Saturday, December 29, 2007
Mon 24 Dec
After a bit of clearing up, I headed over to ZH's place for a mini gathering. It was primarily to return him his microphones that he lent me, but he had invited a few colleagues and a whole bunch of TA students over to his place as well. I reached there to find a mahjong table all set up, so we played for a couple of hours, and I won money from all three of them. That was an achievement in itself, because I had never won money from ZH and HY, two colleagues I occasionally play with, before. We then sang some karaoke with the kids before I rushed back to buy vegetables for my wife to make her second attempt at cooking at home, this time, wanton noodles. It turned out pretty well, in my opinion, but her standards she set for herself were so high that she regarded it a failure. Her mum sets pretty tough precedences to overcome...
Tue 25 Dec
My wife and I went over to her grandma's place for a Christmas gathering. It was quite fun, and characterized largely by Rubik's Cube and Puzzle Fighter, nostalgically brought back to my wife's cousin's laptop by emulator. Highlight of the day was when one of my wife's aunts suddenly talked about some Christian who prayed for her leg the other day, and she actually asked for prayer, which in the end, my wife gamely agreed. That led to the prayer for yet another aunt, and they seemed interested to come for church service! What amazing breakthrough it is, and on Christmas day no less!
Wed 26 Dec
My pastor arranged to meet my wife and I in the evening at Parkway Parade, so we made our pilgrimage to Katong Shopping Centre first. We have resolved to purchase microphones for karaoke. We picked up good mikes at a reasonable price, and a few karaoke discs as well at Teo Heng before making our way over to Caffe Bar at Parkway to meet my pastor. The food there was quite good. We tried the pasta set there, and that was quite tasty. The sauce was thick and creamy without being sickening after a while. The chicken soup was of good quantity and quality as well, and the set came with coffee/tea and free flow of bread. We discussed many things, from marriage to a new project that my pastor is starting and wants me aboard. Sounds exciting!
Thu 27 Dec
A lazy day at home, filled with anime and gaming, interspersed with some household chores from time to time. We had dinner at Wan Chai Tearoom at White Sands (can't remember the full name, but it's the one on the second floor), and I think the food is way superior to the other Hong Kong cafe at the first floor. The Macau fried rice is excellent. The prawn paste chicken wings are solid, though slightly oily. The yuan yang paste (almond mixed with black sesame) is really delicious too. I think other than Lerk Thai, this cafe is the next best offering that White Sands has.
Fri 28 Dec
After some further rounds of cleaning up, my wife and I realized we need to get containers or bags or anything that works to keep our clothes in. Somehow, the house has an abnormal amount of dust every day that comes in. We still can't figure out where the dust comes from, but it certainly is a nuisance. We made our way to Ikea, and bought a whole assortment of organizers, covers, and etc. Now our walk-in wardrobe looks far less colourful, since all my t-shirts lying around on the shelves are now in cloth boxes (dunno how else to call those things).
Sat 29 Dec
Today the contractors came to install the solid surface for my kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately, I was smoked by my interior designer who warned us that the people will be grinding the solid surface here to make adjustments and all, so we should protect the items. Hence I missed my network meeting, frantically clearing the fridge so that we can move it to make room for the workers, and clearing all the items off the kitchen. Imagine the sheer cheated feeling when the guys came, placed the solid surface on the cabinet, and placed sealant. That was it. Apparently this new cabinet we were doing was relatively small, so the grinding was already completed at the factory end. Sigh.
Still we had a lot of cleaning to do, and the biggest accomplishment of today was that we finally cleared out and organized our storeroom. All the additional renovation works were also completed. So the second phase renovation is now complete! Wonder whether there will be a third phase soon. Maybe if I caught all of Tharman's announcements correctly, the revision of pay package may send the next phase of carpentry earlier than expected. The only question is...am I one of the high performers? Hmm...
I finally watched Die Hard 4 on DVD. I bought it a while ago, but had no chance to watch it because my wife wasn't really interested. It took a bag of (microwavable) popcorn to bribe her into watching it. The show was surprisingly good. I like the whole Die Hard franchise actually. Especially the third one, which had a superior plot twist. Die Hard 4 had a slow unfolding conspiracy kind of thing, and the teaming up with a geeky computer hacker was refreshing. I found the villain pretty cool, and it turned out to be the guy from Hitman, Timothy Olyphant (sounds likes elephant...so I remember it) who has a super intense gaze that I think he carries off well. Bruce Willis was cool in his usual gruff manner. Actually, out of all the action stars, I like Bruce Willis the best, as compared to Arnold, Seagal, Stallone...that entire era.
After a bit of clearing up, I headed over to ZH's place for a mini gathering. It was primarily to return him his microphones that he lent me, but he had invited a few colleagues and a whole bunch of TA students over to his place as well. I reached there to find a mahjong table all set up, so we played for a couple of hours, and I won money from all three of them. That was an achievement in itself, because I had never won money from ZH and HY, two colleagues I occasionally play with, before. We then sang some karaoke with the kids before I rushed back to buy vegetables for my wife to make her second attempt at cooking at home, this time, wanton noodles. It turned out pretty well, in my opinion, but her standards she set for herself were so high that she regarded it a failure. Her mum sets pretty tough precedences to overcome...
Tue 25 Dec
My wife and I went over to her grandma's place for a Christmas gathering. It was quite fun, and characterized largely by Rubik's Cube and Puzzle Fighter, nostalgically brought back to my wife's cousin's laptop by emulator. Highlight of the day was when one of my wife's aunts suddenly talked about some Christian who prayed for her leg the other day, and she actually asked for prayer, which in the end, my wife gamely agreed. That led to the prayer for yet another aunt, and they seemed interested to come for church service! What amazing breakthrough it is, and on Christmas day no less!
Wed 26 Dec
My pastor arranged to meet my wife and I in the evening at Parkway Parade, so we made our pilgrimage to Katong Shopping Centre first. We have resolved to purchase microphones for karaoke. We picked up good mikes at a reasonable price, and a few karaoke discs as well at Teo Heng before making our way over to Caffe Bar at Parkway to meet my pastor. The food there was quite good. We tried the pasta set there, and that was quite tasty. The sauce was thick and creamy without being sickening after a while. The chicken soup was of good quantity and quality as well, and the set came with coffee/tea and free flow of bread. We discussed many things, from marriage to a new project that my pastor is starting and wants me aboard. Sounds exciting!
Thu 27 Dec
A lazy day at home, filled with anime and gaming, interspersed with some household chores from time to time. We had dinner at Wan Chai Tearoom at White Sands (can't remember the full name, but it's the one on the second floor), and I think the food is way superior to the other Hong Kong cafe at the first floor. The Macau fried rice is excellent. The prawn paste chicken wings are solid, though slightly oily. The yuan yang paste (almond mixed with black sesame) is really delicious too. I think other than Lerk Thai, this cafe is the next best offering that White Sands has.
Fri 28 Dec
After some further rounds of cleaning up, my wife and I realized we need to get containers or bags or anything that works to keep our clothes in. Somehow, the house has an abnormal amount of dust every day that comes in. We still can't figure out where the dust comes from, but it certainly is a nuisance. We made our way to Ikea, and bought a whole assortment of organizers, covers, and etc. Now our walk-in wardrobe looks far less colourful, since all my t-shirts lying around on the shelves are now in cloth boxes (dunno how else to call those things).
Sat 29 Dec
Today the contractors came to install the solid surface for my kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately, I was smoked by my interior designer who warned us that the people will be grinding the solid surface here to make adjustments and all, so we should protect the items. Hence I missed my network meeting, frantically clearing the fridge so that we can move it to make room for the workers, and clearing all the items off the kitchen. Imagine the sheer cheated feeling when the guys came, placed the solid surface on the cabinet, and placed sealant. That was it. Apparently this new cabinet we were doing was relatively small, so the grinding was already completed at the factory end. Sigh.
