Cavalock and The Glico Star Wars Crossover

Now I know how Boba Fett must have felt in The Empire Strikes Back when he finally laid his hands on Han Solo! I have been searching for this all over the island since I saw it online over here. It's the Glico and Star Wars crossover, with all kinds of crazy combos like Yoda curry sauce and light saber pocky sticks.

What's more, each item comes with a (pretty cheesy) Star Wars related gimmick not unlike the things you'll find in an American cereal box. You can see what they are at the official Glico Star Wars page. The strawberry pocky sticks in the Star Wars pack I bought at Yamakawa (S$6.50 a pack) were the regular ones you can find in any supermarket.

So as you can see, the Star Wars freebie here is cut-out battlefield where you place little clone trooper and battle droid standees, and I guess they ...er... wobble and fight like in the last picture.

Cavalock and The Nestlings Expedition

Hey, look what finally came in the mail! It's my self-published photo books (via Blurb.com) featuring my 79-year-old Dad's wildlife photos. Each book is a 68-page softcover with lots of color pix of local birds and their nesting habits. Some of the bird pix can already be found in my previous posts right here. I did the editing, layouts and everything else myself so I suppose there are parts that might appear rather amateurish. :P

I ordered just five copies from Blurb.com and it's pretty expensive at slightly over US$150 for them. Planning to use them as samples to show to any local publishers who might be interested in printing them. Here's hoping that if there's anyone out there who wants to check out a copy, can just email me. I'm ready to meet up anywhere on the island. Would sure appreciate any help from anyone out there who can give me a lead on any kind publishers. You can email me at cavalock@yahoo.com and thanks in advance!

Here's a sneak peek at part of the intro I wrote and some pix.

When I decided to do a photo book showcasing my Dad’s wildlife shots, I thought this would be an appropriate topic, after all it’s about parents, their offspring and there is after all some relevance here, and also because I had a ton of really cool pictures to choose from. 

My 79-year-old Dad has always been an avid photographer for as long as I can remember. But he took his last shot with his old Nikon SLR camera over ten years ago and has left it in the dry box ever since. It was shortly after my Mom passed away from cancer in 2011 that he decided to rekindle his hobby and picked up his first DSLR a year later at the age of 78. The Nikon DSLR he had his eye on wasn’t available so he went with a Canon DSLR and you can see some of the results in this book. By the way, none of them were “photoshoped” in any way although my Dad did ask me what exactly was a “photoshop” and if we could do it too. I told him we couldn’t afford the software. Hah!

Cavalock and The National Day Invariability

There are some things you can always count on when it comes to our nation's National Day celebrations. There's the totally cheesy National Day Parade song, the extremely sucky new Channel 5 show that debuts after the parade and my personal favorite, the wash pole patriot. Every year since I started this blog back in 2006, it has never failed to raise a little chuckle with me. Best. National. Day. Tradition. Ever. ;)

So here you go, every year since 2006, 2007, 2008 well, no post on the wash pole patriot that year cos I was too busy posting bout my awesome Gen Con Oz trip, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. Notice how the flag would fly or face in all kinds of different directions over the years! It's frickin' hilarious!

Well, by now lotsa folks here would have already heard of new food joint Jamie's Italian opening at Vivo City. Kinda got me thinking bout the dinner I had at Jamie's Italian over at Canary Wharf several years ago. I'm pretty sure the dining experience is going to be very different. When I was at Canary Wharf, it was packed with boisterous working adults with drinks in hand, no kids or big families in sight. There was a busy bar area and the whole place was rather dimly lit. Somehow I seriously doubt if our version will be anything like that. Can't really comment on the food since I have only tried the one in London which I enjoyed, but I have no doubt it'll be well liked here too.

Cavalock and The Elopement at Haddon Hall

Another day of 'picking' at the old family home means another day of finding ol' family artifacts. Found a huge box filled with dinner plates, soup bowls and almost all kinds (and shapes) of other tableware, all bearing the same English landscape motif as a set of tea cups that was uncovered several months ago in a different room. Thought the tea cups and saucers were the only ones in the collection but apparently my late Mom bought a whole lot more. I suspect they are from the 1980s or 90s. Right now, I haven't even finished unwrapping them all yet and I can't imagine what else is in the box.

