Sanity… is for the Weak

Touched down sometime after midnight this morning, and walked right into a wall of hot air coming out of the airport. Who ever it was who said that the desert is hot by day and cold by night, obviously had no bloody idea what they were talking about. But then again, in the light of the morning heat (43 degrees Celsius!), the night time temperature of 32 degrees Celcius does seem cooler by comparison. This heat is almost too much to bear; it’s not a humid kind of heat we have back home, but rather a dusty-dry kind that cracks the lips and gums up the eyes ~ sort of like a sauna + tanning bed kind of heat and dryness at the same time.

Lots of things done today, mostly getting things and settling in for the next few weeks that I’m here. Will see if I can hit the pool later to cool off.

p.s. Driving on the wrong side of the road is… disorienting.

We finally got around to sending the furkids of to the doggie day care at K9 Kulture, and I think it’s been a great decision. From what the handlers have told us, both of the dogs are slowly coming out of their shell, and building confidence to play with others.

As a plus point, all that energy spent on long walks and lots of play time means that they’re tired out by the time we go pick them up ~ they sleep like angels on the trip home, and will nap till dinner time. And feeding time at home is fuss-free; put the bowl in front of them and they just wolf it down and head straight back to sleep! No more sad puppy eyes or persistent whining when we chuck them out in the back yard for the night.

I think we’ll make this a weekly routine, and send them to the day-care once a week, and given the rather bad experience we had with the neighborhood pet hotel on a previous holiday, we’ll probably board the furkids with K9 Kulture the next time we go on a trip.

Highly recommended.

K9 Kulture
110 Turf Club Road,
Singapore 288000

Email: josiah@k9kulture.com
Tel: (65) 6314-9363
Fax: (65) 6468-5363

Funny thing about music, is that it changes your mood as you listen to it. It can inspire when you are down, it can bring cheer when you are sad, and it can pump you up when the going gets tough. Don’t believe me? Just pop in a heavy metal CD the next time you’re stuck in a traffic jam and take a note of your mood. Then change the disc to something easy-listening, and you’ll see what I mean.

Case in point: I went jogging around the neighborhood just last week; after working up a good sweat, I was ready to call it a day and head back, but then the shuffled playlist started playing the “Fever!” song from Patapon…. and so I thought “What the heck” and went for another round.

Music is a powerful thing, and that’s why I’ve always had a fully loaded MP3 player with hours of songs with me at all times, and before that, a walkman, a portable CD-player and a MD-player.

Audio/Visual Update

Audio:Slave
In the B&O:
+The Sex, the City, the Music: Shanghai
+Monkey Majik: 空はまるで
+Queen: Greatest Hits
+The Rolling Stones: Rolled Gold
+Metal Gear Solid 20th Anniversary
+Best of Creedence Clearwater Revival

Visual:Slave
In the DVD:
+Heroes Season 2
+My Neighbor Totoro
+Appleseed: Ex Machina
+Band of Brothers
+The Machine Girl

Animania:
+Freedom
+Hayate no Gotoku dropped
+Clannad
+Rental Magica dropped
+Bamboo Blade
+Toshokan Sensou (図書館戦争)
+Birdy the Mighty: Decode
+イヴの時間
+乃木坂春香の秘密

Movies to Catch - ‘08:
+Sweeney Todd
+The Spiderwick Chronicles
+Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone
+Iron Man
+The Dark Knight
+Cloverfield Missed this
+Jumper
+Hancock missed this
+Get Smart missed this
+Charlie Wilson’s War
+Bangkok Dangerous
+Speed Racer
+The Love Guru
+Wanted missed this
+Indiana Jones and The Temple of the Crystal Skull
+Forbidden Kingdom
+Doomsday
+27 Dresses
+Juno
+The Bucket List
+Hellboy II: The Golden Army
+You Don’t Mess With The Zohan Missed this
+Kung Fu Panda missed this
+The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
+Wall-E
+Star Wars: The Clone Wars
+007: Quantum of Solace
+Tropic Thunder
+The Spirit
+Death Race
+Punisher: War Zone
+Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
+Full Battle Rattle

Movies soooo bad, it’s gotta be gooood
+Oneechanbara
+Zombie Strippers
+Jack Brooks - Monster Slayer

