Sanity… is for the Weak

It’s…. been a while since wifey & I went to a movie, and since M1 was offering Ice Age 2 tickets in exchange for their Sun Perks points (and seeing as we had enough), off we went on tuesday to the shiny new theater, the Cathay Cineplex which re-opened it’s doors just over the weekend.

Big mistake.

You see, while the theater may have been up and running, the building itself was hardly ready at all. Not all the lights were installed, large sections of the ceiling have not been boarded ~ exposing the cables and ducts, carpark ERP system was non-functional and most importantly: none of the tenant shops were opened. Granted, I’m not a shopaholic but the net result of having no where else for the people who turned up for the show to pass the time before the movie started meant that *EVERYONE* squeezed into the theater lobby, resulting in much chaos and confusion. In addition, I could see that the staff were new as well, and the teething teething problems in operating the theater were very much evident.

I just wonder if the Cathay Organisation made the right choice in opening the place so early? Might it have been better to wait a little while for a few of the shops to open so the place wouldn’t get so crowded? This would have served to reduce the strain on crowd control, as well as giving some slack to the staff who were obviously new to the job.

Anyway, on to the movie:
The storyline for Ice Age 2 is much simpler than the one before. Granted, the visual effects were very good eye-candy, and the attention to detail was bordering on the obsessive, it just seemed a very abrupt story with none of the complexity of the first movie. It’s sole saving grace was probably the antics of the Scrat and it’s acorn ~ funny stuff, that. Straight forward story; Ice Age ends, ice melts, animals run for shelter before being drowned.

Final Rating: 2/5

Visual:Slave
In the DVD:
+Gunslinger Girl
+Vandread: the Second Stage
+Initial D: 4th Stage
+Scrapped Princess
+Howl’s Moving Castle

Movies to Catch:
+Ice Age 2
+V for Vendetta
+Superman Returns
+The DaVinci Code
+Cars
+Mission: Impossible 3
+Pirates of the Carribean 2
+Miami Vice
+Tristan and Isolde
+Underworld: Evolution Looks like we may miss this one…
+X-Men 3
+Lord of War
+Open Season

Other Stuff
Interestingly, I came across a series of photographs by Rachel Papo, about a young Israeli woman going through her military service (which like Singapore has mandatory conscription). Titled: Serial Number 3817131, this in a way mirrors some of what our young boys go through on their way to be grown men. However, with the decline in our birth rate, and rapidly aging population, is this time to look at our girls to see if they can add make the difference?

I must, however, state up front that combat and it’s attendant risks and hardships is not a place to subject a young girl to. After all, one of the reasons a guy fights is probably the tought of a loved one in danger if you don’t (heck, go read Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers“), so putting the young lady in question into danger is (probably) a pretty dumb idea.

However, the concept of “National Service“, is simply thus: Service for (or, to) the Nation. And this service can be in many ways:

1) As non-combat personnel in the military ~ lordy knows, we always need more clerks and logisticians, freeing up the PES-C/E boys for real military duties (gasp!)
2) As civil defence personnel; it doesn’t take much muscle to provide emergency aid, and small fires are easily extinguished without resorting to a whole fire engine…
3) As teachers; instant man-(or should I say Woman-?) power boost to the “Education Hub” project.
4) As nurses (wasn’t there an urgent lack of nurses a while back? Hell, if you go into any hospital today, chances are half of the nurses aren’t local girls).
5) As day-care assistants - kill two birds with one stone! - one of the reasons we’re facing a birth decline is probably the relative high cost of child-care. Add a ready stream of cheap NS-day-carers and the trend reverse may well appear.
6) This is probably an urban legend, but camp-rumor has it that one BMT company had a lady PTI… and on the recruit’s first day, they had her run them to the ground. With that kind of male-ego bashing, it was only natural the boys wanted to do better and better so as not to be beaten by some girl. Who knows, it might just work…

Probably just wishful thinking.

*The above views are personal ones, and are not meant as a critism of the the current NS scheme*

It’s been a busy week, as can be seen by my lack of posts, but I’ve finally caught up on my rest this weekend ~ I woke up at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and is finally happy. Take it from me, the secret to happiness is simply thus: Have enough sleep.

Besides the happy news from the birth of my niece, there was also a sad one - one of my ex-crew, SSG Bala passed away last week from a motorcycle accident, after having spent 2 weeks in ICU. I attended the military funeral at Mandai Crematorium on last Monday.

He was a hard-working member of the crew onbord RSS Bedok, and always carried out his duties and tasks diligently. He got along well with his ship-mates, and never caused trouble for his officers or ship-mates. A friendly and approachable man, as well as a dependable sailor.

Good bye, Bala. You will be missed.

One More Thing
Dinner 13 Mar 06 was a potato, onion & spicy minced meat gratin:

Bored Dad: Thanks! I’m surprised to see you here! Her’s hoping that my turn will come soon and I’ll be a dad too.

So busy, that I haven’t had a good night’s sleep till the weekend.

Well, it’s finalised, I’m heading Down Under in the month of May for a 2-week course. Hopefully I can get some time out to learn to surf!

