My eyes cannot unsee what they have seen

Wirklich? The Big Bang Theory... after such a long hiatus, the first thing you do is fuck my eyes over with TWO sets of hairy male boobies? 

This is some seriously messed up sh*t.

FML

Just realized I am even worse at coding HTML5 than android *mind blown*

Typical day

Today is Friday the 13th... and a black cat ran past me from under a stationary car. Interestingly there was an old lady walking in front of me, but that black pussy decided that I was the unlucky target.

Lovely. At least I know that black cat is unluckier than me.

Should take lesser photos or blog more often?

Recently I am engrossed in writing a story. However my obsessive nature has driven me to check my reads and votes hungrily everyday, which isn't very healthy, so I decided to distract myself with some good old blogging.

Think it is time to break out the SD cards and look through my USA photos (I was reading someone's blog and she happened to go California one week later with her baby and husband. Amazing how two persons' experience of California can be so different. Must be the effect of traveling by first class and actually having $$). 

I just spent five minutes staring bewilderingly at some photos. I couldn't place the venue that they were taken... only to realize that they were of Frankfurt from last year. Must be the SD card that has gone missing. oopz.

Useful Advice: Carry a Spoon in your underwear if you are being forced into an overseas arranged marriage

I was reading jezebel when I came across this seemingly strange article "Spoons hidden in Underwear could save teens from arranged marriages". Sorry for my finding humor in such a harrowing situation, but when I first read it, I was wondering if the innocous spoon was to be used as self-defence against your amorous pedobear of an old man husband? 

Like dig his eye ball out or literally spoon him to death? 

Turns out this is very useful advice by the Karma Nirvana charity in Britain, which supports victims and survivors of forced marriages and honor-based abuse. Basically the idea is that usually these forced marriages take place overseas, so when the petrified teenager puts the spoon in her undies, it will sound off the alarm through the airport security. And because it is in a private area, the bride-to-be will be taken to a safe place to be checked, away from their interfering relatives, and they can disclose their situation.

Sleep deprivation

No wonder prisoners are tortured by lack of sleep. Because it works. Even though I only flew home yesterday morning, totally sleep starved thanks to kids kicking and whining behind me.

Last night I tossed and turned the whole night. Since coming home only slept six hours sigh. So today worked half day, which was lucky because I crashed at three pm... fortunately I set the alarm to go off at five thirty So that I will not have another sleepless night. Hopefully I will survive tonight.

Updated!!!
Tried to send my brain into standby by reading, and then it was so effective, that my head fell forward and I banged my head against the table badly. Took me a while to sleep after that.

Camera and Food Processor

My Nikon V1 camera has helped me win the first prize at mein Büro's photo taking competition. :D Unfortunately it was not because of the pretty flowers, but because I best fulfilled the requirements of the contest. The contest stated that we needed to capture friends and flowers. When I saw what my competitors submitted, I went against my personal desire to show off my camera's features (which was tough), because I knew my colleague took an even better photo with his DSLR, and deliberately chose a photo that better suited the theme to take him down *hehe*.

Still it is not a bad prize. I needed a food processor. Now I don't have to mince ginger by hand anymore. Gott sei dank.

Seeing Humor during times of adversity - Hazed Singapore

The haze in Singapore has been getting worse, even going past 400 on the PSI today. Nonetheless everyone is trying to see the humor in the situation, like describing Singapore like "Genting (Highlands)" or "Silent Hill".

Some folks reminisced about an old show...

Others linked the Hello Kitty craze and the Haze.

For me, my nose and eyes are pretty sensitive, so I have been sneezing a lot and my eyes, watering, due to the irritation. I used to be able to see the CBD and Flyer from my apartment but now they have disappeared into the grey, scary whirls.

My Kollegen were also discussing whether the white side of the surgical masks should face outwards or inwards (turns out when you are sick, inwards, when you're not, outwards). But it doesn't matter because everyone is queuing for N95s.

Got myself a little red Bike

Meine Eltern have been nagging at me to bring over my nice bike which has several gears. Told me it was gathering dust because I didn't cycle it (it was tied to and behind Vater's bike, so it was such a pain to take it out). However I didn't dare to even though there is a nice railing to tie my bike to, just next to my apartment. This is because of all those stupid juvenile delinquents and riff raff who like to go there. Bicycle theft proliferates where I live, so I don't want to take chances. I bought my bike at the same time as Bobo, and his was stolen within one day. He tied it to the railing behind the staircase (next to his parents' apartment) and it was gone the next day. Scary right? 

So the best option is a foldable bike which I can keep in the house. I accompanied Bruder to Giant when he was thinking of buying one for my SIL. In the end he didn't buy, but when I recalled, I popped by the Giant and decided to check out the foldable bikes. I was thinking that they would cost minimally S$100+ so I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw a series being sold at S$79.90. Their wheels looked kind of small so I asked the uncle if they were for kiddies.

After being reassured that they were adult-friendly, I had the uncle fold up a cute red one and I carried it onto the bus back. It was deadly heavy though and it only had one gear "pedal hard". 

I cycled to the market on Saturday. Not bad, but I will need to learn the new paths seeing that I am more familiar with the cycling paths at my old place.

I like cycling though I picked it up fairly late (when I turned 13). Vater felt that it was time for me to learn, so he bought me a 2 wheeler. Mutter was mollified and asked him why not buy a 4 wheeler first. He said it was faster to learn immediately on a 2 wheeler. After falling a few times and crashing into a tree (mercifully a small one), I learnt within 2 weeks after school.

Sewed a new lining for my Smelly Cat bag

I bought the smelly cat bag in Hanoi for S$6, which I once bitched that my S$350 Coach sunglasses fell out of it, while I was fighting my way out of the train during peak hour traffic.

