zenöv's photo cache

2006-09-07T15:24:00.000-04:00

I'm Not A Superstar, But I'm A Superfren!

Let's clear things 1st. I dunch wanna get caught in an embarrasing teasing situation, so I'm gonna announce this: I went to audition for Project Superstar BUT I didn't get in. haha... ok. Not feeling sad, but feeling scared that they might take a scene with me singing AND MAKE FUN OF ME with silly captions like: Oversized contestants with Oversized ego...

oh but well, at least close friends now (or rather, a month later) won't come to me with a smug smile and snigger: You joined PS right? You looked so... dorkish!!!

haha... Really, I don't feel sad. I told xy that 不到黄河心不死，at least 2 months later, when I'm watching the show, I won't be thinking: aiyer... Should have joined. Maybe I could win.

We can never always live in Maybes...

Also, I thought I am a very good friend. haha... If I can't get a title bestowed by some other people, then I'll bestow a title for myself. lol

I mean, I spent the whole of Monday preparing for the Gift Of The Year: tC's birthday present.

haha... At first I thought putting me as Producer at the top of the Credits list was a bit bhb, but well, I thought I should deserve some limelight. haha... Afterall, I sacrificed sleep before my audition for the POTY lol

Credits

First, I was lazy, and it wasn't until sunday night (after waiting in the sun for 7 hours to register for PS) that I realized tC's birthday was just 2 days away. So I sent a mass msn to everybody online to submit to me a personalized birthday greeting on ppt slide.

But on the next morning, I thought it wasn't sincere enough. I was listening to my zenv:m when it occured to me that I could make use of the player's voice recording function. After all, that player had only been used to record my own singing to check if I went off key (frankly speaking, I rarely use it, cos I think I sound spastic, speaking or singing). So I sent a mass sms to all Ma'ats to come down to clubroom to look for me to record their greetings, where I'll station all day after 12 for the sole purpose of waiting for them.

The aim was simple: Record your greeting. If you want, you can dedicate songs and we'll include the song into the 'album'.

Jenny, Edlina, Derui, Sin En and Zin came as promised. Some of them were very against the idea of leaving voice messages, so they did their ppt slides only. Then, Jenny suggested we make a 广播剧. So we came up with a lame, but short script. With only 4 characters, it should be easy to act out.

Disc 1 Playlist

But problems came.

1st, tC came to clubroom. haha... We had to stop everything. ok, it was my fault too. In order to check if he was going to clubroom for GAW, I messaged something spastic like: You going to clubroom today? Things went out of control and I had to meet him to let him preview the songs I prepared for LB MAF.

Then, nobody was willing to record the 广播剧. Zin ran away, Dr & SE never came back. Edlina was the only one who recorded her dedication. All my hope was pinned on km, who promised to drop by clubroom to make recordings.

(Undecorated) Album Back Cover

But our luck changed. Clubroom was deserted by those hardcore clubroom users, with only Luke, the friend of Ma'at around with me. So it meant we had a peaceful, quiet place where we can record silly stuff! Then km came and Edlina pon her meeting.

Thus we started recording.

It was funny. cos Ed said she had to leave soon, we filtered out the parts with her and recorded those scenes 1st. It was Scene 2, Scene 4, then Scene 3, Scene 5 then Scene 1. Machiam like filming movie! Also, we rehearsed and improved the script on the spot. Like Scene 5, it wasn't there in the 1st place. We included background music too. Sound effects, softening of music... Though not professionally, but it was ok lah.

Album Internal

Then km recorded the Opening Speech for the album. After which, he could not get enough and recorded the Closing Speech.

All in all, the recording session lasted 3 hours.

But that was not all.

I had to record rx's greetings through the loudspeaker of my handphone while I was on the cab. Did the same for bryan at home, where he was in camp doing COS duty, waiting for staff parade. Had to do the post-production, like arranging the tracks, naming them, decorating the album cover and including some Credit and Contents List...

Disc 2 Playlist

After audtion in the morning, I spent some time to decorate the album cover even more. Cos I was like filled the space on the outside, but the inside was barren. Then LF came along to submit her share of the greeting, which was made from cardboard. It couldn't fit into the album itself, so I found some rustic twine in clubroom and tied the cardboard to the album, machiam like a gift.

Boy was I satisfied with the gift.

It was the biggest project I've undertaken for a b'day gift and I ~~bet~~ hope it's the one of a kind gift tC ever received lol

(Undecorated) Album Cover

Once again, Happy 21st, tC!

click here for the contents of the present. haha... dun let km noe dat i posted it online lol he'll come down specially from bv to kill me!! keke...

userid: zenov_ye@yahoo.com password: zenovishandsome

2006-08-17T12:40:00.000-04:00

Current Wallpaper

Leaving Fox Glacier, back to Christchurch. One of the dozens of lakes we saw throughout the NZ trip, so much so I forgot the name of this lake. Well, it was the last lake we saw though.

2006-08-11T20:02:00.000-04:00

A Tale of Two Towers

zenov Brothers Proudly Presents

A Ma'at PhotoFilm

A GC Creation

Conjured by zenov the Prez

Starring:

tC as Tower 1 aka Ella

rx as Tower 2 aka xiang

jenny as Plaza 1 aka xiao zha bo

sin en as Plaza 2

joyce as Subplot Scandal 1

derui as Subplot Scandal 2 aka blackforest

chio bu as Passerby A

glenn as Passerby B

However, all characters in this PhotoFilm will be named as per their actual names...

Please be reminded that this PhotoFilm is ficititious but MAY depict the real situation.

PhotoFilm Poster

The Tale started in the summer of 2006, when our main (and supporting) casts went for a camp called Ethelonter III. It was the 1st day of the camp and all of them were new to each other. However, people who are fated to be together tend to notice each other.

The group of them were split up into two groups to think of cheers. tC felt a calling from behind him, so he turned...

But he saw no one interesting. So he turned back.

And just as he did, rx turned back cos he, too felt a calling. But just like tC, he saw nothing.

And just as rx turned back front, tC turned again! Guys, don't you feel it's like Turn Left, Turn Right?

They eventually met each other's glances and the rest was history. How deep was their love? A Photo can speak 6 megapixels of words...

But good times don't last. rx being flowery at heart, he start to bio another girl...

The orange shirt girl was sin en, and the white shirt girl was, who else? Joyce! Soon, sin en sensed rx's attention...

tC was clever. Being a chem undergrad, he sensed the chemistry between the adulterous pair. So he did all he could to set a barrier between them... but THEN, he didn't sense the electrifying glances jenny tried to shoot at him, cos he's not a Phy major.

But there are times when the change of events was beyond his control.

Yes, rx and sin en got more and more opportunity to get together, while tC was ostracized till dunno-where...

rx and sin en became so close that they were looking at each other's direction even when they are at different parts of the room!

And rx and sin en thought they had tC blindfolded...

The above incident triggered jenny's fantasy as she began to believe even more that tC was interested in her. So she adopted a 宁可抓错，不可放过 tactic...

tC also accidentally exposed his status out of frantic...

rx and sin en were still undaunted!

and sin en resorted to underhand means...

Meanwhile, the subplot of ray and joyce's scandal was brewing secretly... into a fiery boil!!! They were always together even though they were blindfolded!

They kissed...

They hugged...

And they lay together...

tC decided to be proactive...

But rx and sin en ganged up to sabo tC...

But their antics made jenny even more siao on about tC... literally siao...

Finally, tC cannot stand it and decided to confront sin en!!

They had a fight, whereby sin en won! gosh! so tC had to be contented with sharing rx with sin en. Little did he realize his little confrontation had broken the heart of poor jenny...

So, did they live happily ever after? What happened to all of them in the days after E3?

It was rumoured that rx's flowery heart could not be tamed by both tC and sin en, so the both of them left him. But it could be rx's influence, tC was not very tame himself after the divorce.

He was rumoured to be romantically linked to several other guys in and out of the group.

Sin en proceeded to be Void Deck Table Tennis Queen.

Jenny was heart-broken, but she had her wound bandaged by a piece of shit.

Joyce fell in love with another guy and dumped ray, so ray tortured himself everyday by twisting his nipples to numb his heartache.

Passerby A and B became lovers...

~ The End ~

2006-08-06T16:32:00.000-04:00

zenov Times

E3 Lookback

It has been more than a month since the legendary, extraordinary and exciting Ethelonter III ended. Our reporter, zenov, specially looked through the photos to scour for scandals or funny pictures to add to our daily column.

In our 1st instalment, we shall give out certain awards to some of the Ma'ats. It's called the Perpetual Award and there are 3 takers to this award.

1st up, for the Perpetual Sianz Award is xiang! For this, the GC shall endow him with the title: Sianz Xiang.

sian xiang

Look at him. Doesn't he look like a forlorn old man? Wandering about, waiting for his end to come...

Next up, we have the Perpetual Blur Look Award, given to Aminah Zin! With this, she shall have the title of Blurzin.

blur zin

She's lost, people, can somebody please guide her along? Or did she just come out of a drama serial? Oh... can anybody be as blur as she looks?

Right in the 2nd place is the Perpetual Kiam Pa Face Award and he's none other than our beloved Chio Bu!!! GC has decided to endow this VP of the soc the auxilliary title of Kiam Pa Bu.

kiam pa chio bu

Fortunately, 3 out of 4 pictures were taken on the same day. Perhaps he was just in a foul mood on that day. Or maybe the photographer got sick of his kiam pa face and decides to find better targets. Oh well...

Finally, the Heavenly Queen of Queen, the strongest taker of the Perpetual Award, is Sin En garnering the Perpetual Diao Face Award. Her newest title in Ma'at will be Diao Sin.

diao sin en

Just take a look at her! She looked like she just come out of 《阿诚》、《龙卷风》、《摩天轮》. Just look at the way she diao people while wearing a cunning smile! Doesn't she look scary?

Next up, we have a Choose Your Favourite Photo Contest. No, we don't find the best-looking photos taken, cos there were just too many photos that were nicely taken. Instead, we have found the ugliest, most unglam photos for your taking. Pick up your index finger and just type the number representing the photo that is your favouritest!

No. 1a Ray w his act childish look

No. 1b Ray w his want-to-fight look

No. 2a LF w her gossip-to-share look

No. 2b LF w her gimme-a-kiss look

No. 3 Terence w his shagged look

No. 4 xiang w his mei-lian-jian-ren look （见人，not 贱人）

No. 5 Crystal w her eyes-half-closed look

No. 6 Edlina w her i-noe-wat-u-did-last-summer-&-i-did-the-same look

No. 7 ck w his 'i say fff...' look

No. 8 vivi w her 抓奸 look

No. 9 tC w his Ella-roll-eyeballs (smaller pic) look

No. 10 Jason w his kungfu master look

What are you waiting for? Enter your choice now!

Watch out for the 2nd instalment called A Tale of 2 Towers (to be released while tC is busy with his rag...)

2006-08-02T23:52:00.000-04:00

杰诺一周

特派记者：杰诺

既《凤儿日报》登出四张引人遐想的照片后（下图），掀起满城风雨，大街小巷无人不在讨论这些照片所引发的绯闻。究竟这些照片是伪造还是真实的，众说纷纭。本报（唯一）记者特地搜集了所有小道消息以及报章报道来为各位忠实读者解除疑惑。

绯闻照（一）：表面的和平

西风：之前盛传美国总统小布和中国大使陈钦闹不和的传闻一律不攻自破。对于之前不和的传言陈钦澄清道：这是不可能的事！我才没有那个闲空去生他的气。

上天：在爆料这张照片所隐含的绯闻之前，本台必需大声耻笑友台X风卫视竟然把两个无名小卒当成美国总统和中国大使。哈哈哈！其实这张照片代表着社会的败坏。据本台从穿白衬衫的未成年少年陈钦了解，两人前一晚其实共度一宿。当时陈钦喝了小布（左一）请他喝的一杯饮料后便失去意识，醒来后才发现晚节不保。拍照时，小布坚持要他面带笑容，否则捏他的屁股，所以陈钦委屈妥协。可是其（不明部位）痛楚难耐，只好勉强微笑。陈钦的监护人已打算起诉小布。

香蕉：若鸡奸指控所实，那两人出示‘六’的手势又何谓？陈钦口供也爆料，当时他是邀请小布教他如何炒饭。据本报分析，小布一定误以为此炒饭为彼‘炒饭’，所以小布有何罪栽？相信‘六’的手势代表两人一晚炒饭的次数。

路人甲：拿背的！有影无？一晚六次？小布以为他是机器meh?

