All By Myself

For anyone interested, a quick rundown of what a guy hooked on WOW and living alone does on a weekend.

Since I got back late on Friday nite after drinks at Bobby Rubino’s, I woke up at 9am on Saturday. Threw the week’s laundry into the machine, made breakfast, magic-mopped the apartment, hung up the laundry to dry, cleaned the little indoor fountain and read the papers all by 11pm. Then its time for WOW! Played till 1.30pm then a quick walk to the food centre a blocks away. For my favourite ‘cold shark meat and jelly pork’, it’s a teochew dish that I have always loved since I was a kid.

Then its back home for more WOW till about 4pm. By the way, the weather was freaking windy and hot at the same time. Great for laundry! Took a bus to my folks’ place for dinner. Back home again at about 8pm. Now that Sat nite was supposed to be a big online WOW event, those who play the game will know. The gates will be opened for an invasion and you encounter lots of new creatures, tresures etc. for only 10 hours starting about 9pm. I cleared all appointments for that nite! Anyway tons of players showed up and as expected the server just kept crashing! From 9pm to 9.30pm, I was disconnected over a dozen times! @$%?^!)* gave up and went to bed at about 11pm on a Saturday nite after reading a comic book instead.

Sunday was pretty much the same cept I did some office work at home too. Dinner was the day's highlight! Went to a new Japanese yakitori restaurant Kushigin at Cuppage Plaza, heard good things about it. The chef is from another of my favourite Jap place. They are only open for dinner. I love jap food and sitting by myself at the counter, looking at the chef do his thing. Whether its slicing sushi or grilling those meat sticks, it’s something I enjoy watching. These are the nine sticks I had for a total of $35.55:

Shiitake
Ebi Shiso Maki
Asparagus Maki
Negima
Tebasaki
Tokusei Tshukune
Uzura Tamago
Kaki Bacon Maki
Nikuzume Shiitake

After that, strolled down to Killery Road NTUC FairPrice to do some quick grocery shopping.

Time for another cool Tokyu pix from last year!

Dream Lover

Another weird dream last nite. A soap opera-ish one instead of an action adventure. What little I can remember from the dream is only this. In this dream, I’m a student at some campus and I’m married but I’m actually seeing two other female students A and B. Yah, I’m two-timing in my dreams! Now, don’t ask me how they look like cos I have no idea who they are except I think they look good.

There’s one scene that I remember pretty clearly. Student A, who knows I’m married and that I’m also seeing Student B, was approached by B on some student business. After their meeting, A walked up to me and asked me if B knows thatI’m married. I said ‘no’. Then I remember sitting alone at some campus stairway feeling wrecked with guilt. Part of me wants to end the affair but another part of me don’t wanna hurt B. It was a freakin' vivid dream! When I woke up, I had to like spend five seconds asking myself if it was all a dream...

You know, whenever I start dreaming about my old school daze, it’s never a good sign. And to think, I never dated at all during those school daze. Only started dating when I started working but that’s another story for another column.

Secret Identity

Here's another reason to not reveal who I really am. Took on a freelance job a couple of days to do over the weekend. Well, at least it's something besides baking, reading or playing WOW when you are all alone on a Saturday or Sunday. All together now....'aawwwwwww'...

Heh, in keeping with the theme of 'secret identities', here's something interesting I found during my last trip to Tokyo. It's to do with glasses and you know, how Clark Kent wears glasses so nobody knows he's really Supes...get it? The connection?...give me a break! Hah...yah, like anybody actually reads this in the first place...

It's a self cleaning bath for glasses that you find outside some of the optical shops in Tokyo. And it's free too. All you do is...

Step 1. Turn on the bath. It's some kind of electrolysis thingy.

Step 2. Dip your glasses in it for about a minute.

Step 3. Take your glasses out of the bath, dip it in the clean water container.

Step 4. Dry your glasses with the tissues.

Ta da! Super clean glasses! Only in Japan, boys and girls!

Dream County

Whoa! Now I know I really been playing too much WOW. Started to dream bout the game last nite. Anyway, speaking bout dreams, I love to dream at nite. But it seems like, the older I am, the less dreams I have. Used to be like non-stop dreaming for 3 or 4 nites then no dreams for bout a week, then back to more cool dreams.

Now the reason I love dreaming is cos most of my dreams (or at least the ones I remember after waking up) are like mini-action movies! They are either some sci-fi or fantasy series where I’m someone else. Or just plain weird in a non-nightmarish way.

Wanna know how weird? Once I dreamt I was a Disney duck! Just like Donald but not him. I was a door-to-door salesman or duck and selling kitchen appliances. And I went up to a house and Donald’s nephews answered the door. How’s that for weird?

In separate dreams over the years….I was an Allied soldier posing as a Nazi officer during WWII. Did a shootout in the Old West. On board the Starship Enterprise while it was being fired upon. Kissed a beautiful blue half-fish, half-woman creature (not a mermaid). Was a butt-naked werewolf with really cool white fur.

But despite all these dreams, I do have a nagging recurring dream that hits me every 4 or 5 months. Till today, I would still wake up thinking I got a school exam today, usually Chinese or Maths which I totally suck at, and I didn’t study. It would take me like 5 seconds to remember that I’m not in school anymore. It’s like waking up to a lighting bolt or something. I dunno why but I just keep getting that stupid dream.

