525, 600 Minutes

Everybody's doing it, why not us? Well, it's already in the blog, so do we need to really recap when all we can do is just read back the posts? All right then, highlights of the year.

Our laptop died.

We went for a shower party, the last time we've been to the club before it partly closed (we missed the upcoming foam party due to being to Sporeland).

The most unexpected comment we've ever received.

We begin ambigramming.

We got to watch Phantom Of The Opera once again.

We had a personal system crash and went on hiatus.

We received free platinum bookmarks.

We swapped to daily disposables (and we still have about 4 more pairs!).

We started camwhoring a bit more.

Went whitewater rafting for the first time.

Sold our soul.

Almost killed our car.

Became a hengdai for the first time.

Got our Wii!

All in all, 2007 turned out to be a very eventful year for us really, the best bit where we made a whole lotta new friends without losing any old ones.

Here's hoping the new year bring us as much or much more!

Shutter Shudders

It's funny, given all the hype (and we were very interested after seeing the trailer) we never did get to watch the romantic love comedy Shutter when it came out in 2004. Sis almost spoiled the show when she told us about it but thanks to terrible memory and distracted moments we never did hear how the show ended.

Fast forward to last week, as we celebrated Christmas with the sis by going on a movie spree, watching Warlords on Christmas Eve followed by dvd shopping and watching I Am Legend and National Treasure 2 on Christmas day itself before the family dinner at night. It's a thing for us, quality sibling time to be spent watching movies, browsing dvds and general shopping.

Anyways, while perusing the dvd shelves we finally snagged Shutter (and the japanese Ju-On 1, still can't find japanese Ju-On 2) and last night we settled down with some expectations for a good show. And we must say that we had quite a fair bit of expectations.

We must have also softened up over the years. For one thing we didn't think we would watch the show with the lights off (unless we were watching with company, bravery in numbers kinda thing). And we also had a pillow to hold at times. Egads, malu only. The imagination did wonders at making things up.

And to be honest it wasn't really scary, but they did a good job with the suspense buildup. Definitely a good Thai romantic love comedy to watch. It won't change the habits of a camwhore (or would you prefer to be called a shutter slut?) nor will you lose any sleep. Promise.

By the way, you know how in Thai romantic love comedies their spirits and death scenes have this budget look certain quality that identifies them as Thai romantic love comedies? So happens that we came back home earlier on and walked into the toilet to see this.

Tell you, we honestly had a wtf moment, wondering just what our mum was thinking (although the first term that ran across our mind was "What did the cat drag in?!"), preserving a cat dog corpse (oh we knew very well it wasn't the Wee Wog, it was too small). Upon first glance it really looks like something from a Thai show.

Then it struck us just what it was.

Oh Wii!

So we've been having this obsession for quite a long while now, and it doesn't help that the prices haven't been decreasing as we hoped.

Now let us tell you a story.

See, it all starts with Chinese New Year, when esteban's sister brought back a Wii to play. Being ever so nice (plus it's CNY, there's visitations to do as well) esteban invited us over to share in the gaming pleasure.

We went with lad first, and the following day otousan, 'Vin and lad went over. We were in Klang for a boardgame session when we got a SMS showing the result of a rather overenthusiastic power smash using a Wiimote by esteban (read: broken window).

When esteban's sister left after CNY the Wii followed her. That left the group of us Wii-less. At this point we gather among our group only esteban and us stand out to be the likely ones to get a Wii first.

Esteban's birthday happen to be next among us, and after some discussion we all decided to pool and get him a Wiimote and Nunchuk.

Yes. He has not bought a Wii yet. So what was the point? It was incentive to get one.

So till this day esteban has still to get a Wii, and thus his birthday present till now have not seen any use at all. The poor things are probably sobbing in some secluded corner, feeling doomed to be unused and forgotten.

Well, not anymore. Esteban can now loan them to us so that we can have some competitive multiplayer fun.

If only we get some games that make use of more than one Wiimote other than Wii Sports.

Oh Wii!

Melacca Merrymakin'

Right. Christmas is usually a family event for us every year, while for some others it's a church thing, which leaves some others with nothing to do (and meeet up for beer). Normally the sis will be back, we'll have a family dinner, and the sis and us will head out for movies or such for some sibling quality time.

This year Christmas celebrations started early with an invite to Melacca for a bit of dinner, sleepover, Secret Santa gift exchange, the traditional showing of Love Actually and showing off the Melaccan abode.

We had Mr Messy pick us up from home (thankfully after we'd managed to get that batch of presents wrapped up) to meet up with the rest of the gang, and proceeded to lunch.

Trust us to order our 6-inch in advance only to find out the rest decided to go down on three footlongs.

