"Who Are You Calling Yellow?"

Don't think that's the actual quote. We do remember the line, "What did you just call me?" though.

Back To The Future. Hmm, gotta sit down and watch the series again to refresh our memory.

Thing is, we first heard of the term being called 'yellow' there, if we aren't wrong. Didn't even had to ask what it meant (we was a kid then and was watching it on prime time telly), because dad immediately asked us if we knew the term. When we said no, he told us that it meant to be a scaredy-cat.

We know we aren't. But we're inclined to see just how yellow we can be, for this one time.

Let's use this pic we had the idea of taking in BSC's lift at one time...

We played around with the shirt colours for this.

Oh, mebbe once isn't enough. Using the 'Detached' pic.

Great, from a moody look to a weird smiley one. Heh.

Oh, magic number three. Passport Picture?

WahLIAO we has been given hamsup eyes. We is innocent we tells you!

Hmmm. Wonder how Flirty Cheeky Instructor looks like Simpsonized. Arg. Maybe better not.

If you're not keen on having yer picture Simpsonized, you could just create your own avatar at the official movie site.

Okay, watching the loading screen, a sugary donut being eaten, is driving us nuts. We're off to mooch for supper. Hello, Baskin Robbins! This month's combo is a whole quart of Maple Walnut and Raspberry Cheese Louise.

"Tonight We Dine..."

...With 300 Spartans

We only knew that the 300 VCD was out last week. While randomly bouncing into shops at MV with Hyperion we saw that the DVD is finally out. And original DVD prices nowadays are RM59.90, much more reasonable compared to the RM149.90 initially. For 2 DVDs (1 movie and 1 special features disc) we consider it reasonable. Now, we're refraining from watching the movie yet because we think that we might be able to pull off a DVD Nite somehow. Which means Domino's Pizza's Extravaganzza and Chicken Supreme/Aloha Chicken, large thin crusts, at Buy 1 Free 1. Whoops, gotta renew the Gold Card first.

...On Peanut Butter/Nuttela Sandwiches And Sugared Water
We were just starting BodyJam today when we found our sports shoes were slowly disintergrating - the rubber soles were falling apart. There must be a correlation: jungle trekking kills our shoes. After all, 2 years of Combat/Jam/casual walking never did naught to the poor shoes, only after the Kiara trek our shoes suddenly shows signs of dying. The same thing happened to our earlier pair of shoes too! So now we have to start hunting for new shoes (thank goodness for sales), and while we're at it we might as well look for more gym tee and pants (we now sweat buckets and need Dri-Fit-like clothes), and socks as well...Sale can be a bad 4-letter word sometimes. Shop like this we'll have to ikat perut darn tight already. Oh yes, what kind of shoes are suitable for Jam/Combat?

...On Baskin Robbins
Oh, wait. 31% off is tomorrow. Oops.

...On IKEA Curry Puffs
While we were in that evil snare that is IKEA, we had to keep muttering to ourselves, "We're shopping for the Wee Wog, we're shopping for the Wee Wog...oh, and to get supper."

We noticed that Wee Wog's Ratta's tail was reaching 'breaking point' after a year of biting (we're rather impressed that Ratta survived this long without any serious damage actually), and so decided to go walk about in IKEA to see what's on sale...but only buy stuff for the Wee Wog. Oh, and to get half dozen curry puffs for supper (RM5.50 for half dozen is very worth it).

Her box now has a pillow and Blund Bear to keep Ratta company!

We're a bit disappointed that the Finlir picture frames are never discounted! Always RM49. We like these frames as we can keep changing photos when we feel like. Two still not enough for us :D

...On Spider Pig
Thankiu Great Alex for the song!!! We loves the a cappella version of Spider Pig and it's playing nonstop at the moment. While the Homer version is funny we totally hearts this a cappella version.

Spider Pig
Spider Pig
Does whatever a Spider Pig does
Can he swing from a web?
No he can't
He's a pig
Look Out!
He is a Spider Pig

If you have to ask what is a Spider Pig...ok, it's the song played during the end credits for The Simpsons Movie. Brain to tired to come up with a yarn to lead you on.

Kiara Trek And Kepong BKT

Saturday morning saw a group of us 'taking a walk' up Bukit Kiara - via the jungle route. As not only Ethancya and Renzze were around for the weekend but the SM doctor as well, it turned out to be a good crowd: Puddy (the guide), otousan (the organizer), Vin, SMdr, Ethancya, Renzze and us. It was sort of a scouts gathering for the others as well, to us...Lad was suppose to have joined us, and it was also his suggestion that we did a morning jungle trekking session, but unfortunately he'd to work instead.

There were moments we were seriously considering backing out of the trek the night before - seeing how we'd actually spent the night at the mamak chopping heads at Guillotine with psike, wolfx and rhyen. But since we've never been up Bukit Kiara all these time we've been staying in TTDI, we thought, heck, might as well explore the place at least once. Plus it's something different from our usual Saturday of sleeping-in.

The trek was good, although barely 15 minutes into the thing we were already drenched in sweat while others were mildly perspiring. Very different from the treks we did in CamLand. Here we learn a new perspective from Renzze: "Animals sweat; men perspire; women sparkle." Unfortunately for Renzze, she must have sparkled something special as she was the main target of all the mosquitoes that plagued our trek - Singapore blood could be tastier.

The view from somewhere near the top - we didn't end up at any lake that Puddy mentioned but it was still a good view.

The trip down was much better - while we trekked up following what we suspected to be the rubber tapper's path, we took the jogger's path back down instead. And Ethancya shared with us this fact: "Bald men are very horny people." How this statement came about, we don't remember...:S

After our dim sum breakfast at Taman Megah, the group headed back before the night meetup. While fetching Puddy home we were exclaiming how early it still was (only 10.30am) and that it barely felt as if Saturday has even started.

We ended up sleeping the entire afternoon away after showering.

=_='

One thing that was not to be missed was Kepong BKT with Ethancya and Renzze around :) It's been some 5 to 6 months since we actually had Kepong BKT (and while we just had Klang BKT not too long back, we still want more!). One source of entertainment at this shop was the tissue papers that they provide:

All the way from Singapore. Previously, the tissues were for some halal restaurant. Wonder where the next batch will come from.

Town Tunes

Dang. Our head's rather messed up at the moment. While we know that it's empty words said in good jest, and all that fooling around is just, fooling around, nothing meant. But because it's capable of putting a smile on our face, we're letting it mess with our head. Damn flirt.

We have always enjoyed the soundtrack for the Heroes of Might and Magic series (and we know we're not the only one, just check the forums in any of the fansite). Credits to Rob King and Paul Romero, for while the game is sink-deep in fantastical elements, the music takes the game flavour a step deeper.

