City by the Bay

Pretty.

Soup Ba Chor Mee! (no Twee Gua)

Thanks to princess for introducing the nice soup ba chor mee! And Jo, it's really really great seeing you again...it's been really a while. Glad that the three of us can convene again after...i can't remember when was the last time we met, it really was that long time ago.....















"FEED ME!" hhahahhaha........ I can almost imagine the lamb asking pud. to dump bugs free grass into the container.... heh heh....















Didn't know Jo like lambs...she have like 6 lambs soft toy lo..... gawd....

Jo, thanks for the great fun we had today. It really had been a while since we sat and talked and laughed. And also, thanks for giving me that lamb. And the bottle of "Kahlua". Will let you know how it taste like....

Of cos, I won't forget the promise of a tiramisu! hahahaha

Eventful Day

An unexpected break I had today. And because of this, I returned to NUS to visit some friends of mine. And along with it, I uncovered an interesting truth.

While waiting for my friends to get their food, I was sitting alone at the table and soaking in the view of the canteen. Suddenly, i realised that this lunch time crowd is different from the usual city lunch time crowd. I felt more at ease, more relax and at peace with myself here.

And then it hit me.

For 5 months have I been working in an environment that is fast paced, bustling with life and energy that somehow, I yearned for the return of a more laid back and tranquil environment. And it was right there and then, that I realised this.

Oasis I want.

And because it rained, I had a little tea break of tea and muffin in YIH canteen, listening to the splattering of the rain and the soft whirring of the celing fans.

Blissful.

Absoultely.






























As I was suppose to pick up my mum from her office in Tuas, I didn't wanted to go home and decided on exploring Jurong a little. And that was when I ended up at Jurong park. A run down park with nothing except middle aged uncles trying to catch fishes, some birdwatchers with bino and telephoto lens trying to observe migratory birds. By merely walking along the beaten down path along the lake, I felt unperturbed (though there was a few sms incoming that needed my attention) and very much relaxed. Not something i'll feel often on a Thursday afternoon.

And it hit me again.

I miss my carefree days. I really do.

So much so that I feel a little wave of sadness just thinking about it.

I am an Apple Tree...?

Apple Tree
The Love Of slight build, lots of charm, appeal and attraction, pleasant aura,flirtatious, adventurous, sensitive, always in love, wants to love and be loved, faithful and tender partner, very generous, scientific talents, lives for today, a carefree philosopher with imagination
--------------------------------------------
eh, i'm not flirtatious nor do I live for today... the rest, I am no comments.

2004 Mitsubishi Lancer

Introduction
Mitsubishi once manufactured engines for their infamous Zero fighters, thoses that were used during WWII, especially during their unprecidented attack on Pearl Harbour. So you must be thinking, "Ah! they manufacture machines that can be nimble and fly fast" and so, similarly, you must be further thinking that their cars must be the equivent of zero fighters of the land.

But sadly, over the years, something must have gone wrong. Their cars were never the "zero fighters" of the land. In fact, they never came close into having a car that have as much status as the "zero fighter" Ok, i'm slightly lying. They did. The GT3000 in the 90s, the Evolution series and even their Lancer MRs were all very good and exciting cars but their main stream products, Mitusbishi Motor's bread and butter, were utterly lacking in character and about as exciting as riding a tricycle . The smaller and less muscular little brother of the Lancer Evolution is one such product.

Same Actor. New Clothes.
If life was a show, the cs03 lancer is just the same actor, with a change of clothes. Essentially, as you may or may not know, sometime during the late 90s, MM has a JV with Damier Chrysler and the cs03 lancer is a joint colloboration with them. But here's the thing, the redesign of the lancer is only limited to the exterior. The heart of the lancer, it's 4G16 16V SOHC inline-4 1586cc engine is essentially the same as the old CS2. Even the interior fascia remains unchanged. Of course, the redesign is easy on the eye, looks sportier (especially the sports version) and is quite an attractive looking car.

Sporty look doesn't mean Sports car.
Standing still, it oozes confidence and speed. But once the red light turns green, you soon realise that looking sporty doesn't mean it's a sports car. It doesn't even run, it crawls from stand still. And here's the reason why. The 4G16 unit is old. period. It was designed during the Jurassic era by cavemen holding stone clubs, constructed with materials such as stones, flints and dinosaurs' skin,as techonologically advanced as a stone axe and spins as fast as flintstone's legs.