Ah well we couldn't be waiting for the committee to decide, it's been ages since we had a Subway sandwich. Mr Messy then proceeded to demonstrate that You Are What You Wear For Your T-shirt. Egads, the mess he made during lunch, it was as if his sandwich was incontinent. :S

The trip down was easily passed by with a game of Musical Ping Pong. No balls nor paddles were involved, but there were colours, animals and carols - everyone had to think of songs with the chosen theme in the lyrics or song title when it was their turn, and we all were so engrossed that we missed the Alor Gajah exit in the end.

Still, we finally made our way to the Dragon Doctor's place where finally we were made privy to his plans - we were all free help for his Christmas dinner! Among the roles delegated to us all included being a waiter, a nanny, a photographer, a cook and entertainers. Us, being the waiter/bartender must happily say that the Baileys were generally well-received by all, the silent killer that irish cream can be.

As everybody headed off to bed we slowly wound down by having a bit of a read in the hall, only to find that everyone was still prowling the house at night all the way till...5am thereabouts.

Next day presents were handed all around. Look at his tree, there's space enough to fit a bed under it. And it was chock-filled with presents! Secret Santas were revealed and we got Mad Gab from our Secret Santa, Sporty Shaun. We could recognize the game straightaway because lad and us were looking through York House just the other day through their stock of games.

Lunch was then followed by a sprint along Jonker Street. There's no other word for it, it was a sprint. How else can you call it when, when you walk into the store, hurriedly made your purchase of redwood souvenirs, only to find the group has moved on three stores down?

This, we all found, is something we will need to plan for when the swarm descends onto the shopping bazaars of Bangkok next year.

The journey back was uneventful, save for the bit where the Touch 'n Go card hadn't enough credit to pay for the toll (and surprisingly all along the way there wasn't a single place where we could top up the card!), and somehow everyone arrived at McD's Mutiara Damansara at the same time for late dinner (where we learned about replacing bits of movie titles with the word 'Dick', for example the the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's-, Harry Potter and the Chamber of-, you get the idea).

We'll need another trip to Jonker Street for a longer walk next time!

Blessed Christmas!

Can You Keep A Secret?

"Stop buying Christmas wrappers already, the cupboard is full of wrapping paper!"

And when we checked (after removing about 4-5 rolls of birthday wrappers) we did find that we have also another 4 rolls of assorted Christmas wrappers, even a large silver roll from Watson's that we bought last year but never used. Now if only the cupboard held other wrapping materials, like crepe paper, tissue wrapping paper and ribbons.

Well at least we weren't in want for wrapping paper, because instead of the usual family and friends and certain colleagues, we'd a Secret Santa gift exchange party to prepare for too.

The idea to have a Secret Santa gift exchange was a rather good idea, because then instead of being limited to say a budget for everyone or having a blind, generic 'RMxx, no books, no chocolates, no photo frame, unisex' present we could get something more personal. And it's fun when the general buzz in the air goes something along the lines of:

"Eh, your this friend got this already or not?"
"Not yet. You're his Secret Santa kah?"
"No-lah. Asking for another friend."

Still, we guess we spoiled our bit of fun when it came to guessing which present was by us, because that bit was immediately spotted.

"How you know that's from Janvier?"
"It's the same wrapping paper as the present he gave you and me!"

Missed the chance of seeing our recipient go around asking who was it that got the gift for him.

See, for this year, we decided to take a tip and that instead of using whatever Christmas wrappers that were lying around, we'd wrap everything using the same wrapping paper pattern. So while in Ikea we snagged a couple of neat shiny ISIG silver wrapping paper, large rolls that ought to cover all our wrapping purposes. And the fler whom we got this tip, instead of doing the same thing this year he's having it all wrapped at the stores where he bought 'em.

Now the only problem is making sure we have time to finish wrapping everything. We're still in a bit of a tight rush as it is. :S And the cupboard's gonna see yet more wrapping papers in it.

A Bit Of A Whoopsy

(From talking about wedding photos)

Janvier: a navy jacket?!
Psike: didnt know its as ccalled that
Janvier: it brings us to mind of one
Janvier: otherwise you'd call it a winter jacket?
Janvier: or just a coat
Psike: just coat
Psike: long coat mayve ...
Psike: coz its based on my leather jacket ...
Psike: which has almost the same dimensions
Janvier: anyways - find a chance to dress up in that for us to see
Janvier: dress up to office!
Psike: no im not dressing up for "casual" reasons
Psike: im not bringing it out recklessly ...
Janvier: come on!
Janvier: you dress up we dress up and shall go jap dinner
Janvier: egads the last time our coat saw use was in glasgow 2003
Janvier: what's the point of keeping such a coat if not to show off!

(And it goes on for a fair bit)

Psike: well there's that tea shop in Esplanade with $30 cookies
Janvier: something a bit longerlasting, thank you
Psike: the tin is recycleable ?
Janvier: show us, ok
Psike: i warn you ... $10 tea
Janvier: will we dress up?
Psike: i'll be from work
Janvier: bring coat along!
Psike: well the tea shop changed from Venetian -> English theme
Psike: so little less colourful
Psike: well its a quaint shop
Psike: shall i make reserve ?