Still we had a lot of cleaning to do, and the biggest accomplishment of today was that we finally cleared out and organized our storeroom. All the additional renovation works were also completed. So the second phase renovation is now complete! Wonder whether there will be a third phase soon. Maybe if I caught all of Tharman's announcements correctly, the revision of pay package may send the next phase of carpentry earlier than expected. The only question is...am I one of the high performers? Hmm...
I finally watched Die Hard 4 on DVD. I bought it a while ago, but had no chance to watch it because my wife wasn't really interested. It took a bag of (microwavable) popcorn to bribe her into watching it. The show was surprisingly good. I like the whole Die Hard franchise actually. Especially the third one, which had a superior plot twist. Die Hard 4 had a slow unfolding conspiracy kind of thing, and the teaming up with a geeky computer hacker was refreshing. I found the villain pretty cool, and it turned out to be the guy from Hitman, Timothy Olyphant (sounds likes elephant...so I remember it) who has a super intense gaze that I think he carries off well. Bruce Willis was cool in his usual gruff manner. Actually, out of all the action stars, I like Bruce Willis the best, as compared to Arnold, Seagal, Stallone...that entire era.
posted by MadPoet : 11:29 PM Sunday, December 23, 2007
Is it a new record? 11 days of absence. I thought I was on a roll the last few posts, at daily frequency.
Thu 13 Dec
As a precaution, and since we now have an extra cage, we separated our two hamsters. As a result, we saw drastic differences in the things in their cages, and I now know which hamster was responsible for which problem in the previous cage configuration. Xiaobai was the hamster which peed in the bathing salt. Beckham (or Posh Spice now) was the one who landscaped the cage. She intelligently kicks the bedding to pile it up at the staircase to reach the feed, which they usually have difficulty reaching at times. Oddly enough, she keeps her bathing salt clean and dry, and really uses it to bathe. I guess regardless of species, the males have their similarities and the females too. Haha.
Fri 14 Dec
I went down to Elias Mall to buy lunch for the family. My wife and I then went to White Sands to buy some necessities. A quiet stay-at-home day. Anyway, my anime, High Street 5, and Assassin's creed are enough to while many hours away.
I just finished a series Gunparade March, which was decent. It looked like it was a mecha series, but in the end, the mecha was a mechanic for the plot, which was more about teenage love and angst. Ah well, it was a short 12-episode investment of time.
Sat 15 Dec
I was planning to join my magic kakis for a game or two, but in the end, the contractor came late, so I stayed at home to help my wife out with the clearing up. It turned out to be a quiet day spent at home, but we managed to watch a movie DVD for recreation.
Sun 16 Dec
I went for first service in the morning because I was having a blood brudder birthday celebration in the afternoon. Shaofeng and Yuren came over first, and I showed them the awesome Assassin's Creed in the meantime. We then headed down to Tampines Mall to catch the Warlords, which as I mentioned previously, it was originally supposed to be named Blood Brothers. How apt right? The movie had the right actors and an engaging plot. It is quite a weighty and gritty movie, and I think what they did best is that they did not use CGI to generate the soldiers and all, but (at least I think it is so) that they hired extras to be the soldiers and even the piles of dead bodies. It is one of those movies that you can't really catch the moral of the story (maybe that one shouldn't anyhow make oaths, especially those that state that you will all rather die on the same day).
Everyone had something on, so my wife and I were left to our own devices, and we wandered the pasar malam at Tampines for a while before fleeing. I really can't stand the crowdedness of that place. I think the people density in Tampines central is reaching the level of Little India on a Sunday.
Mon 17 Dec
My wife and I spent a quiet day at home. One contractor guy came to finish off the cement base for my kitchen cabinet extension, followed by another round of cleaning. This time round, we took on the study area windows, which we thought we had better clean before the new cupboards at the study area make it hard for us to clean. That took about 5 hours, and the dust was scary. Of course, the windows were left untouched for about seven years when the house was vacant, but I highly suspect that even before then, the owners may not have maintained it well either. We decided to take a walk down to Downtown East for a stroll and a midnight snack (we started cleaning at 7 pm after procrastination and ended at midnight), and ended up in the jackpot room. I prepared $50 for the entertainment, and at the end, I got a few breaks and ended up winning $12 back. So I paid $38 for the hour of entertainment. Quite costly, but I can see why people can get hooked. The semblance of winning something even though the nett result is actually a loss is addictive indeed. I think we are only this bored to try someone so wasteful of money in the long holidays.
Tue 18 Dec
It's my birthday today! After lunch at home, my wife, mum and I went over to White Sands to buy a small birthday cake. We went to Yakun to get some toast and eggs, and extra plates to cut the cake. After we were done with that, my wife and I headed down to Chinatown to a shop called Dallas Entertainment. We spotted the flyer at a pasar malam where there is a stall selling some karaoke discs very cheaply (three for ten bucks). It is one of those parallel imports thing, so I had bought three discs to try. Apparently, the quality was pretty decent, and I think they actually are original, complete with IFPI code. Not all of them were, of course, and I had to filter through many dubious-looking ones to get my selection. When we went there, we found quite a number of DVDs and VCDs, all parallel imports. We chose all we could that we thought looked original, and in the end, we bought 6 karaoke DVDs (including Nicolas Tse, Penny Dai, Sun Yan Zi, Ben C, and etc) for $20, 1 English-song DVD that we knew would not have original MTVs, but we hoped that the music at least sounded authentic (which it did), and a whole bunch of VCDs including super old hits that my mother would know how to sing. The surprising thing was that I know the songs too. The other interesting thing is that my wife likes oldies.
After that, we headed down to Orchard to shop, which we hadn't for a really long time. The whole place looked really different to us, especially with the usual entrance into Orchard station from Wisma being rerouted (yeah, that's how long we haven't gone there). We bought a few things using some remaining vouchers that were our wedding gifts, and then went over to Wheelock place to check out this miniatures shop that my wife wanted to see. She found the shop, Dollz Inc, and I swear, her eyes literally lit up. She found a whole variety of display cases, and all the miniature cakes, donuts, and etc that we wanted. My eyes should have shone too, because I spotted a set of Bleach figurines, which has some key characters in school uniform. They looked pretty authentic too, not like some imitation ones I see sometimes where the figurines bear little resemblance to the actual character. So that became my birthday present from my wife, complete with an acrylic case to display. Together with the clothes that we bought along the way, I was dragging big shopping bags home.
Wed 19 Dec
I spent the day with my wife doing some household chores at first. G12 brother Eric was in the area and thus offered to give me a ride down to town where we were going to have a cell group dinner at 鲜得来 restaurant at Liang Seah Street. We had been there a couple of times with the China boys who used to be in our cell, and man, we ate a lot. We ordered in tens and twenties of plates of beef, chicken, fish, and etc. This time round, there was only a modest four of us, but I think we ate quite a lot. The food there is fresh, and there is airconditioning, but it is about 20+ in cost.
I finished the anime series Zombie Loan. It has a pretty novel but morbid concept centred around zombies, and the storyline had good unfolding of background conspiracies and all, but unbelievably, the series stopped at 11 episodes at the seeming end of one story arc, leaving like ten thousand questions about the unfolded plot. I think the part about the two main characters having to exchange hands (I mean, literally, the guys had to pluck out their hands) in order to materialize their weapons was amusingly unique. It's now on to a new promising series Darker than Black.
