His Friday It was Friday. Our protagonist wakes up a little later than usual, wondering why going to bed earlier did not result in waking earlier. The pondering question rouses him, yawning, smelling of sleep. It was already noon, much too late for his daily exercise regime. He washes up and goes into the kitchen, opens the refrigerator door and scavenges what he can to make a meal for lunch. He changes and is soon out of the house, walking. He looks at the time, intending to measure the time that would take him to walk to his destination. The walk took fifteen minutes and he was feeling pretty pleased with the time taken. The destination was not too far away from his home. He could make this a regular place. He heads right into Coffee Bean, found a seat by the window, a place which could become his favorite seat. He orders a glass of mocha latte wondering about the differences between mocha latte and cafe mocha, forgetting to use his Coffee Bean card for payment, and pays with cash instead. He takes his seat and looks around taking note of his neighbours before reading his book. Behind him was a young girl, alone at a four seater table, mugging, presumably for her upcoming exams. The only patron who would stay as long as what he intended to. The others would come and go. Some time during his reading, a rather slim and fair lady with straight lengthy hair came in together with another guy and takes the table in front of our protagonist. He looks at the time and realizes that it was still office hours and thinks of the words “Mahjong tai tai” but does not say anything. Our protagonist’s reading becomes distracted as he steals glances at the attractive lady. The smell of croissant fills the air tempting his hungry appetite. The student behind him had ordered one. The lady’s guy got up and went off somewhere while another guy came to take a seat. He brings out his notebook and starts showing his wares. An interior designer providing customizable furnishings. The lady has a new house to furnish. The interior designer tries to set up the atmosphere and engages in small talk. The designer asks the lady if she lives “around here”. The lady does not answer but asks the designer was comfortable with his seat as he was in the sun. The designer mentions something about “brother”. The lady was quick to correct, the guy was not her brother. Something that feels like a sigh settles on our protagonist’s shoulders when he hears it. He would much rather that the guy was a brother, we would be correct to assume. The lady’s discussion was lengthy but ended before our protagonist left. Our protagonist, with his rhythm interrupted, looks around. The student had left too. He leaves too, with a croissant fueled hunger nagging at him. He takes a bus to the library, borrows another book and leaves for home. He resumes his exercise regime in the evening, and the aches turns to pain during his run. He tells himself that he needs to take a break or break his legs. And so it ends, another meager day of life for our protagonist. Goodminton and honeymoon neh So it was, i went to the badminton session today, making it clear that i was only going to pass a book and read my book there. But i guess the time of the session should have screamed something at me. It was 8am to 10am. I never knew the universe existed in those hours of a Saturday morning. I was a little late, having being intercepted by the toilet as i always am when i wake up early, and there was hardly anyone there. So i helped with livening up the place by doing a couple strokes with the racquet with my arms and legs tired from my weekday regime. I’m surprised i could hit the feather at all, lol. I was so tired that after i returned home and finished the final reading on Silence of the Lambs, i went to bed without even taking a shower. I wonder if there are girls out there who think smelly guys are sexy. Well.. i don’t feel so. I felt like i had defiled and man’s truated on my bed. Then i woke intending to do the two swims and one run in the weekend regime, the regime which i have been consistently dodging with procrastination. So i began gathering the materials for my swim, one goggles, one towel, one swimming trunks, keys and resident card. The funny thing with the swimming trunks is that there is only one serviceable swimming trunks in the house. And big bro claims that it’s his and i claim that it’s mine, since i’m the only one who use it with any regularity. Anyway, i tried looking for it but it was gone. Argh, now i have to buy a pair of swimming trunks. On the other hand, procrastination wins, yay !! : D I guess i’ll take a shower instead. Its pretty much like swimming, no? And no, i don’t just shower two time on weekends. I shower everyday.. Anyway, after the badminton session; Why is minton bad? Why can’t it be goodminton?; we were off to branch at Kopitiam. Nice, i have a 10% discount with the VIP card. We were joined by another girl who didn’t go for the goodminton. Anyway, when the food was done and i lazed around listening to them talk, Yvonne began talking about some place, i assume Hokkaido, and she was telling the girl that the place was good for her honeymoon and stuff. And i was like big eyes small eyes, like this smiley: O_o. Coz the girl is with the boyfriend for like what, less than a year? And talks of honeymoon? Hmm.. *looks pointedly at Yvonne and her boy boy* Come to think of it, i do know of several peeps who got married with only knowing the spouse for a year or less. But they are definitely not the same age group as Yvonne and gang loh.. Obtw.. Miss Karate Chinchilla; Hokkaido dei. Good for honeymoon neh. Am i hearing what i’m hearing? Are we’re getting some wanton soup? Ah.. who rings the change? (Chocolat quote) I can imagine, on whose arms the untossed bouquet toss landed on. The autumn wind is refreshing. Even the winter snow says so, lol. I wanna wake up earlier I’m waking up more often at eleven without the alarm these days. While many peeps would think that it is a blessing to be able to wake up late, it is not. Waking up late means that most of my morning has been eaten up by unconsciousness. Sure, i do sleep later these days. But night is a time when the energy of the day is sapped and low, a time for coodles, cuddles and soft