Category: My Good Life

Categories
Travel Blog

Speed Touring Chennai Pt 1 – Pictures from the City

A montage from my short Chennai trip - pictures from the city

If there is such a term as ”˜speed reading’ or ”˜speed dating’, I guess my trip to Chennai is speed touring in the finest. I have written two articles for my two days visit. Click onto the link below to view.

To recap, out of the blue, my bosses asked me to join them for their ‘VIP visit’. Fine. I have not been to India before. And besides, since I was not in the project’s travel plan, I shouldn’t be doing much besides making coffee and writing notes right?

OK. That picture I had in my head was far from the reality. There were questions flying left, right, center, pointing towards me in a room so full of people including all my bosses and more, for 2 days. Certainly not a good time to screw up or look stupid. Oh well, I really should consider writing a song titled “So I Did My Best”.

So I did my best. Work aside, I managed to squeeze out time in my 2 days trip to Chennai and took some pretty good pictures during the day. At one point, I was so excited that I winded down the window of car and started to take pictures. Everyone inside was screaming as though I have committed the silliest mistake in life.

And I did. No one in India sticks out any part of their bodies from within the moving vehicles that are often inches away from each other. Gosh!

I hope you will enjoy some of the pictures I have posted in the next two articles. If I was to have a bit more time, I would love to hit the beach. Maybe next time.

Related Articles:

Categories
Diary

Chennai Here I Come

Oh God, I don’t even know where to start.

I am a small fry at work.  The VIP fly out for business trips, not me.  I make good coffee and I write well.  I make sure that everything is recorded, which is kind of important to the bosses.  When I think of my job, I think of show biz.  To make sure that everyone look good, I prep them on what to say, what’s going to happen, and if disasters shall fall, I am here to do damage control.

It’s show biz.

Last week, inside a small meeting room, my boss and my director – whose next role is probably going to be a country CEO – freshly back from their long compliance leave and there I was giving them a run down of all-good-news.

The next in the agenda was their “VIP visit” to India.  OK, all the ground works have be done.  They just need to turn up, hope and pray that the team there has no screw-up, and if everything follow my script, everyone should look good.  They can travel.  And I’d love to stay where the good sun is – Singapore.

The director paused at the end of my briefing, looked at my direction, raised his eyebrow, and asked my boss, “Is Wilfrid coming with us?”

Uh-oh.

Before I even get my hands onto the Indian Visa, my teammates from the other side of the ocean have already called me and said, “Welcome to India”.

So I guess, Chennai here I come?  Time to give my dear friend Jann a call for a survival guide on my way to the airport tonight.

PS. I’ve written a whole week worth of blog materials over the weekend so it will be business-as-usual for my website.

Related Posts: Speed Touring Chennai Pt 1 – Pictures from the City

Categories
For the Geeks

It is Diablo III – So the Wait is Over?

I seldom blog about video gaming but this one is big.  The Diablo franchise has a new installment, and from one video I have watched, it’s a quantum leap.  The graphic is jaw dropping and we can now realistically interact with the environment such as the collapse of the structures as we battle.  The control for the battle seems engaging.  Check out one boss fight and I bet you have not quit seen something of that scale before.

I always try to seek a balance when I blog, a little something for everybody.  From the business point of view, Blizzard Entertainment – a division of French Vivendi Games – is one gaming company that I admire deeply.  Why?  They don’t have many games and they only have three major franchises – Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo.  They are not inventive but they enhance and implement the genre so well that all that they create are legendary, a huge gap for the rest of the companies to close.  Starcraft is a 10 years old game and it is still played today.  Recently, it is announced that Starcraft II is on its way.  Warcraft has gone through a cycle of 3 installments and the MMORPG spin off (massively multi-player online role playing game) is a worldwide success taking the genre to a height that never has seen before.  10 million worldwide subscribers (Cynthia and I included) and it is a four years old game still going strong.

Another great thing I admire about Blizzard Entertainment is that unlike other gaming companies that are pressurized to release games even when the games are not ready for the shelves, Blizzard has the reputation of non-committing release dates.  They will only release the games when they are ready.  On top of that, they are not hesitate to can a project (like the venturing into the console gaming platform) if it doesn’t turn out right.

There is a pending merge of Vivendi Games (1 billion in revenue) with yet another giant Activision (3 billion in revenue) and the new entity is going to be called Activision Blizzard Inc.  Now, I do want to own some of their shares.