Now I thought this inscription on the back of the plates was really funny. So that's the picture of Haddon Hall and it's apparently famous because it's the scene of some 16th century elopement?!? How crazy is that!

GEEK ALERT! Stop reading if you are not a geek!

I guess by now almost every true geek in town has seen the summer movie Pacific Rim. I saw it by myself on opening day in a quiet little cinema which is just the way I like it, and absolutely loved it. And since I only try to blog bout stuff that I like, here's why Pacific Rim was just so amazing to me. It's definitely not a movie for everyone. Paper thin plot, cartoony characters but for someone who grew up on a regular diet of watching anime and Kaiju movies, it was like a dream come true.

I remember watching the live action Japanese series Ultraman but it was dubbed in Malay cos it was on a Malaysian channel. Our government thought it was a bad influence back then. I also got my little paws on some Ultraman comic magazines and I think they were in Japanese or Chinese. There was nothing else like that on TV when I was growing up expect for the old Ray Harryhausen movies in the afternoon. So you can imagine how it was for a little kid to be exposed to all that giant awesomeness during that all-important "informative years".

When I started learning (and flunking!) Mandarin in school, that's when they started screening dubbed-in-Mandarin anime over at our local Channel 8. Gatchaman was unlike anything I had ever seen before while Robotech was fun although a wee bit too soap-operaish for me. Just don't get me started what an awful mess Evangelion turned out to be.

Besides re-living all those childhood memories on the big screen, Pacific Rim works on another level when you know it's also a labor of love by super geek director Del Toro, and it's filled with all kinds of cool nods to geekdom like the Cthulhu-like monsters and video game references. It totally enriches the entire cinematic experience when you factor in all these geeky elements and ... aww hell, it just totally blew my mind!

Cavalock and The Giant Mutant Fish Snack

It's a Kaiju post as we get ready for the big summer movie Pacific Rim celebrating all things big and monstery! Anybody who knows me knows I'm as big a geek as they come, so I thought I'll do a post on where you can find some creatures right here that are as close to a Kaiju as possible.

There is a small but rather healthy population of giant monitor lizards over at Sungei Buloh. These slow moving critters are at least 1.5m long and according to my 79-year-old Dad who took all these pictures, you can see a few sunbathing there most of the time. There are crocs around too and the pix below are of how a lizard came across what's left of a giant mutant fish that a couple of crocs were snacking on earlier.

Pretty neat eh? I bet not many people know about this. My Dad said these giant lizards can actually be found in other places around the island including the Chinese Gardens. Tourists from China would point and scream at them, joggers would run screaming away from them, etc. I think my Dad gets a kick outta being up close and personal with them.

And here's a tasty snack that would seem appropriate if you gonna be watching Pacific Rim. Deep fried eel bones done Japanese style found at Paragon Marketplace supermarket!

Cavalock and The Crap Disposal Elucidation

Here's something I didn't know until today and that's how some birds clean their crap! Yes, this post is gonna read like it's written by a 12-year-old but I don't care! Hah! So my Dad showed up with his latest wildlife pix and there's a series that shows how a mommy bird cleans her little nestlings' crap. As you can tell from the pix, the nestling craps into mom's mouth/beck and she flies off with it. It's just like any parent changing diapers, only without actual diapers and using your mouth! Yes, I'm 12-years old again.

Here it is from another angle. My Dad couldn't zoom in any closer but that's the nestling's little ass fer sure. And that last bird pix is the daddy bird who only feeds the nestlings but doesn't clean out the crap. Go figure...

Here's something else that I'm pretty excited about. The (some of the) art collection from the House of Liechtenstein is in town and I hope I got me some free time this Tuesday to join in the morning guided tour. Always loved history and already grateful that I got to visit the museums in London, Rome, Florence and New York. Jeez, just realized that I never visited any museums in Japan although that's the country I been to the most number of times.