Highway Dangers

Must take note of the following two highways, the road hazards are simply horrible:
1) Kesas highway
2) that highway leading to Putrajaya/Cyberjaya
Travelling on either highway has a 50% chance of inducing road fatigue/sleepiness, 70% if tired in any way. Travelling on both highways has a 100% chance of causing mental and physical fatigue and highway dreaming. Get a caffeine fix before attempting such journey especially just after lunch.

So Long, Farewell

Our last day at work started off with a bear invading my poisons cabinet. The fact that it was holding a box of Postinor didn't suggest anything good. I'd to tell my boss, "It doesn't work for me one la, take oso period neva come one."

Quite the paiseh really, because it wasn't only a bear-and-tie but there were assorted others from the rest of the staff as well. Touched touched. One of them even gave me a suspicious wooden box. Now when you ever get a wooden box for a present, it's always prudent to hold it away from your face (preferably in front of someone else's if to entertain others) and wonder what kind of bug is inside. In my case I got one with a rat and it was the supervisor who screamed. Heh.

The challenge, of course, was to take everything back (lesse now, my license, various personal effects, the prezzies) in a crowded train.

Quick rants

My com is down again. It starts, it runs a memcheck, and nil after that. I'm too lazy to check it out until Sat and I am getting seriously addicted to being online. I can't blog much 'cos I can't upload my photos onto my laptop, so things are being set back. I haven't gotten to the point of uploading my pictures and blogging at work yet.

Speaking of work, hoorah I'm a retail monkey no more. Back to a 9-to-5 jobbo. And am going to avoid talking about work on blog.

Last Tuesday my store gave me a farewell goody bag. Want to upload pics first before we get there.

Been down to Settlers for my meals. We found taste orgasm in their footlong sausage - 2 footlongs, potato wedges and buttered veggies. Heaven. Played Disx while eating. And their carbonara beats the bolognaise.

Tomorrow's Sat. Shall have to Bodypump my pc to Low Yat or summat if I can't get it to run T_T

Settling in at Settlers

So Sunday me 'n Paul have planned to spend the day at Settler's Cafe, whatwith it being RM5 for the entire day there ought to be a good crowd. Warned Paul to gimme a call when he's ready should I sleep the afternoon away. Anyways, was forced up at 1pm becos' me phone was hidden in a pocket somewhere in my room and Chiyo was singing away annoucing the arrivals of SMSes. So in the end got up, prepped up and headed of to pick Paul up and make our way to Settlers for some lunch. Speghetti carbonara. Good. Very good and generous.

We'd set up our iPod and speakers (love you guys it's a great prezzie) in the store and started playing battle music from Final Fantasy, One Winged Angel, music from Heroes all this while while playing our games. Of course, we didn't realise that the music we've been playing was of a particular genre until Zach yelled, "Do you have anything else except game music in here?"

Which leads to the first game of the day. Risk Godstorm. Yes yes Ivan already has this game but we've yet to try it out. Not too big a Risk fan as am not so bloodlusty nor warmongering, but enough so to try the game. As it is, this Risk variant is based on deific mythology (which is always flavourful and interesting) from Norse, Egypt, Greece, Babylon and the Celts. So asides from just armies conquering lands and continents you also have gods running wild.


God of Death not scary? How about being butted by a war elephant?

When we first started setting up we were told the game ends after 5 turns. "Most people think five turns is too short, but you wait and see la." Hmmm. Okay. Set up armies, let my people's faith bring forth Hades, and send the god storming all over Asia Minor preventing enemies from reaching their version of heaven. Muahaha. However, it seems even Hades is afraid of plagued lands and it took a brave soldier to set foot into that territory to smite the enemy. Hmmm.

By turn 3 one fellow was feeling war weariness already while we controlled Asia Minor, another Atlantis and the fight for Germania was waging on between Egypt and the Celts (surely you can guess which civilization I was?). However, us Greeks couldn't help but notice that heaven was being overcrowded by the Egyptians, Babylonians and Norse, and thus had to secure our own altar back into the world. Of course it was somewhere around this time when we found out we were playing the rules wrong, as we've been getting Miracle cards regardless of whether the deity of said Miracle card was in play or not. Nevermind. Play as is. In the end at Turn 5 (phew!) the Greeks held out! All praise!

