Sick Settler

I had to fall sick on a Saturday!

Even so, there's a Settlers' Cafe outing for our cell and I wasn't going to miss it.

So there we go, 6 of us at Settlers' Katong! Since we didn't have a particular game in mind, I reccomended the game Citadels!

It's basically a city building game (I think I talked about this game before) which my colleagues at office once played regularly (they now switched to other games) which I was considerably familiar with.

The learning curve was OK... as I thought, this game was easy to pick up, but there's a lot of anticipaing and scheming (might be too strong a word) involved... Jiansheng won in the end (he finished with the power-packed Dragon Gate!!!) with me following closely (yeah I felt a need to tell you this :P)

Jiansheng's achievment in the middle of the game. He just managed to steal from the richest player at that point!

We also played other card games like Saboteur, where we play the role of miners trying to dig till we find gold. Saboteurs in the party try to thwart the plan and lead them to nowhere. In the 2 rounds we played I managed to have a taste of being on both sides.

I decided that maybe I should order a set of Saboteur and bring it to my office... see what they think about it. Otherwise I can always bring to Cell!

We had dinner at the Central Hongkong cafe-restaurant at Parkway. Between us we ordered French toast (which was amazingly thick), baked rice and noodles. Their noodles are served in quite special bowls... 2 bowls joined together in the shape of an "8" so that you don't have to carry 2 separate bowls of noodle and soup. Nice idea!

The "8" bowl.

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Stress balls are really things on which you can play with your creativity. Ms Tay (one of our Staff Officers) went for blood donation recently and this time they're giving stress balls (got to squeeze it to quicken the blood flow I think) that look like...

The idea of squeezing this "heart" remined me of the album cover of Metallica's "St Anger"

By the way, she gave it to me since I was ogling over how cute it was the entire morning.

Karmama

It's just like me with my putting that never-give-up attitude and my adventurous spirit -- in the wrong places.

For example, cycling to an unfamiliar place such as Ikea Tampines.

I've been driven past there once... Dad was driving us home during CNY and we reached the red-blue-white colour-schemed flats opposite my house mere moments after Ikea.

So I thought... maybe I should cycle there on my trip to get this very cuddly GRANAT cushion (so that, during work hours, I don't have to always T-Loan the one belonging to Ms Tay).

Sounds cool.

The uncool part was that I got lost!

I remembered that I just had to travel in... that direction... from... the community centre? Or the Estate? Or...

OK I wish I'd looked up some... map.

After 2 hours of going in circles, and enjoying some very nice view I thought I'd never see in Tampines...

I gave up.

And cycled to Tampines MRT to catch the shuttle bus to Ikea.

Now I sound like a total idiot.

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My Triton LE!

After selling the Triton LE to me (which took my interest in music to a whole new level), Kelvin went on to get the KARMA.

Besides the 5 inserts (though I don't know what the heck it's all about), the main attraction is the fierce red coloured body.

Karma + Giroro: the fiercest pair! Exactly the same shade of red huh?

Plus the Kick-ass orange backlight... man... oh man!!!

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Gasha-Pwn!

Goodness... new series from Gashapon. 2 of my favourite things in my slightly Otaku-wannabe side of life...

Keroro + Capsule machines!

Nice choice for some office desk decoration, don't you think?

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Long time no see, porch of AHS hostel! Today we had Cell Group, and a very budget lunch, there.

Pokemon Pearl is finally out! Now Jonathan does look cool with his Nintendo DS...

Enjoy!

I've come to a stage of having to think about life.

About self-worth... about purpose of existence... about accountability... about enjoyment...

and many other things.

Recently I've been asking myself, as the routine of work and sleep started sinking into my life (and I've realised it only now), what do I enjoy?

In any way. Enjoy doing, enjoy being with... just... enjoy. In the very sense of the word.

Music? Now music to me means so much more, after getting a professional keyboard. More than just listening. But analysing. And also making music. Musicians are supposed to have fun with music, and as one feels his way through, find a direction in which you can share yourself using sounds and notes.

But then, the real fun in music lies in being able to share it with others. And even better still, making music together with people!

Work? Bah... I've been through mornings wondering if I could just get sick and have a rest at home! But work really gives a reason for interaction, and I have really wonderful colleagues to make my day.

What's enjoyable is the interaction you have with co-workers, and serving people. The truth is that I might not value the service that I myself provide that much (which, from my point of view, has to be corrected). But no one's going to dread the chance to interact, I think.

Hobbies? Reading... collecting... buying... those are what I enjoy too.

But in the end it comes down to what I want. In life.

I've come to the conclusion that in the end what I enjoy is people.

Friends... my life partner (whom I'm still looking for)...

God...

A lot of the things I do I will regret doing, if not done together with (or among) others.

It's said that doing something without love makes it not worthwhile. I have to agree.

Recently I've lost some of the capacity to love. It just takes... effort. It doesn't flow. Doesn't pour out. But to me, it's supposed to be that way.

Still, I have to admit that the most enjoyable times are when I cross hearts with people. Really.

I can imagine that I'll be a very happy man when I finally find my life partner (as I always drone on about). Really... to me it's just amazing!