Thu 20 Dec
The carpentry people came down today to fix up the cupboards for the study area, and the built-in cabinets for the recess spaces under the windows in our bedrooom and study areas. I think they bluffed us the other time, saying that we only need to remove the things on the side of the table near the wall where they were installing the cupboards. In the end, there was so much sawdust and white dust from drilling into cement all over the room that we needed to do a major cleanup. And I do mean major, because our study area had many small items, paper, letters, and etc - all of which needed wiping. We finally fixed the lock of one of our windows which couldn't open for a long time already.
Anyway, the leak in our guest room has worsened, and I am beginning to think that the window contractors hired by HDB to build my block used inferior materials or something, because the two maisonette units above me also have exactly the same problem. What my wife and I couldn't understand was how all these people could bear with the problem. I mean, it was terribly frustrating trying to get someone to take responsibility for such a thing. HDB pushes it to Town Council, and vice versa; when we finally got a guy from HDB who promised to look into it, there was no reply for a long time, and it was only when we contacted HDB again we found out that the guy had transferred out already. I feel suffocated by the red tape and the bureacracy, and the self-absolving of responsibility of these giant organizations that I feel like David looking at Goliath, feeling absolutely pissed off and wanting to take him down. How can it be my problem and I have to get my own contractors because the windows are part of the flat when the HDB built the flat and it is a structural defect, and that they did not inform me of such an issue before I bought the flat when they knew of the problem all along? Honestly, I believe that there must be some clause in some commerical law I could invoke. I refuse to be like my neighbours, lulled into complacent and resigned inaction with one look at what they are up against.
Hmm, sue HDB? That would be a first. But no, I lack the finances to take them on.
I wonder if a single person, or couple if I count my wife, can do something that would have an effect that will move a lazy, slumbering giant.
Fri 21 Dec
My wife and I tidied up and cleaned some parts of the house, and in the evening, we headed down to visit our cell members at the Youth camp. I think God was kind to us. We originally got the place wrong, mistaking Gracehaven for Praisehaven. One of my boys came down to Paya Lebar station to meet us, despite him having gone to Praisehaven the day before and should know the exact location but did not mention anything (such obedience!). It was my wife's cell leader who called us up, and offered us a ride there, that we finally realized the mixup.
We joined them during the sermon session, and helped out a bit during ministry. I was quite unprepared actually, thinking that I would catch them at a time they would be relaxing or something. I just asked God to use me to minister and He did. I prayed for the three of my boys who were there, and one was 'slain' by the Holy Spirit, one wept, and the other cried buckets. Although this year I could not join them for the whole camp, I hope that the visit did compensate.
We took a cab out to Clementi station, because it was late and we weren't too sure how long the bus journey would be if we took 67 all the way to Tampines, and we didn't want to incur a full 20 bucks of cab fare to go straight to Pasir Ris. We stopped at the McDonald's at Clementi for a late night snack before taking a train home.
Sat 22 Dec
It is 冬至today, so we had lunch and glutinous rice balls at home, before we headed to my wife's parents' place to have dinner and have glutinous rice balls.
Sun 23 Dec
Today was Christmas service, and it was a fun-filled affair with plenty of balloons, star-shaped clappers, and cool animations/illustrations on screen. I had cell group with my boys at Long John Silvers at Simei, and it was a good time of sharing, talking about next years' plans as a cell group. I then headed down to City Hall to meet two of my magic kakis for a few quick games. Time seems shorter these days. Everyone seems busy. I guess that is a natural progression with age.
Thu 13 Dec
As a precaution, and since we now have an extra cage, we separated our two hamsters. As a result, we saw drastic differences in the things in their cages, and I now know which hamster was responsible for which problem in the previous cage configuration. Xiaobai was the hamster which peed in the bathing salt. Beckham (or Posh Spice now) was the one who landscaped the cage. She intelligently kicks the bedding to pile it up at the staircase to reach the feed, which they usually have difficulty reaching at times. Oddly enough, she keeps her bathing salt clean and dry, and really uses it to bathe. I guess regardless of species, the males have their similarities and the females too. Haha.
Fri 14 Dec
I went down to Elias Mall to buy lunch for the family. My wife and I then went to White Sands to buy some necessities. A quiet stay-at-home day. Anyway, my anime, High Street 5, and Assassin's creed are enough to while many hours away.
I just finished a series Gunparade March, which was decent. It looked like it was a mecha series, but in the end, the mecha was a mechanic for the plot, which was more about teenage love and angst. Ah well, it was a short 12-episode investment of time.
Sat 15 Dec
I was planning to join my magic kakis for a game or two, but in the end, the contractor came late, so I stayed at home to help my wife out with the clearing up. It turned out to be a quiet day spent at home, but we managed to watch a movie DVD for recreation.
Sun 16 Dec
I went for first service in the morning because I was having a blood brudder birthday celebration in the afternoon. Shaofeng and Yuren came over first, and I showed them the awesome Assassin's Creed in the meantime. We then headed down to Tampines Mall to catch the Warlords, which as I mentioned previously, it was originally supposed to be named Blood Brothers. How apt right? The movie had the right actors and an engaging plot. It is quite a weighty and gritty movie, and I think what they did best is that they did not use CGI to generate the soldiers and all, but (at least I think it is so) that they hired extras to be the soldiers and even the piles of dead bodies. It is one of those movies that you can't really catch the moral of the story (maybe that one shouldn't anyhow make oaths, especially those that state that you will all rather die on the same day).
Everyone had something on, so my wife and I were left to our own devices, and we wandered the pasar malam at Tampines for a while before fleeing. I really can't stand the crowdedness of that place. I think the people density in Tampines central is reaching the level of Little India on a Sunday.
Mon 17 Dec
My wife and I spent a quiet day at home. One contractor guy came to finish off the cement base for my kitchen cabinet extension, followed by another round of cleaning. This time round, we took on the study area windows, which we thought we had better clean before the new cupboards at the study area make it hard for us to clean. That took about 5 hours, and the dust was scary. Of course, the windows were left untouched for about seven years when the house was vacant, but I highly suspect that even before then, the owners may not have maintained it well either. We decided to take a walk down to Downtown East for a stroll and a midnight snack (we started cleaning at 7 pm after procrastination and ended at midnight), and ended up in the jackpot room. I prepared $50 for the entertainment, and at the end, I got a few breaks and ended up winning $12 back. So I paid $38 for the hour of entertainment. Quite costly, but I can see why people can get hooked. The semblance of winning something even though the nett result is actually a loss is addictive indeed. I think we are only this bored to try someone so wasteful of money in the long holidays.
Tue 18 Dec
It's my birthday today! After lunch at home, my wife, mum and I went over to White Sands to buy a small birthday cake. We went to Yakun to get some toast and eggs, and extra plates to cut the cake. After we were done with that, my wife and I headed down to Chinatown to a shop called Dallas Entertainment. We spotted the flyer at a pasar malam where there is a stall selling some karaoke discs very cheaply (three for ten bucks). It is one of those parallel imports thing, so I had bought three discs to try. Apparently, the quality was pretty decent, and I think they actually are original, complete with IFPI code. Not all of them were, of course, and I had to filter through many dubious-looking ones to get my selection. When we went there, we found quite a number of DVDs and VCDs, all parallel imports. We chose all we could that we thought looked original, and in the end, we bought 6 karaoke DVDs (including Nicolas Tse, Penny Dai, Sun Yan Zi, Ben C, and etc) for $20, 1 English-song DVD that we knew would not have original MTVs, but we hoped that the music at least sounded authentic (which it did), and a whole bunch of VCDs including super old hits that my mother would know how to sing. The surprising thing was that I know the songs too. The other interesting thing is that my wife likes oldies.
