sherlock holmes was awesome. great movie, enjoyed it thoroughly. rdj judelaw rachelmcadams <3 and wow i finally know (and respect) guy ritchie for something other than being madonna's ex. am lazy to elaborate further about the movie, but two thumbs up for sure!

was nice to have something to end the day well with, after an obscene start to it. i spent 8 of the first 11 hours of my day sitting down motionless and staring into blank space / snoozing. no thanks to insane commute times and insane wait times for haircut at hougang and for friends to get un-lost from safti.

as the date of freedom draws nearer, i realise i really need to do this at least once, before it's too late and i forget. also, after she indirectly helped me to catch my christmas tree mouse on Mousehunt today by being so sporting and so enthusiastic about observing the 15min catching intervals, i really need to do this.

i am so grateful to have been blessed with my immediate superior. she is the i/c of TEAM 2, and i am the 2i/c, and it has been a 2-man team for a large part of my time here. she's a typical heartland auntie, but without the annoying ji-zha naggy market shrew personality. she has made my 2 years in camp so much more bearable. i remember bitching about her mid-last year and whining about how she doesn't really know her stuff, and goodness i wish i could go back in time to bash my face in.

she has been nothing but nice to me, except that one time she got quite pissed at me for me being a total douchebag to her. but wow i realise she's never actually been VERY angry at me before. i am quite ashamed, like i used to get very easily frustrated with her because of her lack of IT skills, sometimes i was quite cold to her, but she's always very patient with me. she mothers me around, she buys snacks for me, she occasionally makes me tea, she gives me so much leeway and so many privileges that WOW i really should feel so so blessed. privileges is in big font because I GET SO MANY compared to other team guys and their superiors.

i owe her a huge show of gratitude, which i guess i've been somewhat trying to do over the recent months by NOT being such a douche. but argh does that line from that joni mitchell song always ring ever so true. though it's not 'gone' yet, just going soon, and i'd better do something about it.

is roughly the moment that I decided to abandon my caltech applications. only the caltech essay questions are left in my to-do essay folder (possibly a subconcious thing?), and i'm going to take it as a sign from God that caltech isn't for me. plus i'm killing myself figuring out how to answer "discuss an ethical dilemma you've faced" and "preamble about caltech pranks, what do you do for fun (ie. pranks?)" and "how do you express your interest in engineering/math/science" and "list your science/math extra-curricular achievements".

i'm just writing to make myself feel better about this decision, to give myself confidence that i'm not doing something really stupid here. then again, if i've done anything stupid, it's to not apply to more safety schools really. caltech shouldn't even have been in my list.

oh well. it all works out in some pragmatic sense anyway.

i hope.  

zombieland was pretty awesomesausage. totally deserved the abundance of positive reviews it got. although i probably should have left moca's place* earlier instead of fighting out that pointless battle on the starcraft board game - then i would have had time to eat - then i wouldn't have had to takeaway a whopper meal and eat it in the cinema - then i wouldn't have had to endure the first 15 minutes of brain-smashing bloody fun while forcing myself to swallow the mush in my mouth. lesson learnt : do not eat in any movie with "zombie" in the title.

but yeah, it was really quite good. not 5 stars material, but pretty good in terms of writing and lines. lots of laugh-inducing moments and witty one-liners. sadly, i could have done without the occasional typical-hollywood-action-movie-plot-loopholes, though i'm willing to forgive it since the humour was (Y). (edit: actually, after a brief discussion with han, i realise the whole climax scene was pretty horrible in terms of survival strategy and common sense. i mean come on, why would you ditch your car? why would you trap yourself on purpose? why would an EMERGENCY BRAKE bring power back to a shortcircuited machine??)

* i am now in moca's tekken clan. after the conclusion of the tournament for rights to name the clan, we are now called clan scarf. it could have been worse (TAJ EL-AMIN?? CURSE YOU GODS OF WIKIPEDIA RANDOM PAGE), but not the FEAR-STRIKINGness i had hoped for.

one more random thing. i was playing assassin's creed on my psp at dhoby mrt when some kid came up to me and asked me to 'play lower' so he could see. so i knelt down. then he reached out and started tapping my buttons, so i passed the whole psp to him. i showed him briefly how to attack and move about, and he killed a few soldiers, and then he asked me to follow him. so i did, and he dragged me like three train doors away to his mom. i spent the entire train ride back with him, helping him slay evil soldiers and innocent civilians. it was a "cute" situation, but he wasn't very cute =\ i guess most gamer geeks aren't, even as little kids. D:

last night at CRAP SHIT MOVIE MARATHON at darren's, i finally watched twilight.** and in all honesty, it was pretty bad. i mean, ignoring all the shit and flaming it's been getting from critics, this wasn't such a great movie. though kristen stewart is really, i got kinda annoyed at the constant buay-song-ness of her brooding face. the chick playing alice is really cute though.

