Stand Easy

1 week down and 1 more to go..

Was hoping for (hot but) dry weather throughout so at least that it won't be muddy and squeeshy when we go out for the 3-day mission this coming Tuesday, but it rained buckets yesterday and today.. oh well, at least I won't get burnt to death in the bush fires..

Not exactly in the right frame of mind to blog.. some key facts and figures for the past 7 days:
Change in weight: 0
Length of chicken drumstick served at lunch: 21cm
Mosquito bites: at least 35
Mosquito coils burnt: 12
Cans of Tiger drunk: 14
Sticks of Marlboro Ultra Lights: 1
Packs of Maggi Mee cooked: 0 (no nights out in the jungles thus far)
Shots on target at rifle range: 24 / 24

Ten Hutt!

Off on reservist for the next 2 weeks! I can only hope we don't get burnt to death by a bush fire whilst mucking around in the dry jungle..

Weird Photo 2

Question: Guess what's weird with this photo?


Answer: The gentleman in question has his shirt tucked into his undies... with the undies' band yanked up when he bent down to pick something up..

Weird Photo 1

Photo taken at X'Mas last year... caucasians at the back of a lorry, a la Blangadeshi workers! First time seeing that in my life..

Idiot

Just installed Blogpatrol.. in case you are wondering why the button appears on the right of my post and not in the sidebar, it's because I'm a monkey/ idiot and can't insert it into the right place in the template.

Edit: Corrected! Now I have a referror feed too!

Ta-Dah!

Went home on Thursday, switched on my computer screen, and my MSN message screen from TL said "Brother, I may have very likely found your blog"...

KNN... I do try to hide my blog from my friends.. but he found it through Miyagi's...

In any case, I think my positive experience with blogging did at least a little in convincing him to start his too... so here it is: http://trompeloeil.blogspot.com/

Do pay him visits! If it's anything to go by, the monkey nonsense my HJ / GL/ TL / LT bunch of friends get into should make for giggly reading.. try HJ's Gay Afternoon..

Damn

Great Minds Think Alike

The Singapore Pools site is down.. must be totally swamped with like-minded gold seekers...

Bored...

To: Tangerines,
Look what they did to your orange cousins!

Gongxi

Banner outside City Harvest Church.. Ain't casting any stones, but to me it'sjust weird to see a church wish someone a "Prosperous" New Year... I'd have thought health and fruitfulness would be more important...

VDay

Gym was totally empty... after I was done, I went to take a dip in the pool, and there they were... couples sitting at little tables along 1 end of the pool having dinner.. forgot to take a photo tho...

The bus ride home was funny.. exceptional number of girls resting their heads on their guys' shoulders..

I sure hope tonight's not another sleepless night like yesterday... took 2 gulps of whiskey to try to help fall asleep, but to no effect...

What I will be doing on Valentine's Day

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Gym.

Newsflash

LGY is going to propose to his gf, WP, tonight.. TL must have known since he mentioned a few times in the past 2 weeks that he had a "hunch" LGY was going to pop the question..

Apparently when NG asked him why today and not tomorrow (Valentines' Day), he said "tomorrow got to work"... hee hee.. vintage LGY...

Idle Thinking

Now, say the Toto pot was $15m, and there were 6 winners, and the 4 of us won first prize, we'd each get $625,000... strip away taxes, I think the nett amount's around $500,000..

What would you do?

I'd:
a. buy a Rolex Explorer II (white face) and Cartier Tank Francaise;
b. give some to charitable causes / my alma mata (geez.. how do you spell that?);
c. go on a good holiday to the U.S. (but not spend more than $25,000);
d. buy an iMac;
e. get ready to go short on the USD.

What I've toyed with but wouldn't do:
a. buy a car;
b. give the old man some money towards buying that black E240;
c. buy a house;
d. invest in any of my close friends' businesses, save for GL's;

Speaking of businesses, YJ and I spoke last night on what I think is a wonderful idea that hasn't been exploited yet.. using the cheapest things like flour and butterto be sold overseas and yet reaping fabulously fat margins! I think GL needs to know.. haha..

Toto(l) Idiot

Once in a while, I'll dabble in 4D for the heck of it.. the amounts I bet, I'll never win enough to buy a car anyway, but enough for that watch I've been eyeing.. tho if I actually have that money, whether or not I fork it out's a different question..