After that, we headed down to Orchard to shop, which we hadn't for a really long time. The whole place looked really different to us, especially with the usual entrance into Orchard station from Wisma being rerouted (yeah, that's how long we haven't gone there). We bought a few things using some remaining vouchers that were our wedding gifts, and then went over to Wheelock place to check out this miniatures shop that my wife wanted to see. She found the shop, Dollz Inc, and I swear, her eyes literally lit up. She found a whole variety of display cases, and all the miniature cakes, donuts, and etc that we wanted. My eyes should have shone too, because I spotted a set of Bleach figurines, which has some key characters in school uniform. They looked pretty authentic too, not like some imitation ones I see sometimes where the figurines bear little resemblance to the actual character. So that became my birthday present from my wife, complete with an acrylic case to display. Together with the clothes that we bought along the way, I was dragging big shopping bags home.
Wed 19 Dec
I spent the day with my wife doing some household chores at first. G12 brother Eric was in the area and thus offered to give me a ride down to town where we were going to have a cell group dinner at 鲜得来 restaurant at Liang Seah Street. We had been there a couple of times with the China boys who used to be in our cell, and man, we ate a lot. We ordered in tens and twenties of plates of beef, chicken, fish, and etc. This time round, there was only a modest four of us, but I think we ate quite a lot. The food there is fresh, and there is airconditioning, but it is about 20+ in cost.
I finished the anime series Zombie Loan. It has a pretty novel but morbid concept centred around zombies, and the storyline had good unfolding of background conspiracies and all, but unbelievably, the series stopped at 11 episodes at the seeming end of one story arc, leaving like ten thousand questions about the unfolded plot. I think the part about the two main characters having to exchange hands (I mean, literally, the guys had to pluck out their hands) in order to materialize their weapons was amusingly unique. It's now on to a new promising series Darker than Black.
Thu 20 Dec
The carpentry people came down today to fix up the cupboards for the study area, and the built-in cabinets for the recess spaces under the windows in our bedrooom and study areas. I think they bluffed us the other time, saying that we only need to remove the things on the side of the table near the wall where they were installing the cupboards. In the end, there was so much sawdust and white dust from drilling into cement all over the room that we needed to do a major cleanup. And I do mean major, because our study area had many small items, paper, letters, and etc - all of which needed wiping. We finally fixed the lock of one of our windows which couldn't open for a long time already.
Anyway, the leak in our guest room has worsened, and I am beginning to think that the window contractors hired by HDB to build my block used inferior materials or something, because the two maisonette units above me also have exactly the same problem. What my wife and I couldn't understand was how all these people could bear with the problem. I mean, it was terribly frustrating trying to get someone to take responsibility for such a thing. HDB pushes it to Town Council, and vice versa; when we finally got a guy from HDB who promised to look into it, there was no reply for a long time, and it was only when we contacted HDB again we found out that the guy had transferred out already. I feel suffocated by the red tape and the bureacracy, and the self-absolving of responsibility of these giant organizations that I feel like David looking at Goliath, feeling absolutely pissed off and wanting to take him down. How can it be my problem and I have to get my own contractors because the windows are part of the flat when the HDB built the flat and it is a structural defect, and that they did not inform me of such an issue before I bought the flat when they knew of the problem all along? Honestly, I believe that there must be some clause in some commerical law I could invoke. I refuse to be like my neighbours, lulled into complacent and resigned inaction with one look at what they are up against.
Hmm, sue HDB? That would be a first. But no, I lack the finances to take them on.
I wonder if a single person, or couple if I count my wife, can do something that would have an effect that will move a lazy, slumbering giant.
Fri 21 Dec
My wife and I tidied up and cleaned some parts of the house, and in the evening, we headed down to visit our cell members at the Youth camp. I think God was kind to us. We originally got the place wrong, mistaking Gracehaven for Praisehaven. One of my boys came down to Paya Lebar station to meet us, despite him having gone to Praisehaven the day before and should know the exact location but did not mention anything (such obedience!). It was my wife's cell leader who called us up, and offered us a ride there, that we finally realized the mixup.
We joined them during the sermon session, and helped out a bit during ministry. I was quite unprepared actually, thinking that I would catch them at a time they would be relaxing or something. I just asked God to use me to minister and He did. I prayed for the three of my boys who were there, and one was 'slain' by the Holy Spirit, one wept, and the other cried buckets. Although this year I could not join them for the whole camp, I hope that the visit did compensate.
We took a cab out to Clementi station, because it was late and we weren't too sure how long the bus journey would be if we took 67 all the way to Tampines, and we didn't want to incur a full 20 bucks of cab fare to go straight to Pasir Ris. We stopped at the McDonald's at Clementi for a late night snack before taking a train home.
Sat 22 Dec
It is 冬至today, so we had lunch and glutinous rice balls at home, before we headed to my wife's parents' place to have dinner and have glutinous rice balls.
Sun 23 Dec
Today was Christmas service, and it was a fun-filled affair with plenty of balloons, star-shaped clappers, and cool animations/illustrations on screen. I had cell group with my boys at Long John Silvers at Simei, and it was a good time of sharing, talking about next years' plans as a cell group. I then headed down to City Hall to meet two of my magic kakis for a few quick games. Time seems shorter these days. Everyone seems busy. I guess that is a natural progression with age.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
In the wee hours of the morning, Pikachew looked like he was better. He was moving around a bit, and made his way into the house. When I woke up in the morning to go and check on him, I found that his body was stiff, and I knew the inevitable had occured. My wife cried of course. We did ask around previously when we saw Xiaobai picking on Pikachew, but the various staff from various pet shops all said that if the fighting is not severe, there's no need to separate the two. We really couldn't imagine that the first serious fight would result in such fatal injuries. He was the most shy of the lot, and it took a lot of effort to get him out to play, but his fur was the thickest and smoothest. He would wash his face with his hands till all the fur is puffy and he looks kind of silly.
Sigh. Now my wife calls Xiaobai murderer whenever she sees him.
Here's a picture of Pikachew, peacefully dead, even after we have cleaned off the blood and treated the wounds. It is the only picture we have of him, because he was so shy that he never came out of the house long enough nor stay still enough to have a photo taken of him.
In loving memory of Pikachew, a poor hamster that was killed at the age of two months.
Sigh. Now my wife calls Xiaobai murderer whenever she sees him.
Here's a picture of Pikachew, peacefully dead, even after we have cleaned off the blood and treated the wounds. It is the only picture we have of him, because he was so shy that he never came out of the house long enough nor stay still enough to have a photo taken of him.
In loving memory of Pikachew, a poor hamster that was killed at the age of two months.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I was going to watch a DVD with my wife this afternoon when I noticed Xiaobai (our hamster) licking a prone and still Pikachew. On closer inspection, to our horror, Pikachew was bloodied all over. We have noticed Xiaobai bullying Pikachew recently, but it has never gone to the extent of drawing blood, so we left things as they were. Most of the time, all we saw was Pikachew running away, or that he fell over, and Xiaobai just stepped on him a little.
We brought Pikachew to the nearby Pet Lovers' Centre to ask the people there for advice, and to see if we could buy some medication. In the end, we bought one more cage, as the staff there, as well as several websites, strongly advised separating the two that were fighting. Now we are more convinced that Beckham is in fact a Posh Spice, and the two males were fighting over her. Actually, more like one wanted to fight, and the other wanted to flee. In any case, it was a cringing experience trying to clean the wounds with antiseptic. The poor little thing looked like he was in so much pain everytime the cotton buds touched him. We saw many puncture (bite) marks all over the body, and much fur missing. Now he's sleeping soundly, and I hope he recovers fast.
