Guilt-ridden

It is done. I have caved in and succumbed to the temptations of the pure (or semi-pure) evil one. I feel so guilty.... sigh...

Temptations... again

I hate some people... I'm not naming them (or HIM), but I do hate them. It is evil to tempt others with lovely 17 inch monitors going at super-tempting prices. It is unkind to show others that 19 inch Ultrasharp LCD monitors are going at S$677. Sigh. I hate some people.

Meet the Fockers

MTF is a really funny show. Caught it today with my brother and it was hilarious. If you're looking for a comedy to start the new year, this should not be missed.

I also caught Kung Fu Hustle the other day. HIGH Points: Good effects. Undoubtedly, because of an American company backing him, Stephen Chow was able to put in a HUGE amounts of effect shots. And the standard of the effects was pretty good. All the swirling and jumping and kung fu shots were pretty well done and quite impressive. Was the show funny? Yeah... it had the requisite Stephen Chow moments: the sexy ugly gal, the nerdy guy, the obnoxious bad guys, the gay character.. There were also LOL moments. Quite funny. LOW points: I think Stephen Chow was so happy with the extra budget that I felt he went overboard with the effects. At some point, I started thinking 'Oh no... more of the same?'. The story was also weak. Not as interesting as Shaolin Soccer.

On the whole, KFH is quite good. Personally, I think Shaolin Soccer is a better movie.

With the new school term starting soon, KFH and MTF will help to bring the year to a hilarious end. Catch them if you can.

Christmas Chaos

Woke up today and decided to go watch Phantom of the Opera. It's one of my favourite musicals and I thought, what the heck, let's give the movie a shot, despite it getting like 1.5 stars or something from 8 days (or was is Straits Times? Nvm) Anyway, the movie started with some fake yellowish-old-film type scenes... and went on to show an auction scene in an opera theatre, pretty much like the musical. So, ho-hum... no big deal. But just as I was letting my apathy catch hold of me, the familiar PTO theme started playing. And the movie scene started getting 'colourised'. I tell you... I could feel chills down my spine. It was really quite good. The CGI together with the haunting tune really went along well. To cut a long story short, I did enjoy the movie after all. For those who've heard or seen the musical version of PTO, it's pretty obvious that the singing in the movie version can't match up to it, so don't even bother hating the movie because of it. Taken on it's own merit, PTO: the movie is not a bad musical movie. If you hate musicals, please don't watch this. You'll be bored stiff.

After the movie, I decided to take a risk and go down to Orchard Road to get some stuff and feel the Christmas atmosphere. I knew that transportation would be crazy and crowds would be scary but decided to try anyway. I wasn't wrong. It was a crowded mess. But I must say that STPB, together with the group of churches, did do a decent job of 'christmastazing' Orchard Road. The decor and the atmosphere, did feel a little more christmassy then usual. Of course, it was expected that the whole Christmas thing did feel more commericalized as well. Well, to all those who might read this blog, may the true spirit of Christmas touch your lives.

On my way back, I went past J8 and saw the Grant-a-wish booth set up by some students from NUS. I thought it was a very nice idea. They had collected wishes from children from different family service centres and then put it up on a board. We could then look at the wishes, then if we wanted, go and purchase the items to fufill the wish of the child. Interesting items. There were requests for Billabong wallets, school bags, an addidas soccer ball, discmans and gameboys. There was even a request for a 6-inch thick mattress for someone's baby. Well, maybe it was my conscience or something, but I decided to get some of the items for the children. There was another lady there who also decided to purchase bicycles for the children. Hope the few items I bought brought some christmas cheer to someone.

To everyone who reads or visits this blog, in the spirit of the season, here's wishing you blessed Christmas!

WOW!!! Looks like I was suckered into buying the Sony PSP! This picture was posted on eBay of the SORNY PSP. Looks even better than the Sony PSP! I can't wait for it to be launched.

Anime Overload

I've spent the last two days catching up on some Anime watching & DVD watching. Think my eyeballs are like tired from the visual overdose.

First, I finished watching through CSI Season 3 which I had borrowed. I realised that it was difficult to watch more than 3 or 4 episodes at one go. The stories were interesting but I think after 3 or 4 episodes, the gore just starts to get to you. It's just very depressing to watch murder after murder, autopsy after autopsy. Kinda makes me scared to visit Las vegas again. I've been there a couple of times and they've been quite fun. But CSI makes it look as if a murders happen all the time there. The cast of CSI are pretty good. I've tried watching CSI: Miami and I think it really pales when compared to CSI. I'm looking forward to watching CSI: New York. I think the cast sounds promising.

Next, I finally started watching some of the Anime which I had piled up. Started with RahXephon: The Motion Picture. I think this is a pretty interesting Anime with a SciFi/Fantasy element. Basically something to do with ancient civilizations, giant robots, music harmonics, alien possession, etc. Sometimes, makes you wonder how the Japanese can come up with these storylines! Anyway, I think the movie is pretty good. There was a lot of human drama, and the finale was almost tear-inducing. It was one of those 'OH NOOOOO!!! IT CAN'T BE!!!!! HOW COULD THEY!!!!' kind of endings. I've not started on the VCD TV series of RahXephon yet, that might be more interesting.

