New York, New York...

SUCKS!

I am talking about the restaurant that's located along the CityLink Mall. You know the one next to HMV? Well, it looks super nice, and pretty cool, but I tell you one thing...the service there is ATROCIOUS!

I was there having dinner with my Mom and my brother just now. The bad service started the second we set foot in that place. My brother was the one who wanted to eat Western, so I guess it was the most logical choice (given that we were in the SingTel shop, just 2mins away). Now, the entire restaurant had two entrances, but only one of them had a queue (by this, I mean a little set of stands connected by nylon straps with a sign that says, "Queue here."). The entrance which did not have this contraception was nearer to us, so we walked in there.

The waiter was the sweetest thing, and asked us "Table for how many?" I promptly replied, "Three." and then he proceeded to ask us to move to the other entrance where the stands were. Bewildered, I just complied, and when I reached there, there was NO queue, and there was NO WAITER! Like....WHAT THE FUCK? You asked us to enter through the other entrance, as though there was something important that had to be done there, and then you do not even bother to bring us to a table?

Anyway, there's more of such shit...

The girl who brought us to our table, did not even bother to ask if we were ready to order, or if we wanted glasses of water. She just seated us, and left...and we were bewildered. No menus, no water, nothing... So far, everyone we had made contact with was Singaporean...you know, those young people who have no idea of what service constitutes. Fucking stupid...

It wasn't until my Mom asked a nice Filipino lady for menus, that three were given to us, together with promptly served glasses of water. She even stood there patiently while we decided on what we wanted, and took the time to explain to my mother what some of the dishes were, and which were more popular amongst patrons of this establishment. Sigh..very very nice change to the initial shitheads we encounter. Alas, this reprieve was shortlived...

When the seafood platter that we ordered arrived, we realised that there were not enough lemon slices, so we asked for more. Mom tried calling out to this waiter who was walking around our table and doing nothing in particular, but for the strangest reason, despite 3-4 shouts (yes, I use the word 'shout' here..my Mom does not have the softest voice, which made it even more frustrating) the bugger did not seem to register anything (we will see more of this BUGGER later).

Fortunately, a sweet girl heard our pleas for lemon slices, and promptly went to get some. However, we were disappointed again, when she came back with the WRONG type of slices. Maybe I should've say WEDGES, but I doubt the girl knew the difference anyway. What she did know, was that the seafood platter used WEDGES and not SLICES. How do I know this? Well, she actually stood there and watched me frown as I stared at what she had brought! Like...WHATEVER MAN...you know that something you brought was wrong, and you still served it to the customer anyway, and hoped that the customer would not mind?! Of course I sent the idiot girl back to whatever shithole she came from to get me my lemon wedges! Ugh...

This last event took the cake...

You can all say that I am too easily incensed, and maybe I am. Cos' most of the time I was the one complaining the most to my mom and brother. This final incident even got my mom all riled up!

Remember idiot, deaf person? The one who my mom shouted at and got no response? Well, he's the central character in this final act of this ONE BIG FIASCO of a restaurant.

My mom asked for the bill and she handed the order slip on our table (every table has an order slip to track the orders for each table) to this guy. We saw him take the slip to the counter and that was that... Now, the waiting began. I noticed that he took two slips to the counter and saw that the table that the other slip was from had already received their bill. We were still sitting there waiting and all this time, the idiot waiter was walking up and down, doing nothing in particular. We even made eye contact a few times, and I am positive that when THREE people stare at you expectantly, you would REMEMBER that you were the one who was supposed to take the bill to them!

I mean, isn't it obvious that if you receive a request for the bill from a customer, you are expected to serve the customer the entire way? My mom had to get this other girl (another sweet attentive Filipino girl who was sooo afraid of my mom) to get the bill for us. Mom also dragged the idiot waiter over to our table, and blasted the hell out of him. The fucker was really just walking up and down and doing nothing in particular.

The whole dinner, we noticed that he was the only one who did nothing, and just slacked and slacked...gosh...my brother who worked as a waiter before noticed it first lah...and told us how noob the idiot was...sigh...New York, New York is a terrible place...never EVER go there to eat. I had heard rumours about the place before. Something like waiting 45mins just for French fries. Now I know they have idiot wait staff as well...at least not all of them were bad, but the bad ones really did spoil the dining experience for my family lah.