Heroes II: Sorceress Town

While we enjoys music from Heroes II, we still wonder what in the world made them choose to put opera music for the town themes. The music is good, but we don't really know how they fit in with the town philosophy thematically *shrugs*. Our personal favourites from Heroes II would be the Sorceress Town Theme, the Knight Town Theme and Battle 3. Oh, we hears that some town themes were changed in the expansion pack. Not too sure which version we have now.

Heroes III: Rampart Town

We enjoyed the music from Heroes III immensely. Each town theme suited perfectly, although in a rather stereotyped way. Most fans didn't enjoy the music much, crying foul for the loss of operatic music, but we just loved the orchestrated pieces, especially for the Stronghold (majestic), Fortress (creepy dark swamp), Rampart (peaceful and meditative nature) and Combat 4 (the strings, man, the strings!).

One of the good things we found with the music of Heroes III is that all the files are already in mp3 format (yay!) and we could replace them with our own mp3s! Sometimes the Tower town theme would be playing Canon in D while the Castle town theme has Sarah MacLachlan singing 'Arms Of An Angel'.

Heroes IV: Preserve Town

When Heroes IV came out the music floored us. Vocals came back, although it didn't sound like anything as operatic as II in our opinion we were captivated. The overall music was a mix with more obvious synthesized scores for combat and Celtic overtones for the world map. We loves all the town themes here except Haven's, and we loves the Dirt Land theme and the End Of Turn Theme too.

Heroes V: Sylvan Town

With Heroes V, we'll say that the music doesn't stand out as much as Heroes IV did. There were some good ones, like the Main Menu Theme (for both base and expansion), Haven town theme and Sylvan town theme. Still good but not as memorable as Heroes IV.

Yes, all town pictures were those that follow the nature theme.

So while we recognize Heroes V's vocals to be Latin, what we really were looking for was the lyrics (if any) to the vocals in Heroes IV - particularly for the Asylum and Preserve town themes. It's been tough scrounging for any details, and only recently had the clue that the lyrics were taken from works of Friedrich Nietzsche.

A bit more searching turned lyrics! Oh, happiness...wait, these are lyrics for Heroes II, not Heroes IV. Wah German some more. Drat. The search continues...Credits anyways to the people at The Heroes Round Table Forums for finding them.

Barbarian Town Theme

Oder gehst du jetzt selber
auf den Wegen
auf den Wegen
Oder gehst du jetzt auf den Wegen der Diebe, du Freund der Bösen?

Necromancer Town Theme

Deine wilden
wilden Hunde wollen in die Freiheit; sie bellen vor Lust in ihrem Keller,
wenn dein Geist alle Gefängnisse zu lösen trachtet.
sie bellen vor Lust

Deine wilden
wilden Hunde wollen in die Freiheit; sie bellen vor Lust
vor Lust

Warlock

Willst du heute dein Feuer in die Täler tragen?
Fürchtest du nicht
Fürchtest du nicht
Fürchtest du nicht des Brandstifters Strafen?

One day we'll find out what they're singing if we're bothered, but we still want actual lyrics (if any!) to Asylum and Preserve first!

Socially Exhausted

When we used to work in the retail line, meeting people was something we had to deal with. Due to the nature of the job, we also started dining alone: lunch was in staggered shifts while after closing shop dinner would only happen around 10.30pm or 11pm onwards. We were rather thankful for this, though, as it gave us time to recharge.

When we changed jobs, we now have even less interaction with people. We've less colleagues, and the amount of empty space in the office will overwhelm those who're rather sociable (otousan can attest to this, having visited us in the office already). The tradition of lunching alone carried on, though. So much time alone, so much time to recharge.

And yet, this week, just after a dinner with the Tuition Teacher and a night of DotA-ing (cybercafe sessions have very little actual social participation whatmore), we're exhausted. It wasn't as if we've been spending every single day in company for the entire month, it was just a typical week. When Tuition Teacher wanted to do dinner again tonight we almost decided to cancel at the last minute. Thankfully we remembers something we could do in common that didn't require much in terms of interaction - Sudoku.

So yes, a Diabolical puzzle, eating dinner with one hand and filling in numbers with the other. Except for having someone else to help out with the puzzle solving, it's just like one of our solo dinner sessions when we Sudoku during dinner, only we just have to write upside down.

Urg. Wondering just how much cave time we actually need, really.

In Review

Sometimes when we're feeling a bit iffy about a movie that's not on the 'must-watch' list, we rely on our trusty reviewers in The Star to enlighten us - and they do a pretty good job of it too. We remembers riffling through a rag in the gym while cooling off after class, Malaysian Today we thinks, and read the review for My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Bloody reviewer spoilt it slightly by stating something that should have been better left unsaid - spoilt a surprise for us it did.

Of course, reviews by word of mouth also tend to be good, so long as you can factor in the person's genre preference etc. And alternatively bloghopping one could stumble upon a personal review too, although at the risk of running into spoilers. Yes, njapf and FeR, we're sorry we told you Hermoine died. As for the other reviews like Rotten Tomatoes etc, not something we normally refer to. Dunno why.

Now in our case, we'll stick to the simple things - how we feel about the movie, stuff already shown in the trailers and whether to stay back during the credits. And we'll not tell you stupid stuff like Hogwarts was burnt down in the middle of the book.

We'll retract our statement that Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End is the movie of the summer. We didn't say anything about Transformers, don't think there's a need to. The Simpsons Movie now - this is our revised movie of the summer 2007. With Pirates, while good, it had its faults. Transformers kept the storyline simple thankfully but the robot fights were sometimes messy that one can't help but compare it with 300. Order of the Pheonix? Made more sense to the fans, but probably disappointed them more too.

28 Weeks Later Shrek The Third Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End Mon Petit Doigt M'a Dit Hors de Prix Fauteuils d'Orchestre Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Transformers The Simpsons Movie Evan Almighty

Simpsons is perfect. This is one show that you cannot, cannot miss. Well, okay, if you want to complain about something, it's about an hour long. Slightly over an hour. Food and drinks might not be encouraged - we choked on our BBQ Twisties at one point. Thankfully no one spewed. The show is peppered with comical scenes, right from the start, that the whole cinema's just full of laughter. We loved the way Bart's 'skateboard streak' was done, makes Austin Powers look a bit like amateur work.

And we stayed back for the credits. And about 2 rows of audience, us included, stayed back until the credits were done and the lights came back on. If you don't think you can stay that long, stay back till the Simpsons family leave the cinema during the credits roll. Else stay till the end. By the way, don't understand the Assistant Manager reference, Sam you got any ideas?

