Where’s my Friends? Ok, so i was keeping tabs on the Friends: The Complete Third Season on nlb’s opac (online something something catalogue), to see when it is no longer on loan so i would know when to go down to esplanade to look for the item. Anyway, the following is a screenshot of the opac results. I was pretty happy with it, coz under date, it says 6th September, based on conventional Singaporean date formats. I thought that was the due date. I only need to check it every now and then when the date approaches 6th September.But i was happy with it until last night, i looked at the year. Can anyone tell me what’s the date thing in the date column representing? What dates does it show? Personally, i find it hard to believe that the library has so many items that are due several years ago. Clicked on the help, which provided lots of help that didn’t help with what the individual columns mean. I supposed they are supposed to be self explanatory. I was hoping it would have some email or sms service which we could subscribe to, to get informed on when the item is returned. I know, there’s a reservation thingy. But i just want information, not reservation wor.. Reservation costs $1.55. Professional bums like me can’t afford it after paying for the whole premium membership thing. Hmm.. there’s something with my choice of words today. Sounds weird to me. Booyeah, what a Saturday: Got the watches and the dress. What a busy day today was. It began in a out of expectation way though. Yvonne had asked me on the chatbox to reply to what i thought was an opt-in sms. So i replied on the chatbox not realizing she might not get to read it. Then i woke up rather late today; coz i slept late last night; groggy with sleep and all, my phone began screaming, “老大.. 电话 !!”. Er.. that’s my handphone’s ring tone. So i told her i wasn’t joining the guys as i needed to be out of the house by 12pm. But i figured that since they were playing badminton so close to my house, i thought i’ll drop by to say hi. When i was there, one of the guys passed me a racquet and asked me to hit at the feather for awhile while i was there. So it was, i began my morning by playing badminton for five minutes, lol. And omg.. i need exercise. I need to get my heart pumping, my blood flowing. I need my natural addictive, i need endorphines !! I need this cough to stop. I’m so proud of myself earlier loh. I exercised so much that i lowered my heart rate down to the 50s; when the nurse measured me with the machine after i kicked the escalator. Haiz, all that effort wasted. The effort in exercising, not the effort in kicking the escalator. It was an accident, it doesn’t take effort.. Anyway, i bought milk and went home. Got milk? Lol. When i was home, i thought to myself that i’ll drink my cough syrup before leaving the house. Anyway, i was walking into the kitchen to drink my cough syrup and i’m not sure what happened, but i forgot that i wanted to take my cough syrup. In fact, i was standing in the kitchen not even realizing that i’ve forgotten something. I just stood there feeling like something was missing, unable to connect that with the idea that i had forgotten something. It was like i was abducted by aliens to another space-time got dissected and raped inside out and don’t remember anything about it. I only remembered after i had left the house. Then it was off to Jack’s Place for lunch at Ang Mo Kio. It has been such a long time since i was there. The place changed from a dark cozy place to a brighter sunlight-filled place. I’ll pin up the photographs of the food another day. Then i was off with dearie cousin to look for dress (yes, still looking for dress) and also to help me find shirts and the wedding gift, couple watches. After a while, i was starting to get dismayed with the watches. The couple watches were mostly not cheap. Those that were cheap wasn’t nice. Those that were nice and cheap.. well.. didn’t have the branding to make a glamorous gift. Yeah yeah, i’m fussy. Just as i was about to randomly grab the closest watches within reach, dearie cousin got me to trek over to Hereen from Takashimaya. Went into this shop called Interlude (or was it Interlude by City Chain?) and they had lots of couple watches from Sovil Titus (or some brand like that, i remember seeing it on Tv so i guess it must be quite brand-y). The prices didn’t look promising either, so i figured i had to use the full budget with a little extra; and since the sales girl was more friendly than the other guys from the other shops.. Then the girl mentioned something about discounts. First 10%, then 20%. That was when we stopped looking at the watches and started looking at the little signs near the watches. One array of watches had 50% discount !! Suddenly, everything looked so much more affordable liao, lol. I’ll pin up photograph of the watches after the wedding. I’m so happy. I got my watches, dearie cousin got her dress. Went to binge on some Vietnamese food before going home. Photographs another day too. Here’s something dearie cousin told me about. Quote of the day: Guy: “Do you have a broom?” Girl: “What do you need it for?” Guy: “So i could sweep you off your feet with it.“ Homeless little guys Mom came to me holding the newspaper in front of her and i went like, “not again..