In Other News
Please welcome my baby niece, a 3.82kg and very well behaved baby (she only cried a little then started to gurgle) who joined us on Friday evening, at SGH. According to my sis, it was a 3-hour labour with no complications.

Don’t have a picture of the baby yet, as she was being kept under observation in the nursery by the time we got to the hospital, but we’ll probably see her later today.

… was Spaghetti al Nero Seppia with Laksa. It turned out pretty well, so I think I’ll be adding this dish to my repertoire from now on. The Squid Ink Spaghetti gave the dish a different tang, that was detectable just above the Laksa, which thankfully, wasn’t too overpowering. And it had great texture as well, very different from the usual pasta ~ smoother and silky-like. Interesting.

But before that, we had brunch today at the Botanical Gardens ~ which was strangely rather crowded, with lots of kids running around. I suppose it’s because the mid-semester break’s here so parents broughts the young ones out. Not complaining, as we brought ours as well:

Came across the Fingerbooks website, and it looked like an opportunity to sell off the collection of books I’va amassed over the years.

Funny thing is, it was only when I took out all the books that I intended to sell in one pile that I realised what a Bibliophile I was:

And this is just a fraction of my collection. Gotta buy a bigger house, damnit!

So, farewell, my lovelies… I hope you find a better home away from me.
~sob~

Boss called me into his office today, and so with no small amount of trepidation (what can I say? It’s annual-work-review time of year) I went. Turned out that he’s putting my name in for a chance for a two-week course down under at the Gold Coast next month.

Let me repeat that ~ a two (2!) week, expenses paid, trip to the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia for a course. Besides being something to better equip me for my job, it was also “something in the nature of a reward” for the hard work I’ve put in for the past year. I guess I must have done something right.

w00t!

Needless to say, I left the office walking on air.

Back from KL, finally. Lots of screw-ups on this trip, mostly from the “Tidak apa” attitude of our northern neighbours. It is, afterall, their nature, their culture and their way of life (makes for a lot less stress, I suppose), but what the hell?!? I guess the next time we go up, I just have to take into account these little things and work around them.

Anyway, brought wifey around the major sights and had pretty much good food all the way. The gem of the trip was probably finding a newly-opened Peranakan restaurant at KL’s Central Market, Precious Old China.

Unique thing about this place, beside the wonderful (and extremely sinful!) Nonya food it serves, is that all the furniture and furnishings are real antiques, giving it a very warm feel as well as a charm all of it’s unique own.

We had (on recommendation of the very friendly staff):
Pucuk Paku Masak Lemak - a kind of forest fern in curry/gravy
Chui Pei Tofu - crispy skin tofu, kinda like the japanese Ageidashi Tofu but with nonya sauces.
Cincalok Chicken - chicken marinated with chilli and… some other yummy stuff I can’t identify
With Rice and Jasmine Tea

Total damage was RM44.40 for the both of us. Was tempted to order dessert as well, but we were stuffed…

If you’re ever in KL (or live there, you lucky people), we recommend this place. Drop by, and see it’s warmth and try their excellent food. You won’t regret it!

F1 Fever
F1 fever certainly seems to have it’s tight grip on KL the weekend we were there. Everywhere we went, there were promotional posters, fairs, exhibitions, kiosks and what-not screaming out about this upcoming event at the Sepang circuit, to be held from 17~19 Mar 2006. I think driving in Malaysia may get a little more dangerous for the next few weeks with all the wannabe drivers racing around?

One More Thing
One thing that struck us while in KL was the service attitude. It was really “Service with a Smile” everwhere we went. I think the most prominent event was when we were buying the tickets for the KLIA Express train, the sales staff actually bothered to look at our credit cards and wish us a nice trip by name. I think this is something that the current GEMS movement here at home can take a page from.

GhOsT: Thanks man. It was a pretty Ok trip, except for some hiccups.

mariya: Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed the posts!

Just finished packing up for the trip, myself going up for work, and wifey joining me for a bit of retail therapy.

Should be fun ~ just hope that the hotel reservation got my message and would have processed it by tomorrow, else we might have to check into somewhere else for saturday night.

One more thing
I see that my hit counter has shot right up over the last few days ~ in fact I’m still getting over a hundred hits a day. I suppose it’s because of my reference to a certain “home-made video”? Come on people, are you so repressed that you gotta get your kicks from the stupid poor couple? If you want p0rn, go Google or Bit torrent for it or something… although if you get caught, it’s your business, not mine.

You belong in Starship Troopers. Your idea of a

good time is bouncing across an alien

battlefield blasting the foes of humanity

into extinction.

Which Heinlein Book Should You Have Been A Character In?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmm… strangely,I’m not surprised, as Starship Troopers does happen to be my fave Heinlein book, along side with The Moon is A Harsh Mistress

Looking like something inspired straight from the cult hit anime: 攻殻機動隊 ~ or Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow, comes 2 pieces of technology from Japan. First up is the Thermoptic camouflage used by Major Mokoto Kusanagi, this one simply has to be seen to be believed:

Next is the Tachikomas from the TV series:

The future is now. Gimme my mirrorshades