Meet Up with the SR / TK Girls

After a very long time, Raudha, Noraida and I, met up. And I'm truly glad we did. We were good back then and the times we spent together were nothing less than awesome!

Our first stop was this place, Strictly Pancakes, which serves delicious pancakes with everything delicious that you can think of.

Raudha's Potatoes Leeking Cheese.

My Beef Me Up.

Noraida's Garlic Buttered Prawns.

Not only are the dishes delicious, but I love their presentation of each dish as well. Not bad for a quaint, barely noticeable eatery.

We then headed to Ion for some stationary and make-up shopping. Next stop was Haji Lane for obvious reasons of course, more shopping.

My new travel companion.

I love how stunning this colour is! A steal at $35!

Till the next time girls! I love ya'll much much!

Narnia 3 Review

I've had a major (over)dose of fantasy these past couple of months. In eager anticipation of Harry Potter 7 Part 1, I had to catch up by watching the other movies. The Goblet of Fire is still my absolute favourite of the lot, with The Order of the Phoenix coming a close second. For The Chronicles of Narnia 3, I had but to watch the first two movies to catch up with the latest installment. How else would anything make any sense? I've not read the books nor do I intend to, so I had to rely on the movies to follow the sequence of events.

Now that Harry Potter will be old news sometime mid of next year, I'm guessing the Narnia series will take over the throne unless of course some other fantasy flick / series reveals itself. There's like what, 4 or 5 to go?

The Narnia series has a pretty simplistic plot and is easy to follow. The difficulty, without compromising the plot, is that it has way too many characters and it takes you a while to keep up. I love the special effects for this one. My favourite CGI would be Aslan, of course. He has such an aura about him and you cannot but hold your breath to try to absorb all which he says. And AND there's a dragon! A fire-breathing dragon! The richness of the effects astounded me, I'm sure you can tell.

The only flaw, but not a major one, is that very quickly the pace of the action scenes quickens and you find yourself darting your eyes to keep up. Somewhere near the end or 3/4 way through, things slow down and you can digest what had passed and what's to come.

My favourite character would have to be the annoying, whiny, rather spoiled Eustace. The actor who played him, Will Poulter, in my opinion, played the role to perfection without over-acting one bit. He made the movie, without a doubt as he played a very valuable character in a good portion of the films. New guy, doubts himself, but finds courage and saves the day. It's such a pity that he dies in the series. I would love to see how his character develops.

My verdict? A must see.

Food That Never Dies

I came across this link and it is scary. As if watching Fast Food Nation didn't gross me out enough. A NYC photographer created a Happy Meal Project by photographing the meal everyday for 6 months (180 days). Yes, she left the meal (burger and fries) on a table, waiting to see what happens. As the days pass, you will notice that the meal looks the same. No mould, no bugs, no worms. She commented that the smell of the meal disappeared after 2 days. Others who tried a similar experiment commented that even their pets (dogs etc) would refuse to go near the meal even after a day of it being left out. Still hungry for a cheap, quick meal?

How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You

I love this link! Cats are awesome and this proves it.

NE Show 2010

The NE show sucked ass. This is my first so I'm not making a comparison but as a stand-alone event, it was terrible! I hated that they pop-ified all the traditional songs and killed the patriotism that I used to feel. They had the mobiles and they made it look like it was Chingay instead of a National Day Parade. The only fascinating thing about the event was the flypast! Even the videos that they showed were badly done... it was of Singaporeans f-ing up the pledge!?

The weather was good though.

I spent the majority of the time chatting with the boys, eating their snacks (which they offered!) and pasting the tattoos on them. The funniest bit was when I got trapped when I was returning to my seat and the boys decided to embarrass me by singing to me out loud! The gaps in between the rows of seats are very narrow forcing you to almost walk along the path like it's a tightrope. But with the funpacks and the boys own bags, it was like leaping over hurdles. At one point, this kid from choir, grabbed my hand and started singing Sing A Song for Singapore - the theme song for this year's NDP. Then the 2 rows of classes turned to me to see what the commotion was and... they joined in!! So now I had 2 classes belting out the chorus to me at the top of their voices *blush* One kid even changed the lyrics to Sing A Song to Ms Parveen. I wanted to die. There were other schools present too.

But yea. That's my take home of the parade. I bonded with the boys instead of the nation.

I Can't Be A Celebrity

I'm very surprised I survived this week and can live to tell the tale.

