Post Boxing Day

It's nice to be able to just hang out on Christmas and Boxing days without the stress that comes with wondering what to give who and so on. Most people are indoors anyway, and the streets are well, relatively empty, especially when you head out for Christmas service early in the morning. Forget about the city centre, it'd be bedlam from the looks of things.
Met up with EO and headed out to relive certain aspects of childhood...

Yeah, there are console boxes out there that promise to spin you 360 degrees and all, and dual/triple/Polygal processors and all that, but there is a certain raw feel of the arcade (not forgetting the noise that comes with it) that draws one to it...never mind the price they charge per game...cos' by the time you actually do complete the game...you'd probably be able to afford a couple of them latest consoles out there 3 times over...
But yeah, Christmas and boxing day this year went by pretty quietly. And that isn't such a bad thing.

Commence

The holiday season has officially begun, for me at least. Taking time out for what has been a mad year. Easing things down a little, with some small scale project - Mixed media, metal, plastic etc. It's nice to be able to build stuff deep into the night (or early in the morning, say, round 5 am), take a quick crash, then wake up again and continue. No datelines, mad proposals, reports and the whole hullabaloo - It's back to basics, back to the simple life.

To Home and HALO

We've been chanting this cheer since the days we were in Europe. Well, now the day finally came where the 8 of us gathered for some electronic mayhem in Bukit Batok. To start things off on a right note...we decided to settle for nothing less than the best of what the land of gourmet coffee culture had to offer. Couple that to some spiffy German engineering, and you get yourself four good cups o' strong brewed espresso.

Then we let the games begin. Blue Team fared pretty well. All that training did do us some good.
But all that action meant too that we had to have an all round replenishment exercise to combat dehydration...and not to mention decalcification brought about by the sheer amounts of espresso we were downing...

The whole event started in earnest at round 2130 hours, and didn't end till the following morning at round 0430 hours. The final survivors....+K, Jackrabbit and myself. Not bad, not bad at all.

Island, Due South

Alivestyle Retreat it was called. The resort called it Alirestyle Retreat. Call it whatever they may, it was a good break from the usual scheme of things on this tiny City State south of a certain Peninsula. This stone statue was a recent construct...but admittedly, it's really well done, especially the eyes. I've seen worse renditions of it. In any case, this evening is going to be one mad HALO slugfest, as the European trained team takes on the local experts.

Monkey Kong

Caught that Giant Ape movie tonight. Turned out much better than I had expected, considering the fact that the same theme had been done a couple of times over...so it was really making me itch to see how Peter Jackson's take on this classic would be --- Well done. Perhaps it helped that the cast was pretty well selected. Watts did a fantastic job as Ann Darrow, and Jack Black...well, he fitted the role pretty well. But I can't help but feel Adrien Brody was a little bit of an extra... no doubt he was probably much better in The Pianist...but in Kong....well, the Gorilla won my vote. Come to think of it, the ending was done rather tastefully...no heart wrenching gore etc...but they got the message across pretty clearly...at the end of it all, Kong really grows on you.

Driving home, I was rather impressed that roadworks were in full swing. Just about every junction/corner I rounded, there were hazard lights, pylons, gas heated tar tins and all. In fact, right from the time I rounded the exit of the carpark, there were already workers pounding away at the ground with pneumatic drills. To be honest, it really makes more sense to do the roadworks at NIGHT, and not in the day, as was the case along many stretches of the Autobahn...it just doesn't make sense to have them blocking off the lanes in the day and make people EXPECT jams to happen...well, one of the few gripes I have about there. But hey, I'm back here, and I'm not really complaining. On the roads here, the infrastructure is really top notch.

Aluminium or Aluminum

Either way, this cake is here to stay. The Legendary RT (and to be honest, the legend is no match for the real thing) sure knows how to make the cake when it comes to whipping up culinary delights at short notice. The undisputed Queen of the Kitchen, this Yam Cake was served up today for an office meeting. Needless to say, when we were done, there wasn't much left save some slivers of aluminium from the tray. I wouldn't recommend eating THOSE metal slivers...but anything else by the RT Culinary Collective Department, you'd have the entire office forming a beeline for them. Pictures courtesy of Puff's recently acquired Digital Photography skills, which, in my opinion, is set to become one mighty imaging force to be reckoned with. Stay tuned.

Appliances

Kitchen appliances these days have a knack of looking very much like something else other than that which they were originally designed for. I'm no nuclear physicist, but this recent contraption I got certainly got me into thinking I had a fusion turbine running in my kitchen when I switched it on. It claims to cook the food faster with some IR/Halogen/or Laser Beam (good gracious!) technology that is supposed to cut down the cooking time by up to 20 %. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. All I know is that with this thing on, I don't need kitchen lights...that is not until the thermostat kicks in...then all that feel good science fiction goes out the window.

Macro View

When you think about it, it really is quite amazing what one can do with a lump of PVC. Icons of Japanese Anime like this Zaku (everyone's favorite baddy) that fit in the palm of your hands are all essentially highly fashioned chunks of plastic. But there is something about the snout, power conduit hoses, domed head and intricate pseudo-mechanical constructs around this bust that gives it that odd aesthetic appeal, enough for me at least do an ad hoc macro study of it.