**also watched DRAGON TIGER GATE (a truly mindblowing show, as in mind-goes-boom-and-dribbles-out-of-your-ear-in-semi-solid-form. omg donnie yen so ugly.), some compilation of batman anime ala animatrix style (which wasn't actually very bad), and watched a full playthrough of PORTAL, much props to portal-master darrbe.)

and so in the spirit of it all, here are some links regarding twilight that i collected in the run-up to CRAP SHIT MOVIE MARATHON (which didn't really last very long, 3 movies is weaksauce =().

( if you like twilight, turn away NAO )

ps. this chris brown song has been looping on my wmp and in my brain the whole weekend. loved it ever since it featured in the office niagara episode.

writing about my unique talents and skills for college essays is always stressful. and my mind usually wanders around a lot when i'm doing deep thinking (or any thinking at all). and so, on one of my random daydreams, i decided to come up with a list of the most USELESS skills that i possess. ladies and gentlemen, in no particular order,

i was alone with my dad in the car at lunchtime today, and he was trying to convince me to learn automatic instead of manual driving (and i must say i'm very convinced, but i've signed up for manual so might need to go through some annoying admin). so anyway he started talking about his past experiences with manual cars.

now at this point, i need to mention that i've always known that my dad knew jack neo. my dad keeps telling me that they were platoon mates back in NS and they kinda knew each other and stuff. but i figured he was just kinda name-dropping, you know, that they were merely acquaintances, not really great buddies or anything.

but it turns out MY DAD DROVE JACK NEO'S CAR many times in NS. first he mentioned driving a manual car, then he mentioned driving a manual car in NS, then he mentioned driving jack neo's manual car. and then he starts talking about jack neo and how his PC always liked to make fun of his chinese name (two guns), and how jack neo was a cool guy with a manual car and how he let my dad drive the car when they went to buy dinner, and how jack neo was a sign-on for 6 years, and how his platoon was funny and full of shit. and i was just laughing and laughing the whole time he was talking, coz it's just. so. strange. but cool. strange cool.

mailcheckfbcheckmailcheckfbcheck my brain's been really wonky these past few days. gotta shape up, brain. work properly and quit throwing tantrums, you stupid, petulant cow.

i've been burning the psp battery on WWE SMACKDOWN VS RAW 2010 for the whole of today, and taking very guilty pleasure in it. somehow, watching impossibly-buff overgrown semi-naked men and women do amazingly crazy+painful things to each other always makes me laugh (more so when the big hulking UNDERTAKER starts bleeding from his forehead). trust me when i say that i am NOT proud of it, but my PRIMAL INSTINCTS don't seem to let me put down my psp. oh, plus the storylines are so mindnumbingly hilarious. so much BETRAYAL and AGGRESSION and PRIDE and TESTOSTERONE.

now with preposterous amounts of testosterone. PREPOSTERONE.

oh, which reminds me of the POWERTHIRST videos ryan linked me. i couldn't stop laughing throughout this video:

and its sequel POWERTHIRST 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3qncy5Qfk

maybe my brain is wired like that to make up for my inherent lack of manliness.

everything but the brain tonight at rj was really enjoyable. i have watched this play for the third time, and i now know that this my most favourite script of all time, and i really hope i can do this play some time in the future. (notice repeated use of the word 'time' as a weak attempt to link to script theme.) it really is one heck of genius script; powerful, emotional, intelligent, and so mature and gripping. i cannot begin to gush in detail about how much i love it, and i'm glad i watched it again tonight so i could rediscover my love for it.

having watched it done professionally twice, i wasn't expecting much from rp tonight. (i mean how do you touch pam oei, how.) but i was pleasantly delighted to find that claire and leon were really competent in their own rights. bearing in mind the difficulty of the roles, they both brought a unique personality to their characters that worked really well and drew my sympathy. the chemistry was great (again partially due to awesome script). and though there were areas for improvement (like how the characters could have been stronger and the sense of urgency and constant reminder of the inevitable could have been greater), given that they had just 23 days to put it all together (while doing their chinese A's and PW OP), i'd say it was a fantastic job.

me and plan won starcraft tournament last night woo! well, it was mostly plan who won, i kinda sat around and was deadweight. but sheeeet that was fun.

have woken up on the wrong side of the bed and am in a foul mood. has not been helped by miss hadalittlelamb, edefer crankiness, retarded customers and fatigue. am muchly looking forward to celebratory karaoke (with anniversary committee) later, and STARCRAFT TOURNAMENT much later to perk up my mood. although i swear i'll be so sleepy that my micro game is going to be shit, and i'll feel like i'm playing while sitting in a vat of honey and glue.

last night was SOFAMAN with cheng. what a strange hour that was. i didn't loathe it as much as hamletmachine or as much as cheng did, but it felt a bit weak. there were beautiful moments and simple clever devices that made some scenes quite interesting, but i really didn't get what the actual vision was or where it was going. there was a lot of pain in watching the relationships break down, and seeing them flounder in dealing with their desires and the subsequent consequences, but i'm not sure how much of the pain was from not really 'getting it'. anyhow, EVERYTHING BUT THE BRAIN tmr at rj with chengryandarrenreub. have watched this play twice, but can't wait to see leon fill gerald chew's shoes this time.

