Thursday, April 26, 2007

Off-The-Network

We haven't been able to fully swing the puppet out of the funk - it's been oscillating depending on adrenaline and/or endorphin sources. Now the puppet is totally down for the count. We've been holding conference on the causes/solutions, but all factions are having trouble with the utter chaos.

We'll be going off-the-network until we're better.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Rainy Days And Mondays...

Just so happens that as we were about to get in our car and rush off to FF The Curve yesterday, when we get a call from home:

"Boy-ar, after work come home straight, don't go to the gym. Your room flooded: your bed all wet, your table wet."

OMG.

We were aware that repairmen were coming over to fix up the roof, as mum has been complaining about the roof leaking and hearing raindrops in her bedroom. That somehow our room instead got flooded seemed odd. Still, rushed home to check the damage. Tabulating losses in the car while driving home made our heart sink even lower than it already is.

Turns out that they were fixing the entire roof when it started pouring, and only our floor and bed was wet. The table might have been sprayed with water as calamity ensued, but our books remained dry (much to our relief).

We weren't so worried about the bed getting wet (so long as we weren't in it when it happened!) but our table carried plenty of concern - our MP3 player, our MiniDisc player, miscellaneous electrical chargers, our iPod speakers, and the towers of books (both wrapped and unwrapped). Not to mention that if water got into our shelves where we store our boardgames...oh dear.

Already last Friday at Mages we'd brought Pompeji to expose to others (we remembered Mr Jalan saying that he's not played it before) while waiting for everyone to prepare for a bout of Caylus. After a game of Pompeji we *somehow* (I'm not denying/admitting I did this, all I knew was I turned about in my seat, and next thing my cup of tea on the seat next to me toppled over) gotten tea all over my Pompeji set. I sat frozen watching tea flow all over Pompeji. Was some small blessing indeed that tea only spill on the cover, the rulebooks and the cardboard that once held the volcano tiles. Still, now I have a Pompeji set where the cover won't fit on the box perfectly. :'(

Speaking of small blessings, only my bed got wet. And the parquet floor tiles. Everything else - good.

And sis goes, "Mattress sure got smell afterwards."

Ugh.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Yes, so I went to Marmalade alone yesterday. Stuff like that don't change what. From the look on your face you were expecting something more. So much so that instead of sounding like your usual candid reply it sounded like you were rubbing it in.

Marmalade For Dinner

First heard of Marmalade via Minishorts, and kept it registered as another makan place to try when lost for choice. When mentioned to lad, he gave a bleah for their deli burger...us guys are, after all, meat-eaters at heart (no celebratory dinner is complete without our steaks). But we were interested in what Marmalade had to offer, and so given that we had a fair bit of nothing to fill our Sunday evening, we planned the following:
  • Dinner at Marmalade.
  • Look around Bangsar Village.
  • Get more hardboards from CzipLee to make more tablet counters.
  • Find the missing Just Heavenly (trust our horrendous memory to forget the location even after looking it over twice and printing out the map).
  • Oh, and C&C3 with others after all that.
First stop, Bangsar Village. Some facts we learned - don't go on Sunday. Interestingly enough they put parking rates as RM1 from Mon-Sat and RM3 on Sun. First hour. Gah! And CzipLee is closed on Sunday. Great start this is turning out to be.

Stopping at Marmalade, we find the decor rather simple. Nothing as furnished as Ms Read, where the decor openly exclaims, "Dress up, and speak culturedly if you want to be here." Doesn't mean Marmalade looked bland. Ambience was bright with good sense of spaciousness.

From a lovely hidden corner seat.

Menu had a fair bit to choose from, but since it's our first time and we weren't too sure what to expect from Marmalade we thought we might as well try something rather than the usual run-of-the-mill pasta.

Ocean Citrus salad.

In our case, it seems that the main meal, the Scandinavian Secret (in multigrain bread) looks more like a starter dish while the Ocean Citrus salad (the Light option) is the main course.

Scandinavian Secret sandwich in multigrain bread.

We'll excuse our lack of detail for a food review by saying that this isn't a food blog. But suffice to say that the food was good, everything (save one leaf) was fresh, the smoked salmon a suitable substitute to chocolate orgasm. All very satisfactory to the palate. We only dislike alfafa and left those well alone, and if we knew the salad that came with the Scandinavian Secret had a vinegar dressing we'd have finished that off before our Ocean Citrus. While our dinner lacked meat it made up with the salmon (little as it may have been).