New York, New York is a terrible place to dine (but they have excellent peanut sauce! Heh..)

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Bought new shoes today...slightly funky and super comfy...YAY!

For The Record

Bleach 112
received in less than TWO MINUTES.
National Anime RAWKS!

The Shock Of It All...

Poring through boring text,
I clicked on that button.
Bringer of terrible news,
that shocked me beyond belief.

Clicking on pasted links,
I read the fateful reports.
Disbelief flooded my senses
As I digested the information carefully.

I struggled with my emotions,
Of the loss of a once familiar friend.
I searched for someone to listen
And instead ended up breaking the bad news
To him...

We informed those who knew him,
And we bemoaned the lack of words
to express the intense sense of helplessness
that seemed to be all we were feeling.

The mystery of the incident,
The loss of young life,
The mourning of a flower,
The bond of brothers once were,
The severity of it all...

A farewell

Adieu...

City Of Heroes!

I know I shouldn't be doing this, but they are just too cool to ignore. Xinwei was sharing screenshots of characters from this game he has been playing with me. It's called City of Heroes and are from the same makers as GuildWars. Here are some of his characters (all of which are excellently concieved and designed of course):

PS: The pictures speak for themselves. (Please DO click on the character descriptions after each picture so that you get the clearest views...they're abit hard to read off the blog itself.)



They are just so cool lah...and very funny too! Xinwei actually had people messaging him saying that they were Singaporean too! LOL...fun fun fun! ^_^

想念

Just chatted with Jianhong for a bit...and I realised something...

I miss you all alot leh...

Jianhong
Weiquan
Kevin
Calvin
Bronson
George
(even) Terence! *cough KIDDING cough*

We haven't had the chance to catch up at all I think...sigh...Maybe I should go and organise something (which I loathe), considering that I AM the manpower guy hor? Sianz...

Munchkin Madness!

Went out to celebrate Hongxuan's birthday just now (albeit a little belated, but better late than never..and trust me, were they late...hahaha). We had dinner at The Mind Cafe at Selegie, and then it was games games and more games (actually we only played Taboo and Munchkins, which were more than sufficient for us sia).

Everyone should know what Taboo is right? Basically try to describe a certain object to your teammates without mentioning a list of 'taboo' words given. Every object comes with its own list of 'taboo' words. After about 15 odd rounds, we moved on to Munchkins! The learning curve was a little steep at first because it's a card game set in a fantasy world, and most people don't really dig the fantasy shit. But that quickly disappeared when we began playing!

Basically, we all start as level ONE Humans and along the way, we can gain Classes (Warrior, Thief, Cleric etc.) and Races (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling etc.). The aim is to reach Level 10, and we do this by killing monsters and through special cards that instruct us to do special actions. There are monsters that are crazy, like Plutonium Dragon, Drooling Slime, and (my personal fav) Lame Goblin. There are also items like Magic Missile, Rapier of Unfairness and even Big Rock.

It doesn't sound that intimidating right? There are special 'spell' cards that do funky things too! Like Pollymorph Potion (turns monsters into parrots), Divine Intervention, and Friendship Potion! Don't forget the Curses as well! ^_^Don't forget the Curses as well! ^_^

I really loved the game lah...Kit Loong told me about it ages ago during OCS, but I never got around to buying it, or playing it. I finally got a chance today...and I think I may want to get a deck for myself...(or getting it as a birthday present wouldn't be half bad...heh)

There are already SOOO many sets and special themes out in the market! Gosh...so exciting...I wan...............

Visit the official Munchkin website for more details now!

Steve Jackson rocks! (who is Steve? he designed the game lah!)

PS: I almost won the game with Transferral Potion and (can't remember the card name) some card that allowed me to force someone to help me fight a monster. That plan was foiled by Lionel's well-played Magic Lamp (which negates level-gain). I was one level away from winning can?

In the end, Lionel, Lionel and Hongxuan won with an excellent combination of all three of them attaining Cleric class status, Stealing A Level from me, and a timely Wand of Dowsing fetched Divine Intervention from the discard pile to allow all of them to attain Level 10 simultaneously! Very impressive play sia...everyone bowed to their greatness...heh

I lost the game as a Level 9 Elf wielding a Singing and Dancing Sword (amongst other items, I just felt the sword was the funniest because it specifically says that Thieves cannot use it...which totally makes sense, don't u think?).