I spent my Monday night working on a Stress video... yes, the irony. But I am very proud of it. I hope the boys enjoy it! And I hope I get the recognition for it too.

Tuesday: I had dinner with Serena near Mustafa as she was craving for Indian food. Heh. I love her so much! She has so much life and warmth about her, that meeting her always perks me up. She's leaving the country soon... for a guy! I think that is both brave and romantic, something which I'm pretty sure I would never ever do. That's what I love most about her. She has this if I don't try, I will never know attitude. How cool is that? The days at IJTP were memorable because of her.

Wednesday: I had dinner with Ismadi at my usual 2 pit stops at Arab Street. It is always awesome to meet up with my NIE bff. Heh. We can't stop talking about Star Wars or his travels. He brings out the adventurous geek in me.

Thursday: I had dinner with David at Thai Express and then we proceeded onto my favourite dessert stall. Hey, any moment with The Best Friend is awesome. He's trying to convince me to a Scrubs addict but I'm like meh... It can't beat How I Met Your Mother and it definitely can't even be half as funny as The Big Bang Theory. We shall see...

Friday: I had basketball CCA till 4pm then I met Aqil for dinner at Ichiban Sushi. It was really good that I met him. We had such a fantastic talk and I'm so much saner after it. The next few days, thinking about could-have-been is going to kill me. I'm deeply bummed out by what happened. But oh well, we move on.

In a nutshell, I had Indian, Turkish, Thai & Japanese cuisine all in a week. God, I'm such a glutton!

Gah. I should get ready. I'm taking the P5 boys for the NE show. I'm only excited because this is my first NE show and I'm going with the Goodness boys!! *blush*

Meats and Sweets

Today was spectacular. Well, after school was spectacular, not during. We didn't have Contact Time (Yippee!) but we were told to organise our own interest groups. A colleague and I needed to head down to the Concourse to get some traditional games for RHD and the rest of them wanted to eat. So I suggested for us to make our way to Arab Street since I had plans to go to the Concourse. We coined that, our "Learning More About Arab Culture" interest group. Yea. We are so full of it!!

I absolutely love this place, Amirah's Grill. They know how to prepare their meats. Every meat dish served has been absolutely delicious and the portions are sufficient to fill you up, but not too much. I love their lamb dishes the best but I would avoid the saffron rice. If you're a meat-lover like I am, you must go to this joint.

Not sure if you can see from the pic, but this place is also Egyptian-themed! And Nefertiti is on the entrance as well as on their business cards!! Mere coincidence that I absolutely love this place! True story.

For dessert, I took my colleagues 2 shops down the row for some good old-fashioned baklava and apple tea. I love the ambience and the decor at Alaturka. That was THE life that we were having right at that moment and I'm glad they enjoyed the places I recommended. It's totally an Indian thing to want to feed and satisfy the masses!

I never tried any of their main dishes as I solely reserved this spot for my desserts. Amanda was hungry so we shared a dish. This minced lamb and beef with Turkish bread was extremely delicious. It was like chomping into a really well-herbed hamburger. It made me recall the scene from HIMYM where Marshall was on the search for the Best Burger in New York. As I was savouring each bite, I felt as if everything about me was in slow motion. Another true story.

So there you have it. A very satisfied bunch of women who love their meats and sweets.

Location Matters

Jayne took me out to lunch today and it was nice to meet up with her again. She's such a wonderful person to be around and she is so full of life! What else to eat, but our favourite sushi! Come to think of it, we always have sushi when we meet up. I dislike Sakae a whole lot. If you want terrible tasting overpriced Jap food, Sakae is the place to go. Plus, the service is terrible. I have only tried Ichiban twice but I have to say the service is efficient and the food is tasty. But the outlet's always crowded!

M.I.A

It has been way too long. But I have a reasonable explanation for my absence. I've been real happy and not terribly annoyed of late. Yup. I blog when something pisses the hell out of me or gets on my nerves.

You know what I mean. You call up a friend to rant / bitch / whine and not so much to share the good news. Listening to your friends' woes / troubles / conflict is always much more interesting than listening to their good times. It's the same for me too. I'm pretty sure you'd be bored if I started going on about how good my day / week / life has been. You want to hear me mad, upset and raving about something. I do get bored writing happy stories anyway. So it's win-win.

But I do have some entries on draft. Yea, I keep my entries on draft until I'm satisfied with them and feel comfortable enough to share them with the world. The world? Who am I kidding? Very few out there know of this blog. Hello "World"!!