All downed with a cooling Rise and Shine smoothie.

Books in lovely green. Penguin classics, whatmore!

After dinner we took a quick tour about Bangsar Village II, only to stop at MPH for a look-see. In the end ended up getting a book too - Pride and Prejudice, because:
  • The cover was in a lovely green.
  • It was only RM8.50.
  • We only have it as a e-book in our Nok7710.
  • We've no more new books to read (am giving up on Eragon).
The cashier did a very stupid move - when we told her that we didn't want a plastic bag, she stuck this long MPH tape on the back of the book! The book isn't plastic-wrapped - if we don't take extra care in removing the tape we might risk damaging the cover! Also why stick such a long piece of tape? Just a short piece sufficient enough to cover the price tag would do!

Thankfully we managed to remove the tape (and the price tag too because the tag stuck to the tape) without tearing the cover nor leaving sticky adhesive behind. We were so close to getting the cashier to do it for us, or alternatively telling her that we weren't taking that copy she just stuck the bloody tape on, we're going to take another one from the shelf instead. Geram how some people don't think.

Got lost trying to find Just Heavenly again. My fault for not bringing along the map. It's a house/bungalow, is it? Or not looking far enough, since cannot locate kindergarden also?

Ended up going back to meet the rest for C&C3, which they have been warming up while waiting for us. Ants caused some bitter feelings for the game, whatwith him being nicely protected between us, he goes and builds some 30 harvesters to hog all the resources, thus depriving us and lagging the game by using said resources to mass a way-too-large fleet of Planetary Assult Carriers. Sigh.

Oh, here comes Monday. Here's hoping FF The Curve finally know what's going on regarding the wall climbing thing.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

This post would be a day late: friend CC opened her pharmacy yesterday at TTDI Plaza.

Of course, the usual hellos and congrats and looking around and eating of food. TTDI Plaza is rather spacious, although the ventilation fans weren't turned on all the time thus forcing us to herd within the shop most of the time for the air-conditioning.

It turned out to be quite a surprise P12k gathering as well in the end, as more showed up later, with only Lil' Nick still in the retail line. Very seldom do we get to meet up with the rest not in our usual clique, whatwith everyone being busy with their own lives now.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

He Doesn't, Doesn't He?

Grammatically wrong, yes.

We haven't been giving much thoughts on ambigrams for a while, but for this one we were driving when inspiration hit. None of the initial elements survived after the initial sketch but that's okay, since it turned out better in the end. Still based a bit on curtsive...will work our way to gothic font one day!

Mr Jalan, aside from the nice comments, said that the dot on the 'i' is a bit too big. We dunno, looks okay.

So, to the smoker/EX-smoker.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Just A Wii Bit!

Otousan says (11:43 PM): what you doing now ah?
Janvier says (11:43 PM): bloggin
Janvier says (11:43 PM): saw the last half-hour of sytycd
Janvier says (11:43 PM): whussup

Otousan says (11:43 PM): bored a bit
Janvier says (11:44 PM): haiz
Otousan says (11:44 PM): any games/things to do online?
Janvier says (11:44 PM): i wanna finish fast so i could game a bit
Otousan says (11:44 PM):
Janvier says (11:44 PM):
Janvier says (11:44 PM): ooh!
Janvier says (11:44 PM): i know!
Janvier says (11:44 PM): www.nintendo8.com
Janvier says (11:44 PM): if DOS games weren't bad enuff

Otousan says (11:45 PM): must download or not?
Janvier says (11:45 PM): noooo
Otousan says (11:45 PM): i'm feelin really lazy
Janvier says (11:45 PM): play online
Otousan says (11:45 PM): and a weebored
Janvier says (11:45 PM): sorry
Janvier says (11:45 PM): wrong link
Janvier says (11:45 PM): http://nintendo8.com/toplist/

Otousan says (11:45 PM): hmmmm
Janvier says (11:45 PM): the only fault is that it's for single player only
Otousan says (11:46 PM): bored bored bored
Janvier says (11:47 PM): sleep
Janvier says (11:47 PM): register for wall climb @ FF Curve
Janvier says (11:47 PM): Dune2
Janvier says (11:48 PM): robot chicken youtubes

Otousan says (11:48 PM): lazy to wait

-_-'

Well, started like this. During our last trip to Camland we came across some shops selling miscelleneous stuff, but interestingly enough these shops had a glass counter with old Micro Genius cartridge games for sale too! So were did entertain thoughts that went:

Long time never play NES/Micro Genius games heh, always talk about it...might as well go get a set then can call friends over play rite? For old times' sake.

