Random Photos

I haven't been blogging much because life has become somewhat stagnated for me. I've been going out quite a bit, and addicted to a handphone game called Jewel Quest II, but the problem is that the handphone doesn't belong to me, so in order to play that game, I've to go out and meet the said person whose handphone has that game.


How many people can you spot in this picture?
(left click and drag the cursor across the blank space to read the answer)
There's actually 6 people, there's one on the leftmost side somewhat obscured in the darkness. The one to the left of me is not a person but a styrofoam head.
Can you spot which one is me? We look all the same after the same white face paint with the red blood like stuff all over.
This was taken during the Fright Night/Night Scramble of Union Camp 07.


It's me doing stupid things again.
I was fiddling with my metal earpick the other day before I went to get my hair cut and decided that my shin provides a very good canvas for etching my name. This was actually my second attempt that day. I first tried on my the other leg, writing my name, and writing some words and drawing some pictures, but it was quite ugly. Wanting to be sadistic and take a picture of my wonderful artpiece, I decided to make use of my other shin and wrote neatly and nicely another version of my name. Yes, I am masochistic, thank you very much.

I showed them to my mother after completing that masterpiece, half expecting my mother to scold me for hurting myself as what she used to do when I was a kid, but instead all she said was "See la, your legs so dry, you haven't been moisturising them." I guess this is the difference when one grows old. Oh well... Anyway, the etchings didn't fade off the whole day, and they were so obvious that my hairdresser actually spotted them and asked me about it. So paiseh la, I'm supposed to be all grown up le and I still do childish things like this. hahaha~


I realised that EVERYONE has a picture of themselves and the Simpsons. Not to be outdone, I went and took a picture of myself too and like everyone else, post them in my blog too. It's sort of like becoming a photo meme already.

Me sporting my new haircut, well, not exactly a new hairstyle, but it is a new length of hair for me for since a year ago, and very coincidentally I was wearing yellow! It's actually my sister's tee, I'm wearing a lot of my sister's tees recently. I didn't realise this until after uploading the picture that my skirt is so short~ wahaha... But my legs don't look too bad despite all the weight I gained, haha. Yup, I'm proud to say, I didn't do any photoshopping to the picture other than resizing it and adding the words. lalala~


I took a passport sized photo in a photobooth the other day because I needed to use it to submit some application stuff.

It's quite an interesting experience, okay, I'm going to be a suaku and say this because this is the only time in my memory that I actually have a passport photo taken in a photobooth, other times I had taken in photo shops where I sit down and a person manually takes a polaroid photo of me, or takes a film photo of me. Anyway, I sat there, and tried to look into some circle thingie, sort of like taken neoprints, only that I had to make sure than my bangs stayed away from my eyes and that was quite a feat. There was only two chances to take the correct picture, and the time between the two shots were quite fast and I wasn't fully prepared.

This was the second attempt because the first one saw my hair covering my eye. I think I look fat in this picture. It's like the hair giving my face more volume, or rather, the hair and the round face together combining creates the volumous shape of my whole look. My gaze looks a bit stoned and my smile looks damn forced. bah~ But at least it still looks better than most people's ID photos, I think. I don't know why but most people have very ugly pictures on their identification cards and other photo id cards. I absolutely cannot stand that.

Okay, I shall end this very random post with a very random camwhoring picture of myself. It's been a long time since I camwhored, especially since my face grew rounder and I look fatter, no, and I became fatter.

Spelling Test

I Scored a 100%!

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

*clap clap*

It's really quite amazing that a lot of people can get simple stuff like this wrong, it's not difficult, it's just well, too basic that people just forget about it. Yup, primary school English lessons all over again.

I Want To Buy This

I don't know why my pocket's been pretty tight this month and half the month's not even gone yet (ya, I get my allowance mid-month). It's so weird how money keeps disappearing, $10s can just disappear within the day, and by the end of the week some $50s can just be wasted away on most probably food, food, my biggest enemy, make me poor and make me fat. grr... I've been trying to ration the remaining of my allowance hoping that I can stretch my dollar as far as possible, and usually, I'd be able to do so. However, this bloody thing came in the mail.


Thank you Body Shop on your promotion of the Tea Tree Oil range of product, thank you very much.

Before this came in my mailer, I already made a list of things I need and want from Body Shop.
Things I need:
- Oceanus Bubble Bath
- Tea Tree Oil Facial Wash
Things I want:
- Tea Tree Oil Blemish Fade Night Lotion (new product!)
- mascara

I planned to put off buying these stuff until probably next month because I'm severely lack of funds now, but but but there's the promotion from 2-22 August. See the words "25% off" and "FREE"??? Those are words that make my heart soften as much as the Body Shop wonderful ladies saying "Do you want to top up to $xx so that you can get a free gift worth $xx/get another chop?"

Since I already need to buy a Tea Tree Oil product, the facial wash, I can make use of this opportunity to get the blemish fade night lotion at 25% off, it's sort of like saving money isn't it? I'm currently using the blemish gel which says it's for occasional blemishes so I don't think it works very well on me since I've regular blemishes, and this night lotion seems to be just the thing I am looking for to zap those spots off the face. I want to try! I was at the Body Shop counter the other day and tested the lotion, it seems quite nice and easy to apply and it's quite a sizable amount.

Then because I also need to get several more products so, why not just purchase $80 worth of stuff and get that free gift worth $49.90? I've already bought so much worth of Body Shop products that I've got TWO different gift sets free from the last two promotions in the span of like just a couple of months. I've since then given away the Grapefruit gift set to my sister's Taiwanese buddy (damn! I should get my sister to reimburse me sia) and used more than half of the stuff from the make up gift set. I want another gift set~ Actually I've been given this gift set free before, maybe a couple of years before from another promotion. haha~ I'm such a sucker.

But then, I foresee yet another problem. If I purchase $80+ worth of stuff, then I'd be so tempted by the salesgirls when they as if I want to top up my purchase to $90 to get another chop. wahaha~ Why is Body Shop sucking away my money just like that in ein Augenblick?!!

I think I can count for Body Shop's most loyal customer already, with my continued spending with them, and the yearly free renewals of my STAR LOYALTY card because I simply just have spent too much with them. If I'm keeping with with my purchases like this, I don't think there'd be any problem with me hitting the minimum spending to get the free renewal next year. And 1/6 of the year hasn't even passed...

I need to save up to buy these things to make me pretty. I need to cut down on my eating so that I can have more cash on hand, and also to lose some weight so that I can become pretty. I want to become pretty. hai... All the perils about being a woman, ya woman, no more a girl, no more youth being on my side. *sad*

Anyone care to sponsor or willing to donate to this poor old woman?

The Dream

I had this vivid dream two nights ago which still remains floating in my mind until now. The circumstance which I had this dream wasn't something out of the ordinary, it was just another normal day, and I wasn't really thinking about the said character who was the subject of the dream, so I thought it was a bit weird that he would suddenly pop into my dreams.

A bit on the background of this subject character. He isn't a friend per se, maybe I was did treat him like a friend, but we never met, our friendship was limited to within the web even though he said that he once saw me around school but he hadn't greeted me. Because of a longstanding series of misunderstandings, we had a couple of heated exchanges and once the misunderstanding was so bad that we stopped communicating hencetherefore. I would still like to treat him as a friend but somehow the mounted misunderstandings seems to be too great to be overcome. Lest not forget, he's also that guy who propositioned me, yup, after that we still had a couple of exchanges, the misunderstanding who caused us to drift apart was about something else.