And finally, I finished watching episodes 9 to 24 of Full Metal Alchemist (xb, if you are reading this, shaddup). I've not been so hooked on an Anime since Evangelion. The story in FMA is really engaging and deals with some very thought-provoking and emotional themes. The animation is top-notch and the humourous parts really make you laugh out loud. I can't wait for the next few episodes to be released. However, I must say that the english subtitling is really bad; the grammar is terrible and the names keep changing. The main chracter is Edward but it's translated as Edowardo. Another character was named Siren (I think) and it wass translated as Thilian. heh. But well, it's better than no subtitles/mandarin subtitles.

Ok... less than two weeks to go before the start of the term... Must persevere and finish watching more stuff!

Went to Sim Lim on my weekly visit... (during the holidays, almost twice weekly), and I found two of the game shops displaying a PSP in their counter. I overheard them speaking to a customer who was examining the PSP and apparently, they were selling the PSP for over 800 bucks! I paid about 420 bucks for mine. Wow... talk about a price hike! Makes me even more glad that I bothered to line up for it in Japan.

Catching up on movies

I've been catching up on the movies which were released while I was away in Japan.

First, caught National Treasure at Suntec Eng Wah cinemas. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: Digital Cinema is really great! As I sat there watching NT, I'm just awed by the sharpness of the picture, the cleaness of the image (no scratches or funny wriggly lines) and how vibrant the colours were. Even the subtitles are sharp! I don't know how anyone can choose to watch normal film over the digital versions. For those of you who aren't too sure what Digital Cinema is all about, you can take a look at this link: http://www.dlp.com/dlp_cinema/dlp_cinema_digital_cinema_101.asp

Back to National Treasure. Before I say anything else, I have to say, I enjoyed the film. It was nice to watch a treasure-hunter-type show pretty much in the same spirit as the Indiana Jones series. There was sufficient action and the special effects were ok. However, I find it a little hard to accept Nicholas Cage as an Indiano Jones type character. The downside of this film is that it's pretty obvious that it's a Da Vinci Code rip-off. It's trying to capitalize on the current craze over the Da Vinci Code book. There are references to conspiracies, cover-ups, and of course ancient groups of people like the Knights of the Templar and the Free Masons. It's all loosely tied together with a flimsy storyline, but like I said, it was all a pretty good package. Watch this film.

The other film I'd watched was Ocean's Twelve. I had high expectations for this film as I had thoroughly enjoyed Ocean's Eleven. With the same cast and the same director, I'd thought things would probably be at a similar standard to the first movie. On the upside, watching the cast interact was fun. This big cast really do have chemistry working together. You can see that they are having fun throughout the movie. I was however, disappointed with the story. It didn't have the slick heist in the first movie and the twist at the end of this one was really quite contrived. Kinda like an easy way out to tie everything together at the end. There wasn't really any major heist through this movie too. Just a few small ones which aren't really impressive to watch. Don't watch this film if you expect a smart storyline. Watch it to enjoy the chemistry of the cast.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to catching Blade Trinity, Alexander and The Phantom of the Opera over the next few days.

Here's the queue which I joined at 5.00am on a cold Osaka morning for the PSP. This is taken at Yodobashi Camera Shop at JR Osaka Station. When I joined the queue, there were already about 200 people ahead of me. By the time the shop opened at 6.00am, there were probably about 400 people in the queue. I think the temperature was about 5 to 10 degrees celsius. It was freezing and I kept hands warm by holding on to a bottle of warm tea which I bought at the vending machine earlier. As the queue moved slowly forward, I must admit I was a little worried that all my lining up would be for nothing as I wasn't sure if there would be enough PSPs to go around. Well, thankfully, there were more than enough PSPs and I'm now the proud owner of one of the 200,000 PSPs that were launched on 12 Dec 2004!

And here it is... the Playstation Portable...aka.. PSP! It took me 2hours of lining up in the early morning but I finally got my hands on one and let me tell you... I think it's worth every cent (or yen)! The graphics are superb and the machine just oozes with coolness. Those of you who don't know much about the PSP (sigh... which planet are you from?) can visit www.gamespot.com to find out more about this awesome piece of equipment.

Here's something I'm really glad I found in a toy shop in Tokyo (at Ueno). They are different scenes from the old Mario Bros games for the Nintendo. I saw these in a magazine a while ago and wondered how to get them cause I thought they were cool. The squid, mario, mushroom are all magnetically attached to the scene so they can be moved around. They cost about 300 yen each (about 5 dollars), and come sealed in a box so you kinda randomly choose the boxes and hope you don't get the same ones. There are six scenes and luckily, I pciked 3 boxes and they all ended up being different. Phew.

Back from Japan with a whole load of meaningless stuff again! Japan is really full of cute stuff. I was reading somewhere that this has become some sort of an 'export' for them. I mean, everywhere you look, there is something 'cute' or 'kawai-i' associated with something. Anyway, I got suckered into buying these swaying flowers. They are solar powered and basically sway from side to side. Yep. That's about all they do. Cool, rite? One costs about 714 yen..about 11 dollars. I had to buy 3. Thought they'll look coller swaying together.