I want to share this link with you. I salute her for her genius and her creativity. This is reality, my friends. The whole Happily Ever After that you've grown up with or have been told to believe, is BULLSHIT. True story.

We Don't All Love Barney

Not Barney Stinson. Everyone should love him. He is LEGEN...wait for it...DARY! *grins* I am talking about the purple dinosaur. Yes, I cringed too.

WARNING: This is not for the faint-hearted or the immature or the easily influenced. Some of you may get offended with the contents of this entry. I just want to say that you have been warned and I shall not be blamed for the effects of what you are about to read may cause.

I will first share with you a video. It at first seems harmless; I mean IT is teaching not to let the water from the faucet run when one is brushing the teeth. But focus on the actual action of the brushing and what the poor boy was made to mime. To be more specific, how he mimed the action. If I were him, I'd join a witness protection program and dye my hair. CLICK.

Then there's this (below) which I don't find to be funny at all but it is obvious that whoever "discovered" the finding has no life. Yes, I use the word discovered very loosely. But I am generous, so I will share it with you, nonetheless.

1. Barney is well-described with the following phrase:

CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR

2. The old Latin alphabet used the letter 'V' in place of 'U', therefore the above phrase is modified to:

CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR

3. Letters that do not represent Roman numerals are removed:

CV-- -V--L- DI----V-

4. Add up the Roman numerals of the remaining letters:

C + V + V + L + D + I + V

100 + 5 + 5 + 50 + 500 + 1 + 5 = 666

Yea. Whatever *rolls eyes*. Now what I have to share with you next, will keep you entertained for hours on end. I know I was.

(sung to the tune of the original)

I hate you, you hate me,

Let's all go and shoot Barney.

With a gunshot, BANG BANG, Barney on the floor.

No more purple dinosaur.

I love you, you love me,

Homosexuality.

With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you,

Don't you know we're lesbians too?

Don't take it to heart. This is meant to be light-hearted and I am just poking some (more like "alot of") fun at the creature. I take no credit for the above songs, they're like campfire songs I heard from the day.

Check with your BFF (Google) and you'll find tons more!

Looks Like It Could Be A Good 2010

We have Green Day and Imogen Heap coming down next year. Best Friend is a fan of both, just like me, so we're going to have a smashing good time at both concerts, I'm sure.

His sources tell him that the Foo Fighters are coming down sometime in June 2010. I searched about almost everywhere and turned up with nothing. I've signed up to so many sites so that I'd get notified when they list a new concert venue.

If they do in fact come down HERE - TO SINGAPORE - next year, I will die die catch them, and then I can die a happy person. True story.

*edit Happy birthday, Dude. Enjoy your trip!

The Saddest Movie Ever

It's in Tamil but damn, for an old film, it's one of the best I've seen from Indian Cinema. It's based on The Godfather so you're torn apart morally and can't decide if the protagonist is a good guy or a bad guy. It's tragic and yet so touching. I cried throughout the whole bloody film. Trust me when I say it's tragic. The hero dies in the end in one of the most "poetic justice" scenes I've ever seen. The scenes are decently choreographed and the dialogue exchanges are poignant and quote-worthy.

It grossed $12 million in the box office and it made it into TIME's top 100 movies along with Lord of the Rings, Schindler's List, Star Wars etc... so you know it's bloody good.

Nayagan (Tamil pronounciation but spelled as Nayakan). Check it out.

I'm still sniffing and blowing my nose :(

I Fall In Love Way Too Quickly

Have recently gone on a Cheap Trick weekend-er (you know allnight-er... so weekend-er). I can't seem to find their albums so I had to resort to YouTube but what can I say, I've fallen in love with the band again. They were my guilty pleasure like 2-3 years back. Whenever I had the blues, I'd pop in one of their albums and just lose myself in their lyrics, melodies and wicked solos.

I've been playing Voices on repeat. It just makes me want to jump onto the table, grab the remote control and croon along... no, screech along! I deny all accusations of doing any of that!!

Check out these songs:

• Dream Police
• Surrender
• I Want You To Want Me
• Flame

I must MUST buy their albums.

7-Eleven Game

I can't believe I forgot to mention this! Thanks Shu Yu, for your post!