Now I Know...

I woke up this morning when my grandfather came in to check on me. Usually what he does is to turn the fan speed down from 3 to 1, and he will also turn off my monitors. I know he does these things to save electricity. So usually, I will turn the monitors to save him the trouble. To my horror, I discovered that he has been doing more than that.

You know how I've been complaining that my computer keeps restarting on it's own? Well, it turns out that it was my grandfather who has been hitting the RESET key everytime! ARGH! Freaking irritating lah...I told him not to touch the CPU already, but he's been turning off the CPU every single day! And here I thought there was a virus, or there was a heating issue. Fucking pissed. Everytime my downloads cut off when he hits the RESET key lor...

So angry...I had to tell him again to leave the CPU alone....argh...

*grumble grumble grumble*
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I was watching re-runs of Project Superstar, and was listening to Diya sing. She's really good leh...I find her very 实力派 (meaning, SINGER calibre, which I prefer) and not 偶像派 (IDOL calibre, which I couldn't care less for). And since she's in the finals, I think I may actually catch it.

I like Daren too...at least I feel that he's more versatile than Nat lah...but then again...I hope Diya wins. We should have a girl this time. ^_^

Diya FTW!!!
===========================================================
Went for V-Bash yesterday with the PA people. It was terribly boring, so I was definitely glad that I had all my CCA friends to keep me company. They were definitely more happening than the general crowd there lor...tsk.

I found the MCs quite funny though...and I totally did not enjoy the three girls in the bar top dancing competition... (one of them was confirm a tranny lor...sheesh). I so wanted to win something in the lucky draw lah..but alas, I never have this kinda luck...so annoying can? Sianz...

SC2215 Lecture 2

Lecturer: Which religions do not allow the consumption of pork?

Girl behind me: (whispers with some conviction) Buddhism.

Vincent & Me: *blank stares* + *rolls eyes*

Vincent: Wah...stunned sia...

Me: Yeah...I also say...

Killed By Cuteness!

This collage is long overdue (they went back in December!)! My crazy trigger-happy phone camera finger + a super cute cousin = COLLAGE TIME! Cute hor? I miss him like crazy lah...I wanna go to Denmark to visit them soon! But I no $$ :(

Anyone feels like donating to the 'Help-XJ-fly-to-Denmark' Foundation?

CCS

As most of my friends would know, I am the project director for Chancellor's Challenge Shield 2007. Quite a lot to do, and it's been awhile since I did anything of the biggish, organisation-esque type (the last time I had to do anything like that was in Army I think).

Anyway, I am really excited because Ms Suzanne Jung replied my email today! I am inviting her to be the guest-of-honour you see, and she replied my email today! Super fast some more, cos' I actually sent it out in the afternoon. Talk about efficiency...

The snail mail I sent out to her didn't get through I guess (damn Mediacorp's central mail centre). I should've just sent the email from the start. Anyway, I spent the evening emailing her the details and everything, and she's seems super supportive and keen on attending CCS 2007! Woot!

Now we just need to wait and see what her company management side says about everything. I really hope they approve her attending this event. It's only one day, and it would really be an honour to have her grace our humble event (gosh, I sound like I am typing an email...hahaha).

Now that the GOH is finally making some headway, it's time to start on the sponsors and the actual event planning. I think Isaac may need help with logistics, and Dan seems totally on top of everything with regard to the questions planning. Very glad I have an assistant PD like Dandan to help me out. Hahaha...

Suddenly excited about everything again..yay!

Bleach!

The main story arc from the manga is finally starting with Episode 110! Whew...it's been a long and terrible wait for some (those who hated the Bounto arc), and I am sure they are glad that the main manga arc is starting.

This episode was quite interesting...revealing a Vizard, Ishida's ability to fight without his spirit powers and most importantly, Ishida's FATHER! His bow looks super cool lah, freaking chio!!! And if I am not wrong, it's his father who teaches him how to regain his Quincy powers. Woot!

This is so exciting!

[the cold cold weather is back again...the rains are nice, but sometimes the cold weather really just...just...yeah...too cold lah.]

