Of marathons and other stuff

This is gonna be a busy weekend with the marathon thing held over Saturday and Sunday. I think it should be pretty exciting and festive. Let's see how things go. Maybe I'll take some pics.

Tonight was drama feste. Bayley, Buckley and Hullett put up their plays. Nah, I'm not gonna post my comments on the plays here. It won't be nice to any of the houses. I think on the whole I did enjoy myself thought the two emcees did take a swipe at me, using me as the object of their jokes. Ok lar, since they really didn't do anything real, I guess it's not worth taking any offence. Personally though, I thought it would have been nicer to have the emcees to be from RI rather than for them to be old boys from RJC. Don;t get me wrong, I have nothing against the old boys. I just thought that the emcee thing was always a great opportunity for the RI boys to have some fun and do some improv. Kind of a waste to see this opportunity being taken away and given to the JC boys.

Went for dinner after that at the Kopitiam near Catholic High at St 22. The dessert stall there is really good. Give it a try if you haven't tried it. They use super-fine shaven ice so it's really shiok to eat the ice. The ice kachang is really good! Also had the hokkien prawn mee. Not bad lar. Was quite hungry so I guess everything would taste better than they actually are. heh heh.

Can you tell which is the chimp?

Here's a pretty challenging task. Please take your time to make the decision. I trust it may be a hard one for many of you.

Can you tell me which is the chimp in this pic??

(Answer: It's the one in the book! Did you get it right?)

The more you spend, the more you save!

This has got to be the highlight of my week!

One evening, I decided to go to Ang Mo Kio central to have some Century Egg Porridge at the S11 there. I've not been feeling well and my appetite's been a little off, so I've kinda been surviving on good century egg porridge. Anywaez, after the porridge (which was really good!) I decided to go to Laser Flair for a look. It's kinda like my usual 'walk-a-bout-circuit' everytime I go to Ang Mo Kio central. And that was where I had the find of the week! Laser Flair had brought in a few box sets of some anime! I was quite excited... it's rare to see so many Anime box sets at one shop. The next thing I noticed was one of the sets of 6 DVDs (Infinite Ryvius) was only going for about $71!! Without hesitation, I purchased it. The other two box sets were going at about $150 each so I thought I'd go home and check out the prices on Amazon first.

When I got home, I found that Infinite Ryvius was literally a STEAL at $71. On Amazon, Volume 1 was already going for S$75!!! And each DVD after that was going for about S$45!! Which basically means, if I'd ordered the same set from Amazon, it would have cost me $300!! And Laser Flair was selling it at $71! OMG. I had literally saved S$230!

I then checked the prices of Witch Hunter Robin and Argentosoma, the other two boxed sets. According to Amazon, the Witch Hunter Robin set would cost S$214 and Argentosoma would cost more than S$270. As Laser Flair was only selling them at $150, I would be saving PLENTY! I immediately asked my friend to help me purchase the two box sets.

So now, I am the proud owner of three new Anime series! And altogether, I'd saved over $400!! I think that's something to be really pleased about. Here's my proud new DVDs!

My brother introduced me to the infamous Crazy Frog video. Apparently, it's the first ringtone to become No.1 in the UK charts. Usually, No.1 songs are converted into ringtones, but in this case, the opposite happened! It's incredible how something so silly can be actually bring in millions of pounds to its designer! If you want to download/view the video, you can click here and see if the video is still available. I suggest you right-click and save the link rather than click it to wait for it load.

It's Friday again. This week really zipped by. I think it was becoz I was busy reading Harry Potter until Tuesday nite. Wednesday, I went to watch The Island with my brother. Thursday I had two meetings in school followed by a dinner appointment. Friday, I had another meeting until like 6pm. So here I am, after a week of reading, meetings, movie-viewing, eating and of course... working lar!

I'm quite keen to restart reading Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix, or OOTP as I think it's lovingly called. I really don't have many recollections of that book. But must admit, I'm a little scared. Kena hooked then sure die. Again no time to do other stuff.

The Island was ok lar. But a few parts were a little slow. Ewan McGregor was ok. But I don't understand why Scarlett Johansson was chosen as the lead? OK, I know I'm not the right person to say this, but I think she looked kinda pudgy in the movie! Her face was roundish and I really don't think she was very appealing lar. The story is ok, though the ending was kinda predictable. Michael Bay is the director. He did stuff like Armageddon & Pearl Harbour, so you have a pretty good idea how we filmed this movie. It had a few 'Armageddon' moments. Quite amusing to see those.

The meetings on Thursday and Friday were quite killer. Actually Thursday was not too bad, two not-too long meetings. But Friday.. phew! It was a 4 hour meeting. Really long. Sigh, dunno lar, I know long meetings are generally not effective. But I am guilty of holding long meetings sometimes too. Maybe they are a necessary evil?