gentle sex. At this juncture in my life, night is not my time. Waking up late, in fact leaves me more tired than waking up early. The muscles seem sore from disuse or something. I’ve gotta do something already. I’ll sleep earlier from now on, i think. So tired that i’m thinking of giving this morning’s exercise a skip. Maybe i’ll do it tonight. Ok, i’m off. The zombie sleeps tonight Did i mention about my official favorite little bundle? My cousin’s little doll? Anyway, just a month back, i think, whenever i see her i would raise up my hands such that they are parallel to the ground, with some slack in the wrists and drawl out her name in a long creepy moan. You know, like a zombie. And then she would scream. Anyway, i managed to find out that i could achieve the same effect when i pointed my hands towards her brother and drawl out a long “弟弟”. Like “Diiii Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”. And then she would scream too. Yeah, i know, i’m sick. Anyway, one time during a high tea session, my bro’s rom reception it was, i found the seat beside my favorite little bundle empty. So i sat beside her and gave her my creepy glassy eye stare and began my creepy soft and slow drawl on her name. And then she started crying. And i was like, omg, she’s so frightened of her zombie uncle. Well.. i guess i have to teach her not to be afraid of ghosts and zombies in some other way. I feel for the poor little thing loh. Anyway, that’s the last time i ever became a zombie infront of her. Maybe i’ll try it out on a couple of my older cousins, lol. These days, whenever she walks pass me, she would say a tiny “hello” to me. It’s like the “hello” was some sort of a symbolic ward against the awakening of the zombie in me. Coz she only gives that passing “hello” to me and one other scary uncle (that’s what she calls us when she talks to her parents) who’s creepy in his own way. Humph I didn’t get any coffee today. Humph. Not happy : ( Ramblings when it rains What the hell. It rains just when i’m about to go out to try get a cup of coffee or something. It’s hard to resist the sweet seduction of hot mocha when you’re reading Chocolat, lol. I wonder if Coffee Bean sells hot mocha.. Anyway, since i’m waiting for the rain to lighten up, i might as well blog a little. I think i’ll consume that memory cue i put up some days ago. I have a friend, i’ll call him Mr Benny, coz that’s really his name, who have some rather peculiar beliefs. Anyway, during some conversations over the years; around once a year, lol; i have come to know that he has a rather strong er.. i don’t know what to call it, i’m at a lost of words coz the rain seems to be lightening up. Anyway, ask him about the thought of having children and he will tell you in a very firm, “I will not have children.”. I think i asked him why before and he mentioned something which i no longer remember. But recently, we were in conversation again and he made a case analysis of it. Children was bad economics for retirement. Like if there were grand-children, he would have to help take care of the little ones. That’s quite a chore, in his opinion. There were among other reasons i don’t quite remember. Anyway, the only confirmed way, ethical way or rather, not to have grand children would be to not have children in the first place. Mr Benny and i are rather similar in wavelength. Like him, i don’t think i would want to have children, assuming that there is someone to have children with in the first place, but that’s not the point. But my reasons are less economics-driven. I simply think that Singapore, with its stagnant politics and empty sense of democratic freedom, is a terrible place to grow up in. But quite unlike Mr Benny, i don’t opine it. Or rather, when i do, i’m less firm than him. Coz i like to include the possibility that i might change my mind, as with all things, some time later in my life. But with Mr Benny, he is so sure of it and he says that it (i still don’t know what to call it) will never change. So that day, i went on with my prattle telling him that he could trust his wife not to change her mind in the future. What if she sabotages all his condoms? A tiny pin prick through the middle of the box is all it takes. I assume it’s not possible to not-have-sex, though. So i challenged him to think about it: Vasectomy. I assured him that all the proccesss and organs vital to the proccess would remain after the surgery. Just that one would be firing blanks. Fortunately, he didn’t reply and i think i would be too traumatized if he went for a vasectomy on my prodding. Anyway, someone said the doctors don’t do it for guys who have not have children. Hmm.. And then some time much later, i was thinking through my disorganized, random and sometimes dangerous thoughts. I figured that even if i went through vasectomy, that still doesn’t prevent my wife from having babies, lol. Ok, i think i’ll brave the rain to get some coffee now. Sosu Lbandit Daily The run today was a drag. The legs were extremely tired from last night’s longer distance run. Anyway, when i was finishing my run, waiting at a traffic light for the green light before jogging the last leg of the run, i saw this girl crossing the road towards me from another traffic light. Since it was way into the office hours and all the office ladies are working and all the mahjong taitais are.. i don’t know what it is that they do.. anyway, i began gazing at her in between breaths. And during breaths too. She very obviously saw me looking, but kept her neck stiff and head straight while doing this rather public um chio smile to herself. And deep down inside, i think she’s singing “You think i am pretty. You want to date me.”; see Miss Congeniality. That was like so much better and prettier than those girls who try to act dao when you look at them loh. Friendly girls are definitely up there in the A list of desirables. Personally, i think girls are allowed to act dao only if they are truly drop dead gorgeous, and they know it. Some aren’t, but they like to think that they are. Drop dead gorgeous that is. