The Weekend

We had some friends over for a visit on Saturday and one of them brought a Wii set for everyone's entertainment. The unique concept of using your controller to play the games was very entertaining and also another side benefit is that you get to excercise as well. We were entertained by some sports games and Rayman. It was also hilarious to watch everyone including myself attempting the actions to get your tennis strokes in, bowling stances and delivery correct or attempt to knock out your opponent in boxing. I wasn't very good at boxing and as usual the missus excel in that sport knocking people out for the count in round 2.

We finally moved to a 'burping' game, now that's something that I am good at, where you had to vigorously shake the controller, hit the button to open the bottle and turn the controller upside down to glup down the drink before your player starts to burp smashing down trees and cars in the process. Hilarious fun. I think I'm hooked on the Wii, very very tempted to get a set. But it was tiring to play as you had to do all the actions which take a lot of energy out of you, instead of the normal controller games where you just sit back relax and let your fingers do the playing.

The next morning, Sunday, woke up with aching arms and body from all that playing !!

Today being a Sunday and a gloriously cool day or so I thought, I decided to go down to MacRitchie for a run, figured it would be good to run out the aches in the body. It has been a long time since I visited MacRitchie. The place hasn't changed much over the years. Notice more sign boards with clearer route markings. The trails were the same but it was a really humid day but relatively cool running under the canopy. Track was a little muddy and the downhill slopes felt steeper and more slippery than I remembered. Most worried about tripping, I've sprain an ankle running here before which basically balloon out to this humogous shape thingy and only good old fashion Grandma's remedy good reduce the swellng. Lots of people there as well every half minute or so you would come across someone treking, walking or running in the opposite direction. I took the inland route and circle back via the reservour edge which was something new I think. Anyways did not remember that pathway 15 years ago. It even cut across a tombstone. The person who was buried there really does have a good view as it was facing the reserviour, I guess the only draw back is you have hordes of people crossing in front of you.

The lake seems to be catered for loads of activities now, there was some canoeing race going on today. Lots of people there enjoying the beauty of the lake.

Oh ya the monkeys were there as well. Met some on the route, totally fearless of humans, they just sit at the side and stare at you as you run by. There seems to be a troop of them near the 'bandstand' area I think they are regulars and just hang around there for handouts from the public.

Probably the police should do what the National Geographic Channel does and attach mini cameras to these monkeys and when they go back into the Jungle, they might just be able to seek out Singapore's No.1 fugitive if he is still in there.

Library

About a month ago, I got a letter from the library stating that I had not returned a book. A few days after that my wife got one as well stating that she had a book which was not returned. I called up the library and after making some enquiries and checks I was told my book had already been returned but it was overdue and the letter probably was sent on the day that I returned my book. So that was fine with me. Since it was overdue I paid the fine that was due not a problem with me I did not have my wife's IC with me so I could not check on her status but I figured that it was probably due to the same reason.

Well this week she got another letter from the NLB stating that she had not returned the book !! What a shock that was. She got all worried about it saying 'how, how, will they jail me now?' Ya a lot of drama there. She was sure she gave the books to me to return and I had returned all of them already but it was at the Toa Payoh library. So we went to the NLB to try to sort this out. As usual the missus gets a little carried away in these situations and I normally have to step in and explain everything before WW III starts. She keeps saying how can they loose the book and she will not borrow any more books from the library again. {there goes the over exaggeration} The counter staff who attended to us was patience, and after I explained to her what happened she took down our particulars and told us an officer will contact us within a week after further investigations was carried out.

So we left the library at Bras Basah and caught a movie at Bugis - Be Kind, Rewind - which starred Jack Black. Suppose to be a comedy but somehow he has done better work in School of Rock and I really love him in Nacho Libere. This movie was a little let down not as funny as I would have expected. Anyways after the moive and dinner when we got back home I asked the missus to check again incase the book was still at home and lo and behold the book was still with her but it was hidden in the side table !!