Below is the cinematic teaser and if you like what you see, don’t miss the video that demonstrates the actual game play (click here and then click onto “Play Gameplay Vidoe” on the right).

Categories
Diary

Gearing Up for Sunday Jamming Session

I don’t do any team sport.  I wonder what players would do one day before, say, a football practice.  My guitarist Jason wants to check out my new toy.  Not just any guitar amp and effect processor but one that comes with a – hold your breath – VOX Valve Reactor.  So he suggested a Sunday jamming session at my humble home studio.  I brainstormed with my bassist Cynthia as we both want to do something different.  And we suggested a retro theme.  Not the eighties retro but rather dig up some of the old materials we were used to play back in 2004.

So one day before the jamming session, I started the day asking my band mates what their personal favorites are.  Interestingly, none of us picks up the same song.  Jason picks “Broken” and “A Little Bit of Love”.  Good choices they are.  “Broken” is a ballad with lots of space for Jason’s guitar solo to shine and “A Little of Love” has some nice tune.  Cynthia picks “Dark Cloud”.  I know she likes the song’s dark theme.  It’s about humanity in desperation.  I wrote that song during the Iraq War.  As for me, it has to be “The Sweetest Thing” – a song written after my dinner trip to the red light district feeling melancholy that girls so pretty have to go down that path – and “Not Today”, a favorite pick from Jeremy – one of our ex-founding band member.

This new toy of mine – VOX ToneLab LE – comes with so much functionality.  I spent the entire morning attempting to narrow down a set of preset programs that suit my song style.  I could of course spend another 1,400 words just to describe the physics behind that sturdy processor.  But I’d rather not.

The rest of the day, I spent much time finding the right key, rewriting the songs into radio edit version.  Radio edit?  You may ask.  Well, you know how it’s like.  Think Pink Floyd back in 1975.  The song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” has a total duration of 26 minutes.  It’s a whole world of difference between then and their last studio album “The Division Bell” (1994).  When our band first recording our signature song “Jealousy” at my home back in 2005, the song was close to 17 minutes.  Subsequently, we progressively trim it down and today, we have a radio edit version that is kept below 4 minutes.  Personally, I still prefer the 17 minutes version.

And perhaps I shall apply the same philosophy to my own blog entries.

By the time I normalized the volume of the different preset programs from my VOX ToneLab LE, it was close to midnight (without normalization would mean a tougher time during the recording session).  What a way to spend Saturday.  Now, I have a football match to watch.  Or rather, Cynthia has a football match to watch while I accompany her.

Categories
Diary

My Harvest at the Great Singapore Sales (So Far)

Call me whatever you like but I simply love the teal color flower petal lookalike tiny thingies that produce beautiful sound.  When I took them out of the box, Cynthia went oooorrhh sooo cute …  and at that moment, I know, girls love that design too.  In fact, I think girls love this design this color more than men do.  Then why did I buy them?

Don’t ask, don’t think too deep.

Not sure why, these days my shopping decisions are largely based on aesthetic values.  Like that pair of pointy shoes.  I looked at those lines, the shape, and I was in love.  Besides, I am no long a size 9 but a 7.  The salesgirl told me that it was due to the cutting.  Now imagine how a girl would feel when the dress size drops by two.  Cynthia calls me a Peter Pan or an elf.  Call me whatever you like but I simply love those pointy shoes …

Except, they were not that entirely comfortable to wear.  Far from that, it was pretty painful to wear.  I used muscles that I didn’t know they existed before.  How do girls walk with shoes like these?  Fortunately these pointy shoes of mine are not high-heeled.  And after a week, I walk like a pro, with these pointy shoes.

And no, contrary to the myths I have heard from some of my friends, I don’t topple and I don’t find it hard to walk up the stairs.

I think I am a hybrid shopper, a type AB.  I do shop with prioritized objectives in mind and I do take forever to make a decision.  You can’t really blame me deriving joy from getting a good bargain and to leave no ground uncovered, no items untested.

You may not have realized this: Imagine you want to buy a pair of speakers for your iPod or computer, most shops have speakers on display powered up, ready for demonstration except for the source of music.  The sales persons more often than not would scramble to look for something to play.

Fear not, with my wonderful wireless phone, all I have to do is to jack in the speaker cable and voilà!  Music on demand.  Since by now, I must have listened to that song by YUI for like 5,000 times (I ain’t joking), it has become my yardstick to determine which speaker model is the best.