Book Juggling

Honestly, we're guilty of starting on a book, only to probably put it down sometime, pick up another book (probably because we left first book elsewhere), head into a bookstore, buy a third book, let third book override what we were reading (most likely to be priority read book, this), finish third book, head back to first book, juggle with second book, then finish one then the other.

Although, must note: we cannot juggle The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy - by the time we get back to wherever we were in LotR, we're sure to have lost the entire plot. This happened before - we started reading it in Form 2 or so, and by the time we returned to the book in...Form 5? Or was it the first sem of Uni, just before The Fellowship Of The Ring was due on Christmas?...we've forgotten what page we were, what chapter, whether we were in Book 1 or Book 2...you get the drift. So, back to square one with that, and no juggling.

Ohshit. Where's the LotR book now? It's not on the shelf. Did we loan it to someone? Diediediediedie...

Anyways, as of last weekend, we were juggling Frankenstein (on permanant haitus until we have the heart to pick up that piece of cardboard), Dracula, The God Delusion, and a second reread of The Deathly Hallows. And there's still Train Man (almost forgot about it, having stuffed it into our already-full cupboard!) and The Dark Materials to throw into the foray. Thank goodness Pratchett hasn't announced any new Discworld arrivals yet.

Oh, while l'agneau orange introduced us to LibraryThing ages back, we'd always put off adding our collection in, mainly because we didn't want to open our book cupboard and lug the lot of books out to mark down. Not to mention, being slightly obsessive on this point, that we'd want it to show the exact covers as what we own so we'll be searching via ISBN (easiest way) and will refuse to add it if it isn't. Although, honestly, we're just worried that if we start taking books out of the cupboard by the loads, we'll end up spending more time in front of it rearranging back books.

This was the shelf in April 2005. There's even less space now.

Gonna make a start at it tho'. Oh, and gotta remember that LibraryThing only allows a max of some 50 books or something per account...

How We Met Harry

We first heard about Harry before we even met him - and to be honest, we couldn't understand why everyone was so excited about him - maybe because majority of the folks we grew up with were introduced by Enid Blyton (during our early years) and Terry Pratchett. It was through 'Ward that we first met Harry, and after that initial meeting our impression of him was that he was similar to Ms Darrell Rivers, from Malory Towers. We were in our first or second term in uni then, and Harry was just basically an acquaintance.

We didn't meet Harry again till ymlau's then-gf brought him along one day to our apartment. ymlau knew that we showed 'some' interest in Harry despite our acting rather nonchalant, so he had his then-gf set up the whole thing. We spent a bit of time together again, got to know more about his recent adventures and his friends much better. And ymlau's then-gf has been bringing him to the apartments for a fair bit that Harry grew on us. Did we like Harry then? Admittedly...yeah, he was okay. A bit stubborn-headed and mulish sometimes, but all in all okay. If there was a bad side to Harry, it was that we only got to hear his side of things, he'd never hear ours. But that's fine, because we're more of a listener than a talker, really.

However, it was only during when we were in Glasgow, after the finals and waiting for graduation day that we finally made the decision to bring Harry into our lives. Most of the batch was out touring bits of Europe, the only company we had at Birkbeck Court then was 'Lil Nick, Zing! and Diablo. Just happens that we bumped into Harry at Tesco, and we decided not to mull over it anymore.

Because of our decision there and then - we had to collect all the other books in the series. And being a collector, it's a bit galling that the first four books are in paperback while The Order of the Phoenix till The Deathly Hallows are in hardcover. Not only that, The Philosopher's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets are by different publishers, so they aren't the Bloomsbury children's cover art (well...we got them from Pay Less/Times warehouse sale, couldn't be so choosy then).

But we guess we'll probably only go for matching covers (we wonder, all in hardcovers or paperbacks?) once we start setting up our own library room. Thankfully it's finally the end of the series.

It's All Gone To Pot

Wake up to find a text from sis, asking about the bookstore boycott of The Deathly Hallows. Seems that MPH, Times and Popular were not going to sell HP7 as the hypermarkets were selling them for RM69.90. 'Course, it was Saturday noon already and we were still in bed (no, we weren't gonna go gung-ho and queue up early in the morn with other diehards just to snag some quick freebies like free coffee from Starbucks...although the idea of free Starbucks was tempting), so we wouldn't have heard of any such news. And since we preordered from Borders, and sis didn't mention them as one of the boycotting booksellers, we didn't give it much thought.

Borders dangled a mighty tasty carrot in front of our faces when they offered, not only the 20% off The Deathly Hallows, but also 20% off any other 2 full-priced books. Took the opportunity to grab Philip Pullman's The Dark Materials collection as well. Sigh, the argument that we have no more shelf space in our room just couldn't stand up...

While showing off the books to YouKH he said he's gotten his from MPH, although he wasn't happy with how much he was paying (MPH only gave a RM10 voucher with the purchase, boo!) - thus we thought that the boycott was just a rumour. It was only after we've finished the book and decided to check out the authenticity of the rumour. And it turns out to be true:

MPH, Popular Bookstore and Times on Friday announced they would not sell Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after Carrefour and Tesco hypermarkets advertised that they were selling the books at RM69.90.

The bookstores, with a total of 100 outlets in Malaysia, have priced theirs at RM109.90.

They said they were protesting the "indiscriminate price discount," adding that it was not fair of distributor Penguin Books to "allow hypermarkets to sell such a popular book when they are not in the book business."

Penguin Singapore and Malaysia managing director Eddy Teo said the hypermarkets would incur losses by selling the novel at a cheaper price, pointing out that their purchase price was actually higher.

He said there would be no replenishment on top of the opening order due to unavailability of stocks and the British publisher of the novel, Bloomsbury, had no plans for reprints now.

Great. We're actually rather pissed off with Tesco and Carrefour rather than being pleased with them - sure, offering to sell the book at a much lower price will attract everybody's attention, but how about them who'd preordered the book?! Already put a non-refundable deposit you know? Because at that time, preordering the book would have gotten you the book slightly cheaper than the full price of RM109.90 (asides any other goodies they offered)?

To Tesco and Carrefour, you want to pull off a bloody stunt like that, INFORM THE PUBLIC BLOODY WELL EARLIER LAH, AND NOT NEAR THE BLOODY RELEASE DATE ITSELF!

While we're even more pissed with the hypermarts than with the bookstores, we do wonder - why the boycott (although allowing those who preordered to purchase their copies) and not offer better prices instead? Even if it's not the RM69.90-that-looks-like-it's-cost-price, some discount would still have people lining up to get the books. Instead, the boycott, and customers end up going over to the hypermarts for the books after all.