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Thinking one is drop dead gorgeous when one is not. It’s about the confidence. If it works that is. If it doesn’t, well.. Oh well.. Omg.. what did i do.. Ok, nothing sexual, you’ll expect. Anyway, i was getting frustrated with the game Spore. I’ve been playing one of my saved games alot hoping to collect every single badge before heading to the galactic core to collect the remainder two secret badges (ally and wipe out Grox). It turns out that the Cleaner badges were still lacking by 35 missions and then the thing broke. Every planet i went to, to ask for missions said they were out of missions for me. Even when the time lapse was right and the planet was supposed to have a mission for me. Incidentally, that meant that i could no longer form an alliance with the Grox. Anyway, after going through several other saved games, i returned to this saved game and decided to simply fly into the galactic core with Grox warships shooting at me all along the way. I figured that this saved game had the most repair and energy packs. All was fine until i reached the galactic core, met with Steve, and got interested about heading over to Earth. Except that when i reached the Sol system, the planet wasn’t there. Apparently i had destroyed it in another game and now there isn’t even any dust remaining. And i was like, omg.. what did i do. I destroyed Earth and it was permanent. Anyway, i’ve completed quite abit of achievements and am left with the icky ones like spending 50 hours in the creators and flying in the space ship for 50 hours to the impossible ones like getting featured in the Spore front page to the difficult ones which includes having atleast five buddies. *sigh* Anyone wanna help each other with the achievements? Add me as buddy. Username is lbandit as usual. You can look at the achievements here. More Chocolat quotes More quotes from Chocolat: (I’ll not be using italics, coz the paragraphs do have their own italics) “… what do you believe?” Magic-carpet rides, rune magic, Ali Baba and visions of the Holy Mother, astral travel and the future in the dregs of a glass of red wine … Florida? Disneyland? The Everglades? What about it, chérie? What about it, hein? Budhha. Frodo’s journey into Mordor. The transubstantiation of the sacrament. Dorothy and Toto. The Easter Bunny. Space aliens. The Thing in the closet. The Resurrection and the Life at the turn of a card … Anyway, i laughed out loud when i read the Frodo bit. I love Chocolat I’m so in love with Chocolat. The book that is. It’s such a beautiful read. I’ll make a quote of lines from the book. There are several, and it just happen this quote was the last one that i wanted to quote and was right where i stopped reading for the day. It just happens to be related to one of my favorite topics, lol. No, my favorite topic is not sex. Though it could be my favorite activity. Anyway.. here’s the quote: “Funny, how you always imagine dying in bed, surrounded by your loved ones. Instead, too often, the brief bewildering encounter, the sudden realization, the slow-motion panic ride with the sun coming up behind you like a swinging pendulum however much you try to outrun it. ‘If I had a choice I’d take this one. The painless needle. The friendly hand. Better that than alone in the night, or under the wheels of a cab in a street where no-one stops to look twice.’” Well.. the underlying story was that the character’s mother was killed by a cab couple years back and she was talking to a customer who’s dog was ill and dying and maybe in need of being put to sleep. Anyway, what really hit a chord with me was the imagining dying in a bed surrounded by loved ones. That’s what i do !! Books books books Ok, here’s some information on the library books i have on my table now. Anyway, before that, i read the Wizard of Oz recently. I think some peeps who know me well enough would know why i am reading that book. Unfortunately, i don’t think there’s anyone, but that’s not the point. Anyway, the reason i read Wizard of Oz was because i bought Wicked by Gregory Macguire. Wicked was sort of derived from Wizard of Oz, giving the wicked witch of the west’s version of the story. So that’s about the reason why i read Wizard of Oz. Though, since i have the book itself, it’s probably last in line to be read. Now you’ll have an inkling about why there’s a library book on my table that’s titled Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.I’ve been wanting to buy or borrow Annotated Alice for a very very long time. It’s in Queensway Public Library and god knows where that is. I’ll probably jaunt down to kinokuniya to get it or something. I wonder if they stock it.. Another book is The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. I wanted to watch the shows for very long, but since i couldn’t find it, i wasn’t finding very hard anyway, and no one gave to me as Christmas present, i thought i’ll read the book itself. Anyway, now you can guess what another two books are. The last book is Chocolat by Joanne Harris which i’m reading now and hope to finish by Wednesday. Omg.. at this pace, how am i going to do three books a week? Plus, i’m still a tad far away from completing all the badges in space Spore. There’s just lots of waiting and mission browsing to try to complete the Eco Hero, Body Guard and Cleaner level 5 badges. I think i’ll write a walkthrough for Spore one of these days. Lbandit Daily I better blog something less i fall out of blogging. After many weeks of procrastination, i finally went for a swim today. I was heading out to buy lunch today when i looked at the pool and weather. I had thought it was going to rain in the morning, which resulted in another excuse not to rain. Turns out the weather in the afternoon was pretty sunny and the pool was not very occupied. There were only two guys there. As i walked a little, babe watch sensor beeped and i zeroed in onto a third person at the pool. Some girl in bikini was taking off her clothes to get a tan by the pool. I looked as i walked and she caught me looking and stared at me. Humph, stare at people for what.. She had a really slim body loh. Drools. Then i went like: oh wait, she caught me ogling. If i went for a swim, wouldn’t she think i some sort of a humsup uncle, which i concur, i am. In the end, i decided not to care what she would’ve thought of me, and by the time i was at the pool, there was another girl tanning at the pool too. Though this