So initially the idea was just to get Psike to dress up in his navy jacket (we'll have to check the term), but after a while we didn't entertain the idea much, due to not being too sure how our plans in Sporeland were gonna be. We would have called it off except that on the day before leaving to Sporeland we gets a text from Psike reminding us about coats.

Seems like he decided to take a nice photo in navy jacket to use for Facebook, and he's not starting an account until he has said nice photo. Not that he got the idea off us, because he hasn't seen our profile pic.

So we ended up at The Cookie Museum at Esplanade, having tea, sampling cookies and taking snapshots in lousy lighting.

The whole affair was...laughably salah. More so for him, because he goes there now and then.

See, there we both were, in suits, posing and taking photos more than half the time we were there. 'Course this meant swapping seats and trying out his coat as well. Sounds fine right? Given that it's at the Esplanade, dressing up didn't seem over the top too.

Yet it took the store owner to make us realize that, while what we were doing isn't an everyday occurance, it was also mistaken for something else instead of just 'guys wanting to take photos all dressed up'. When Psike called the store owner over to get her to bring out the cookie samples for us, she tried to anticipate what he wanted before he could finish his sentences.

Psike: Hi.
Store Owner: Hi, what can I do for you and your...? (hesitates)
Janvier: Friend.
Psike: Right. Can you-
Store Owner: Take a picture of the two of you?
Psike: Er.
Janvier: Maybe later.
Psike: See, he hasn't tried your cookies before-
Store Owner: And you want to him to buy some for you?
Psike: No! Well that is entirely up to him-
Janvier: He pretty much can get his own cookies.
Store Owner: Oh ok! I'll go get the trolley over.
Janvier: Right. Both our street creds are ruined much better here than spending an entire day in NUM.

Still, the cookies were good although a bit pricey at SGD30 a tin. As most of her range was out we only got to sample a few, and she even had slightly more adventurous cookies (and she called them 'savoury cookies'!) like the 'Nasi Lemak Cookie' and the 'Ikan Bilis Cookie'.

We got two in the end (no thanks to Psike who purposedly called for us to sample the cookies so we would end up spending money) - a tin for sis and one more for mum.

The Pretty In Pink, consisting of peaches and white chocolate. Even the name didn't help against the impression she had, we suppose.

Of course, we knew things would be more awkward for him than for us really.

Janvier: Now she's gonna think that we're your boyfriend from KL.
Psike: I'll bring girl colleagues here next time.
Janvier: It's too late. She'll think they're your faghags.
Psike: Well at least you're going back to KL.

And to think, just before this our sister was telling us about how she inadvertedly character-assasinated one of her colleagues. And we managed to do that all by ourselves. Whoops.

It's rare for the both of us to appear together.

Singapore Spirits

Now, we love flying as a passanger in an airplane, even if it's for just a short while like a flight to Sporeland. However, there was a fleeting moment during our time in the air where we wondered if we were going to crash somewhere, but we just laughed at the thought after entertaining it for a minute.

Still, given such sudden thougths on mortality, we decided to do some be a bit more spiritual while in Sporeland. After all, it's not as if we're an atheist. And so our journey began...around lunchtime in Sporeland. But looking back now, our search actually could have started even before we boarded the plane!

First signs of the spirit: in the Plaza Premier Lounge at KLIA.

Free-flow Carlsberg tap. With chilled glasses in the fridge.

So during lunchtime, we were greeted by the spirits of rum and brandy, deliciously mixed in an eggnog.

We had four. And a white wine to wash down dessert.

Then there was IndoChine at night.

Instead of starting off with our usual daiquiri we tried some other cocktail instead (and since it was more or less quite a random choice we don't remember the name of it either), followed by a Koh Samui Island Tea. After that psike and us decided that it'll make more sense to just get a bottle of red. And we don't remember what we got really, think it was a Geoff Merrill Merlot 2003?

And we were comforted.

But how about for the journey back? What if something was to happen on the trip back instead of going there? We'd best covered all bases.

Absolut at SGD22.10, Baileys at SGD29.40.

But there were protocol to follow! Admittedly we either forgot about the protocol or was not informed about them. See how we depended on the duty-free shop assistants to enlighten us about the protocol.

Each passanger is limited to only 1 litre of alcohol duty-free, coming back to Bolehland.

Passangers have to have been out of Bolehland for 72 hours to be eligible to buy alcohol duty-free.

Alcohol will be sealed in it's own bag, not to be tampered with until you've arrived at your final destination.

The protocols sadden us greatly. But with all that alcoholic scrubbing the night before we should be angelically sterile clean by now.

Right Left Right Left Right Left Shimmy Jump

We're more than a bit rushed, needing to pack our luggage for Sporeland as well as wrap up certain presents to take over.

Egads, this year has got to be our most rushed Christmas shopping and wrapping. Probably because we're no longer in retail and thus don't saunter our second home that often anymore?