Tomb Raiding

I have this funny obsession with Tombs. Yesterday and today, my main areas of visit were tombs. Japanese Tombs. Maybe this is kinda ike a replacement for deciding not to go Egypt. So, instead of visiting Egyptian tombs, I'm visiting Japanese ones!

Yesterday, I went to Sakai to visit the tomb of Emperor Nintoku (hope I spelt it right). It's a huge key shaped tomb bigger than the largest pyramid and the Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb. The sad thing is that it's pretty much considered sacred, so no one can step foot on/in it. SO I could only stand from afar to view it. I then visited the Sakai museum to take a look at artifacts recovered from around the tomb and a mock-up of the tomb based on historical records... it was quite awesome. Funny thing is, I then realised that I've been to this museum abt 4 yrs ago! But I never realised that there was a tomb nearby.

Today, I travelled all the way to the outskirts of Osaka, to a place called Kiishi. I went all the way there, took a bus and walked through a park to visit the Chitsuka Asuka Museum..which basically is a museum about... TOMBS! heh.. The Museum is built at a mountain where there were many tombs all around it. The tombs were built around 6th Century (I think). This museum had even more artifacts and best of all, it had an English Language commentary! It was soooo good to listen to English. I then travelled another 45 mins or so further away from Osaka to another old city called Asuka which had plenty of unearthed tombs. There I rented a bicylce..yes, I can ride a bike... and went around to a few of the tombs and museums.

I think I've had enough of tombs for this trip.

Now on to more interesting stuff... the PSP is launching on 12 Dec. I know it is near impossible, but I am still hoping that by some miracle, I can purchase one here. I don't know how I'm gonna do that coz it seems that it will probably be sold out almost immediately. I don't think I am prepared to go and queue up overnight for it. Sigh.

I also found the SONY VAIO VGN-U750P here. For those who don't know, this is a beautiful full feature laptop which is just about 1.5 times the size of a paperback book. I'm so tempted to buy it coz it's so much cheaper here than in Singapore. The price back home is about S$3799 and here... it's only about S$2800. So much cheaper! It's such an extravagant thought... If I can get the Sony PSP... then I'll probably not thing so much about the laptop...otherwise... die lar!

Aching Feet

My feet hurt.

It`s been a long day of walking, walking, walking. This morning, I went up to the Shin Umeda City Tower...where a lift brings you about 143m up to the roof top where you can see the whole of Osaka. Frankly, I`m not a big fan of heights. I`ll admit that I was grabbing on pretty tightly to the railing in the lift as it zoomed all the way to the top. It didn`t help that the lift was the see-through kind... to allow you to see yourself rising above the ground. The view was fantastic. But I almost wished I needn`t take the lift down again. Going down was funny. There was another couple in the lift ant the girl immediately squatted down with her head to the floor when she entered the lift... she was too afraid to look up. I guess I felt the same way, but couldn`t show my fear like that!

In the afternoon, I found out there was a Star Wars exhibition at the Osaka Maritime Museum. It was quite good. Pity I wasn`t allowed to take photos. They had many of the original costumes and props on show. It was a little expensive.. about S$25, but I think it was quite worth it.

Spent the rest of my time at Den Den City... the Electronics centre of Osaka. Sooo tempted to buy stuff but had to practice some self-control. Will write more later, my internet time is up at the cafe.

Konichiwa!

I'm off to the Land of the Rising Sun... Japan for a couple of days. The two countries I love to visit most: USA and Japan. I admit it, I'm not really a nature kind of guy. I do like looking at mountains and fields, but frankly, if I see too much of them , I get pretty bored. I still need the excitemet of the city, of the high-tech stuff to keep me interested.

It's a tough fight between Japan and US when it comes to high-tech stuff. I love to wander through the electronics places and just see what are the latest gadgets and gizmos. In Tokyo and Osaka, there's the famous Akhihabara and Den-den town. In US, you have the electronics megamarts like Fry's and CompUSA. It's also very cool that I will be in Japan when the PSP launches on 12 Dec. I am soooooo tempted to go and queue up for it. But frankly, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak... very very weak. I don't think I can tahan queuing overnight with temperatures going down to around 5 degrees celsius. But it would be exciting to see the atmosphere at the electronics shops.

One down...

Just finished playing Sly Cooper and the Thievous Racoonus on the PS2. I know it's an old game, but I found it surprisingly good. It wasn't too difficult and it had enough variety and action to keep me hooked. And the levels were not too long, so they could be completed in a reasonable amount of time. The best part? I paid only S$25 for it! heh... Some games are really cheap in the US.

I read about Sid Meier's Pirates on Gamespot.com, sounds like a really fun game. I saw it at Funan today but I really couldn't bring myself to buy it. Firstly, I'm really worried I'll get hooked, and Secondly, if I'm not wrong, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth is coming out next week!