Today was also Dialogue Session. I think it was not bad, but it's a real pity that we only have about 25mins for the whole thing. But what to do? Can't seem to find other suitable slots. I mean, some questions were really good, and I know many of the students were dying to ask more questions about blogs. But there was just insufficient time. See lor, must continue to look for a better time to hold it. I think a slot of 1 to 1.5 hours would be just nice.

Well, the weekend is here at last. Shiok. Maybe I do live for weekends! :-) Last weekend kena burned coz of Open House. Next week is seriously going to kena burn coz of the marathon thing. (It's meaningful lar, but still.. sigh...).

Oh yah, I finished reading the first three books of Dragon Quest: Warriors of Eden. Not bad. Like reading an RPG game! die lar.. kena hook on chinese comics again. I had stopped reading chinese comics for many years. Used to collect stuff like the whole Dragon Ball series! Now start again.. sigh. Sure spend money and pile up books all over my room.

OK, the weekend has started for 1h 15mins liaoz! Yay!

Mission Accomplished!

All 607 pages. Finished. Quite an accomplishment for me. Yes, I know some of you finished it on Saturday afternoon, but for me, doing 607 pages in 3 days is quite impressive already. So of course, one can't help but discuss the book. So, for the benefit of those who have not read the book, I will use a lighter font (can't find the exact colour to match the background!) to type my thoughts so that those who are really interested can read them. Oh yah, if you are gonna use my tag board to say something related to the plot, please start with *spoiler* as a courtesy to those who have not read the book and who don't want to know the story. So here goes:

**** SPOILERS ****
Severus Snape
I guess I half expected Snape to be the bad guy. That was obviously why JK Rowling had that discussion in the beginning between Snape and the two women; to cast doubt as to whether Snape was really serving Voldemort or serving Dumbledore. Of course, I was kinda irritated when someone posted on my Tag that Snape was the obvious bad guy before I even finished half the book....

Dumbledore Dead?
Hmm, if you ask me, I don't think so. The ending with the phoenix, the white tomb, etc, kinda hints that he'll be back. So, my bet is he's gonna resurrect some how.

Teenage Angst
I think JK Rowling tried too hard to make Harry and his school mates more grown-up. While i have nothing against it, I found it out-of-place that suddenly there are all these 'rude hand gestures' begin shown here and there. I felt it didn't seem to flow well with how they had been portrayed in previous books.

BGR
haha.. I guess JK Rowling had to show that Harry, Ron and Hermoine are all full-blooded teenagers. All the kissing and hugging and longing... haha.. a little overboard lar.

Half-blood Prince
Haha.. I guess when it was revealed that Snape was the half-blood prince, the title of the book made plenty of sense. I'll admit that I didn't guess that Snape was the prince. So I thought that was a neat little revelation.

Better than Book 5?
Kinda hard to decide. To be frank, compared to the first 4 books, I have very little impression of the Order of the Phoenix. I think I'm gonna re-read that soon. Perhaps then Book 6 will make more sense. Comparatively, I think books 1 to 4 are better than 5 and 6. If I really had to choose, I'm inclined to think that book 6 is a little more interesting than 5. But then again, after I re-read it, I might change my ming.

Movie
I think this is gonna be a really difficult book to make into a movie. There are so many flashbacks so the movie would be one long history lesson. But I guess the ending, starting from when Dumbledore and Harry enter the Cave to his death would make for pretty heart-pumping action. I can picture a pretty exciting fight between the teachers/students and the Death Eaters. But Daniel Radcliffe & company will probably be too old to play Harry Potter by then. Wonder who they'll get to replace them. It's gonna be hard to find good replacements. After all, all the actors have already left strong impressions of how each character should look. Can you imagine anyone but Daniel Radcliffe acting as Harry? Kinda difficult.

Potty over Potter II

Up to page 380...out of 607 pages.. not bad, only 227 more to go! haha, with luck (& lots of commitment) I might just finish the book tomorrow!

Potty over Potter

Yep, I've finally started on the Harry Potter book. It's quite a sinful pleasure actually. There are other stuff to do, but I'm committed to try and finish the book in the next few days. heh. If only I had that much commitment to the other stuff I do.. (uh.. not that I'm not committed to other stuff... I am... it's just that compared to my commitment to finish reading the book, my commitment to other stuff might seem to pale.. gotit?) So anyway, I spent a good part of this afternoon reading it, and managed to complete 130 out of 607 pages. Woo hoo!

Rant

Ok. I usually don't rant. But just have to get something off my chest.