And I picked the best looking one in the end (see picture above).

When I told my buddy Robert Let’s Go PC Show, his first response was It’ll be Too Crowded Let’s Not Do It.  I said Fine, I’ll Go There First and We’ll Meet for Lunch An Hour Later.  As the doors of the exhibition hall opened at noon sharp, OK, there was a crowd.  But same place, years ago when Cynthia and I watched Avril Lavigne’s concert, it was a whole lot more crowded than this.

Once in a blue moon, you get yourself into some surreal situations and suddenly, whatever you hear sounds really strange.

Somewhere inside the PC Show exhibition hall, one pair of earphones, close to S$700.  My.  Jaw.  Dropped.  This girl at the Shure booth was very keen to show me what she has got.  “You’ve got to try these,” she smiled.  I looked at the earphones dangling in front of her, for lack of a better word, chest.  I have no idea why she was wearing the most expensive earphones over her neck.  Hesitated for a bit, I gave it a go.   Unplugging my Sennheiser earphones from my wireless phone, I was all ready to be blown away.

“Is this your first time?” she asked.  I presumed she referred to the first time wearing the Shure earphones.  “You’ve got to go from behind,” she demonstrated as she was trying to help me with it.  But it just couldn’t get in.  “Yours is a bit small.  It keeps slipping out,” she giggled.

Huh?  “Let me do it,” I said.  And it went in OK, the other side as well.

The sound is pretty good.  But S$700 for that is kind of out of this world.

So what did I buy at the PC Show?  Well, I supported our local industry and bought something from Creative.  Back in the office when I showed one friend of mine what I was going to get, he was shocked at how fast I made my decision out of so many models Creative have offered.  He probed deeper into my wisdom and I said …

“Look!  It says, ‘Hear your enemies before they find you’.  And I want just that.”

I love making decisions when the marketing jargon and killer designs have taken care of them all.  And I am looking forward to my next round of shopping.

Categories
Coincidence Diary

The Coincidental Encounters and the Incidental Chain of Events That Leads to This – My First V-blog (Prelude) Episode 2

I don’t want to sound too much like a rip off from Haruki Murakami’s short story “Chance Traveler” but I too have my share of coincidental encounters to share.  Totally random of course but interestingly, these coincidences happened in the span of three consecutive days.  And outside this three-day window, puff, my days have become as ordinary as they have always been no matter how hard I observe.

What are the odds to meet the same person in the morning queuing just one spot in front of you at your favorite coffee joint two days in a roll?  And the queue was otherwise empty, just you and him.  And if you think that I always have the same timing every morning, I don’t.  I have not seen him since then.

How about the same colleague whom enters a lift with you when you head out for lunch, both of you have your own lunch plan, and you see her taking the same lift with you when you are done with your lunch?  In my case, I wasn’t even observing the lunch hours.  And apparently, neither was she.

One morning at ten, I was at the lift lobby and with me was the cleaning lady who was done with the day.  We chatted and I learned that she starts work at six every morning.  The following morning at ten twenty, I was at the same lift lobby, patiently waiting for a lift, and with me, the same cleaning lady.  She was late because there was more trash to attend to.  This time, I learned that after she has finished with the cleaning work at our office, she heads over to another office.  And she lamented that we only pay her S$350 a month for that 4 hours of work a day.

All these lift encounters can’t beat this particular one.  I often carry with me a cup of freshly brewed coffee to work every morning.  The lift was crowded and at one floor, the door opened.  Just when it was about to close, one guy from behind jerked into action and pushed through the crowd as he dashed towards the closing door.  He knocked onto me and I spilt the hot coffee onto a huge fellow in front of me.  How embarrassing!  But it was not as embarrassing as meeting the same huge fellow in the same lift the next morning with me holding another cup of hot coffee.  I so wanted to dig a hole and hide inside.

*          *          *          *

While the above encounters that happened in the span of three consecutive days may sound random, the incidental chain of events that leads to my wanting to create a video blog is all but.

I don’t get to have lunch with my good buddy Choong Yoong often.  We both know about it though we both deny it.  We meet once a year, usually due to some last minute arrangements.  It is just the way how we operate, I guess.  Every time we meet, I am always delighted by the variety of topics he has.  Mostly out of the world kind of ideas or news or theories or gossips, it is hard not to be enchanted by this precious lunch appointment that rarely occurs.  So out of the blue, I suggested that he should set up a podcast and I will be his faithful subscriber.  He laughed and told me that he has tried making an episode, and that was hard.  He then turned to me and said: You should have your own podcast instead!  I asked why and he pointed out that I have a dynamic voice to keep the audience interested (or something like that since that event happened quite a while ago).