For those who know me, please don't think all I do is play games. I totally enjoy gaming, but unfortunately, I only have time to do it during the school holz. That's pretty much why I seem to be talking about games all the time. When the school term starts... sigh...

This is a pic of a pc which someone (whom I shall not name... let's just call him HP for now... ) is longing for. Tacky isn't it.

Hmm... the PSP is supposed to be portable.. I wonder which giant would be privileged to own this version of it.

Singapore Idol

Sylvester lost..... I am very sad.....

Here's another pic of my new PS2. Next to it is the wireless controller which I bought as well. The controller is on sale in Singapore, but the shops are charging about SGD89 for it. I paid only SGD66 for it! :-)

My brand new PS2! The picture really doesn't do it justice. I put the game case next to it to show you just how small it really is. But when you look at it in real life, you'll realise just what a great designer Sony is. I'm really glad I managed to get it from US. It costs only USD150 which is approximately SGD247. When it is finally released in Singapore, it'll probably cost around SGD300.

Here it is.. my Nintendo DS, straight from the US... fresh from it's launch date on 21 November! The set comes with a demo of Metroid (a first person shooter) and it's quite interesting to use the touch screen to do the aiming as you use the directional pad to move around.

I bought this really nice toy called PIXELBLOCKS from a shop in Berkeley. They are basically like Lego but come on only one size bricks, like pixels. The pixels can be connected side by side as well as built up like normal lego. You can see other cool pics at their website at www.pixelblocks.com

Home sweet home

Phew... how time flies. It's been a week since I last posted and it has been a pretty fun week.

Continuing from my last post, I had a HECTIC time shopping after my course. I can't believe how much shopping I did in the 3 days after my course, before I flew back to Singapore. My BIG BIG thanks to my friends in Fremont who brought me around to the really great spots like Target, WalMart, ToysRUs, Fry's and Office Max. For those who don't know, these are really the places where the Americans go to do their shopping and where there are really good deals. I bought DVDs for as little as $7.50 US which is like $13 in Singapore dollars! I was also excited to get the Nintendo DS on the day it launched! Heh... sounds desperate, eh? I paid the standard US$150 for it and when I came back to Singapore, I found out that the shops are intending to sell it for almost US$235 in December. I just love shopping in the states. I came back with almost a whole luggage of DVDs! Anime... TV series... Scifi movies... SHIOK.

Coming back to Singapore, I had a busy time with a conference and a meeting. I've only started enjoying some of the stuff I bought and I'm pretty sure it's gonna take me the remainder of the holidays (and beyond!) to finish watching everything.

Dunno about the rest of you, but I think the holidays are great!

Work's Over! Play Begins! (or continues...)

Yep, the four-day course is finally over. Learnt many interesting lessons, met many interesting people. It's really refreshing to have a group made up of professional coaches, HR personnel, IT people and Executive VP of a college. It was awesome to hear and learn from them!

Well, tomorrow, it's back to San Francisco... and final shopping! Yeah! Can't wait to get back to Singapore and enjoy all the stuff I am buying!

Back to work...

Yeah... Fun's over... at least for the next couple of days. I'm currently in Sonoma, a little out of the way town in Napa Valley (north of San Francisco), attending the Leadership Challenge workshop. Today was the first of 4 days and 'phew' talk about tiring. we went all the way from 8am to 5pm and I must say it has been quite insightful doing an evaluation of my leadership style. It's very interesting to see what are other people's perception of what my leadership style is. Gives me plenty of opportunity to reflect. It's another three days to go.. then back to shopping in San Francisco! I think I am going to have a problem with my luggage at the airport... so many things to buy... so little luggage allowance!

Ho-hum...

Godzillafest was a letdown. I spent almost 30mins trying to locate the place (which was somewhere in Japantown) and finally found it at some small gymnasium at the Community centre. But... boy was it a disappointment! There were only like 5 tables selling lame Godzilla stuff and one projctor showing... nothing! sigh...

I spent the rest of the day on the public transport. Rode the tram from beginning to end... and to the beginning again! Sounds aimless... yeah... it was. But in a nice, relaxing kinda way.

When I got back, I was really glad to watch 'Adult Swim' on the TV. Relax, it's not some porn thing.. It's the mature Anime programming. It was totally shiok! I watch Full Metal Alchemist (although it's only the third episode, but the English version was really good) as well as half an episode of Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex... half cause I was so tired I kinda just fell asleep. It's so sad that Singapore has nothing like this. The closest is the new Arts Central one hour section showing some anime (which I wasn't able to watch before I came to US). Sigh.. to have a Sci-fi & Anime channel in Singapore!

Shopping Frenzy

Today was great. I spent the whole day at the Great Mall of the Bay Area. It's a really huge mall with over 200 shops. If I'm not wrong, it used to be a Ford factory. To get there, I had to take a BART (kinda like the MRT) to Fremont then look for the bus to get me to the Mall. Altogether, it took me about 35 mins by train and 25 mins by bus to get to the mall. It was kinda exciting, cause I relied on public transportation to get me there.