Still. As we're wrapping this song's keeping us company. Not very helpful since we need both hands and sometimes you can't ignore the call of the song. Just like when you hear the BodyJam tracks. It gets to you.



And you can even imagine an instructor going, "Regular people take your options! Double time: right left right left right left right left right left right left shimmy jump!"

Deadly Dream

Now, we've happily been going through half our life without having dreams, which sometimes is a good thing. It means we just blank out until we wake, which is good and we get some rest. This also goes to show just how much sleep we get...never hitting REM sleep or the such...

Anyways. So happens as we got back home from church yesterday we took a nap before lunch. And probably wouldn't have woken up at all if we had a weak heart. See, we (most likely) died in the dream. This is the second dream ever where we died, but a first shockwise.

You know how dreams can sometime have them surrealistic ways of scene-shifting from one scene to another? Yes well dreams never make much sense sometimes but sometimes, they can be realistic enough that you need these surreal bits to assure yourself that is was all a dream. Or else, who knows we might have really died because it wasn't a dream after all and this, this, this is our afterlife! Egads! The afterlife, no different from how we've been living?

Back to the dream. Basically it starts off as we're in a car getting directions to go to a friend's apartment for some party that was gonna be held that evening, and we were driving pass BU or so. *Surreal dreamscene shift* From driving around we suddenly end up sitting in a field, probably the school field of SMBU or somewhere. And while still working on finding the location of our friend's apartment, when something made us look up.

A large stereotypical flying saucer shaped disc, the size that at the time made us think of a Ferris Wheel (while it was still in the sky) was tilted on its side and crashing down onto us. In slow motion.

Think rabbit/deer/kangaroo caught in headlights on highway.

So seeing this flying disc about to slam down onto us of course we jumped up to run away sideways. Or so we thought. We ourselves seem to be caught in bullet time. And the disc smashed into the earth, and crushed us.

Everything went black. We could barely breath. Wondered if we were dead, dying or still alive.

Then we woke up, heart pumping.

No, it's not a message from God. We're sure it would be more direct or cryptic. This? Probably a premonition in the lines of a fortune cookie going, "You shall be squashed by ferris wheel."

Last Minute Lessons

We're pretty much notorious for being someone who does things not only at the last minute, but more likely at the last second. This was especially true for our final year thesis, but that's probably for another time. If anything, we learned quite a few things at the last moment yesterday.

Lesson 1: Government Friday Time Warp
Actually this isn't a new lesson but something we tend to forget everytime. On any other day we can actually get our things done within a jiffy (for a given value of jiffy) but on Fridays it's a different story. Things will take over twice the time if we start out at the wrong time, because a certain department we may want to visit would suddenly be in the middle of a jamuan and no one would be free to layan us. So instead of having things done in a jiffy, it takes ages (when compared to said value given for a jiffy).

Not that we are complaining, of course. Not yet.

Lesson 2: Kinokuniya 30% Discounts
For many many many books. We were actually informed about this, er...the day before? Courtesy of Nyukster, so not so last minute. So as we happened to be in KLCC last night of course we'd have taken the opportunity to take a walk in for a look-see. And finally ended up with this. Large hardback but at 30%! Of course, this means our experiment now heads down a different objective instead - to see when the book appears in BookXcess and how much it'll cost then, the price of irony.

Honestly, if we weren't currently restrained by the (same old) fact that bookshelf space is now full and our books are spilling into our office, we would have been spending more time perusing their 30% titles.

Lesson 3: KLCC Midnight Sales
We didn't know KLCC was going to be open till midnight, but considering that up till now we still have not work ourselves up to begin Christmas shopping, that little fact didn't make much impact on us. Which is a bit sad.

How we knew about it then? Just so happens we were there to listen to a couple of friends performing, lovely choirwork it was. And we were all going, "Why in the world are they only starting at 10pm?" That was a shame because there weren't many people then to listen after their first performance at the concourse area. But then again, that meant that someone got to make a personal request.

Lesson 4: Leather Shoes Have No Traction
This we learn amazingly last minute. Like, the moment our right foot left the ground to mock roundhouse, only to find the left foot sweeping the ground not long after that. Hilarious. Thankfully we didn't land on our iPod nor our Crumpler, just on our left side, that's all. Ego was slightly bruised but that's all right, we can always get more. Of course, it may be the case that we won't know we have a dislocated fibula until much much later.

Sorry la choir group we had to steal some attention!

Lesson 5: Kleptomania Is Showing
Only that the awareness that there were signs of kleptomanic behaviour can only be seen after the deed is done, isn't it? Once it happened it's really considered way past the last minute too. Well it wasn't really kleptomania, just a general reshuffling of inventory. People don't pay attention. Just to say, your inventory likes to play hide and seek too.

Maybe we ought not say more.

Still Alive

Was going through VGCats's latest comic (which isn't a comic but a Flash video rather). Now we knows little to none about Portal but the Flash video was very cute. It didn't help that the music was rather chirpy and happy, which may mislead you to what GLaDOS is actually singing!