It IS the only flaw of this car, but it is enough to disappoint. Yes yes, you may say the air con is powerful, it's problem free, it's decently quiet(at times) but so? The heart of a car is the crux. If the heart is bad, the car is bad. Can you marry a handsome/beautiful partner if they are bad in character?

On paper, it's 0-100 timing for the manual is 11.8 seconds which is decent enough but you can never feel the urge from the engine. Choose the CVT and the century sprint will take , well, a century. I'm pretty sure Mitsubishi's engineers knew that they have a weak engine, which is why they tune the engine for the torque to peak at a low 2750rpm, to compensate for the lack of power.

Personally, i rather they drop in the 1.5L Mivec engine from the colt.

Verdict














On the upside, it's selling pretty cheap now (45-50k) for a Jap-made sedan, looks good, handles corners well, is resonably quiet (you will change your mind once the Aspec DB wears out, but that is another story), has loads of rear leg room and a big boot. On the downside, the engine is asmatic,noisy above 3k rpm. The interior looks like it came from the era where art means doodles on the walls of caves by ancient cavemen clad in leopard skins.










There is a phrase, "good things are worth the wait" so, if you want a lancer, wait for the 2008 Lancer. It will sport a whole new design (will you just look at that!) with a new 1.8l engine joinly developed with..Peugeot or Damier-chrysler I think.

Now that is what I call a modern car even Darth vader would approve of.

Postcard from Afar.....

ho ho.... princess gave us castle folks post cards and I got one too *beams with pride*





















Princess wrote that England is like my hometown... lambs, cows and buses everywhere ( I didn't know buses co-exists with animals but ah well.....) . She also say she is sorry for her messy handwriting (me thinks she was probably tired from all the exploration) and that she hopes pud have been feeding me well....

In fact, what she didn't know was that pudding have been feeding me too well...instead of bugs free grass, I gotten more chocos and tim tams to eat.... yum yum

Also, I would like to lodge a formal comprain to princess, for after all the effort in typing her a birthday sms at 7.45am in the morning (11.45pm London time, but I think she was in Paris, which means i'm late by one hour cos i thot she was still in London) with a groggy mind (i actually fell asleep 1/2 way while typing that sms), she actually replied me by saying she had nice lamp chops for dinner.... how outrageous!

VexeD | DexeV

It's strange. Everyday, you meet people and you interact with them. But these interaction doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make you feel happier, make you feel good or make you feel that life is meaninful.

In essence, we communicate alot to people in our daily work and life but these spoken words are as cold and lifeless as these letters you see displayed on your computer screen. We converse for the sake of conversing to get things done, to make our intentions understood. Remove this need of getting things done, I'm sure no one will be talking to anyone.

I wish I can ignore all these thoughts but I can't. I feel it all the time. Conversations that leaves your soul feeling empty and dark. Luckily, I know that there are a handful of people which I can still enjoy a quiet conversation with. These are the people that speaks from the bottom of the heart and makes you feel connected to them and these are the people you want to converse with to rejuvenate your soul....

I'm tired. Tired of dealing with people with facades, tired of expectations and the need to conform to what people think it's the right thing to do....

I'm standing here, in the middle of the busy street screaming for attention. No one bothers to stop. No one wants to stop. No one feels that they should stop.

Even though the busy street is brimming with noise, all I can discern is the overwhelming sound of silence...

Lazy Weekend...

Mmmm, it's been a while since I really rested at home during the weekends and I must say, I welcome the change, as compared to my usual nip zip of going office and ecp. I guess it takes an illness to halt a busy schedule and force you to downshift to a slower pace of life.

And i'm glad for that.

I slept like I never sleep before. I rotted at home like I never did before. And I felt truely relaxed like I never did before.

I hope I can do this once every month, the doing nothing part, not the illness part (not that hard to ask for right?)

And in such a relax state of mind, I had supper (actually it's more of breakfast/lunch/dinner combined) with pudding at vic street. And because I was relaxed, we slothed on the chair for like 4 hours while we ate and chatted w/o a care in the world.

Simply delightful. (esp. the part on free parking at night =p)

Backdated post and recent long weekend outings!

I found this picture in my hp while clearing up the phone memory. And this, is the Tiramisu which I painstakingly make (ok some of the castle peeps contributed by beatings the eggs for me so I can have my lunch) during the mid-autumn festival celebration at lab. park
















Last friday was Welcome night and the entire Zouk was booked from 7pm to 10pm (inclusive of free flow of house pour). The picture you see here is the obscene amount of whisky dry and tequlia shots we ordered....