I LOVE the shops there. Although I spent close to 6hours there, I barely visited half the shops! But, I've got to the critical shops like BIG DOGs where I stocked up on new T-shirts. Also managed to get some shoes. I simply love the shoes here, BIG sizes to fit my BIG feet. I was spoilt for choices unlike back in Singapore where I had to hunt for size 13 shoes.

Tomorrow, I plan to go for this Godzilla festival.. sounds fun, eh!

Raining in San Francisco

Finally here... San Francisco... It's been more than 4 years since I visited the US and I must say I was very excited about coming to the US after all this time. The long plane ride here was really quite bearable, thanks to the improved Krisworld system on SQ. Wow... I was quite impressed that we can now start the movie any time we like instead of following a fixed schedule last time. There were so many movies to watch and Nintendo Gameboy games as well. Must say this is quite an upgrade!

Visiting San Francisco is almost like going to a familiar place. I've been here so often that I find it quite easy to find my way around the place without even a map. Unfortunately, the weather has not been kind and I am getting a bit of jet lag so although it's only 6.20pm here, I'm pretty much ready to sleep.

I'm looking forward to visiting the Exploratorium tomorrow and I have to see how I can mak a trip to the Great Mall of the Bay Area... my favourite mall in California.

Well, think it's just abuo time to hit the sack. Nite!

Camps camps camps...

The CCAL camp was not too bad. Gave me the chance to get to know some other Sec 3 leaders instead of just the prefects. But I will be frank and admit that the lectures were a little overwhelming. There were many things which we wanted to do with the CCALs, but I think sitting through hours of lectures really makes it tiring and sleep-inducing. Well, it's the first time we're covering the Leadership Challenge model and I guess we're learning how best to teach it to the CCALs. I'm sure next year will be better.

Prefects' Retreat from 6 to 8 Nov was really fun. I had a good time there too. I think it was a nice balance of fun activities and serious ones. I think I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I really laughed until I had a bit of a throbbing headache! Generally, this batch of prefects are a really fun lot. Hope they really enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

Then we had PSL training today. I thought this year's training was pretty good. It was relevant and I think we covered more topics on how the PSLs can handle the new Sec 1s. I do feel sorry for the prefects... three camps in a row... CCAL, then Prefects Retreat and PSL. Phew.

Well, as for me, I'm finally off to my favourite country.... USA! I will be leaving on Thursday morning and will be staying there until 24 November. It will be fun for me to try and log on to talk more about my trip. Hope I can find some time and a nice Internet cafe to do it.

Hope everyone is findig time to relax and do things differently during the holz!

I Hate Games.

Yep. You heard it right. I hate games.

I hate them cause I don't have time to play them.

I hate them cause when I play them, I don't have time to do other things which I am supposed to do.

I hate them cause when I start, it's so hard to stop.

The holidays have started and yet I haven't even turned on any of my consoles since then! Last Saturday, I actually tried playing a demo of Warhammer: Dawn of War and once I started, it was 2.5 hours later that I stopped! And that was only one level! Sigh. Where got time to play?
Sigh. I hate games.

Holidays? Heh... Not quite yet..

It's been almost a week since the 'holidays' started. Believe me, the quotation marks are well deserved. I can't believe how hectic it has been since the holidays started. Yeah, you heard it right... HECTIC.

On the same day that the school ended, I had to attend a meeting from 2pm to 6.30pm. The next day, I had to attend meetings from 8am to 12 noon then 8pm to 10pm. On Friday, guess what? Another two meetings! One from 8am to 1pm and another from 2pm to 4pm. Exciting eh? Meetings are fun. We LOVE meetings! Of course, on Saturday, there was the Parent-Teacher Meeting, which didn't go too badly actually. I was pretty much burned out on meetings.

This week hasn't been much better so far. With the CCAL camp going on, my first two days were spent taking part in it and burning late night oils to prepare my session for the camp. Not sure if it was interesting to the CCALs. Tried not to make it all talk talk talk... hope i was somewhat successful.

Well, another three days before Prefects' Retreat. I'm kinda looking forward to it cause it's supposed to be one where everyone gets to relax. I don't think things will ease up until the end of Nov.

The End...

YEP! It's finally here...

The End of the school year... no more lessons! But frankly, faced with meetings, camps and courses, school will pretty much will go on at least until the end of November. It has been a busy year. Interesting, but really tiring. I can't wait to really kick back and play some games!

Distractions. Yep, with the end of the common tests, there have been many many distractions. It's been more than a week since I last blogged. I hang my head in shame. There goes my commitment to blog regularly. Well, I can always try again.

The common tests have come and gone. Some of you have been asking what I felt about the common tests. Like I said, I think there were some students who could have definitely done better. It was a little disappointing to see some students failing what I considered a reasonably easy test.

Rafflesian Spotlight was fun. I think the soloists were really really good. I know some students said it was unfair that Kaiyang won, but frankly, it was the students' votes which really decided everything... so the only people to blame are really the students themselves! The judges were also hilarious. Nothing can beat YH1 giving Kaiyang her extension number during the comments by judges.