Evil thoughts. Especially since there's a multitude of emulators, remakes for the Game Boys/NDS as well as the Virtual Console on the Wii to think of...

But all those don't have the Turbo button ya?

Goodness no! Must save cash for Wii! And all my old cartridges all disappeared already!

Super Mar-

Nope. Plenty of them versions on the GBA. Try again.

Contra.

...Never did like Contra much, die so easily.

Up Down Up Do-

No!

Double Dragon II.

Uh.

TMNT 2.

Um. We'll give you DD2 but TMNT2 not so important leh. That your best?

We'll be back...

Well, it's been a long while since we've used the SNES emulators and if you're just up for a quickie (ahem) then it can feel a bit *leceh* to load up the emulator, the rom etc. Especially if all you want to do is just wait for a webpage to finish loading.

Enter Nintendo8.

Now that we're not so brash at games (we only had patience for the entire Mario series, even the Japanese version of Super Mario 2 aka The Lost Levels), we'll probably be able to play the games of our past properly. As a quick fix.

The Legend of Kage. Kung Fu. Adventure Island 1 & 2. Ghosts n' Goblins.....muahahaha...whut quick fix...

We're only going to play just a Wii bit...until the webpage loads! Just a short while!

Muahahahahaha...

Climb Every Mountain

Sender: (no name) Fitness1st
Received: 17:51:34 19-04-2007

Join FF Wall Climbing Challenge 24-28 Apr@4-9pm@FF The Curve. Spider-Man 3 tickets to be won! Visit fitnessfirst.com.my for details & to register!

Goody. It's been a long time since we monkeyed around. Last time...wait, we have a Nokia videoclip of it somewhere, let us check the date first...22nd Avril, 2005, Summit USJ.

No, wait, we tell a lie. The twins' birthday dinner 2005. Camp5 had a mini-wall climb set up somewhere outside Italliannies 1 Utama - we monkeyed a bit after dinner then, in our dinner wear. So that was the last time we wall-climbed.

Okay, we've registered! Next Wednesday. We're excited.

Mentat projection? 2-4 panel climb, might be might not be colour coded. Will be timed, more than just Spider-Man 3 tickets to be won.

Edit: It's for everyone, members and non-members! Check out the website.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

All Systems O' Doun

I'm o doun, doun, doun...

Personal system is almost flat.

The head cannot think.

The eyes cannot see.

The soul cannot feel.

The stomach does not hunger.

The feet drags.

Language is leaving me in silence...

Unable to speak, unable to listen.

Everything on automata.

If I lay here, if I just lay here...

Lying down, shutting eyes.

Sleep.

Music for white noise.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Just Monstrous

Janvier: so what was with 'boy who could' videoclip? we had to disconnect from 'net due to thunder earlier
l'angeau orange: its boy least likely to
Janvier: ah
l'angeau orange: quirky english duo
doing songs on
a) fears of growing up
b) lost childhood love
c) fears of spiders
haha
adorable

Janvier: :s
we'll save that for the following days

l'angeau orange: oh and their album art consists of cute animals!!!!
Janvier: :s
you has it?

l'angeau orange: oh....another theme
imaginary friends
its sooo cute we tells u

Janvier: haha
we'll lookit the links tmr


So we just dropped by the site for a look-see and here's what they thought about us in the 'games' section.


Thursday, April 12, 2007

I See Dead Future

It's almost every night now when I have naught to distract myself with (that is, lights out and attempting to sleep) that I see what lies in store for me.

A pitch-black void. Nothingness.

And I don't mean I'm going to have a dreamless sleep. It's my future as far as I know it.


I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.

No, I'm still afraid, dammit. I know what's waiting out there! And I dare not take the next step that leads to void.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

But the void is obliteration - my mind and my soul nevertheless. I'll be a walking husk after the void. I will be the void. Le raison d'être moi? Rien.