“. She asked me to look at it to see if there are any jobs which i fancy. Which kind of destroys the mood to play warcraft 3. So i decided that i needed to leave the house to.. i don’t know to do what, maybe wander the streets of Bishan and loiter in the library. Which was mighty fine except that mom is going to say i never eat lunch and stuff. So i waited at home for the lunch; that isn’t cooking yet, and it’s 2pm already; with the computer turned off. So i decided to clear the desk of my stuff, as they said the table needed to be cleared for the wedding thingy. It was simple thing to chuck everything away into shelves and cupboards until they start to spill with the things which i attempted to chuck in. So now, i’m left with the little guys that were originally on the table with no place to go. On a whim, i assembled them onto one tile in the middle of the living room. I think i’ll leave them there until someone scolds me for leaving my stuff in the middle of the living room. Ok, let’s do some introductions. From the right; the little guy is a handphone strap thingy, a souvenir from Taiwan given to me by the brother who’s getting married. The thing is, with my current Samsung handphone, there is no place to attach handphone strap thingys to. Unless i drill a hole into the phone.. Next is a pokemon thingy which i bought from one of those spin a ball machine for one dollar. I actually didn’t get this winged guy. I got some ugly plastic while my friend got this winged guy. So i got him to give the winged guy to me with a whole lot of begging from me. Ya, i know, i’m such a cheapo; i could’ve spun another ball from the machine. Next is the one inch tall pink piggy (might be taller than one inch, i didn’t exactly measure)  who doesn’t love me anymore and later on died while i was out shopping for a dress (not for me). Then there’s the cat which is a pen holder. A gift from yinyin, which flew in all the way from Hong Kong. Supposedly this cat looks like one of the cats from Gippy which visited the house occasionally. Then there’s the dog with the stringy arms. I still have no idea where and who it came from. I suspect that it might be from Gippy, either a graduation present or a birthday present and likely from a girl. Only girls give me stuff.. But it’s quite an ugly dog, i must say.. In the front row, are two Disney miniatures from Hong Kong 7-11s. I bought two intending to give as gifts but didn’t. So i unwrapped them from their boxes today and omg, they look so cute. I should’ve bought more of them in hopes of completing a whole set. Now i have only Minnie Mouse on the left and Jack Jack (whatever that is, i guess i don’t watch enough of Disney cartoons) on the right. The next dog (white) is actually a handphone strap thingy too. Which is ridiculous because of the size of the dog. It turns the handphone into such a bulky thing. My cousin (guy, he’s full of crazy ideas) and i bought one each to dangle on our phones (before the Samsung phone). I got tired of the bulky thing in my pocket and removed it and attach to a bag instead. A little later, the strap broke. Then there’s that monkey which i rescued from my auntie. She was going to take the monkey home, a souvenir from.. i don’t even know which country and from who. I told her, “If you didn’t want the monkey, i’ll take it.“, which is a very nice way of saying that i wanted the monkey, lol. I mean, why would an adult like her want the monkey. Though the same could be said of me. Why would i want the monkey, lol. I think i really like plush monkeys : D I like to move their hands and start singing, “Who says the monkey can’t dance, woo woo !!“. Er.. nevermind. Last is a gift that is a little origami heart made from a bus ticket (before EzLink card, there was Transitlink card, which issued bus tickets). I bought a tiny bottle to put the heart in it. Ok, this is pretty lengthy liao, Sosu. Lbandit Daily I was just on msn with yinyin. She asked me what i was doing. So i went like: PotO: “trying to blog, but i hadn’t go out the past few days” PotO: “there isn’t much happening in my life for me to blog about.” Anyway, i took out my copy of Warcraft 3 and installed yesterday. Been playing the single player campaign yesterday and today the whole day. Think i’m gonna start playing dota too, except that i don’t have the expansion. Not sure if i need the expansion to play dota. Oh well.. Got caught in the rain yesterday. I thought it had stopped raining when i decided to head over to my uncle’s house. Turns out that the rain was kind of invisible to the eye when you’re not in it, and halfway to the bus stop, it began to pour mightily. Which was kind of ok. Except that whenever the feet get caught in rain, the shoes get this really nasty whiff, even if it is sandles. Which meant that i needed to wash it with a copious amount of dettol. Okie, gtg. Sosu Pretending to forget Is it just me or is the weather has lately become a pretty good predictor of whether i intend to go out? Anyway, one of my uncles asked me to go over to his house today to help setup a voip phone; i assume it stands for voice over ip. I’m not sure why he would think that i know anything about those phones.. But since i’m not working and all, i think i must come across as having too much time on my hands. Which is true, lol. So it was, i’m supposed to go over today. But it rained and now it has stopped. I don’t even know what time i was supposed to go over or if there’s anyone at home right now. It’s really an awkward time.. Which makes me wonder, why the urgency and need for the thing to be done by weekday. A weekend would have been tremendously nice, imo. So i’m actually thinking about pretending to forget about the whole thing. Except that the uncle’s daughter reads my blog, which makes the whole pretending to forget thing sound kind of lame. Haiz.. Of presents You know how people always give an ang bao to the wedding couple when they go to a wedding dinner. So i was asking around to see if the siblings, us, need to give any. My impression of the ang bao was that it helps to cover the costs of the wedding. So for us to give, would be like us helping to foot the cost of the wedding. Then peeps told me that i should give presents rather than give ang bao. So i asked around, and one pratical present got round to me: bed sheets and bed covers. Sure it doesn’t have that wow factor, but atleast it is pratical and usesful, no? But there was this tide of resistance from aunties and cousins and they insisted that my brother and i should get them a couple watch instead. They said, “Not everyone have the same taste and preferences for bed sheets and bed covers.”