Gah. Shall not dwell too much on it. We're done with the book already anyways.

Cushy Talk

Oh, hey there leather sofas! What're you doing out on the porch? Did mum lug you guys ou- oh, movers eh? You guys going somewhere? Where are we gonna sit then? What are we doing home in the middle of the afternoon? Well it's our lunch break, and we needed to get something we'd left in our room...don't change the subject. Just what're you doing out here?

Eh? You guys are being replaced? Oh wait, mum did say something about that...

Oh well, goodbye then...you've been with the family some 12 years or so now, since we met in Klang all the way to where we are now. Of course, being with us so long we have come to overlook your dark patches of ingrained grime/oil/dirt, your little holes, the way you heat up in the blistering afternoons. You've been around to see two Poms and the Wee Wog grow, and had them jumping all over you too. We won't be able to sleep on you anymore, especially like of late where after we've finished supper we'll just flop down on you and be dead to the world in under 5 minutes - so much faster compared to sleeping in our own bed. Now you shall be leaving our home.

Goodbye! Don't be a stranger now!

Ow. No, it's okay, some dust got in our eye, that's all.

And hey there newbies! We wonders how protective mum will be of y'all. No eating near you guys, no propping the feet up, use the pillows, no dogs allowed on the seats...we hopes it isn't going to be like that, how are we ever gonna be good intimate friends? And we'll have to wait until somebody (preferably the ironic situation where it's mum herself) has an accident and, like, spill something on you.

Oh darn, look. They're here with the straightjacket again. We'll talk to you later.

Sinus Signals

Now, being vun ob ze many people wiv occasional zinus zorrows, ve habn't had an attack for a couple ob months now...until yesderday. For uz, whenever ve ged leaky ve'll try and run a quick zelf-diagnosiz to determine wheder id's likely to be just an allergy attack, morning zinus, the common cold, or, as ve zuspect for this occasion, lack of prober rest/sleep.

How did ve come to dis conclusion? Yuzually our meds vill muscle ze noz into submission and allow uz to be sniffle-free but dis time, no amount ob meds did ze trick. Change ob environment during lunch ruled out any sudden allergy bud we guess the giveaway sign wuz ze tiredness our whole body feld zat ve ended up sleeping in ze car afder lunch. A shame zat vas not enuff for a power nab, az ve continued to make our dustbin a biohazardous dumping spot/dissue graveyard.

So yesterday night ve crawled into bed early afder dozing off at numerous plazes, including while waiting at red traffic lights.

Only, even once ve hab identified ze cause and rectified it, ze leaky noz may still prove troublesome - once id starts, id can't stop!. So id's gonna be a few days of having a red, chaffed noz. Zat alternatively leaks or geds stuffed ub.

Ouch. Tissues hurd, man!

By ze vay, came across dis. Enjoyable - your own surround system while you spar.

MORTAL KOMBAT!!!

Sweet Sixteen

Tale in sixteen words
Can we rise up to do it?
We thought we would try:

Boy thinks of the words
Tries to express it in prose
This is what he wrote.

Preamble:
We got ourselves Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii: Osu! Tatakae! Oeundan 2 last Wednesday when we were told that it had hit Malaysian shelves. Briefly, it's a Nintendo DS game akin to the Dance Dance genre, except with Japanese music and instead of dancing one has to tap the screen. What makes this game much more fun is that the storyline: you lead a squad of cheerleaders to help out people in dire straits - whether it's a master sculptor in need of inspiration, or helping a choir club recruit members to keep the club alive, to saving the world from a dying sun.

Whether you do well or not, at points in each song you're treated to a cutscene (and a quick rest) dependant on your progress. If you did well, the cutscene shows the person(s) being cheered doing well. If not, it shows the poor sod(s) screwing up. The whole thing is done manga-style, with the touch of humour only the Japanese can achieve.



Anyways - we were just browsing about GameFAQs to look for translations for the game and we came across this fact: if you fail to finish the stage, not only you'll see a sort of Game Over cutscene (which features the person down all fours), but also a haiku. A haiku for each stage (save a couple of particular ones) if you fail! The effort INIS went to make this game.

Tangent:
Joyce the Fairy posted about Apostrophe, a site that people can submit 16-word stories. It's very interesting, especially what some people contributed. This ones we really like:

They drove up to Bidor. Upon reaching there, realised they had left their son at home. - Dina Zaman.

Vacancy. Condom tester. Wanted. Dream job for guys. Catch 22. Only for Australian. Heartbroken. - unknown.

There're some serious and sombre ones too. But we don't need more depressing material. Check out more at the website.

So, initially we thought of writing something about some guy getting phone calls from the dead (DiGi's One Rate, Anytime, Anywhere advert in our minds heh) but we didn't like what was produced. And so we just left it aside.

To Bring It All Together:
We've finally scribbled the haiku on top for submission (second stanza). Here's hoping. Ya lah, we know for a haiku it's not so deep and profound with layers of meaning, we're not a powerful Linguistic Lexicographer.

If only we had Ippongi Ryuuta and his team to help cheer us on now, heh :)

The Good Odori

Now, our weekends by default are notoriously meant for sleeping in to make up for the lack of adequate sleeping hours we don't get during the weekdays. But there are times when it's worth making the effort to get up early - like for a friend's wedding and food-hopping while on the way there.

This time it was for meeting up with the Klangites for a quick boardgaming session and for a bah kut teh breakfast. BKT (Klang or Kepong) has become a bit of a rarity for us...the last time we had bah kut teh in Klang was in February (and that was for dry bah kut teh) while Kepong BKT was when...Ethancya and Renzze was around.

It didn't help that while BKT breakfast was slotted to be at 8am, and at 2am Friday night (technically Saturday morning) we were growling for supper. But thankfully we weren't the only one to have slept late - 'Nic bedded down at 3am once he'd finished gaming at Cheras, while Ivan just arrived back home from Penang sometime 3.30am. Phew - breakfast ended up starting at 9am at our favourite spot: Teluk Pulai corner BKT shop.

Gaming session saw everyone (save us) showing heavy interest in Formula De. 'Nic intro'ed us the game using the Monaco map (there's plenty others including Sepang, but we think they're currently out of print?). Surprisingly enough we won the game leaving everyone else eating our dust when we decided to sprint throughout the way and we had rather good dice rolls. Ivan opted the Mad Max route of dangerously trying to bang every car near him in order to damage them and get them out of the race - only to end up with the status of DNF (did not finish) himself. Webchitect, whom showed the most interest in the game at first - claimed the game not so interesting by the end of it.

That's us in White-Green in the lead, followed by 'Nic, June and NJH.