Althought it felt really stupid and probably have to call the NLB to cancel the investigation (don't want them to waste time on it) the missus was relived that the book was found and she does not need to go to 'jail' ! :)

New Kid on the Block

There's a new kid on the block. My sis delivered her kid and I finally got to see the kid today although the kid was sleeping most of the time. Just managed to get a peek. So now there's someone who will call me Uncle. Ah that really makes you sound old :)

O. M. S. W. T.

One Man Star Wars Trilogy show by Charles Ross was recently in town and I got tickets to watch it at the DBS Arts Centre. I was almost late for the show, rushed down after work to catch the 7.30pm show, could not find a parking lot, in the end parked at the building next to it. Just managed to get in on time as the ushers were telling me that the show was about to begin. It was a packed auditorium. Just as I sat down the lights dimmed and the all too familiar entrance theme was played. The show was hilarious, absolutely awesome. He does everything from the voices to all the sound effects. But you needed to understand a bit about Star Wars otherwise you would not get some of the scenes. The hour long show was entertaining.

Star Fish Soup ??

We were at the Cathay Restaurant (at the Cathay cinema) over the weekend for some dim-sum lunch with some friends. One of whom had already been there and told us what to try. She recommended the soup of the day which was some pork ribs with herbs and they actually added Starfish !! Now that's the first time I ever heard of starfish in a soup. The picture shows the starfish, it's that big thingy stuff that looks like a claw, surprisingly it's hard, I always thught starfish were soft animals. Well that goes to show how much I know about starfish. I have to say the soup was delicious. That was actually the second soup type for me as I just had to try the Hot and Sour Soup. I'm an addict to Hot and Sour Soup ever since I tried one about 15 years ago in New Zealand. Every new restaurant or place that serves the soup, I've got to try it. I once even asked if the desert could be switch to a Hot and Sour Soup. Got a few wild looks from the Restaurant staff but they were very professional and agreed to my request, so I had Hot and Sour Soup for desert. Anyways I have got to say the Hot and Sour soup at the Cathay Restaurant is one of the best so far I have tried. The only other one which comes close is from Crystal Jade. Yum, will definately try it again as I think we will be going back for more some time soon :)

Dirty Dancing

There was an article in the Sunday Papers about the actvity of dancing getting more popular in Singapore. In it they mention various forms of dance that are getting more popular, including :

1. Hip-Hop Crew
2. Ballroom Dancing
3. Salsa
4. Lindy Hoppers
5. Line Dancers

I think they may have forgotten 3 other categories.

(A) WWW

The Wii Weekend Warriors, you'll see these people over weekends or when they are entertaining friends, moving to the latest gaming moves. I've seen these opposite my flat where it can get quite comical to watch them attending to bowl, strike, punch or move with the Wii Control Stick and everyone in the room getting a good laugh. A decent workout I'm sure.

(B) GHG

The Guitar Hero Groovers. Armed with the latest Guitar gaming console, these 'Slash' wannabes would be trying to emulate the rock guitarist with their moves. I've yet to catch one of these people in action but I would imagine that it's worth a workout if you do it properly.

(C) DDRD

The Dance Dance Revolution Dancers. These Dancers can be found in the arcades doing their fancy moves on those dance machines. But now there is a home gaming version which you can actually play with or practise in the comfort and privacy of your own house.

Well I just got myself one of those Dance Dance Revolution games for the XBOX 360. I figured it would be great fun for the family to excercise to. Of course the missus keeps teasing me that I have two left feet and she'll easily whip me in any dance competition. Now this is coming from the missus who I would say can dance but has never won anything ... yet. While yours truly has actually won a dance competition and it was on ice !! Yep 1st palce and one of those moments in my life that I actually won something, it's probably also due to the fact that me and my partner did not fall down on the ice ha ha ...

