Tetris Friends

Something has entered into our life once again to unleash a terrible bloodlust in us, and it's called Tetris Friends.

Now Tetris on it's own already can sap up hours without us even realizing it, due to the dreaded One More Turn syndrome. Hundreds of hours and AA batteries spent powering the Game Boy (and it took 4 AA batteries each time!) to play Tetris, and when Tetris DS was launched we spent hours each time playing against the AI (and occasionally online against strangers).

Now, it's Tetris Friends. Online Tetris with a few different gameplay modes.

So far, we've only been playing the 6-player Battle mode where we go up against 5 other strangers in clearing the most lines and scoring the most KOs. And what makes it so addictive is that each round only takes 2 minutes, so it keeps us coming back for more!

Our only problem? We're so used to playing it on the Game Boy that using the keyboard takes a bit of adjusting. Sometimes it does cost us our game when a piece lands somewhere it's not meant to.

Ok, one more game.

Phuket Sand

Well initially we wanted to do a bunch of posts titled Phuket Something, but given that we had a project going on and were kept pretty busy, we decided to scrap the rest and keep with just the sun, sea, and now, sand.

The day we arrived we actually took a nice walk at the beach, taking in the view and enjoying the rather serene environment. And unlike the esplanade at Port Klang, the beach isn't crowded with couples and tourists, so it was pretty enjoyable to walk about the beach in our Crocs.

Now, our first view of the beach was at night, where all we saw was sea and sand. So our impression pretty much was that everyone will be out at the beach lying down and tanning on beach towels. So it was rather fortunate that the Chief has been to Phuket before, and on the morning we were to go and laze at the beach the Chief brought along some cash (we thought that we wouldn't need to bring any money as we were equiped with towels, sunblock and drinks).

First thing we see when we arrived at the beach in the morning?

Yes...well, that, and that all along the beach there were...

...deckchairs. Whoa. And then the beach boys (all tanned so dark that it got us thinking twice about wanting to live on an island out in the sun every day) asked if we wanted to rent a chair for the entire day. At 100 baht each.

Turns out that was exactly how much the Chief brought along, and after choosing a good spot (the beach boy at the area had a shower set up so we could wash off the sea water and sand), we proceeded to set ourselves up for the entire morning basking in the sun.

And by past 1pm, we were packing up to head back for a shower, followed by lunch. It was a bit difficult to leave, especially since it was so tranquil just lying there on the deckchair, the wind blowing to keep us cool even when it's hot out, and the sun so bright that we had to keep our eyes shut. Basically we just swapped our beds for the beach. But since we didn't have our lunch with us at the beach, and the Chief wouldn't have wanted to spend the entire day at the beach when there's plenty of other things to do in Phuket, we'd to give up the deckchair at last...

No, you can't take over the deckchair. Rent your own.

Quick Aside: "What Are We Getting Dad?"

So sis texts us the other day asking, "Eh, what are we going to buy for Dad for Father's Day?"

And it's a question we've been asking ourself time and again during the last couple of months and then panic 'cos Father's Day was looming and we haven't gone shopping.

Then it hit us after a while: we've all already chipped in to get him an early Father's Day mobile to replace his old Nokia about a month and a half back already.

Quick Aside: Just To Spend $9.95

Things are piling up at the moment, and there was something looming that's gotten us fidgety.

Then we jumped to Engadget and had a good laugh.


No, we shall still keep hitting that F5 button.

Phuket Sea

For all the 4 days and 3 nights we spent at Phuket, only 2 days (or a total of about 6 hours) were spent at the beach baking and splashing about in the sea.

Must say that our experience this time differs plenty from our last one at Redang. For one, we don't really remember the sea being that choppy in Redang. Here, all you need to do is wade in a bit, then let the undercurrent tow you out to sea while the waves knock you down. You don't have to go out far before the waves crest as high as your head.

'Course, there are other dangers closer at hand...the Chief spotted a rusty nail at one point (which we immediately discarded in the bin!), and occasionally there's the plastic bag or other that would brush against our leg making us think of jellyfishes.

Ok, we're making it sound far worse than it actually is. In our experience tho', our entire time in the sea was plain fun fun fun. When you're paddling in the sea, the only thing to do is to choose between going underwater when a wave comes by, or to keep above it. And so we spent goodness knows how long alternating between tanning and paddling, but it was a good amount of time splashing about.