绯闻照（二）：家庭暴力

西风：小S产后复出，惊晓老公偷吃！

上天：上个周六惊传小S在餐厅怒掴丈夫？原来后者因取笑小S生产后身材大不如前，导致徐太后大发雷霆，怒斥：你说我肥？我让你尝尝爆肥的滋味！天真的小S还以为这样拉扯他的脸，脸就会肥起来。围观的人无不啼笑皆非。

香蕉：难道你们都瞎了吗？女的在微笑，男的十分陶醉，这就是他们炒饭的乐趣！

路人甲：拿背的！又炒饭？还在大庭广众之下炒？你以为美食节啊？

绯闻照（三）：EJ情未了

西风：正当大家都驻守在东京街头，期盼能再次捕捉到周候旅游的亲密照，本台终于发现周先生已弃东洋，转攻南洋：新加坡的牛车水！而且女主角非候主播，而是绯闻女友，女子团体S.H.E成员其中之一：Edlina!

上天：看来这赤道绿洲的饮食魅力还不小，两个曾经瘦骨如柴的小恋人，为爱私奔到海云漫漫的国度，竟然抵不住美食的诱惑，吃得珠圆玉润。想必吃胖了也吃（痴）呆了，竟然胆敢在热闹街头手牵手。难道他们不知道新加坡有个赫赫有名的GC？也难怪两人会被GC属下的《凤儿日报》抓包！

香蕉：据本报敏锐地观察到，照片左上角的石柱上贴着伽哩鸡，所以我们胆敢推测周董是去找火辣的伽哩‘鸡’（妓女俗称）炒饭，而照片中的女主角非Edlina，而是伽哩‘鸡’！

路人甲：拿背的！我只听过杨洲炒饭、新洲炒饭。。。新加坡有伽哩鸡炒饭meh？那个年轻人好像我认识的阿荣leh。我懂他像周董，但是你们真的拍错人了。阿荣人很好，不要害他。他只是带老人过马路而已。。。

绯闻照（四）：新神雕侠侣

西风：权仪凤在街头为母亲节特备节目《妈妈好不好》找人玩游戏，希望访问国人对于母亲的感言。录影时发生了一个小插曲：摄制组正要访问一对母子时，母亲却气冲冲地走掉。热情的儿子本来以为能够上电视，结果不成功。

上天：看来友台只会看图写作文，因为事情本非如此！那对男女其实是一对恋人！只是女的害羞让人发现他们的姐弟恋，所以落慌而逃。

香蕉：其实那个看起来乳嗅未干的男生是牛车水出了名的未成年牛郎。他这么积极地想上镜是为了宣传自己。

路人甲：对咯！那天我也在场。那女的说：神经病！你要我被警察抓啊？那个男的一定是underage。。。

待续。。。

2006-07-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

Once In 14 Years Trip

It's rare to have friends whom you have known in 14 years (while you ARE NOT a lao kokok), and 14 years means 2 x "7 years itch".

Aniway, after a whole year of planning, cancelling, procrastinating, planning, procrastinating... we finally settled a day to go o'c, 4 days before departure. And our destination? Getaway to Bintan Agro Resort, from 15 - 16 July 2006.

We took the ferry thinking that it would take 45 min, but it was twice as long. It was full play of kiasu spirit trying to get onto the ferry cos it was free seating.

Just outside the customs, we found the counter for Agro and the girl tpok us to take the van to the resort.

On the van, to resort

It was another half an hour snaking through the build-up area and through the fields. After all, Agro is NOT a beach resort; it's a plantation resort. In fact, it was smacked in the middle of nowhere and the air was very fresh.

at the lobby entrance

The staff was very prepared and before I even uttered my name, he fished out our keys and proceeded with the check in. For a resort with no 5-star facilities, it has 5-star service, which extended throughout our stay.

Lobby

Our impression was like: it seemed we were the only few in the resort, served by a worker-to-customer ratio of 10:1, so much so we wondered how they managed to keep afloat and maintain the resort.

Lobby's bar

The staff were always available, and upon request, 2 drivers were sent to drive us to our abode on 2 tricycles. On the way, the drivers doubled as a local guide, who drove us around the resort and introduced us the activities that could be done. Unfortunately, most were not what we'd do, like golf and fishing.

Just outside our residence

We were rather fascinated, cos it was our first time taking the mode of transport. So much so we kept taking pix with it. haha... and the drivers were so kind to indulge us in it too. At that point of time, we really believed we were the only guests there.

A pic outside our residence

The room was spacious, with a single queen sized bed. We had 2 rooms. Even then, the guys' room had a 12-inch TV rather than the 32-inch the gals had. Hot shower and air-con provided and the window opened out to the verandah equipped with benches for guests from adjacent rooms to chat.

And did I mention we had a great country view (boy do I sound like Samantha Brown...)?

Corridor

After settling down, we proceeded to find the swimming pool to see if we could do some tanning. But the clouds were daunting. We cut across a plantation via a little 羊肠小道, lined with yellow roses amidst rambutan trees.

kf even plucked one rambutan and ate it in the spot.

Me and jing

The pool was like, ermz, ok for people who are not picky. Well, if you LOVE swimming in the sea, then you would have loved swimming in the pool amidst the algae and other unknown precipitates. We ended up playing in the water the next day, though dipping out heads into the water was a taboo...

Me and kf beside the pool

We then walked to have our dinner. The resort was so small that it was walkable, except by night, cos there was minimum street lightings. The restaurant offered stuff like the zhee-char stalls we have back here. The best stuff was the fruit juices, so fresh, you will have to peel it on your own.

Simple meal...

Believe it or not, I ate the above for dinner.

NOT!

In addition to those above.

I dined with a dark-eyeringed ghost...

Outside 'Kampong'

We then had an after-dinner phototaking (there really wasn't much to do there...). We took pix of other residences. There were Kampongs, manadao and cottages. We lived in the mediteranean, which at the point of booking, I though was a safe choice. It was a right choice indeed, cos at dinner, a whole swarm of PRC tourists flocked and stayed in the Kampongs.

After-dinner photo-taking

We walked around the resort again, till the sun went down. We were trying to walk off our full dinner, cos we intended to go spa at night. We went back to our rooms to wash up and called the lobby to send us over. This time round, we were transported on a jeep, something like a GP car.

We all agreed the spa was worth out effort to go all the way here. Even though the end cost of ferry+accom was equivalant to the cost of having spa at S'pore, the service was over the top. We believed it was cos we were like VIPs to them, such that they treated us as good as they could. And not to add the scenery, fresh air , experience and isolation from normal work and stress that money can't buy at home.

I must admit it was my 1st time having a spa treatment and I was blur like sotong. The jacuzzi, however, seemed lacklustre and the masseuse's only vocabs were: Excuse and me. I was stifling my urge to giggle throughout, cos I'm someone who's VERY AFRAID of tickles. hmmm... not to mention the massage of inner thighs. I nearly broke into laughter.

Many guys thought I would have shown some bio-rxn, but believe me, the tickles was more over-powering than the weird sensation of a 3rd party's hands hovering over the sensitive areas.

But well, now I know why Cleo and Teenage insists that the inner thighs were erotic regions...

Harassing the figurine outside our residence

After our massage, we had foot reflexology, cos we need to pass our time while jing finish her milk bath. Then, we had the driver send us to lobby, where we ordered our supper (room svc) and back to our rooms. ha... 1st time I had room service lol

Supper

It didn't look much, but we ate like a lot. We had spring rolls, calamari (they called: breaded squids) and tauhu-goreng Indonesian version. The tauhu was especially interesting, cos it tasted normal at 1st, while the terrible, super-duper spiciness surface. All while watching a Stephen Chow's show.

Then, we played cards, along with MP3. Then, we slept. We were too tired to go back to our rooms, so the 4 of us squeezed onto the bed. Believe me, kf could haf squeezed with us and not sleep at the foot of the bed, cos er-hem... was literally clinging onto me the whole night, leaving a big space between her and jing.

oops, did I reveal er-hem's identity?

And I woke up freezing, cos er-hem was sapping me of my heat the whole night...

After a night of jolly...

Morning was simple fare, as in it's not intercontinental buffet. But we had fried rice, fried beehoon, sweet and sour fish, kangkong, a dish that was a combination of laksa and prawn mee (minus the spiciness), toasts, coffee and a funny-tasting kueh.

Very un-breakfast.

We went to the pool to sun tan and played around with the water for 2 hours.

Then we walked back to rooms, I dozed off for a while, and we went back to the lobby where we played cards over Iced-longans.

What's left of our breakfast

Then, we shopped at the souvenir shop and then had the staff drove us back again. cos it was sunny, cos they bought a lot of stuff.

Gp photo on the way to check out.

We slacked again in our rooms, watching Channel 8 and dozing off while waiting to check out. We were ferried to the ferry point and then we shopped again there, though it was a grab-and-go affair.

We couldn't squeeze onto the ferry in time, and had to camp on the deck of the ferry, exposed to the natural elements, including the sun that I got so much of from the past few days.

On the ferry back home..

Finally, it was back to home ground, but our getaway didn't end there. We taxied ourselves to Harborfront where we had dinner at Coffee Club. VERY NICE dinner. I guess that has become our favourite spot after Swensen's at WTC and CTP.

2006-06-25T09:54:00.001-04:00

New Zen Vision: M

2006-05-23T13:21:00.000-04:00

Some of The Movies I Watched That I *erhem!*

One of the reasons for my perpetual presence online was due to my continual *erhem* of movies. I used to buy new original movies. Then I downgraded to 2nd hand original movies. And then...

There were 3 films I watched that made me somehow want to blog about them. 1st, is the show "Into The Blue", by who, but the guy who couldn't act: Paul Walker. Frankly speaking, he really can't act. But too bad the show I had was a poor quality, filmed-from-the-cinema-screen version. ie. No matter how good Paul Walker's bod was, it looked so dull in the show.

A still pic shows his great bod better than the movie did

The show startedf slow and boring. I guess Paul Walker's acting really had to blame. It was so boring that I stopped the show, went to shop, slept and waited for another few days before I made myself finish the film.

And boy was I glad I did.

The pace picked up soon enough to live its name up as an action flick. It literally ended with a bang (the only explosion in the show) and that's it. I was quite satisfied with the adrenaline rush it injected within me for the last 30 min of the show, which somehow made me feel my hours of broadband was not wasted.

As for the plot, since it was a stupid action flick, it really isn't important to waste the space here.

And then there was Elizabethtown.

Elizabethtown

It was weird watching the show. Not only because the characters are weird, but also because they are weirdly like ME. Talking to themselves aloud when they're alone, asking rhetorical questions and telling jokes to make themselves laugh. And acting hysterically as if they were on a stage and the other people around them were audience. erm... I somehow felt as though someone put a hidden camera and filmed me instead. eerie...

The show's about a guy (Orlando) who fell from grace when a product he he spent years developing flopped. All the years of fighting and sacrificing family time went to waste. And just as he was about to kill himself (he actually improvised a killing machine just for suicide!), he received news that his father was dead in his hometown. So he had to go there (Elizabethtown) and retreive his father's body.

And well, Elizabethtown is somewhat like our chinese' home village. ie, all the closely related relatives live in a village. And the whole village are as strange as the guy himself (well, I suppose such traits are genetically linked). So it was a fight between his family and his EXTENDED family to settle on what to do with his father's body.

And, the main part of the story is actually the blossoming love between Orlando and Kirsten Dunst. Unfortunately, they were chatting for the most part, and boring conversations they were. So much so I didn't know what they were talking about. And since it was the main part of the film, I didn't really understand the film real well, if there was ever a message to be brought across.

The only thing I understood: the film had a lot of beautiful scenery of America.

Elizabethtown 2

The next show is the best show of the 3. I was so... captivated and my adrenaline level was at an all time high throughout most of the show (when the real plot starts to roll out).

gothika

Halle Berry acts as a psychiatrist in a prison. Treating patients who commited crimes due to their mental disability. One night, after a near-miss accident, she went unconscious and when she woke up, she was herself in a cell in where she worked. Turned out that she was accused of murdering her husband and went gaga for a few days.

gothika berry w cruz

But she couldn't remember a single thing about that incident except for the girl whom she nearly knocked down. She started to believe that the girl was a ghost and tried to convince her colleagues, who as scientists, treated her like the other mental cases.

downey jr as colleague

Being marginalized from all sides, she started to solve the mystery on her own, trying to escape from the prison and unearthing all the dark secrets that led to her killing of her husband.

cruz as one of the patients

the only comment I have for the show is: WATCH IT.

berry

Gattaca Book Pix

2006-05-20T12:07:00.000-04:00

Is The Sky The Limit?