After that we tried out Ivan's new Drakon set. Interesting. When 'Ward joined in Citadels was brought out. We'll let 'Nic handle the games report in detail, it'll give him something to do for his blog (will put up pictures on Flickr sometime later ya).

And come evening was time for our first Bon Odori.

Lad drove us down - only, as we were nearing Panasonic the lack of traffic and people gave us some cause of doubt as to if we were at the right place. Turns out that there's two places, and the Panasonic place we were suppose to be looking for is this one.

Panasonic Ha-air-Conditioning. Heh.

Parking, of course, was far and involved not only a bit of a walk (how thankful we were it was late evening in good weather) but some serious jaywalking. Now, we'll make it clear: when we jaywalk we don't normally think about the safety of others with us yeah. There might be a chance that our jaywalking might turn into jayrunning, and we won't have the time to inform that we're doing so. And since the you guys happen to cross in a group, much safer for you guys to do so.

Notes about the Bon Odori: the good thing about going with a group of friends is that each member of the group could go queue at different stalls before meeting back at a rendezvous point where the picnic would begin. We, unfortunately, decided to queue for takoyaki (we loves takoyaki!) - which had a long queue. Took bloody 40 minutes or so before we made our purchases (RM6 for 6), and the takoyaki had no filling. Gah, will have to head to Jusco one of these days. Thankfully everyone else did better than us and got loads of food to try.

Lesson learned: eat before coming to the Bon Odori festival.

While waiting for the Cultural Dance event (21:00 'Enjoy the Cultural Dance 3') we'd spent time enjoying the eyecandy. The Cultural Dance itself put us in mind of BodyJam, Japanese-Style! Simple, with big group participation. Only you have some mad people who, instead of walking in a direction, decided that sprinting was the only way to go, and that instead of clapping hands it's supposed to be whacking yer friends on the noggin' with the fan.

It's still a bit of a surprise to us that the festival finished at 9.30pm instead of dragging till near midnight. Well, good thing anyways, as we were still hungry (and parched, and sweaty, and sticky, and slightly tired...) after that and so the gang headed off to A&Ws near Summit (another first time for us) before calling it a night.

All in all, the Bon Odori was at least something different for us...now we won't have to experience it again for at least another 5 years.

Luckless On Fridays?

While it sometimes struck us that, "Oh, it's Friday the 13th," we've never really kept an eye out for unlucky events. Well, not much really - enough to know that there was never anything we'd consider unlucky. And so we'd never really remember our Friday 13s, except for one.

This one is rather memorable because it happens to be Friday the 13th, February 2004. Heh.

It was somewhere during this time that otousan, lad and us were into looking for fertile adventure grounds - like nighttime graveyard excursions (our idea). However there wasn't any good, hilly, dark unlighted graveyards with uneven tombstones and the such - the one near to us was brightly lit and police-patrolled. And even if it wasn't patrolled or dimly lit, the neat little graveyard wouldn't have spooked much.

Don't ask us why we treated Friday 13th as if it was Holloween's.

In the end we ended up on top of a water reservoir. It was...peaceful. So there we were, light chit-chat, no drinks or food tho', carefree, cool wind and no rain...bliss.

Somehow or other (we thinks it was because otousan had to work on Saturdays) we left the reservoir rather early...not too long after midnight if not wrong. Heading down the pathway back to the car we detoured by a fencing - we got sidetracked by the amount of cobwebs on said fence. And the cobwebs were huge. And then lad started catching bugs...to throw into the web so we could see spiders at work.

He'd pounce on one, bring it towards its doom, and -plik- we'll see the spider zero in on the trapped bug and do a quick effecient wrap-up using the cobweb. Images of Shelob spinning Frodo so he'll look like Boy George sprang to mind at some point.

We were doing this for quite a bit when a police car chugged up to us. Whoops. Hope they didn't see us up the reservoir.

Passenger seat window winds down...

"Malam tuan."
"You semua sedang buat apa ya?"
"Tengok labah-labah."

Expressionless look on policeman's face, turns to his partner, tells him, "Tengok labah-labah."

Passenger seat window winds back up...and the police car reverses off.

We all then realize that we're not juveniles anymore. And that ended our excursions.

So nope, Friday 13th (although that was technically Valentines) unlucky?

We're Umbraged, We're Potty, We're All A Little Loony

28 Weeks Later Shrek The Third Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End Mon Petit Doigt M'a Dit Hors de Prix Fauteuils d'Orchestre Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Transformers The Simpsons Movie Evan Almighty

Seems like we'd missed out on Hors de Prix after all. And we might just forgo Evan Almighty after all. So it leaves The Simpsons Movie to complete our summer list.

Now, our thoughts on the Order of the Pheonix. First, our rankings for the books are:
Prisoner Of Azkaban > Goblet Of Fire > Philosopher's Stone > Chamber Of Secrets > Half-Blood Prince > Order Of The Phoenix (will be updated once we get our hands on Deathly Hallows).

We considered the Order Of The Phoenix to be a bit slow story-wise, and Umbridge really rankled (however, in our opinion, even if you really, really loathe a character in a book, we think the author's done a good job because you feel something for that character other than indifference). Half-Blood Prince we rated slightly better as there's quite a fair bit of backstory going on.

We still remember how much expectation we had for the Quidditch Finals in the Goblet Of Fire - the trailers made it very impressive. It was a good thing that there wasn't anything in this time's trailer to make us expect too much. So what to do while counting down till showtime? Have a look at the production notes, of course. After all, having read the book you're not going to expect any sort of spoilers. We were more interested in how they bring the culture and flavour to screen. The choreographied wand-to-wand engagement was much appreciated - although, nothing, nothing will beat 300 for quite a long while - as it allows us to watch all aspects of fights without it being messy.

Okay, down to the nitty gritty: the character's this time were much more spot-on: Luna's all a dreamy, Umbridge's unlikeable (Imelda Staunton plays her so well), Dumbledore doesn't look like that mad junkie he did in Goblet Of Fire, Tonks was good (the hair's so natural), Bellatrix mad enough but still reminds us of Fight Club. Oh, and Duddley really looks very piggy now!

The graphics have improved over the series - Dementors now don't make us think of Nazguls, Patronuses look very good, the Black Family Tree was very nice, wasn't as expected (although Wikipedia's slightly more complete). The show maintained the overall dark look, as it has since the Prisoner Of Azkaban movie, so much so that whenever any brightly-lit scene showed up it blinded us.

While the Potter series never stood out for their music save Hedwig's Theme and Double Trouble (from Prisoner Of Azkaban), this time it's more noticable and fitting.

