A day worth remembering

Vege's birthday is on the coming Saturday. In advanced celebration, we made him treat us (6 people excluding himself) to a movie, "Over the Hedge", and we bought him 7 slices of cheesecake consisting of 6 different flavours last night (actually, that's because there were only 6 flavours left by the time we went to Cafe Cartel). Anyway, The birthday boy himself admitted that this was the best birthday celebration he ever had. You can really feel the overwhelming joy within him when he was told he didn't have to pay his $2 share for the cheesecakes.

Besides the advanced celebration of Vege's birthday, we also fondly recalled that exactly 1 year ago, we (Jiaxiu, Shijie, Vege, Froggy and me) were in Taiwan having fun and gorging ourselves silly. Correction, everyone was having fun and gorging themselves silly save for 1 guy. No more hints for guessing who this time. Ok, maybe just a teeny weeny one: he's an amphibian and not a reptile.

Ah, the after-effects of watching "Over the Hedge".

There's actually this squirrel inside the show named "Hammy". Maybe I should name my 'hammie' as "Squirrel" just to show how much I liked that animation.

Yesterday was also the day when my 3-man diving (test) trip turned into a 7-man diving trip. Somehow I managed to drag an additional 4 people at the last minute. I have a feeling it is going to be great fun.

Movie with Rutz (not the doggie)

The movie venue was fixed at Tiong Bahru Plaza out of convenience, since both of us work in the west area. On my way to the box office, I passed by a Famous Amos cookie outlet at the basement and was suddenly inspired by a thought,

"Hey" I said to Rutz, "Do you know what's the best thing to munch on while watching a show?"

She looked back at me.

"Famous Amos cookies!"

I probably sounded like the cookie monster when I said that.

Rutz's eyes immediately brightened up at the prospect.

"Hey, how about getting some milk?" she asked. "Milk goes with cookies."

"Yeah, why not. There's a supermarket here."

We entered the theatre with the goodies hidden in my bag. Rutz was drooling away at the thought of having a 400g pack of cookies between only the 2 of us. However, when the movie started with Tom Cruise's face (should be able to guess we're watching MI3 by now) appearing on the screen, she started to drool at Tom Cruise instead and forgot all about the cookies.

In fact, throughout the show, she was so focused on him that she didn't really eat much. Not that I minded.

After watching the show, I think I have a good idea of what Rutz wants for her engagement ring (I shall not be a spoiler by giving out any details). Maybe I should do Rutz's boyfriend a favour and drop him a hint. After all, it'll help him save a lot of money so he can spend more on his wedding.

That night, I went home with half a bottle of milk and about a quarter of the cookies we started out with.

My cousin's son has his own homepage!

And he hasn't celebrated his first birthday yet! Can you imagine? The first thing he learnt isn't a human language but a computer language (HTML). Talk about a child prodigy.

Nah, talk about crap. I'm just kidding. But my nephew does have his own website, courtesy of my cousin and her husband. I didn't think my cousin (and "Dar Dar", my cousin's term for her husband, so lovey-dovey...) would actually do something like this - they write in first person from the perspective of their son.

Don't know if they have too much spare time on their hands or what. I must admit it's quite amusing to look at how they've done the webpage, read the stuff they wrote, and view the millions of photos of their precious son posted up.

I think I shall leave a permanent link to the webpage, as my way of helping my cousin show off her biggest achievement to date. Check out the left column of my blog.

I still can't picture that my nephew is born with a gmail account to his name. Times have changed, nobody wants a silver spoon in their mouth any more.

Happening Vesak Day

Thursday afternoon, nearing knock off time (about 4 pm). Most of my colleagues were already in 'holiday mood', asking one another about plans for the coming long weekend. My only confirmed activity then was "cycling at East Coast Park next morning". The look on my colleagues' faces when they heard my reply spelt the word B-O-R-I-N-G.

Well, doesn't matter what they think.

Speaking in 'local tongue', I went out with Vege, Froggy, Tup, 2 Cell, Zhengbing, Quiping and Eve whom I've not met before. Nope, there're no errors. Only Zhengbing, Qiuping and Eve use conventional human names. And as usual, I was kept waiting for some time, to say the least (managed to cycle from the bike rental shop to the no kite-flying zone at East Coast Park before they arrived, if you know where that is). Don't wish to mention who, but For those inteRested tO Guess, here's a biG hint for You.

It was 2 Cell's 1st lesson on cycling. Another friend said I'm like an instructor - I teach cycling and kayaking to my friends. Actually I teach DotA too, but that's another story altogether. Anyway, East Coast Park is a very poor choice for learning cycling beacuse of the traffic there. Few people, local or foreign, can display tolerance for beginners.

2 Cell has got to be the luckiest guy on Earth. Apart from me, Vege, Froggy and Tup, he had auxiliary instructors in the form of an elderly Chinese man and 3 Africans (I think they are Africans who came to work here).