other girl is more young and more active, for she actually swims. Though it’s insane to swim twelve in the noon, i now think that it is quite a good time to do my swims, for the really delicious babes do their tanning at those hours too, lol. Anyway, after the swim, i did alot of walking, ended up in the library, borrowed five books, coz i’m a member, and still wondering how i’m going to finish all the books. Oh well.. Of dogs I haven’t been updating, sorry guys. This is just to let you know that i’m still alive and kicking and probably still a pain in someone else’s ass. Not in a sexual way that is. I’ve been going at this Spore game almost every hour of everyday. Of the achievements, i’m trying to make “heroes” out of the ten available philosophies, of which i’ve completed half of them. After that, it is onward to the center of the galaxy. When i was doing my run today, i thought of something. Whenever i look at animals like stray cats and well.. dogs; you hardly find stray dogs in the heartlands, they get culled very quickly. Anyway, one of my cousins, who is now in Taiwan for his national service, would always say that i’m measuring them up to determine how many pieces of steak the four legged things would make. That’s not true loh. I don’t measure dogs in number of steaks. I measure them in pots of dog stew, lol. Oohh, a cute one pot puppy. There goes a nice three pot dog. And wow, that doggy is gonna make seven pots of dog stew, provided i can kill it before it kills me. And so on and so forth. Cerberus is a dog. You know, the three headed dog. There’s this secret achievement in Spore, called Cerberus, that invovles the creation of a three headed creature. The irritating thing about Spore is that the creature creation is highly symmetrical. I ended up making a creature with three heads, one on top of the other. But that still didn’t complete the achievement. I figuered that since i was using the hands as necks, maybe the software mistook the necks as hands with mouths eyes and ears. So i reshaped the body, added a pair of cute little hands, coz the whole creature had pretty maxed out in its complexity, and the fiersome looking hands costs more in complexity. and suddenly, i completed the achievement. By adding hands to a three headed dog.. I’ve.. changed.. Big brother had sorted through his video tapes and found an old piece which he started showing on Tv at the gathering at auntie’s house today. In the video, i had gestured at a grandfather clock and mentioned that it was atleast twenty six years old, thus concluding that the video was taken when i was twenty six years old. The scene was at the aunties’ old house before they moved to another house. I think we were there to help pack as well as to salvage whatever goodies we found worth keeping. I was even recorded, attempting to pull a fast one by holding onto an unopen box of bird’s nest asking if they didn’t want it anymore, lol. Oh how people change. Pigsticker looked so much more cheerful then. The little cousins so much younger. And how i’ve changed.. I had much more hair then and looked so much more younger. I think i had better reflexes too. Now i can’t climb the escalator without getting stitches. But the more remarkable change was not the physical variations. I.. i think i seemed so much more fun then. Now i’m so much more sombre. I would even say sober. No longer soaked in the intoxicating energy of life. The last four years have taken the toll on me, i would say. The regretful but incontrovertible conclusion is that i am growing old. That i too.. am nearing an end, a time where i would no longer share with the Tree of Where It All Ends. And soon a day would come, where some other little boy would say it’s depressing to see professional bums looking and touching the leaves of the Tree of Where It All Ends one day, and is gone the next. I will continue more on this somewhat icky topic. Memory cue for me: Mr Benny, me, savings, babies. As suddenly as i happened on this world, so suddenly will i leave. So fiscal is the flickering existence of me, i would not doubt if it were an unwaking dream. lbandit 2008 Gym and Spore.. monotonously lbandit The auntie was at the gym again today. I wonder if she goes everyday. Then again, it was raining again today. Anyway, i managed to sneak a peek at the timer on her treadmill and it was like omg, she’s been at it for seventy minutes and she’s still going at it. I’ve got to admire her determination loh. Walking on the spot for an hour an still going. It’s like doing moonwalking for an hour.. Anyway, her phone rang and she answered. Turns out that she’s not chinese. Though i’m not very sure what language it was that she was speaking in. I wonder if she has any daughters to introduce, lol. Spore spore. I’ve completed the one hundred hours spent in the Spore galaxy achievement. What more can i say.. Found Earth, tried speeding into the center of the galaxy, but failed by several light years. The Grox surround the place very thickly loh. Was there some secret achievement to make the Grox extinct? That seems so impossible.. Ok, back to Spore. Lbandit Daily I now understand why people can injure their ankles while running, all without falling down. They must’ve all been using the treadmill. It was raining today, so after my gym session, i went for the run on the treadmill. I never liked the treadmill as i get too overly concerned with the numbers on the lcd display. Anyway, while running puts alot of strain on the knees,  it seems that using the treadmill puts alot of strain on the ankles. I was utterly destroyed by the treadmill loh. And the muscles used seems to be more on the calfs than the thighs. But who cares.. No babes, no sweet young mahjong taitais. Plenty of uncles and one young auntie who was walking on the treadmill for like an hour, and i think atleast one professional bum like me. I think the crowd was caused by the rain. Or maybe i was early, coz i set my alarm to wake earlier. Anyway, another thought occured while i was showering. Ok.. nevermind. After typing and deleting the sentence several times, i decided that the topic was a little too sombre and it would be better to make a post of it’s own when i’m up to it. So here’s a memory cue for me: Tree of Where It All Ends. Crouching