I cannot understand why sometimes, people can't just make their unhappiness about something known. I cannot understand why they prefer to keep it quiet, thinking that through some miraculous form of telepathy, I am expected to understand and know what is bugging them.

Instead, they prefer to let the things seethe and eat away at them, then over a seemingly meaningless and small thing, they just blow up and make a huge mountain out of the proverbial mole hill. Then I'm left wondering why on earth did that blow up occur when the thing was so insignificant anyway?

So, I'm to blame? I refuse to accept that.

No way. There's no way I am going to accept blame for something which I am unaware of. At the very minimum, I could have been told of the situation and the need for me to make some adjustments. It's not as if I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. I think I've done what I've needed to do and done it to a reasonable extent. So on top of all this, I am expected to fit into YOUR schedule as well and I am supposed to telepathically know your schedule.

I think that's crap. Pure crap.

So now, I'm to be the 'bigger man' and forgive the other person? I don't think so. I believe the bare minimum would be an apology and then we can discuss how we can proceed.

(OK, let me make this clear. This rant has got nothing to do with any student. It's just me letting off some steam.)

It's Open House tomorrow so there was plenty of activity going on this evening in school. I was helping to pack the packages in the meeting room. I must admit there was something strangely therapeutic about repetitive actions. It was basically take paper-take paper- take paper-take booklet- take brochure-file, then repeat and repeat and repeat. Quite mindless but uncannily enjoyable. I think the closest occupation I can think of that does this would be working in a photocopy shop! Sometimes, I do wonder how long I would last in a so-called mundane job like working in a photocopy shop. I know I often crave challenges, but maybe, just maybe, it would be fun to work in a less-exciting job. heh.

My grandfather (who has long passed on), used to own a coffee shop in the Yio Chu Kang area, near Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre. When I was a kid, I remember helping out in the coffee shop, taking orders, serving drinks, preparing chee-cheong-fun and selling paus. At that age, it was really quite fun. It was family-run, so we did everything from clearing the cups, serving the drinks, washing the cups and dishes and scrubbing the floor at 1am in the morning. I managed to 'help out' sometimes during the holidays. Maybe that's why I often have this urge to work in a Starbucks or Coffee Bean! Might be fun to bark out orders: "Grande Cafe Latte!" (with a fake american accent!).

Who knows, I might still be able to make my wish come true!

Here's the Raffles contingent at the Swim Finals. We had RGS girls in the front, RI boys in the middle and RJ students at the back. They were flanked by the prefects in their bright orange T. I think combined, we were easily the largest contingent there! Congrats to the Swim Team for the great results and a WELL DONE to the students who really cheered their hearts out!

Report on Parallel Imports of DVDs and CDs

Channelnewsasia had a report on how cinemas and distributors in Singapore want to stop parallel imports of DVDs and CDs. In a simple word, I think it's pretty c**p. Their reason for banning parallel imports? So that they can earn more revenue at the cinemas! Please lar, if you want to fight parallel imports of DVDs, etc, SHOW THE MOVIES EARLIER LAH! For example, the 'latest' Sin City which is still not released in Singapore was shown in US in early April. We are getting it in the cinemas only now! It's already scheduled to be released in DVD on August 16 in the US.

In this day and age of globalization and internet access, it's quite ridiculous to try and stop things like parallel import. People will just turn to Amazon and other online sites. Ultimately, everyone (including retailers) suffers. You want to keep people in the cinemas... just bring in the shows earlier! It's as simple as that.

Click here for the report.

(For those who don't know, parallel imports are good which are purchased from other countries. For example, a VCD movie meant for Singapore sale (like Spiderman) can cost $12. Some shops buy the VCDs from Indonesia or Bangkok which might cost only $8. The VCDs from other countries are called parallel imports.)

Here's a close-up for you to take a BETTER look. He's obviously lookingmore 'fantastic' than Mr Fantastic, eh?

I saw the whole series of Fantastic Four toys at Takashimaya today. Take a look at the pic, dun you think they are one of the ugliest toys around!?? I have no idea why they would design such horrible looking things. Just look at Mr Fantastic. Who on earth would buy that! Invisible Girl doesn't look any better this way (compared to my earlier pic), The Thing looks kinda gay in this pose and Human Torch is just plain stupid! And you know what's worse? Take a close look at the Human Torch's groin, isn't that just being TOO anatomically correct? PUKE!