This was a triumph
I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction
Aperture Science
We do what we must
Because we can
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead
But there's no sense crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake
And the Science gets done
And you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive
I'm not even angry
I'm being so sincere right now
Even though you broke my heart
And killed me
And tore me to pieces
And threw every piece into a fire
As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you!
Now these points of data make a beautiful line
And we're out of beta
We're releasing on time
And I'm GLaD. I got burned
Think of all the things we learned
For the people who are still alive
Go ahead and leave me
I think I prefer to stay inside
Maybe you'll find someone else to help you
Maybe Black Mesa
THAT WAS A JOKE
HAHA. FAT CHANCE
Anyway, this cake great
It's so delicious and moist
Look at me still talking
When there's Science to do
When I look out there, it makes me GLaD I'm not you
I've experiments to run
There is research to be done
On the people who are still alive
And believe me I am still alive
I'm doing Science and I'm still alive
I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive
While you're dying I'll be still alive
And when you're dead I will be still alive
STILL ALIVE

Still, we likes the song, and Scott's video of it. Watch it!

This I Promise You

Just close your eyes
Each loving day
I know this feeling won't go away...

One of the songs that goes into our top list, that one. 7 years now and still very much alive on most of our playlists on the iPod.

Take my hand, only you can stop me shaking
We'll share forever, this I promise you

With Ronan Keating coming out with another song that shared the same name, we worried that he would be doing a cover of N'Sync's song. He did a cover of 'Iris' instead. Come on, he doesn't need to do covers any more, the best covers were still in the Boyzone days.

Anyways. In KIV there's this meme of promises. 10 self-promises, in other words, 10 resolutions.

In our entire life we've never really made any New Year's Resolutions, in fact this year was the first we actually made an actual one and never got along to finishing it. Now there's a meme to think of ten? But there's probably a way to look at this: short-term goals.

I don't want to run away, I want to stay forever, through Time and Time
No promises
I don't wanna run away, I don't wanna be alone
No promises

Hmmm. That doesn't make much sense hor? Promises being equated to goals. Or instead of goals let's just see what's a consistent habit that's done. Let us try...

We shall finish all the episodes on the Dilbert DVD that we bought. We just won't state when we'll finish. And watching the first three episodes already had us all in stitches, this series is unforgivingly funny!

We will only wrap our books in embossed wrappers. But then again we've always been doing this. Just that there's a specific embossed wrapper we've come to fancy but can't seem to find off the shelves. Don't know if they still make this nowadays, the last we'd known about it was 6 years ago.

We shall make sure our Scrabulous games with the sister are for sibling fun. What we mean here is that there shan't be any serious 'must maximize scoring using all the double/triple-letter/word squares' kiasu-ism going on. After all, the sis and us don't really play much together unless she's back and we co-op to play Mystery Case Files. Scrabulous so happens to be an awesome way for us to keep in touch - no sense going all competitive and ruining the fun.

Of course, playing a game with NJAPF, 3-Seconder and Jacz is a different story. NJAPF is trashing us, simply trashing us. And as for Henry, who's one of the Top 5 Scrabblers in Malaysia, we'll gladly play more Starcraft or TI:3 with you instead.

Don't go making all those promises
You know you cannot keep
There's a time to play a king a
Time to be the thief

We will try not to commit suicide by making people kill us. Yes, well, ethancya's kid brother was singing lines from Michael Buble's 'Everything' because the song was stuck in his head, which was fine. But then we found out that he too didn't like Britney's 'Gimme More'! Which meant there were times when he started singing 'Everything' we started 'Gimme More'.

That reminded us that we'd already custom-edit the 'Gimme More' song for use as either a ringtone or text alert tone (btw we're disappointed with her new album). So now whenever we receive a text, Britney's keeps asking us to give her more.

This is actually rather hazardous because lad also hates 'Gimme More' and we can expect physical violence from him, haha. But at least we've refrained from singing that song much around him. Just have to make sure we answer our mobile quickly in his presence.

We shall reread our books now and then. But depending on rereadability. Dahlah our Pratchetts and Christies have seen many rereadings, while Herbert's Dune must recharge a bit, and with Stephen King, after years of renting his books we have no shelf space now to really collect his books.

We will experiment 7-Up with more drinks. We've already mixed it with orange juice, pineapple juice, Ribena, Absolut Vanilla, and even with condensed milk (we had Ryan at Mage Cafe to do this for us since he had the ingredients then). But heck no way we're mixing Sprite with our coffee or tea!

We shall entertain the thought of getting a bottle of Absolut Vodka for an upcoming Christmas party. Although this move is risky. The number of actual drinkers can be counted on one hand, and if it turns out to be a sleepover party things may turn out very risky. Imagine Twister when your brain's on the twist, however!

We shall brush up on calligraphy. Hmmm. We ought to brush up on our own handwriting in the first place. Just that we're running short of font ideas for certain problematic areas among some current ambigrams.