OK. Show problems. We don't think anyone who hasn't followed either the books or the movies will be able to fully grasp what's going on. Also, the show just moves on, telling bit by bit, but there are really no outstanding highlights that grabs your attention (ie Quidditch Finals)...we're not too sure if we're saying this properly.

And for the expected bits, well...it's just natural for those of us who enjoy the book to nitpick differences. "There could have been more. Why didn't they put this bit in?" et cetera. Accepting this we'll just say that they've gotten the gist of it into the movie. And you know you're a bit of a fan when you find yourself going, "Eh, how come they learn that spell one? Thought he only learned it in Half-Blood Prince?" Oh dear.

Anyways, still be doing it one more time, just for the sake of watching it in 3D (yay Imax!).

Car-aoke

The last time we've been to the karaoke was in 2005 - celebrating our turning a year older by screeching it out at Red Box The Curve after dinner. It's interesting, because about a third of the playlist included songs that weren't sung but screamed (not LP, but Bon Jovi). The upside of it, of course, was that 98% of the songs were in English - 1% in Chinese and 1% Malay. Earlier karaoke sessions during our uni days saw a healthy 90% Chinese pop and 10% English (courtesy of yours truly) - and when the English songs came about our batchmates graciously gave way for us to solo on the mike (because they didn't know the songs) unless it was something contemporary like When You Say Nothing At All (we remember this song was sung 3 times at the first NoGaPs Annual Dinner).

We'll admit to being a semi-closet car karaoke singer though. Not a shower singer, as we're too busy enjoying the water to actually get the urge to burst into song...although we do suddenly burst into BodyJam movements while bathing at times, at high risk as there were a couple of occasions we almost used our face to greet the floor from that.

Getting back to topic. Our car still uses the tape deck, which we've gotten this tape adapter thingy which plugs into the earphones port in our iPod/music player/NDS, and turns the car radio speakers into our own surround sound system. When we first met our iPod (goodness it's been over 2 years now!), our tendency to listen to the radio dropped to nearly never. We'd trusted others to tell us about new and upcoming singles, heh.

Of course, our car radio's been acting up and will need to see the doctors soon. So we've been letting it rest and plugging in the earphones.

And as we drive alone, we have free reign to bawl out to whatever playlist is on at the moment, whether it be the Vox playlist of Latin choirs, or the Ballads chock-full of boybands and such, musicals, currently-bought-albums or whatever takes our fancy. And we enjoy harmonizing too, so we're guilty of playing a song twice sometimes taking turns for each part. Or songs where there are two parts counterpointing each other (example, Les Miserable's The Confrontation between Javert and Jean Valjean).

Just gotten our hands on Snow Patrol's Signal Fire finally, and the first two lines just floored us. Good thing not literally or else we'd have crashed into some other car.

The perfect words never crossed my mind
'Cos there was nothin' in there but you

Whoa.

Really grateful for l'agneau orange for loaning us her Eyes Open and Final Straw. Snow Patrol's been rocking our foundations and breaking us down. And with Victoria Station so near us, it's difficult not to 'innocently walk just to see what's new' and not walk out with a handful of CDs. Unfortunately their albums are out of stock, save one Eyes Open: Special Malaysia Edition.

Okay, what, exactly is the Special Malaysia Edition? Made in Bolehland kar? That would explain the price. Somehow we...don't support these, we're not too sure why. Asides from the fact that the CD cover has that big bar [SPECIAL MALAYSIA EDITION] blocking the cover art.

Anyways, it seems that the songs we remember how to sing are stuck in the past, and even that sometimes not the full lyrics (tempting as it may be we avoids reading lyrics on the iPod while driving). But it's in our car, what do we care? And anyone looking at us from another car will see earplugs plugged in and assume we're on a hands-free.

Unfortunately our voice has been going down the drain ever since we've started BodyCombat. Combat's a class where, if you're gung-ho enough, you start shouting as you execute the moves...

CalvinC: When you kick, open your mouth and go, "KIA!"

When otousan, lad and us first started Combat and after the shy shy phase of keeping quiet in class, we became one of CalvinC's 'sound speakers' group: obliged to shout at points so that everyone's motivated. Of course, it's long ago when we were 'sound speakers'. Now if he needs us he'll shout go "Lord!". And otousan is "King!". Lad...is suppose to decide if he's quitting the gym or making it for classes once in a while rather than donating free money to the gym. And shouting nonstop for 16 counts as we do stomach punches is no joke. It's a standard affair that after his classes we'll be croaking and talking in whispers.

Maybe that's why we can't sing Faure's 'Requiem' anymore. :'(

No Need For Telly

Stop being such a jerk.

Oh boy. The Whitest Kids U' Know (first found via -C) sure are sick, but from the audience perspective it's darn funny. We do thank YouTube for brightening up part of our day - although we sometimes despair that there are times when the video doesn't fully load.

Also, while waiting for the creative ads that only surface during Merdeka, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya or Deepavali, let's enjoy some Thai ads, that aren't made for any specific occasions.

Be gentle, like the foam.

Sigh, how is it that some normal Thai ads just hit the funny bone? There's also the ad for the exercise campaign and one more for road safety...

Oh, and somehow a simple search for the tracklist of the current BodyJam tracks led us on a bloghopping journey among FF members' blogs and even instructors' blogs...and onto a Youtube of CalvinC and Tony doing BodyJam. On stage. We still cannot take Tony wearing those shorts, even if all eyes are on CalvinC X) Hmmm he's also known as FCI by the others - Favourite Combat Instructor.

And it seems that Ouran High School Host Club has been taken off YouTube :( Wonder when we be able to obtain the DVD. Whoops, quick check revealed that Japanese version of the DVD has been split into 7 parts? Too expensive, this. Unless some kind soul burns it onto DVD for us (although we knows this will be in some avi format or such) - we'll chia whomever who does so a Starbucks or alcoholic drink of choice. Just one only, mind!

Our favourite episode? Poipoipoipoipoipoipoipoipoipoipoipoipoipoipoooooi!!!

Oh, forgot to add this one. It's funny and yet not funny...depends on your sense of humour. It's a Sporeland production, this much we know as us Bolehlanders call it roti canai and not roti prata. Given that if we were the victim of this we wouldn't have tolerated as much as the ah neh. We do like the way the subtitles are in Singlish, but the timing is a bit too fast for the punchlines.

Alone In The Tower Of Solitude

There's this which we read yesterday in the Star Fit4Life...which talked about loneliness.

Here's how they put it.

'In our society, where extroverts make up three-quarters of the population, loners (except Henry David Thoreau) are pegged as creepy or pathetic.'

Before we start the rage the writer goes on to say that 'there are soloists who can function just fine in the world - they simply prefer travelling through their own interior universe.'