Podcast and me, you have got to the kidding right?

But ideas are strange little fellows.  They stick to your head and refuse to go away.  And I parked this little idea in my head for months.

Another idea comes from the limitation I feel about blogging.  Don’t get me wrong.  Blogging is great; it is spontaneous; and I can write about anything and everything to my heart content.  Almost.  Except the invisible word count restriction that hangs on my neck all the time.  I have to try very hard to keep my blog entries within 500 to 1,000 word count.  Occasionally I hit 1,500 words and I have to remind myself not to do that often for I do treasure my own little crowd of online readers.  It is said that an average adult reads prose text at 250 to 300 words per minute.  In that sense, perhaps even a 500 words entry is still too much for the my precious audience to take.

And because of that, I have got another idea – to have a series of blog entries with a related theme and a time table to adhere to.  I often wonder what the online readers would feel if there is a sense of anticipation, like a TV series.  And even if this little experiment doesn’t take off, I would have published a 10,000 words entry that is broken down into ten little pieces.

Finally, I have always fantasized with the idea of making a little video using 100% original materials.  Can this be done?  How far can I stretch myself?  Connecting all these three little ideas prompts me wanting to just do it.

So, do it I shall.  A v-blog it will be.

My 1st v-Blog Mini-Series:

Categories
Comedy Diary Movie Reviews Romance

If the Birthday Girl Wants Made of Honour, the Birthday Girl Gets Made of Honour

Couple of weeks ago, my friendly boss dropped by my workplace – like he always does in an intraday manner to go through a checklist of 101 items with me – and he talked about “Made of Honour” instead.  He even gave a two thumbs up on that movie.  That was scary.  Was I being Googled and he learned that I love watching movies?

Perhaps not.  Hopefully not.

This week has been an eventful week for me, or rather for Cynthia and I.  Besides the one thing that now is not a good time to share (I will, I promise), my work has been action packed (though I still managed to keep it within 9 to 5, thank god for that) and Cynthia has just started working in a new environment so I needed to hunt for another precious parking lot within CBD.  The good news is that my good old friend RC passes me his tenant lot because he has decided not to drive a few years ago.  The not so good news?  Well, the car park at Prudential Tower is probably the most scary car park I have seen in Singapore.  RC joked that I shall practice my Tokyo Drift technique at those tight corners and curves.

Very funny.

Fortunately, by now I can go up and down of the Tower with one eye closed.  In fact, an entertainment I genuinely look forward to every day.

And Friday was Cynthia’s birthday too.  How amazing!  Since my credit card has intercepted hers during her first purchase at the Great Singapore Sales just a few days ago, the birthday gift is settled.  Hooray!  I know she has been talking about “Made of Honour” a while back, “Made of Honour” it is then.

When the main actor first appeared on the big screen, I whispered to Cynthia, “Who is this guy?!”.  “He is Patrick Dempsey,” Cynthia replied.  “What damp sea?” I inquired as the name didn’t ring a bell.  “The movie ‘Enchanted’?” she replied.

Ah … OK, I still couldn’t remember.  When the main actress (Michelle Monaghan) appeared, I whispered, “I know this girl!”  “Who is she?” Cynthia’s turn to ask me.  “I don’t know,” I said and I continued, “but I remember seeing her on TV.”

OK,  I may not have seen her on TV.  But she does have that TV soap opera kind of look and indeed she was involved in the TV series “Boston Public” as I found out later.  In fact, Patrick Dempsey is also from a TV series, “Grey’s Anatomy”.

In fact, the second main actor has also acted in a TV series that I love – a HDO Original Series.  When the Scottish actor actor Kevin McKidd first appeared, I nearly screamed, “I know this guy!”  Cynthia replied knowing that I didn’t really know who this guy was, “Ya, the ‘Rome’ guy”.

I don’t think I have laughed so hard this year.  OK, it’s not about the story and we all know about that.  I would probably forget the whole story before this weekend ends.  However, with such an eventful week, a good laughter is all I need right now.  I will definitely catch this movie again on cable to have a good laugh about it.  Not sure if some sexual references would be censored though.

Perhaps not.  Hopefully not.