Anyway, on with the dream. I dream that he had a girlfriend, but I didn't know about it because it was quite a recent affair. I chanced upon their relationship because I got to know the girl, his girlfriend, because of some reason or another not stated in the dream. Of course, there's probably no such girl in real life.

That girl was small, as in short and petite, young-looking with and innocent charm in her, I couldn't tell her age, but she didn't feel to be that young, just youthful looking and appeared to be younger than her real age. But when I first met her, I thought of her to be a young girl who needs to be protected. Somehow, she just touched the maternal instincts of me, which made me want to care for her like a mother caring for her child.

I started talking to her and somehow her relationship just came out like that I knew the whole story, well, almost the whole story. I withheld telling her my relationship with him and just continue to prod her about her relationship with him. She being the shy girl was first very reluctant to reveal much, but after insistent probing and cajoling, she said that the status of their relationship is intimate.

I took that very seriously and started talking to her about all the protective measures a girl must hold over a guy and kept telling her that if anything goes wrong, she must say it out. She then comforted me by saying that whatever she did or she would allow him to do to her would be of her consent, definitely.

That stopped me in my tracks. Who was I to instruct her what she should or should not do? After all this was their relationship, and since I don't know both of them well, and I don't know the nature of their relationship, I shouldn't say anything about it. I was too clouded by my biasness against that guy that I became too worked up and highly insistent. Then I thought about myself, all the more I've no right to be lecturing on protective measures against the men since I am one of those naive chicks myself. My words carry no weight at all, and neither is it very much convincing.

Just because I think that he's too sexually indulgent I shouldn't negate the possibility that he would be a good boyfriend. All the more, I was the one who insisted that he find a proper girlfriend so that he could be less indulgent and have a more healthy sex life, so I really shouldn't have questioned about their intimate relationship at all.

With that the dream ended. It's quite seldom that I have dreams that resolve themselves because most of my dreams tend to leave my dangled in the air. In a way, I'm more thankful that there was a resolve in the dream and I managed to sort out all of the thoughts within the dream itself.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I picked up my copy at Times at Tampines Mall at about 9am half expecting a long queue forming outside the bookstore, well, I didn't really expect that, but the parents were sort of expecting that, my reasoning was that there are plenty of bookstores scattered around Singapore, so there isn't a need to queue for a book which one can get anywhere. The only bookstores I expected to have queues were probably Borders and Kinokuniya because they are the major bookstores. But then again, I don't understand why people are buying from those bookstores because the other bookstore chains are selling them cheaper.

Anyway, fact is that I held onto my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so the other people, the other hooha, all don't matter at all.

I held onto my urge at checking up on all the spoilers littered in the world wide web, hoping that that would render my Harry Potter journey to be as pleasant as possible, but I couldn't resist that very convenient arena for me to gain access to spoilers, but luck wasn't on my side and all the spoiler sites I went to were all temporary closed because Rowling threatened legal action against the leaking of spoilers.

So the moment I laid my hands on the book, I started poring through it even though I was in the car and reading in a moving vehicle always gives me a big headache. I read in the car, read in the hospital when visiting my grandfather, read in the restaurant while having dimsum brunch with the extended maternal side of the family, read while with Someone and bored him to tears since even though I was there I was technically not there, I was flown of to the magical world of Harry Potter. I read when we went out, read on a stone slab in Raffles City, read on the bus, fighting off the headache. The only time when I resisted reading was when I was having dinner with Someone's friends. Ya, I might be a brat, but I had the decency to give some face to Someone. I was left with a couple more chapters when I reached home, so the last few chapters were read in the comforts of my bed. Just about another half and hour of reading and see off the last few deaths.

The completion of the book is a bit deary on me. It's like, it's all ended just like that, it's a very surreal feeling, the last time I had this sort of feeling was after I read finish the entire set of Hana Kimi manga. It seemed so surreal that everything ended, but everything has indeed ended despite me not wanting it to end but wanting to know how it ends. And I must say that the ending is somewhat a tad bit disappointing. Maybe it's all the hype, and the magical genius of the earlier books, and the sheer lack of pages of this latest to the collection.

The moment my hands gripped on the book, I knew it was going to be disappointing in that the plot won't pan out well because the book was just too bloody thin to make this magical experience a truly remarkable one. There were just too many unanswered questions about the horcruxes and with the introduction of the Deathly Hallows, there was just way too much to explain, and 600++ pages just isn't enough. Call me a book Nazi, but I need the indulgence especially when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was so long. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was shorter, but because there isn't a need to wrap everything up so it was okay to leave more answers dangling.

I'm itching to talk about the contents of the story, so ***spoilers alert***
(click select ALL or left click mouse and roll over the empty space to read the spoilers)

I think there are just too many deaths in the book and most of the deaths are deaths that do little to the advancement of the plot. The impact of the deaths were not explored, and for some of the characters, the means of which they died were a bit unclear. Like Lupin and Tonks, they died without a clear explaination of how they died, I was like so blur because I didn't really remember them dying. Also the most major death, Fred, was not explored in deeper context like how that death caused an impact on the Weasley family, or and on George in particular, or even if the Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes actually continued on. To me, everything that happen must happen for a reason, and I don't see a reason in the deaths of Lupin, Tonks, Fred.

The only death that I understand and support is the death of Snape. Yes, Snape is a good person, but he deserves to die because only with his death that the plot can advance. And indeed, my guess that Snape was in love with Lily was correct. haha~ But saying it only now doesn't really carry much weight, but I still like that feeling that at least one of my assumptions was right.

Still, much of the book was too skimmed over, sort of like the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which I managed to catch it on Monday. If you watched the film after reading the book, you'd understand what I mean. There's too much telling of what happened rather than giving details on why it happened, so it's like this this this happened, and that that that happened, and hence like this like that and therefore the end, quite rushed. The Deathly Hallows was unfortunately also like that and as I mentioned earlier on, little explanation was provided and most of the impact the events had were omitted. And this was especially so in the minor recurring characters. Only Harry Potter, Hermione, Ron and Dumbledore were explained in great detail. Much of Voldemort was explained through the perspective of Harry, while Snape was only explained via his pensieve and that's it.

***spoilers end here***
For more spoilers, there's always the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wikipedia page.

In all, I'm glad that everything was wrapped up neatly and leaving no possibilities of another Harry Potter book, but still, there's space for fanfics and imagination. wahaha~

Yup, I'll go read the book again and again see if there's any minor detail that I missed out from reading in the first round, and while I'm at it, I'll patiently wait for the next two Harry Potter films to be released. I think Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would make better films than the Order of the Phoenix because the page to minute ratio is smaller, well, hopefully they would be better, because after the first four films, the Order of the Phoenix was much weaker than the rest.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (book): 7/10
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film): 7/10

Why I Hate Haircuts

I went for a haircut over the weekend, on Friday actually. I hadn't wanted to cut my hair, but my mother wanted to go for a haircut and hairdye, and that I was at home doing nothing, she called me along for the haircut, which also meant that she was paying for me. There wasn't a reason for me to say no, especially since the tips of my hair were fried and dried and horribly spilt, I needed a trim, and so I agreed to go with the mother.

This trip down to Jean Yip reminded me why I absolutely hate haircuts. And it also reminded me why my last trip to the hairdressers was a pleasant one. You see, I've a haircut like every year, most of the time I go to where my mother goes, which is Jean Yip, sort of like the trip I went two years ago, alone. I had just returned from my immersion trip and my hair was very dry. The moment I stepped into Jean Yip, I was bombarded my treatment packages and other sales talk. I hate it! Two years ago, I succumbed into those sales talk and ended up about $200 poorer because of a treatment package which honestly didn't make my hair any softer than it is touted to be.

