Monday 27th January 2006

low fuel...

Oops... 2 minutes to finish this blog before i need to start rushing for the bus. Oh boy... so many things to do in the next few hours. 1 hour of self-torturing yoga, returning vcd to the rental uncle, get some dinner, rushing home for a quick shower, digging up some vcds, lugging my 3 bags of luggage etc to the train station (hopefully in time) to fetch my mom, sis and Phoeb, getting us our relative's home.... Blrghhh....

And to do this running on only 5 hours of irregular sleep for 2 consecutive nites. Boo-hoo... This is all the Taiwan series Kiss's fault...

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year everyone!!!!

Wednesday 25th January 2006

no idea!

Ouuu... a few minutes to spare. Waiting for the laser to warm up.

Think my blogging skills have decelerated now that i have deprived myself from my usual diet of fictional books. Why go through the torture? sigh! It's one part due to journals *cry* and one part (main part) due to the library shutting down for awhile.

Aw... library... when art thou coming back again?

Monday 23rd January 2006

Chicken Pox

Poor HL got the chicken pox since last Tuesday. The rest of us are all busy at work, leaving her on her own the whole day long. Poor gal. Guess nothing beats the horror of having chicken pox, what with those icky watery spots all over the body and face, the itchiness, the fever, the diet of porridge & plain vege and those awful awful medicine to gulp down.

Friday 20th January 2006

bummer

:( just got a huge lecture from mom for the tinniest itssiest stuff. *sigh...* Pretty much ruined my blissful mood for the day. And where better to complain aside from this little nook.

Sheesh... honestly... adults hold such a strong (and oft silly) idea of "keeping their pride" or the chinese saying "saving face" that ... grrr... nvm...

And big wise adults tend to think that children are real silly when they start dreaming too big for our own meagre brain to comprehend. Just awhile back, my niece, Phoeb, suddenly announced out of the blue,
"I wanna be a lawyer..."
My mom, having heard this same sentence uttered by my sister when she was young, started rolling her eyes. Phoeb then continues
"...and a doctor."
Before we could start choking...she added...
"And after that...i'll be an actor."
Sigh... such a greedy little piggy. Pretty reasonable too, since she was born in the year of one. Well, here's wishing her sincere best wishes in her fulfilling her dreams. And hoping her aspirations and optimism can rub off on all the jaded adults reading this little blog.

Wednesday 7th November 2005

jumping long bean

Sawardee people... yup... back from my 4 days long trip to Bangkok... land of great tom yam seafood soup, delicious chili that makes you wriggle your toes with pleasure, souvenirs that you can drown yourself in, 400 000 He-shes out of 8 million people, massage parlours and shopping malls in every single of its 35 districts and the 24-7 traffic jam capital of Thailand. Shopping paradise for the ladies, and well, heaven of another type for all the hot-blooded males everywhere.

Being the kiasu cum fretting female that i am, i was anxiously rushing to change my flight back here to an earlier flight. So, pushing a humongous trolley filled with just my meagre hand carry, i skipped-ran-trotted all over the busy airport, trying and failing miserably to pass as a seasoned traveller. Heck, i'd been lucky they didn't call security to halt the crazy woman looking wildly from one place to another and doing the ridiculous jumping-bean act from the arrival hall all the way to the departure hall. *lol* Anyways, I finally located the right counter, & like all the usual airport counters, it's a longish circle, with about 20 terminals around it. There were two airlines sharing the circle, some busy, some empty, and, cutting the story short... let's just say i pretty much did a 360 degree tour & visited all the terminals before finally getting the right one. Turned out I could change to another airline with no extra charges. That was nice. So happy that all the rushing about bore some fruits.

Wednesday 11th January 2006

ouch ouch ouch...

$650 just for a new water heater and tap. Ouch! :P... maintaining a house is so bloody painful. And to add to the wound, I got myself a big ol' bruise as well while clambering out of the plumber's car (to get to the atm machine). Probably coz i was so shocked by the bill i was still in a daze.

Anyways, the rest of the research gang has finally returned from their holidays, far and near. Thnx Stev, for getting me a maple leave all the way from LA *faint*

Tuesday 10th January 2006

re-orienting

Ah... 2nd week of the new year. Still trying to rid myself from last year's slugging. What with all the "special days" in January, it still feels like a holiday season. Let's see, *ehem-ehem*, according to my witches' datebook, 7th January was the Return of the Sun day. (u were supposed to toast it with beer, ale or cider, stand by the fire in the morning and cast a prosperity spell, ending it with a corn-husk doll burning.) 10th was the Haji Day. Lot's of praying and Al-Quran reading by Muslims everywhere. There were supposedly over 2 million visitors expected at Mekkah this year. Like wow... 29th is the Chinese New Year ushering in the year of the cute, tongue lolling and tail wagging dog.

Date lessons aside, the weekend trip home was fun. Had a great time with R at MV. The commuter ride was a bit of a drag though. For most of the hour plus long ride home, I was standing squeezed between other passengers. After that, mom and Auntie Pit decided to pay Auntie K a visit, so i drove us all to the roadside stall that Auntie K had set up, and gorged on all the homemade food there while the aunties chatted away.