I will face my fear. I will let it pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

I am not just the inner eye. I'm the subconscious. The darkness behind the eyes. Not head nor heart, but akin to both. The head has been misinterpreting data from the senses, while the heart has been in denial. Both collar and leash. Most of the time suppressed by both, until the quietus when I am heard.

I dare not face my fear. For, so far as I can see, facing this fear means facing this future. I cannot see any others. I can trace its path all right, and to what end? Just to show me its origin, my fear for what it is, a rational argument to make it harmless? I can see back to how this happened and yet helpless to change it even if I could.


When the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

And who will I be? There will be nothing.

I'm not a superhuman, not Mentat nor Bene Gesserit, able to detach from emotion. How to take data and not bias them to my comprehension? How to take each moment that has been for introspection when I have short-term memory? But being my own observer I cannot fool myself on this. The conscious bit only chooses not to accept it and pushes it away, hoping that it would come to a point in time where the future outcome would change. Rejecting all data that would support this outcome. Deceiving myself all the while.

Knowing the cause, knowing the errors, still not accepting, still repeating the mistakes? I am stupid, that is all. All the more knowing that the longer we let this wound fester, the worse the result. But we're afraid to lance the boil in the first place, afraid of breaking it.

Who says I do not know how to be scared?

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Fighting In The Streets

Back in our childhood days we used to frequent the clubs for the arcades, our first source of digital entertainment. Then one day, while out swimming at our classmate's club he intro'ed us to Street Fighter 2, which was just unleashed onto Malaysian shores sometime then.

When SF2 came to our club it generated quite a fair bit of revenue we guess :) Families will come to dine or hang out, which then the kids would charge to the game room heck caring what the rest of the family will be doing, or after swimming lessons everyone would take a quick shower and change, then head on to the game room while waiting to be picked up.

Then one fine day the club installed the predecessor, Street Fighter.

It scarred our memories enough to remember it till this day.

"You have a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo!"

After the relative ease at which we executed special moves in SF2, Street Fighter was a nightmare in terms of control.

We were reminded of it when we stumbled upon this while looking up Rival Schools: Project Justice. Well, actually first got unto the Killer List of Video Games, then that led us to this site that covered all aspects of Street Fighter.

Street Fighter, this is your life!

Oh, and KLOV also has Street Fighter 2: Rainbow Edition listed! Us here knew it only as the 'Taiwan Edition', being a sort-of ultra-cheaty version of the game...use Zangief, jump, do the Spinning Clothesline (which will throw a couple of sinosoidal Sonic Booms as well) in mid-air, hold Up on the joystick so that Zangief will jump higher, repeat etc, once Zangief's shadow overlaps opponent, perform Piledriver, repeat etc.

Bored? Use the P1 Start button to cycle through the characters. Use Sagat and perform nonstop High and Low Tiger Shots. Then cycle to ultra-speedy Dhalsim. Or Bison's/Vega's uber-fast Psycho Crusher.

Anyways. We still loves playing the Street Fighter series (namely Alpha 3 and SF3 Third Strike) on our Dreamcast, and occasionally the Champion Edition where we try to win without losing a round so we can see the alternate ending.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Quick Jots

Vanity Peroxide

We caved in, and bought a tube of Oxy 5. It isn't that bad, but persistant. Plus we're cheap and didn't want to splurge on Dalacin T (repeat: it's not that bad!). 5% benzyol peroxide because we remembers the elder College Brothers using Oxy 10 and ending up with black bacne scars.

It's A Moodle

This was how Wee Wog used to look.

The Wee Wog has gotten a drastic haircut...so much so that she sulked and didn't want her photo taken at first.

Wee Wog when we first saw her when we reached home.

After much reassurances that we still wuff her and only will laugh a bit more, she let us take some.

She sooo has to wear clothes now.

We're Munchkin' It

Lamination is frustrating us. We really don't mind cutting out the previous 100 laminated Munchkins cards and relaminating them with same-brand sleeves. Cannot meh? Dammit Jasema TTDI stupid dunno-mana-datang brand of laminating sleeves which is bloody expensive!

Reading Heretics & Chapterhouse

And loving it so much more better. We don't have to review Hunters of Dune (although we're still gonna buy Sandworms of Dune when it comes out, to complete the set), just look through some reader's reviews found online - we belong to the group that bewoes KJA and BH's writing style even though no one could possibly ever imitate Frank Herbert's prose.