Last year on the back of my return from my exchange programme, I had yet another haircut which was surprisingly pleasant. That time it wasn't a planned trip to the hairdressers, I was loitering at Marina Square after school, missing Germany and everything when I spotted a saloon offering haircuts at a flat rate. It was a no-frills saloon, but not the $10 a haircut kind, it was $22+ but it was a flat rate, and it was hair cut only. I just needed to specify the hairstyle I wanted and voila, done. No sales talk, no additional payment, no washing of hair. And the best part, the length my my hair was just right.

I hate going to regular saloons like Jean Yip also because I never seemed to be satisfied with my hair length after cutting. My hair is always cut way too short for my liking. And worse, it's not possible to regrow overcut hair unlike the possibility of recutting undercut hair.

So there, after my Friday's trip to Jean Yip, my horribly short hair.


I wanted brastrap length hair, meaning hair falling to just under the bra strap, that woman went to cut my hair to just over the bra strap, so my hair is like one whole inch shorter than desired. Damnit.

Not just that, I was subjected to those sales talk recommended treatments and stuff. And although I resisted the talks for treatment, I succumbed and bought a bottle of oil for the hair, supposedly to prevent split ends and to make the hair shiny. bah~

My mother was not much better as she succumbed into doing a hair treatment, but it isn't too bad for her since she dyed her hair and she doesn't condition her hair regularly, so okay la, still acceptable for her to do hair treatment. For me, I condition my hair and do leave in conditioning, and that I had done treatment before and I know it doesn't work, and I don't dye or perm my hair, so hence therefore.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (part iii)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 9.6.2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 13.9.2005
and yet, today, I'm watching it on Channel 5 again, and writing about it, again.

The first time I watched it my mind flickered with X, how much I wanted to forget him, how much I managed to forget him. My feelings towards the film was clouded by my emotions at that time.

The second time I watched it my mind was filled with Mr Swirl. It was just behind our huge blow up and I was severely and sorely missing him, and lots of other fucked up reasons. I wanted to forget him, but I couldn't do so, at least not at that moment since things were so bad between us at that point in time. My feelings towards the film was clouded by my emotions at that time.

This is the third time watching it, this is the only time I'm watching it without the feeling of any need to forget anyone, somehow, the film doesn't seem that touching anymore. The saddest part for me is actually the opening of the film, where Joel meets Clementine for the second first time.

Oh My Darling Clementine
In a cavern, in a canyon,
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner forty niner,
And his daughter Clementine.
Refrain:
Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You were lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
Light she was and like a fairy,
And her shoes were number nine,
Herring boxes, without topses,
Sandals were for Clementine.
Refrain
Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev'ry morning just at nine,
Stubbed her toe against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine.
Refrain
Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine,
But, alas, I was no swimmer,
So I lost my Clementine.
Refrain
How I missed her! How I missed her,
How I missed my Clementine,
But I kissed her little sister,
I forgot my Clementine.
Refrain
Then the miner, forty-niner,
Soon began to peak and pine,
Thought he oughter join his daughter,
Now he's with his Clementine.
Refrain
In a corner of the churchyard,
Where the myrtle boughs entwine,
Grow the roses and the posies,
Fertilized by Clementine.
Refrain
In my dreams she still doth haunt me,
Robed in garments soaked in brine;
How in life I used to hug her,
Now she's dead, I draw the line.

Older version of the lyrics:
In the centre of a golden valley,
Dwelt a maiden all divine,
A pretty creature a miner's daughter
And her name was Clementine.
Refrain
Oh my darling, oh my darling,
My darling Clementine,
You are lost for me forever,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
Refrain
Her noble father was the foreman
Of ev'ry valued mine,
And ev'ry miner and ranchman
Was a brother to Clementine.
Refrain
The foreman miner, an old forty niner,
In dreams and thoughts sublime,
Lived in comfort with his daughter,
His pretty child Clementine.
Refrain
When far away, he would often pray
That in his sunny clime
No harm might overtake her,
His favorite nugget, Clementine.
Refrain
When the day was done and the setting sun
Its rays they ceased to shine,
Homeward came the brawney miner
To caress his Clementine.
Refrain
None was nearer, none was dearer,
Since the days of forty-nine
When, in youth, he had another
Who was then his Clementine.
Refrain
She led her ducks down to the river,
The weather it was fine,
Stubbed her toe against a sliver,
Fell into the raging brine.
Refrain
He heard her calling: father,
Her voice was like a chime,
But alas he was no swimmer,
So he lost his Clementine
Refrain

I changed my mind, the opening of the film is actually the second saddest part of the whole film. The first saddest part is still Joel and Clementine's very first meeting, the first first meeting, because it comes after their second first meeting. I always thought that because of hindsight the second first meeting will seem as the saddest in retrospect, but after watching the first first meeting for the third time round, I think in retro-retrospect, that first first meeting is the saddest part.

And of the whole scene of the first first meeting, the moment where Joel sang Oh My Darling is the single saddest moment of the whole whole film. Even when I'm not feeling sad, I can still feel the sadness oozing out of the film.

Paikia

The Obligatory Union Camp 07 Post

As I was away for the whole week last week, this that follows is evidence of myself being away from the computer and away from the internet and away from other distractions. For that whole week, okay, six days, I was with this bunch of people having fun and making new friends. It's not just among the councillors, but also the freshies, and the other groups' councillors. It's been great fun.


Group Pictures.

Truth be said, I'm nowhere near a very good councillor nor a good senior to the freshies since I take great delight in kajiao-ing them a lot and I'm not really the kind who can talk to everyone and make friends with everyone. I bitch a lot and whine a lot and complain way way too much, in short, I'm just not a good person to be around with. Not just that, sometimes I talk before processing and often find myself biting my lips for something I said wrongly or shouldn't have said.

I'm still learning to be a better me, with each very little very small steps, I'm learning and growing and bettering myself each day.


The girls.

The girls are a cool bunch of people, more of those kind slowly warm up to. Since six days is a rather short period of time, I hope that with time, the bond can slowly continue to grow. The pretties and the lovelies, and the paikia eh chio chio eh zar bor kias.


The guys.

The guys are a really interesting bunch of people, almost like wolves, they stay in packs, they bond, they develop some form of brotherhood relationship among themselves. Comparing to the other guys in the other OGs, our group seems to have the better guys of the camp. haha~ And the most memorable out of all these people, the inside jokes shared among the female councillors... hahaha~

Lao Da!!!

All the wait I had to join Union Camp as a councillor finally did not come to a naught. I'm really glad that I could share my last chance with this group of Paikias, at least now I can graduate with no regrets. Union Camp/Arts Camp as a freshie, summer 2004. Immersion, summer 2005. Exchange Programme, summer 2006. Union Camp as a councillor, summer 2007. Summer 2008 will see Joan walking towards the next stage of her life.

Ciao, my fabulous summer vacation, the last one I can have as a student~

Memes

Birthday Meme

Rules: list out 3 events, 2 births and 1 holiday which occured on the day of your birthday.

3 Events
1932 - Adolf Hitler obtains the German citizenship by naturalization, opening the opportunity for him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident.
1956 - In his speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounces the actions of Joseph Stalin.
1986 - EDSA Revolution: President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines flees the nation after 21 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the first Filipino woman president.