. Which i thought kind of applies to everything what. The same thing applies to clothing, jewellery, bags and yes, watches too. So it was, watches it be. And then this morning, i woke up to find mom digging through the cupboards. So i asked her what it was she was looking for. And she said that big brother was taking a mattress to the new house and she was looking for a bed cover for him. I thought i was so going “Hah !!”. But i went with the more conventional mumbling,  grumbling “Humph.”. Sleepy Went to watch WALL E today. It’s a really nice show. Though i don’t like the ending very much. I guess i’m the kind of person who’ll be happy only if the ending is tragic. I think it would be more realistic if WALL E never recovered and was lost forever. In fact, during the ending, someone from behind actually said out loud, “Motherboard changed liao.”. I didn’t on the fan when i went to bed last night. By morning today, i was sweating too much to be able to continue sleeping. Woke up at 6am and sat in front of the fan beside my laptop to read my story book. The end result was that i was pretty tired in the morning and i went back to bed to sleep more at around 8am. But the damage was done, i felt sleepy the whole day for the rest of today. Pretty dazed now, think i’ll go off to bed. Sosu. Caffeine again Omg.. i drank strong coffee at night, tonight. I’m so gonna get screwed.. And not as a good thing kind of way. The auntie and dearie cousin came to help clean the house earlier today again. The area targeted was near my bed, which meant that i had to get involve. Which means i’m going to remain sick for another week or two. I’m just that weak against riffling of stuff that hasn’t been moved in years. *Sigh* i was actually quite strong against sickness one lor. Usually, it takes only one or two days for me to recover. Now i’m like this sickly thing. Which reminds me.. Peeps in Sims 2 recover from illness by sitting down lots. I wish i could do that too. Become well by sitting down, lol. Oh well.. kind of sleepy now. But i know i can’t fall asleep coz of the caffeine. I’ll read some book, i guess. Sosu Lbandit Daily Remember i mentioned about a tiny one inch tall pink piggy which would say “Hahahaha, i love you.”, when you press its belly? So the other day, in need of some plushie love, i pressed it belly. It did it’s usual thing of lighting up in the ears and laughing i-love-you. But after that, the lights in the ears remained and won’t go off. I was like omg.. So i pressed its belly again, and it doesn’t love me anymore and the lights in the ears still remain lighted. So i was like, “Piggy, it doesn’t matter if you don’t love me anymore, but you’ve got to stop lighting up in your ears, or you’ll die !!”. Well.. i assume i’m not the only one in this world who talks to the plushies. So i went out with dearie cousin to look for a dress earlier today, and when i came back.. Piggy was dead !! No more lights in the ears. I wasn’t even around to hear its last words.. Oh wait.. it’s not like it was saying anything anymore anyway. Anyway, saw a couple of cute sales girl in the dress shops. I was like omg.. they must think i’m dearie cousin’s boyfriend or something. No chance for me liao. Which made me wonder: how do sales girls in ladys’ clothings’ shops find boyfriends? It’s like almost every other guy there is accompanying their girlfriend or something. Speaking of the word couple.. i almost vomited blood when i was talking to Ling the other day. To her, couple always meant pairs rather than a few, which is my most often usage. I was saying, the ex-company had hired a couple young kids. I don’t see how that turns into, the ex-company hired a couple. Really.. people don’t care what it is that i say, just that i’m saying something. I think it happens to all bloggers.. Anyway, went to Bishan to try accidentally bumping into that girl. Actually, i’m kind of afraid of her. Every time i plan a week of bumping into her, something bad happens to me. Like splitting up the foot for eight stitches (eight is a lucky number, it’s like getting a tattoo.. omg, what am i talking about?), getting immobolized by fever aches etc. It’s like she’s my bad luck charm and all manner of bad things happen to me when i bump into her, lol. Anyway, she caught sight of me, failed to smile at her which also resulted in her failing to smile at me. So i er.. escaped from another streak of bad luck, lol. Anyway, turns out that Esplanade library has quite an impressive collection of audio visuals. And it turns out that only premium members of the library can loan audio visual items. So it was.. now i’m now a premium member of NLB. Woosh. Esplanade.. hear me roar !! Who’s left standing? The ex-colleague gave me a call on Monday. Told me he was resigning too. And unlike me, he’s taking his leave which means the pain is actually shortened. The guy boss chided him saying, “How come you and lbandit both the same one. Both quit without a job and both don’t want to tell us what’s wrong.”. How about, you tell us what’s wrong, lol. Though there are some differences between the ex-colleague and me. Namely, i do believe that the ex-colleague has some form of backup in the way of finances. Or at the very least, a wife who works. Yes, my ex-colleague who is married, actually quits without a job. That’s just how bad it is. Oh well.. Feeling better liao Yay. Finally, i woke up today without any fever ache killing me. Well.. there’s still some ache, but it ain’t killing any lbandits yet. And there’s still this terrible sore throat, but i don’t think that should stop me from going out to buy stuff today. I don’t think i’m going to get any french kisses today, no sir. Not for the next couple months for that matter. But that’s not the point. I need to buy milk. Got milk? Anyway, the aunties have been coming over to help clean the house every now and then, and they brought my attention to an incomplete series of comics that i have. Finished reading the portion that i have, which runs up to book 14. The series ends at book 25 and i figure that eleven more books isn’t going to cost me too much. Except that the series has a second series which is 40 books in full color. Omg.. i’m going to eat paper for the rest of the year.. Hmm.. i hope it’s still on the shelves. Friends at Season 3 I’ve been watching Friends on youtube for three days already. Finished season one and season two and starting on season three today when i suddenly realized that nobody has uploaded a whole chunk of the middle of season three. And since it was dearie cousin who got me to start watching the series, and she said she was watching some eppy from season six the other day, i sms-ed her hollering for help, thinking she might have some search keywords or gimmicks that could get season three going. The reply.. “It’s free.”