Callsums

When you claim that you haven't had a week as great as this, you probably haven't been living before this. Sadly, I can't recall a better week than this in the year. In a way, new avenues and good friends speak multitudes.

Rising from the slumber on Monday, I woke up at 6 to do a 2.4 run with PSK, in school! Early bird has its rewards. Had a chance to peek at our yearbook afterwards, but some work seriously needed on those unglamorous portraits. Picked up some long overdue gaming goods. Got my new reading recommendation from Yihui later in the day. And basically spent the rest of the night preparing for orchestra trailer filming the next day.

One heck of filming in the heat on Tuesday with Alex and Aizat. Aleks and Jeanette came to help, guess we couldn't have done without their equipment. Then class party in the night. Most unfortunately, the much anticipated Heroes Season 2 premiere had to wait. Then it was back home and mad editting in the early morning.(Gah, class party photos are on facebook)

Wednesday, a visit to the British Council as well as meeting BZ for trailer material. Never thought I could have gone through that much trouble for getting a camera.

Today, day out "exploring" sights with Denise and Yihui on a photo-shoot walk. Long time since my camera has had to work so hard. Not exactly exploring since I have actually have been to three quarters of those places save for the Mind Cafe. Really quite a great place to spend the afternoon with friends, free flow of drinks and hundreds of board games, hard to get bored. First off, some airport staff canteen fare.





Ask for this game involving monsters, very violent XD.




Rain didn't stop when we left the cafe, ran for shelter we did into tunnel. Surprisingly we didn't look drenched.



Only offside of all these, a suffering wallet, bulging with coins and not notes. Till next time!

ice waters

It rained in the morning, I rather fall back into deep sleep.

Tetrus Express

Reworking a little tune after Friday's landing, I had the good fortune of having lunch with Xin, Ali Chew, Ronald over which quagmires were given the dry-washing. Headed to Vivocity and visited the Page One bookstore. Ratatouille was superb! Haha, now I'm trying to find a french restaurant to game for some budget ratatouille. My MacBook has returned with a new battery and casing, for all the wonders of warranty.

A day out today catching up with CHS primary school friends over lunch, bridge, pool, arcade, tea, dinner. Lots of talking rot. And Kaleni appeared out of nowhere upon us! Long day, but two years seemed so surprisingly brief. 

Explanation ~ nil

Euphemisms for concrete blank.

Re-entry is the most dangerous part of every mission. One false reading or mal-function could potentially set off an uncontrollable butterfly effect on the vessel. Before you realize it, your quivering soul is fluttering over the Pacific.... the fiery fireball liberates graphite and ignites steel, breath turns to dust.

Sirocco

Bitter and drunk, I trudged through the open desert. The sirocco pounds with the might of heaven's claps into my cowering ears. I sought to preserve the message I had tasked myself to deliver. But amidst the din, even a foolhardy mind has its moment of vestige. The sands had not held me back, but I had crossed the desert on an empty breath. The real no-man's land laid in the wake of the oasis. A stretch of calm that I'm no master of. There was no one there, not you, no reason to. Save for food, water and leaves for shelter. To keep me alive and the siroccos waiting briefly.

And I reminded myself of the lie: the darkest hour of the night comes before dawn. I learnt, thrice you can't be that lucky. There was a smile inscribed in the sand, and maybe I would become the wind. It is written.

مكتوب

3 hours reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho in full today, was worth the read preserving my sanity.

Blackbird

Gosh, how's everyone enjoying the long weekend? Doesn't seem like a luxury we are supposed to have. I have been at the library and eating out just about everyday with Y and RC company. Somedays not as productive as the other, but you get the idea. A little something I took weeks back:

Two years square and I finally get a new phone! My new baby is the Sony Ericsson K530i. For all the wonders of technology, it has more of the 3G goodness than my lost K600i while being slimmed down by half in size, and its free versus that $200 I forked the last time. Nevertheless, the SE design is great and kicks anything Nokia. The only irk I have with this model is that Apple iSync didn't sync with it out of the box. I frequently synchronize my contacts and calendar between the phone and the Mac, so the loss of a phone doesn't strike me as disastrous since there's another machine to recover from. In trying to transfer my existing contacts over, I had to go google and dig up this plugin and change the template for this model. Works like a charm, and quite simple to do, to think there are people actually selling this for $6.