Next up, while waiting for free kaki three of us decided to Settle at Catan. No Cities, no Knights, just plain ole Catan. The Settlers? The Greeks, the Norse and the Babylonians from Godstorm. It was here where we came up with the 3-Player Theory for SoC: in a 3-player game, one player will definitely suffer badly and not progress much in the game. This time it happened to me for the first time.

After that there was a table setting up Niagara. Having read Hengky's review we'd thought we'll give the game a go, and it was a nice full 5 players paddling up and down the river getting jewels. Being the erratic player that we are, we'd like to call about foul weather to speed up the river currents to send boats over the waterfall. Playing 2 games in all, we won the first through collecting jewels while for the second one we learn that it isn't easy to steal jewels as we like to. Good simple fun to rest the brain though, this game.

...hmmm, it's true what Paul said. Methinks we did 6 games at Settler's but only remember 5...

Could it be Nanaca Crash that made our sixth game? Maybe...

Just before leaving Settler's for dinner (with kind invitation from Paul) we saw Zach being trashed at Blokus by a bf-gf team. Must be wary when playing 4 player games against a couple when you and your friend decided to be honorable and not gang up. While at Pauls, he intro'ed me to Guillotine. Guillotine be a simple card game where nobles of various points are lined up before a guillotine, and each player chops the head off a noble and collect points. After 3 rounds the player with the most points win. Of course, there'll be action cards to shift the order of the nobles in line, add points, deduct points, take 2 nobles at once etc. Simple fast game.


Back from dinner, Gary intro'd Dvonn. Goodness, it turns out to be another braindraining game. You could say it's made for analysis paralysis peeps who enjoy killing people at chess or checkers. It's a simple enough game where you place the Dvonn pieces, stack them about by jumping on other pieces and aim to make the largest stack with your colour on the top. Sounds simple? It was, until Zach played and literally wiped out more than half the pieces on the board by cutting of their connection with the red Dvonn pieces. I was so drained that I lost to him in 7 turns while Paul managed 14 turns.


Last game of the night was Thurn and Taxis. Objective, make mail routes, establish postal stations and earn points. The map was separated into different coloured territories where points were earned if you had a station in all the cities in said territory. Points were also earned if you made longer routes of 5 cities or more, or if you had a station in every territory etc etc. The thing here: the game uses a diminishing point system! Must focus and plan strategy! Not good for erratic players like us as we get distracted quickly.

We never really got to finish the game too...at 10.30pm the rest of the gang joined us to drag us out for DotA.

Three Blind Mice

One of the more full weekends. Friday we did Super Ex-Girlfriend, which puts a whole new meaning to the term, 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'

Saturday now, was kicked out of bed early on as mum had a repairman brought in to have a look at my a/c. Blah, had already spend most of Fri nite up (re)playing Mario & Luigi Partners in Time and now had to be up at 9am. Feels pretty much like a Sunday instead. Friend sez that Times warehouse sale isn't so good this time so I decided to give it a miss instead.

Come evening we started making our way down to Subang for dinner and The Mousetrap play, put on by the Taylor's College Society of Performing Arts. We had our reservations...it's by students (lets not hold that against them), will they put on a Britishfied accent or attempt at just clear IELTS English or make a Manglishfied version of it? Dinner was at this Taiwan restaurant just opposite Taylors. Food wasn't bad, and service was fast. Could go there again if ever we drop by Taylors.

The Mousetrap? I plead guilty to the fact that I kept comparing it to the one I'd saw at St Martin's theatre. Asides from the fact that the fellow playing Christopher Wren had a voice that was painful on the ears and another playing Mr Paravacini seemed more like a Italian Indian (having excessive bounce and flair) the whole play was absolutely good. Everyone did their characters rather well, no one stumbled save Sgt. Trotter accidently flinging his pen cap and acting was tops.