Categories
For the Geeks

My New Toy and a Whirlwind of Technology

I have promised to post the details of my new toy and here we are.  But before we get to that, I wish to share a little story with you all.  I used to think that talking about the climate of the technology world bore people.  Recently, I have the privilege to meet people who have little passion or knowledge on what goes on behind the press of a button, set aside the companies and driving forces behind.  Perhaps it was the way I tell the stories, they did genuinely want to read more after hearing what I said.  It was a humbling revelation.  If a good singer can sing anything from a phonebook, maybe a good storyteller should be able to tell a story on even the most unglamorous topic?

So here it goes.  I mean, here I try. 

Click here to read more.

Categories
Diary

See I Told You So / A Geek for a Day

You can laugh at me, or awe at my supreme skill of anticipation (not!?).  But look, I’ve already told you so.  Skip the 1,400-word wall of text of my previous post and scroll to the third last paragraph.  Come back when you are done, OK?  Yep, I predicted how the American Idol would end.

OK.  I know geeks are not sexy.  People think that geeks come from a world so far from this that we geeks shall all be banished into the land of Geek’dom.  Look, I don’t get glued in front of a computer screen the whole day living in a garage eating sandwiches while typing, having ketchup and mustard drip onto the keyboard, my lap, and smelling bad from inside to out.  Although I still have a whole week worth of dirty mugs sitting inside my sink as we speak, that is for an entirely different reason.

So, what exactly do geeks do, you must be wondering.  Well, wonder no more because I am going to share with you the down right unglamorous details.  There will be no holding back minus off the geek language.  Tailored especially for you!

At least I will try.

Thursday 8.50am, I dropped Cynthia at the airport.  So once again, I have been granted the bachelor status.  And I have promised her to assemble a new personal computer for myself over the weekend so that she can take over my existing machine at home.  Not bad for an excuse to buy new toys, eh?

Spent the rest of the morning watching the American Idol finale’s result show, I skipped lunch – true to the spirit of a geek’ology – and did a last minute research of what components to get.  Let me tell you, shopping for a personal computer is like shopping for a wardrobe of clothes, a full rack of shoes, a complete makeup set and skin care products, in one day, that is supposed to last you for two years and more.  It’s no easy task.

There is one particular shop I love in Sim Lim that is unique from all others.  You know how it feels when you walk into a shop looking for some real good advice and the salespersons don’t even have 5% of what you have already known?  This dude sold me a beast!  After hours of waiting for the folks to assemble my new machine (I paid 15 bucks for parking so you can imagine), when I finally got to see my new baby, gosh!  She is my F-cup bitch!  The machine looks sizably larger but in an esthetic way.  She weighs a ton too!  Nearly broke my back to carry her home.

6.30pm I arrived home with my new toy.  The first thing I did was to clear the area and prepare a temporary headquarter for some serious business.  If Cynthia was to cut short her holiday, she would have been shocked at the state of the living room right now.  The dining table was pulled to the center of the room, wires running everywhere, screws everywhere, loose and unimportant items lying on the floor, and I even set up a lamp by the dinning table, much like having an operation table in the middle of the room.  I have also prepared a towel and a bucket of water to clean up all the dust and the dirt, the breadcrumbs and the pieces of salmon that got stuck inside the keyboard.

7pm, I have finally got to switch on my new bitch!  So quiet, the machine runs; such music to my ears.  Installing Vista into my new machine was a lot less horrifying that I thought.  Machines hate me but that is another story.  Time flies when you are living as a geek.  Before I knew it, time was 8.30pm and I needed to buy a new moveable computer table before the shops close at 10pm!  The one that has wheels at the bottom so that I can roll the machine from living room to bedroom, from kitchen to bathroom – truly live the dream of a blogger who blogs anytime, anywhere.  Even when I am taking a …

Drove like a mad man, I reached the Ikea megastore at Tampines at 9pm.  I ran like a mad man from Ikea to Courts and back to Ikea and I can almost picture myself inside the “Amazing Race” show.  Who design these megastores?!  All I needed was to visit the furniture section that is right before the cashier.  But no, I have to follow a predesigned trail zigzagging through various sections before I can check out what choices I have.  It is the same at Courts.  The tables are on the ground floor.  But I have to take an escalator from the ground floor up to the third floor, run from one end of the room to another, take an escalator down to the second floor, repeat, and then another escalator down until I hit ground floor – where I was minutes ago, outside the barriers.