2 Births
1966 - Téa Leoni, American actress.
1981 - Park Ji-Sung, South Korean footballer.

1 Holiday
People Power Day, special holiday in the Philippines.

The Four Meme

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
- John Little temp staff
- temp GRO at Ritz Carlton
- English tuition teacher
- salesgirl at bazaars and other non-paid events

Four places you’ve lived:
- Jurong East
- Maju Ave
- PGP
- KFH

Four places you’ve been on vacation to:
- Europe
- Beijing
- Gold Coast
- Hong Kong

Four of your favourite foods:
- Seafood
- Meat
- Eggs
- Mango

Four places you’d rather be right now:
- somewhere with lots and lots of food
- on a cruise
- at a beach resort
- KBox

PS: Okay, I know it's very uncharacteristic of Joan not to comment on every single thing she has listed, but Joan is really very jaded now and her brain is already on autopilot mode, so until she gets her brain started up again, ciao for now~

Food Food Food

... and even more food...

NOTICE: I'll be away for Union Camp from tomorrow until the end of the week. If I'm feeling bored I'll resume blogging on Sunday, if not then I don't know when already. haha~ So, until then, I decided to be a nice person and blog this extremely long piece with tons of pictures too, very tantalising pictures somemore. Indulge and miss me loads!

Because of problems with my handphone memory card, I've been taking out my big trusty camera and have been taking quite a lot of nice pictures of the stuff that I've been eating. Most of them were used for previous blog entries for specific food reviews or other kind of write ups, but but but as I was going through my folders, I realised that there are a lot more good food that just haven't been featured and a lot of possible food reviews that I've been procrastinating. And since I'm too lazy and pressed for time to review all of those food, I've decided to compact them and give only mini reviews, so here they are. Treat it like it's a review a day for all the days that I won't be blogging in the upcoming week or so~


Western fare.
I love western food because of all the meat and carbos which are so deadly but so yummy. Joan's maxim, if it ain't unhealthy, it ain't taste no good. hahaha...

Botak Jones.
This marks the second time I've been to Botak Jones even though I want to go there much more often, but all the Botak Jones are all so far away from my place. Being there the second time, I know that it's best to go there at 3-4pm because there's no queue, no long waiting times and better service. I had the jumbo hot dog, first time trying it and it's really good. It goes especially well with the mustard. I haven't found any good hot dog that goes well with a good mustard sauce ever since I returned from Germany. My kaki had the botak burger. We shared the fries and I gave away all my onions. While I remember to request for non-spicy fries, I forgot to request without onions.

The portion was filling and extremely satisfying because the food was good. Even though we shared the fries, we all were stuffed after finishing the meal. And did I mention that the hot dog was really good with the mustard sauce? I love yellow mild mustard, but I only take mustard if there isn't cheese with the hot dog and I usually would choose cheese over mustard. But after this experience, I think I'll choose mustard over cheese the next time. But then, there are still so many other stuff I want to try from Botak Jones leh...

Cafe Cartel.
I love lagsane, it's like one of my comfort foods. So here I was craving for lagsana with loads and loads of cheese, and there I went to Cartel and tried out their lagsane for the first time. I'm a long running Cartel fan but it's so weird that this is the first time I'm trying their lagsane, and boy, it's good~ The serving was really huge, and the meat was finely grounded with very generous portions of cheese and tomatoes. Their tomato sauce was really sweet and savoury and very delicious.

Because we were in the mood for sharing, okay, because I wanted to eat a greater variety of food, I shared with my kaki the lagsane and koped some of the pork and french fries in return. The pork is very tender, a bit too tender for my liking, I prefer tougher meat. The sauce was still okay but the pineapples were a bit weird. One thing I did not like about the pork was that it cooled very rapidly and the taste of the pork after it cooled was a huge difference from the warm pork, the cold pork was quite bad. The fries were good, as all fried food are, but there's a special mention of the vegetable side. There was zucchini in it, think one or two slices only but I gobbled them up quickly enough that I forgot to share with my kaki. oops...


Carl's Junior.
I love Carl's Junior for their humongous burgers, their preference to stick to normal bacon rather than switch to fake bacons just to obtain that halal certificate and render all us pork loving eaters a great disservice.

It seems like Someone only has Carl's Junior when he's with me, that must say that I'm really one big pig. I had my usual favourite the Charbroiled Chicken Club with constitutes one huge chicken breast meat with cheese, bacon, tomatoes and lettuce. He had some other kind of burger. It's beef, so I don't bother much about it, I can't kope it anyway. haha... I like to upsize my fries to the criss cross fries because they remind me of curly fries, criss cross fries taste better than the normals ones, so well, criss cross fries. Other than because of the criss cross fries, I don't really see the incentive for a person to upsize his meal because drinks are free flow! But it really doesn't matter la, how much can one drink? After eating so much, the stomach also no place to fit the drinks in.

Oh and have I mentioned that the bacon is absolutely orgasmic? We should have more Carl's Junior and Subway and other food stall that provide bacon around.


Donut Factory.
Just to check out what the fuss is all about.

Recently there has been this donut/doughnut craze all over, with people queuing up for hours in Raffles City just to get some donuts, and more crazily people carrying tons of Krispy Kreme back from overseas. Truth to be told, I'm not a donut person. The last time I had donuts was when I was in Berlin and waiting for someone and having nothing to do, and I only had two pieces then. Before that two donuts in Berlin, the last time I had donuts was probably during the primary school days when I still ate lots of bread. But despite me not being a donuts person, I wanted to see what all the hype was about.

So one fine day Someone went down at 12pm to start queuing up, I came at 12.45 after running some errands. Actually, I went to buy movie tickets, for a 4.55pm show, because I thought that we would be right on time after a four hour queue to get the donuts and go for the show. But we were so wrong! At 4pm, we were still nowhere near the middle of the queue and we did the unthinkable, after queuing for four hours, we dropped out of the queue. We couldn't possibly miss our movie mah...

We had to go down a second time, this time Someone made it down at 11am while I arrived at about 12.30pm because I'm such a pig and I can't wake up early. We were significantly more front of the queue and after three hours, we got the donuts. I think the problem with the long queues is that the replenishing of the donuts isn't as quick as the flow of the customers. Anyway, my first reaction on getting the donuts is to try them out. To try if a donut is good, always go for the glazed ones. I bit into it and indeed it was good. It was soft and fluffy and wnough sweet but not too sweet, just right for my taste. After that I tried the double chocolate one and it was also very good. Chocolates is always good, so it's not so much of the donuts.

Worth the wait? Only if you're like me and have nothing better to do I guess.


Fish and Co.
It seems like everytime I go to Parkway with Huijing we'd end up eating Fish and Co.

Again, because we both wanted to eat a variety of stuff we decided to order two items then share. This is the first time I tried the seafood platter and it was good. I liked the prawns and calamari, well, it's because I like prawns and calamari, but this prawns and calamaris were fresh and good, so I love them more. The seasonal fish was a tad disappointing because it was just a little portion. The rice was fragrant, but I'm not a rice person so I munched on the fries more. The fries are the best when eaten with the tartar sauce. I always ask for an extra cup of tartar sauce because I'd eat so much of it.

The fish and chips were normal, well, not normal normal but normal good, it's always so good that it's become something normal. Usually if I eat the fish and chips alone, I tend to get sick of the fish towards the end of the meal. Sharing eliminates this problem from arising, and funnily, it made me crave for the fish even more. A very satisfying meal indeed.


Hong Kong Street.
The Blk 18 Bedok South one, at the coffee shop nearer to the POSB atm one.

I was there on a previous occasion eating something else when I saw the picture of the Crab Beehoon, and since then I had strong cravings for Crab Beehoon, but because I have a wonderful daddie willing to bring us out to eat, we went there for Crab Beehoon, much to my sister's dismay because she had originally wanted to eat Crystal Jade's porridge. We ordered the baby kailan, my favourite vegetable because I wasn't ingesting enough vegetables in my diet (see above and below pictures) and my sister satisfied herself with the hotplate toufu, and my parents had a bowl of sliced fish soup. The first picture I took of the soup didn't show any fish because the fish were all at the bottom, I had to ladle it to get a shot of the fish.