Halfway through our lesson, there was this elderly man who suddenly came up to 2 Cell and imparted his soon-to-be-lost secret skill of moving-off-a-bike-with-1-leg-standing-on-the-pedal-and-then-crossing-the-other-leg-over-before-riding-off. He must have been observing us for quite some time.

The elderly man was telling us that the way we teach him to ride is not efficient, his secret skill is the fastest way. We realised that his words were true, but there's a catch to it. According to Froggy, it's a "do or die" method - either you learn very quickly or you die trying. 2 Cell felt he was too young to die, so he opted to stick to our method. Even an experienced cyclist like me too some time to master that skill, can't blame 2 Cell for not wanting to try.

Apparently learning to ride a bicycle is rather attention-catching, for 3 Africans came up to us next. They spoke to 2 Cell just as he was about to make another attempt at cycling,

"Hey man, you've got to look straight. Don't look at the wheel, keep your eyes in front. Ya man, that 's the way. That's it, keep going... Awww man!"

2 Cell just fell again. Disappointed, the 3 Africans walked off.

Froggy decided to impart some of his knowledge to 2 Cell, as a beginner to another beginner.

"When you just moved off, your speed is slow and therefore your bicycle will wobble. In order to balance yourself, you'll have to steer left and right and your bicycle will be moving long a big S-shaped path. Once you've picked up speed, the bicyle will be more stable and the big S will become small S."

Since Froggy said this in Mandarin, the last part sounded like "...大S 会变成小S."


Hmmm...原来大S 可以变小S.

The lesson ended when 2 Cell was too tired to carry on, and fortunately, without anything worse than a crash into a lamppost. Froggy was quick to ensure no damage to public property was sustained. But before forming any impression of Froggy, please read the clarification below.


Clarification: Froggy is not an uncaring person; he cares for the lamppost.


We had afternoon tea (what else can you call a meal at 3 pm?) at Plaza Singapura's Swensen's so that we can make use of 2 Cell's $50 voucher. Surprisingly, none of us were hungry until we sat down at the restaurant poring over the menu. The amount of ice creams we ate probably replaced all the calories burnt earlier on.

I felt it was a pity to let the day's activities end so soon, so I suggested... KTV!!! Vege didn't join us because he was having Mother's Day special and Qiuping was too tired to carry on. Zhengbing already made arrangements to watch Poseidon with his friends at 5 pm (also in Plaza Singapura), but upon hearing the 3 magical letters, decided to join us after his movie.

While waiting for Zhengbing, we played pool at Parklane. During the last 2 rounds of pool, we divided ourselves into 2 groups - Froggy, Tup and 2 Cell vs Eve and I. Through brilliant manipulation, my team caused the opposing team to lose by default (someone the white ball went into the pocket right after the black one). To spare him the embarrassment I shall not say who made the last shot, but For those inteRested tO Guess, here's another biG hint for You.

I haven't been to KTV with friends for quite some time. The good thing about going with friends is that someone will start doing crazy things, then more will follow suit, and in the end, everyone turns crazy. But of course we didn't all go crazy that night. We just had a lot of fun disrupting one another's songs by stopping songs, changing pitch in the middle of a song, cracking jokes to disrupt one another's singing...

For the whole day, we only had 2 meals - afternoon tea at Swensen's and the supper which came right after our KTV. We wanted to have something light but the only places available along Orchard Road at that time were NYDC and S11. NYDC desserts and drinks are definitely not classified as light snacks. Neither are the food sold at S11, but we settled for the latter anyway.

End result: calories gained > calories lost.

No loss

Diving

YES! I'm finally going to sign up for a diving course. However, on the day I'm going for the introduction, the newspaper reported that someone had drowned in Pulau Sipadan while diving.

Spoilsport.

The poor guy, still quite young and about to get married, probably met with a freak accident (like what happened to me while I was playing soccer). I'm not going to let such incidents deter me from taking up diving. Just as I've not regretted playing soccer during the earlier years of my life (this statement makes me sound like an elderly retired citizen).

Even if I had the ability to see the future, I'd still opt to play soccer. Why? Bceause in life, given the ability to see the future, it'll give you these 2 possible scenarios:

1. Some premonition warned me I'd get a permanent injury if I played soccer, and thus I never touch a soccer ball.

2. I ignored the premonition and went ahead to play. And as expected, I got a permanent injury and couldn't play again for the rest of my life.

Either way, it means I don't get to play soccer any more. Of course, it also brings along a whole lot of other complications. What I personally feel is that life is too short and too full of upsets - if I don't enjoy whatever little bit I can, my life is going to be really sad.

Cycling on the road is dangerous too, but I've been doing it ever since I feel I'm sensible enough to ride safely.

My mom has always been there to point out the dangers in whatever we do. Safety concerns is an issue, but being over-protected inhibits one's (mental) growth. I'm going ahead whether she finds it too risky or not.