MRT Rabbit Hunting!

Well, what do you know, it's Tuesday night and that means no WOW for me. Which also means its time for me to share a little something I saw the other day which I thought was pretty damn funny, in a freaky dark twisted sort of way...I think....

What we have here is a public service safety first at the MRT Station. The first thing that caught my eye was the guy carrying a pitchfork. A happy, smiling guy with a pitchfork. I don't know bout you guys but to me, a happy guy with a big pitchfork in a safety first ad is just about one of the funniest things around.

Now at first glance, I'm saying to myself "What the hell is a guy with a pitchfork doing in the MRT?"...then I saw the rabbit! I was like, "There's a rabbit in the MRT?!? He's hunting for rabbits?!" Then I saw the copy at the bottom left.

Yes, thank you. I will have a safe trip now knowing that the MRT is safe from dangerous wild rabbits. Thanks to Mr. Pitchfork Guy!

Another Comic Rant

Managed to get another comic book trade paperback from the Library on Saturday while shopping at Taka. Frank Miller’s Sin City Volume 7: Hell and Back. That’ll make it the 328th comic book I borrowed from the Library since like, I can’t remember, 5 years now? I mean, I know it’s the 328th cos I keep a list of all the comic books I get from the Library. A whole bunch of DC (Batman, Superman etc.) and Marvel (Spiderman, X-Men etc.) stuff. That’s like, thousands of $$$ I save by borrowing/reading them instead of buying them! Not to mention the space I’m saving at home.

Well, recently I noticed they brought in tons of humour comics like Garfield, Dilbert and Foxtrot. Nothing against them but it seems like while the comic shelves are filled with them now. There appears to be no new super hero comic for like months now. WTF is going on?!? Budget cuts?!? Censorship!?!

Plus for some strange reason or reasons, the Library has a habit of bringing in, for example, chapters 1, 2 and 4 of a series but not chapters 3 and 5. I have checked their online catalog and they just don’t have it. There are actually quite a few series that have this stupid missing chapters syndrome. How freakin' frustrating is that?

Time for another my Tokyo pix from last year's trip. Here's one that I really like at Ueno, it's a big street market area just outside the train station. Lots of fresh fruits and other food stuff. It was summer when I was there, a normal thin slice of watermelon costs about S$1.50!

Say Cheese

A little break from World of Warcraft saw me helping out in the making of this Yogurt Cheesecake. Well, I only did steps 3 and 5....haha!

Feeling kinda sick actually. Throat and nose a little busted. Could it be the late nite gaming? Speaking of gaming, another week without placing a single soccer bet. Yay for me!

Worth a Thousand Words

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge comic book fan since I was like, 4 or 5 years old. A big fan of Batman. In recent years, there been lots of stories where Bats and Nightwing (formerly the first Robin) were put through hell, their relationship more downs than ups. In the latest Infinite Crisis #4, where ALL the DC heroes like Supes, Wonder Woman and everyone are going through their worst times, fighting their worst enemies, that little scene was worth a thousand words. That little scene showed that despite all they been through, in their darkest hour, they are still the greatest dynamic duo around.

Going to War

Aww man, it's Tuesday nite and I'm writing my blog which means only one thing.....yup, I'm playing World of Warcraft now, just like almost every other guy I know (tuesday nites are when the server goes down). Arghhh....A lot of crap happened at work but since you never can tell who's reading this, plus the fact that I'm in the media and advertising industry, so it's better that I just leave work out of this place.

Anyway, on to happier things, tried again last Sunday to bake more Chou cream puffs and made a lot more this time. Brought some to the office, everyone liked it! Chou Two works! Between the custard making and dough baking, managed to zip down to Sim Lim with my friend in his car, upgraded this here PC to 1G freakin' RAM and bought WOW all at once! After a week of slow motion trial account action, my Undead Priest is now running like the wind!

The Yen fell last week to about 1,000 Yen to S$13.87. Time to start planning for this year's trip to Japan! Here's a pix from last year's trip to get me in the mood.

That's Takashimaya in Shinjuku Tokyo. The entrance, I believe. Pretty cool. Took the pix at nite as I was leaving the place.

BBQ Blues

First the good news, went through another weekend without placing a single soccer bet. Bad news is I been invited to a BBQ this coming weekend.

So like I’m invited to this BBQ this Saturday but I really hate BBQs cos I always lose my appetite halfway. Ever since me school daze, I just didn’t like them. I’m never full at these BBQ gatherings. I just don’t like it when I can only eat 2 little sticks of food and a chicken wing then wait another 15 or 20mins before you get your next tiny piece of food. I like to enjoy my food all at once, one serving after another….not wait 20 mins between them. And its always the same old boring BBQ food! And after like an hour of eating just half of what I normally eat, I would simply lose my appetite. Sometimes I would just stuff myself with ‘normal’ food then show up at the BBQ to yak. Well, there’s no way I can get out of this invite, so I guess I’ll have to grin and bear it.

Yah! This is what I miss! That's what I had while in Tokyo last year. Here's a pix of a lunch I had while I was there. All that was pretty cheap, here in Spore, it'll be like S$30 at least. Think I had it for like only S$20.