Anyway, was on the train home on what must have been Friday, and the front page news article on Shin Min Daily News was how at least 100 people in Toa Payoh won the first prize in 4D after they wagered on the license plate of the lorry which was used to search for Huang Na... err.. if you've been betting 3 days a week since the time she was lost until now, I think you deserve to win...

Back to my story.. GL, HJ and I were having bak kut teh at Keppel after our almost-weekly run at Sentosa last Sunday, and we agreed to come up with $50 each for the $12m (I think.. but it's some big no.) Toto draw after CNY.. YB chipped in later as well (speaking of which, just so I can remember, YB still owes me $20)..

I got a half day on Friday, and had to buy running shoes at Queensway.. remembered that there was a Toto shop across the road, and decided that it was a good time (meaning crowded and not auspicious) to get them tickets.. and there was no way I was going to get 400 sets of combinations printed (cos each regular combi costs 50 cents; would have amounted to an almost 1-cm thick stack I think) and risk the ire of the people behind me, and I remembered there is something called System something where u could "buy" an additional number.. so the (English translated) conversation with the Toto Auntie went something along these lines:

Me: Auntie, Toto got that system dunno-what which can buy extra number right? How much ah?

Toto Auntie ("TA"): 1 extra number cost $3.50

Me: Orh.. so I wan 50 sets of that wan quick pick.. so $175 right?

TA: Mmm...

Me: Then another 50 of the usual quick pick is $25 right?

TA: mmm.. [and to pre-empt my legally-trained technique of asking leading questions] So total $200..

Me: *Dishes out the money*

TA: Monday's draw right? [as she presses some buttons into the machine]

Me: Har?

Me: The Hongbao one..

TA: THEN YOU MUST SAY MAH!

Me: sorry sorry... can I buy for the hongbao one?

TA: Next Tuesday then open lah! [proceeds to chuck my money back into the little pit under the glass screen which seperates us]


oh well.. to brave the crowds again next Tuesday..

Zonked

I had quite the day (by my own standards)..

Was supposed to be on leave today but was told by my U.S. office counterpart that some paper which need my clearance would be in my mailbox this morning.. I checked my email this morning and it wasnt there.. thought that it would come in by the time I reached the office..

Reached the office and it still wasn't there.. as my U.S. office is in SF, the "window" for them to send work over cloeses around 11am our time because it'a 8pm there and most should have gone home.. waste my time.. and now the paper is due out tonight / tomorrow morning our time.. too bad, it shall just have to wait till Monday..

So the idea was I would work for half a day, and take off to the gym, with paper or otherwise.. it was only when I was on the bus this morning that I realised what I had in my shoe bag were slippers and not running shoes! Argh!

Guess it's as good a time as any to buy a new pair of running shoes.. the old ones are quite crummy and the heel supports are protruding such that they chafe my heel... I have a habit of wearing my oldest running shoes on holidays and then throwing them away there.. about damned time for this pair..

Well, was hoping that I could save some money by using the SAF allowance to buy the SAF's running shoes instead of my own.. but it's the first time I have vermillion-lined shoes! am beginning to have a thing for red.. next stop: red fabric lined insides for my suits..

Took away Mac's chicken turnover (first time eating Macs in about 3 or 4 months I think) to the gym.. 45 min on the elliptical, and lounging in the pool for about 90 min, sun and all... I could do with this kinda life, for a while at least... veged in the tv room whilst waiting for TY to be done with work, and CNN showed Camilia Parker Bowles' impending wedding for a whole hour... about how she wasn't going to be Princess of Wales but only Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess-Consort but not Queen if Charles ascends to the throne... whatever.. saw the last 5 minutes of Popeye on RTM1.. he's got a curly hairy chest!

Was supposed to be introduced to 3 single girls tonight over drinks... they are girls 1 year my senior in law school and hence people I know by face but not personally.. was waiting with TY at the changing room at Tangs for her to try some stuff (it's inside some narrow corridor and hence the type where ordinarily only boyfriends / husbands would hang around), and when the door to the changing room opened, guess who came out but 1 of the "targets"... and to make things worse, I gave a lame- and guilty-sounding "hi"... needless to say, tonight's mission to win the hearts of the "enemy" bombed even before it started..

Reservist starts in 10 days! Am quite looking forward to it.. just need to remember to buy mosquito spray / coil and dig out my square tupperware box for keeping the bread that we will be making poof-y open-face pate sandwiches with.. hee hee..

You know you're old when...

you don't even qualify for Singapore Idol anymore..

Apparently the age limit is 28.