One last go, it will be over soon.

Detour

You never step into the same river twice.



Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays

暂属

Here we stand again, at the threshold of certain unpredictability. Prelims begin today. I did the monkey, oh glee!

I realized I haven't written any entry in (Traditional) Chinese this year. I used to when perplexed times called for a different kind of approach to putting nuances in my own words. Maybe I will after prelims, for now life as a mugger is simpler.

An uncanny coincidence meeting with Xin at the hangout everyone avoids like plague now, albeit a rather productive afternoon since I was influenced to match the haste of the adjacent mugger. Thanks for the chat about everything besides prelims, lifted my mind somewhat. =)

Ratatouille after business for business peeps.

Drift

A mind-blowing compendium of the world's most beautiful libraries. Needless to say, must visit someday.

Trevor

Had my room aired out and cleared of massive loads of junk today. Checking in on my cupboard inventories, I have ridiculous stockpiles of mechanical pencil lead and chalk than I think I'll ever use in the next few decades (a few boxes full, still). They have been there since P3, and I have hardly finished even half a box of lead all these years. Safe from moisture and sunshine, the carbon is pristine but not shining like dimes, that did be a miracle. Hopefully I shall find an overseas avenue at end of the year to donate this excess away.

Returned to school today seeking a more productive venue away from home and the all too familiar library near my house. I have a recording of the mad dash during opening times that I'll post sometime, Singaporeans sigh. There are disturbingly way too many familiar faces at the school library today: BZ, Karan, LHY, Cheryl, Mingyi, Bag, Shawna, Vickie, Zong, Feng, Soon, Alison, Reuben, Keith, Dog. Stopped at 15, but there should be around 25. I made a booking of the Henrik Ibsen room while the other buffoons crowded into the Silent Reading and whatever spare unlocked rooms there were. The contractors forgot or neglected to put a barrier in the joint window grille with the adjacent room, so sounds made on both sides of the wall are transparent to both occupants. I managed to do up my forms there, but shall avoiding that place tomorrow. We got chased out at 5pm, as would usually be. The somewhat crazy lot behind trouped off to the new block to continue with whatever inefficient mugging they think they are doing.

Tangerine Faith

Crack... and my faith is readily shattered in pieces again. Another shard drops as the other falls into its temporary holding. The undying cycle, its said we all labour in vain without Him. I have tried for all intents and never found one better rewarding or stinging to lose. Those pretty pictures are nothing but passing of empty moments, no cause for anymore to be taken, that purpose is lost.

＿|￣|o

At the crack of this fool's whip, I force myself to carry the march under banners' blank. This story has been told over, I don't wish to tell it anymore.

Headphone Injuries

Owing to the loss of my old IEMs, I have gone for a headphone replacement. Got the legendary open air Grado SR-60 from the nearer of the two better known decent audio dealers, which was a walk from my house, last Sunday. Field tested at having superb sound-stage and audio reproduction accuracy but utterly useless in most public places due to open air design and bulkiness, save the library. Chasing Cars now has that extra strum you won't usually hear. I can finally blast the Advent version of One Winged Angel at its full choral magnificence. No wonder the air-con hum and TV seem rather faint lately.

   

88 One

Having a slew of positive reviews on a locally made movie isn't an aspect I have been acclimatized to seeing lately, since most rightly deserve the slap. Last night, I caught a sold-out late night screening with my family to find out about the hype over Royston Tan's 881. Give or take, it has more entertaining quality than Singapore Dreaming. For obviously direct reasons, the fanciful costumes are visual orgasm for those who never watched a getai before. I counted slightly over 20 distinctly different ones, with innovative styles you did never associate with these occasions. The songs were well-chosen, over decades of lyrics compacted into that 2 hours, but somewhat overwhelming at times. Breaking out in songs every few minutes, really reminded me of Bollywood, albeit downsized scale.  

That it doesn't deal with down-crying the government or cheesy love stories, it has the coming-of-age essence for a local film-maker. Probably just for the laughs of Royston's fans, there are references to his older films like 15. More to that, its a representative piece of local culture. I could sense its mission was to capture a part of a dying art and tradition. Well worth a watch while the 7th month is still on (I think it still is).