Okay, we'll that one pass - weird is better than being creepy or pathetic. But that was a narrow scrape for the writer.

The article goes on to say that there's the loner-by-preference: who needs their 'time-outs' - these soloists (a much better-sounding word) find their timeouts recuperative, and aren't antisocial because of some phobia. This form of loneliness is good okay.

Then they go on to say that these soloists have 'increased sensitivity to all kinds of emotional interations and sensory cues' - okay, this bit doesn't seem to fit us personally 'cause we're oblivious to our surroundings (or maybe because we refuse to wear our spectacles).

And there's the enforced loner, which, is not good. Enforced loners, according to the article, 'long to spend time with people, but shyness and anxiety inhibit them from doing so.'

It was an interesting read (sourced from Psychology Today Magazine/Premium Health News Services/TMSI). Because much as we proclaim our bachelor-for-life motto and our doing things solo, there's been something that didn't feel right in our semi-hermetic lifestyle. And now we perceive that there may be some enforced loneliness disguising as introverted soloism.

Hmmm this is disturbing. It corrupts our zen. We shall have to investigate this matter.

But thankfully it doesn't affect work-soloism, as that one is voluntary (oh the joy of having lunch by ourselves). In fact happiness today is having the entire office to ourselves, our Tower of Solitude. Absolutely no one else in the office but us. Bliss. We turn off half the office lights, and enjoy the quiet. Now if only the phone doesn't ring at all.

Oh, by the way, we wonders about our daemon. Introverted like us?

They Do, Do They?

Still in the habit of grammatically wrong silly titles for this. However, we're yonks late putting this up. Just so happen that while we had one done ages back, we didn't want to post it by itself and was aiming to get another done before we'd put them both up.

So anyways, here we go. Waiting for pass/fail recognition to know if reworking is required.

This one was finally done up to our own satisfaction as well and we don't think it can go wrong anymore.

While this here, for once, isn't a name but rather initials. Done in colour pencils (egads our colour pencils were dusty, we hadn't touched them in years, years we tell you).

Not too happy with how it looks, so we tried it in some other medium (duh, Stabilo inks). Probably best done via Corel or Photoshop or summat lah. We may still rework the whole thing if it irritates us enough.

Argh, there're two more names we haven't worked on, there're more names left on standby till we get an idea how they could be better, and we would want to start on more than just single names...aiyah, when we feel like it lah. And we're running low on the notepapers we doodle on.

Hooked On You

Happened to catch Hooked On You - and given that we'd no idea whatsoever about the movie when we walked in we must say that overall the show does sting a bit.



So it's about hardworking gal Miu works day and night selling fish and fish congee to help pay off her father's debts, all the while setting her sights on making it out of the wet market before she hits 30 and finding the ideal husband.

Only, at the market she goes head on with the other fishmonger - who like most marketfolks, are known by their goods - Yu Lou/Fishman. Typical - start off by fighting and next thing you know it they'll be chumming it off. But how will that fare with Miu's ambition? Sort of a sign, that Miu isn't called Yu Por or something along the lines while every one else in the market is either Zhu Yoke (Pork), Choy (Veggie) or summat. One thing that bugged us slightly was, just how rich was Yu Lou actually because he seemed to be throwing money around.

However, the main question here would be: just how picky are you when it comes to looking for a partner? Given that if you met Mr/Ms Mediocre but whom you're comfortable with as an old shoe, will you still hold back, looking for that Gucci wallet (but one that looks like a Prada). Just how much can you give and take, or must all requirements be met, no compromise?

And the end of the show does make one ponder: and at the end of the day, are you happy with your choices? Well, just to say that it was an ending we were expecting as the story developed but we won't profess to like it. But overall a much better watch than Alone thankfully.

Right now, we're fighting the Dementors in our head and losing.

That's How It Is

While others drink to forget or take a break from reality, it seems that I drink to get in touch with it. Not like I don't already know where I stand in the scheme of things (at least, at the moment, to inject some note of positiveness). But in my normal state I'm not really *fully* in touch with reality as I tend to live in my castle up in the clouds.

So.

Bloody hell. Just, bloody hell.

It's one thing when you're being stupid, but another when you're aware and you don't take any action about it. And I'm aware of it, and well, I don't think I'm taking any action about it.

Bloody, bloody hell.

Doesn't help that I feel that I'm dealing with someone out of my league here.

Bloody, bloody hell.

Asides from that, knowing that I've some sort of responsibility to my charges, and failing them at the last moment, it's a shitty thing. I'm sorry I didn't do better. Imagine what would have happen otherwise if things got out of hand. I'm sorry I failed big time.

Bloody, bloody, bloody hell.

So Janvier, wake up, and stop deluding yourself. Go die alone.

He Did Us Roughly...

So he says. It was still a pleasant surprise for us, and the end result left us shocked and breathless. And for someone with talent this big, it's something you want to share with everyone.

The things that's done by his hand - it's not something your average fellow can do with such detail. Can we say it's something to do with being right-brained then?

And in just 10 minutes it was over.











Initially from the pics we've glimpsed we were already taken in by AdZ's talent at drawing. Then next thing you know, he's done up a rough sketch of us in pen in the span of 10 minutes while still finding time to chat on MSN.

Egads. Took us a couple of minutes before we realize we had to shut our mouth and breath.

And he's figured out his own ambigram too - in lovely lovely blackletter (we've included it in the pic!).

Now can we wonder if he's going to sketch a scene of a couple kissing under an umbrella in the rain, draw a comic about some Japanese being able to distort time and space, and draw a nuclear explosion on his floor.

Before someone comes and eats his head :)

And We Don't Want To Watch Alone

So I play, I'll wait
And I pray it's not too late
We came so far
Just a beat of a lonely heart
And it's mine
I don't want to be alone...

Generally we felt today had terrible 'balance' between good and bad - with most of the good happening at work (which didn't felt like much) and the bad bits happening after work.

First up, we arrived at FFTC only to find that Jimmy's long-awaited Cardio Dance class has been slotted for 6.20pm instead of the usual 7.25pm! We showed up just to see the last bits of his class. Gym motivation: zero. Stay and do weights? Actually we should, considering cardio isn't suppose to be our priority, but they're intergral for our gym motivation! And no, not Step/Attack...only Combat/Jam.

As it is, otousan and Germ decided to join us for Alone and so we decided to have a good dinner instead of bumming at the gym. Question of dinner? Took us another 5-10 minutes of pondering until otousan said that he wanted to try Vivo as he'd never tried it before. We ourselves don't remember much of Vivo's food, save that it wasn't anything to shout about. And it still isn't:
"How's your Kung Po Speghetti?"
"Okay."
"Good enough that you'll come here to eat again?"
"No."
Ah well. Not so disappointing as after dinner we took the escalators down and ended up at Big Apple (it's a terrible, terrible addiction). Our definite favourites are the Californian Almond, the Whitnut and the simple Glazier *heart*.