Prefect Elections are over. By tomorrow the school will be informed about who the newly elected prefects. My hearty congratulations to those who have been elected. The worst part of the job is having to inform the nominees who did not make it. It really breaks my heart... I was also a little disappointed with a group of sec 3s who were apparently out to disrupt the whole elections. It's sad that they found it more meaningful to cast spoilt votes and try to spread the same sentiments to their batch mates.

The last thing I am going to write about is.... I've finally bought a new computer! Yeah! It's a Dell Inspiron 8400. Not the very best, but I think it's good enough. Pentium 4, 3.0GHz, 512 Mb ram, 160Gb hard disk.. Whoo hoo! Now I can play ALMOST all the new games!

OK, then, hope to blog a little more regularly. Until next time... Live Long and Prosper...

Watched SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW yesterday with my class. I really liked the robots and vehicle designs. The fella is really creative. But, I didn't like the grey tone of the whole movie. Yeah.. I noe it's supposed to be like that, but I just find the whole movie so dreary. Nodded off a few times.

Today, I went out with two of my former students from my previous school. It's really nice to meet up with them again for a meal and a movie. I'm glad they've 'evolved' into my friends. It was nice to hang out a the cafe and just talk about rubbish. Oh yah, we watched 2046. Unless you are a diehard Wong Kar Wai fan, avoid this movie like the plague!!! It's so bad... the three of us kept wishing for the movie to be over. Really wish I knew what the movie was about! As a reviewer said...the director can spend minutes showing smoke coming out from a cigarette... oooooo... how exciting eh?

Life's so fun... mark, mark, mark, mark, mark.....

I've not blogged for a few days... not cause I'm particularly busy, but I think it's more cause I've been quite slack.. :-P It's the usual calm before the storm. As the students (or at least most of them, I hope) busy themselves with the common tests, I can take a breather and wait for my papers to come in on Wednesday. Then, as they unwind with their post-CT activities, I will pretty much be holed-up in my room, slogging at the scripts, trying hard to find that extra mark to give..heh heh.

Well, the weekend was quite uneventful. My friend's husband who just came back from Australia, helped me to buy a DVD which I had been searching for for a long time. It's the pilot for a new series 'Battlestart Galactica' which is based on a TV show of the same name which first appeared on TV about 25 years ago (yes.. I am that old... sigh). The new series is really good. They managed to work in many things about the old series into the new so there is enough connection for people like me who watched the original version. The 'Vipers' are one of the nicer space fighter crafts I've seen. Battlestar is very often compared to Star Wars as it came to the small screen very soon after Star Wars started. For those who are really keen, you can find out more at this site: http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/

I'm looking forward to the holidays. There are many DVDs that I have been stockpiling to watch. I've got Full Metal Alchemist and Rahxephon, two sets of anime which will take up a big chunk of my time. Of course, it'll all have to wait until the common test papers are marked. Sigh. One more day of freedom for me.

It has been a while since I read a chinese comic. On Wednesday, I was at the comic shop in Thomson Plaza when I saw a copy of RAHXEPHON. Earlier on, I had read that the anime was very good so I thought the manga should be quite interesting. Furthermore, the whole series was only 3 volumes long. So, I thought, what the heck. In the end, I found that I really enjoyed the manga! It was similar to Evangelion in many ways but it was unique enough to be different (uh.. did that sentence make sense??). I quickly went back and bought the remaining two volumes and I've almost finished reading them. It was fun to read a serious story with the occasional 'funny-drawing'. Those of you who read japanese comics will know what I mean. Now, I'm really tempted to buy the anime. BUT, I think I'd better control myself. I still have two DVDs of Full Metal Alchemist to watch and not forgetting... the dreaded CTs will be coming in soon for marking... I think I can look forward to some holiday anime viewing!

I remember when I really loved japanese comics. The very first ones I got hooked on where the old Astro Boy comics! I remember reading them when I was in primary school. The next big series that I got hooked on was none other than Dragonball! Wow... that one was really good. I remember buying the whole set, almost 40 books if I remember correctly. It was a really good series, the action, the humour, the fantasy elements all came together very well. There were some other series, but for the last few years, I didn't really read any japanese manga but kept to american comics. Looks like it is time to start catching up again! Anyone have any good manga out there to recommend?

Monday. I wonder why God made Mondays. Wouldn't it be cool if we skipped Mondays and proceeded on to say... Wednesday? Then it would only be three days before the weekend again! Actually, instead of a 5 day week, I'm actually more supportive of declaring Wednesday as a day off. Think about it... School on Monday and Tuesday, then break on Wednesday. Then School on Thursday and Friday and CCA on Saturday. Great idea, right? There can be a day to rest in the middle of the week!

Today's lunch talk was not too bad. Talk was so-so, food was good, company was fun. My heartfelt thanks to the cherry overload from the people at my table. I don't think I've ever eaten so many maraschino cherries at one go... talk about a sugar overload.