We shall make the most out of our next Sporeland trip. Which is sometime next week. First would be another trip to HMV/That CD Shop, to look for Freemasons and Libera and Karl Jenkins. And psike's suppose to bring us to some tea shop. And Christmas shopping with the sister! Not to mention to see the Christmas lights on Orchard. It's just a bleedin' shame that it'll be another rush job trip as well.

Your promises have never been anything you make them seem
So what you gonna promise me this time
You're telling lies so plain to see
You're trying to make a fool of me
So what you gonna promise me this time

We shall not be bound to holding any promises. Because we haven't made any to keep. Nothing to be oath-bound about. Fingers crossed.

"I Scream I Scream!"

While inflation in foodstalls has been slowly creeping up, we've allowed for the justification that prices of raw materials have gone up. It isn't too bad as lunch is still within the RM10 budget when we eat in malls, and there are times where we still lunch at coffeeshops where the prices don't seem to have changed as drastically.

We guess it takes something we haven't touch in a long time in order to hit us the vast difference in price.

Like a Tropicana ice cream - something we've left behind in secondary school. Well gotta take in account that secondary school's some 10 years ago already. Still, it came as a shocker that the 30 sen ice cream now costs RM1.

Well now RM1 used to be able to get us a bowl of curry noodles, a drink and either a ice-cream or some kacang (yes, that's when we started learning how to throw kacang in the air and catch 'em with our mouth). So nowadays it'll just buy us the ice-cream? Of course, school cafeteria food would be cheaper compared to food outside, but not the price of Nestle's ice-cream - that has a standard recommended retail selling price.

Must check the price of them ais krim potong as well now. Else we'll just stick to buying Baskin Robbins on the 31st.

Ish. Mid-twenties and already doing the, "Back in our days when we were in school..." harangue already.

Enter The Graveyard

Amazing really, for as far as we know it isn't really what you would call a birthday drink. True, the last time we actually had a Graveyard was in May, during otousan and 'Vin's birthday, but that wasn't the usual birthday drink in the first place, the Flaming Lamborghini was. Lemon and us decided for the Graveyard ourselves and even then we (futilely once again) learned just why we said we'll never do the Graveyard again.

So...how is it that, when asked what drink we were to get a particular birthday boy, Adrien and us decidedly said, "A Graveyard!"? And much to our surprise no one else seemed to know what is a Graveyard except that it sounded ominous. Much riffling of the drinks menu and claiming that they can't find it. Thankfully our trust in the bartender wasn't let down.

So for the rest of y'all who still have no idea what generally goes in a Graveyard drink:

• Triple Sec
• Proof Rum
• Vodka
• Gin
• Tequila
• Bourbon
• Scotch
• Beer
• Stout

The pure purpose of a Graveyard is to economically kill your brain cells, doing in a couple of glasses what normally takes a whole lot of cocktails or a couple of bottles of really good red wine. So for someone who doesn't normally drink...the evil that was us decided that this would be just the right thing to get him going. :D

How did we ever learn of this drink? Still remember it well. Somehow NJAPF heard of Bangkok Jazz and wanted to check it out, and so somehow the Graveyard caught our attention on the drinks menu. And so one was ordered, and it wasn't long before this tall glass with the cross-shaped straw was served before us.

That first time was fine. Really. We were still sober, we all could still drive about and such, and actually were at Zouk before we all decided against paying the entry fee.

However, the second time we were at Bangkok Jazz was after lad's birthday, there was definitely more Graveyards involved. We only remember the first two Graveyards out of the supposed four, and uttering something along the lines of, "Because got no more Graveyard, so must order a Pina Colada!". It could have been the other way around, but we do think it involved some coconuty drink. We were a gone case before the night was done (our worst to date).

To think that that would have thought us a lesson about ordering the Graveyard ever again. Well it does have its purposes (brain suicide), but maybe we ought to explore the possibilities of using shooters or tequilas instead next time.

Eat My Dust

"It's an accelerometer, a speed measurer. It tells you how fast things go."

Well that's not really right. But that's what Golden Compass really made us think of. Magus was right when he said that the show's really a sort of fast-forwarded 2 hour trailer.

Liddis.

Lord Of The Rings, semacam travelling in a blimp - pacing not so fast/slow, very scenic, can take in everything.

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, like in a cruise ship - also take your time, enjoy the sights and sounds that is Narnia.

Stardust, in an airplane - it's fast but you don't feel it going fast. Like watching clouds go by slowly, each scene in Stardust you can take in and understand what's going on in the film without feeling hurried, and yet the pacing of the show is good that nothing was draggy.

Golden Compass, that was like sitting in an F1 car for one lap. Everything speed pass you, you see lines only, can see a bit when slowing down for corners. There is no sense of time too, but that's because everything is zipping by so fast you keep thinking you're still in the 1st second.