Three Lights

Weekend Crowds

Amidst the mayhem that the city has come to be, this Christmas season still has it's fair share of quiet reprieve despite all that, if you'd just take a little time to seek them out. But what I find most remarkable today, was the fact that I ran into two persons whom I ran into really often in the University Cafe but never quite got around to getting acquainted with them in person. 10,000 km and 2 years later, I finally got to know Y & K who are now here under the auspices of research in the Biopolis, as we shook hands at the fountain of Raffles City. How is it that such chance meetings half way round the world occurs? I don't know, but it sure is fab.

The way I see it, it's Christmas, and THAT is something to be glad about.

Day Shoot

G and L's wedding shoot. Did a little bit of an on location stint. It was more tiring than I had thought it to be. I must be getting old...

Speaking of which, I managed to get the shot above though, which was somewhat of a throw back to the O Level days where we had to take photography as one of the papers...

But as always, it was good to return to some home cooked food, semi self serviced. It ain't fondue, but steamboat definitely cuts it here in the Tropics. You sweat it out whilst you eat, so that you don't need to AFTER you are done with it.

Freedom Is...

When you think about it, it's sometimes the simple things in life that count. Being able to meet up with an old friend for coffee as the opportunity permits, getting together for a study of the Word with some of the most humble people around. And just taking in the simple sights around you. Occasionally, you run into some of the urban oddities (like the things people do to their cars...)

Else, it is the smell of the air around you, the sounds of an evening sunset near one of the busiest ports in South East Asia and just soaking in the mood of the moment with some local brew...

...and then come home to the sounds of some soothing grooves---it's hard to beat.

Geography in Secondary

Was rummaging through heaps and heaps of old notes, textbooks and scribbles of stuff I used to do during O levels. Humanities, Physics, Chemistry...the works. Just reading the stuff that I used to write is simply...odd (for the lack of a better word). It seemed like I was transported back in time, that hour that I spent outdoors, wading through all those manuscripts penned during those school days. The thing about sorting out stuff like that is that it is a battle between sentimentality and practicality. I didn't have too hard a time with it though. I figured I'd sort out half tonight, then figure out the rest tomorrow. The torrential rain overnight washed everything away...

Ministry of Sound

The room is now a sound garden, thanks to the efforts of Sonix Bluefish, local Chief of Sonic Acquisitions. VS4121. It's a little "old skool", but dollar for dollar, this kit delivers more than her fair share of aural treats. It's been a while since I've played around with 2.1 Speakers...but it sure feels good to be back in the thick of it.

Fade to Black

It is nice to be able to wake up to a bright contrasty flood-your-retinas-out sunshine with blue skies. I could do with plenty of that all year round. It just can't rain all the time.


Then you weather through the day pretty much on cruise control (weekends aren't like they used to be anymore shuttling from one end of town to another ) with a relatively laid back chill with some friends (or beer....whichever takes one's fancy...save the fact that a cold one tends to leave the afternoons really rough to handle). That aside, we (namely EO and wife, with Bossa Nova Gal and me) headed indoors to some random TCC outlet to just hang out and ease ourselves a bit after one mad Sushi binge.


The trappings of urban living.






EO never ceases to amaze me at the way he grabs life by the horns and lives it up. Fresh out from a week long reserve stint (and he has to be back again the next day), he managed still to fuel his need for plastic (as I would readily admit too...that I am guilty as charged of having the same addiction). After what appeared to be a rather lost and convoluted design path taken by one of the original designers of the iconic Japanese Anime Mobile Suit Gundam's mechanical designers, it seems that the new chaps at the helm of the new Advance of Zeta series is finally returning to the roots of some serious, knock out, undeniably solid mechanical designs with the Hazel TR-121 giant robot designs (Mobile Suits to the purists). Thank heavens for this renaissance. Let's hope it stays.

Weekend

Once more, the time of the week you feel more energised than when you started it! Of course, a little caffeine helps.


Then it was off to dinner and dessert with the crew, namely The Jackrabbit, Red Tim', Tap, Sonix Bluefish and Missus and resident Snapper- Greasemonkey. They say you can tell a fair bit about a person just by looking at their feet...well, we decided to take one of those pictures of what their feet wear...and so here's how it turned out.

There was the usual action figure acquisition run...this time, it hauled up this:

Ahhh, reliving those childhood days...green monsters/robots/pirates/villains/baddies always looking cooler than goodie-goodguys underdogs type...and there's no denying in the world of Mobile Suit Gundam, them Zakus, Doms, Gelgoogs and whachamacallits definitely look more slick.

Definitely nice too, to have one of these iconic action figures hopping around in the office too...

Dinner Out

Met up with ML and YL for dinner. Been quite a while since we've met. The thing about cooking is that it's actually a rather versatile social vehicle of sorts. Worked out pretty well. As an extra: An aerial view of the city skyline. Not a bad deal at all.

This is December

The last month of the year. You know it when the office is under-strengthed. Gone is the random chatter that permeates the air around you. Most of the folks are on leave. But at least things spring into action at a moments notice (especially if Boss activates the department-then even those on leave do a Formula One drive/Daytona/World Rally Championship sprint to work) and get things sorted. Welcome back to the way things work here. I reckon it's a season for change.