Ordered Gattaca, Is The Sky The Limit by Gary Simmons from the web. I guess it was the publisher (UNSW) where the author is lecturing. I had to do this because I couldn't find the book anywhere in Singapore, or rather, bookshops that I thought would most probably have it. Disappointingly, Borders had none.

Anyways, the package came on early Vesak Day (wow! DHL is hardworking!). Ok, not early, because it was 11am already, but I was still asleep then when my mum barged into my room with my package.

my DHL package

I have ordered other stuff online before, but those were all albums from Yesasia!. So for this time round, it's really my 1st time receiving a DHL package (no wonder the shipping fee was so high).

the address side

I was amazed at the size of the package. I half expected the book to be of normal paperback book, similar with those novels in bookstores.

wateva's in the package

So, what was inside the envelope was actually something that didn't quite fill the space.

Even worse, the book was thinner than my expectations. It was something like a primary school textbook, with juz over 50 pages. hmmmm... why the expenses?

But well, it's THE book of THE movie, of course I have the obligation to buy. Besides, it's a study guide for me to better understand the movie even better ;P

THE book

2006-05-12T00:39:00.000-04:00

Sentosa Once & Again Pt II

the 2nd trip to Sentosa on wed was intended to b a councillors' outing after the councillor briefing in the morning. but it ended up w only 8 ppl going for the outing.

all the way, i was like thinking: gosh! so few ppl! and i felt so awkward, cos i dunno everyone very well, but they knew each other very well. and it also turns out dat the stuff dat we did weren't stuff i normally do (and do well).

but aniwaes, we went to Siloso beach and set up a ground site, after which we went to play the luge. the chairlift was indeed horrifying, tho i believe i'd b less horrified the next time. the luge was a fun thing to play too, considering such a simple game of gravity was tot up by some ppl.

ma'at, the logo of my gp

and den, we played frisbee. it was farnie. cos we foresaw we wld b going into water, merv and i went to find some discreet place to change our pants and we end up hiding behind a hedge of a garbage dump rite off the road.

5 of us played frisbee and i muz say it was an interestingly gd exercise. and esp since the slope of the neach at siloso was very steep, climbing up and down the beach and into and out of the water was tiring enuf.

after dat, we played volleyball. but we went away from ground site to search for a suitable court to play, considering dat playing it courtlessly was really tough.

the court was so far away, we likened it to having to walk from s'pore to JB. but as the journey dragged, we concluded dat we muz had had been heading to genting instead.

after a short while of play, an uncle-looking PRC popped in to join us in our game (since we had 3 against 2). and guess wat? when we said yes to his request of joining, out popped 6 more PRCs to join in the game. and they were so reluctant to leave us, even as the head of their tour gp was urging them to leave by reminding them of their itinerary for the evening.

and being PRC, they were very PRC-like. bossy and condescending. telling merv how to serve correctly, calling tiong wee 静 (silent) 哥哥. the only nice thing dat came out from one of their mouths was when they asked if we were secondary sch or jc students. heh... i look dat young eh...

finally, it was only after zhenqin came to tell us dat fred and christine were waiting for us at HF dat we managed to end the game w PRCs (tho i was hoping dat it was them who left us to our own pte game). rushed back to ground site, den back to the toilet to wash up and back again to catch the bus back to mainland, where we had dinner at the food court of HF.

gp photo after volleyball

so, the moral of the story is: ppl, pls go buy 4-D, cos for once, i was doing something alongside 3 others PRCs in a game w the collaboration of 4 PRCs. it's even rarer than Halley's Comet entering the inner solar system!

2006-05-11T23:35:00.000-04:00

Sentosa Once & Again Pt I

went to Sentosa twice within 5 days. 1st was the ZPS outing last sat to Palawan beach and one is wed's OC councillors' outing to Siloso beach. both were of different feelings and i enjoyed myself in both a lot.

the ZPS trip was an alternative to Wild Wild Wet due to unforeseen (actually it was predicted, but we were naively hoping it will not happen) circumstances. after casting my vote in the morn, it was off to mit the peeps at HF. we did some shopping and proceeded to take a cable car to Sentosa.

my 1st trip ever on a cable car

we were told dat even tho we had the passes to the cable car, we had to Q w the big crowd at the ground floor of the cable car building for the Sentosa entrance tix. however, the staff was kind enuf to go all the way down to look for us when he realized we could buy the tix over at Sentosa, thus sparing us from agony from Q-ing.

aniwaes, something really gd happened after we reached, but i ain't gonna say it here, juz in case somehow dis blog entry is seen by Sentosa's authorities and i spoil the mkt (and possibly our next outing to Sentosa) for other ppl. lol

the food we brot for our picnic

we walked to Palawan Beach and where we found a bench for our food. however, being a picnic, we shifted to a ground site w the picnic mats we specially brot for the cause. after some warm up, we also took some pix...

our outrageous selves-pic

and den going off to 'play' in the water... at least dat was true for fred. we merely washed our feet w the seawater. it's therapeutic, u noe?

青蜓点水

and den we crossed the bridge to the southernost tip of continental asia and took more pix (while kf settled on our ground site for a tan-sleeping session).

pic at continental asia's southernmost tip, w fred trying his best to b the southernmost man of continental asia

we returned to ground site and took even more pix. it happened as we were all tired and decided to all lie down on the mat. of which, we started snapping pix of ourselves.

selves-pic 2

but cos our hands were all too short, we were unable to capture everybody's faces in a single shot.

selves-pic 3

selves-pic 4

so, we finally resorted to an extreme mean:

ask someone to help us take

and tinking our heads r not enuf, we proceeded downwards...

selves-feet-pic. clockwise from top RHS: kf, me, fred, jan & angie

and tinking dat taking pix down is not enuf, we took upwards.

selves-pic 5

selves-pic 6

and tinking juz part of our bodies is not enuf, we took a full body shot.

w some ppl's slippers....

and den, as the sun settles into a gentle setting mode, we started playing mahjong.

gamblers...

and we left the beach at 6.30pm for dinner at harbor front. and as u can see, there weren't much ppl in Sentosa cos it's still not hols yet. and cos the rage now is KTV, we nearly had the whole beach to ourselves.

dinner was at coffee club express at HF, which seemed vacant in contrast to the crowds in other eateries. it turned out dat not only was the food (ESP THE DESSERT) was nice, the ambience was gd also. the lighting was ok and there weren't rowdy s'poreans spoiling the ambience. bagus!

cool~

2006-05-07T20:43:00.000-04:00

Assualt On Precinct 13

DVD Poster

The Matrix Trilogy style of film being my cup of tea for action flicks, i bot the 2nd-hand dvd for the sake of ethan hawke (to fill my library of his works) and chucked it aside for a few wks. i watched all the other movies dat were bot w it and left it for the last, and few wks lagging. well, i dun sucker for gun fights and explosions w/o the appeal of cyber-ism.

aniwaes, i was taken over by the show. the action part was up to the mark, and wat makes this remake so gd was how it puts depth into the characters, something that was always missing in other action-packed shows.

yup, i haf never watched the original film, but ever since this remake made it to the big screen, it garnered all critical claims, except for a box-office smashing outcome.

the story took place in a remote precinct of detroit police station which would be moving after the New Year's. As it went, there were only 3 people on duty, a sarge (Jake), a retiring veteran and a secretary. along the way comes jake's psychiatrist (whom he allerged to have a torch for him, which otherwise makes a special trip to his post on NYE unusual), a another colleague and an envoy which escorts several criminals including local mafia Bishop.

the psychiatrist dun she look like nicole kidman??

oh... so as usual, ethan's char Jake is rather cliche. he is a fallen cop who was still trying to come to terms for an undercover failure 8 mths before which saw the deaths of his 2 colleagues (which was where the shrink comes in). and the conflict arose when the envoy in which Bishop was in had to call in to Precinct 13 due to a severe snowstorm. and the spark that got the show going was when a team of 'mobsters' came to assassinate Bishop.

so the show is staged, 8 people trapped in a police post in a factory-dominated precinct, caught in a snow storm confronted with a team of killers who were capable enough to severe communications and electricity and to command snipers and V-5 troopers to the scene.

the irony of all, was the fact that their opponents were the police. turns out dat Bishop had a dealing with a high-ranking officer whom he had fallen out with. following his arrest, the officer duvall knew that Bishop will spill the beans between their dealings and sets out to eliminate him while he was under arrest.

so it was an action-psycho flick with a dash of horror. what with formidable special ops who could penetrate into the building to try to wipe out every living person in there. if precinct 13 was a horror mansion, those troopers are the ju-on and sadako.

ethan hawke looking not-so-cool...

aniwaes, so Jake decides that if they were all to be alive, they had to stand on one line, police and criminals. the criminals were armed and they managed to deter the intruders by foiling their 1st attempt to siege.

things went wrong after the success. 2 petty criminals tried to make for it to escape jail terms, but were taken down by the snipers. and in the midst of the mayhem created by them, the psych and a female criminal were sent to take a vehicle and break out to call for help. unfortunately, duvall had already laid an ambush.

the final showdown came after the betrayal from the retired cop. he led them through an old sewer to 'escape', which was actually a plan to send them to duvall. the group manages to break free and Jake, Bishop and Duvall had a showdown in a forest-chase.

at the end of the movie, i guess the only ones living were Jake, Bishop and the secretary.

ethan hawke acting cool... as usual =P

yup, i can give all the synopsis, but it takes one to experience the tension of being trapped in the post, especially having to fight alongside with people with opposite interests. fear, suspicion, betrayal, trust, and trust misplaced, guilt and chivalry; bad guys are not all bad and good guys not perfect.

simple truths that lay unconcerned in everyday lives.

if you can stand the gun fights and explosions (with a level of gore that was played down, cos i believe point-blank shots in the head will mean no head for the victim), then i recommend this show for the gem buried underneath the action.

2006-04-27T09:55:00.000-04:00

Guess Wat I'm Showing This Time Round

some place... my new place of dreams. any idea??

monolith

how abt i show a pic dat tells more? dat spells out the name of the place?

large berg + plateau

yes! dat's it!

ANTARCTICA!!!

ice edge

i'm been scouring the websites of the bases of antarctica lately to look for job opportunities and to look for nice pix...

change in weather...

will show the pix of man-made landscapes 1st, den the snowscapes of the southern continent in the future. well, gotta let my frens get acquainted w my workplace of the future wat... lol

aurora australis

double sunsets. real sun is on the right

another sunset

night time

glacier

South Pole, literally. the copper pole marks the geographic South Pole and is corrected every yr

South Pole Station Entrance

Palmer Station of USA at the Antarctic Peninsula

Mawson Station of Australia. dunno wat the laser for...