Locums Needed

Walked into the very first store we worked in after pupillage and the store manager goes, "[Janvier], zhou locum." We told her we would if we had 3 licenses. Anyone interested tell us. Weekends only. We treasures our weekend sleep-till-noon to ever seriously consider it yet.

It's A Steel

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Kane Steelbook edition is bloody RM189. We don't need it. We don't need it. We don't need it.

Arseholes

It's one thing if someone arrives late for 'Jam and shares our space, that we don't mind, but only arseholes would sit outside waiting until they feel like joining and get into your personal space, pushing you next to the wall. Like Mad Woman in Cardio Dance who from anywhere on the floor can end up fighting for space beside us. And we suspect the main ARSEHOLE is an instructor-in-training.
Piss-Cuss-La

Google's Picasa did it again, spoiling more of our birthday photos taken on otousan's camera, as far as we deduced. This after we've cleared more hard disk space.

5HT Dump

We're PMS-ing. Black day abounds. No amount of chocolates help.

Seeing The Future

Now while we haven't been playing Magic since the Ravnica expansion (then we've got tired of downloading updates...now we shudder to think how long we've to wait just to update Magic Online, prolly best wait till ver 3 is fully functional), but we still enjoy perusing magicthegathering.com for bits and pieces, namely Mark Rosewater's articles and the Arcana.

The fun we find with the current block asides from the gameplay (which we have not experience nor shall, because we can't bear to pour money that way) is from the many card frames that Wizards have designed. While the Planar Chaos timeshifts retain the same look as current 8th Edition frames, the Future Sight ones are just plain funky.

Rather modern look, but not as if it's from Space: The Convergence, in fact, much better-looking than Space.

Compare. (The actual cards don't have the MtG on it...we just 'shopped it in to show it's from them.)

We're hoping that the frames for each colour will differ drastically (think Decipher's LotR frames for each culture) but that's gonna be wistful thinking.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Lazyman's Wrapping 105

With presents that are tub-shaped but aren't simply cylindrical we are posed with the usual problem of wrapping it nicely. The solution? Don't.

Requires:
Wine carrier bag (in this case a Jusco paper bag was used)
Crepe paper
Ribbon
Cardboard

Thankfully the tubs fit nicely into the wine bag - else we'd have to get one that's bigger.

Now use the cardboard make a cylinder with the tubs inside, not only this holds them in place but gives you a frame to work on.

Next roll the crepe paper around the cylinder and stuff the bottom in. Unlike wrapping tissue crepe paper is more fragile and may tear, be careful.

Finally, tie simple knot on top of cylinder. Viola.

Tell recepient the present has to be chilled before using.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Secrets To Success?

The last time we went out to dinner with l'agneau orange and Lissa, we heard about The Secret Diaries of The Fellowship. This time we were told about Zoe Tay and Imedeen when l'agneau orange was despairing about her colleagues. Roared our heads off as she tells of how her colleagues asked, "Why? You don't like her is it?" when she had her own share of laughter.

Then she despaired about Sporelanders' England when she came across a restaurant called 'Barbeque People'. The suggestion was to add in a 'The'...but in the middle of the restaurant name.

It's an interesting way to find out just how much you could understand each other :)

Thursday, April 05, 2007

So Long Jimmy, You're Going To Boot Camp

We couldn't stay for the whole Cardio Dance class yesterday as we had to honour dinner plans and not keep friends starving (luckily Italliannies does free bread), so we didn't hear the announcement at the end of the class yesterday. Good thing otousan mentioned it today during Combat - Jimmy's not gonna be teaching the next two months as he'll be away for 'So You Think You Can Dance?'

So anyways that's how we got to watching SYTUCD (as 8TV's YouTube calls it) after dinner, but we got back late and didn't see him save him running out of the room elated for getting straight into Boot Camp. You would think that with only 7 people making it into Boot Camp (all others only got callback'ed) they'd show all the performances. Mebbe he purposely requested to keep it off-cam?