. Which doesn’t help of course, considering that i’m such an impulsive buyer. Fortunately it’s raining heavily now and there’s no way that i’m going out of the house with rain and fever. It’s a recipe for disaster. Talk about argh and phew at the same time. Argh that i’m stopping in the middle of season three and phew, i can’t go out to buy the whole ten seasons, which would burn a hole in my dwindling pocket. Oh well.. maybe more Sims 2.. Still don’t feel well A couple friends called today to check on me, and also to check with me for scheduling. Thing is, they’re mostly silent readers of the blog, or atleast i know they are when it comes to the time of the year to meet up. Anyway, they’ve been reading enough to ask about the toe and the fever, of which my automatic response mechanism kicked in to reply, “Yeah, i’m fine.”. It’s sort of a mechanism to help reduce the amount of people in the world worrying about me. The thing is, i mentioned on monday morning (or afternoon) that i didn’t feel well.. well.. up till now, i still don’t. I feel so terrible that i really don’t feel like going out of the house, even if it’s just to get lunch. Which means i’ve been eating peanut butter sandwich (not even plural) for lunch. For two days already. Which kind of leaves me hungry most of the time. And the worst thing is, tomorrow, i’ll be out of bread to make peanut butter sandwich.. Even now, i have this spin in my head which makes me kind of dizzy. Ooo.. i don’t feel well.. Table for Ten: with 大嫂’s family Went out to the restaurant which brother’s wedding dinner would be getting the food from. To shi cai (try the food). Apparently, shi cai is part of a package thing where the restaurant give you one table of food and you can try to see how it is. You can write comments to the chef regarding the food, or you can change the whole dish itself. But if you changed the dish, you won’t get to get another shi cai to try that new menu. Though i guess you could order that dish on the spot if you wanted perfect information in making the choice of food. Years back, i thought that we would be given twenty dishes of food, two sets of ten, during shi cai, so we could find taste out which to pick. Kind of like a cooking contest, lol. The attendees were my family, 大嫂’s family and a couple of our aunts. Pine Court restaurant menu The cold dish which is the first dish of every wedding is definitely something not familiar to the traditional wedding goers. Instead of the usual stuff, this dish is sushi and some duck in the middle of the dish. This is the only dish that i got a photograph of in the big plate. Subsequent dishes were split into ten portions before being served (they asked if we wanted it split, brother said go ahead). My first shark’s fin soup in years !! This shark’s fin soup has got real chunky crab meat in it. Not the crab meat shreds or even the flour-y crab meat roll. Prawns, i love fresh prawns. And the cooked celery doesn’t taste very celery, which i guess lots of non-celery lovers would prefer. Celery is like that huh? If you don’t like it, you must dislike it, lol. The cuttlefish was nice, a little spicy hot, but still manageable. The full name of this dish is Sauteed Prawns & Cuttlefish with Curry Leaf & Something in Quail’s Nest There’s a “Something” in it coz i can’t make out the words. Anyway, i thought they would have literally quail’s nest in the dish. Turns out that it’s just a nice name for something that they made out of flour. I feel so cheated, lol. Sea bass. Another of my favorite dish: steamed fish. If you know Dungeons and Dragons, you’ve probably come across a creature called Mind Flayer which is a creature that eats the brains of others. That’s what i become when i eat fish, lol. But this fishy’s brain got away as i didn’t want to make a mess infront of the 亲家. Oh.. the fish looks funny coz the waitress have already split the fish into ten portions and joined the head and the tail together. I was telling my brother, maybe they’ll join the chicken head and the chicken backside too, lol. Anyway, in other restaurants, they’ll give you back the chicken head in a small plate even though it’s pretty much not edible. But here, they took our chicken head away !! How can !! Sea cucumber, abalone and some green vege. It was only today that i realized that sea cucumber in Cantonese actually sounds like happy. No wonder it’s in the menu of every wedding dinner. Chicken with thai sauce. Our chicken head.. gone.. Ee Fu Noodles. I’ve no idea what Ee Fu is.. I think it’s in every menu also because of phonetic niceness. Or maybe not, i’m not sure. Warm dessert. Ginko nuts, white fungus, longan, sea coconut. Fever recurred. I hate taking showers when i’m having a fever. It turns out that the fever recurred yesterday, after sleeping late the night before. Took a shower at 9+pm, end up shivering uncontrollably like i was having a epilepsy fit for several minutes. I had to hide under the blanket for quite some time to stop shivering. Ooo.. i don’t feel well today.. Table for Two: NYDC and Liquid Kitchen The tourney didn’t end well today. It is as they commonly say, zha diao (Literal translation: exploded away; i have no idea how this phrase originated). Since i’m not going to make top eight and the venue is at the off the way location, Expo, i’m not going for tomrrow’s game liao. After the tourney, i met up with dearie cousin for dinner. Got