Tiger, Flying Hairpins After my run today, i was resting at the common area, the void deck, looking at the swimming pool. I still remember the fencing of the swimming pool. Earlier, it was some low fence. Then for some reason, they changed the fence to some ugly tall white pickets. Recently, in lieu with the painting of the blocks, they changed the fencing to this nice curvy metal grill which affords the full view of the pool from outside. Ah.. finally, someone with aesthetic sense in the committee. Anyway, i was looking at these couple (three) mahjong young (i assume) tai tais who had brought their kids down to learn swimming; on a Tuesday; and who (the young tai tais) look pretty good from where i was seated. Especially the one in white halter dress and neck length hair. And i was like, these people dress pretty well to bring their kids swimming. Come to think of it, i hardly see any of my aunties in dresses when it’s not some sort of a formal outing. It’s almost always shorts and tees. Even the little cousins are always in shorts and tees. And they wonder where i get my bad dress sense from. Humph. Anyway, i think one of them who was facing me noticed that i was gazing in their direction, not the one in white halter dress, and began brushing the hair at her neck not once but several times. And i’ve got a question: Is this brushing hair at neck thing a flirt kind of body language? Coz i’ve always thought it was. Coz if it ain’t, for god’s sake, pin up your hair with one among the thousands of hairpins you have hidden underneath your sleeve. Girls always have thousands of hairpins with them. They’re like some sort of martial artist. The moment you want to say “fat” and you’ve managed only “fa-”, they would leap up into the air, sommersault twice and fire one hundred and ninety eight hairpins at you. Even if you only meant to comment on your dinner of beef steak saying that it was fat and juicy.  Anyway.. Then i have to leap up into the air too, somersault twice, wave my sleeve, and the gawking spectators behind me would all collapse from the one hundred and ninety seven hairpins that missed me. And i would land and say in cantonese lei di pon moon zor dou ge um hei m hui siong dou ngor ke. Of course, if you read anything that i write at all, the hairpins that struck the innocent spectators is one less from that which was fired out. Coz later on, one of the spectators, with his dying breath, would point at my arm and say, “lbandit..”. Ah.. escaped all but the last hairpin. And it’s poisoned. What the hell am i talking about? Ok, too much wu xia series liao. Omg.. why am i looking out for mahjong tai tais? Who comes with kids !! Or maybe some of them wants some affair or to keep a small white face. Then i could sponge some moolah off them muahahahaha. Er.. i found my goggles. Spore Epic Killer: Even Cowards Have Their Day I just managed to complete the Epic kill achievement. For those who does not play Spore, Epics are really huge versions of monsters, that are basically of players’ creation. They have 1000 hitpoints (life) while the creatures we have only have a maximum of 110 hitpoints. And they can literally squash your furry monster by stepping on it. Anyway, following examples on youtube, i tried to lure the epic T-Rex back to my camp where my buddy monsters would help by shooting at it with poison. On the way back to my camp, just over a hill crest that has a tree on it, the epic monster seemed to get stuck at the tree. So yeah, there wasn’t any guerilla tatics dogfight as one would expect. My epic victim was killed by the bad pathfinder, lol. So it was, i stood there spending several minutes spitting at the huge T-Rex. Oh well, i’ll take my achievements all the same : P Here’s a video of the last few hitpoints of the epic victim. [Ok.. i just looked through the video itself. It was shoddy, you can’t even get a clear view of the epic T-Rex. And it seems kind of boring at the beginning. But it’s only about ten spits, so bear with it : P ] And yes, my monsters eat what they kill. It was spitting at the epic for so long it was starving loh.. Lbandit Daily I was feeling (touch) the healed flesh of my toe and i felt this peeled dried skin sticking out. So i gave it a hand and pulled it off. No injury, whatsoever, was sustained. But then later in the night, i had this pretty weird dream last night. I dreamed that there was a tear in my toe at the healed flesh. I pulled the flesh apart with two thumbs er.. by pulling i mean open the gap bigger and not tearing myself into pieces. Anyway, when i looked into the gaping flesh, i saw some alien hair growing out from it. Come to think of it, it looks like split end hair.It was thick like a cockroach leg. I think i went on to dream about asking mum whether hair grows on the inside of the flesh. Fortunately, i didn’t dream much more about that. Sounds kind of icky and gruelling to me. Anyway, earlier in the morning, i was sitting down on a chair (lots of time i sit on the floor) drinking my milk. My breakfast always consists of only a mug of plain water followed by a mug of milk. Yeah, it’s all liquid. I was in a rather dazed state, being tired from the interval run i did on friday. I didn’t swim or run at all during weekend.. Halfway through my milk, i felt a tingling in the hairs of my leg, like something was crawling up my leg. I was like, omg, that cockroach is so dead while panicking and very violently tried to brush whatever’s on my leg away. The cool headed thing to do would have been to see what it was. Anyway, turns out that it was a tiny lizard, kind of blackish in color. So yeah.. nothing else happened. I kill only roaches. Flying worms I was playing Spore till late yesterday when my brother came to take a look. I had taken a break from the endless space exploration and space trading to go back to the amoeba stage. My creation this time round was a flying slug. I thinking it must be some kind of a fetish. First, there’s giant space slugs, now there’s flying space slugs. Anyway, my slug turn out to look more like a worm with dragonfly wings. I tried to show my brother how it slithers, actually it’s more like wiggles, on the ground. I told him it was a 虫 in cantonese. 