9.45pm I found my new computer table, with the exact color that I wanted, that weighted 19kg enough to break my poor back one more time.  Time to eat but all the restaurants close at 9.30pm.  Huh?!  All megastores should be like Mustafa, 24 by 7.  I had fast food near my area and after a long and deserving shower, it’s round 2!

11pm, I continued to set up my new found love, which was not the hard part.  I was trying to revive my old love because I ripped one component from my current machine and put it into my new one. 

(Wait!  That scene is so much like the Adam’s Rib episode from the Book of Genesis!)

2am in the morning I couldn’t revive my old computer with some antique components that I still keep.  3am, still not working fully as I wanted her to be.  5am, I felt so sleepy.  Bits and pieces of my old flame started to fall apart due to my obsessive compulsive nature.  I kept taking parts out and putting them back into the machine in different orders.  What I did, did not make sense no more.  I became a robot.

In the wee hours, just before the first ray of sun beamed into my sanctuary of freaky geeky experiments, I have decided that so long as my old computer still works – perhaps not what she was used to be – I would rather put a stop at this insanity and move on.  My old machine was about to die on me, I swear.  And Cynthia won’t be happy about this.

The moral of the story, if any, is that we often spend so much time fixing the past with our old flames and more often than not, it is better and wiser to invest time with our new found love instead.  Time to get my hands onto my new F-cup bitch tonight!  Round 3!

To fellow geeks: You must have thought that I have sold out and become commercial.  Fear not!  The next post will be so full of geek’ology and details and I promise to get you jump off your chairs and go wow. 

Stay tuned!

Categories
Diary My Favorite

Mustafa – Every Mall Should Be Like This

My good friend Amie is leaving us this week and she asked if I could help her to transport this huge pan grill of, I assume, hers to home.  Sure, that’s what friends are for.  I often wonder what she does during the office lunch hours.  Had I know she grills meat all this while …

So she wanted to make a stop at Mustafa and buy something.  OK.  Cynthia’s not in town and I’d love to have a dinner partner.  Besides, it’s shopping!  How I LOVE shopping.  So I asked Amie how long she planned to stay at Mustafa.  Apparently, she is a regular resident there and knowing exactly what she wants, she said: 1 hour.  That’s all, I asked.  I really don’t mind to shop till the cow comes home.  Oh yes, I can be your best shopping partner.

Once I spun my car into the main street, guess who was I tailgating?  (OK, I exaggerated a bit.)  I recognized my movie buddy’s car plate!  So I stepped onto the accelerator, pulled up beside his car, gently tapped onto my car horn, and waved at him.  My buddy was so shocked that he didn’t even notice the pretty girl besides me.  Kekeke.  Evil me!

I am always fascinated by Mustafa and the area around Mustafa.  I was so enthusiastic that the waiter at Sakunthala took time to explain how I should eat my Tandoori chicken meal.  Eat with the first cup of curry first (spicy), and then eat with the second cup of soup (sour and salty), and last, eat with the third cup of watery yogurt (cool sour).  It worked!  I finished everything!  Delicious!  Amie laughed because I looked so much like a tourist.

How not to get excited by Mustafa?  Every mall should be like this.  The variety and the sheer quantity of what they are selling is enough to send a thrill down your spine!

First stop: pharmacy.  There are so many pills!  I read from the news that in America, they have discovered sex hormone amongst other prescription drugs inside the drinking water.  People take pills, people visit toilets, water get treated, water get passed back into the reservoir.

While waiting for Amie to do the things she did, I was staring at the tiny boxes of “Spanish Saffron”.  What the heck is saffron?!  Apparently saffron is a spice that is anti-carcinogenic (cancer-suppressing) and anti-mutagenic (mutation-preventing), amongst some other bizarre properties.  Saffron has a certain aroma and can be used to add a luminous yellow-orange coloring to foods.  Interesting, eh?