Hut at Mawson's

Macquarie Island of Australia

2006-04-23T19:15:00.000-04:00

Eight Below & The Producers

watched the abovementioned shows last fri despite the impending exams. after all, i haf no heart to score in dis exam. both movies score well differently, and they r sure worth my tickets.

eight below

1st reviewed is a critically condemned disney show called Eight Below. it seemed disney isn't on a gd direction towards producing gd movies.

it's abt a team of NSF (National SCIENCE Foundation, not the s'porean nsf) staff stationed at antarctic having to abandon camp when the worst storm in recorded history hits the southern continent. but as theirs is a small camp equipped w only the basics, it turned out dat they had to leave the sled dogs behind cos the only plane they had was too small to carry them.

so... the movie splits into 2 lineage, w one counting and showing the days of survival of the dogs and the other one w their caretaker doing his best to try and get back and fetch them back to civilisation as winter sets in.

hmmm... when paul walker and (gawd, dunno wat his name was) the american pie guy started the show half-naked, i was like: oh... is dis like Into The Blue Antarctic Version (perhaps best aptly called Into The White) or wat? but it's a family-oriented disney picture! surely there wun b too much bikini-clad babes and board shorts dudes, will there?

ha... those ppl will b mad to dress liddat IN ANTARCTICA lol

my, the only plus pt abt the show (cos critics tink even the dogs acted better than paul walker) was the impressive landscape of Antarctica. so much so dat i got inspired to want to go there and work. i noe, i noe, i'm acting like a kid again, being easily 'inspired to do sth' every now and then. but hey! antarctica IS my place!

i mean, i haf a cold personality, i like cold weather and i'm used to being all by myself. at least w/o the required expertise (using eqpt or being a field guide), i wun die from driving myself crazy when i'm down there for 6 mths, yar?

but of cos, stamina is another thing. hmmm... if one of the criteria for being a field guide is to pass 2.4km... ermz... *shrug* well, i can b a photographer like dat AP guy...

the producers

b4 watching Eight Below, jan and i watched The Producers, w the only intention of watching Uma Thurman, who made her appearance only 1 hr into the show. duh! but overall, it was stupidly hilarious.

it was abt an accountant and a broadway producer who came up w the notion dat they could earn more money by producing a flop than a hit. and so dat was wat they did. they went to find the worst play ever, the worst director and the worst actors they could find (including swedish Ulla by Uma who couldn't mouth a proper english word).

even tho jan said she prefered Mrs Henderson Presents, i tot she compared movies of 2 diff types. tho both had songs and dance, The Producers is a musical remake while the latter was only a movie related to a theatre.

which was y the actors from TP seemed over-acting rite from the start.

the producers 2

i guess the hilarious part came from the cameo of the gay director and his asst. i dunno if it's stereotype or wat, but it's usually such acts dat had downrite despicable ideas dat on one hand makes the characters lively and comedic and on the other hand, seemed to degrade homosexuals into screaming, drama and weak ppl.

still, the whole scene where the producers went to ask the director to take the helm of the show was farnie and lively. at one time, it seemed like a bollywood movie, cos the seemingly empty hse suddenly popped out a dozen of weirdly dressed men dancing w the leads. and of cos, their dance was v bollywood style.

and i tink the pt dat gained the most laughter was when the deranged german came after their lives w a gun. haha... i wun tell wat they said, but the whole cinema literally roared at the pun.

and den, there was the mad neo-nazi soldier. as usual, w stereotyping at works, there seemed to b a tragic comedian effect w dis character. he reminds me of a computer game, and reminds me of the army-veteran in Happy Tree Frens who go gaga at the sound of bangs. but basically, the producers of The Producers tried to make the audience accept the character by totally uglifying the role as a neo-nazi german.

the producers 3

basically, i wun want to use logic to judge the show, cos comedies dun deserve to b judged w logic and standards. if it can make me laugh for dat moment, den it's gd =)

2006-04-04T18:02:00.000-04:00

Wkday Haircut

not only do i recommend having haircut on wkdays, it's best to go newly-opened outlet of decent hairdressing chains in a newly-opened/renovated shopping centre.
cos not only did i haf almost the whole shop to myself, i also had a nice head massage in the midst of the exams heat cos the hairdresser simply had the time for me. amazingly, she remembered cutting my hair when it happened in jan!! heh... it's actually such little things dat brightens the day...

b4 haircut

and well, the idea to cut my hair came juz as i stepped out of my hse to go for my test today. reason being the ultra bad hair day dat i had, i decided to make myself look more trendy than lok kok.

after

and of cos, i suspect dat the stress had a part to play. after all, i was all blur for the test and in fact, i couldn't ans a single qn properly. not one had a final ans cos i kena stucked halfway. skip skip and skip and when i reached the end of the paper, only half an hr had passed.

hmmm... act cute..

and u noe, we had the test in the LT, where we r supposed to deposit our scripts at the boxes near the exit as we walk out. AND as usual, there were those super chao kuan PRCs (actually oso got locals lah, but i racist mah) who were writing and writing as if there was no law in s'pore.

yes? PRCs got a bloody problem -- i gave them the bloody nose, yeah...

and the lecturer (ppl professeur some more leh...) kept reminding over the mic dat the paper had ended.

i got so fed up, so as i walked past one of the chao kuan PRC who was engrossed in his CHEATING, i shouted into his ear:

OI!!! STOP WRITING! EXPEL U DEN U NOE...

ka fei ma zui bu liaoz gu dan...

of cos, i scooted off as soon as i screamed those words. 1) scared the PRC remember my face 2) scared the whole LT remember my face.

so end up i din get to c the expression of the PRC.

ah...

i hate PRC...

2006-03-12T09:31:00.000-05:00

new watch 2

2006-03-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

new watch

2006-03-10T00:29:00.000-05:00

The Big Stopwatch

my stopwatch circuit

'tis my proj/lab work for ee2006, dat is to design (construct, to b exact) a stopwatch dat counts up to 60 sec.

the prob is, i've only been able to switch it on and it still can't count... duh!

the idea of switching on is considered great liaoz leh. i couldn't get it switched on the 1st time (and it started to smoke...) and it took me 1 hr to debug and figure out wat went wrong...

AVLE

2006-03-03T10:04:00.000-05:00

AVLE

AVLE 2

AVLE 3

Amelie of Montmartre

2006-03-03T10:02:00.000-05:00

Amelie of Montmartre

2006-02-28T09:02:00.000-05:00

For Fun

2006-02-26T11:04:00.000-05:00

Mrs Henderson Presents

had wanted to watch something w jan, since it was the mid-term. but between 2 crappy comedies Rumour Has It and Mrs Henderson Presents, i tot the latter will b more worth the money cos it has a NUDITY rating. haha...

aniwaes, it was abt dis recently widowed Laura Henderson who was so rich and free dat she bought a derelict Windmill Theatre and opened it w an innovative idea of having non-stop plays all day long. but soon, the other theatres followed suit and she came up w another idea: to haf nudity in her shows.

but in order to haf it dat way, her nude actresses muz b like art pieces, ie. they mustn't move while they r naked on stage such dat they will b qualified as art pieces and the theatre's license will not b revoked.

dis is where the nudity part was tastefully done. they were so innovative in creating ambience and lighting in such a way dat the nudity was really like a form of art. u noe, such dat certain silhouettes cover the 'midlands' or certain pc of satin covers part of the body. in other words, they really steered from the porn factor in striptease shows.

the movie really turned out to b none-crappy. it was funny at times, but it was more serious than imagined. laura's real intention for showing nudity in her shows lies in her only son who died in WWI. she believed dat young as her son was, it was most prob dat he had never seen a nude woman real life. and she believed dat during the trying times in WWII, she was helping those young soldiers to find a relief, such dat they wun b like her son, whose only way of ventilation lies in the postcard w a nude woman.

it sound rather absurd at first, but putting ourselves in those times, it was actually reasonable. heh... maebe dat was a form of NS for the actressess too. *wink*

it also pts out a logic: when there's nothing to lose, creative ideas will come out more than expected. i mean, i draw the conclusion not only from the film itself, but from daily lives too. laura, being old and widowed juz nid a way to spend her inheritance. she dun mind losing money cos she has more than enuf to lose. it was then her GM was able to haf a vast space for creativity.

yup, wun it b better if all boss/superiors/ICs b like dat? unfortunately, a lot of ppl r so afraid of losing/things getting not as they expected, they held such a tight rein, follows dead rules and stifles creativity and brainstorming.

疑人不用用人不疑

unfortunately, i mit countless of ppl who would insist on working their ways and not listen to wat i say. juz my luck dat i am working UNDER the person and has to say YES. still, sometimes roots run deep into the ground.

ha... enuf of grumbling.

aniwaes, after watching the show, we went to haf dinner where we chatted and chatted. nice. tho it was inevitable to tok abt work/sch stuff, it was nice to noe how she was doing. hmmm... and share secrets and updates. lol

and den, we went to kimseng to bowl, since the arcade was a little too crowded and boring looking. had 2 games, where i flopped the 1st round w 60pts and caught up later w 132pts. din strike new highs or new lows, juz enuf to satisfy the crave for fun. but i muz really credit the upturn to the ball dat i changed to, which felt better to handle w.

hmmm... muz get out more often and hang out together. well, life can't b juz work and work. i'd rather get a balanced life than mugging nite and day for a 1st cls honours dat is beyond my reach. well, u can say there ARE ppl who can play hard and yet get 1st class honours, but dat's definitely NOT ME. i'm not of dat calibre, else i'd haf gone to RI instead of RV. duh!

2006-02-23T00:59:00.000-05:00

A Very Long Engagement

picked up the dvd from ezyvideo, where it was up for sale as a 2nd hand gd. wanted to watch it for a long time, but it was only dis sem after i took up french again dat i had the desire to watch it.

yes, it's in french, but w eng subtitles. from the director and female lead of Amelie of Montmartre. and yes, i admit i haf the passion to watch chim, boring, geeky films (as well as intolerable dumb shows like American Pie), but it's not dat i really noe how to appreciate the shows, juz dat these shows always leave me go WOW silently in my heart and arouse a sense of satisfaction inside me.

add on w a v beautiful plot, and tis wat AVLE had.

as the name of the show suggested, it was abt a very long engagement. mathilda's fiance was sent to the frontline during WWI. after trying to mutilate himself in order to siam his duty, he was 'executed' by being thrown into the no man's land between the trenches of the germans and the french.

mathilda believed dat Manech did not die and went on a search for him after the war ended. and wat? of cos, she was rite.

she has the will and belief

the show wasn't as real life as The Thin Red Line or Black Hawk Down in terms of the war scenes, but it was enuf. Manech was a responsible soldier b4, until his fren was blown to pieces rite in front of him w his innards thrown all over him. after dat, he became paranoid and out of sorts. all he ever wanted was to return to Mathilda. he was so out of his mind, all he said abt the execution he was abt to face was dat: after we step out into the NML, i'll b able to go see Mathilda straight away.

along w him were a few others who also tried mutilated themselves by shooting their own hands. it was cos of their existence dat complicated Mathilda's find, cos no one could really gif an exact account of wat really happened to the prisoners after they were thrown into the line of fire.

mathilda met a lot of ppl during her quest, ppl who knew stuff but reluctant to say anything due to personal reasons, ppl who seemed were wrong abt who really died in NML. one of the sub plots was of the revenge of the gf of the other prisoner, tina, who on a separate quest from Mathilda, knew wat happened to her man.

yup, it was only near the ending when she was caught dat the big picture came in. of the 3 ppl she killed, one was an officer who ordered the prisoners to b thrown into No Man's Land, the other was the officer who destroyed the letter which stated dat the prisoners were to b pardoned by the president, and the last one was the sgt who shot her man down when he tried to surrender to the germans.

wheneve she misses Manech, Mathilda blows her tuba, for it was the only instrument dat sound like the call for distress

and then a chance meeting w a german gal whose bro witnessed the execution led to the fact dat there were indeed survivors from the execution, and reversed the fact dat ppl who were deemed dead actually survived. dat led Mathilda to a crucial last person, one of the 2 surviving prisoners (it wasn't known at dat time who it was he carried out of NML) who left a coded letter to his wife abt where he will escape to shd he come out alive (they were supposed to b dead, so even if they escaped death from the NML, they wld still b executed shd they b caught again).

and the ending was beautifully touching. add on the recap of how mathilda met manech when they were young, their fave code of MMM (Manech Marry Mathilda) which Manech carved everywhere, even on a burnt tree in the NML. add on to the fact dat Mathilda was lame due to polio.

add on Mathilda's childish way of gaining reassurance: if the train does not go into tunnel or the ticket inspector do not come into my cabin at the count of 7, Manech is alive. such predictions always turn out to haf gd news, which makes ppl wonder y she kept doing it. it was only near the ending, when someone came and told her dat he saw the german plane shoot down Manech, dat a recap showed dat she did the same thing on the day Manech left for the frontline:

if i reach the bend b4 Manech's car passes by thru taking the short cut , he will come back alive.

it ended up dat she was unable to make it to the bend on time.

Manech and his tree

add on other subplots like one of the prisoners who, on the day of execution, patched things up w a fren whom they had fallen out of terms w. the saddened mother who willingly took in Manech despite the fact dat he had assumed the identity of her son when he died.

yep, i like the part when Manech woke up and asked the woman: who r u?

and the mum replied w tears of sadness and look of gratitude: I'm ur mother.

and of cos, Audrey Tatou's rendition during the time of reunion. the anxiety, the excitement, the satisfaction, the relief, the sadness, the hope rekindled.

and like Amelie of Montmartre, the director's style was evident. his way of inroducing the characters at the start thru direct narration and clips of their background. numbers and more numbers for french beginners to go gaga over w trying to catch and process them. drawing into the characters' faces to punctuate a significant turn of events.

it's a really touching show. after going thru the frustration Mathilda went thru during her quest for her lover, the ending w them finally reuniting was really worth the tears for celebration.