The aftermath? We were so busy playing about that we didn't realize just how much physical exertion was involved until the next morning when we woke up dead tired, as if we just did back-to-back cardio classes!

Phuket Sun

We really needed a holiday already, and the Chief actually had one planned out thanks to the Matta Fair much earlier on. And so it was that just last weekend we were at Phuket!

Now what we wanted out of the trip was pretty simple. We're going to a beach, so all we wanted was to laze about in the sun and do absolutely nothing more. Well, we'll probably walk about the beachside, do a little local shopping, see what's there in Phuket, but really what we had in mind was that our Phuket trip was going to be somewhat akin to our Desaru/Redang trip in our uni days where it was all staying in chalets and playing at the beach.

Well if we did do four days of nothing but bumming at the beach we're sure the Chief would have been horrified at such a waste of a vacation (not to mention how burnt we may have gotten).

Anyways, given how we usually gripe about hot weather and sweating, this trip was different as we were prepared for hot weather - see, in all other cases (be it a Sporeland trip for a musical or normal days here in Bolehland) we're not dressed to sweat buckets. It's not pleasant to be sweaty in a work shirt. It's ok when we're in a Dri-Fit tee in Jam or Combat. And definitely ok when one wants to work on getting a bit of a tan on the beach.

And there's always ways to cool down if it gets too hot even when we're prepared to sweat.

Ok this photo was overexposed. The weather wasn't that intense. Rather, the weather was absolutely marvelous during our 4 days in Phuket - and when we say marvelous here we mean the sun was out shining the same way one would say the weather's a murderous heatwave in KL.

So the first day in Phuket was spent wandering about the 2 main streets, the beach and at Jungceylon Shopping Centre. On the second day we spent the entire morning till 2pm basking and taking in the sun. Day three was more sun, but this time at the hotel pool.

Of course, we were prepared with a bottle of SPF20 suntan lotion and aloe vera gel, but the Chief and us thought that it was best if we got a bottle of suntan lotion specifically for the face. A quick stop at Boots (this is somewhat customary now that whenever we're overseas, we check out the pharmacies for stuff we can't get back in Bolehland) and we got ourselves a bottle of SPF50 suntan lotion for application on the face.

Upon application of the sunblocks, it's interesting to find that the SPF50 sunblock made our faces look as if we were wearing bedak sejuk. Our faces weren't white enough to look like mimes, but it was getting there.

So after 4 days of getting burnt in Phuket, we must say that we are noticably darker! Well...tan lines can be seen from the waist up, although not at the legs.

Interestingly, although we'd been careful to reapply sunblock every now and then (especially after going for a splash!), by next day after sunning at the beach our shoulders had that slight sting that might mean sunburn if we weren't careful. It worsen to being itchy and prickly later on, but thankfully it subsided after generous amounts of aloe vera gel and antihistamines.

Result? No sunburn! Noticiable tan! Yay!

Only...now that we're back in Bolehland, we can be certain that the tan will fade away in no time (sad!).

Back To School

So from last Saturday till Wednesday we found ourself back in school again for the Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod. And with the venue being a school, there's times when we just think back to how our schooltimes were - no car, no air conditioning, no work...

So anyways there was 5 days of being out and about in school from 8.30am till 10.30pm, and with the lack of enough rest and sleep (yes well we do sleep late but normally we're plenty much at rest during those times) we're pretty much tired out. Hot weather meant we were sweating on and off but since we were pretty much prepared to be sweating, we didn't fuss too much about it. Different story if we were just out of the shower and dressed in work togs.

The good thing about all that sun and sweating? We probably only went to the loo like, three times tops a day. And contrasting skin tone.

More good things? School canteen food is cheaper than eating at the workplace. We can budget RM3 per meal instead of the usual RM10 per meal, although for most others after 3 days eating the same fare for lunch and dinner. Still, the food is fair (tho' some say oily) altho' admittedly we didn't eat there all the time whatwith running about one place or another.

Still...don't think that a good tan and cheap food will make up for hot weather and sweaty clothes. We'll keep the air-conditioned office, thankyouverymuch.