And the worst bit? All the others can watch movie first then read the books. This is one show where you would best do to read the book before watching it. Because hell a lot of things were lost in the movie, and some of these were things actually strengthen the storyline. It was rather weird to see Lyra, just meeting someone for the first time, suddenly becomes close best friends two scenes later. Sense of time is so distorted.

So here's one or two things general things about daemons and such. So you'll be told that in Lyra's world, every human has a daemon which is part of that human. Daemons can change shape while the human is still young, but will stop changing and maintain a certain animal shape once the human 'grows up'. Humans and daemons have some connection - hurting one will hurt the other. Daemons can freely touch other daemons, but it's considered a gross breach of etiquette to touch someone else's daemon (worse than molest? dunno). If one dies, so will the other.

The importance of the human-daemon connection which was built up in the book got lost in the movie. So the shock of seeing a human without a daemon, or about intercision (cutting off the connection between human and daemon) wasn't as horrific as it was in the book.

Well enough about that then. Must say that we did have a premonition at the start of the show - as the show started, we quoted, "The world is changed," (no, we didn't do the "I amar prestar aen..." bits) and next thing you know Saruman and Gandalf were in the film, all thanks to New Line Cinema. No reminders of Casino Royale or The Invasion at least.

The movie eyecandy is absolutely stunning at the least. Anbaric power is shown to be some sort of atom-driven power, the structures are grand, the clothes are better than how we actually pictured them when we read the book (we admit to stereotyping based on most fantasy novels, so the priests of the Magisterium wore monk's robes of sorts instead of snazzy suits). The details on Daniel Craig's coat and vest at the start of the movie. When it came to appearances, they managed to pull off the 'almost the same, yet different' look very well.

Asides from that, this show lost to Stardust and Enchanted. We'll hope they pull their socks up for The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

"Blessed Christmas, Hold Out Your Hand"

Sometimes Christmas shopping reminds us of a church friend of ours. Back when we were kids in...most likely primary school or early secondary school, 'Cousin' Stan (well church 'relations' back then were rather convulated, there's the grandma-grandpa twist that just doesn't make sense) gave the most hilarious Christmas present to the bunch of us.

On Christmas Sunday, everyone went around exchanging gifts, from small Garfield decorative cups (still sitting in our drawer, we don't have the heart to throw them away even though there's absolutely no use for them whatsoever) to bookmarks to books or cassette tapes, after the morning church service. So there was this one year where 'Cousin' Stan went around to everyone with his hands behind his back and said:

"Blessed Christmas! Now, hold out your hand."

And so everyone would. We were watching as this happened to another church friend. So church friend would hold out his/her hand, and 'Cousin' Stan will proceed to pop a Mentos sweet unto the expecting palm.

"Blessed Christmas!"

Had us in laughter, the way he manage to give a fair number of people something rather than a selected few (bear in mind we were all not earning our own cash then, cannot simply get presents for everyone, and yes we got our Mentos too).And it's a tempting idea sometimes.

Manulife Option Still Will Koyak

So we had CalvinC telling us on Monday that Tuesday's class would have "Totally different tracks." And we lost the reference until we read back our comment we left on FBB At Gym's blog. Then it hit us, heh.

We really haven't been to Manulife in month's - both last week and this week we were late for Combat. Still, this week we'd manage to arrive just to miss the first 2 tracks so stayed on rather than scoot off to The Curve for Jam instead. So, snuck into class only to have CalvinC point us out to FBB and gang (er, hi everyone?) but the place was packed so we stayed close to the door. And now we paranoid of how they view us, and it didn't help that we stayed in for 'Jam 'cos we still shy.

Midway during Combat and actually we koyak'ed already. Is it because we aren't standing near the fan? Is it because the class is packed and there's limited space? Somehow or other not even halfway through Combat and we were already creaking slightly.

Well, we stayed for Jam because we heard Kenny start off with favvie BJ35. And then we thought we'd only stay for the first half, but as it turns out we stayed for the second half too as he did BJ41's Beyonce block.

In the end, recurring story lah...well maybe not as bad as last time, but close. Now to just pamper ourselves with soft pillows and mattresses.

Another Christmas Present (Scrap)book

So the other day we happen to accompany Pater Pollux Dragon Doctor to shop for his scrapbooking material, and we were lamenting our difficulties in beginning our Christmas shopping for the family (which we wonder how he has manage to finish his already, and just what percentage of his shopping is actually for himself).

As it is with every occasion that requires gift-giving, the headache both sis and us have is in the shopping for the parents. Sis isn't around to keep an open ear to what mum wants, and we keep different hours from the parents so it's always a question of, "Eh, what to get for dad-ar?" and "Mum got say anything or not?"

Yes yes not that much of a good son. At least family friction is at a minimum which is very good.

So anyways somehow the idea of making a scrapbook for sis for Christmas must have rubbed off from Pater Pollux Dragon Doctor onto us. Because as we finished up at the gym today we ended up at Papier by ourselves.

The problems started once we touched, yes touched an album...