2006-02-10T10:16:00.000-05:00

Sights Around Punggol (Along The LRT)

had always wanted to promote Punggol, at least to gain some goodwill from ppl who tinks dat it is a god-forsaken place. and, in spirit of marketing, to promote awareness among whoever's reading my blog, esp, tho hopeless, the PRC prog lecturer who spelt Punggol as Ponggo (is he tinking of Congo??) 2 times in the lect notes. perhaps it's the influence of s'poreans who pronounced the name, in the usual slang of singlish dat omits the consonant at the end of ALL words.

aniwaes, some of the photos were taken a few mths ago, in aug and sept, and some recently. i guess one 'sight' abt Punggol dat attracts even ang-moh tourists to visit will b the LRT system...

punggol lrt station

the station itself was v captivating, at least when i 1st came. wat w seeing the station everyday of my life now, the majesty, grandiose of it all has lost its appeal. the above was a view from inside the LRT station, some view dat may seem normal and industrial to the naked eye, but can b captured from another angle.

oh... one thing abt Punggol LRT dat distinguishes itself from sengkang's, dat attracts tourists? the lack of crowd. perhaps not in the morning, and in the evening. but at normal times, the line served basically lazy ah sohs who r doing grocery shopping.

not to mention dat more than HALF the line is still not under operation.

for a small carriage, i'm amazed at its speed, which can't b felt while i'm in it. but looking at it from the distance, it was cruising even faster than a normal sedan.

towards home

aniwaes, in order to save operation costs oso, only one direction of the eastern loop is opened at any one time. one b4 3pm, and the other after dat. altho every trip comes into a full circle, each direction will offer a different introduction to Punggol.

i guess the majority of the population sees the one abt the developed and orderliness of Punggol, which is the direction after 3pm.

matilda hse

considering dat the mrt station was set in the midst of nowhere, emerging from the station was like starting on a journey INTO a developed city. fields abound, and the blocks of flats ahead.

towards punggol cove (the name of the 1st lrt station). budden it's sk in the distance

for 3 stations along a straight rd, the lrt line was flanked by 2 rows of orderly flats w uniform heights, an irony to the 'condo-like', 'different from old HDB flats' facades... they're like cliffs and canyons. the 1st pt of the lrt trip was like a kayaking trip down the river of Punggol Canyon.

preparing to enter the canyons

eating places and minimarts dot the cluster centrals. these were nothing but evidence dat here in this town resides the young couples of s'pore. DINKs, juz-past-DINKs, ppl who r too ~~lazy~~ busy to cook and families like mine who r practically not at home most of the day.

coursing thru the canyons

after passing thru 3 shell-roofed checkpoints, we emerge back into open space, turning juz b4 we hit the face of a small (once-landfill) hill. but of cos, it was a serangoon 'river' away.

lrt station

in fact, this is the region where serangoon 'river' empties into the straits of johor, juz like the river i'd been kayaking down in Punggol Canyon meandering into the delta of flats. it may seem dat i had left the canyon behind, but no.

towards riviera

after crossing the great divide of the town called Punggol Central, which leads directly back to the mrt station, we enter into a relatively new cluster of clusters. my cluster. here, there were some variations. in exchange for a less fancy facade, there were buildings dat finally do not face the general direction of the other flats.

towards riviera

towards kadaloor

but not my cluster tho. long ago, b4 i moved in, my fren ferried me here to deposit some of my stuff and to fix my new desktop. as he drove ard the service rd, he exclaimed, 'whoa... like a castle.'

the meadows

cos my cluster was a combination of 2 clusters, positioned symmetrically abt the shopping strip. it's an immense cliff wall, all uniform, identical twins within each twin, dat extends over 200m. in the dark (my cluster was the only one in the neighbourhood back den, so there was not much light in the new estate), the monster looms above us into nowhere.

it was, juz as ironically, called The Meadows.

i'm not bluffing when i said it was called The Meadows

after the stop outside my cluster, the remaining 2 stations r not in operation. which implied dat my station is the only one dat offers view of the other side of Punggol, the fields, the distant hills, the river, the straits; the nature.

out of kadaloor station

which explains dat in a cool morning, the scenery from here will b spirit-lifting. there will b wisps of mist hanging about the line of trees at the other end of the fields, like a white veil placed upon the tree tops. the water will no longer glitter like jewels under the morning sun, but becomes milky white. the fields were levelled and grasses cropped, but cos of dis, it seems to extend forever into the line of trees, yes dat line of coniferous trees dat shielded the ugly sights of the industrial buildings in JB.

foggy punggol morning

an optical deception, but a beautiful one.

the train will pass by the 2 unopened stations, stopping but not opening its doors. after The Meadows, the train officially exits the built-up areas of Punggol, into the flat lands beyond, and the canyons look distant and unfamiliar once again.

cloudy punggol

there was once a farm, a floral farm along dis stretch of the line. but it seemed dat the 2005 CNY bushfires had taken its toll on the owner, who suffered from the losses from the fire. the place is closed and abandoned.

juz b4 the train turns back into the tunnel of the mrt station, the 'forest' comes up at the side of the line.

foggy punggol

beyond dis pc of wood-lands, was where the old Punggol was, the pier, the beach, the marina. it was the place dat was promised to b an entertainment hub, to draw crowds to Punggol. of cos, it was juz promised.

the line of the other loop still not in operation emerges from the tress like a wild life trail. it crosses w the current line in op and trickles along the same way into the station: the massive mound of aluminium, steel, glass and concrete.

we pass in between 2 'hills' (dunno wat they were for, but they're juz there), b4 emerging into the open and steering into the station proper. back to the starting pt, back in a full circle.

there was sengkang in the distance, rite across the gushing traffic of CTE. there was the quaint, silent line of the western loop. there was the Punggol Canyons and there was the Punggol Wilds. gosh, no wonder ang-moh tourists want to come here. wat other new towns offer such sights, 4-in-1?

frankly speaking, i do hope dat Punggol stays at it is. no more development, no more human presence. of cos, dis is hopeless, cos juz beside the 'woods', a new HDB proj was beginning. soon, the trees will gif way to the flats, and the flats to the high-rise flats. no more scenic views, no more misty mornings. no more wild-life trails, tho the canyon kayaking will continue, and in fact, be extended.

but surely the place can b different from the concrete jungle of tampines and pasir ris, yar?

2006-02-08T23:06:00.000-05:00

J'aime Apprendre le Français

also means I Love Learning French literally, given the amt of french words i noe. ha...

juz dis afternoon, was having the lect. my monsieur made us do role play, ie. gif us a conversation and appoint ppl to read aloud.

amazingly, he called me and the 2 ppl sitting beside me to do the scene 1, and guess wat i was appointed to act as?? *hint: look at the pic below...*

look at wat's circled...

i was giggling all the way cos i could neva tink of such COINCIDENCE! and all the while, the whole cls was laughing cos they tot the name MOMO was farnie.

so... there r french who calls themselves MOMO!!! it's a universal name like John and Jane!!! used in china, thailand, s'pore and now FRANCE!! waha!!! and dis momo was singing in the video of dis play. aiyoh... heng i wasn't told to do the part w the singing... ha!!

and oh... pardon my handwriting... we were supposed to listen to the video and note down the missing words...

and den, had csl visit today. nice. i'm bonding well w my kid raymond (junping was allocated to some other new volunteer) and the other kids who shared the table, justin and don. i was rather touched, cos justin literally made his kor kor shift table w him so dat he could b at the same table w me. wah...

and raymond is a clever kid. he'll do sth someday. =)

well, i guess the highlight of the day shd b on my interview for noc, after all, i spent so much time, effort and money on it. and a lot of ppl noe abt it, cos i was spotted in my formal wear at the SLP engin booth, and literally everywhere. aye... aniwaes, of cos the outcome wasn't satisfactory, which was y i din ANNOUNCE it rite from the start. ok... the interviewer told me dat she din want me for the 2nd rd le, cos she has ppl who haf better CAP and more resolve to go SV than me.

oh well... i'm used to rejections. *sore*

besides, i had other stuff to cheer me up thru out the day.

bygones.

2006-02-03T13:06:00.000-05:00

Spent (Almost) Another Day Rotting

it's really v hard to get my butt moving to take out the bks and study at home (i couldn't even bring the zeal to read the First Mag/Men's Health Mag i bot). juz turned on the newly bot (1 mth lah) speakers and practiced hard for P.S. waha...

new speakers

recorded my singing and then realized dat my skill has deproved A LOT. going out of key here and there. perhaps i shd start running liaoz...

and glowing in the dark...

aniwaes, at dis pt of time, penny's song is reverberating thru the drums of my speakers:

《怎样》

Bon Nouvel An Chinois!!!

2006-01-29T23:29:00.000-05:00

Bon Nouvel An Chinois!!!

1st day of the Chinese New Year, according to the lunar calendar.

as usual, stayed past midnite and den went online to rot for 2 hrs b4 i succumbed to the sleepy bug. woke up at 9+ in the morning to start 'making up' for the day.

all in all, my bai nian attire was not v glam, and only 3 pcs of stuff on me was worn for the 1st time: my shirt, my t-shirt inside & briefs!!! ha... managed to conjure sth dat looked casual and yet not dat informal.

bai nian procedures every year starts w a visit to 五台山 temple in clementi, opp ginza. it used to b in front of my old hse in bm, but when the m'sia ppl kicked up a big fuss dat land within 15m of the railway tracks belonged to them in addition to the railway, the temple relocated along w dozens of families who lived in the attap hses alongside the temple.

my dad was one of the 1st and loyal disciples of the Master (whom i called shi gong, Grand Master)of the temple, given his super pious nature. cos of dis, my family was a regular member of it. u see, during 大日子 when there wld b an expected increase in the no of prayers, my family will b activated to go down and help them pack the joss sticks and bundle them w the joss paper and 2 red candles, which will b 'sold' for $2 of 香油钱.

i remembered being on gd very terms w the Master's elder son (his bro only came into the world when i was abt 6 yrs old) who was 3 yrs my senior. we wld play and play in the temple. cos the temple was in v unique terrains (it being along the slope from my blk down to the railway tracks), we had fun time running up and down the slopes and stairs.

there was the big hall dat housed, among the thousands of idols, the massive buddha statue. it was poised on a big stand (dunno wat it was supposed to b called) and we will play catching in the hall, hiding behind the stand and shuttling across the hall from one rm to the next. we wld race across the courtyard dat hsed the water well towards the big training grounds of the temple's lion dance cum wushu team. the training grounds was itself on the ground lower than the main grounds of the temple, w two staircase leading from the gate. we wld climb, hang and jump from the platform to the ground below. we wld act out scenes from wushu films (dunno y we weren't tot wushu back den...) and play on the big trolley of the lion dance troupe.

there was a rambutan orchard behind the temple and i went there only once. we were not allowed to b alone there w/o the adults. aniwaes, the rambutans from there weren't nice as well. haha...

and the temple will hold dinners for the elderly in the area during 大日子. b4 dat, my father wld bring me along as he went to the hses of the elderly in blks 104, 105 & 106 to send them the invitation cards. y i bring dis up leh? i remembered very clearly on a day dat one elderly fell while crossing the 'hill' in front of my hse and cut his hand. he bled very badly and dat was the 1st time i saw blood oozing out of somebody in dat large amt. the ah pek was wailing and the helpers were scuttling abt to tend to him. as to wat happened to dat ah pek in the end, i dunno.

the shifting of the temple was a big event, cos of the aforementioned big statue. a crane was brot to spot amidst the endless rituals pertaining to the shift. there were so many followers dat a few buses were activated. while they shifted the buddha statue, i was enjoying the air-con of the bus w the son of one of the bus-drivers. if i'm not wrong, the bus drivers were followers of the temple too, rendering their service at a discount bah...

the temple had to shift when the new temple wasn't complete, cos the u-noe-who were forcing them hard to move. i guess the leaving of the old spot which it occupied for decades was ominous, cos the half-completed temple burned down once and a new statue had to b imported from china (tho the old statue was still standing despite being charred).