CNY

Royally pissed off for a good half of the day yesterday... ERM and I had already arranged to meet up for lunch and beer yesterday afternoon after work, and we agreed on Harry's at Harbourfront.. out of niceness, ERM asked if we should ask the rest of our usual law school bunch of friends.. in my mind, I was only thinking of asking SF, LG and YB, but thought we oughta be nice, esp. since we don't see the rest very often anymore..

So I sent out the email on Monday afternoon, which was met by silence, save for SF and YB... at 10:30am yesterday, everything goes into overdrive and the long and short of it was that between KC, FE and TA, they overrode us and shifted the thing to Esplanade instead! I was miffed beyond words, and if not for the fact that ERM stopped me, I'd just have gone home and left them to their freaking Esplanade...

+++

CNYs at my place are quite muted.. reunion dinner's with my immediate family and paternal granny.. and her maid..

I enjoy the unholy trinity of evil vegetables... brinjal, bittergourd and ladies fingers.. but totally loathe leek.. just about retched when I had to eat it last night.. yuk!

It's funny that the parents used to be quite harsh on granny's maid, but now that she's indicated that she wants to return to Indonesia, they've suddenly realised how hard it will be to find / train a new maid to take care / put up with a senile lady... I swear they were 6 notches nicer to the maid yesterday.. heh..

Up till about 3 years ago, CNYs used to be bountiful... my paternal granny (when she was lucid) would give me $300, and maternal grandparents another $100.. these days, dad stuffs the red packets for granny, and it's reduced to $50... my maternal grandfather passed away in 2003 and they are not celebrating CNY for 3 years... and now I have to give the parents and brother, with a token sum and nothing (respectively) in return..

Seriously, if someone offered me $500 to work today, I'd do it..

I don't even do anything on the night of the first day anymore.. in our glory days, we would have dinner at the top of OCBC building.. last year, YB and I went to Holland V for coffee / beer, only to find the Indian prata stall open.. tonight, she and I are going to Bar Stop, assuming it's open.. heh..

As usual, stories are swapped about bonuses, jobs, etc... it transpires that a cousin who does admin stuff in a foreign bank and another who's an asst. engineer in ST Engineering got 7 months' bonus! hmm.. true?

No. 1

Was in the Tanjong Pagar area with the usual friends on Friday and decided to check out the Moi Lum restaurant that LMD recommended... food wasn't too bad.. and we had the first yusheng for this year... no doubt only the first of perhaps 8... eeks...

But the whole street has what looks like pretty good food!

There is a reason why these people are my good friends.. we were at the lounge at Ritz-Carlton... and the tidbits are the dried fruits and vegetables comprising of mushrooms, long beans, sliced apples, capsicum and something else I can't remember off-hand..

Which would you eat? I don't know about you, but the only thing I liked were the apples slices.. yet between the 4 other friends, there was something for everyone.. $19 whiskeys are somewhat expensive though.. good thing I swiped a copy of AWSJ... hang on.. that's only $2.50... I have to swipe 8 vials of cologne from house-keeping..

The small stuff

It's amazing how I think about some terribly girly and "sweating the small stuff" things sometime..

Like I don't know who I'll marry, where I wanna get married, etc., but I know exactly know how my wedding invitation card will look like... in fact, I want 2 or 3 different ones for diff people:
a. boring normal one for relatives;

b. crisp white thick card paper with "sticking out" shiny black ink in script font with gold trim around the edge of the card, for colleagues and associates; and

c. card with a pop-up photo / drawing of me and The One, for friends (steal this idea and I hunt you down and bring you down to Chinatown...).

Random Musings

1 of the smells which I have always totally loved is that of lemons.. but a new one today.. tangerines! I was fooling around with some tangerines which clients gave, and accidentally crushed one a little on my desk.. the scent that emanated was amazing.. I'd wear lemon and tangerine scents, except people will think I was a fruit..

+++

I'm usually quite messy, but have 2 ridiculous neatness traits:
a. I hate having too many emails in my general email Inbox - I simply need to shunt them to their respective folders once I can... rare is the day when you see more than 40 emails in my general Inbox;

b. Squeezing tubes of stuff from their end.. when there are metal tubes, you'd see mine rolled neatly all the way from one end.

Tickled

Was sitting in the bus behind a lady who appeared to be a teacher this afternoon.. she had a sheath of forms with kiddy handwriting on them..

On 1 of the forms, next to the question which asked for occupation of next-of-kin: canteen auntie