Anyways, a few things about the show. One, the teaser clips before adverts gave away what's to come. How to keep people gripping in their seats this way? You could just watch the whole teaser clips, and when adverts pop up you could take your own sweet time making supper or whatnot and know you haven't missed anything. Two, a minimum age requirement is fine (final contestant shown Sharon's super emphasis that she just turned 20 years old that day, 16th March) but we don't quite agree on the maximum age limit. But maybe it was a tactful way of saying, "You're to old to do breakdancing," especially if you compared him with the other younger contestants with legs in the air most of the time...

Onto the lighter bits of the show. We don't agree with the dancers that caused the 'Dance' bar to pop up at the skirt slits or such...or we could be looking at girls bringing their own poles to the auditions, and then the show being cancelled for all you know. There's a time and a place, it's not on showtime, and it's not in Malaysian public viewing. The guy who did the robot dance was very impressive (damn good body control) but we do think he's only capable of...'popping'. There were some who came off very...'unmasculine' and not in a good way (so much so that Judge Jeff found the bag-selling bit more interesting, oh dear). And 'twas a barrel of laughs from the students who were auditioning..."Actually, I ponteng to come here," and "Hai-yar, I'm going to go back do homework!" were gems.

Oh well...we might try to dedicate time for this series. Might. Plus now our Wednesdays seems to be free once more.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Quick Rants

We'd finally downloaded Picasa for a little run-through - and fell in love with it as it brought out the organizing freak in us (it reminded us how we felt when we first used iTunes to organize our MP3 collection). We were rather impressed with the things one could do with it (and it's freeware some more), and without looking like some cheap software.

Then disaster struck - some of my photos look as if they're corrupted - there's a couple that looked as if half of the picture has some colour filter on it, and some other have glaringly obvious this-is-not-right look to them. And viewing the thumbnails and via Windows Image and Fax Viewer we're going, "F- the birthday pictures of 2007! They haven't been backed up yet!" Even if we're low on hard disk space we don't think Picasa should be screwing up our pictures like so.

Not good.

Reading Hunters of Dune we can't help but think that they should have just left the series hanging. We've enjoyed House Atreides and House Harkonnen, not so much on House Corrino. The Legends of Dune Trilogy failed to make the Butlerian Jihad impactful, and once again featured the Bene Gesserit to be more magically powerful then ever mentioned in the Classic Dune series, plus their leaders are overly egotistic.

With Hunters of Dune, things are once again simplified and dramatized. No fun to read, nothing creative and pacing slow with lots of references to previous books (especially from Prelude/Legends of Dune series) although it's easier to understand. Classic Dune may be better even though it'll take some rereadings to comprehend what's fully going on. The new writing style doesn't appeal.

So why are we still reading it or bought it in the first place? Well, we still want to see how it ends mah...

Finally, we've gotten Command & Conquer 3, Tiberium Wars. The product specs discouraged us at first, citing high-end requirements. Then ayheng metioned that it works on his PC. Since his PC is older than ours, we knew the game would work on ours. Only problem we encountered is the FMV lag - sound finishes before cutscenes (oh, the cheesy but fun cutscenes!).

Love the new contextual tab, finally everything under one sidebar with the ability to have multiple production buildings churning out units at one shot. It also looks and plays better than C&C2: Tiberium Sun. Only need to learn everything again, from tech tree to unit recognition etc. Gonna go back for more!

Who They Imagini We Are

This widget couldn't fit properly unto the sidebar.


From a drowned glass. When will we stop doing these personality thingies? Guess there's no need to stop since we do this for a bit of fun and don't take it seriously. After all, we should know ourselves and our friends know our bad habits already - although there are bits of ourselves we never realise until friends point them out to us, like how we can't say 'no'.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Out In The Spores [Part 2]

Saturday, Phantom Day. Woke up with a bleedin' headache that we attribute to last night's Wolfblass. After 4 Panadols we could get through the morning so long as we don't move our head too fast.

Lunch was at Lerk Thai at White Sands shopping mall, the second Thai meal for the gang (the first was dinner last night which we missed out). Food was good, but no one was inclined to take pictures as we were either too hungry or thought it unneccesary until after the meals. Then we'll go, "Aiyah, didn't take any picture of the food."

