Lancer Dancer....

Aaahh.. having quite a lot of spare time recently.... so what have i been doing?? Seems that i've been spending alot of time reading up on cars in the Singapore Lancer Club forum... like got soooooo many ways to beautify, personalise, and more accurately, "ZHENG" your car!! Of course all of that costs $$$ and THAT i don't have alot of.... that said.. here are some of the things i got for the nice RED Lancer recently!!


"Singapore's best mix!!"

Yay!! After months of trying to get my hands on one of the Class 95 decals... i finally got one from Yas (Love Songs on Class 95) at Robertson Walk while i was on TOIL a fortnight ago!! And of course... it was free and that made it all the more satisfying!! Why the craze for this decal you may ask?? Well that i'm not really sure.... i'm thinking it's probably coz i love displaying my support for things i feel passionate about... (think the Man U decals on my car.... haha)


More recently though, i managed to get my interior dashboard lights changedto RED! Some dude on SLC (Aeronic) was helping to do up diff colours to get rid of the typical, boring white numbers and dials on the speedometer and being the rash person that i am, i went to do it while my parents were out at a cruise... hahah


"Now does this look like a happening dashboard or what?"

Needless to say, i'm pretty happy about how it's turned out!! It cost me a princely sum of $55 but so far, it's been worth it and i enjoy night driving alot more now coz of these cool lights! Ok it may not be as pretty as Zhibo's Honda dials but i'm way fine with how mine looks now! Hee... anyone interested can ask me for the contacts!!


"Red and Blue... nice and cool!"

Ha! On unofficial TOIL today man!!! Recent work weeks have been getting shorter and shorter for me and it's a really good sign that peak is coming to an end! Hope that the rest of the guys are doing just as fine as me though... ONE MORE JOB before i become an SA1!!!


So... since i am on TOIL, and i have no one to meet coz everyone's still pia-ing away.... what should i do?? Well, today i decided to go to SIR (Singapore Immigration something-something) to take Passport Size photos for my resu... erm.. i mean ICPAS Application form. Supposed to go for the swearing in on Tuesday and a photo of me had to be pasted on the form... but the only photo i could find at home after digging and digging was this...


"Chao Ah Beng"

Yes... besides the fact that the person doesn't look like me because of the specs, long hair and skinny face, i don't think anyone wearing a soccer jersey can make ANY kind of impression on the people looking at the photo. If you can tell, this photo was taken at the Canteen B Instant Photo Machine right beside the computer shop... Eight Flags right?? (Whatever that means....) Anyway yea.. you get the idea la.. i needed a new photo.. and SIR has the cheapest photos around... $5.25 for 4 pics... which i'm gonna scan and keep forever and ever i think... hahah.. anyway here's how the pic turned out....


"LESS-chao Ah Beng"

Fug. I know la... you must be saying, with THIS pic i probably won't get a job either!! But at least it looks more like me right now doesn't it? DOESN'T IT?!?! BTW i wore a shirt together with Three-Quarters today so that i could dress relaxed and yet, be able to take a nice professional (ok CLOSE to professional) pic. Cool eh??



PS: If you look closely, you will see that in both pics, my right eyebrow is slightly higher than my left. This is due to doing too many impressions of Jim Carrey's "Raise-Eyebrow-Coz-I'm-Puzzled" look. It does get permanant after a while so please kids...

DON'T TRY THAT AT HOME.

Better late than never...

Haiz... in just a blink of an eye... in the small space of a birthday weekend... i have made the BIG STEP... from the Mid-Twenties... into the LATE-Twenties!!! Argh.... i seem to be feeling worse and worse every birthday since my graduation man... maybe it's because i don't wanna grow up... like Peter Pan... or maybe it's coz birthdays weren't what they used to be anymore.

Remember the days when you just couldn't wait for your next birthday? So that you could throw a big party at McDonalds (i never could coz it was too ex) or anywhere else for that matter? So that you'll get all the presents from your family and friends and you'd be having that rush whenever you were opening presents? Sighz... those really were the days..

For most of us now, a birthday means simply, a year older... another step into the unknown world of... *gulp*.... MATURITY. With it comes more responsibilities, power (if you're Spiderman), stress, worries... everything you never gave a thought about when you were a kid. I guess it's about time i've started thinking about what i'm doing with my life and what i'm going to do.. coz i can't run away from the fact that i'm NOT Peter Pan....