I didn't really drink much and was pretty sober enough to tally what i had that night (in chronological order)

1. 1 Whisky Coke
2. 1 Volka Lime
3. 1 Orange juice
4. 1 Beer
5. 2 tequila shots, consecutively
6. 1 volka neat
7. 1 tequila shot
8. 3 whisky dry

Sunday was spent with some of my NUS friends at settlers cafe near china town, we had a couple of interesting games including this very novel way of playing Jenga..heh heh...

Dinner at UE square the very same day at Genki sushi with colleagues! LF, AHP and the japanese mafia girl was there....hahahah....gawd...she is going to kill me if she found out I wrote this about her.....

Expectations and real world screwups

You set a goal. You put your heart and soul into it.

Yet. At the end of the day. Things don't turn out the way you expect.

No one sees the effort. Nor the pain.

What do you then do?

What Kind of intelligence do I have?

Your Dominant Intelligence is Interpersonal Intelligence

You shine in your ability to realate to and understand others. Good at seeing others' points of view, you get how people think and feel. You have an uncanny ability to sense true feelings, intentions, and motivations. A natural born leader, you are great at teaching and mediating conflict. You would make a good counselor, salesperson, politician, or business person.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Sweet Peanut Butter!

Ho ho....wendy bought this for me when she was in Aizu! And because of this, I bought bread so that I can have peanut butter sandwich (just squeeze on bread and you are ready to eat!) for breakfast every day (I don't usually eat breakfast). Yum yum.

Week in summary

Mi Week in summary is like margarita, 3 parts tequlia, 2 parts Cointreau, 1 part lime juice.
3 parts hard work, 2 parts frustration and 1 part slacking. Sigh.

Peak Period Food Stocklist

Ok... over the months, the stockpile has expanded and changed...and they are as follows

:: Green Tea
:: Breakfast Tea
:: Walker's Chocolate Chips Cookie
:: Loacker Chocolate Cubes
:: Fried Seaweed
:: Kong Guan Chocolate Biscuits
:: Cuppacinno Love Letters
:: Box of apple Chocolate
:: Box of Mint Chocolate
:: Peppermint Sweets
:: Mixed Nuts Mooncake
:: Dried Canberries
:: Pringles Sour Cream & Onion Chips

mmm...why do I have so much chocolates?

Heart Stone

Broom and heart stone.

My first....

Wierd.... How did I do this?

I. AM. SO. IN. LOVE.

Need I say more?

Uh oh....

Went for my usual long distance route... Home --> Mt Faber --> Esso Station near harbour front --> Harbour front --> home

Same as before, except on the last leg of the run... my right knee decides to protest by sending jabbing pain signals to my brain...

But, considering that I never stop halfway on my route in all my long history of running, I was torn between breaking tradition and ignoring my right knee...

I broke tradition. I broke my heart with it. I have never stopped in all my years of running til i reach my destination. But now i did.

Sigh.

Of Toys & Blankets

There are 2 plates on the table, one mixed grill , one lamb chop...

"you know, it's funny, why I don't believe in marriages"

pokes the french fries on the plate and start to swirl it around the brown sauce

"How can you commit a promise that will last a life time?"

Chomps on the fries...thinks it taste great with the brown sauce

"I think there are people who doesnt even keep their promise for a day!"

Me stops chewing on the fries and said, "well, i always thought i was the wierd one, but it seems i'm not alone. Sometimes when you are with a person for too long, you grow tired of the relationship. It's just like when you are a little kid and your mama buys you toys. For the next few days, that toy is your only source of entertainment, it means the world to you. But as the days progresses, the law of depreciation applies and the toy gets devaluated. And soon enough, we look for new toys to play with"

"But there is also another side of the story. There are some things that we keep closely to our hearts and refuses to throw them away. Take for example my blanket. It's been with me for so long but I just can't bear to throw it away (or wash 'em...TsK~) and it's something that I would want to hug to sleep... "

Plays with the cucumber on the plate and attempts to balance it on a fork...it falls back on the plate with a Plop... "sigh... so we are saying that if we were to marry anyone, it has to be someone like our cherished blankets..."

"should be...."

We both tinkered with the food on the table and pondered in silence...

Photos @ UH

Ok...these are 2 of the photos that I took at University Hall today with that princess( minus the broom) while she was figuring out her SLR (no, not the Mercedes 5.5l v8 one but the camera from Nikon) And no, these shots are from my Digital Cam, not her SLR.