Phantom was quite good, and us somewhere in the middle of the foyer stalls we had a good (if not a wee bit far) view of the stage. We'd planned to sing into njapf's ear as the show played but she chose to sit on the opposite end of us. Oh well, concentrated on watching the bits we've already forgotten. To our shame we fell asleep somewhere after the intermission, when the cast was practising Don Juan Triumphant till the point where Christine was visiting her father's grave. Even goodsheet and lad zoned off here and there...we shouldn't do uberlate nights if we're gonna catch matinee performances.

Bits that caught our attention in the musical - pauses that seemed a second too long in one or two conversations/songs and during the singing of 'All I Ask Of You':

Christine
Say you love me...

Raoul
You know I do...

Sounded as if Raoul sang, "No, I do..." Otherwise, we still love Mssrs Andre and Firmin :D and how the ballerinas don't run but spin about as they twitter from one end of the stage to the other.

Souvenirs were pricey in our opinion. Programs at SGD20, mugs at SGD25, pens at SGD20, phantom masks at SGD30, the CD at SGD35. goodsheet and lad didn't help by trying to persuade us to buy the mask, then wear it while stalking njapf in MidValley. Thank goodness they are not proficient in the Sine Arm Wave Persuasion Attack.

Oh yes, the question of the day: How does the mask stick on the Phantom's face? Elastic string? Our theory was that the mask was velcro'ed on, hahaha.

Back to Orchard after the Phantom as we've to exchange gaming stuff, while the rest head off to Takashimaya for some shopping: njapf for Royce chocs, goodsheet for Dockers work shirts that were on sale at the concourse area. As we ourselves already have bought Super Munchkins and Giordano's Dry Polos (3 for SGD39) we resisted temptations.

Second Super Munchkins game with 6 peeps, played a bit more properly and not totally based on what the game owner says.

That night we did Super Munchkins again, this time with updated rules and with everybody - we won because with the updated rules it wasn't easy to saboh each other. Now we're itching to get the base set. Ethancya has finished the music videos, and we laughed at the antics of the day - slow-motion Renzze flicking her hair...slowmo lad backheel kicking goodsheet...clips of us selling stuff to Renzze...musical fountains (you did it!)...will we be posting it up on Youtube (wah no shame)?

Was almost asleep when Ethancya woke us up to show a magic trick. That got everyone wide awake again, practising the trick.


Back to bed again after that, to catch a total of 9 hours of sleep between Friday and Saturday...Sunday morning we were back on the bus heading back to 1U, sleeping all the way. Goodbye Sporeland...till our next visit!

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Out In The Spores [Part 1]

While the last holiday was not long back with Chinese New Year last month, and our last trip was on New Year's Eve at Camland with the Klangites, those doesn't seem to satisfy our need for entertainment and denial of reality.

Yes, well, we still are immature, and it doesn't seem like it'll end anytime soon.

Anyways. The Sporeland trip was planned since September last year, so it isn't really a spur-of-the-moment trip just because we were bored. The main reason for the trip? The Phantom Of The Opera for njapf, goodsheet, lad and us!

However, Phantom was on Saturday afternoon but we might as well make a good holiday out of it, so we all went down on Thursday instead. Our wonderful host and hostess Ethancya and Renzze made the trip all the more memorable - from accomodating us in their lovely abode to bringing us around town to sumptuous meals.

Sporeland was humid - the moment we stepped out of any building to walk the streets we started sweating almost straightaway. Also for this trip we went pretty much empty handed: no book, no iPod, no Nintendo DS, worse, no iXus as mum borrowed that for her own trip! So no camwhoring for us :'(

This very friendly wog got mohawk one.

Thursday saw us unsuccessfully trying to catch up on sleep inside Aeroline as we were repeatedly interrupted each time we drifted off to slumberland. Thankfully we managed enough to get us through once we set foot in Sporeland. A cab to Pasir Ris and we were in the mercy of our host and hostess. Once we've stopped 'waaah'-ing over their place and playing with Little Louis and multiplayer Starcraft, it was time for dinner.

Rice with seaweed and seasoning, salad, fish in teriyaki sauce, veg soup and seaweed, fried chicken, teppenyaki...yum.

After dinner we were scrubbing dishes that didn't make it into the dishwasher while chatting with the hostess and njapf, with otousan occasionally coming into the kitchen to mock us for doing the washing (hmm in retrospect should have made sure njapf got the bolster then instead of it taking up space as a 'divider' in the bed otousan and us shared...nevermind any threats of elbows in the face). Our nighttime game of Cluedo was interrupted by dinosaurs from Jurassic Park 3, and after that we watched slugs sing in Flushed Away before turning in for the night.