There must be something which the TV stations have against Sci-fi shows. The shows are always screened at weird times like past midnight or on a weekend afternoon when most people would prefer to be out of the house rather than inside. The stations then say there is no demand for such shows and stop purchasing them. It's a pretty vicious cycle. Enterprise is one of the victims. It's shown on Sunday afternoon at 1pm, when most people would probably be out for lunch. For the non-sci-fi lovers, Enterprise is the latest incarnation of the Star Trek series. I long for the day Singapore has a Sci-fi channel like in the US.

Anyway, I watched two episodes of Enterprise today (recorded last week's but did not have time to watch earlier). While the stories were ok, I can't help but notice they must start every episode with a massage scene between T'pol (the female vulcan) and Tucker (the hormone-raging male). It's quite funny. Really using sex to sell the series. I think it's just a really cheap and low-class way to get more viewers. But I guess as long as sex sells... they'll keep doing it.

If you're interested to find outmore about Enterprise, here's a site you can visit: http://www.saveenterprise.com/

The prefects had a farewell gathering for the Sec 4s today. It's a little hard to believe, but I have already worked with two ripb excos... and been in the job for two years. Time really flies. Especially in our school. Each day zooms and sometimes, it's near impossible to stop to catch a breath. This batch of Sec 4s were only Sec 1s when I taught them when I first joined the school. Yep, 4 years since I joined. Like I said, time flies. The farewell was fun. Food was good and we basically relaxed and had a good time. Only 3.5 weeks to the holidays. Can you believe it!??

Went Takashimaya for a walk after the movies. They were having a 3-day 20% sale! Saw the Zoids Blox going at 20% off so decided to buy one to take a look. My brother had told me they were quite cool. Hope it turns out right.

It was nice to have a day off. After 4 days of conducting interviews, the day off was very much welcomed. I went to watch two movies, WHITE CHICKS and SAVED!. Met a student with his, uh, 'special' friend. Heh heh.. wat luck eh? Meeting a teacher when you are out on a date. :P
WC was ok.. not as funny as I had expected. But Saved! was really quite good. The only reason why it's rated M18 is becoz it's pretty much a christian satire. I think some christians might be offended at the way it makes fun of the christians in the movie, but seriously, I think christians should watch this movie to see how being a fanatic can really be a big joke! In the movie, the teenage girl decides to have premarital sex with her gay boyfriend becoz she thought she had a vision of Jesus (who was actually a pool attendant divinginto the water to save her)! It's quite silly, but I think it's a good reminder for christians to see how sometimes we can take our faith to a ridiculous level.

I've not been to Orchard Cineleisure for a long time. I generally dun like to go there coz it's often crowded and I dun really like the seats there. Well, I finally went there today coz the show I wanted to watch was only showing there. I saw this really nice statue of spider-man on the wall next to the escalators. Really quite cool. Have you guys seen it before? Noticed anywhere else with interesting statues? Tell me and I might make a trip there to take a pic!

Phew... these two days have been tiring. Have been having prefect interviews until almost 7pm for both days and this will probably continue until Thursday. I'm looking forward to the day off on Friday. Not much time to show meaningless things!

My form class gave me a real thoughtful gift! A big THANK YOU to you guys for getting me the GV Radiocard (which includes 10 free movie tickets!) You can be sure I will make good use of it! Thanks guys!

Here's an inside look the popper. It's really cool. The bottom starts spinning when you turn the machine on and it gets really hot. Really looks like something out of a 'sci-fi' movie. Heh.. meaningless isn't this?

Here's the lovely popcorn machine. It's really cool. Takes about 3 mins to pop a bowl of popcorn. The small container at the bottom helps to measure the amount of corn to put into the popper. I'll show you the inside in the next pic.

Hey... guess what... I've blogged for one week! Happy One Week Birthday to my blog! Haha.. Like to say thank you to everyone who visited my blog. Hope it's been fun for you as it's been fun for me.

Today was quite fun. Caught Resident Evil with my brother. Not a fantastic show, but I'm sure RE fans (Resident Evil... NOT Research Education) will watch it and love it anyway. I think the director, Paul Anderson, pretty much kills every movie he touches. He kinda destroyed Alien vs Predator and he didn't do a good job here either.

The boarders gave me a really big surprise this evening. When I came down for roll call, they turned off all the lights in the lobby and placed a cake in the centre! Then as I walked passed them, they sang the birthday song. Quite a nice touch, I must say. If any of my boarders ever read this... Thanks for a nice evening. Some ex-boarders dropped by as well. We had a good time chatting and making fresh popcorn! Yeah! My tutors and ABMs got me a popcorn maker! That's a really nifty gift. I'll post a pic later today (after I wake up). Chatted and played Xbox. Yep.. it's been a fun day.

Oh yah...guess what I bought yesterday. I found a shop that sold a VCD collection of 10 Pokemon Advanced episodes! hahaha. I also bought the Pokemon Jirachi Wishmaker movie. Kewl rite? Yah yah.. I know some of you who know me can't believe I watch this stuff, but hey, what's wrong with enjoying cartoons? To be honest, currently, my favourite cartoons (being shown on TV) are: Totally Spies, Jimmy Neutron, Jackie Chan Adventures (hey, he sucks in the movies but the cartoon is really quite good!). I like Astro Boy too, but I was thinking I'll wait for the VCDs to be released so that I can watch it all at one go! whoo hoo!