虫 is a very generic species which could include slugs. So he went like, “Huh? Worm? So morbid one.” My worms are quite mundane liao loh. If you go on youtube, you might even find the karama sutra variations. They even have a label for it: Sporn. Lol. But those guys are really good with this Spore stuff loh. I’m so gonna try to make a two headed dragon myself. As you can see, life started off for the flying worm as a herbivore in the amoeba stage. But after millions of years of being preyed on, they developed an additional carnivorous mouth to adapt to new feeding methods. And the wings grew larger over the years and as it became more poisonous, the texture become more brightly coloured. I know, the landing from the jump looks gross. I think maybe if the stomach was fatter or it had some sort of a neck, it would land on it’s stomach or something. Swim or Spore Too busy playing Spore to blog. I was supposed to swim once and jog once today. I woke up early this morning with the alarm ringing from my handphone. I snoozed it and woke up without even waiting for the second ring. I was going to swim until i realized that my goggles that used to be hanging from a hook in the bathroom beside the face towels was gone, and it had been gone ever since the aunts and cousins came to help clean. Deciding that i couldn’t swim without my goggles, i resigned to playing a game of Spore before going out to buy a pair of new goggles later, followed by a round of light run. But who was i kidding? Once i start on the Spore thing, i was hooked. In the end, i didn’t exercise at all today. Which makes me think that maybe i’ll swim twice and jog once tomorrow. Which sounds like a utterly crazy and suicidal thing to do, coz it is. I guess i’ll swim once and jog once tomorrow and push the swim to Monday. Oh.. and more Spore stuff before i leave. A star system with twin sun. Look at the tiny blue planet underneath them with my spaceship (spaceship size not relative to planet) above the planet. Another double sun star system. One of the suns are smaller and orbits round the bigger sun. Some hot sun thing. I’m sure there’s a proper name for such a extraterrestrial body. My fleet entering a wormhole and exiting at another. The first time i approached it, i didn’t know it was a wormhole and thought it was a vortex. And even though the spaceships have a reincarnating (cloning) immortality, it freaked me out when i saw my ships getting sucked into the wormhole. I thought it was like a blue black hole. Even after my fleet has gone through the wormhole several times, it still freaks me a little to see them going in. I think the wormhole music has to do with it. [Edit: I don’t get why the video doesn’t work. Here’s a direct link to the wormhole video.] Sblog stuff Some peeps, on this blog, might have been waiting for the little boy who falls in love with every other girl persona to grow and evolve into a roll in the hay player blogging about exotic sexual escapades. And they must have been sad when i devolved into a professional bum, an involuntary bachelor. Lol, i was going to write unwilling bachelor, but it sounds so.. weird. But those same peeps have better pray hard for i’m going to devolve further down the evolution chain. Or up depending on your perspective. Anyway, pray hard that this Spore is merely a passing fever and not some nefarious meat eating virus that will eat lbandit inside out and turning this blog into a sblog. Lol, sbolg = Spore blog. That said, it’s time to introduce Spidero. I hope you can make out the head and tails of it. It’s a spider with tribal clothing. I can’t figure out where to put the mask so i put it on the abdomen above the poisonous spinneret. It has hands for it’s front two legs, sort of like some spiders which lifts up its fore legs such that looks like antennas to mimic ants. Spidero in the tribal camp. Spidero attacking some other species. I recorded the video with a rather high definition and the result was 83mb. (I’m sorry, it zooms in only at the end.) Addicted to Spore now Ok, there was no post yesterday, coz i was addicted to my new computer game. Went out the night before yesterday to buy the galactic edition of Spore. Around $80 sgd. And has been at it till 3am in the night for two days already. It’s a really crazy game. It dabbles a little to so many different play styles, no wonder the feedback was that it wasn’t a very deep game. Imagine that you build a horde of tanks only to realize that they are boundaried by the continent and there was no airlift or navy carriers. I miss Civilization (the actual game, not the phase in Spore), lol. I tried to make a ravenous carnivore that are out to eat the world alive. I tried to create some form of godzilla (troglodyte) creature, but i think i failed horribly ending with it. There was a difficulty setting and i chose hard even though i was playing it the first time. I was thinking, how hard could a Sims game be? That was when my tribe of ravenous lizardmen reached the age of civilization. The entire world was at war with me loh. Imagine a constant stream of three boats coming at you with annoyances from all over. Unlike Warcraft 3, there is no cool down time with the build button. It’s like the most valuable commodity in that stage of the game is cash rather than troops. Unable to win that stage, i created another race; this time easy difficulty. This time a herbivore intending to create faeries. Unfortunately, i wasn’t very satisfied with fat faeries with snouts or beaks for mouths. It destroys my idea of her faerie which are little flitty things. So my creature up as a birdman. No offense to vegetarians out there, but how boring can herbivores be. I simply cannot imagine outfitting my fighter planes with a harp as weapon loh. So i tried again, with the ravenous carnivore at easy difficulty. Now i have this awesome merciless spider that spits poison from its abdomen. Ok.. enough talking, back to my Spore. Maybe some screenshots of the spider, lol. Gym chats I’m going to the gym again trying to train my upper body muscles in hopes that i would pass my ippt for once. There isn’t much time left, the birthday coming soon and all. Presents anyone? At the gym, there were two like minded individuals who instead of going to work on a monday, goes to the gym on monday. One look at the guy and you know he is some sort of