Friday we made our way to Orchard as we had a delivery to make - a colleague had asked us to get some meds from home because it was much more cheaper (hmmm for future trips personal trips might be better not to announce intentions to Sporeland colleagues). Ethancya brought along a videocam and took clips (which later he made into two music videos for us!). After lunch at Border's Bistro (and picking up Hunter Of Dune in Borders) it was onwards to Vivo City.

Renzze says that Vivo City is larger than MidValley, but we've not had the chance to fully explore it as we'd opt to see the view of Sentosa from atop Vivo City first. Vivo City's rooftop was quite a view by itself, with shallow pools of water, mini falls and a view. Note to self: there's a Fitness First in Vivo City as well. Must check it out if possible one time or another.

In the center, some fellow hanging for dear life on the bars. Really. :)

Onwards to Sentosa by cable car...laughing mercilessly at single lone man riding cable car back from Sentosa...voyueristic peeking staring to catch indecent acts by other couples...and we were at Sentosa. While we did talk about Cafe del Mar (partly thanks to kennysia for bringing that to light) we didn't manage to hang out there. Stops include much camwhoring here and there - especially near the Merlion where we caused hostess Renzze to *nearly* fall into a pool! Very much touch-and-go as she see-sawed back and forth and ended up with one leg in the pool. Good thing the pool wasn't that deep...or else we might have had to cut short our trip -_-'

From the Monorail to the Tram Beach Buses watching peeps playing volleyball we finally found ourselves at Ben and Jerry's.

American Fudge and Strawberry Cheesecake & Chunky Monkey and some other chocolate flavour.

Once we were done with our B&Js we broke off from the others here to go meet our sis. While waiting at Toa Payoh HDB Hub for her we did a bit of retail shopping for travel-pack sized toiletries.

Original Source travel size shower gel, SGD1.95 each from Watsons. Very handy.

Dinner was a simple affair as sis was totally koyaked from her trip to Bukit Timah. But she did tell us that Orchard had a late-night sales on the last Friday of the month, so instead of heading back to meet the rest of the group we headed down to Paradigm Infinitum at Orchard to pick up some gaming stuff for someone (am so not gonna do this unless we get major profit from this next time). Got ourselves Super Munchkins while we were at it.

Whoa there's even a Dilbert Board Game going for about SGD60!

We feels that we're heading past the peak of our prime, as we haven't even done a decent walkabout of Orchard and our legs were complaining already :( Giving in, plus fact that the gang was also heading back home at the same time, we made our way back with the happy feeling that all our 'delivery deeds' are finally done.

We were already boarding the MRT when said fellow whom requested gaming stuff called us to inform that we've gotten the wrong stuff for him. Sakai. Trust him not to answer phone when we were there. This is going to cost him extra, as we have to purposely make our way back to the store again tomorrow.

Back at our hosts' home, the night wasn't done yet. We started off with Super Munchkins, playing the rules wrongly thanks to yours truly. Next up was Charades using Taboo cards for the words to act out - with highlights include figuring out 'kudos' from goodsheet pointing alternatively at his fingernail and his groin (mental eraser on big time), us deciding to go the quick-and-easy-but-embarassing way of describing 'tear-jerker', and lad's revelation over njapf's acting of 'revolution'.

This then proceeded to Werewolf. Renzze, despite her being very honest about her roles and suspicions, did not gather much trust while njapf's utter confusion led to no one being lynched during the daytime because she tied the votes. While short and fast the games were still good. Next up, the drinking game of dice. Thankfully we decided to keep to 2 cans of Carlsberg only as 1) we've already finished a bottle of Wolfblass Cabernet Sauvignon; 2) it was nearly 5am; and 3) we're catching the matinee performance of Phantom at 2pm on Saturday. Two cans of Carlsberg goes down very fast and it was then off to bed, off to bed...(dammit, the bolster is still there!)

PS. Am gonna have to wait for njapf to blog about their bit of adventure after we left them.

Back To The Real World

It's now three days into our Sporeland holiday and we're not looking to going back to KL...yet. Unfortunately Monday looms and we be sad, it's time to go back to the real world. Sob.