My parents had a bowl of rice to share between themselves but the beehoon was more than enough for me. I just love beehoon, I had beehoon earlier in the day, but I still found myself capable for more beehoon for the dinner. And the crab, it was good~ Since my daddie loves me, I got the crab claw, the bigger crab claw I should say. haha~ Just blogging about it and looking at the picture make me feel like eating crab beehoon again.


Dinner and desserts with Yanwei.
We originally wanted to go MOF for dinner cum desserts but don't know why we went to Subway for dinner instead then went to MOF for the dessert.

Subway.
Actually, I don't know what to say about Subway except that I love it, and I love it because it has real bacon. I repeat, fake bacon, ie turkey bacon, is not bacon, there is only one type of bacon and it is made from pork, period. I had my usual favourite Subway Melt, which is a toasted sandwich of bacon, turkey breast and ham with melted cheese, and I had my sandwich as always with only lettuce and honey mustard. Yanwei was nice and gave me a cookie so I picked the only without nuts flavour. The Subway cookies are more of the soft kind of cookies which I don't prefer, I prefer crunchy ones, my favourite cookie is still Famous Amos no nut ones.

MOF.
The day before we met Yanwei was already saying he wanted to eat that red bean dessert from MOF, and suaku me never even heard of MOF, and just a couple of minutes after he glowed over the red bean dessert, I came across Cindy's blog mentioning her visit to MOF and that red bean dessert was too sweet for her liking. Bearing that in mind, I decided to pick a more conventional dessert from MOF, the Mango Ice Cream thingie. It was good~ Anything with mango is definitely a winner.

Because I was feeling for some salmon, I ordered the salmon sashimi too. At first I ordered to share, but later my greed overcame me and I ate the salmon all by myself giving Yanwei the excuse to poke fun of me again. In return I forced him to help me take a picture of me with my food. I look like one little act cute greedy girl. But the salmon was good la. The colour was bright and appetising, and the salmon was kept chilled with the ice on the serving plate. Nice and fresh~


With Cindy at Vivocity.
We were supposed to meet for lunch but because of various reasons we ended up meeting late and had tea and then decided to eat dinner out too.

Superdog.
I've been wanting to try out Superdog for the longest time already since I love hot dogs and sausages and Superdog touting itself as the best hot dog fast food chain just calls out to me. I chose to try this hot dog with bacon wrapped around and tomatoes topped on the dog. erm... The hot dog tasted pretty normal, like something I can get anywhere for lesser cost somemore. I was pretty disappointed. Especially when Dong Dae Mun is just outside selling very tasty jumbo sausages, I don't see myself compelled to go to Superdog just for a hot dog. But but but kudos to Superdog for using real bacon! The Superdog fries were surprisingly a nice eat, the fries were chunky types so it was fluffy inside and not too salty.

Pastamania.
I have my usual favourite Marinara from Pastamania. I love seafood. I love prawns squids clams and everything from the sea, well, almost everything. And I love tomato based pasta, I usually have tomato based ones unless I'm craving for cream, then cravings are a different story. haha... I must have my pasta spaghetti because I love spaghetti. haha~ I don't know why but I think pasta must be spaghetti unless I'm making macaroni and cheese. I enjoy twirling my spaghetti and I like the al dente-ness of spaghetti, it's like hard hard QQ one, I like.


Sushi Tei.
I also ate sushi there but sushis are like so common that I didn't bother to take pictures of them. Here are the yummy stuff.

The sushis in Sushi Tei isn't really that value for money since there's a staggered pricing scheme there, and not wanting to waste my money on sushi which I know I can get cheaper and more value for money ones out there, I decided to order a side dish having it as my mains. Baked salmon in creamy mushroom sauce it was. Any boy, it was well worth it price, there were three pieces of salmon in there and the sauce was so creamy and good that I almost wanted to order a bowl of spaghetti to have with the cream. And there were so many mushrooms inside that I can eat the mushrooms by itself as a side dish. It's something I'd want to have again the next time I go Sushi Tei.

Because my kaki wanted to order desserts, I was compelled to get a dessert for myself. Because of my comparison with my favorite suhsi place Ichiban Boshi, I ordered the Peach Sherbet so that I can make comparisons with Ichiban Boshi's Peach Sorbet which I love. The sherbet is cheaper than the sorbet, but the sorbet feeds more than the sherbet, so no winners on the price factor. When the sherbet came, I was a little disappointed by the plastic container because the sorbet came with a real peach, but upon tasting the sherbet, I immediately floated among the clouds. But I can't really compare the sherbet with the sorbet because they are inherently very different. The sherbet is a yoghurt ice cream, so it has cream, so the texture is smoother, creamier and sweeter with a stronger peach taste. The sorbet is without cream and more acidic, but because of it well done-ess, there isn't a sourish taste in Ichiban Boshi's Sorbet. I like both~ And in the end I was so captivated by the sherbet cup that I asked the waitress to help me rinse it so I can bring it back home. The lovely waitress even gave me a plastic bag to carry the pretty pink plastic peach-shaped cup.


Swensons.
My sister's favourite eating place, because there are desserts.

We ordered a couple of starters and a couple of mains and a dessert to share among the family. Actually we ordered another main but it didn't arrive and we were enough full that we decided to cancel the order rather than waiting for it to arrive. Think we also ordered another serving of fries, but not pictured in here because I think I forgot to take a picture of it. haha... Me bad...

I like the fried mushrooms from Swensons, with or without the tartar sauce, it tastes really yummy. I didn't quite like the wings that day, it was a tad bit spicier than usual I don't know why, maybe the sauce was more generous that day perhaps. The fried chicken was not bad, enough to share around with the family. My sister had most of the cream salmon and mushroom spaghetti to herself, but I koped a bit from her to taste. It's not bad, but somehow, I think if I've spaghetti to go with the salmon with cream mushroom sauce from Sushi Tei (see above), it'd be better than that my sister was eating. haha~

For desserts, we had the topless five. Five scoops of ice cream without any toppings, enough to go around our little family of four, and we're all not big fans of toppings either. We each chose a flavour with my sister chooseing two. My parents picked chocolate, so we got two scoops of chocolate, I had mango and my sister had strawberry and mint. Our conclusion was that each ice cream tasted very good on it's own but when it's all melted into a goo, that mixture is gross, plain gross.


Yumcha.
Buffet again, for $15nett, very worth it. Pictures only show a sample portion of food and there were a lot more food that went unpictured.

I took pictures of my favourites. Hargau siewmais, and the xiaolongbao, I can eat two baskets of each everyday and not grow sick of it, ever. But enough of the dimsums, I want to introduce some of the side dishes today. Softshell crab and fried squids. The softshell crab is really good, it's fried Chinese style, not Japanese style, so it's a different kind of taste, but the crab is still the crab, I prefer eating the meatier parts of the crab, but in all it's still so crispy that everything just goes into my mouth. The fried squids are also Chinese style, but it comes pretty close to calamari, especially when it's served with a chilled Chinese styled mayo sauce. I preferred mine plain even though I love mayo, I don't quite like Chinese styled mayo I guess. The egg tarts the obligatory dessert picture. I seldom order egg tarts as dessert because I prefer my desserts to be chilled, but because it was buffet, the the egg tarts came before anything else arrive, and we were famished so we had the egg tarts first. Of course, me and my kaki both had our share of chilled desserts at the end of the meal.