Current Reads
RAWs
+謎の彼女Ｘ - Chapter 25
+魔法 先生 ネギま! - Chapter 222
+死がふたりを分かつまで Chapter 15
+おばあちゃんはアイドル

Dead Tree
+Freakonomics
+Conquistador
+Why We Want You To Be Rich
+Party of One: The loner’s Manifesto
+Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition

Online
+Questionable Content
+Real Life
+The Order of the Stick
+Turn Signals on a Land Raider

The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
I meant to post this together with the writeup on The Machine Girl, but totally forgot. Well, we caught this third installment of the Mummy franchise, and it was a let-down, after the antics of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones. I’m not that rabid a fan-boy to piss on the movie simply because Rachel Weisz is not on the cast list this time (in fact I thought that Maria Bello filled her role rather admirably), but despite the exotic locations and exciting action sequences, it still fell flat on the plot. It just simply didn’t feel… epic.

Anyway:
One star for the hilarious pissing contest between father and son when comparing guns.
One star for the adorably cute Yetis.
Half star for the huge undead vs terracotta warriors battle scene.

Total 2.5 / 5 stars

Remember me raving about this little movie, which could be so bad, that it’s got to be good?

I got the DVD.

*mwahahaha!!!*

And as expected, it was a terrible, terrible movie. It was bad to the point of downright appalling. But it was entertaining ~ I don’t recall laughing so much or so hard at a movie for a long while now. And we had a field day deconstructing the movie and trying to rationalize a social commentary from it’s (non-existent!) plot and “action” scenes, as well as the over-the-top Japanese culture and it’s reflection on the world at large.

:Links:
+IMDB Listing
+Wikipedia Entry
+Official Website

With the Nike+ Sportband.

And here’s a very big welcome to Mr Guy Winsdor to the blogging world

Busy, Busy
Been very busy, so much so that I’ve been skipping sword class. Too many things to complete and settle; because of work I’ll be out of town for a month and a half starting from the end of this month. Where am I going, you ask? It’s classified, but all I can say is that it’s some where in/near the sandbox.

Joy.

Ah well, at least the experience will be worth it ~ or as Gee puts it: “Rolling on the Active Duty Random Encounter Table will be better than rolling on the Garrison Duty Table. XP, Baby!”

See you guys in September October (*edit* Arrrgh! I can’t even keep my months straight!).

We had breakfast at Picotin, and as expected the food was pretty good ~ I especially like the *huge* mug of hot chocolate; real hot chocolate mind, not just the usual milo you’d expect. I recommend the UK or French breakfast set on the menu if you’re a big eater like me, otherwise the waffles are a pretty light option. The “Healthy” breakfast option didn’t really appeal to me though ~ rabbit food is not in my opinion, breakfast.

We brought the furkids along with the intention of checking out the doggy day-care next door, K9 Kulture, but they were rather busy, so perhaps we’ll go again next time. I think the two furkids are starting to develop some anti-social behavior, to the point that Tess is highly afraid of other dogs, and would start getting aggresive ~ our fault for not giving them more opportunities to socialise. Perhaps this doggy day-care might just be the answer….

“The Internet Is For Porn“

What I’m talking about, is of course the most widely recognised song from the hit musical Avenue Q, slated to start playing here in Singapore from 30 Oct onwards. What were you thinking? Get your dirty mind out of the gutter!

Inspired largely by the children’s television series “Sesame Street“, Avenue Q is a more adult look at puppets with the characters in their twenties and thirties, with the associated problems of that age group and how they deal with those problems. Focused around a search for a “Purpose”, it is something that reflects real life and is probably something that all of us can empathize with.

As I mentioned, the song “The Internet Is For Porn” is probably the most easily recognised out of the repertoire, and has spawned an internet meme by way of a machanima from the highly successful massively multiplayer online game, the World of Warcraft:

Som of our friends in Finland may recognise the song that the brown horde were singing while we were there

I should be back from by overseas trip by the time this starts showing ~ anybody else wants to go?

:Links:
+Avenue Q Official Website
+Avenue Q Wikipedia entry
+SISTIC Ticketing

Introducing Kung Fu Jimmy Chow; a production that that simultaneously spoofs and salutes the anime genre.

Words cannot describe the random madness and anime homage paid….

Only thing I can say is… “What the?!?”