hit by the rain a little. Something wrong with the toe; it hurts. It shouldn’t hurt loh, but it does. I’m putting off running for another week liao. Anyway, i went from Expo to Cityhall to meet up, then headed off to Somerset for dinner at NYDC. Oven-baked “Vegetarian” rice. Oven-baked “Mushroom Ham” rice. I think i would’ve taken the “Vegetarian” rice. But dearie cousin got dibs on it and i like variety on the table. So i went with “Mushroom Ham”. Something that’s not spicy for the sore throat. Next we took a bus to Thomson’s Liquid Kitchen. Liquid Kitchen is one of my newest favorite places loh. The staff was as nice as the ones in the Serangoon outlet. Anyway, in such places, i prefer to match my drink’s category to the other person’s drink’s category. So if it be beer, then i drink beer. If it be wine, then wine. If it be cocktail, then cocktail. It so happens that this time round, it was coffee !! My first coffee in months !! Ah.. the alluring bitter sweet (with a space in between bitter and sweet, mind you) taste of coffee.. Cafe Baileys on the left and Cafe Kahlua on the right. Hot wings. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me that hot wings mean it was spicy with chilli. Somehow, it got into my mind that hot wings was chicken wings that are warm with high temperature. Oh well.. there goes the voice again, lol. A notable mention about Liquid Kitchen; when they are showing football on their Tv, whenever a goal is scored, you get 50% off for your orders (not sure if it’s all orders) for the next twenty minutes. So if you’re planning to imbibe lots of beer, go when there’s a football match and pray hard that atleast one team score some goal. Though this is a sort of unwritten promotion that they have. Go for it while it lasts !! And yes.. i call football, football, not soccer. Anyway, the lady came to say “There’s a goal scored. For the next blah blah“. Deaf me heard, “There’s a ghost god..”. So i was like.. omg ghost god?? So i asked dearie cousin, “Did she say ghost god?” And dearie cousin went like, “Ya, it’s an unwritten promotion that they have. Whenever a team scores a goal..” Ah.. the wonders of communication. Sometimes, it escapes me all.. Sick : ( I think i’ve told someone before that i’m allergic to housework. Just look at what happened to me for cleaning the floor. I’m sick, with this dizziness whenever i stand, with a voice that is barely louder than a whisper, and the skin on my fingers are peeling !! Omg.. i need hugs.. I really can’t blog much. The dizzyiness is getting to me even while i’m seated. Oh well.. Atleast there’s this one inch piggy on my table that when the belly is pressed, it says, “Hahahaha, i love you.”. She cannot be trusted.. Cleaned lots of the floor yesterday, but the dust got to me and i started sneezing. Then towards evening, i even had a couple dry cough and after dinner, the fever aches set in and i knew i was sick. What an inconvenient time to get sick, right before the nationals tourney. Popped a flu pill and popped two paracetamol and went to bed until just now. I think i’m finding it difficult to breath the moments before i fall asleep. The breathing becomes so shallow that i become aware of it and start to breathe manually. Which of course, throws all traces of sleep away. I think the way i’m going to die is to sleep and then stop breathing. Not too bad a way to die. Atleast there’s no pain, and no process of dying. I got a weird dream last night, as i always do when i’m sick. I do get dreams when i’m not sick. Just that when i’m sick, i’ll definately get a dream to remember by. Usually i’ll have the same recurring dream when i’m sick. But this time, the dream was wholly different. Anyway, in the dream, i was in a bus trying to babe watch this hardly impressive girl. Then some time later, a really pretty girl with nice curls in her hair came up the bus. I wasn’t going to bother her and intended to continue ogling the previous girl. Then the babe sat beside me and started chatting with me, leaning into me the whole time. Ah.. the sweet intoxication of perfume : P Anyway, later on, i was on this journey with a couple others and this babe too. The setting was the somewhat like the korean drama, “太王四神記”. There were these artifacts of power which had chosen users. These artifacts of power need to be awakened by the user of one artifact performing some rite and another user of another artifact touching some special slab of stone, which would trigger some kind of aurora effect. You get the idea of the aurora effect when you watch the drame, lol. Anyway, there was this archer guy who was the user of the artifact we’re looking for. We travelled through the forest until we came to a big statue by the lake where the archer guy was supposed to shoot an arrow at the statue and some person touch a slab of stone near the statue to activate the aurora. Turns out the archer guy doesn’t know how to shoot. So i thought him how to aim with an m16 first. How the m16 relates to the bow, i’ve no idea. Anyway, the archer guy’s aim was true and all that was left was for the stone to be touched. Then the babe and i (yes, do not forget the babe was still with me) hiked up the statue to the slab of stone. I touched the stone, nothing happens. The babe touches the stone and the aurora begins. Later on, back in the forest, we’re having some sort of a camp and the rest of the group were discussing about the babe. They were saying that i met the babe on the bus and the babe made friends with me. All this sounded kind of fishy. Maybe the babe was a spy or something, intending to steal all the activated artifacts in one fell swoop. The discussion ended like some kind of survivor vote. Where we vote to see if the babe is to be left behind. When it came for my turn to vote, i said something like, “Though her actons are sincere thus far and i like her alot, for the importance of what we’re doing, i don’t think she can be trusted.” I think the babe was devastated by my words. Bad lbandit. And then later on, on hind sight, the