Dragonhunters and Dragonmen

Today's tuition was a different experience. I brought my Taiwanese kid to the library. As usual, he was totally 'opinion-less' (which I know for a fact is untrue, and he's just insisting that he does not think that he going to the library is a total waste of his time). Anyway, the aim for today was to get him to pick up a book and start reading it.

It wasn't too...we spent an hour reading about Dragonhunters and Dragonmen (yes, I ended reading the book too, just so that he would not feel that bored you see) and I really enjoyed all six chapters that I read. It was quite an interesting spin on the old tale of Sir George and the Dragon. I hope my kid will like it lah...he was sooo lazy lor. He wanted me to pick a book for him, and I was like, "NO...the whole point is that you choose a book that looks interesting for you."

Gosh...

Well, I am home now, and I think I will stay in Depot tonight. The weather is TOOO good for me to head all the way back to Yishun man. I shall stay in and rot tonight...

And maybe play GuildWars or Bejeweled...heee

Translation Problems

田鼠 = Rice Mice?

OF COURSE NOT!!!

They are called FIELD MICE!

Silly billy....

HAHAHAHA...

hmmm...

Me: Have you been saving?

B: Yeah, I have.

Me: That's good. Where do you keep the money you saved?

B: In my wallet.

Me: *blank stare into space* (this was a phone conversation)

Kiss Me Goodbye

Japanese (Original)

Anata wa mayotte, ite mo
Doa wa aiteru yo
Futari no sekai dake de wa
Mitasarenain deshou?

Hane wo ageru kara
Shinjite tobe-pa ii

Kiss me good-bye, love is memory
Anatawo ushinattemo
Aishita kiokuga tuyosani kawarukara

Tashikana monowo sagashite
Daremoga koisuruga
Yuruganai aiwa jibunno nakaniaru

Kiss me good-bye, sayonara
Atarashii watashi ni kawaru

Kiss me good-bye
Kiss me good-bye

Kiss me good-bye, love's memory
Atarashii futari ni kawaru nara

Kiss me good-bye, nakanai
Anata wo aiseta kara
Anata wo aiseta kara

English (Translation)

Though you lost your way
The door is already open
You can't be satisfied
For the world only with me

I give you wings,
You should believe and fly

Kiss me good-bye, love's memory
Even if I lose you
My memory of love changes into my strength

Everyone falls in love
For searching a reliable thing
But a reliable love exists in ourselves

Kiss me good-bye, farewell
I will make myself new

Kiss me good-bye
Kiss me good-bye

Kiss me good-bye, love's memory
If we make ourselves new

Kiss me good-bye, I don't cry
Because I could love you
Because I could love you

First Day of School (and Planar Chaos)

My time table for this semester is SUPER SLACK...I think I need to have extra extra discipline so that I can utilise all that free time to do my readings and to settle all the planning needed for Chancellor's Challenge Shield.

I ended class at 2pm today, and now I am sitting in the Central Library with Dan. I promised that I would help him to move into PGP today, but we're still waiting for the freaking office to give him a call to tell him that his key is ready for collection...I am bored out of my mind now man. I could print my readings and notes, but I was planning to do that yesterday, and I also do not have the appropriate storage equipment to store the whole lot.

Coming back to school is always an event that fills me with mixed emotions. I am sure everyone feels more or less the same way. Like the reluctance to leave the sloth of the holidays behind, coupled with the increasing annoyance that that same sloth brings. Overall, I am quite excited about the new semester...loads of seminar style modules, and I am taking Sociology of Food as well (heard that we get to cook something as our assessment I think..)!

That aside, I am super excited about the new Magic expansion, Planar Chaos! Here are some preview cards that have been revealed already:

BLACK Wrath of God leh! How cool is that? I mean, B/W control will probably go out of control, but it's still freaking cool! ^_^


GREEN Ball Lightning! I wanna play my Stompy deck again! Woot!

*excited* ^_^

Dragon Lady

I finally got my nice cheongsam armour for my Mesmer. Nice or not?



Nice right? This is my Mesmer in her cheongsam, and holding her twin-dragon head staff. She is now officially my Dragon Lady! Hahahaha...

I am thinking whether I should dye it any particular colour or not...any suggestions? Here's a shot I took with some person who has the same armour in red...do you think it's nice? Or too 'prosperous'?

[Click to enlarge the pictures to get a clearer look at the colours.]