then the Master passed away (some yrs b4 my dad did. juz mths b4 he passed away, my dad was sayinh the Master was giving him the orders to join him) and the funeral was super elaborate, cos he had a lot of followers. i muz say i lost touch w the old fren i had in the temple after it moved, cos well, we lived far apart. and my increasing distaste for anything non-scientific made me want to dissociate myself from them. esp after my dad passed away, we only visited the temple twice a yr, during cny and guanyin's b'day in the 9th lunar mth.

i guess the passing of a glamorous era is inevitable for anything bah. as yrs pass by, we see less and less ppl offering incense. dis yr, i dun even see the loyal followers who spend their cny at the temple cooking stuff for other visitors. my mum was complaining dat my dad's greatest worry was dat we wld stop visiting the temple after he passed on. i guess, however, we will not b playing the active pt for stopping the annual visits...

on nel on way to bai nian...

after dat visit, it was off to my paternal grandma's hse. dis yr, everybody was present when we arrived. for athesmall hse of my grandma's, it was really diff to accomodate 40+ ppl. unfortunately, my grandma was long into senility to identify any of her granchildren.

my gramps was also another who moved often. from her ancient hse in silat avenue (the 4-storey hdb) to the hdb-hopping along jln bm, each moving was a family-wide event. we shifted the house thru sheer numbers. by each of us carrying as much as we could, we could finish moving in a day w/o employing external help (saves $$$).

typical... expression

in the past, when my maternal grandma lived in depot rd, we wld visit her as the 3rd and last stop. but she moved to tampines when her hse was demolished. after dat, we visit her on the 2nd day of cny. after she passed away, we went to her hse during cny when my aunt invites us, cos she will hafta prepare the dinner specially for us (tho it was her maids who did most of the job, haha...). rite now, the visit to her hse is undecided.

poser...

therefore, after my grandma's visit dis afternoon, we came home straight away.

ok... some xtra stuff. 1st, it was how my cousin (the one who was same age as me) grew fatter. haha... rem how i used to complain he was taller and slimmer than me? now he was juz a taller version of me. and den, it was amazing to see how much my younger cousins had grown into. we dun c each other often, much less interact. but they were mostly one rd of zodiac younger than us (there was a gap of a few yrs between the older and younger batches, me being the last of the older batch). and one of my cousins is pregnant. way to go! she was the 1st and only married one and now she's expecting. how impatient can she get?? and i heard dat she got to noe her hubby when she was doing social work in nus... hmmm... dun tell me she was a member of old csc??

hmmm...

okok... dat's all. cny is a time of repose, and thus, i shd b resting instead of blogging. waha... too bad. aniwaes, Happy Chinese New Year!!

CSC Day Pix

2006-01-19T05:42:00.000-05:00

CSC Day Pix

d/l some of the pix posted online. showing some to share for those who were not present. wun b saying much tho, juz plain enjoyment of pix and caption...

CSC Day OC name tags. i used to haf 2 hearts (as in the pic), but during the event, someone stole one from it...

and the ppl behind it...

the meeting b4 D-day... sorry if i looked slack...

the banner proclaiming gay pride, w the proclaimer w the 'V' sign... there's the openly gay purple elephant and the closet, straight-acting pink-nailed blue elephant who were our mascots. those little tortoises r doing exercises, and yes, they could b the elephants' descendants...

guozhang w his face covered, but not someone...

for the sake of jan... i d/l the pic of a fatherly figure...

for another sake of jan... i wasted my MBs for a elderly-respecting character...

hello? wat's bro-in-law doing beside someone?!?!

halfway thru the day, the banner dropped, tore and now it's seh-ngeh...

me caught eating snake at the reg booth... my rite is fellow HC-ian florence, den my councillor ic meitoon (or as mervyn pronounces, 美臀, Beautiful Buttocks), den lixian, and some ppl i dunno. waha!!!

lazing ard again as i waited for the finale when they were supposed to 'look' for me...

2006-01-10T22:25:00.000-05:00

Healing Scents

hehe... wrote dis some time during exams last sem and haven't put posted it. mite as well. lol

bot an aroma therapy set last fri from co-op. there were a number of 'XXX sets' on display, and i wanted to buy the yoga, stencils and tea sets, but decided on aroma therapy, cos i suppose the 'therapy' would b helpful in combating exams stress.

aroma therapy set (box)

it costs $36.50, btw. for an oil burner, an incense cone stand, 4 incense cones, 2 scented candles and 2 bottles of essential oils. and of cos, as the cover of the box stated v clearly, a 128-pg bk.

actually, i took the pix after i tried one of the incense cones, so the contents taken were not complete.

aroma therapy set

and as mentioned, i used one of the incense cones to try, cos frankly speaking, it was the 1st time i'd heard of incense cones. aniwaes, i chose one dat was presumably lavendar, gd for relaxtion and sleeping.

put the incense stand into the oil burner too, cos i tot the stand by itself looked rather bored. and the incense has to b shielded from ext elements like the wind.

oil burner

instead, the cone burned out rather quickly, sub-10 min, i'd say. the smoke it gave was... thick, and the smell (of chao tar lavendar) lingered for quite some time. i dunno if it was cos of wind or the incense was supposed to burn dat fast, cos tealight candles last for at least 4 hrs.

remains of an incense cone

and besides, i tink the cone was produced by mixing essential oils directly into the incense mixture bah, cos the remains were rather sticky, esp the stand, which was coated w a layer of caramel-like substance...

even pathetic remains of an incense cone

cleared up, took pix of the set, and went for an afternoon nap. hmmm... and i muz say the nap felt v fulfilling. actually dreamt of nice stuff, of me visiting an old dream place (ie. some unknown place i've dreamt of b4). and i explored the places i've neva explored in my prev dreams, a part of the woods. yup, and dreamt of gerald also. dunno y i've been dreaming of him lately (haf an entry on him...).

woke up feeling satisfied, tho i woke up cos the weather became too hot and uncomfortable for sleeping... guess i've really been sleeping badly for the whole sem when i felt as if i dun get enuf sleep everyday even tho i sleep for 9 hrs bah...

19 Nov 2005

2006-01-06T13:45:00.000-05:00

Self Pix (Spring Edition)

went to chap 2 as recommended by wei-gu. yep, cos the JB trip was postponed till sch reopens, and i dun wanna start sch looking bad, so i went to settle my hair on tue.

actually, i wanted to go shunji matsuo at tampines at 1st. but it was closed for the day and i had no choice but proceed to chap 2 at marina sq which i tot will b less crowded than it's bugis branch.

aniwaes, marina sq is still under reno, so it was rather empty. still, i had a hard time looking for the salon, cos the place was super big. hmmm... y din i realize it b4? spent 1/2 hr coursing thru the mall to look for it, so much so i was rather pissed off by the time i found it.

dat's it! ok... when i post dis pic on msn, i tot i looked like a dwarf w abnormally short hand... u noe, comical.

aniwaes, the place was really empty, save for the single customer, and i was greeted w frenly faces. the hairdresser was nice in suggesting the kind of haircut and asking for my opinion. frankly speaking, i wasn't sure wat i wanted. but i sure wanted a shorter haircut for better management. my mind was lingering at takeshi's recent haircut during his promotion for Perhaps Love. it was a plain haircut, but it looked super nice on him, cos, well, he was super suave.

meet takeshi, my twin

meet takeshi a la impersona. gosh! look at those mesmerizing eyes!!!

aniwaes, we still settled for a normal haircut. by normal, i mean a trendy haircut adopted by most guys. dat is: top is short enuf for spikes, layered sides and back. (frankly speaking, after the whole thing, i dun c any diff other than the fact dat my hair was shorter lol). she snipped and snipped while i glanced thru the FHM. sianz. FHM is a crappy mag. if i wanna see boobies, i can go online and i can see BARE boobies. and the texts were crappy. i guess guys whose main vocabs r BOOBS and CUNTS really devoted the whole of their fish-sized brains to those stuff, like the sick jacky tan who dropped me 100 (i wonder if he has contracted HIV yet for his promiscous lifestyle. or rather, his prostitute-every-bk-out lifestyle).

ok... enuf of cursing a sick person. i juz hope he dies from multiple STDs lol

DIE tonite!

and then, the colourist took over. she was helpful also, suggesting to me a wat kind of colours and design i shd go. juz in case the pix were not gd enuf, my sides r pale brown, while the rest of my head is cherry red, the colour i donned for my 1st yr in nus. and then i became v sleepy.

sianz...

slept late the nite b4 and woke up early for the hairstyling session. hmmm... add on the lousy editorials of FHM, i was fighting hard to keep awake...

go away, sleeping bug!!!

so... spent abt 45 min on the colouring. then went back and had final touches to the haircut. and the gal styled my hair to a v jap one. i muz haf looked the most jappy in the whole of my life then, cos i believed i can neva replicate the hairstyle by myself. aniwaes, she made me hair look so tall, i felt so awkward. it was loud and i looked v attn-grabbing.

thankfully, by the time i reached home, the mound had sorta settled (my hair is naturally heavy...) and i looked more normal. lol

aha! i look better looking! i feel great! i feel confident! duh!

and as usual, i went to ~~steal~~ borrow my sis camera and snapped to my heart's content. after all, dat was gonna b my most best looking time in recent days. tried many diff poses and backgrounds. okok... cos i had the air-con switched on, i still stayed in my rm, the fav spot by the window where the natural light from the sun was enuf to create a gd effect, ie. hides most defects on the face.

listen to me!!

sorry i din change my t-shirt, cos i was afraid i would spoil hair dat was specially set-to. haha... but i really tried to take pix in diff places of the rm... taking from diff angles...

hmmm... wat happened?? dat was my CEILING in the background. see? i used diff pts of my rm...

diff poses and showing different signs...

understand?!

and trying my best to act cool and seh...

hmmm... again

all in all, i took 147 pix in half an hr. din break my prev record of 90 in 10 min, but it was still a big collection. lol

of cos, finally, to sign off...

ciao!

2006-01-03T14:01:00.000-05:00

Nightmare At Bkt Tinggi

Date: 16 Dec 2005 - 18 Dec 2005
Venue: Singapore - Bt Tinggi, M'sia - Singapore

holiday trips r supposed to b fun. but w me running into a bout of bad luck, holiday trips become irritatingly disastrous. yes, it's not filled-w-A&E-incidents disastrous, but unhappily and rottenly disastrous. haiz...

aniwaes, started the trip on fri morn. my sis was so confident dat we could hail a cab off the main rd, dat we dun nid 2 call a cab. but in punggol? 6 in the morning? i dunno wat common sense means to gals. really.

aniwaes, off to golden mile complex (where else) and took off only at 7am, cos there were irritating ppl who dun like to wait for latecomers and scooted off to loiter ard. so, when the latecomers came, we find 2 missing. when the 2 returned, another 3 went off to buy magazines. haiz... i dunno wat common sense means to s'poreans.

and den spent 1 hr at s'pore customs. haiz... all the terrorism thingy has made s'pore customs VERY inefficient. really. we breezed thru the malaysian customs lor.

it was a long and tiring trip to bt tinggi. ever since the long flights to and fro NZ, i've quite a phobia of staying in a particular, constricted space for long periods of time. it was no fun and sleeping was an uncomfortable exp.

aniwaes, we reached the foot of genting to change to a 'taxi' to bt tinggi, cos the bus we took was actually heading off to genting, and bt tinggi was juz beside genting, on another hilltop, dat is. the taxi turned out to b a run-down minivan where we had to squeeze in w a family of indians and 2 PRCs. but well, it beats walking up to bt tinggi, yar?

aniwaes, it was den i realized we hadn't taken any photos yet. and since there was nothing nice to b taken, i juz did wat was natural:

on the van to bt tinggi

wat to do? when there is nothing more beautiful to spend the megabytes on?

okok... intro to bt tinggi. actually, there is only 1 resort in it, a french-themed resort called colmar tropicale, literally meaning a tropical ver of a french place called colmar. which explains how the place looked so french, esp w the cool weather up in the mountains. everything was donned w a french name, even the fried chicken fast food restaurant dat looked like some malay kopitiam.

aniwaes, we reached the place at abt 4pm, w the sun shining like... like... pardon my lack of vocab. yup, den my 3rd sis was like exclaiming: so sunny!!! not like genting!!

we shd understand dat we r responsible for every word we say... esp when it started to pour 2 hrs later...

