feeder to read most of your blogs and a bucketful of others, and now I've put all of them on my blog, for easy linkin' and readin'. Now you can see what crap I read on a weekly basis.........

The hard parts:

DOING THE DAMNED TWITTER IMAGE. I can't believe I've been that long away from working with imaging software but just to create that one damned singing bird nearly burst several of my arteries. You know how hard it is just to align one damn leaf with another?? Or to fix that damn bird to fit into the button?? Some bright idea I had.........

*ahem*

Which is why you may not be seeing too many other image buttons soon.... Gomennasai......

Other changes are behind-the-scenes, which will not be immediately visible here, for instance:

Blogging on the Go

In response to the many complaints about my blog gathering dust, I've enlisted two friends to help me in the updating problem.

1.
Yes, my humble phone, which is where the Twitter roll on the side comes in. The Twitter updates come via SMS to my humble blog. So whenever I see something weird outside, or some earthshattering philosophical thought strikes my mind, all I have to do is reach for the mobile, and up it comes on the blog.

2.
The second is a new addition to the family, say hello to Suss.

Suss is an Asus PDA [no phone] and she was bought because she can a) support Word, and allow me to type potential blog entries and b) go online with Wi-fi capabilities, although this admittedly depends on the networks floating around me at the time.

The keyboard is a bluetooth fabric keyboard, yea, made of fabric. It does work but so far it's given me more headaches than convenience, so less said the better.

So far, blogging by SMS and email through Suss has been going smoothly, as you can see from some of the slightly more frequent updates on this blog. [The thing I still don't like is that uploading pictures is practically impossible so far. Working on it, working on it... ]

I'm now hoping that if I get a smooth enough rhythm going during the hols, I'll be able to keep this up much better when school starts again. Then you guys won't have to worry whether I've been hit by a car or murdered at my doorstep or something. :p

Gimme some comments, though, on what you like and what you would like to see! It's nice to know that, well, people are reading this blog after all. :p

Quick updates:

1. Linkin Park RAWKED da house. 8) With a good mix of new songs plus classic favourites. I almost wished I was one of the teenypubes in the standing area so I could really thrash with the rest 'o them, but I'm too old...... I need my sitting space every now and then. :p

2. My holidays started with a good bout of flu. -_-!!!!! It's getting better but I've been sorely tempted to take MC, though I haven't......

3. It feels good waking up at the late hour of 7 for a change.

4. Have been doing a good bout of bloggin' on the go, through mobile and PDA. Will do a write up over the hols about that.

5. Am thinking that I haven't been too creative over the last couple months. Maybe it's time to do something......

6. Animation Nation starts next week. Am starting with a character design workshop on Saturday. Anyone else who is interested in going, look at the website for the events. I've already booked some shows so lemme know if you're going to any of them too.

TTFN!

Linkin Park Concert 13th Nov

845 i'm sitting in the indoor stadium waiting for the 8pm concert to
start. Anyone noticed the time discrepancy? N to think I got so
panicked when I missed the bus abt 30mins b4 the concert.... Bleah...

A few differences between this and the Black-Eyed Peas concert...one,
2 categories of standing room. Yes, some pple paid the same price I
did to stand n squeeze for a 2hour concert... Sorry, but i'm too old n
tired to be a groupie...

2nd, the crowd seems more enthusiastic about the passing-your-time
music. It's like, crowd mingles n waits, DJ changes song, crowd
screams, then some guy behind the curtain tunes a guitar, crowd
screams again... OMG we have the makings of a manic mob here. If Mike
Shinoda suddenly throws his tee out I will run for my life I tell
you...

Well closer to 9 already... I'm gonna let me eyes take a break now.
Hopefully the next post will be about the concert...

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

technology irritates me

Because sometimes tech probs are the hardest to fix. You can't fix a
Lego tower out of bricks, u can see which are the foundation brix
giving you probs. U have a prob with your PDA or the keyboard u bought
to go with it, even if u took it apart, u still might not know what
went wrong from the mass of circuitry n wires b4 u...... ARGH!!!

--
Check out my crap:
Blog is http://boredslacker.blogspot.com
Art is http://boredslacker.tripod.com

mobile testing

Gmail is testing this out - Aki

3 wrong turns and no anime

I know it's been last Saturday since I posted that twit about getting lost in JB, so I told myself I had to finally settle down and write the whole story down before I totally regaled it to the back of my mind.

It was last Saturday that Quet, Yenn and I thought of taking a day trip into JB just for the sake of it. We drove into the 2nd Link, intending to go to Jusco Tebrau, City Square, and then back to Singapore.

Well, the trip just to find Jusco was bad enough. We followed a bunch of road signs that led us to....... Carrefour. Part of the problem being that the Malaysian government puts road signs telling you that yes, continue on this straight road and you will end up at Jusco.

They don't put up road signs at, say, traffic junctions, telling you whether to go left, straight or right in order to go to Jusco. And you would think there would be a more logical place for a road sign, innit?

So we drove straight, good, right direction, straight, right direction, confirmed by another road sign, and then once we reached a major junction......... leftorright?leftorright?leftorright? Aw screw it! and we'd just choose one and turn.

First turn, we ended up u-turning to Carrefour. We walked around and then asked for directions, which turned out to be too vague to be of much use to goondu Singaporeans.

Second turn, we became a bit more adventurous, and we ended up in the midst of one of the suburban towns, in which Quet took so many turns, I lost track of where Carrefour, the main road and Singapore was altogether.

And ironically, it was in the middle of making the 2nd turn that I spotted the elusive Jusco. "There it is!!" I screamed triumphantly...... as Quet turned away from it, and into the wrong turning. Bleah......

Third turn, we finally reached Jusco Tebrau. [Whoop of excitement upon hearing that we were not lost, or en route to Malacca] Citizens of Singapore, if you thought Vivocity was big.... Please check out Jusco, which is bigger. Although most of the major brands here can be found back in Singapore, their sales are timed differently from us, which means if you head at the right time, you can hopefully find some stuff which has had its season over in Singapore, selling at a discount.

Stuff, say, like in a Mango sale.... Whip out those ringgit!

Then we drove to City Square, where Yenn and I found to our dismay that the anime store had been replaced by a spa........... ( T_T ) Instead we bought some at Popular and then spent all that anime money on clothes instead.

Well, besides getting lost 3 times and finding no anime, it was a pretty good day at JB... now we're thinking of how to cajole Juls into driving us in for the next round of shopping, especially since his car has the bigger boot..... heh......