Anyways we tried out the game and I would have to say it really gives you a good workout. It needed some getting used to but after the first song we got the hang of it, before that it was just hilarious watching us :) But after the third song I was exhausted and that was only at beginner level ! The missus was exhausted as well. Guess I now know why it's only for teenagers and these 2 rather 'old' aunty and uncle are way way out of shape. But overall it was really enjoyable and fun to play.

After the2nd attempt at the same song I finally beat the computer woo hooo ...... ha ha ha .....

IT Show

So 735,000 people were at the 4 day IT Show at Suntec, all squeezed into 4 floors selling everything you ever need and some. All the IT gadgets you need from Disk Labellers to Local Networks, everything was there and you even had car accessories, insurance agents, breverage stalls, magazines sellers, credit card companies and even men's facial products !! Now what has THAT got to do with an IT fair ? So I guess apart of that stats would be me and my 2 friends who were there. Met up with a couple of other friends and old classmates as well. $54.5 million spent ! Ah part of that coming from my wallet. So I contributed to the 13.5% growth of the show. Hopefully next year would be better. I went on a Saturday, I figured I'll go early meet the guys get my stuff and vanish from the place knowing it would be over crowded. Little that I know that for some unknown reason the Show only opens from noon to 9pm !! That was really strange to me. I always thought that it would open at 10am or something like that. Luckily that was only for the main floor's at level 4 & 6. Level 3 was open earlier and that was the Star Hub area and the Sony area. As you can see in the below picture, some fabuous entertainment provided at the Sony booth for their products. They even had a drum beating demonstration. It was said that the show would have more walking room and it would be bigger and better than the previous years. But my grip was yes it was more spacious but at each booth they had like what seem to be 50 sales staff standing around and that just took up all the walking space. You also had roaming placard carriers handing out pamplets and stuff, queues at each of the lucky draw booth, payment for stuff was really bad as well, everywhere you go there are queues. The noise was deafening, salesman shouting into loud speakers, music blaring from sound systems. So noisy that it was really hard to try to understand what the sales person was trying to say. Well I did get all the stuff that I wanted to get including a new Laptop, Photo Printer and XBox Games. Was really tempted to get a Wii or the PSP, but in the end I passed on them both. Maybe next time. So how long did I spent there ? In the end with the amount of stuff I bought, actually most of the stuff (about half) were the freebies that came with what I wanted. I even had to make 2 trips to the car to dump all my 'barang-barang'. Was there around 10.30am I left the area at 5.30pm. That's 7 hours and I think half the time was spent just moving from 1 place to another. It was really packed from 1pm onwards.

T3 & a Dragon Dance

Was out to pick up the missus today from the airport and I thought the flight would arrive at T2 (as stated in the schedule), got there, looked for the belt number but I could not find her flight. Panic for a second but luckily they also had a monitor that said 'Go to T3' and her flight was on there. But I wasn't convinced, found the information booth and enquired about the flight and that was when I found out that yes all SQ flight departures to certain destinations would always leave from T2 but their arrivals are not fixed and you would need to check 2 hrs before the flight to see if it is landing in T2 or T3. Well that's a real pain I rather confusing, can't they just state you leave from T2 arrive in T2 !! So had to get into the car and drive one big round to get to T3, a total waste of petrol and that's a lot going by today's prices. Anyways, the only good thing about it was that it then became my first visit to Singapore Changi Airports 2/3 month old T3 Terminal. I took a few pics of the place, notice it had like a mall type food court, quite empty at the arrival hall (did not see the departure hall as I was late) The 'Mall-like' Kopi-Tiam, taken as I was going up an escalator and the Arrival Hall with the queue for Taxis (I think - did not go check it out as I was a little late) More views from inside the building. Well talking about entry/exit checkpoints in Singapore, I've yet to get that MSM photo of Mas Selamat the fugitive that everyone is looking for. Since it is almost more than a week since the telcos sent out the MSM, no word means, it's probably not going to come, not even an SMS. But to be fair I did get an email alert. Was at the in-laws this evening and what timing as the temple near there had this celebration where they perform the Dragon Dance using a Dragon made from straw and lit with Joss Sticks. The story was in the newspaper as well and so we knew it would start at 7pm. Managed to get some pictures of the event and also took 2 videos of it. (good opportunity to try embedding a video into my blog for the first time) It was a really interesting Lion and Dragon Dance. Lots of noise and the added element of smoke coming from the Joss Sticks on the Dragon. And now finally the 2 videos, well one's sideways, got to get the hang of using my handphone, not figured out how to rotate it yet in post-production :) The other one is actually right way up, surprise surprise. But I can't rememebr how I took it, silly me.