babe was capable of activating the aurora wor. I looked her up, to ask her who she was. But she didn’t want to tell me after how i hurt her.. Clean, clean and more cleaning. I’ve been doing lots of magic the gathering practice online, which is like fourteen usd per game. After losing another two games in a row and another three games the day before, i’m totally sick of my lack of skill and poor performance. I decided to do something else which i cannot lose. That is, to continue cleaning the floor. That is an activity in which i cannot lose right? There’s no one to lose to when i’m cleaning the floor. But of course, i can’t win either when i can’t lose, just that the floor gets cleaned, lol. I cleaned another twenty odd tiles and am now eating snake (taking extraordinary amounts of break) again. I’ve gotta wait for the tiles to dry before moving the stuff back onto it, i reasoned. Everytime i clean the floor, i feel like playing Sims 2. Damn.. I need to buy one of those non-lethal robotics bench. Build myself one of those sim-bots and then get it to start cleaning for me. Ah.. the joys of Sims 2. Can’t sit still Omg.. just the thought of getting to run next week is firing me up. I can’t begin to sit still. I think i’ll start cleaning the floor again, even though i just commented that i’ll resume cleaning next week. Man.. i feel like running now. Though it’s insane to run at 2pm.  But then again, the sky looks pretty dark with the sun hidden by the clouds. Ok, i’ll stop blogging now. Really can’t sit still.. I wanna run It’s been so long so long since i exercised at all. Considering that i’ve been jogging every single day before i attempted to demolish Junction 8 with a mighty kick on the escalator step, and i’ve also been taking in more food since i started running so much, argh. I’m going to start my every day runs  next monday. All hail and tremble. Lbandit cometh. Hear me roar !! I didn’t clean the floor today. The knee is suffering from the pain of all four-ing to clean the floor. I wish i was friends with Hermione. I bet she would have a spell to make the floor sparkling white with just a flick of her wrist and a wave of her wand. Ok, quite zzpy liao. The brother even turned off theTv liao. Think i need to find my dream girl liao. Sosu.. Oh wait.. i’m supposed to roar, right? Um.. meow? Life of a Professional Bum, Day 26 I’ve taken to cleaning the floor today. Mom provided me with this bottle of Cif, i think it was called Gif some time back. That bottle of thing works miracles on the floor loh. Turning the tile, gray from years of accumulation, into a shiny white piece of thing. Omg.. the bleaching effect is so strong.. i wonder if my fingers will turn white.. Then i’ll be fair like Miss Icy Cool and Miss Baibai, hur hur. Or atleast my fingers.. I would’ve have thought that big bro marrying was a pure yay-ness thing. I mean like, after he moves out, there’ll be no one left to boss me around. My second brother doesn’t minds me, my mom.. well she does. But i’m this rebellious professional bum who’ve developed a sort of resistance to nagging. I guess i have to evolve after thirty years of training, lol. Anyway, it turns out that it is not quite pure yay-ness as there is much to clean in a messy house. And second brother told me that even the bedroom has to be clear upped. I was like omg.. where am i going to put all my magic cards. There are so many boxes and boxes of magic cards underneath my bed, beside my bed.. yes, i sleep with my cards.. In any case, i’m only going to start clearing up the cards after the nationals. Don’t wanna be unable to find a card when i need it. I’m cleaning the floor ten tiles at a time. I’ve done two sets and there is like so many more sets to go. And that’s only counting the sets not covered by sofas and er.. stuff. If they decide to move them, then the tile would be exposed !! One gray tile among the other shiny white ones.. Sianz.. i think i’ll play a little Sims 2 first. It’s so much easier to get the sims to clean loh. Two mouse clicks only. Blooyeah.. what a week Yeah, i know, i’m missing some daily posts for this week. But to quote a Sims 2 phrase, “Blooyeah, that was a great week, let’s have more of it.”. Or something like that, i’m sure i got the spelling of blooyeah wrong. Nothing much happened for most of the week as i was mostly home to nurse my foot. Nursing the foot is of course just some lame excuse. The truth is, i’ve gotten so lazy and so addicted to Sims 2 that i’m having difficulty leaving the house, lol. It’s not like anybody asks me out anyway. The week began with a great Monday by the removal of the stitches. Not a very nice experience, but it was still kind of liberating. I now understand why elderly don’t like going to hospitals. It’s really not a nice feeling. After that, it was mainly Sims 2 every day, even on the day which i stated boldly on my blog that i would be going out. I blame it on the sky though. It was pretty dark in the early afternoon for the last few days and i didn’t want to go out when there’s going to be rain. Anyway, today is the last qualifier for next week’s magic nationals. Don’t worry, this post isn’t going to talk all about magic. There’ll be a girl to talk about, to end off. I promise, lol. Anyway, i’ve been making subtle prods at my cousin to get him interested in going to play the qualifier. He even used a deck which i told him i believed to be among the strongest. I went to the event early even though i’ve qualified and can’t play. Wanted to give some support to my cousin and other friends who were also playing. Anyway, throughout the tourney, i think he made around atleast two fatal play mistakes. One got to him and one didn’t. Overall, i think lady luck was with him like how she was with me the last qualifiers, and he’s qualified too. That really made my day. Another friend also made top eight, and so he was going to nationals too !! All these adds up to eight from the old play group going to expo next weekend. Yay !! Yes, it’s at expo. For two weekend days.. Though i