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Highs and Lows from my Birthday Weekend

High 1: Sharon surprising me on Thursday night with a birthday cake at my house.


"Hooray! One year old!!"

Ok it wasn't THAT big a cake but it was filled with love and sincerity if you ask me. :) Oh yea... i forgot to mention.. i was out having supper by myself when she came at midnight and had to wait for me to reach home after i finished my bowl of Laksa. Dang. The thought still counts though doesn't it?

High 2: NMB team surprising me on Friday afternoon with a birthday cake at work.

Yes! At work!! The last place i'd ever expect anyone to bother with my birthday... especially when everyone's always looking so stressed and busy (some more than others... :P). Alot of the credit had to go to my "CEO" Low Lay Leng... who actually came up with the idea and made all this happen. Thanks Low Lay (oops... that don't qualify you as a LOW)!!!!

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Low 1: 26 years old.

Help. I feel my youth is dissipating.

Low 2: Working on Saturday.

Did i mention i hate working on weekends? Did i mention i hate working FULL DAYS on weekends? Did i mention i hate working?

Low 3: Norwich trashing United 2-0.

There are good days in football, and there are bad days.... but in no uncertain terms, this was a totally FUGGED up day. The worst performance from United i can remember in a looooong time... toothless strikers... lost midfilders and brainless squad members. Future is looking bleak barring a miracle.

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As you can see from the Net Effect above, i had a lousy weekend. And i don't think my birthday weekends in the near future will get any better too, as i roll toward the big 3-0. Unbelievable.

First Timer...

Damn.... 3 days of Leave and Off went by in the blink of an eye.... haiz.... anyway, today i managed to go to 2 places for the FIRST TIME ever in the 26 yrs of my life!! Talk about making fool... i mean full use of my time eh....


First Time no. 1: Tanjong Pagar Train Station
No you dodos... it's not that i've never taken the West side of the MRT before!! I'm talking about the Railway Station!! Yes... for those of you that do not know, there IS a Snail Rail in S'pore... right at Tanjong Pagar next to Keppel Road! After sending my parents and Sharon to work, i decided to go check it out....


"Isn't Tanjong Pagar an underground station?"

Looks really old from the outside doesn't it?? Well it is coz it's many many many years old (which means i dunno how old la...). From the inside it also looks like an old Subway... which i'm sure you've seen countless times on movies.... the most notable for me is the scene with Cyclops and Storm battling it out in X-Men, and more recently, Spidey going against Doc Ock at the bank... don't you think the settings look eerily similar?? Hmmm...


"Where's X-Men and Spidey?"

Anyhows, the main reason for me coming over was coz of Vernon (Rey's bro), who was telling us about some power Nasi Lemak in this very station a few weeks ago during soccer. Sure enough, i found the Nasi place and i must say, for 2 bugs, it's a great deal... tasty Nasi with Ikan Bilis, egg and Chicken Wing, and tons of chilli to go with it!! Yumz....

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First Time no. 2: Subordinate Courts
Yes. Today, for the first time, i made a trip to the Subordinate Courts. Why?? Well i can't go much into details as i'm sworn to secrecy, but all i can say is that someone i know was caught driving without a license, and as a result had to appear in court for her... SENTENCING!!

Making my way there was easy... however, as i was about step in.. i got the feeling that i've seen this exact scene, somewhere, somehow....


"This dude's taking a piss with the Law..."

Obviously... with another look, i realised its what i always see on telly especially during the news when they talk about so-and-so going for trials and stuff... also, i realise that numerous Chinese Drama Serials also have film sequences outside here! Talk about overused....

Oh yea... this being my first time at the Subordinate Courts, i didn't really know what to wear. As such, I decided to go in a more formal attire than what you normally see me wearing on mornings...


"MY definition of formal."

Yup. I wore 3/4 pants, and a Man Utd jersey! And yes... they let me in... although i was the only one dressed like that. Talk about cool eh? :P


PS. The person was fined $1.4k, and banned from driving for 18 months. Let this be a lesson to all you driver wannabes yea? And wait.... how to u ban someone from driving if he/she doesn't even HAVE a license?!?!?

The Monitor.

