overly romanticised version of life: August 2007

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Classified Music, Encrypted Jap Mind

Is it due to our transformation into the 3G Army, that CPC is now turning into a mini-MDC (Music & Drama Company)?

More and more people in our branch are taking up musical instruments.

Guys in the opposite CP branch are actually writing songs!

I just went for a jam with a new band (you can't tell how stressed I was on the keyboard!) followed by another jam with my colleagues: Kelvin on keyboard (duh!), Jon, Yichuan & Chiang Wee switching between 2 guitars and 1 drum set, and yours truly on the bass this time.

Shit... had to sing and play bass at the same time... couldn't concentrate!

Good thing was, it's all about having fun... and have fun we did!

I just realised I have a newfound fetish: for time travelling girls!

First there was Mio (not the one from SingTel!), then there was Mikuru (only because she's pretty), then-

I watched Jay Chou's self-directed (blah blah) film "Secret".

It was after the NDP when I went along with Yichuan and Kelvin for "a movie". While deciding on whether to catch Rush Hour 3 or Secret, well... Yichuan and I were definitely more keen to watch Secret (being avid Jay fans), and what with Kelvin's not-too-impressed attitude over Jay (on the musician level), I was all the more itching to drag him into it. Hahaha.

All the while Kelvin was trying to spots flaws in the movie (Tsk!), but in the end... at least it's not just an ordinary high school story. And you get to see "Bai Se Feng Che" in one of the parts. Go figure.

Well since the Secret is already out, this film is a timetravel story. The only un-revealed secret was perhaps where Jay (yes he's called Jay in the story as well -_-) ended up.

More photos!

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of the Haruhi Series at all.

Still, figurines made in that amount of detail... hard to give a miss!

Asakura Ryoko

Nagato Yuki

This was from a scene where Asakura and Nagato were fighting in a classroom using pure information manipulating skills to alter the environment and-

you probably won't understand anyway.

Another easy to understand figurine from an even-harder-to-understand Jap story... Asuka from Evengelion!

Oh that's how the drivers seat themselves in the Entry Plug (blah blah)

The Japs can sure write about anything, ranging from time travelling Mums to alien girls to the rear of a cyborg!

In case you can't see it cleary, the bottom line says "ROBOT BACK SIDE STORY".

Perhaps you might need a dose of sanity after all this ordeal. Let's look at some scenes from another memory instead.

Between these photos you probably could tell that Max, Yichuan, Jon and I turned up for Kelvin's birthday party. Among Kelvin's (many) other friends.

Music please!

Weiyi sang a few songs at the party. I've heard recordings of his singing way before that and he's good!

I , erm, harmonised along in some of the songs.

A piano cake for the piano man! And the best part, our birthday boy's got to ~~CUT~~ it! Ouch!

(White Chocolate) Key Eater.

Extracts from a war diary: Ex. Ninja Delta Pegasus 2007

Mission: CAPTURE the precious moments of our very first NDP on the floating stage (blah blah...)

Location: The biggest floating stage in SE Asia (blah blah...) at Marina Bay. Area within 50km from the floating stage was flooded with a sea of REDshirts. Bet anyone trying to navigate through the crowded wanted to be called Moses for just that day (go figure).

Bi~g baloons could be seen floating around the, erm, floating stage, just to create that atmosphere of a carnival, perhaps?

There's been reported sightings of this HUGE ferris wheel they're building... and you can see it from the stadium too!

And finally the stage itself, with our towering skyscrapers as a backdrop. What better way to celebrate our nation's prosperity?

Logistics: Everyone enlisted for this exercise had been given a Fun Pack, which contained mainly dried food supplies that can last you for quite some time, and perhaps to also add to the possibility of a sore throat, with all the screaming involved.

*Searches bag further*

...Ah, menthol candies and 2 bottles of NEWater to the rescue!

NDP 07 Fun Packs come in many colours! And the bags could be taken apart (they're joined together using zippers), which enables you to do a mix-&-match. Meaning you can not only make a bag of many colours, but also choose to use it as a shoebag one day and a shopping bag on the next.

I myself got an orange one...

...but by the end of the day my bag became an orange-white-green bag. Reminds me of some other country's flag... oops!

We were also given our own trash bags to bag our waste so as to keep the place litter-free. I've played my part, have you?

Nominal Roll: Our platoon is made up of

CPL Wang Weiquan, CPL Wei Yichuan, LCP Jonathan Soon, Ms Amanda (Jon's gf), Mr Keith (her brother)...

and LCP Kelvin Chong.

Despite being daunted by the immensity of the mission, we were quickly reassured upon seeing our comrades who were there for that same purpose.

Whoa that's a LOT of them!

Dear Diary,

Our mission began with a setback.

None of us brought umbrellas for that day (Awww... MAN!), and while the sky was Thank-God-it's-clear, the Sun was beating down harshly upon us in the initial wait-to-rush-rush-to-wait hours typical in any exercise.

The stunt bikers from Australia simply added to the heat, man! Not that we're complaining though.

In the early evening our reinforcements came.

Hope was clearly written on our faces as we watched our very own Red Lions do that Airborne thing. Down they came on parachutes trailing red smoke...

"Here they come here they come!!!"

Here come our troopers! The contingent was made up of people from all walks of life, ranging from grassroot organisations to Commandos! Look at Jon's face light up as he watched the Signallers march past! (Part of Jon's job scope in our unit was dealing with Signallers)

Forming up!

The rest of our re-inforcements arrived in the Dynamic Defence Display segment...

The Airforce!

The... guys jumping down the bridge on ropes?

"Tactical!"

Rescue at sea!

The naval crafts that could do donuts!

The Bionix!

Finally it's time for the show! This year the theme revolves around possibilities, but what impressed me the most was the display of marine life... the Jellyfish, in particular.

Oh don't they just look cute?

Another attention grabber was the Lambo (what the heck?) which was driven onto the stage during the segment on our city's growth in the digital age... I think.

A Lambo, and a white one at that!

Oh yes, the remote-controlled kites item was also one of the highlights! They're so fast, I couldn't even take a proper shot!

The core of our mission, or at least on my part, however, was to capture FIREWORKS SHOTS!!! And it just had to happen... Kelvin, Yichuan and I were apparently too busy taking photos of previous segments... our cameras were LOW BATT as we approached the end of the show. Worse still, The fireworks just didn't come! There were, like, 3 times throughout the whole performance when we thought the fireworks were going to be up (mainly because it's the end of a song), so I had to turn my camera on and off and on and off and on...

Before the sky went supernova.