Caught Sin City today. I've not read the comic so I didn't have much expectations. Imagine my surprise when the violence started! Then I realised it was a R21 movie! lolz.. I bought a ticket without checking the ratings. Anywaez, the movie was really violet. Although there were some... nude scenes... I am pretty sure it was the violence which gave it the R21 rating. There were slashings.. stabs.. cuts.. slices.. TEARING... phew. Thankfully, they kinda replaced all the red blood with white colour or something liddat, so it was slightly less gory. But it was still very violent. But then again, I think it was a pretty good comic-book movie. I think it was much better than Batman Begins. Well, I'm guessing most of you who read this blog aren't supposed to see the movie, so there won't be much agreement/disagreement from you on this...

This is one scary toy! I saw the new Fantastic 4 toys at Carrefour and I was horrified at this Invisible Girl toy. I mean, I have to admit that Jessica Alba was really HOT in the movie, but this figure is just plain wrong! Everything is proportionately wrong and the pose is just weird (I didn't pose it liddat.. most of the boxes came in this pose!). This is one toy which really should have been invisible...

Saw this at Suntec the other time. Quite exciting to see that Singapore has started on this 'capsule' thing like Japan! There were plenty of machines and some were actually cheaper than those in Japan. I managed to get an Incredibles keychain for only $1.

Walked past the new National Library building tonight. OK, I'll admit from this angle and lighting, it doesn't look too bad. Actually, I'm more impressed with my HP for being able to take such a nice night pic!

Dreamz

Last night, I had one of those weird dreams. I dreamt that I was with some friends (can't remember exactly who now) but basically the dream was based in Tokyo and Osaka. My friends and I had done something (also cannot remember!) which woke Godzilla! For the rest of the dream, it was basically running, running and more running away from Godzilla. I had to pull my friends and run deep into the malls in Tokyo to try to avoid Godzilla. Godzilla would be hurling boulders and shooting fire as he searched for us. Then, whenever there was eye contact with us, he would go wild and start thrashing towards us! To escape him, we took a bus to Osaka where I hid in a friend's house. When it appeared that all was quiet, I went out early in the morning to explore the terrified city. It was quiet, and Godzilla was nowhere in sight. And I thought of watching a movie. Dunno why also... But anyway, somehow, Godzilla caught up with us and we continued running. Funnily, I remember stopping at a shop in a mall while running, cause they had this cute dog/cat-like toy which you could stroke its back and it would respond in a realistic way and I just had to spend time stroking its back (maybe I should get a pet?).

After more running, I kinda managed to escape Godzilla as he came to rest in the sea just off Osaka. Then it appears that Godzilla has been communicating with the Japanese leaders (dunno how also). His terms were simple, turn me over and he will leave. But the Japanese Leaders were reluctant and they would not sacrifice even one person. Then... I woke up.

Any dream interpreters out there?

Young Leaders Day

Went for the Young Leaders Day at the Singapore Expo. It was quite well attended. I'm not too good at estimating, but I'm guessing there were close to 2000 students there. From what I gather, the YLD is supposed to be organised to inspire the Young Leaders as they take on leadership roles. Hence, they scheduled 6 consecutive talks for the whole day. Upside? Speeches were generally short & snappy. Downside? At time, speeches were just hot air.. not much substance.

I learnt quite a bit from this YLD. From an organizational standpoint, it was very interesting to see a conference organised for the youth. It was quite refreshing. From the hip dances to the video clips to the snappy pace, they were all quite indicative of how teenagers today generally behave, in this so-called MTV generation. From a personal standpoint, it was heartening to be reminded about simple things like WHY we lead and the passions which drive us.

Dr William Tan's sharing wasn't very deep. But I enjoyed it because it came from his heart. He spoke from personal experience and conviction and this made all the difference. Dr Andrew Goh helped me to see that Singaporeans can also be excellent motivational speakers. We often think that the westerners are the best at that. But Dr Goh was really very engaging. Again, he had simple points, but he managed to capture our attention with his very humourous stories.

The next 3 were unfortunately quite ho-hum. Tanya Chua & company was a waste of time, IMHO. Their segment seemed better suited in a Music Career Talk. H.E. Ong Keng Yong was also not very interesting. I think he had two things working against him. Firstly, it was the post-lunch-sleepiest-time-of-the-day session and secondly, I think he didn't have enough time to really say anything worth listening to. Claire Chiang & Ho Kwon Ping were quite interesting. But I felt their sharing was quite fluffy and at times, not very relevant.

Finally, we had Michael Lee from US. It was a good way to end YLD. After the 3 ho-hum segments, Michael brought focus back to the day. His simple sharing of NED was excellent and again, he did it with such simplicity and conviction. I liked his message. He said "the greatest thing we can do with our talents and abilities is to share them". I think that's really true. If only more people could have such a mindset.

All in all, while not a perfect conference, the YLD was quite good. If nothing else, it reminded me of the things I am doing and why I do them. A very useful reminder!