Okay, I'm finally done with the post, ten food pictures so many more eating places for you to salivate all over.

Until next week, ciao~

Turning in His Grave

If my dear Bismarck were to see what kind of live his dear descendants are like now, he'd probably be turning in his grave.

I am sorely disappointed.
Link: Count Gottfried von Bismarck

Count Gottfried von Bismarck, who was found dead on Monday aged 44, was a louche German aristocrat with a multi-faceted history as a pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies.

The great-great-grandson of Prince Otto, Germany's Iron Chancellor and architect of the modern German state, the young von Bismarck showed early promise as a brilliant scholar, but led an exotic life of gilded aimlessness that attracted the attention of the gossip columns from the moment he arrived in Oxford in 1983 and hosted a dinner at which the severed heads of two pigs were placed at either end of the table.

When not clad in the lederhosen of his homeland, he cultivated an air of sophisticated complexity by appearing in women's clothes, set off by lipstick and fishnet stockings. This aura of dangerous "glamour" charmed a large circle of friends and acquaintances drawn from the jeunesse dorée of the age; many of them knew him at Oxford, where he made friends such as Darius Guppy and Viscount Althorp and became an enthusiastic, rubber-clad member of the Piers Gaveston Society and the drink-fuelled Bullingdon and Loders clubs.

Perhaps unsurprisingly he managed only a Third in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Von Bismarck's university career ended in catastrophe in June 1986, when his friend Olivia Channon was found dead on his bed, the victim of a drink and drugs overdose. Von Bismarck admitted that his role in the affair had brought disgrace on the family name; five years later he told friends that there were still people who would not speak to his parents on account of it, and who told his mother that she had "a rotten son".

In the reunified Germany, von Bismarck managed several telecoms businesses and, armed with a doctoral thesis on the East German telephone system, oversaw the sale of companies formerly owned by Communist East Germany to the private sector.

By the late 1990s von Bismarck was working for Telemonde, Kevin Maxwell's troubled telecoms firm based in America, with responsibility for developing the business in Germany; the company collapsed in 2002 with debts of £105 million. Von Bismarck eventually returned to London, where he became chairman of the investment company AIM Partners, dabbled in film production and promoted holidays to Uzbekistan.

Never concealing his homosexuality, von Bismarck continued to appear in public in various eccentric items of attire, including tall hats atop his bald Mekon-like head. At parties he would appear in exotic designer frock coats with matching trousers and emblazoned with enormous logos. Flitting from table to table at fashionable London nightclubs, he was said to be as comfortable among wealthy Eurotrash as he was on formal occasions calling for black tie.

Although described personally as quiet and impeccably mannered, von Bismarck continued to live high on the hog, hosting riotous all-night parties for his (chiefly gay) friends at his £5 million flat off Sloane Square. It was at one such event, in August last year, that von Bismarck encountered tragedy for a second time when one of his male guests fell 60 ft to his death from the roof garden. While von Bismarck was not arrested, he was questioned as a witness and there were those who wondered - not, perhaps, without cause - whether he might be the victim of a family curse.

Gottfried Alexander Leopold Graf von Bismarck-Schonhausen was born on September 19 1962 in Brussels, the second son of Ferdinand, the 4th Prince Bismarck, whose own father had served in the German embassy in pre-war London until a feud with the ambassador, von Ribbentrop, ended his career.

As a talented young scholar, Gottfried had studied at what he described as "an aristocratic Borstal" in Switzerland and worked at the New York stock exchange before going up to Christ Church, Oxford.

Von Bismarck never fully recovered from the death in June 1986 of Olivia Channon, the striking 22-year-old daughter of Paul Channon (later Lord Kelvedon), then one of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet ministers.

To celebrate the end of their finals, von Bismarck and Olivia Channon had taken part in a drinking bout involving excessive amounts of champagne, Black Velvet and sherry before she overdosed on heroin. At the inquest her cousin, Sebastian Guinness, described how he and other revellers had repaired to von Bismarck's bottle-strewn rooms, where Olivia was found dead the following morning.

Von Bismarck himself was charged with possessing cocaine and amphetamine sulphate and was later treated at a £770-a-week addiction clinic in Surrey. Following Olivia Channon's funeral, at which he was said to have "wept like a child", von Bismarck was ordered home to the family castle near Hamburg by his father.

His removal from Oxford was so abrupt that he was not given time to settle his bills; Prince Ferdinand sent a servant who did the rounds of von Bismarck's favoured watering-holes, restaurants and his tailor bearing a chequebook.

The tabloids quoted words of repentance from von Bismarck himself - "My days of living it up are all over. This past week has just been too much" - but although he was reported to be leaving to finish his studies at a German university and eventually to enter German politics, in the event he was treated again for alcoholism at a German clinic.

He returned briefly to Oxford, where local magistrates fined him £80 for drug possession; he wiped away tears as his lawyer offered mitigation, pointing out that since the Channon affair von Bismarck had received a bad press in Germany.

Doubting whether he would be able to find work in his own country, von Bismarck was said to be planning to study at a university in Los Angeles while continuing to receive treatment for his drink problem. Olivia Channon's death, his barrister said, would prove to be a shadow over von Bismarck's head "probably for the rest of his life". So it proved.

He never married.

Friends and Family

Okay, it's not so much of friends per se, but a friend in particular, JASMINE! And my little sister. Haven't been talking much about her lately, so a couple of pictures here to reiterate her existence in my pathetic life. haha~

Jasmine.


Jasmine just returned from her exchange programme in Edinbourgh and I managed to snag a slot to meet up with her. There was supposed to be another girls' outing the next day but I had to give it a miss because I had something else on, so the only way to meet up with this girl was to arrange for another time. And we just had to shop. haha~ It was the last friday of the month, and we were going to town, so we had extended shopping hours! My sister tagged along because she wanted to shop, and she was complaining that the term "midnight shopping" is highly misleading because the shops closed at midnight.

I think late night shopping should be extended to like all weekends, every friday and saturday and extended to more shopping malls because based on the number of people in town that day, I think there is a high demand for late night shopping. There were still throngs of people shopping even though some shops were already closed, but looking at the number of people in the remaining shops, it seemed like the crowd didn't disperse when shops closed, but they merely made their way to the remaining opened shops. And even when the clock struck midnight and the remaining shops were closing, it took a great deal of effort to get all the shoppers out of the shops.

Speaking of Jasmine, I just got hold of a couple of photos from Shuhui the other day which was from Jasmine's 21st birthday party last year.


Much have happened, Jasmine went on exchange and back. Nothing much happened to me even though I did have stuff that I updated the girl about that excited her a great deal. The next year up will be quite a tough one for all of us with honours year looming and a lot of stuff to do and we'll probably get swamped with work work work.

My sister on the other hand, spent her summer in the rurals of Cambodia helping build a well and kena stung by godknowswhat bugs. Then the rest of her holidays was spent studying for her June Common Tests, now that the tests are over, she's preparing to welcome a immersion student in our household. For about two weeks, this Taiwanese girl will stay with us in our house! Quite exciting, especially myself having spent four weeks with a host family in Freiburg. My sister's hoping that the girl would be a fan of Jolin Tsai or Luo Zhixiang, so that they can gush about the Taiwanese celebs together.

My sister.


This picture was taken just after she came back from Cambodia. She was damn funny. Asked if she took many pictures during her stay there, she replied that she was lazy to take pictures so there were only sporadic pictures from the first couple of days. When asked about the rest of the days, she said that a friend of hers saw that she had a camera but seldom took pictures with it and grabbed the camera from her and started taking loads of pictures for her. hahaha~ I also want this kind of friend leh, then I don't need worry that I don't turn up in my own photos.