a earning big money guy. And one look at the girl and.. well.. i don’t know what she works as, but she looks good, hur hur. Anyway, the sky darkened like it was going to rain and i decided to get my run at the treadmill instead of the roads. The girl had sneaked away sometime during my rests without saying hi. Humph. Oh wait.. am i supposed to be the one who says hi first? Oh, don’t be silly. One look at me and you’ll know i’m a professional bum. Peeps like her are likely professional majong tai tais. All is married one de. I took the treadmill which is next to the walking machine which the guy was using. There were two other treadmills and i didn’t know if the others were working. So he began to make small chat. Guy, “So you’re a new resident here?” Remember the golden rule i mentioned? If you can’t hear or understand what the other person is saying (which is pretty often with me), agree with them. LB, “Ya.” Guy, “So how long have you been here?” LB, “Twenty years.” Guy, “It’s all relative huh?” Oh well.. Thanks for the lunch, guys Met up with the poly guys and the lecturer today. The meeting place was Beauty World. Got some brief instructions on how to get there, got lost, got found and finally got some vegetarian lunch. It’s a pretty spiffy place called Green On Earth Cafe. There was beancurd, pizza, olive fried rice, spaghetti, lasagna, fish, vege pot, and latte for the soul. I kind of liked the beancurd. It had a chewy feel to it, much different from the usual beancurd. I took a very hard look at the lasagna, coz i’ve never eaten vegetarian lasagna before. I’m more familiar with beef stuffed lasagna. The fish plate had lots of cabbage. We were supposed to wrap the “fish” with the cabbage before munching on it. The last picture is not coffee beans, though it looks like it. It’s some sort of nuts which i thought has the same scents as hamster food. When the lunch was over, Mr Benny secretly sneaked away from the table to pay for everyone. He refused to let us pay for our own food saying that eating vegetarian food is the only time he is able to treat us (him being the vegetarian). Now that i think about it, eating vegetarian food also happens to be the only time we are able to treat him too. Anyway, during lunch, i had updated everyone on my latest professional bum status, and i tried to pay for my food, they refused to let me pay for my food !! Omg, we should eat together more often, lol. Anyway, Miss Jessica said she was glad to see that everyone was doing well, which kind of brought a smile to me, which she noticed and said that i can’t say that i’m not doing well coz.. i couldn’t really hear what she said being slightly deaf and all, but i think she said something like i resigned voluntarily. To be fair, i think she’s right. I can’t say that i’m not doing well. The thing is, i’m not doing anything.. There was one quote that i wanted to quote. But i don’t remember it now. Anyway, one of the guys were saying that i don’t have any adopted missuses to talk about anymore. Well.. it’s to be expected. The adoption of Missys can only happen with boring routines that i have to do everyday, like going to work. Lacking such routines also means that there are no more Miss Icy Cools and the likes. Ok, off to watch DvD. Sosu Lbandit Daily That’s my brother’s Christmas present, the little dog on the barrel. One of my aunties had placed the dog on the barrel and asked me to look at it saying it looked cute that way. Failing to appreciate it, i said, “Err.. ok..” and took a photograph of it to pin up on the blog. The midnight before the wedding day. Aunties and cousin came to help with decoration and last minute cleaning. That’s one auntie, one cousin and one brother lying on the floor. I thought it cute to take a picture of this dead body scene, lol. This is the couple watch that my brother and i gave to the brother as wedding present, with shopping effort by dearie cousin. I think the watches look pretty spiffy. Anyway, until the wedding day, the sis-in-law was addressing me as 弟弟. So i resolved to address her as 大嫂. That was until today when bro gave her her portion of the couple watch. She wore the watch and called me by name to thank me for it. Well.. second brother was working and wasn’t around to be thanked. Oh well.. so i guess i’ll be addressing her by name. Anyway, sis-in-law misplaced her handphone today. So when we were back home after mooncake gathering at aunt’s house, my sharp ears (surprising since i’m supposedly partially deaf) picked up a tiny tune playing in the house. The ringtone was catchy and i managed recall where i first heard it from. It was an embedded youtube on xinyun’s blog. I’ll pin it here; my sis-in-law’s ringtone. Mooncakes, mooncakes. But for some reason, i don’t have an appetite for it this year. Omg, i must find a girlfriend.. er.. i think.. Things to do: Get a driving license. Mum’s seem to be rather persistent about getting me to do something other than watching DvDs and playing computer game. Anyway, i’m really wondering what the little kids are getting as education in school these days. A couple hours ago, i was in the auntie’s house browsing nlb’s opac to see if Sex and the City (the complete 96 eppy of it) is still In Transit. So it was, i typed the keywords “Sex and the City” into the browser and the little cousin beside me went “Hor !!! Sex !!!!”. Really 大惊小怪 in my opinion.. Photographs: Food during the shopping I didn’t know i had this photograph in my handphone until i accidentally over-downloaded the pictures from my handphone to my computer. It’s my cousin’s chinchilla which she placed on my shoulder. Once the furry thing was on my shoulder, i kept laughing coz it was really ticklish. I can imagine a conversation with my future wife. Wife, “Honey, do you like it when i touch you here?” LB, “Hahahaha, it’s ticklish.” Wife, “How about here?” LB, “Hahahaha..” Wife, “There?” LB, “Hahahaha..” … LB, “Wait.. you’re going to bed now?” Anyway, you can look at the dresses dearie cousin tried here. Jack’s place. I think i should try one of those $20+ steaks one of these days instead of those set lunches steak. They look so delicious on the menu. Vietnamese food. I can’t make out the name of the place on the photograph. It’s in Suntec, quite near the cinemas. The noodles were chicken and beef pho (pronounced as fur, i think). The side was lemon grass chicken. Anyway, dearie cousin said we were pretty extravagant with food. I looked around and saw two couples. One was having one pho each without sides. Another was sharing one pho with sides. And we were having one pho each with sides !! Anyway, we got the coffee drip thing, and got the coffee to go through the drip twice. Turns out that the coffee was yummily strong. 