David and Goliath

I thought this was a funny picture, size difference of the 2 cars ha ha ... my window is almost at the top of the car. I think the car is really high, I find myself instinctively ducking whenever I pass under a car park barrier or going into a covered car park. Something that I should be getting used too soon I hope. So far still the only one with an 'SJC' plate in the estate, there are a couple of 'SJA' and 'SJB' plates around.

Courier, Crush and Criminal

I've finally received my two long awaited packages from the states. One of which was on time as it was a pre-order and the item was only available in Feb. It took about a week to arrive and I was tracking the parcel and it seems to have flown from the US to Germany to Dubai to Thailand and finally to Singapore. Almost a week to get here but the UPS courier service was pretty good I have to say and the package did arrive according to the schedule they stated. The delivery man even called ahead and delivered the parcel in the evening. The other parcel was a long long long long overdue item which could not be shipped out from the states as one of the things I wanted to get (some toy protectors) were sold out at that point in Oct 2007 (yes 5 months ago !!) but it finally arrived today with all my other stuff. So what did I get you may ask. See below

What is it ??

Well it's a miniature Boba Fett. That's the casing and the black thingy is actually the carrying pouch for Fett. But what it is actually, well see below ........

It's a Thumbdrive !!

Yes it's a Boba Fett Thumbdrive. I have been trying to get one of these for the longest time and I finally decide to purchase one. Well actually I purchased 2, the other one which is of a different character was meant for my brother-in-law, he's probably reading this so I'll keep what character he is getting a surprise for now ha ha ....... Me and the missus went to town today, she wanted to get her facial done which basically meant I get to wander around Orchard Road for a couple of hours. Orchard Road was it's usual crowded self, jam pack to the max! I decided to stop by the Singapore Visitor Centre to check out the F1 tickets, still contemplating to go with some friends to watch it, just for the fun of it. I was told only the side seats were left of the Marina Grand Stand. I did not really fancy those, so I figured I'll wait till the other Padang area is open to see if we could get tickets there.

Went toy shopping as well at Far East. I saw this Dejarik Hologameboard in one of the toy shops. I've seen this piece before but did not buy it then. Well today I decided to get it and as you can see below, it's a stunning piece from Sideshow Collectibles. Die-Cast and yes it was a little heavy. It had 8 Dejarik pieces - Kintan Strider, Mantellian Savrip, Ng'ok, K'lor'slug, Grimtaash, Monnok, Houjik and Ghhhk. I really like it. Now to get those 12" Chewbacca and the Driods to make a proper scene from the Star Wars movie.

Dejarik Hologameboard

As I mentioned Orchard Road was really crowded. There were queues even to get into some shops. I saw people queuing infront or Puma, Coach and LV stores. Outside Taka they were giving away Coca Cola Zero. It was advertised as 'same taste with zero sugar' well being the kiasu singaporean that we are, free Coke means you walk pass the stand a couple of times to get more bottles of Coke :) Well as a Coke Lover myself all I can say is that it's no subsitute for the 'real' thing. It almost taste like Diet Coke, but not as bad.

Coke Is It ! and this is definately NOT It !

I think everyone knows by now of the escapee from the ISD Detention Centre. Even our estate has put up photo's of the guy who is wanted by the police. It had a description saying that he walks with a limp and is not thought to be armed. I guess now every male malay limping man is going to be a suspect! I really do hope they catch him soon.