I read in Lonely Planet that Taipei has numerous 7-Elevens spread across it. I mean, seriously, how many CAN you have? Boy were we in for a shock when we made our way to our hotel. In every street, there were at least 2! Some were situated right opposite each other. A rough estimate would be one 7-Eleven at every 300m. Even when we went up a mountain, there was one there! Our guide (one of our many) told us that Taipei has around 7000 7-Elevens. Yea.

I came up with a game, which I believe will take Taipei by storm. Play this, if you're travelling with friends. For every 7-Eleven you spot, smack your friend. It's that simple. Of course there are rules, like no premature slapping (you get smacked 3 times as punishment). Oh and it's a purely transportation game. Meaning, you can only play this game when you're on a bus, train, car, taxi etc.

MY GAME WILL TAKE TAIPEI BY STORM!!!

I Have A New Favourite Song

And it is loads better than Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. I have to thank Donnie Darko though. The soundtrack is brilliant, giving the movie a very psychedelic feel. The movie transported me to this different world, I almost felt like I was Donnie and could believe the reality which he created for himself. Hmmm... that made me sound psychotic. See, he sees this huge bunny that somehow convinces him to commit all these crimes; vandalism etc. You would think he had lost it - it's not even a cute bunny; it was a disfigured bunny. Something from your nightmare. The hook in the movie is his obsession with time travel and how that concept made the movie elliptical. Man, I so badly want to own the movie and the soundtrack. Plus, Jake Gyllenhal is absolutely delicious. There, that proves my fatal attraction to the twisted characters.

Back to the song, Tears for Fears' Head Over Heels. I've listened to it religiously everyday and I literally am lost in the song. It's so 80's sounding and when you listen to it, you will probably find it familiar. Only because SO many recent songs out there have similar melodies. Pirates. Tsk. A good example is that song from Music and Lyrics, what is it... Way Back Into Love... similar melody and that's why the song is so catchy.

Just realised this further proves how old school I am... hahaha...

Saturday Bliss

Woop woop! Exams are over... which means the hols are just around the corner! WOOP WOOP!

I absolutely love bumming around. All I did today was eat, nap and watch a bunch of movies. On the list were Training Day, Scoop and Monsters vs Aliens. Hmmm... what shall I watch next *laughs hysterically*

Oh, sorry Faqih; guess your tuner has to wait. I... just... can't... get... my... butt... off... the... couch...

Because After 2am is When Things Get Legendary

Cluedo is a God-send! I have spent many late nights the past week suggesting and accusing and I am so addicted to the game that I find myself looking forward to coming home just so that I can play the game with my brother and his wife. Addictions are nasty business indeed.

On one such night, my brother and I were deciding where to take the family for dinner. Every weekend, we pick a location that we've not been to before and once a decision has been made, he drives us all there. To make said decisions, we entrust the help of this site, Hungry Go Where. I absolutely am fascinated by how organised the categories are and you are literally spoiled for choice! It caters to lifestyle choice, time of day, craving, preference of location etc. That's how David's birthday dinner location was finalised and believe me, it was a memorable dining experience.

But that's not my point. A couple of days back, my brother asked if I knew any nice places that he could take his wife to. Without blinking an eye, I very casually said, "Oh, go to boredgowhere.com" and he really did! I think my natural passive nature fooled him and he couldn't tell that I was pulling a fast one on him! Damn.

Then it hit me, BoredGoWhere.com does sound like a legitimate site. Think about it, if there really is a Hungry Go Where, why not the one which I made up? It must have been the night air but the hamsters in my head were racing on their wheels; I started coming up with ridiculous yet believable site names.

• Bored Go Where - I would honestly visit this site quite religiously.


• Antisocial Go Where - For those, like me, who shun crowded spots. The only downfall is popularity would defeat the purpose of the site.


• Emo Go Where - For those who are tired of sitting in the bathroom slitting your wrists, visit the site for more locations to brood with your posse.


• Lazy Go Where - Haunts located a stone's throw from your area of residence.

A crazy thought was to have one that catered to your lifestyle choice (Straight Go Where, Gay Go Where, Curious Go Where etc...). Come on, it's hilarious!! Don't get me wrong, this is just meant to be a joke but as Barney (as in Neil Patrick Harris' character in How I Met Your Mother and not the purple dinosaur) would say, "If you don't laugh, it would just seem mean."

Plus I was awake way after my bedtime so I had to stop coming up with site names... and for the record, if those names do get used, you heard it here first.

Oh and Aqil, stop reading what I KNOW you're reading before you get addicted. Ask me nicely and I may just share with you my favourite stories *wink wink*.