We brought Pikachew to the nearby Pet Lovers' Centre to ask the people there for advice, and to see if we could buy some medication. In the end, we bought one more cage, as the staff there, as well as several websites, strongly advised separating the two that were fighting. Now we are more convinced that Beckham is in fact a Posh Spice, and the two males were fighting over her. Actually, more like one wanted to fight, and the other wanted to flee. In any case, it was a cringing experience trying to clean the wounds with antiseptic. The poor little thing looked like he was in so much pain everytime the cotton buds touched him. We saw many puncture (bite) marks all over the body, and much fur missing. Now he's sleeping soundly, and I hope he recovers fast.
I just finished an anime series Lord of Lords Ryu Knight. It's pretty old, and it's the predecessor of Adeu's Legend, which I had watched earlier actually. The whole thing is 52 episodes long, and all I have time for is to watch an episode every lunch and/or dinner, so it took many months to be over. The series is quite standard heroic fare, but quite engaging, despite the animation style and graphics looking antique. Now I'm starting on Gunparade March, a series involving one of my favourite genres: mecha. It's way less ambitious for mealtime entertainment, since it is only 12 episodes long. Haha.
I also just finished Halo 3 not long ago. That was a fun experience, but somehow I felt that it was lacking - not a fault of the game, but rather, because I had not played Halo 1 and 2 before. It didn't help that I was playing it late at night when I dared not switch the volume on loud, missing much dialogue. Still, the gameplay was solid. I didn't expect to complete a first-person shooter, especially since I was pretty bad at Gears of War, the first of the genre I bought for Xbox 360. Now I am playing Project Sylpheed, but man, the controls are super complicated for a game that seems to be quite simple in objective. I doubt I will be playing this for long, because I just bought Assasin's Creed! Bwahaha. The graphics look stunningly good on the video preview I scoured the internet for, and I'm sure I'll be entertained especially by anything that isn't a first-person shooter. Will Microsoft please have more RPGs on Xbox 360? It feels like there's only one released a year or something. First there was Enchant Arms, then Blue Dragon. I heard rumours of Fable 2, but it seems an eternity in coming. If I have more time (and spare cash), the console in my living room would have been a PS3 instead, for the sake of Final Fantasy, if nothing else.
I bought Bourne Ultimatum just now as well. Goodness, I missed the conclusion to the two movies that I really enjoyed? Just like I couldn't believe that I forgot I missed the Order of the Phoenix for Harry Potter, I also couldn't believe I forgot I missed Ultimatum. No big deal nowadays though, since the DVDs for new movies seem to be released in a short span of a couple of months these days, compared to a year span in the past. And if the movie is good enough, I would want to collect it anyway, so I guess missing it on the big screen and buying it later wouldn't be that much of a waste of money. Self-consolation perhaps, but watching a movie at home can be quite enjoyable too, especially since I can hit the pause button anytime I need to hit the loo. Hehe.
For the sake of not stressing my brain out on trying to recall what I did about 7 days ago, I'm trying to blog more often. I always tell people that although I don't blog everyday, I blog about everyday. So it is a lot easier if I don't sit on it for waaaaay too long between blog entries.
I also just finished Halo 3 not long ago. That was a fun experience, but somehow I felt that it was lacking - not a fault of the game, but rather, because I had not played Halo 1 and 2 before. It didn't help that I was playing it late at night when I dared not switch the volume on loud, missing much dialogue. Still, the gameplay was solid. I didn't expect to complete a first-person shooter, especially since I was pretty bad at Gears of War, the first of the genre I bought for Xbox 360. Now I am playing Project Sylpheed, but man, the controls are super complicated for a game that seems to be quite simple in objective. I doubt I will be playing this for long, because I just bought Assasin's Creed! Bwahaha. The graphics look stunningly good on the video preview I scoured the internet for, and I'm sure I'll be entertained especially by anything that isn't a first-person shooter. Will Microsoft please have more RPGs on Xbox 360? It feels like there's only one released a year or something. First there was Enchant Arms, then Blue Dragon. I heard rumours of Fable 2, but it seems an eternity in coming. If I have more time (and spare cash), the console in my living room would have been a PS3 instead, for the sake of Final Fantasy, if nothing else.
I bought Bourne Ultimatum just now as well. Goodness, I missed the conclusion to the two movies that I really enjoyed? Just like I couldn't believe that I forgot I missed the Order of the Phoenix for Harry Potter, I also couldn't believe I forgot I missed Ultimatum. No big deal nowadays though, since the DVDs for new movies seem to be released in a short span of a couple of months these days, compared to a year span in the past. And if the movie is good enough, I would want to collect it anyway, so I guess missing it on the big screen and buying it later wouldn't be that much of a waste of money. Self-consolation perhaps, but watching a movie at home can be quite enjoyable too, especially since I can hit the pause button anytime I need to hit the loo. Hehe.
For the sake of not stressing my brain out on trying to recall what I did about 7 days ago, I'm trying to blog more often. I always tell people that although I don't blog everyday, I blog about everyday. So it is a lot easier if I don't sit on it for waaaaay too long between blog entries.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Wow it's been eight whole days since I last blogged. I'm beginning to resemble...*gasp*...many other blogging friends I know. I attribute this to two main things: 1) after marriage there is less "me" time, since you will be doing most things (e.g. chores) with your spouse. For me, the "me" time I get at the end of the day is used largely on anime, hence the lower tendency to blog. 2) my wife and I are now playing this online game called High Street 5. Never heard of it? Think along the lines of Audition. Never heard of that either? Well, it is a dancing game. You know, pressing sequences of randomized up, down, left, right keys to a certain beat? That kind of stuff. It's challenging in its own way, and at least it is a game that I can play together with my wife. Which is something almost all my current Xbox 360 games are unable to enable.
The only drawback is that now I have a slider timing bar floating in my mind everytime I hear a pop song.
Mon 3 Dec
My wife and I spent some time at home doing housework, before her aunt came over for a visit. The last time she was here the place was still incompletely furnished and renovated. We then brought her over to Lerk Thai, the restaurant we feel has great food to offer guests. Her aunt was super efficient and enthusiastic, because she had already developed a set of the photos she took during the wedding day for us, and burned the softcopies onto a CD for us. Wow.
Tue 4 Dec
A peaceful day at home, with a trip to White Sands for some shopping midway. That should be an apt summary.
Wed 5 Dec
I stayed at home a good part of the day, and headed to Bukit Merah for cell group. We talked about what is to come in the year ahead, and it actually does look like a Year of Sabbath. I think I'm still too cynical, since the last time the church had a Year of Sabbath, it turned out to be suddenly radically life-changingly busy, i.e. the G12 transition.
Thu 6 Dec
My wife and I headed over to White Sands to shop for some necessities and groceries, and I detoured to buy some karaoke DVDs from the Video Ezy shop. We were suddenly very interested again when we realized that our DVD player system had two microphone inputs, and were curious to assess its capability. What we did was somewhat lopsided though, since we went to get the discs before we got ourselves the microphones.
My wife cooked dinner today! It was her maiden attempt, and she went for a tough cookie, mee hoon kuay. Since she bakes a lot, making the dough for the mee hoon kuay was no issue. The tough part was getting the soup base right. Since she didn't have a real recipe to follow, she just went with her gut feel and instincts. It turned out alright, but we realized the shortcomings during the preparation, e.g. what to prepare first, what was missing that could make the taste more authentic, and etc. I was roped in to help actually, but I think cooking is something that I am terrible at. Haha. Maybe I'll change my opinion after more tries.