As for my faith... I've been led to think about very big questions... more like questions on definition actually... on what I enjoy as a Christian.

Doing things for God? Praying? Thinking about God's teachings? Marvelling at acts of love? All these things... per se?

One of the notes from Bible Study Fellowship has a statement about the ultimate aim of man being to "enjoy God".

That was very thought-provoking.

Have I been enjoying God as a person actually? I can enjoy actions related to my faith... but God as a person? His teachings aside... his deeds aside?

No wonder the apostles commended the believers in their letters for trusting God "whom you can't see". The barrier of sight was really much more immense than what I imagined it to be.

But I want to, and maybe that's the only thing I'm able to do as a Christian, to know God from this whole new viewpoint -- person to person.

In the end, I believe, we're created to enjoy God and each other. So enjoy!

Treasure trove

You might never know what you'll find on the web.

There was once I was copying and pasting long long urls, then Dom was telling me (oh that's so long ago) about this website http://tinyurl.com which generate shorter urls that point to the long url site.

Hmm...

Today I was looking for some online animated gif resixing website, and I really found one!

http://www.smileygenerator.us/t/gifresize/index.php

Heh... quite a lot of surprises, the internet!

Shuttle Jam

I've got to talk about the badminton game with CPT Dave last week, at the Clementi Sports hall, which, for a pretty new sports hall, had quite a *&%&^%#$ toilet. It was a good game, though.

But I was still as lousy, haha.

And the lunch at his house. Pretty well furnished, black/white/gray themed. I found it nice as I love black a lot too.

And he's quite good at making the spaghetti sauce. Good thing he used pork for that day, because Jermaine (Max's understudy) is Buddhist and doesn't eat beef.

Well Max's shirt on that day...

Well if you have the star gold, against white background... it'll be so KERORO!

Following that was an outing with some of the 10/04 guys (Cell Group meeting wasn't on that week). I originally wanted to propose watching TMNT, but Esmond has already watched it.

We ended up watching Shooter.

It's a story about an ex-sniper asked by a government agency to plan an assasination (?!) so they could stop it (orh...). But as the plan finally falls into place someone still got killed.

Now the agency puts the blame on the ex-sniper guy, when the truth was that the agency itself had indeed been planning the assasination.

In the end justice was still not meted out, at least not on the government level.

But then again, for under-the-table people, you finish them off the under-the-table way.

Cool.

After the movie Zhiren and guys went to play Outrun 2, which didn't appeal to me much because there're no Jap cars in the game.

Still, the speed the car can go makes it very easy to drift (and still know what you're doing), and so I joined in in the later round as well.

The drifting is awesome, man! you can't even do that much in Ini D, which after all is marketed on the basis of drifting. Sian.

On that fateful day I also discovered the new location of the Suntec Capsule Parade.

Watched Kelvin's band jam Dream Theater (this progressive metal band Kelvin was telling me about) songs on Sunday. After some warming up, they sounded quite good.

Initially I thought I needed earplugs, but after some time I took it off and it was still alright for me.

Kelvin and his keyboard in action. The top one is his (the Korg Triton LE), while the bottom one is a borrowed stage piano.

One of the reasons he invited me to the jam was also to let me see his Triton LE in action before I buy it from him.

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You see traces of the SAF everywhere.

So they have a CPC in Anglican High. Just like they have a CPC (Chinese Pugilistics Club) in Temasek JC

Some shop space in Suntec available for leasing. But... CBRE?

Counterstrike: An Information Leak

Terrorism is a very real threat.

Even on Keron.

By sheer chance I've come across an uncensored propaganda video on this very touchy subject, done by none other than the Keroro Platoon.

Probably done before their expedition to our planet.

In respect of them, I shall not reveal all of the video's contents, but only screenshots.

Enjoy. Or not.

Phew...

But then again, since it's propaganda, you can't take it in wholesale... like, since when did their ARMY have touchscreen anyway?

Good Game

GG!

This Monday, even though my friends were all quite busy. leaving my Dad and I for the badminton game, Dad found some other people there to play with, so Dad and I teamed up for quite a few exciting doubles matches (with Dad doing most of the killing, of course). Check out his SMACK, man!

Did some DotA practices this week on AI maps. Had performances ranging from FIRST BLOOD (only that once) to... hmm come to think of it, I've managed to successfully avoid becoming the first killed hero in each game. Which is a good thing, of course. I can say I have more confidence now come the next LAN gaming with my colleagues.

Unless Reuben is in the opposing team.

On leave today (heheh..) so I was finally able to go to Harbourfront to claim my 1 GB memory card for my new camera. Also went to Kinokuniya to check some stuff out.

There I saw the Chinese translation of a Jap Novel, Ren-ai Shashin which is now a film. The-

Wait, isn't that film the one with the Ai Otsuka song which goes "Tatta Kimi Wo Aishiteru..."

Yeah it's that one, all right. The author happens to me Takuji Ichikawa.

The guy who wrote Ima Ai Ni Yukimasu.

Ehhhhhhhh??!!

And then I saw that in the same series, there's a Chinese translation for Ima Ai as well!

So I got it, of course. Why would I buy the Japanese one for $40 when I can buy the Chinese one for $20?