YES! I've made it to the weekend. It has been a pretty intense last few days. Due to the labs closing on Monday and Tuesday, I shifted my lessons to Wed, Thu and Fri... Phew... it was like a lab marathon. But all's well that ends well and the weekend is finally here. I went down to the NATAS fair in the evening and picked up some brochures on Egypt. I'm really quite tempted to see the Pyramids this year. I think they are really awesome and I am sure I will be floored if I can visit the remains of the ancient civilisation.
How I wish I can be in Tokyo right now. The annual Tokyo Game Show will be held this weekend and the PSP and Nintendo DS will actually be playable! Aaahhh... to get my hands on the PSP... Maybe next year, I might actually consider making a weekend trip to Tokyo for next year's Game Show! How extravagant would that be!! haha.. We can all dream, can't we? Interested to find out what's happening at the Tokyo Game Show? Visit my favourite video game sites: www.gamespot.com OR 1up.com

The Amazing Race Season Finale was really fun. This is the first time I've followed the whole season of TAR and I must say it has been very enjoyable. From the irritating midget to the devious twins, to the wholesome bowling moms and the b***hy couples, this season was totally watchable and pretty fun. It's nice to see Chip & Kim win. I can't help but think that the whole thing was rigged. Who wants to watch show where the bad guys win? Chip and Kim were the underdogs, especially at the second last leg where the poor Chip had to scale the cliff. Come on, which decent, down-to-earth human would not be rooting for them? Well, all's well that ends well!
It's mid-week. Two more days to go to the weekend. It's tiresome, but I think for many months now, I've been living for the weekends. Not too good, I think. But it's been a tiring year. 5 more weeks to go before the end of the year. I can't wait...

Here's a top down view of the new PS2. Doesn't it look cool!?

Take a look at this thing of beauty! The newly redesigned PS2! Sony really does an excellent job at designing their stuff. The new PS2 is only 2.8cm thick compared to the original one which is about 7.8cm! It will probably be released on 1st Nov. WOW. My PS2 works fins with DVD-roms but can't read CDs, so I'm quite tempted to consider getting it. Rumours are that it will be sold at the same price as the current PS2. (News from www.engadget.com)

Ok, thought it would be nice to post a peaceful picture of Mt Fuji. I took this when I travelled to Tokyo in 2002. Nice pic, yah?

Watched Raising Helen today. Not a bad show. Kate Hudson played the role well, but I think Joan Cusack was good, playing her usual 'uptight' roles. Probably not worth a full price ticket unless you are a die-hard movie watcher like me. Managed to find Blade DVD (Code 1) at a pretty good price of $25. That's really good. Can't wait to watch the carnage when I get the time. I'm struggling with whether to buy the Star Wars trilogy DVD. Code 1 costs about $120 and Code 3 costs about $90. If I ordered from US, I think Code 1 will cost about $80. But I'll have to wait for it and I'll also have to pay freight charges. Sigh. I think I might just wait until I go to the US in Nov to buy it. School starts tomorrow... Sianz....

And here's the cool Nintendo DS, scheduled to be released around Nov 2004. Sigh, looks like I'm gonna be flat broke this year with the PSP, Nintendo DS and very possibly the PSTwo...

Here's what I'm really looking forward to.. the Playstation Portable (PSP). Can't wait for the end of the year when it's released. In the meantime, rumours are that the PSTwo (the new, smaller version of the PS2) will be released towards the end of October 2004! Be still my beating heart!

Here's another one of my favourites. It's a plant-like thing with just two leaves. The leaves basically move up and down, up and down, up and down all the live-long day. It's also solar powered so it'll just keep moving up and down until the sun burns out I guess. Another meaningless toy which I totally dig!

Here's one of my favourite meaningless toys. All it does is tilt it's head from side to side the whole day long (as long as there is light!). It's solar powered so it'll run as long as there is good ole light. What could be more relaxing than staring at this object of pure bliss.

Yep, it's been 10 hours since I created this blog. In that time, I basically... slept. Heh. I've just added a Tag-board. I can see how all this can become quite addictive. It's pretty much creating something that's your own, personalizing it and then showing the world what you have done. No wonder students are so caught up with blogging. I guess if I were back in my student days, this would be a HUGE distraction for me. Well, it's fun for now. Wonder when I'll get bored.

Me in Japan (Dec 2002). I'm actually viewing the magnificent Mt Fuji from this place but I thought posting a picture of this 'suffering' creature was more interesting!

Sydney, 2002. My first trip to Sydney. Not a bad place. (Can't compare to US though). I just find Australia a little too laid back for me. Nothing about the place really excites me. Guess I'm attracted to the High Tech vibes of Japan & US.

This is my first post... hopefully not my last. I hope to use this Blog to basically talk about non-work stuff. I think life is hectic enough without me reminding myself about work here,

I'll try updating it with the stupid, meaningless stuff I do. If you like to find out more, check back often and see if I can commit to this!