At night, blood brudders ZX and JZ suddenly called, and asked if they could come over to drink wine. Apparently they had a bottle of wine with them, and actually all they needed was something to chill it last minute. I don't know why they picked my place, but lucky them, because one of my students had given me a set of four wine glasses during the church wedding. So we had red wine, potato chips and other snacks while we watched THX1138. I bought the DVD on a whim some time back, and it was slow. And deep too. To its credit, it was intriguing despite being slow, and considering that it was made in 1970 by George Lucas (think Star Wars...he made IV, V and VI), it looked pretty sophisticated and high-tech. Not the kind of movie to watch late at night though.
Fri 7 Dec
I went out early in the day to visit ZH in order to pass him a Cao Ge karaoke DVD, and borrow his microphones to test my current DVD player system. While I was in Tampines, I did a little shopping, and bought a whole array of karaoke DVDs to stock up for the future. When I reached home, my wife's girls came over for a movie screening of Evan Almighty. I seriously wonder if I had disappeared off the face of this earth during the preparations for the wedding, because I missed many, many movies in the cinema. This was one of them. The show was quite amusing, and I think even more amusing for Christians, since the content feels more realistic to us, and the jokes are easier to catch. In fact, there were many little instances of innuendo and subtle jokes that one would not catch without some good prior knowledge of the bible, I think. Anyway the girls (I wonder why almost all of them missed the movie too, actually) enjoyed it enough to request for a further screening of Bruce Almighty. Finally, we headed over to White Sands for a simple dinner at the food court. I tried the Japanese food, and my wife tried the Western food.
Both sucked. Food courts, in general, are disappointing for the taste buds.
Sat 8 Dec
My wife's old friend and the friend's beau came over for a visit. They stayed a while, and chatted a bit, and I left together with them. Fortunately I have no social handicap, so I was talking to them all the way up to the MRT station that they got off, even thought that was the first time I met and talked with them.
I met my blood brudders at Bugis, and we headed to Liang Seah St for Pivdofr, the restaurant with the unpronouncible name that we used to frequent often. The soup, salad, and chicken wings tasted exactly the way we remember them, and the meals were still pretty good. We then headed over to Shaw Towers to watch a movie. That is also a favourite spot for us because there are always seats available, and there are relatively few movie-goers there to crowd the place.
We watched Hitman, a movie based on the game on Xbox 360 and PC platforms. We went in with pretty low expectations actually, only knowing that this is the kind of show girls (a.k.a. girlfriends and wives) would not want to watch. The show was surprisingly good. It wasn't spectacular or anything, but it actually had a good plot with twists and conspiracy aspects, going beyond the usual guns-ablazing treatment for videogames made into movies. There were instances of nudity, and it was gratuitous, in the sense that it was totally unwarranted, and could easily have been left out, and the movie would still be complete, or perhaps better without it. Next up for blood brudder gathering: Warlords! I don't know if it will be good, but a movie with Andy Lau, Jet Li, Takeshi Kaneshiro (not sure if I got it right, off the top of my head) can't go too wrong. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia says Warlords was supposed to be named Blood Brothers originally. How not to watch it with the blood brudders?
Sun 9 Dec
I went to service as usual and had cell group at Eastpoint after service was over. I brought along one Magic deck, and true enough, the kids I was talking to some time ago were playing there, so I joined them for a few games. They were quite a nice bunch, and I wonder if they actually realized how old I am. Or that I'm married. Or that I'm a teacher. After that, I headed over to my wife's parents' place for dinner and to do some grocery shopping before heading home.
Mon 10 Dec
Today my wife and I went down to our bridal studio to collect our actual day photos. They are finally out. It should take a while for me to get it up online since I am a stubborn man who refuses to use existing technology such as Photobucket to put things up online. I believe in only HTML coding, and Flash. After that, we went down to City Hall area to do some shopping, and of course, eating the Chippy takeaway since we were there. I still don't understand the long queue outside Donut Factory. I am exceedingly curious as to why there are people always queueing for it, and I'm waiting for the point in time I get curious enough to actually go and queue. And become one of the suckers wasting my life away that other people will look at and wonder why I bother.
In Singapore, imitation is the surest proof of success. The current fad seems to be the donut craze. I think if you ever end up creating something novel, and it becomes a success, quickly franchise it and sell it all off to some rich buyer while it is still popular, because in no time, ten of the same will pop up everywhere, copying what you did.
We went through Citilink to check out HMV, and we bought some shady looking Karaoke DVDs. Hopefully despite the price, the MVs are original, even if the quality may be poor. We bought other things as well, pumping money into the economy. I bought two tees and two polo-tees to expand my wardrobe a little more. Bwahaha. We went to Carrefour at Suntec in the hopes of buying some things for the house, but the whole place had changed radically. The whole layout had altered, including some of the stock they are carrying or used to carry. I bumped into a whole lot of people I know today, ranging from students to colleagues, church friends and all.
Discovery of the day: There is now a Donut Factory in Suntec as well, right next to Carrefour at first floor. I don't know how new it is, since I have not gone out to town for a long, long time. The queue looks just as long though, and the cafe area next to the counter was quite empty. Well, considering that most people are queueing up, I don't expect many to be able to sit there and eat.
The only drawback is that now I have a slider timing bar floating in my mind everytime I hear a pop song.
Mon 3 Dec
My wife and I spent some time at home doing housework, before her aunt came over for a visit. The last time she was here the place was still incompletely furnished and renovated. We then brought her over to Lerk Thai, the restaurant we feel has great food to offer guests. Her aunt was super efficient and enthusiastic, because she had already developed a set of the photos she took during the wedding day for us, and burned the softcopies onto a CD for us. Wow.
Tue 4 Dec
A peaceful day at home, with a trip to White Sands for some shopping midway. That should be an apt summary.
Wed 5 Dec
I stayed at home a good part of the day, and headed to Bukit Merah for cell group. We talked about what is to come in the year ahead, and it actually does look like a Year of Sabbath. I think I'm still too cynical, since the last time the church had a Year of Sabbath, it turned out to be suddenly radically life-changingly busy, i.e. the G12 transition.
Thu 6 Dec
My wife and I headed over to White Sands to shop for some necessities and groceries, and I detoured to buy some karaoke DVDs from the Video Ezy shop. We were suddenly very interested again when we realized that our DVD player system had two microphone inputs, and were curious to assess its capability. What we did was somewhat lopsided though, since we went to get the discs before we got ourselves the microphones.
My wife cooked dinner today! It was her maiden attempt, and she went for a tough cookie, mee hoon kuay. Since she bakes a lot, making the dough for the mee hoon kuay was no issue. The tough part was getting the soup base right. Since she didn't have a real recipe to follow, she just went with her gut feel and instincts. It turned out alright, but we realized the shortcomings during the preparation, e.g. what to prepare first, what was missing that could make the taste more authentic, and etc. I was roped in to help actually, but I think cooking is something that I am terrible at. Haha. Maybe I'll change my opinion after more tries.
At night, blood brudders ZX and JZ suddenly called, and asked if they could come over to drink wine. Apparently they had a bottle of wine with them, and actually all they needed was something to chill it last minute. I don't know why they picked my place, but lucky them, because one of my students had given me a set of four wine glasses during the church wedding. So we had red wine, potato chips and other snacks while we watched THX1138. I bought the DVD on a whim some time back, and it was slow. And deep too. To its credit, it was intriguing despite being slow, and considering that it was made in 1970 by George Lucas (think Star Wars...he made IV, V and VI), it looked pretty sophisticated and high-tech. Not the kind of movie to watch late at night though.