Thursday 5th January 2006

creeping me out

I've enjoyed myself watching two dramas lately. Well actually, i've watched and enjoyed about half a dozen dramas this past week alone but well, i was just itching to talk about these 2. One of them is Devil 05 (with the guy from the Wee Wee duo and Tae) and another is When I fall in Love ~Secret to my Success~ [Koi ni Ochitara ~Boku no Seikou no Himitsu~] (with the guy from SMAP - Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (the shortest guy in the group with beady eyes and sunken cheeks))

Devil 05 is all about ghosts and a strange cult. Thanks to that very nasty cult (who is waiting for the coming of some sort of Saviour), we have a Ripper chopping off heads (funny effects where they showed the shadow of a head being chopped off and a fountain of blood gushing out) and feeding the meat to vultures, emails and phone calls that predicts deaths, reincarnation, hypnotism, voodoo, a bit of vampireism and all the other scary stuff jumbled into a nice little package. The delicious slight little twist is that the Wee Wee kid who's trying so hard to protect the good is actually the bad bad Saviour.

When I Fall in Love on the other hand is about Suzuki Simao (Simao means Island Boy). A nice, down-to-earth, friendly and helpful guy who decided to ask for help from Takayanagi, the president of Frontier (an extremely successful IT company), to teach him to become a rich and successful man. Takayanagi agreed to help, coz he found Simao to be amusing and he believed he'd be able to impart the lesson that money is more important than anything in the world to the poor Simao.

And although I set out to get my goosebumps raising with the Devil05 and entertained by When I Fall In Love, I found it to be the absolute opposite.

Whereas Devil05 had all the blood and gore, (and i'd like to applaude the special effects team. I think they really did a good job all around), I was simply immensely entertained by all the supernatural stuff inside.

When I Fall In Love was surprisingly spooky. No... there were no ghosts. Heck, u don't even see a drop of blood (even when Takayanagi was stabbed... oops i'm going ahead of myself). I had been expecting Simao to prevail as the voice of goodness. It sure had started out that way. He'd be given extremely tough tasks, and thanks to his kindness and brilliance, he'd turn the situation around and get the job done. Sure, i thought he'd despair and drop off the angels' wagon for abit (isn't that wat u always get in a drama?) when and if he finally encounters an extremely difficult task, but, golly.... this guy actually turned the wagon over and took over the devil's wagon instead.

Watching him transform from the good guy into a wolf that hungers for money and power got me cowering and too afraid to watch on. Takayanagi put Simao in the Board, guessing that a taste of power and the will to win will smarten Simao up. Well, Simao was a very very apt student. He devoured companies and fired people without mercy, finally buying over the shares of Frontier and becoming its president when Takayanagi refused to follow his plans. At one point, Takayanagi's secretary likened him to the monster that ate Dr Frankenstein up. Frankenstein being Takayanagi who created him. The goosebump inducing part was that everyone saw the changes yet he himself does not seem to find it a big deal.

I think what made it all so creepy is, he started out soooo fine. Thus, when he turned ugly so easily, u tended to think it is a temporary thing. But, as he continually spiralled downward, u have to shockingly accept that he is The Villain.

Wednesday 4th January 2006

Blank faces

A local tv-star recently commented to a reporter that she loves people watching in public tranportations but is dissappointed with the all too frequent blank faces encountered.

Being one of the "blank" faces around, i'm a tad offended by the remark. Honestly, what sort of face r u expected to put on when u r getting fm destination A to B, in a train loaded with a bunch of strangers? It would be rather strange to begin smiling at everyone or start mumbling to myself.

Hehe... but this guy i saw on the train a month ago took the grand prize in the most interesting behaviour award. We were at one of the interchange stations, most of the passengers who intended to drop off has done so and the red lights above the automatic doors to the train had begun flashing, when this guy who was snoozing in one of the seats suddenly shook himself awake, did a short take and rushed out the doors just as they were about to shut down. The rest of us in the same carriage were secretly applauding, for his actions has gotten us all glued on him, mesmerized by his agility and quick moves. Honestly, the way he twisted himself out of the shutting doors, priceless. He then rushed across the platform in a most amusing stumbling and arms paddling manner and managed to squeeze himself into the connecting train at the other end. Then the gem came. He surprisingly jumped out of the train again and proceeded dexterously to zip up his pants. hahaha..... I am not sure what happened next because by then, our train had moved out of the station.

Currently reading: The Firebird's Vengeance (Book 3 of The Isavalta trilogy) by Sarah Zettel - I borrowed the book because SFX claimed that it will keep fans of Robin Hobb more than happy and there was no indication on the cover that this was the THIRD book in the series. :P Well, let's just say it was not even close to Robin Hobb. The story is slow and draggy. The characters too artificial. The plot is boring and i suspect, predictable. Maybe coz i've only read about 80 pages or so. I'm hoping to be proven wrong.

Just finished reading: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman - Oh... *gush gush gush*...very very good book. So good that i won't mind writing a page long blog just to say how good it is. Will recommend it to anyone who appreciates a good read. Good fantasy ending too. The Anansi stories inside (by the Ashanti) are very much like the Brer Rabbit stories and folklores that we had back in the villages.