Next, we passed this huge machine and a guy said, “10 dollar per massage!”  Guess what?  It’s an aqua massage!  How strange.  You are supposed to lie on your back inside this capsule that covers your body with some waterproof blanket.  Then comes the jets of water that cover every inch of your body facing the sky.  Wow …

I found my childhood favorite soap Cussons Imperial Leather.  I seriously don’t recall seeing any of these in NTUC.  Maybe there are.  But I haven’t seen a ‘mountain’ of soap right before my eyes like the ones I saw in Mustafa.  Unfortunately I can’t buy just one piece.  And neither did my friend wish to share the cost.  Well, next …

There are weird brands of perfumes that (apparently from Paris) I have not heard of.  Like: “Do It”.  OK, that is my favorite motto at work and inside Mustafa, “Do It” is placed in a shelf together with all other ”˜sexy’ fragrance.  Uh-huh … maybe not.  Talking about sexiness, I was at the media section with walls and walls of DVDs and CDs – English, Hindu, and other languages.  There was this Indian DVD with a really sexy cover and a NC-16 sticker titled “Dance Attack”.  I guess it is a collection of music videos.  To earn a NC-16 sticker should mean that it has some really hot and steamy stuffs inside, right?  Maybe next time I shall return to Mustafa, alone … hehehe.

In fact, I was so enthusiastic and Amie asked: You came here before or not?  Ya, that one time.  But with a guide, it was a whole new experience.  There were model boats (nice!) that range from S$2.50 to around S$40 depending on size.  There were the whole bunch of Montblanc pens chucked inside a cheap display cabinet.  MONTBLANC pens!  The price tags go all the way to beyond a thousand bucks.  Cramped inside a cheap display cabinet!  Can you believe it?

I like the stationary section.  In fact, I wanted to buy some nice desk decorations for my family and friends.  OK, maybe it is a bit mushy ya?  I must have got Facebook overdosed and have a deep desire to send some real gifts to some real people for a change.  There is one with a very nice tag line: Dear friend, even if you go to hell, I am sure to follow you there.  But then again, I think, if my friends – touch wood – do go to hell, I am not too sure if I wish to follow.

Ha ha ha … technicality, technicality.

I said I didn’t know what Care Bears were and Amie said that I have no childhood.  I didn’t know that Frangipani is a flower and she was surprised (OK, I will read more books).  And when she held out a package named “Canopy” and I asked: What is a canopy?  She stared at me with her pair of big eyes and replied: You don’t know what canopy is?

I looked at the packaging and replied, “I know what canopy is (by looking at the picture) but I didn’t know what ‘canopy’ is (the English word)”.  She replied, “Some people use it for wedding, celebrations …”

Like a kid who just learned a new word, I repeated, “Canopy!”  Amie countered, “What cannot be?  People do use this for special occasions!”  “Canopy!”, somehow the word still fascinated me.  “It can be!” she reassured me.

Before we left this wonderful place called Mustafa where every 5 minutes there was an announcement asking a vehicle or motorbike to park somewhere else other than the disabled lot, my friend pointed at a long wooden stick and told me that Indians use that as a toothbrush.

“Cannot be!” I screamed (this time I really meant cannot be).  I took a mental note of the ingredient and after some research at home, I learned that Peelu is derived from the fibers of the Asian Peelu tree and for centuries, people have chewed its branches for preservative dental care.

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You know, I really wanted to write a short blog entry tonight.  In fact, I planned to announce something else but that took a bit longer to complete than expected.  I think most readers may not have the stamina to digest every word I write and that is understandable because there are million other better things to do in the Internet such as Facebook, YouTube, and to visit the celebrity bloggers’ websites.  Maybe one day I shall master the art of writing just enough so as to suit a wider audience.

Meanwhile, to reward my loyal readers, here is one personal thought of mine to share with you.  Over the weekend, my NAD CD player that has been with me since 2000 has died on me (after I put one of my CDs on album and song repeat for the entire weekend).  I have not really appreciated this CD player of mine until I have to use my DVD player and HD DVD recorder as a music player.  The sound was so displeasing to my ears (too ‘bright’ and ear piercing) and all of a sudden, I do miss my inexpensive NAD CD player a lot.

Why didn’t I notice and appreciate the sound of my CD player till it broke down?  (To confirm that it’s not an illusion, this morning, my CD player sprang into action again and the sound is so much better.)

For days, one of the three fluorescent lamps in my bathroom stopped to work properly.  Hence for days, I was bathing in this ‘disco light’ ambiance and it hurt my eyes.  Not only that, I couldn’t kill those annoying flying flies as part of my daily ritual because of the light setting.  So tonight, I have decided to change the lamp.  All of a sudden, the room seemed so bright.  It seemed much brighter than any given day.  But the truth is, the room was not brighter than it was before that one lamp went into a disco mode.  Just that I did not notice how bright it was.

Why do we always take things for granted once we get used to what we have?

Time to give Cynthia a good hug when she comes back from her overseas business trip this week.