5/5 for the ceffee !! Singtel is spamming their handphone subscibers I guess the title says it all. Apparently, Singtel has hired telemarketer(s) to call service subscribers on their list to market some sort of a 2 year rebate plan. I don’t know about you, but when someone calls up to offer free money without stating terms and conditions which you might or might not find on snail mailers, i get kind of suspicious. The situation is such that mum has two lines under her name. One of the lines is being used by me. I think she’s using none of those lines at all. So this telemarketer calls me on my phone and looks for mum, saying she’s from Singtel. I was in a rather comatose state since i had taken flu medicine earlier and was asleep for the hours before i picked up the call and was planning to stay asleep for the rest of my life. So i was very annoyed about being woken up, especially by telemarketers. Even in the semi-comatose state, i briefly thought that maybe they’re calling coz i hadn’t paid my bill. Which i thought could not be, since i paid $100 to my billing account very recently without even looking at the bill.. I passed the phone to mum and went about trying to get fully awake. Then i decided that letting mum handle telemarketers might not be such a wise choice, so i went to sit beside her. That was when i heard her finish telling the telemarketer off her ic (identification card) number. Which got me even more crossed. Why was mum giving personal information to a telemarketer. I took the phone from mum and began making snappy conversation, dripping as much venom as i could. There was no way her sales pitch was going to suceed at that point loh. I would’ve bitten her middle finger off if she pointed it to me. Anyway, i asked her why she couldn’t send it in writing, and was doing it over the phone instead, which is kind of a stupid question to ask, she’s working as a telemarketer duh !! Anyway, she said that the mailer had been sent and that there was no response from us. Which would be rather hard for me to find the snail mailer to confirm if she was telling the truth since we threw away lots of stuff recently because of the wedding thingy. Lbandit Daily What a day.. yesterday. I went to camp for my first ever call up. Apparently, i’m not the only one who hasn’t been call up after ord (operational ready date) for years. There are some who have ord for ten years already and is getting their first call up now. At the age of thirty, i’m going to complete the whole reservice thingy (ten times) before the cut off age of forty. So suay loh.. Thought i might get discount. Anyway, i thought i would be there alone. Turns out that there were familiar faces. One was a army course mate and another is Galvin, my neighbor from Gippy. At first i didn’t recognise him at all. I was after all closer to a mutual close friend rather than him. But i do recognize facial expressions of recognition. And to my credit, i remember their names by looking at their name tags. Er.. the name tags don’t show the whole names. It’s usually something like Wong HC. So.. to be able to come up with Galvin when i look at Lim TT, i would say i’m pretty good, lol. Yay! Next time reservice wouldn’t be so lonely de liao. After that, it was another taxi home and i managed to get home in time to go to the wedding dinner together with mom and brother. Actually, they were late in going out, lol. We drove, missed several exits several times and went one big round before reaching the hotel. Took lots of photographs. My hair looks weird. I think i should’ve gotten a haircut. Come to think of it, after looking at some old photos, i realized that my hair had looked that way from when i was a tiny baby. Anyway, i know i’m still owing photogrpaphs, but i have to say this: i’ll upload them later. It never occur to me before, but i’ve always thought that wedding tables are usually mostly filled. Turns out that after brother wedding, and Lynn and Lionel’s wedding, for the first few times, i’m noticing the empty tables and empty seats. Lynn and Lionel’s wedding was on a weekend !!  So when i was at the queue for shaking hands whispering “Thank you for coming : )”, i really meant it. Yeah, i was whispering, not because i’m sexy but because my voice was hoarse from the recurring cough and shouting yum seng. Yeah, photos will be up. Peeps who reads this blog and doesn’t want their faces shown, let me know. Sleepyz Oosshh.. now i think watching Friends was a bad idea. Just as i was halfway into the later half of the season, the aunties came and we did some last minute decoration followed by some last minute packing. It was midnight by the time the whole fiasco ended. Unsatisfied with being denied my dose of Friends which i was so looking forward to watching, i decided to start watching it in the wee hours of midnight/morning. When i came down to the last three eppy, it was already 3+am. I had to make the difficult decision of getting some inadequate sleep or finish watching the season which would mean i wouldn’t be sleeping. Considering that tomorrow is the wedding day and there’s much to do, to last until late night, and there is this call up at some army camp which i had to go in the middle of the day, the day is truly packed and i decided that sleep would be the wisest choice. Of course, the truly wisest choice would have been to sleep at midnight when the fiasco ended.  Now, with barely enough sleep, and after accompanying brother to fetch the bride, i’m waiting for the er.. auspicious hour to go to camp. I don’t want to be early or late, so the time to leave the house must be carefully chosen, lol. I’m so tired i wanna sleep. But i’m afraid i wouldn’t be able to wake up to go to camp. So here i am, blogging a rather uninteresting and unintelligible post. Someone save lbandit. I need sleep.