Fri 7 Dec
I went out early in the day to visit ZH in order to pass him a Cao Ge karaoke DVD, and borrow his microphones to test my current DVD player system. While I was in Tampines, I did a little shopping, and bought a whole array of karaoke DVDs to stock up for the future. When I reached home, my wife's girls came over for a movie screening of Evan Almighty. I seriously wonder if I had disappeared off the face of this earth during the preparations for the wedding, because I missed many, many movies in the cinema. This was one of them. The show was quite amusing, and I think even more amusing for Christians, since the content feels more realistic to us, and the jokes are easier to catch. In fact, there were many little instances of innuendo and subtle jokes that one would not catch without some good prior knowledge of the bible, I think. Anyway the girls (I wonder why almost all of them missed the movie too, actually) enjoyed it enough to request for a further screening of Bruce Almighty. Finally, we headed over to White Sands for a simple dinner at the food court. I tried the Japanese food, and my wife tried the Western food.
Both sucked. Food courts, in general, are disappointing for the taste buds.
Sat 8 Dec
My wife's old friend and the friend's beau came over for a visit. They stayed a while, and chatted a bit, and I left together with them. Fortunately I have no social handicap, so I was talking to them all the way up to the MRT station that they got off, even thought that was the first time I met and talked with them.
I met my blood brudders at Bugis, and we headed to Liang Seah St for Pivdofr, the restaurant with the unpronouncible name that we used to frequent often. The soup, salad, and chicken wings tasted exactly the way we remember them, and the meals were still pretty good. We then headed over to Shaw Towers to watch a movie. That is also a favourite spot for us because there are always seats available, and there are relatively few movie-goers there to crowd the place.
We watched Hitman, a movie based on the game on Xbox 360 and PC platforms. We went in with pretty low expectations actually, only knowing that this is the kind of show girls (a.k.a. girlfriends and wives) would not want to watch. The show was surprisingly good. It wasn't spectacular or anything, but it actually had a good plot with twists and conspiracy aspects, going beyond the usual guns-ablazing treatment for videogames made into movies. There were instances of nudity, and it was gratuitous, in the sense that it was totally unwarranted, and could easily have been left out, and the movie would still be complete, or perhaps better without it. Next up for blood brudder gathering: Warlords! I don't know if it will be good, but a movie with Andy Lau, Jet Li, Takeshi Kaneshiro (not sure if I got it right, off the top of my head) can't go too wrong. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia says Warlords was supposed to be named Blood Brothers originally. How not to watch it with the blood brudders?
Sun 9 Dec
I went to service as usual and had cell group at Eastpoint after service was over. I brought along one Magic deck, and true enough, the kids I was talking to some time ago were playing there, so I joined them for a few games. They were quite a nice bunch, and I wonder if they actually realized how old I am. Or that I'm married. Or that I'm a teacher. After that, I headed over to my wife's parents' place for dinner and to do some grocery shopping before heading home.
Mon 10 Dec
Today my wife and I went down to our bridal studio to collect our actual day photos. They are finally out. It should take a while for me to get it up online since I am a stubborn man who refuses to use existing technology such as Photobucket to put things up online. I believe in only HTML coding, and Flash. After that, we went down to City Hall area to do some shopping, and of course, eating the Chippy takeaway since we were there. I still don't understand the long queue outside Donut Factory. I am exceedingly curious as to why there are people always queueing for it, and I'm waiting for the point in time I get curious enough to actually go and queue. And become one of the suckers wasting my life away that other people will look at and wonder why I bother.
In Singapore, imitation is the surest proof of success. The current fad seems to be the donut craze. I think if you ever end up creating something novel, and it becomes a success, quickly franchise it and sell it all off to some rich buyer while it is still popular, because in no time, ten of the same will pop up everywhere, copying what you did.
We went through Citilink to check out HMV, and we bought some shady looking Karaoke DVDs. Hopefully despite the price, the MVs are original, even if the quality may be poor. We bought other things as well, pumping money into the economy. I bought two tees and two polo-tees to expand my wardrobe a little more. Bwahaha. We went to Carrefour at Suntec in the hopes of buying some things for the house, but the whole place had changed radically. The whole layout had altered, including some of the stock they are carrying or used to carry. I bumped into a whole lot of people I know today, ranging from students to colleagues, church friends and all.
Discovery of the day: There is now a Donut Factory in Suntec as well, right next to Carrefour at first floor. I don't know how new it is, since I have not gone out to town for a long, long time. The queue looks just as long though, and the cafe area next to the counter was quite empty. Well, considering that most people are queueing up, I don't expect many to be able to sit there and eat.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Mon 26 Nov
I accompanied my wife to a gathering with the TJC overseas scholars at our colleague's house. Today I was in the alias of "The Husband", since I was a stranger to most of them. Fortunately I was sociable and jocular enough to talk to the scholars, and at one point, I was doing career guidance counselling more or less when I was talking about university courses and the like. They were a nice bunch. Friendly, funny and warm.
We then took a walk down to a clinic that my wife was looking for, but the doctor had moved location, and I eventually ended up at the World of JJ's shop at Eunos, which sold Magic cards. I found a few players in there, had a chat, and managed to get hold of some cards from them. They were rather friendly as well. I wonder if I would have the time and opportunity to join them for a game or two one of these days.
Tue 27 Nov
It was, well, a normal day at home. Cleaning. Chores. Wash clothes. Hang up clothes. You get the idea.
Wed 28 Nov
My wife and I went back to return the testimonials and other certificates to our civics class students. My class had a spectacular turnout of 7 students. Yay. It was alright though, because I hung around to chit-chat a bit with them. Mainly about their upcoming future, a.k.a. the army.
In the afternoon, I went over to my wife's place. While heading there, we stopped by the video shops and bought a whole bunch of new DVDs. It was only then did I realize how many good movies I had missed throughout this year. I do not know if it was because of wedding preparations or busyness due to school, but I suddenly had to spend a couple of hundred dollars to stock up the movies that I failed to catch and had wanted to originally.
Thu 29 Nov
My interior designer came down to check out the place and take measurements for the next phase of carpentry for the bedroom and study area. Yeah! The house is one more step towards total completion! His various other workers came down to help rectify some minor problems we spotted around the house. The painter though found that the things he needed to fix were too many, so he decided to return tomorrow instead.
In the late afternoon, we headed over to Expo to have dinner at the Lerk Thai there, which I found to be inferior in quality (as well as menu choices) to the outlet at White Sands. We then went to roam around Sitex. Although I know going on Sunday will have better and cheaper deals, possibly with more freebies, I also recognize that it will be extremely crowded and not quite worth the squeezing. We walked around a little, and I bumped into my cousin there, but after some time, we decided to spare ourselves the agony of window shopping, and headed straight over to Epson to buy a new printer. My old one died on me, and my wife insisted on Epson being superior, and since I had no real personal preference, we bought a scanner/copier/printer.
Nowadays everything seems to be a 3-in-1, not just coffee.
Fri 30 Nov
The painter came today to help patch up some of the slipshod work of the previous painter. I think my renovation was done well except for a couple of things. The paint job of the guy before sucked. Big time. The guy who came today was professional and meticulous, and did a pretty good job, so I guess it is just that one guy with the problem. The painter managed to finish before my colleagues came over - rather, my colleagues were all horribly late, so we had enough time to clean up and mop up the place first.
We played mahjong as a farewell for our colleague who would be going over to Shanghai to be with her husband for some time. Mahjong was her idea though, not mine, since she apparently misses playing. However, one of the colleagues did not play mahjong with money, so we took him out of the counting of winnings and losses, and in the end, the amount excluding his loss was so small that we all chose to ignore the money involved.