Only complaint would be the fact that the play was done with a British accent. Most of the time it's clear enough to be comprehended but there were instances when we couldn't really make out what was being said. Small matter tho', I think I'd have ranted if it was done otherwise. As the money was going to be donated to Rumah WAKE and tickets were only RM10, it was definitely money well spent.

After the play dropped by Settler's Cafe to recruit C&C Generals kaki. Was then that we found out that Sunday was gonna be RM5 for the entire day. Goody. Generals was played with some of the Settler's Cafe staff and their mates - GLA vs the world! Overwhelming, the amount of GLA forces stampeding the map...fun fun fun.

Dread intergorrations

The godparents are down for another visit among other purposes, and tonight mum made sure I attended dinner together rather than running off to the gym (thank goodness the Bollywood sessions are over!). Came back home, got into dad's car and promptly fell asleep thus making the dinner destination a complete surprise.

Dozing but aware enough to realise that drive seems pret-ty long.

We've stopped. Looks a bit like San Francisco Steak House from slit-eye view. But that's prolly 'cause Lemon has been making me think of the place lately.

Got out of the car to realise that we're in Port Klang Sea & Sky. Ooo. Dad's ordered crab porridge (delish), steamed (mantis?) prawns and squid. Heaven. And dad brought a bottle of pinot (no idea what vineyard it's from didn't bothered) that we'd chilled while waiting for our food...dinner was good.

Mum and godma exchanged stories and meetings with old nursing friends, dad and godpa talked about old friends, and there's also the crossover dialogues between all four regarding other mutual friends, and a sudden dreaded moment when godpa went, "I got a niece, also a pharmacist working in Singapore. Maybe I should introduce you to her."

Me: *Immediate hunched hunted position*
Dad: *laughs* How do you know he hasn't already got one yet?
Me: *mumbles* got no time la...
Godpa: Har? Part-time?
Mum: What? Got such thing as part-time girlfriend one ar?
Me: No...got no time...
Godpa: Oh, I heard part-time...you very soft-spoken ha boy.

And the topic changed unto that of old age and onwards. Phew. I don't need this.

Honk honk

Why can't Malaysian cars have more creative car horns? I'd like mine to go "Oi! Move la!" when some sakai weaves undecidedly in the middle of two carraigeways or dreams at a green light for ten seconds, and "Sakai driver!" when a bugger think his/her grandfather owns the road.

Was at Settlers again tonight, but unfortunately no crowd on Fri nite. Kamal wanted to do World Of Warcraft, which I was initially interested as have not played or seen the mechanics yet. After 2 hours into the game we were only on turn 13 with both teams having really no direction on what to do, plus feeling mentally lethargic already. So we just closed the game up, called out "GG, GG," and decided to go for something lighter.

Out came House on Haunted Hill (wheee). Four players, so the traitor may have a good chance of taking the game (based on personal experience as all our previous games had 5-6 players) if we'd a good haunting.
...
Frankenstein killed us all while he was on the verge of burning.

And it's now 2.30am. Meh. "GG. GG."

Sixty-nine

I've started picking up Men's Health of late. Flipping through September's issue, there's quite a good number of mouth-watering pictures. Some of them really got me drooling so had to make sure I wasn't in somewhere public when doing so. And the pictures are really everywhere, small shots, big close-ups, tempting presentations...the mind keeps flashing scenes even when not reading it.

The articles themselves were also quite informative. And the writers do keep mentioning about it. Most of the articles do. Like this issue, the writer sez: forget the old three times a day, do it SIX times a day! Read this article at page 70!

Excerpt:

Old diets
Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Abs diet
Eat six times a day.

...