think my friend who qualified today, being a filipino caused some disgruntlement to some other players who didn’t make it. I’ll support him even if he makes the finals and is playing off a Singaporean whom i’m not friends with loh. It’ll be cause for celebration. Am i going to make it to the finals? Well.. truthfully, i doubt so. But i’ll try my very best. It’s gonna be practice everyday, the whole day, for the next five days. But i hope i make top three and get to travel to.. i don’t know where’s that big tourney held, lol. Ok, enough about magic and dreamy visions of winning my plane ticket. Now about the girl.. Remember that i mentioned a girl and that i was going to be an engineer of accidents? Where accidents are accidentally bumping into her, lol. Well, i get the idea that she comes early to open up the shop before her employer does. So i went up to the shop, smiled and waved, stood by the front door to chat. Omg, me chat up a girl.. Peeps who know me would know that names of people and places or even magic cards, for some inexplicable reason, can escape me. It’s like there’s some severe mental block which creeps up on me almost all the time. It’s not hard to imagine how this phenomenon increases exponentially when i’m trying to chat up stranger girls, lol. Anyway, i was trying to tell the girl that next week’s tournament was going to be at expo. But the name just couldn’t come up and i ended off the thread with a lame, “I forgot the name of the place.”. Ah… And really.. i don’t know what to talk to the girl about. So when the awkward silences started to creep up, i pointed at the magic event that has yet to start to indicate i’m going back to hang around with my friends and left. I’m so gonna live out my life as a bachelor.. Omg, LB.. what am i going to do with you.. Can’t bump into her for the next week though. Need to practice and the weekend would be spent in expo. Ok.. so big sis just sent me and another three other overseas friends (overseas: relative to Malaysia) to get confirmation on whether we’ll (not necessarily together as a group) be going to her wedding in January. So i replied, “Yeah, i’ll be coming even if i have sixteen stitches on my foot.”, lol. Er.. you can help me say.. Choy, 大吉利是. Sims 2, a massacre The thing with Sims 2 is that sometimes, things become a little to repetitive. And being a game that does not have pre-defined objectives, things in the game tend to become meaningless. It’s especially so when the family becomes rather large and it’s difficult to think up objectives and manage them all at once. So it comes down to this, the other aspects of the game, sims must die. And yes, in a massacre fashion when you do not have the cow plant to eat them up. When i first encountered the cow plant, i didn’t know what it was that it did. Got one of my sims to try grab the cake, got the shock of my life. Unplanned deaths in sims is very shocking. The game got me another time when lightning killed another one of my sims. Anyway, there are a couple ways to massacre your sims, if that is what you want. The quickest death would be to get the sims to queue up for the cow plant. Since that’s not always available, the next quickest way in my opinion would be the immolation chamber. Yes, that should be quick, despite the rather er.. dramatic effect. Setting up the immolation chamber. Get the sims into a room and sell the door away so that none could escape. For a more dramatic effect, make the sims change into their swimming costumes and paint the walls and floors with brick colours and line the walls with candles. Place flame jets all over the floor. They work like the flame jets outside melbourne casino. Wait for the sims to catch fire. The flames at it’s peak. There’s no smoke without fire. Apparently there’s only one grim reaper in the game. The sims will have to take turns to die. The shining white light from above.. Yuffie’s unmarried and pregnant daughter in law comes to grieve her loss. You might be wondering why the daughter in law is unmarried. Me thinks young widows is a very sad thing, even in Sims.. Tired, the unmarried daughter in law relaxes on the bed while the inferno rages on in the immolation chamber. The last sim in the immolation chamber. Here’s when i changed my mind. She’s after all Yuffie, daughter of my deceased world class ballerina who is also a world class ballerina herself. I turned off all the flame jets and got Yuffie to extinguish the fires. Even the grim reaper was on fire.. Her vitals were all but empty and red. She may yet survive if she get some food and sleep. I placed the urns back into the chamber manually. Alas one of the sims who perished in the immolation chamber became a ghost immediately. The ghost of Yuffie’s son came to give her a scare which she could not survive. The grim reaper came for her at last. Refurnished the immolation chamber into a study room. Good for use again.. Gimme a testimonial, please.. Mom nagged me to get a testimonial from the ex-bosses. I sent out an email to the girl ex-boss asking her if she was fine with writing me one. Previous correspondence have shown her to be rather eager about emails and would sent “Ok”s as acknowledgment of receipt over emails. But this time round, there was absolutely no response. Smells fishy, yeah? So now, twenty four hours later, i’m trying again, this time sending an sms instead. She should be awake and in the office by now. So there should be little chance of missing the sms. Humph. Daily ramblings Did i say that my colleague was a “nice people”? Humph, as if.. You know what he said to me in that same phone call? He said, “You see lah, who ask you dowan to work. If you were working, you won’t go to a shopping center and you won’t be taking an escalator and you won’t kick your foot.”