Heading off to 1U to get tickets for Alone - we assumed that while it would be jammed as it was a Wednesday and there'll be crowds of people, the crowd would be after Transformers thus leaving us with good seats for Alone. We ended up in the front row, for the first time, in GSC. We'd to slouch all the way down our seat in order to fit the entire screen within our glasses. But this we could live with.

What we cannot live with, is that this movie seriously disappointed us. Given the trailer, our expectations were rather optimistic. That the show started off on a slow start is forgivable, we allow for character development and backstory, but for the show to be slow throughout with only the occasional cheap thrills...sigh. Might as well just have watched the trailer and be happy with it. The only bit that evoked some reaction from us was during the incident with the dog.

Other than that, we had a good laugh seeing the on otousan's face...but we'll need a better horror if we are to derive any entertainment from Germ yet. Here's hoping Harry Potter next week does better.

Cards The In Is It

Tarot the was about curious were we thing one, fantasy for appetite good a having. Meant have to supposed were cards the what to as interested were we but, future our read could tarot the that believed we that not: clarify to.

Set a had 'Ward that out found we that school secondary in sometime was it. (It interpret to how explain helped it because, good was which) well as booklet instruction an with came it, Arcana Minor and Major the from asides. (suits cards playing the of ten to ace the to similar) Arcana Minor a as thing such was there that surprised were we, set the through looked we time first. Character a and picture a have to card each expecting were we, readings card tarot of depiction general the given, all after. Well as interpretation own their had cards Arcana Minor these each and! Meant Arcana Major the what in interested only were we, it screw, thought we anyway.

'Change' means Death that and fool a being mean literally not does Fool The that is now remember we that all. Meaning opposite the had down upside placed cards that and, oh.

(House the in privacy no is there show to goes) to-talking a of bit a us gave she cards the found mum when. Knowledge our without trash into out it throwing immediately of instead (grilling the after) 'Ward to it return to us told just she thankfully. (game the play and learn to cards o' hundred o' couple a him loaned had we) possession his in it found she when cards Magic Fifth Eds/Mirage/Ice Age our away threw who, mother churchmate's a like not. Yet that over gotten not have still we. Commons all hopefully, unknown rarity, unvalued all. Sigh.

Results our with surprised are we, out this tried we when so. Cloth the of man a being as ourselves see not do so.

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors. The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Be may it as freaky, Marseilles of Tarot the of artwork the prefer we, although. Kicks for just is this and.

Life In Mono

As we met up with otousan, Germ and Lemon for Transformers the other night, first comment we'd gotten was, "Green again?"

Quick check: solid green Giordano polo, olive green three-quarters, green Off-Road Crocs.

Yes, we're slightly obsessed about green. This has been acknowledge by those who've know us (btw 'Nic love the new green look on the site!).

How did it come about? We blame credits Westwood's Dune 2 for it:

Fell in love with House Ordos when we played it - the colours, Ammon was cool compared to good boy Cyril and hunchbacked Ragnor (even Ammon's background music remains one of our favourites, but only the SoundBlaster Pro version - not the PC Internal Speaker!), the 'announcer' was this weird emotionally dead voice (love his take on 'Construction Complete'), and Ordos' philosophy. So what if they were some made-up House Major just for the game?

So anyways, they were the start of all things green for us. Up till this day. Unfortunately, not all things do well in green. Cars, for one. Pants? We're no longer in secondary government school. Hair dye? Only Japanese anime/manga characters make it look good so far.

Green as in nature? 'Nic has been trekking more than us but we're also a forestwalking creature ourselves - it's just that we don't want to spend more than 2 hours trekking when such time (especially on a holiday!) can be put to other use. Ivan exaggerates when he calls people 'Naruto/Sasuke wannabe - running in jungle like ninja'.

But it does lead to a point in our dressing. Some of our casual wear tend to be of a singular colour in different shades (not just green!). We've no pictures of this yet, but the colours are primarily black, grey-to-offwhite, green, and blue.

Got lar sometimes we mix and match...but yikes. It puts us in mind of them Power Rangers - you'd know who'll morph into what colour based on the clothes they wear.

And to think we used to bitch about them not being able to dress differently. What a shame we don't own any transformable giant machines - if we did then the stress of having to wallow through Malaysian traffic jams and arsehole drivers will be mercilessly crushed beneath our machine.

It's A Wrap

Let's see. Just last week we've managed to adopt 4 more book, two Miss Marples from Pay Less and two other impulse buys from Kinokuniya. It's always a pleasant surprise to find any Agatha Christies in Pay Less, whatmore if there are Miss Marple titles that we have yet to add to our collection. Only...our books are with lad and njapf at the moment so we can't remember which ones we already have!

Yes, terrible memory. We've read most of her books earlier on when we had access to the school library, so when we were browsing the collection at Pay Less it's all we could do to rack our brains wondering if we actually owned it or just read it before.

Anyways. We belong to the category of people who wraps their books and doesn't open the book fully to avoid creases. However, we don't immediately wrap our books after purchase - we'll let it pile up till we've a nice stack of 5-10 books, then we'll bring out the embossed book wrapping and wrapping gear. Also, of late as a measure of courtesy (and if the timing's right) we'll wrap any book that we've borrowed (so long as they don't mind).

Now that we've 4 books more, we should have enough to make it worth the effort to start wrapping. Checking the bookshelf for any others that need wrapping, we suddenly come across a pile of Penguin Classics that haven't been wrapped. Oh, and the Belgariad series - we've never bothered wrapping them before as we thought of them as, "Oh, buy from Pay Less one what..." except that they've tahan for so long without falling to tatters yet we might as well do what little we can to increase their longevity.

It's break time now and we've...11 more books to go.

Great. Now as we write this we just remembered there's still the 2 volumes of Les Miserables that we'd picked up from Oxfam as well. And the Prelude to Dune series. Ah well, will leave them for the next batch.

The Vanity That Is Us

So NJAPF wants to know just how Balrog/Vega we are. Hmmm...we don't follow the latest fashions really, although we enjoyed immensely the mirrored surfaces of the elevators at Wheelock Place. And we need to sleep soon, so it's easier to layan her with this. :D

You Are 44% Vain

You're a little vain, but more than anything you have a healthy amount of confidence. Thinking the world of yourself is great. Just don't think less of those who aren't as pretty as you!

How Vain Are You?

Oh well, being Chinese we can't help but look at the it as being die die vain. :s