I also feel like taking an aeroplane and just fly to somewhere and eat and relax.
Anyone care to sponsor me?

两个人的圣经

This song suddenly popped into my head. Think I've been dreaming too much about Wubai and China Blue since the video I watched yesterday. Featuring Dino with the opera vocal in this song, think this is the first and only time we hear from Dino, don't even hear from Dino in the Wubai songs, quite weird that he's only featured in another person's song. But well, this is Faye Wong, the Diva herself.

两个人的圣经
Faye Wong, featuring Dino of Wubai and China Blue

作曲:伍佰
作词:林夕

我们两个人一见如故
三言两语千变万化
七情六欲一生一世也十全十美

然后两个人一言为定
千辛万苦三更半夜
四海为家一无所有都爱一回

一间房一张床
两个人一直睡
一弹指一刹那
一辈子不翼而飞

海誓和山盟我答应视死如归
海誓对山盟我愿意望穿秋水
海誓爱山盟我拥护爱情万岁
海誓怕山盟我发誓永不后悔

最后两个人一厢情愿
一息尚存四大皆空
两人同心一样能做到
两全其美

I am very intrigued by Dino. I haven't heard him speak much, and mostly during concerts in Singapore he's greet the audience in English, even in the Da Xiao S Chi, he spoke in English and Big S replied in English. But he seems capable in speaking and comprehending quite a big of Chinese and Taiwanese. I wonder what is his preferred tongue. From is last name, I first thought perhaps he might be Iberian, but on second thoughts, I think he's more Latin American than Iberian even though Latin American would mean that his ancestors were from the Iberian peninsular. I wonder how he communicates with Wubai and the other members of China Blue.

It's so weird that I can't find much information about the personal lives of Wubai and the China Blue members. Oh well, they're selling music rather than themselves, I guess.

I Love Wubai

铁汉柔情

If not for the fact that he is already married, I'd have flown to Taiwan and marry him man. He's so manly yet so gentle, what more can a girl want?

Yup~ I'm currently watch Wu Bai on Da Xiao S Chi on Crunchyroll. Spot my comment there, I love Wubai! I love him even more~ I mean what more can girl love than a strong manly guy who's so gentle, and he cooks! He cooks "six and a half days a week" and has his own range of cooking equipment that makes me so envious, then get this, he has his own dou ban jiang. wow~

And isn't he so cute when the Big S and Small S make fun of him and jibe him and all he can do is turn shy and red and stifle an embarassed laughter. Everytime he does that I'd have this urge to just jump over and hug him. He so cute!!! Big S and Small S were repeating "tie han tie han" in front of him and he was so embarassed by it and he was trying to keep himself from laughing, omg... *Joan turns into fangirl mode*

And he's so shuai to turn up in a classic all black outfit and in adidas (wah... I'm loving him more with each passing minute) sneakers, and shades! Wahaha~ I just love him in shades, it's the epitome of shuainess. The two Ses were asking him if he buys his own groceries, and he was like, yes, but he goes to the supermarket instead of a market. Then they asked him, jokingly of course, if he carries his own basket, then he answered seriously and truthfully that he pushes a trolley instead. Then they ask him if he wears shades when cooking. hahaha~

I love Wubai~

Okay, from now on I'll watch and give a 'live' account of what I'm watching...

The two hosts prepared a fan for Wubai so that his hair can flutter in the wind just like how his hair always flutter in the wind during his concerts. hahaha~ And Wubai even gamely posed for the image in front of the fan with the wind blowing his hair. This just reminds me why I love guys with shoulder length hair, not too long, but there's some locks to play with, and it's so damn shuai shuai shuai~~~ Okay, maybe it's not all the guys with shoulder length hair that I like or I find shuai but only Wubai Laoshi. wahaha~

He's so cute when he starts cooking. He's one bunch of a nerves, so nervous with the Big S and Small S chattering around him. He goes "bu dui bu dui" every two seconds and forgets this and forgets that and the two S still keep asking him "shen me bu dui?" "wo jue de hai ok" making him a bigger bunch of nerves. He's so cute, seeing a big guy like him so flustered and everything. I want to hug him!

His first dish is a salad called "ni shi wo de sa la" which is obviously a pun of his song, but never mind that, it's still funny. Then Small S asked him why does he like eating salad, he went over and whispered in her ear that it's because he's too fat. omg... He whispered. hahaha~ He's so cute. I'm like almost hyperventilating from an overdose of Wubai-ness. Then Small S went on and poked fun of him and China Blue saying that Wubai is not fat, in relation to China Blue, there is still another one fatter than him. Then when asked if he was on diet at present, he replied that presently he's preparing the vegetables. Wah kauz...

"你觉得弹吉他还是准备这个比较难?"
"我觉得跟你们讲话比较难!"
-_-"

On Small S's singing
"反正...也不是每个人...会唱歌"
wah lau... And he say it in that embarassed that matter of fact tone.
And he had a concert on June 23 in Taiwan. Not fair not fair, I want him to come to Singapore again~

Small S is so funny la... She's the one who comes up with most of the witty lines and does all the crackpot jokes and the funny actions. She even wants Wubai to execute some weird wrestling stunt on her, and she's pregnant. wah lau eh... Three months pregnant and still want to do this kind of stuff. Even Big S was like do on her or she do on Small S but Small S still insist on Wubai doing it on her.

hahahaha~
Small S started probing him about his cooking for his family and if he'd want his significant other to like to cook too or if he cooks for her.
Then he drops the bombshell "家里只有我一个人啊！"
Small S was so stunned and bewildered then she ran over to Big S's side and they started giving each other weird stares. Then there was the words superimposed on the screen "他不是结婚了吗？"
oops...

Tabloid news: (actually I think only I'm interested in it)
Wubai is not smelly at all!
Small S was saying that once they filmed some show together and Wubai was all hot and sweaty but he was not smelly at all. Wubai also said that he realised that he's not smelly and when asked who was the smelliest in his band, he revealled that it was Dino. haha~ Imagine a hot and sweaty guy so erotic, but not smelly at all, wah~

He danced that ni shi wo de hua duo that dance! And the Small S was so funny, she kept making him dance livelier. Then he found this pair of cooking gloves very cute and started playing with it like a puppet when Small S made him dance the hua duo dance with the gloves. And he looked totally cute like that lor. It wasn't guniang, nor was it weird, with his embarassed smile and shy face, it made the whole dance cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute. And remember that remark about Dino just now, it turns out that Dino was also on the set. wah... And he was dancing with Wubai and the two Ses also, just that he was somewhat off the camera.

And he kept the CDs and concert tickets he wanted to give to the two hosts inside his cooking wok as a surprise. wah... So creative lor~ The CD was his latest compilation CD I saw at HMV this afternoon. And just last night I dreamt of Wubai. In retrospect I think that my dream was very insightful, it seemed to be telling me that I'd be seeing more of Wubai, and just nice right that day I saw his latest album in the records store, and now I'm watching him on this variety programme.

Another tabloid news:
Wubai says he wants to have kids! erm... Think it sounds quite weird because apparently his wife is very much older than him so don't know if she's still capable of bearing kids anot. But if not, wahahahaha~ Opens up the possibility of hehehe... Oh God, I should tone down my fangirlness a bit if not Someone will get jealous. oops~

Oh, that's the end of the episode already. The food don't seem to be very appetising, salad and a mapo toufu macaroni. Small S hates vegetables and milk, but Dino seems to be very hungry that he's gobbling up the food. Wubai is weird~ He's got a weird taste.