. Wth. I think i’ll go out today. Maybe catch a movie or something. Yes, at the same shopping center. Probably after the movie i’ll go to the same toilet, the one which i’ve been going to for years. Take the same escalator, the one which i’ve taken for fewer years. And i’ll probably end up standing on the same step i kicked my foot, lol. I wanna fly.. Who will make my song take flight? Edit: Oh wait.. if the only way to get to the toilet is to take the escalator, then i couldn’t be going to the toilet more years than i was taking the escalator right? I didn’t fall down There’s blogger’s block, and there’s running out of things to type on the blog. It happens when there isn’t much variety in life at the moment. Anyway, remember i mentioned that the guy boss sms-ed me to ask me about work and i declined saying i’ve just removed eight stitches from my foot and it wasn’t convenient for me to walk? Apparently, the boss told the other peeps in the office and today, the colleague and the admin girl gave me a call to check on me, lol. Nice people they are, you’ll agree. Of course, there’s the luridity of it all, the injury occured by climbing steps. I’ve told quite a number of people how it happened, and i’m not sure how much they believe me. It’s like just climbing stairs loh. Thousands, perhaps millions, of people climb up the escalator daily, and you don’t see them breaking a leg. I’m just that clumsy loh.. Most peeps thought that, after i’ve missed the step and kicked my foot, i would’ve fallen over bleeding my life out at the escalator landing or something gory like that. And they thought that Junction 8 security would come for me, send me to the hospital in an ambulance or some drama like that. No, it wasn’t like that at all. What happened was something like this: I kicked my foot, say “Ah” in pain, stumblingly ran up the escalator steps, and looked down to check. I had lifted my foot and the sandals was dangling from my foot via the straps. It appears normal except for several drops liquid on the sandals. And then there were more drops. I decided to look for some place to take off the sandals to look at the injury. But i managed to get a quick peek at underneath the toe, saw the deep laceration, but didn’t know what to make of it, decided that it couldn’t look good, panicked, decided not to take off my sandals after all, thinking to head over to the polyclinic to let them take a look, coz i really thought polyclinics could perform stitches, ambled to the taxi stand and hailed a taxi. I’m sorry that i’m still talking about the stitches, lol. But it’s a life altering event loh. I don’t think i’m going to climb escalator steps ever again. Stitches all gone, but it looks raw Ok the stitches are off. Nothing prickly underfoot anymore. But after the stitches are off, whatever that could like.. open up a little, did so; and it looked kind of raw. So yeah.. i’m not exactly at kick boxer health. Gosh.. this is going to take a long time. I totally forgot about the document from A&E that i was supposed to pass to the polyclinic staff. End up i needed to wait to see the doctor to get the “Ok” for the removal of stitches. Funny thing was, there was no medication to be given out. But the doctor asked if i have any drug allergies anyway, lol. Plus, i’ve been answering that question so many times, don’t they have such things on file? Anyway, nobody told me that removing stitches were painful and i didn’t ask the nurses whether it was painful. I think some of the stitches have kind of melded with the flesh/skin/whatever and it was really painful to remove them. It reminds me of the piece of news where the lady’s buttock grafted itself onto the toilet seat. Anyway, the nurse recognised me as she was the one who helped cleaned me up the first time i went, bleeding and all. The nurse asked me if i was Singaporean, lol. Coz i was saying “Ah doh” instinctively, during the removal of the stitches. She said, “If you’re Singaporean, how come you know ah doh?” Apparently, it’s a malay phrase which i’ve picked up from a secondary school friend. I’ve absolutely no idea what it means, except that i use it in the instances where i would normally say an instinctive “Ouch”. Lbandit Daily The stitches are coming off tomorrow, i think. But frankly, i don’t exactly feel healthy or capable of walking. With or without gauze, the foot seems to swell a little and i’m not sure if the toe is weak or whether i’m favoring the injured (healed) part automatically when i stand. I tried to emulate the walking posture, where the foot is pushed off the ground by the ball of the foot. The prickly stitches makes me feel queasy about it and i didn’t really try very hard. Once the stitches are off tomorrow, i’ll have to try to see if i can walk normally or walk with a limp for the rest of my life : ( The bosses tried to get me to work on some software. I declined on the grounds that i can’t walk. Really mah, lol. If i continue to work for them after i’ve resigned, the nice way to call it is flexible working hours. The not so nice way to call it is working without the normal benefits of permanent staff. Haiz.. I need a better chair. Something which has a back which i can lean back on. Curry for lunch, dinner and lunch and dinner the next day. Mom and bro and several cousins and several aunties have gone on a day trip to Batam, to eat seafood and stuff, leaving me behind : ( Mom had even cooked a huge pot of curry to last me through today’s lunch and dinner. And unless i finish the whole pot by myself today, i get the feeling that i’m having curry on Sunday as well. I tried to do a little walking yesterday. Seems fine and all. Showered without a plastic bag over the foot and standing up to bathe and all; i was sitting in the tub like thing with one leg dangling over it for the past few days. After the shower, i found that one part of the wound that wasn’t the stitching, was bleeding. Wth. Arm still painful, big toe still no strength, stitches still prickly, da pian still urgent, LB still bored. Ok, i guess number four can be easily solved. But i’m supposed to accidentally bump into someone !! One week gone by, she’ll forget me !! And the foot went to bump into the escalator step instead, humph. Ok, enough ranting. I’ll go eat some curry for breakfast. Might as well..