have just come back from break and have discovered that edefer is not just cranky, but totally and righteously fscked up. seriously, you're expecting us to type up reports, and the only punctuation we're allowed to use are capital letters, commas and fullstops? any report with parantheses, colons, dashes and apostrophes gets rejected? SERIOUSLY? i think what angers me the most is bigboss' explanation and his idiotically vehement way of telling us to deal with this change. "don't put 'man's wife', put 'wife of the man' la! even i f9 in english also can." SERIOUSLY?????? i can think of so many examples to show how this new system is EPIC FAIL, but i'm way too angry to do it right now.

another event down. just came back from DXO, the venue of my unit's 7th anniversary. being the emcee for this event was something that filled me with so much rage, the "I IS LAOJIAO WHY YOU SK ME SIAZ" kind of rage. but honestly, after those months of tuesday meetings and somehow-not-as-hard-as-expected work put into prepping for it, i guess i had fun tonight. i wasn't the glibbest talker in the club for sure, and i made a HUGE mistake in announcing the WRONG winner**, but i think i did okay overall. much thanks to Gibb, my co-emcee.

** (that will now remain a secret between my co-emcee and the few people who made the call) (which i realise i shouldn't be talking about on the internet but the alcohol in my brain says what the heck)

i'm glad to have worked with a bunch of cool, unobnoxious people, and am glad to know cool, spontaneous friends who helped to make the night livelier with their craziness. the "afterparty", in the eyes of an outsider, was really lame. (i was reminded of the flight of the conchords song "too many dicks on the dancefloor".) but i have to be honest, i had fun going nuts on the testosterone-filled dance floor, which was sadly not very full and sadly not filled for very long. but still, major crazy fun, i totally went nuts. (seeing some of the superiors go nuts was a little.... discomforting.... but cool.) the hot pinoy live band on stage was a strange catalyst for crazy.

i never thought i would say this, but i'm gonna miss some of the nssc dudes a lot.

not really looking forward to emceeing the next event 1 month away though. that one's gonna be a drag for sure.

edit: do NOT want to hear about guys reuniting with their long-lost pink friend. but probably WILL x 100

it is an established fact (and has been proven countless times) that the best bonding occurs when it's against a common enemy. a group of not-so-close friends will always get closer when they come together to bitch about a single person, to share stories of their nasty experiences with said whipping-boy/girl with such relish and fervor, each trying to outdo the other, building up into a collective ball of hate, a HADOUKEN of hate, that after being unleashed will leave a feeling of satisfied camaraderie.

i'm sure am no stranger to this, but it's always nice to see the aunties at my workplace getting all excited and bitching about one of their own. fun. and then they all leave in such high spirits. i can't help but just go awww.

now all the superiors are gone and mingxuan is blasting his ipod really loud in the office and we're grooving and doing stupid stuff (and i'm on lj). every day of work should be like this.

jim is my enemy. but it turns out that jim is also his own worst enemy. and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. so jim, is actually my friend. ...but, because he is his own worst enemy, the enemy of my friend is my enemy. so actually jim is my enemy. .... ....but,
-dwight, The Office S6E7.

this episode of the office was reminscent of season 2. the aww feelings, the awkwardness, the curveballs out of nowhere that tie up the 20 min episode so nicely. and the interactions were great. great writing.

hangman is coming down from the gallows and i don't have very long

was having dinner at the thai coffee shop at kovan. had to pee, so i walked towards the macdonalds down the street. and on the way there, this man wearing black thin-rimmed glass caught my eye for less than a second. there was something about his face that seemed so familiar, and in the next 2.4 seconds i wondered if he was one of the, to borrow an apt jap term, DSTA salarymen from my workplace. no, that wasn't it. OH! then i burst out laughing once i realised that i had seen his somewhat dead-looking face (like some of the DSTA salarymen at my workplace have) not at my workplace, but just five days ago on an episode of CRIMEWATCH. he was one of the policemen detective people on the show. and i remembered him because unlike most of the other extras on the show, he didn't act like shit and/or sound like a robot.

i totally should attempt to land a role on crimewatch after ORD.

everyone and anyone needs to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs NOW. it is, hands down, the most well-written animation film this year. or ever. sorry up fans, up comes close, but cloudy's humour is untouchable. it's quirky, snappy, intelligent, and always coming out of nowhere. it's funnier than MvA too. goodness i haven't chuckled so many times throughout a movie before, a great movie from start to finish. fantastic writing and gorgeous animation. also, do not watch on an empty stomach =\

cloudy was a great morale booster after the pretty fail interview. it wasn't a total disaster, more like a 85% disaster. it totally reaffirms my belief that i have a severe case of GAIJIN-PHOBIA. gosh you should have seen the way i clammed up in front of the fair-skinned professor. my mind drew complete blanks on questions that i would have been able to do in a flash, while dota-ing and eating dinner at the same time. and the way i responded at times could make anyone think that i never took physics, maths or common sense classes in my life. not that i'm kicking myself too much over it though, but it sure was embarassing =\