How to do it: Eath three standard meals and three smaller snacks. For example:
8am - Breakfast
11am - Snack
1pm - Lunch
4pm - Snack
6pm - Dinner
9pm - Snack

Right. So have to customize it to our own schedule. No wonder I'm still starved. Must eat more! So lesse, our current eating habits:
11am - Breakfast
4pm - Lunch
10pm - Dinner
2am - Supper

We'll have to work on that. Must consider that our lunch is also not so healthy one, half the time it's fast food (whatwith having as neighbours the Golden Arches and BK and KFC a short stroll away) otherwise it's beef ball noodles, Subway sandwiches or heading down to KLCC for...McD's, BK, KFC or the food court. And if I'm feeling lazy, it's the combo meal of Bubur McD's followed by Maggi Mee made in the same bowl as the porridge once I'm done - Maggi Mee MSG.

To quote my sister, "One day don't eat meat can die one." Hear hear!

So if there wasn't any meat dishes during dinner, it's time to say hello to the Ramlee burger man outside 7-E. Otherwise junk food or instant noodles will do.

So we've been skipping meals! Aahhh! Need to feed!

Note to self: Cereal + soy milk + pineapples + plums = blech. Either plums not sweet enough, or should swap soy for skim, or dump cereal/milk and go yoghurt. I think yoghurt next time. Waitaminute, there's still that Baskin Robbins in the freezer!

BTW the title's referring to today's date.

Everybody Needs This

Instructions for our Kimia classes on chemical mixing and noting the reactions? Easily done. Compounding an extemporaneous preparation? Check up my Pharmacy Practise manual and the Martindale. VCR manuals? No probbie. IKEA single-sheet instructions for fixing up their furniture? Snap of a finger.

Whenever there's a problem, there's always an instruction manual that's comprehendable for troubleshooting.

My life?

This is missing:

I'd like to check up what to do whenever I feel like I've screwed up somewhere. Like why I get so screwed up over a trivial issue. Like why I feel so ataraxic over so many important issues. Like how to actually sleep/wake at hours like most people do (and not think it odd). Like how not to assume that books and my music player will be my constant companion throughout my entire life. Like finding out if some part of me is really broken and needs fixing.

Of Cities and Knights

Today be our first visit to Settler's Cafe at Damansara Jaya. We've been hearing about it from 'Nic and Kamal but somehow the timing has been such where we weren't free to follow. Now into its fifth month, Steven and I dropped by to have a look at the place.

Settler's Cafe is basically a cafe that allows you to 'rent' a table and try out their games in their games list. And they have food. As we were finishing our game the smell of food was killing me already.

The store setup was rather comfy, with some 8-10 tables wooden tables and the walls lined up with assorted board games. A group was already in the midst of playing Power Grid (good game) and we could see that this was a place for L5R supporters. MtG people, please take your business elsewhere.

Since Steven hadn't had the luxury of playing many boardgames, we were wondering what to play. Having Gary as our host, we somehow opted to start with Puerto Rico, but with the arrival of Kamal we'd decided to do Settlers of Catan plus the expansion, Cities and Knights of Catan instead as Steven and Kamal has played the original Settlers before.

Ooo lookit the original board tiles. Very Van Goth. Instead of following actual board setup we decided to have the numbers (white circles in the middle of each tile) distributed randomly.

The setup basically is the same as Settlers with the addition of an ocean hex that shows the progress of the dreaded barbarian ship. There are other additions as well, pushing the gameplay time an extra half-hour or more. Cities and Knights gives a very good impression as an expansion set for Settlers than the expansion for 5-6 players. We started about 5pm and ended at 8.15pm, but given that we'd to pick up the new rules plus clarify on old ones it probably wasn't too long.

"Summon the Krake-I mean Pirate Sheep...I mean Black Boat!" BOOM! ...in seven or more turns.

We definitely am looking to get the original plus Cities and Knights expansion of Settlers sometime. Thing is, now that we've a taste of the expansion it's definitely more fun that just the original. Like Steven says, "Once you played Frozen Throne you don't want to play back Warcraft III." The Travel Box set I currently own can't do the expansion plus is slightly limited in board setup variability. Only one slight gripe about the C&K expansion tho', it's still for only 3-4 players!

Eyes set out so far on: Settlers and Cities and Knights, and prolly Shadow over Camelot.