entrance of colmar tropicale

the place, being the only resort there, was like a hotel split into a few blks alongside a single st (which was basically the whole world oredi...). aniwaes, we moved into the 6th blk, labelled w a beautifully vulgar name of a flower, Fuchsia.

the building name of where i lived: fuck-sia...

room

the next disaster came when we stepped into our rms. despite being spacious, it was really lok-kok, liddat of a chalet. the floor was disfigured by marks from moving furniture (and most prob luggage) and the windows were faulty. haiz... the rm had the stench of smoke, which was prob left over by some generations of guests b4. bunches of hair + dirt (i guess it's called dirtball...) could b seen swirling under the effect of the ceiling fan.

the last straw came when i saw the note on the table: due to some unforeseen circumstances, the water is murky. pls do not drink from it.

guess wat? we lived on mineral water for the next 3 days. the water was REALLY MURKY. haiz... worse than the hotel at fox glacier.

view out of window

below r some of the pix of Fuck-sia blk. i guess the arrangement of the other blk were abt the same, but their exterior definitely looked different for every blk.

courtyard up

courtyard down

we then took a walk ard. the walk took abt 1 hr. yesh... cos, well, the whole resort consists of only ONE st. it was like strolling thru the arcade of hotels. but i muz admit the replicas looked v nice and coupled w the increasingly cloudy, thus cooling weather, i really felt like i was in a real version of colmar.

chateau (replica also, ah budden) opp colmar tropicale

one thing i was amazed w was how they hid all the modern amenities in the resort. there was actually a whole lot of multi-storey carpark beneath the resort. i din c the rubbish dump aniwhere. nor was there a visible loading/unloading bay (perhaps it was in the bowels of the carpark bah...).

king zenov the kong terrorising Mini-Train Town. dunno y there was such an exhibit in the midst of the resort.

we climbed up a tower at one end of the st (which was basically the end end, cos the tower at the starting end, the reception, was the office blk) and took a look at the view. ha... cos we were still fresh from the trip, took a lot of photos juz at the tower.

atop a viewing tower, of cos, it's me me ME.

and then strolled outside the resort.

i'm practising for the latest expression circulating online: puppy-look, complete w big, cutesy puppy eyes... ermz... nid more practice of cos. now, i look like a bull-dog...

impressive... speechless... ME... taken near the entrance.

st of colmar tropicale. really like fairytale...

after 1 hr, we settled at a classy-looking-but-actually-not-so-ex restaurant for dinner, during which it poured and washed the spider out. and yesh, it rained straight for the next 36 hrs we were at the resort.

nite view of viewing tower

perhaps it was due to altitude sickness, my mum and sisses prepared for bed at 8pm. so i went out alone to roam the st and see wat it was like at nite, w the x'mas decor and such. it was ok. the st was rather busy, w kids in the arcade and ppl chilling out in the restaurants. lounges and bakery. hmmm...

roof of building

had a cup of hot milo (cos it was getting chilly) and a choco cake at the bakery. yup, cos i realized dat i hadn't had a single slice of cake for my b'day, so decided to treat myself to one and say Happy Birthday to myself. too bad there were no candles. but even if there were, i wun b dat siao on to do dat in the middle of the st. ha... come to tink of it, quite nice to b celebrating my own b'day at a romantic-looking place liddat.

st view

next morn, went to the japanese garden on another hilltop. it was pouring, and for the 1st time in my recent life history, i shoved and chiong like a typical s'porean to squeeze onto the shuttle. haiz... too many ppl liaoz. and dun wanna us to get split up. i felt so miserable and low class. wondered y i lowered myself to dat level. but too bad, i did it, and it is a mark in my life. haiz...

japanese village

the village itself was built into a hillside. ie, there was a lot of climbing moving from one place to another. and basically, cos most of the facilities r for ppl staying there, we could only see, but not enjoy (like the spa...).

teahse

outside of restaurant. yup, was a bit turned off by the perpetual rain.

outside of the botanical garden... it is now dat i realize how small the umbrella really was...

the botanic garden was scary also. it was hill-climbing. went in and down... and had to climb 10-storey of height to get out. but it wasn't as if one shot climb all lah. but there was a part we had to climb abt 5 storeys straight. wow... i go holiday trip to work out...

in the restaurant, waiting for the rain to stop... or become lighter

viewing pavillion in botanic garden. so shag, i din realize my necklace was out of place...

still in botanic garden

caterpillar... 1st time i saw one dat big... and hairy

tired out...

me and storm lily. yep... white as lily, out of a storm. whoa!! dat's ME!!!

acting cute. guess wat, i imitated the expression from jay chou in Zhi Yong Dian Li Xue Xiao

misty facade

returned to colmar tropicale at abt 2. as usual, squeezed onto the shuttle. cos the shuttle was like a giant golf cart, and we were going downhill (jap village was 1000 feet higher), the trip was really scary, esp when negotiating the bends.

from italian restaurant, La Flamme

aniwaes, had lunch at a pasta restaurant, and then hopped on to the french bakery for afternoon tea. yesh... there was no place else to go, and nothing to spend our money on... so we went restaurant-hopping. haiz... hopelessly bored out...

afternoon tea at french boulangerie

after dat, bot some bangles w our names (like we can't do it in s'pore liddat) and we went up to our rm to wait for dinner time, at the same restaurant we had dinner the prev day. and then, strolled along the st in the evening bathed in the orange glow of the x'mas decor. ok... romantic, if i were there w a special someone. definitely not romantic to b w families. duh!

st of colmar tropicale

misty morning

next morning, the whole place was immersed in a misty ambience. some cloud muz haf passed by, cos the phenomena went off after we had our breakfast. we then strolled around the perimeters of the resort, ie, not the st. looked at the resort from diff angles, which we din c in the prev days.

beside the pool

and then it was checking out. haiz... then the sun came out, shining as brightly as the hr when we checked in. nevermind, it's minor compared to the disaster coming.

tower from the back

it seemed as tho we boarded the wrong bus. well, the travel agency actually sent out 2 vehicles to pick up 2 diff gps. but we, seeing it was our agency, juz boarded the bus. so, there was quite a delay as the driver tried to sort out w the parent company.

view of my rm from outside

and then the driver threw us at a shop in kl to wait for another bus to take us back to s'pore. we spent 2 bloody hrs waiting for the bus. as the shop was somewat a resting pt, all buses came to dump their passengers for shopping. ie, we breathed in the exhausts of more than two dozen buses. and well, there were 3 families waiting. when our assigned bus came, it could only take in one of the families. so the other 2 had to wait 1st.

we went on the 1st, but it dragged and dragged until we were the last family to leave the place. shucks! we were dropped off at a pathetic place for dinner. it was plain dirty and chaotic. haiz... the holidaying s'poreans... dunno how to behave.

aniwaes, the bus we sat in was a double decker, and we sat at the lower deck w only 7 seats. so the 3 seats in front of us sat 3 XXL ppl. a couple and their (adult) son. they juz ate and ate for the 7 hrs we were on the bus. and when they slept, they created such a din. a cacophony of snores. arggghhh... i actually resolved to slim down, cos i dun wanna b like them.

and then, we were stuck at the s'pore customs (again) for 2 hrs. so boring. we even finished the french premiered Narnia movie. aw man... and started the 1st hr of King Kong. too bad i din get to see KK make his appearance. but well, i'm not interested in shows w ah-meng as the lead.

and then, of cos, it's home... finally... a miserable holiday trip...

from the back

link to the whole lot of photos

in addition, an old series of photos taken on the trip to Adelaide, Australia after 'O'-Levels

2005-12-28T09:20:00.000-05:00

快乐的大房子

wat's an album i've listened to w/o having some comments on it? hmmm... ~~borrowed~~ reviewed 2 albums from wei-gu: z chen's 《快乐》 & stef sun's 《完美的一天》 b4 the exams period & had been listening to them now and then.

yup, cos they weren't as attractive as the prev albums i owned. bleah.

not really lah.

okok... i muz say z chen is not my type. even tho the album was basically a 口水 album, ie the songs were other popular songs, i muz say dat his taste really deviates from mine. or perhaps the music arrangement is far from my type (cos i've neva heard most of the songs in their original form to conclude firmly).

Kuai Le ~ Z Chen

u see, the only original song, 《快乐》 was the only song dat attracted me and incidentally, ranks high in my hierarchy of song preference. another song 《放你的真心在我的手心》 also sound gd, esp the choral pt. 《担心》 was gd only cos i liked the original song enuf to keep up w the new version.

the other songs juz lull me to sleep.

i mean, isn't R&B like jay chou, w middle-to-fast tempo? or for slow ballads, the melody will b captivating enuf for a listener to stay alive? i dunno much abt R&B, and perhaps z chen was using another music genre in the album. still, it sux.

wat abt stef? it's a happy album, generally, or so my impression tells me. i prefer her mid-to-fast tempo songs, cos the slower ballads also tend to b boring. not like 《我的爱》 which was charming enuf to capture my heart.

Wan Mei De Yi Tian ~ Sun Yanzi

the only impressionable ballad was 《隐形人》, of which it was stef's expression dat took my attn. she was gd in dat song, as gd as 《同类》. yup, but i still haven't given enuf attn to it to figure out the contents of the song.

my 3 favs of the album will b 《完美的一天》、《第一天》 & "Honey Honey". superb!

《完美的一天》 can b said to b quite 随性. truly. i like its laid back feel. u noe, totally expressing the emotions of a day-dreamer (like me). not mentioning the lyrics, the melody and arrangements itself brings me to another realm, the realm of daydreams where reality and fantasy merge.

as usual, critrics critic 《第一天》 to b substandard (my fav songs r always deemed substandard lol). they said it sound like rojak rather than of distinctive flavour of MayDay or FIR. i mean, hello, it's supposed to b the mix of the 2 bands! somehow, i feel MayDay more than FIR, in the line of 《终结孤单》. the song was totally ecstasized and a gd prozac for the depressed minds. i haf decided to play the song out loud on the day when i graduate and start living in US. yes!!! First Day! Today! Everyday!

"Honey Honey" is a very attractive song. like cyndi's "Honey", the song is sweet, but in another dimension. the former is aggressively sweet, while stef sounded passively sweet. the music arrangement is nice, and lifts spirits moderately (in comparison to First Day)... yep, i'd like my gal to be passively sweet. hmmm... *slurp*

if i hafta make any conclusion or recommendation, buy stef's album, dun buy z chen. lol

2005-12-26T12:25:00.000-05:00

Springcleaning On X'mas For CNY

the prob w having CNY so early in the calendar yr is dat precious holiday period hafta b slotted for the annual springcleaning. kaoz... springcleaning is ok if i haf been cleaning my rm freq, but when i haf a yr of sedimentary materials to clear, ermz... well, it's super turn-off.

and wat w a gigantic cockroach making its grand appearance the nite b4... i was half expecting to c a nest of nymphs and eggcases as i cleaned.

i thank santa for not giving them to me as a gift, cos i haf been very bad dis yr.

so, i started cleaning from the windows, to my table, to my bed, then to the door.

and pt1 of the cleaning, on x'mas eve, ended w me going off for an overnight mahjong at hf's hse. and well, dat is another story.

day 2, x'mas day, i came home and slept for 2 hrs, cos i was awakened by the delivery man from ikea asking to deliver the gds earlier.

yes, u've heard me rite. i had new furniture from ikea which i ordered last thurs.

i had a trolley for the dining table, cos i found dat too many stuff was piled onto it and marred the beauty of the glass table. a trolley to put away the sauces/pepper bottles, tupperware and such will clear the prob (for at least 1/2 a yr, b4 new immigrants find their way to the table...)

songa trolley, $19.00. and hey! my roach bait in the foreground

after tackling the easiest job, i moved on to the new bedside table meant for the small 14-inch TV in my mum's rm. it was a bit more tricky, w screws, rivets and castors. i was half afraid dat something will go out of the way and spoil the exterior of the furniture the way a nail pierced thru my CD-tower some yrs back.

thankfully, it went juz as well.

new bedside table

lastly, the major proj. the new shelf for MY rm. yes... it's like handling urban sprawl. when landed property becomes ugly w squatters, it's time for high-rise tenements, hence my 5-storey shelf to accomodate the present residents (and factoring out the possibility of new immigrants, again).

the 1st new resident is of cos my little-used organ. hoping dat w dis new, user-frenly location, i'd b able to pick up some finger-exercise in the new sem. lol

the setting up of this behemoth turned out to b VERY tricky. and 1 fine advice i gif will b dat for bigger, more complicated furniture, PLS READ THE MANUAL. neva b like me. cos it's v frustrating to haf to screw out the nails again and again due to lack of knowledge. esp when the nails is some 2m above floor level.

somehow, i suppose i was doing mankind a gd deed when i din go study archi.

but i do eventually set it up (ah-budden??) and celebrated the entrance of the new member of my rm. indeed, it shd treasure such moments, cos in the near, near future, a new speaker system will replace its position as a newbie. yay!!!

ironically, the speakers will reside on the shelf. lol

shelf from far...