Sat 1 Dec
I am finally back at Miramar Hotel's Ikoi Restaurant. Today, my wife and I met up with her close friends to eat the buffet lunch there. This was long anticipated because we fixed the date for this lunch I think close to three months ago. Although the sashimi is still good, I think the standard has fallen somewhat compared to what I remember of it. Still, it was a good meal, and considering that I was having diarrhoea yesterday, my stomach did not disappoint me at all. After the lunch, we set off for Marina Square to watch Enchanted. The movie was better than I expected.
It had some cliched elements deliberately placed as spoofs in my opinion, and the first ten minutes of animation was in itself fairly amusing. The rest of the show was hilarious honestly, and Amy Adams played the part of a confused, lost but supremely innocent princess pretty well. Considering that it was a Disney movie, and the movie clearly has many Disney-ish facets, it was still very refreshing. Frankly, I didn't know that James Marsden (of X-Men's Cyclops fame) can be that comedic. It is definitely a nice show to watch, and especially with children.
After the movie, one friend had to leave, leaving us two couples behind, and we went over to the other couple's place for mahjong. We played a while, and both my wife and I lost some. Well, I did get a free small bottle of wine, and a free pair of shoes (my wife's friend bought the wrong shoe size for her husband)!
Sun 2 Dec
Today's service was exceptionally packed and deeply impactful. Nick Vujicic came down to share his testimony in church. For those who do not know, Nick is a man almost turning 25, and was born without limbs. He shared his journey of how he did not understand why he was made that way, and how he had thought God had forsaken him, and how he eventually came to grow his faith in God and see the divine purpose for his life. It was an amazing testimony, and I feel dwarfed by him. When you see how God has used him to share the gospel with so many people, you will be impressed too. I felt God's presence strongly in Max Pavilion today, and I sense how much God loved this man, though without limbs, that I shed a few tears.
After service, I rushed down to White Sands with my boys in the hope of catching the 2-5 pm promotion for Lerk Thai, only to make it there by 5 pm exactly and find out that the promotion is only for Mon to Thu. Argh. So we ate at the food court instead. After dinner, my boys came over to play my Xbox 360, and my wife's girls came over to play healthy (i.e. no money involved) mahjong. I was acting as, well, the facilitator for both the mahjong and the Xbox sides. Hmm that is mahjong three days in a row! Not what I was intending definitely.
I accompanied my wife to a gathering with the TJC overseas scholars at our colleague's house. Today I was in the alias of "The Husband", since I was a stranger to most of them. Fortunately I was sociable and jocular enough to talk to the scholars, and at one point, I was doing career guidance counselling more or less when I was talking about university courses and the like. They were a nice bunch. Friendly, funny and warm.
We then took a walk down to a clinic that my wife was looking for, but the doctor had moved location, and I eventually ended up at the World of JJ's shop at Eunos, which sold Magic cards. I found a few players in there, had a chat, and managed to get hold of some cards from them. They were rather friendly as well. I wonder if I would have the time and opportunity to join them for a game or two one of these days.
Tue 27 Nov
It was, well, a normal day at home. Cleaning. Chores. Wash clothes. Hang up clothes. You get the idea.
Wed 28 Nov
My wife and I went back to return the testimonials and other certificates to our civics class students. My class had a spectacular turnout of 7 students. Yay. It was alright though, because I hung around to chit-chat a bit with them. Mainly about their upcoming future, a.k.a. the army.
In the afternoon, I went over to my wife's place. While heading there, we stopped by the video shops and bought a whole bunch of new DVDs. It was only then did I realize how many good movies I had missed throughout this year. I do not know if it was because of wedding preparations or busyness due to school, but I suddenly had to spend a couple of hundred dollars to stock up the movies that I failed to catch and had wanted to originally.
Thu 29 Nov
My interior designer came down to check out the place and take measurements for the next phase of carpentry for the bedroom and study area. Yeah! The house is one more step towards total completion! His various other workers came down to help rectify some minor problems we spotted around the house. The painter though found that the things he needed to fix were too many, so he decided to return tomorrow instead.
In the late afternoon, we headed over to Expo to have dinner at the Lerk Thai there, which I found to be inferior in quality (as well as menu choices) to the outlet at White Sands. We then went to roam around Sitex. Although I know going on Sunday will have better and cheaper deals, possibly with more freebies, I also recognize that it will be extremely crowded and not quite worth the squeezing. We walked around a little, and I bumped into my cousin there, but after some time, we decided to spare ourselves the agony of window shopping, and headed straight over to Epson to buy a new printer. My old one died on me, and my wife insisted on Epson being superior, and since I had no real personal preference, we bought a scanner/copier/printer.
Nowadays everything seems to be a 3-in-1, not just coffee.
Fri 30 Nov
The painter came today to help patch up some of the slipshod work of the previous painter. I think my renovation was done well except for a couple of things. The paint job of the guy before sucked. Big time. The guy who came today was professional and meticulous, and did a pretty good job, so I guess it is just that one guy with the problem. The painter managed to finish before my colleagues came over - rather, my colleagues were all horribly late, so we had enough time to clean up and mop up the place first.
We played mahjong as a farewell for our colleague who would be going over to Shanghai to be with her husband for some time. Mahjong was her idea though, not mine, since she apparently misses playing. However, one of the colleagues did not play mahjong with money, so we took him out of the counting of winnings and losses, and in the end, the amount excluding his loss was so small that we all chose to ignore the money involved.
Sat 1 Dec
I am finally back at Miramar Hotel's Ikoi Restaurant. Today, my wife and I met up with her close friends to eat the buffet lunch there. This was long anticipated because we fixed the date for this lunch I think close to three months ago. Although the sashimi is still good, I think the standard has fallen somewhat compared to what I remember of it. Still, it was a good meal, and considering that I was having diarrhoea yesterday, my stomach did not disappoint me at all. After the lunch, we set off for Marina Square to watch Enchanted. The movie was better than I expected.
It had some cliched elements deliberately placed as spoofs in my opinion, and the first ten minutes of animation was in itself fairly amusing. The rest of the show was hilarious honestly, and Amy Adams played the part of a confused, lost but supremely innocent princess pretty well. Considering that it was a Disney movie, and the movie clearly has many Disney-ish facets, it was still very refreshing. Frankly, I didn't know that James Marsden (of X-Men's Cyclops fame) can be that comedic. It is definitely a nice show to watch, and especially with children.
After the movie, one friend had to leave, leaving us two couples behind, and we went over to the other couple's place for mahjong. We played a while, and both my wife and I lost some. Well, I did get a free small bottle of wine, and a free pair of shoes (my wife's friend bought the wrong shoe size for her husband)!
Sun 2 Dec
Today's service was exceptionally packed and deeply impactful. Nick Vujicic came down to share his testimony in church. For those who do not know, Nick is a man almost turning 25, and was born without limbs. He shared his journey of how he did not understand why he was made that way, and how he had thought God had forsaken him, and how he eventually came to grow his faith in God and see the divine purpose for his life. It was an amazing testimony, and I feel dwarfed by him. When you see how God has used him to share the gospel with so many people, you will be impressed too. I felt God's presence strongly in Max Pavilion today, and I sense how much God loved this man, though without limbs, that I shed a few tears.
After service, I rushed down to White Sands with my boys in the hope of catching the 2-5 pm promotion for Lerk Thai, only to make it there by 5 pm exactly and find out that the promotion is only for Mon to Thu. Argh. So we ate at the food court instead. After dinner, my boys came over to play my Xbox 360, and my wife's girls came over to play healthy (i.e. no money involved) mahjong. I was acting as, well, the facilitator for both the mahjong and the Xbox sides. Hmm that is mahjong three days in a row! Not what I was intending definitely.