Haiz.... just when my leave started on Monday and i was wondering what to do with my time, my monitor had to act up and just DIE in the morning man. Yes... all i did was send my parents to work and i think it finally gave in due to old age and poor maintenance (i hate monitoring monitors...).

Anywayz, with my life perpetually on hold without a computer to use, i had no choice but to get a new one... and that was Mission One of my leave. That said, i was hoping to find a place to trade-in / dispose my old monitor too... but i must tell you, CRT monitors are just about the HEAVIEST things around... if you don't count the Reynolds and Zhanwens that is....


"In Good Company"

It took a hell of a struggle but i managed to get it into the car.. (and it's STILL there today BTW). Off to Sim Lim for a good deal then... and amazingly Reynold found spare time to join me on this mini shopping trip!


I must say my Samsung D500 phone has been very very impressive so far, and it had quite a say in the brand of LCD monitors i was looking at (don't ask me WHY). After 3 rounds of looking and trying to bargain (unsuccessfully i must say), i ended up with a Samsung 710N for $419. A good buy for a 17" Monitor with a 12ms response rate plus $30 worth of shopping vouchers at Giant / Cold Storage /Marketplace, etc... which i gave to my mum of course!




Ok ok mine doesn't have any Aussie surfbabes, and mine is BLACK in colour... but it's still brilliant, as you can see in the pic below!! It fits right in with my ultra-clustered table and actually gives me space to eat my dinner in front of the screen!! Woohoo!! Goodbye to rice and noodles in my keyboard then.....


"Slim and err... FLAT is beautiful..."

A very good buy i must say... if you're interested go have a look at the reviews and stuff... the LCD era is IN!!!

WET WET WET....

Yup the weekend was a total washout man.... with heavy rain on Sat and Sun, this was one of those "Non-Blading" weekends.... which is starting to get more and more common... argh... anyway, i still managed to get SOME things done despite the downpour... with some Highs and Lows along the way...

Low Point no. 1:
Coming to work on a Saturday at 930am.
Yes amazingly i had to... and yet again to do some follow-up stuff... argh... this job is like never-ending man.... client is really an ass... making changes and amendments to their accounts and giving it to us on Fri nite, and expecting us to get the Annual Report out by Monday. What fuggers... in the end i had to come back and help out by putting through the amendments and updating the accounts. That took me 4 hours and at 2 plus, i was done and it was down to client to update THEIR side of the accounts. Yu Hua came along to take over me for the afternoon but it was a seemingly wasted trip as client was only ready at 6-7. Ridiculous.

Low Point no. 2:
Man Utd drawing with stoopid Blackburn.
Their 6th goalless draw of the season, and proof once again that they don't have the cutting edge to finish off smaller teams despite dominating. I really smell changes coming... don't think i'll like it but Fergie knows what has to be done.

High point no. 1:
Karin's solemnisation!
Finally.. one of my JC friends has tied the knot!! Karin, who's been with Paul for some time already, can finally call herself Mrs Tan... it's kinda spooky seeing how she is, in a way, one level of maturity higher than the rest of us (actually i don't think ANYONE in our group is mature), and thinking anyone of us could be next in line. True enough i got alot of stick as everyone expects me to be next... but like i always say, it could just be ANYONE. (all it takes is a mistake... hahah)

High point no. 2:
Learning Spanglish
Caught quite a heart warming show today with Wen and Celia, Spanglish. A film about a Mexican woman trying to fit into an American family and the trials and tribulations of BEING in an American family.



Starring Adam Sandler in a non-comedy role (i STILL can't help laughing whenever i see him on screen though) and chio babe Tea Leoni, i would say it isn't brilliant but it does tug at the heart strings here and there. Catch it if you have spare time and spare... CASH. Speaking of which, the coming rise in ticket prices is just encouraging PIRACY MAN!!!!


In other news of note though, the great Pope John Paul II has passed on during the weekend and the world is trying to come to grips with his passing. It's sad that such a man of genuine warmth and kindness has to go, but i believe it is a cause for celebration, as we all know the Lord has finally called him to join in his Kingdom and he of all people deserves it. That said, all our thoughts and prayers are with him... and he will ALWAYS be remembered.




PS: Sundays feel great when you are on Leave on Mondays. Woohoo!