2005-12-14T00:03:00.000-05:00

十七岁的天空

i'm not supposed to declare dis, but the DVD came in my post last thurs.

Formula 17: the swimming pool, ultimate fantasy spot

u noe, cos dis show is freaking banned in s'pore, i am so afraid dat some smart ass will dial 999 to report me if he reads abt my possession of the abovementioned.

so now, i declare dat the above info was a JOKE. i hold no such contraband. pls dun pao toh me. pls dun arrest me.

aniwaes, the show was so freakingly cheesy dat it was at the same time freakingly amusing to watch. dunno whether stereotype or wat, but gays haf always been portrayed as super drama queens, as proven in the show.

when alarmed, they muz scream in falsetto, two arms raised and chest wiggling.

but dat's wat the 2 gay frens i knew in army acted like too. guess they haf taken dat up as a form of identity.

expectedly, the protoganists r actually straight-looking guys whose only gay axns were the sex scenes w each other.

leads: duncan and yang tian you

i mean, come on lah. no wonder the show was a hit among the AJs. the ultimate object of desire was a hunky (or at least proportionate), handsome, straight man for them. the 2 leads were literally a dream come true, if it was ever true at all.

and of cos, one of them has to b a virgin.

小天

and his 1st love is the charming, oh-so-popular-but-dangerous playboy.

bai tie nan

whoa... dis dream is becoming too gd to b true.

well, if the 3 supporting actors who acted as 小天's 破身特功队 were straight in their real lives, i muz say they did an amazing job to act like gays. i mean, it wasn't juz like 谢韶光 acting sissy in Holland V, but rather, drama queens w real affections for other men, gays would ogle at guys the way straight guys ogle at chio bu. the char-moulding had been gd as well.

破身特攻队

one was the pint-sized '0'-type who looked so blur w his slit eyes and 'o'-shaped mouth (literally stayed dat way thru out the show), but actually can't b stepped on. one is a macho mary, whom, w/o knowing him in person, u will neva expect him to b gay. another one was the outward social animal who literally wears the whole fashion boutique (and make-up box) on himself.

so vivid, so farnie.

and not to mention the tag in the trailer:

10位青春偶像联合打造

frankly speaking, all of them looked above ave if not awesome (most of whom had cameos were models). the only female-object i saw was a saleswoman in a boutique, which was in the background of a street scene.

so there was the 台湾水电工 (it was a tw joke, some tw male pornstar shot to fame w his debut as a 水电工), and 半兽人. and of cos, the seemingly obstacle betw the two male leads' love: 俊.

白铁男 and 俊 kiss

btw, story goes dat the last virgin in tw goes to city in sch hols to mit his net-fren, 半兽人 whose aim was to go to bed w him. 小天 puts up in gd fren 小宇's hse, who showed him ard. when noeing dat 小天 was still a virgin, he ganged up w his buddies to help him 破身. in comes 白铁男 whom 小天 falls head over heals for. they finally 嘿咻~嘿咻, and in the next morning, 白铁男 who suffers from phobia of falling in love scoots away and asked 俊 to explain to 小天 on his behalf. misunderstandings developed and they finally got together when 白铁男 overcame his phobia.

simple story, cheesy, but easy to digest.

the way they tell the story was gd too. i tot at 1st dat telling the pt of 小宇 falling out of love was redundant. but it helped later in the show to keep it in a fast pace when the same fate befalls on 小天. by using the same technique of 3 frens accompanying by his side trying to distract him from his sadness, the presentation was crisp, easily understandable and 前后呼应, sth (i dunno for e lit) impt in c lit terms.

gd frens, loyal frens

and there's the hilarious gong gor (tell story) pts. in order for the film not to lose pace, they tell 'histories' by having one of the char telling the story as a fly-on-the-wall. lights dimmed and the story unfolds in a black rm. the storyteller will 'float abt' as if he was a transition of the scenes. add in the bohemian, tribal music and everything was stupidly farnie.

come on, watching farnie shows was to laugh at farnie scenes and 4get abt logic and reality. reality isn't farnie, which was y we watch movies and drama serials.

bishonen has it, lan yu has it, surely f17 muz haf its 'bathroom scene' too

all in all, the show shd not b taken into too serious a context. after all, it depicts a dream world for all gays (a gay-majority society?? come on...) and will remain a dream for some time to come. wat's to take note of is the fact dat gays r like normal ppl, who can love and care for frens and families, definitely not the kind of monster as seen by gay-bashers. they r, after all, humans.

13 October 2005

My Current Wallpaper

2005-12-01T09:25:00.000-05:00

Lake Tekapo, NZ

South Island, NZ

South Island, NZ

Arrowtown, NZ

Homer's Tunnel, towards Milford Sound

South Island, New Zealand, on the way back from Milford Sound

South Island, New Zealand

2005-11-29T14:52:00.000-05:00

Introducing A New Member: Ah Mouse II

yep, like i'd said, my old lapmate mouse dat came along w my lifebk last yr, died on me. even tho it lasted longer than the lifebk, the cost of reviving it will not justify for a new one. yep... unlike the lifebk.

new zero mouse

as usual, i spent more than the usual bucks dat normal ppl will pay for a mouse. 1st, it's optical. 2nd, it has a retractable cord. 3rdly, it is mini (smaller than my oredi smaller than usual lapmate) it has an SD card slot. all for $29.90.

the SD card slot was gd for me, cos my lifebk has no holes wat-so-eva other than for wires. bot home and realized dat the memory stick of my sis's cam do not fit (wat's the diff betw sd card and memory stick aniwaes?). however, having one is better than having none, rite? all for less than $30.

an observant reader shd haf noticed dat my mouse is called 'zero'. hmmm...

zero mouse logo

it could b rather 牵强 to try link it to my name, tho there's only a diff of 3 strokes. but aniwaes, as from the logo above, it really looked like it's juz short of a 'v', yar? some more, like my name, it's all SMALL caps.

yep, note to mention to frens. my name is ALL SMALL CAPS, w the two dots above the 'o'. the key seq for pc is alt+0246. if ur system is like my lifebk, can't use the key seq, i dun blame u for missing out the 2 dots. but if u're writing it w p&p, PLS DO MAKE AN EFFORT TO RESPECT MY NAME. thanx. =)

ok... time to say gdbye...

RIP: in loving rememberance of lapmate

one last look at the harmonious balance betw my new zero mouse and my lifebk...

new mouse and lifebk

17 Nov 2005

2005-10-19T03:34:00.000-04:00

The Big (JB) Walk -- Post-Outing Review

after meeting peipei on sun afternoon to get the photos we took, decided i can tok abt the trip while sharing the photos. of cos, some pix (of mine) which were not dat gracious-looking was omitted in the upload to imagestation.

photos here

ok... muz proceed w the minute details, such as meeting at bugis mrt station at 9am, and setting off at 10.15am, cos some ppl late... cos we went early, the customs were rather unpacked.

funnily, it poured the minute we stepped foot onto the malaysian customs. so much so, we couldn't walk to city sq, our 1st destination. wanted to take cab, but the cabbies were taking advantage of the situation and asking for exorbitant prices.

so we decided to pay more, but to a further place, ie, holiday plaza.

it was a quaint and lonely place, perhaps we came too early, and it was raining. the crowd did pick up later in the afternoon, but not too much. dis place is a bit too unhappening, except for the hairdressing and foot massage.

yup, larissa's bf went for hairdressing session and changed his hairstyle. for RM$117, he cut and dyed his hair and came out looking decent (different). decided i'll go there dis dec for a haircut too.

and while waiting for ervine to haf his haircut, we shopped and shopped till we felt we shd gif our legs a treat and had foot massage...

foot massage; larissa was dying from the pain...

the shi fus were more ~~brutal~~ skillful den the ones in compasspt, but having felt the pain, the service felt more worth it too.

den we took cab back to city sq. cos we had 7 ppl, we split into 2 cabs. peipei (pear pear) and xueli (pear) took one w me. and we had fun taking photos in the cab...

too much happy tree friends...

and while waiting for the others to arrive at city sq, we took even more photos... haha..

acting cool, but there muz b ONE spoiler... she has a perpetual smile in front of the camera

city sq was more happening, partly cos it's more s'pore-mall like, ie, ex. however, w the greater variety, the shopping experience felt more thrilling too, tho i ended up window shopping. cos, well, too much to shop and too little time to try on clothes and stuff liddat. decided to go back someday and devote a whole day shopping there. lol

farnie faces. note: dis is self-pic

met up at 5.30pm and set off for dinner at taman sentosa, as quoted by pear. unfortunately, 'taman sentosa' meant a region, so the 2 cabs actually ended up in 2 different places.

food hunting...

even MORE UNFORTUNATELY, we were on the wrong side of 'taman sentosa', as we found out later. spent 1.5 hrs searching for our planned eating place.

up and down dis rd...

at 1st, we tot we would find the place ard where we alighted, cos after all, the cabbies brot us there.

we came from somewhere beyond there, 'shell petrol station'

after plying the length of the st 2 times, kf asked a 7-11 asst who directed us to a shell petrol (as a landmark) station on the other end of the rd.

end up the place wasn't wat we were looking for and we asked the uncle in the petrol station, who told us we had to go even further down.

to here, where we crossed the busy rd...

we did, and was in the rite direction, if it wasn't for a big lang-gao. had to retrace our steps and cross the lang-gao where it appeared... AND the highway-like rd.

after crossing the rd... amazingly, larissa still looked so vibrant when all of us were half-dead from the walk... or perhaps, she is too sensitive to the camera...

we reached the place finally. but cos we were too tired, we decided to go into the air-con restaurant juz off the rd instead of going into the hawker centre. the restaurant was called New Lucky Restaurant.

milked the last of energies b4 dinner to pose for (and SMILE) dis photo... the oil on our faces were enuf to prepare our meal bah...

actually, it felt like crossing the causeway and walking 6km to eat zhee-char. but well, it felt worth it. besides, the walking made up for the guilt of eating such a sumptuous meal.

eyeing the food...

had chilli crab, sliced fish w veg (which they charged us as veg... shd haf ordered crab w veg), buttered prawn, prawn-paste chicken and tepan-beancurd.

went home after dinner, where we walked across the causeway. it was a rather harrowing experience, cos the trucks and cars were whizzing by at a speed higher than the speed limit on s'pore highways. and the pedesstrian walkway was rather narrow.

after dat, of cos, was home sweet home. =)

at the causeway... my face was too oily and hair too orh-biang to b viewed. 'victor' looks much better than me...

*post entry note: it wasn't dat i was too narcissistic to pose for so many photos or onli posted pix w me... cos it's not dat gd to post pix of others w/o their permission mah. like yuqin, who shun the camera cos she was afraid she would appear in my blog. lol

2005-10-05T13:49:00.000-04:00

Let's Learn A New Word

yesh, watched 《桃色蛋白质》 and learned a new word:

~*~*~*~ 圣棱线 ~*~*~*~

aniwaes, for ppl who haf no idea wat it was, here's something to relate to...

sample 1

yep, it has got to do w mountains. to b exact, it is the line dat defines the mountain range and the sky. ie:

The Line

yes, the black line.

i was impressed. the line dat took my breath away on dat morning in Queenstown HAS A NAME! and it was a holy-sounding, spirit-lifting name called:

~*~*~*~ 圣棱线 ~*~*~*~

whoa...

aniwaes, the show interviewed the actors of the drama show called 《圣棱的星光》 which was a show filmed in taiwan's 雪霸公园. the actors included yang you ning and the son of zhang fei.

yang you ning kissing a statue... wahaha...

ok... a decent pic... for those who dunno who yyn is...

2005-10-02T19:48:00.000-04:00

Self Pix, Yet Again

such behaviour can become super compulsive. so much so i've started photoshopping my pix and make myself appear on the cover of magazines...

me... wahaha

time for medicine... when did my eight-packs reduce to six??