"Eh, maybe should start with a smaller one...easier to fill up. Dang, why all the pre-set scrapbook kits so...girly one-ah? And about babies! Cannot!"

[Quick aside: Congrats ya 3-Seconder on peanut! Yes it's peanut! Go read about peanut! You see even her blog is now in baby-wallpaper colours. :D]

So we decided on a smaller album, a nice raven-coloured 8"x8" album after perusing the ready-made kits and larger albums. Well, this means the papers will need cutting down to size from the 12"x12" that is the default size, but heck, it's a scrapbook which will mean that there's gonna be lots of loose bits of paper for all sorts.

"Aiks, what was her favourite colour already?"

Now this one even the helpful assistant was at a loss. We decided to go peach to red.

"That's it. We're just gonna do about 3 pages for her, the rest she can start creating herself. Oh wait make one more page with Christmas motif, after all it's gonna be her Christmas present mah."

So we dumped in some ribbons, a few more solid pages for photograph borders, and some alphabet stickers. We could have gone haywire in the shop and just simply anyhow pick stuff that caught our fancy, but the price tags there can catch you off-guard. Still, was almost done with purchases when we picked up a Photo Signature pen to test test for calligraphy purposes (this one is ours!), and a bottle of acid-free glue (admittedly we also know that the UHU Glue Stick cannot tahan lasak one when it comes to glueing anything more than paper).

Ok. So now, the bill. Photo Signature pen, Red Ribbon pack, Alphabet Thickers, 7 assorted artsy/solid papers, acid-free Super Tac glue, and the Photo Album - RM205.70. Only the starting materials for 4 pages whey! We're not counting, except to make an observation that we don't think we shall be doing this for our own personal enjoyment lah. As our own hobby this will be waaay too expensive and we will have mum harassing our ever-diminishing shelf space.

Of course, the alternatives are Photoshop and photobooks like Pixart (which we already got for mum on Mother's Day). But Pixart can't do personalization to this level, and we'll take ages learning Photoshop.

Now, we're gonna have to find a day to start experimenting at making the template pictures (and let sis put in photos of her choice) as well as scrounge the house for more stationary. Oh and print out fonts from the PC to make rub-ons. After that, put a warning so that she knows that we are setting her up for an expensive hobby.

But it would make a lovely coffee table book!

Year-End Resolution Audit

Dear Janvier Soldat,

Kindly note the Resolutions you have made for the year of 2007 (see ref:Res/07/0117 and ref:Res/07/0207). It is already December and we have yet to see any significant result of ref:Res/07/0117. However, your claim with regards to hard disk constraints has been reviewed and has been accepted.

The Audit Dept. is pleased with the progress of ref:Res/07/0207 but wishes to remind you that this Resolution will not cease at the end of this year. The Audit Dept. understands that this Resolution may never be completed due to the inaccessability of certain cover art, and will entertain applications to remove this particular Resolution from your account at any time.

It is the decision of the Audit Dept. to extend both Resolutions for the period of another year, to be audited on December 2008 at a time of the Audit Dept.'s choosing. Thank you.

"Casts Curaga On Janvier"

When one wakes up to an itchy throat and inner ear canal, dry lips, skin that feels slightly numb, and cold extremeties, that's when one goes, "Uh-oh," and prepares for invasion.

Initial defense measures include the dissolving of many efferverscant Vitamin C tablets and the sucking of lozenges.

Since a full blown-out attack hasn't emerge yet, it's best to explore the many forms of prevention from either a bacterial or viral infection. Let's see what are our options:

Sterilization with snow beer. This actually didn't do much except to make us numb and sleepy to the fact that we may be falling sick.

Sweat and heat treatment. Energy levels during Jam was flagging slightly but thankfully not too cardio. Sauna is good. Of course, after the whole thing we were really floating.

Rest and nothingness. Failed to do this one. Being under the weather with no mood to do anything is very distracting. Jalan about with no aim, the idea was to laze at Starbucks. But with no music (iPod), nothing to go online with and that we forgot to bring our Starbucks 2008 Diary card, we should have just gone home after gym. Whatmore we had no mood to do our Christmas shopping. 1st December already!

Boardgame Retreat At Selesa Hill Homes. Despite wolfx's many attempts to get us to go for this year's Retreat we had to pass. We've just came back from Sporeland and it's the Christmas month. No budget for the Retreat this year (oh and we know the thing is rather affordable too). Then again, considering the approach he took we might have had a better chance of feeling better...

Janvier: Zzzzz. Constitution -50! Shall stay close to the arms of sleep for now.
Wolfx: Casts curaga on Janvier. + 9999 to hp.
Janvier: Status: sleep!
Wolfx: Uses eye drops on Janvier. Wake up! Let's go.
Janvier: 0 gil!

Yes well some knowledge of Final Fantasy (or basic RPGs) does help understand what went on there. Well he's up there now breaking into the new Spiel '08 games, while we shall break open the Panadol strip. And more Redoxons. Oh dear low on Fisherman Friends!