What's My Blog Rated?

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

At first I was like what the fuck la, I also don't really talk about adult stuff, no sex, no porn, nothing at all. Then I read the fine print...
"This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:
death (7x) dead (4x) anal (3x) shit (2x) suck (1x)"
erm...

I only talk about death and dead because my grandfather just passed away mah, and my computer died on me, and my phone memory card also died. But weirdly, this rathing system like didn't run a check on words like sex and porn and stuff leh... And like don't have fuck also...

Dunno... Anyway, ya, I curse and swear a lot. I am crude, I am vulgar, I am lupsup. I am everything your mother would despise. But my blog still is quite clean, no sex, no sordid stories, no porn pictures at all. Wait... My short stories, no, they are NOT erotica, so yup, NO erotica, nothing not safe for work in this blog.

Read on, have fun, ignore that rating.

Financial Woes

I didn't realise the extent of my financial discapabilities until my mother just highlighted to me that I've now one less channel of income, which came really at this very bad time when I just found out that I'm below par in my financial health due to overspending no thanks to the Great Singapore Sale.

The first warning sign came when I was cashing my purchases at Mango but my Masters couldn't get through, I had to pay by NETS. I have been boycotting NETS recently because I think that their fee hike is unjustifiable, but because my Masters couldn't get through, I had no other choice. When my Masters couldn't get through I knew with a sinking feeling that it was because my account balance ran below the minimum of $500 so needed for the Masters to get through. Immediately, armed with the remaining of my monthly allowance, I had $250 deposited into my bank account to top up my account balance to the minimum $500 so that I won't need to pay the bank levy for the month.

Side track a bit, I don't understand why does the bank charge a levy for accounts with less than $500. Isn't it because these people don't have enough money in the first place that they fall short of $500, why still add onto the financial burden? Crap... Banks only know how to make poor people unhappy and rich people happy no thanks to the so called privatisation.

Anyway, I was hoping that after depositing the $250 into my account, I'd see my balance to stand at about $600-700, but it came up to a little more than $500, even after that $250. That only meant that before my $250, I had less than $300 in my bank account. Horror of horrors!

And because I won't be getting my allowance anytime soon (I get my allowance in the mid-month), it also means that I cannot spend anything until I get my allowance, because any spending will cause my account balance to fall short of the $500 minimum. Okay la, I still have some token sum kept in my milo tin can to tide me through difficult times, but that still means that I cannot buy any more stuff unless I starve. It's still opportunity cost, if I eat I can't buy, if I buy I can't eat, and Joan being Joan would of could find it extremely difficult to resist food.

My sister says that my dire plight is due to me overeating. I've been going out close to five days a week (ie every weekday, I'd be damned if I were to go out and squeeze in the crowd on weekends) and eating out ever so often that it's no surprise that I'd be broke. This is especially so in contrast to my last vacation when I was practically a hermit hiding myself at home and watching anime all day long. But in my defense, I think that I haven't been overeating. Yes, I've been eating out a lot but I haven't been spending as much on food as I usually do because because I don't, I know it. With my allowance, my budget on food should have been more than enough for me. So where did the money go to?

I think it went to basically four places, The Body Shop, Mango, Zara, and Comfort delGro.

I just busted more than $110 at The Body Shop buying godknowswhat. I was at AMKHub looking at the stuff there when I picked out some essentials such as facial wash and make up remover and the bill came up to $40-50. The very helpful salesgirl then proceeded to tell me that I should top up my purchases to $65 to get a free gift set worth $50+. Joan being Joan decided to pick up some make up which she uses daily but already have spares at home. The bill came up to $80+ but she was happy because the free gift set was worth $50+. So now Joan has TWO free gift sets at home because the last time The Body Shop had a similiar promotion and Joan overspent to get that other $50 gift set, thank you very much. Anyone wants a Grapefruit gift set or a make up gift set please let me know, I'm willing to SELL, price negotiable. The story doesn't end there because later that evening, I was with my sister at Parkway when we saw another promotion. My sister wanted to pick up the perfume set, but because The Body Shop have another deadly thing called the stamp rewards, I decided to buy some other stuff to top up the purchase to $30 to get another stamp. At this rate, I will definitely be able to qualify for yet another year of free Love Your Body STAR LOYALTY membership.

Mango and Zara sucked my money in the usual fashion, pun not intended but left because it's so apt. The usual Mango sales, Zara sales, Joan enjoying a horizontal growth sprout, Joan need more clothes to accommodate her new size, Joan buys clothes, Joan buys more clothes, Joan becomes broke. Total damage came close to $200, but but but, it's still okay la, since the original price of those clothes would have came up to $300++ so still worth it la. And besides, the new semester is coming up and I'd be needing more clothes to wear, especially when I don't have the luxury of a three day week next semester.

Comfort delGro earned a ton of money from me because I started paying my cab fares with my Masters hoping that I can win something in their Mastercard Promotions stuff. And also because I seemed to always be running late for my appointments because I've been sleeping late, and well, sleeping late. I don't know how much I spent on these cab fares, and I don't want to find out. grr... I shall not be opening up my Masters statement for this month.

After all these major spending, it's no wonder that money can disappear from my hands just like that. grr... I hate going cashless, it's so convenient, it's too convenient.

Another reason for my severe financial woes is also because I started a savings programme. Ya, weird right, because I'm saving I'm broke. It's like those kind of monthly investment, you need to pay a premium every month to save, and because you need to set aside this sum of money, the disposable income is greatly reduced. I'm not so advanced in my savings programme la, my savings programme is the traditional and conventional piggy bank. Because I managed to clear my table of stuff, I managed to unearth my piggy back previously for the past twelve months or so hidden under piles and piles of worksheets. I'm now putting ALL my loose change into the piggy bank. Although it might be loose change, but if there happens to be dollar coins, then my daily savings is actually pretty high, on very good days I can be saving up to $4 a day. This was actually a savings programme I devised when I was a secondary school kid, and I was saving a lot of money using that method, hence after eight years, I decided to try it again. As a long term plan, I can be richer.

Actually, it's not really that long term since I plan to count my money and hopefully get about $200 from it and stuff it in my savings account because of the loss of one of my channels of income. This is needed to replace that channel.

Yes, if you're following my blog you'd know that my grandfather recently passed away. My grandfather used to give me money every month to save. My mother would force me to save the additional income from my grandfather because she knows that I don't save. I try not to dip into that pot of money but there are times when I overspend and I'd dip into that reserve. Now, after his passing, I'd be cut of this savings reserve and financially, I've nothing to fall back on if I don't save and I overspend. Hence, there's the need for the above mentioned savings plan and the need to create another pot of reserves.

I don't know why but a lot of people seem to have this warped idea that if I overspend I can just stretch out my hand to ask for money from my parents. I'm sorry to disappoint, but even though I'm one spoilt girl, that's not the way how things work. I'm proud to say that ever since I started receiving allowance in Primary One, I never asked for more money from the parents to tide my overspending. Yes, sometimes I'd ask my parents to pay for stuff, but that's the other way round, I need to buy something but I don't have enough money so I ask from them, and not because I am in debt that I need to get money from time. Right now, most of the stuff that I'm buying are not things that I'd ask my parents to buy for me, in fact, now I don't even ask my parents to buy anything for me. I may be a spoilt brat, but I'm financially responsible.

With regard to my financial plight, I'm not really that hard up for cash, just a little unhealthier than usual but I'm in no means of poverty, so no worries about me. I can still go out as often just that I cannot indulge nor can I buy anything that I don't need, which is that I not buy anything at all.

Just two more weeks to endure~