And now its lining (cheap thin cloth) has torn. So I cut some green cotton and made a new lining. Unfortunately the first time I attempted it, I was very lazy and didn't hem my cloth. So naturally since I love to abuse the bag and carry lots of heavy books inside it, the weight torn the cloth from the stitches. 

In the end I spent last Sunday, sadly undoing all my stitches (which didn't tear, hmmph!) so that I can loosen the rest of the cloth. I then hemmed the cloth using the sewing machine and stitched the lining back into the bag.

Ignore the dirty floor, I was going to sweep the floor later. I am a filthy creature :P

Kein wunder why I am tired...

I am very exhausted nowadays. Even going to bed earlier doesn't seem to work. I am not conscious that it is a restless sleep, and I wake up feeling very tired without realizing why. I already don't sleep enough so I feel very anal and nasty the next day.

Last night, I went to bed as usual. Apparently it rained very hard, which I did not hear because I was sleeping through the rain (so complained Bobo who had to get up and close the windows). But to me, it felt as if I wasn't sleeping and I was feeling very stressed, hot and fidgety.

This morning Bobo asked me. 

"Did you know you freaked me out last night?"

"What did I do?"

"You were snoring. I got up to close the windows because of the rain and then I happened to look at you. Then you suddenly opened your eyes, looked at me and whined "我没有睡到" ("I didn't sleep at all" - English), then closed your eyes and went back to snoring. Did you know how freaking scary that was?"

Wirklich?

Back to the drawing board

I have a policy of not talking about Arbeit as much as possible because I don't want to have the censorship board come after me. Besides I have found out by very bad experiences on why and how it is a bad idea to be identified by your blog content. 

[source: ijustdid.org]

But anyway Arbeit sucked so much yesterday, that when I got into the car yesterday, I told B1 I was going to train as a McDonald's staff. (Ok, that was until this afternoon when the ladies reminded that I would have to clean the toilets. So I am back to aspiring to be a dungeon mistress). I started chanting lines like "Do you want fries with that?", "Good morning Mdm, welcome to McDonald's!" in a super cheery voice.

He said "Why don't you go and work at *censored* since your friend is already a manager there?"

"Good morning Mdm, do you want a latte with that?!" I shrieked.

Anyway it's pretty bad. I decided it is time to re-examine my storyboard for ideas to do coding on. Like I told Mr Bear before, he ought to code small games to understand better how to do android coding than go full bang and then hate what he did. So I decided to follow my advice. 

I am now listening morosely to free music that people post online to collaborate with developers. Maybe now I can develop the game I wanted to make. Or maybe add a new simple game to Burgerstacko.

Poked myself a few times with the needle. *Karma*

In lieu of playing CoH, I have been penitently sewing back my kangaroo. To hide my ugly stitches, I used transparent thread, which is a pain to thread through the needle.

I am almost done. It has been three days since I started sewing. her right side has been severely damaged. Anyway praise be, I finally found the other ear, which I also have to sew back into shape before reattaching to her body.

Torn from limb to limb

To continue my moans about moving: I initially wanted to give away this kangaroo to The Salvation Army. She is totally clean and new because my mother wrapped her in plastic to prevent dust from getting to her. However being too lazy to move all the stuff there, I decided to keep her.

So I tossed her in the wash, together with Georgie Porgie and Gerard (also known as Tugs, the blue baby care bear). The other two came out fine (then again they are washing machine veterans, like Mr B), but Ms Kangeroo was torn apart in the washing machine in just the first cycle! Luckily I forgot to close the lid, so the washing machine stopped after the first cycle.

B1 said I should just toss her out, but I think I should restitch her. The weirdest thing was that one of the furry ears went missing, and now I don't know how I should proceed. Sew her back, sans one ear? Or make her a cloth one (which will look worse).

Can't see the thread. Threading is a bitch!

NYE tea @ newly opened Benjamin Browns

I am cleaning my rooms now *moan* because Vater is evicting me from my old room. It never ceases to amaze me how 2 persons living in tiny bedrooms can transform all the crap from those 2 rooms into 1 big apartment and still run out of space. Dafug.

I have still have tons of stuff to move *groan*, so I have to clear out the shit before I can put in more crap. I have been buying tons of stuff since moving in, e.g. paint and paintbrushes, canvases, sewing materials etc. That on top of my two violins (I think I have to sell back the crap one back to Teacher so that I can save space). Like Ms Bear pointed out, my having too many hobbies is not relaxing me but exhausting me instead. So one of my new year's resolutions is to stop buying crap.

Anyway moaned too much as usual. How did everyone's NYE go? (‘ε’)

We were supposed to have a Xmas celebration (supposed to be teatime @ Brunetti) as per our tradition since long ago, however because I was taken down by a severe migraine, it was postponed. So we had a NYE celebration instead. Lucky Ms and Ms Bears had a heavy breakfast because they had to wait for me and Bär to finish our meeting which dragged to an unhealthy 2pm. Needless to say no one was around but the rats and cockroaches by the time we were done.

We made our way to California Pizza Kitchen, where Ms Bear had a seafood linguini by herself due to her teeth problems. The rest of the bear family shared a Kung Pao spaghetti, peking duck pizza and a tortilla spring roll appetizer. It was when the food arrived that I realized that the camera I had painstakingly brought from home had 0 SD card inside. How moronic... luckily the two little bears had their camera phones.

We were figuring out where to have our tea time, since it was still raining cats and dogs. Bär pointed out at the cafe opposite. None of us could see the name (we are all blind as bats, the name was written on the overhang). But we decided to check it out because the decor looked nice.

Benjamin Browns @ Forum, Orchard

The lady boss waited on us, which was very nice. We found out that the place, Benjamin Browns (opposite California Pizza kitchen) had just been opened for 4 days. I was still a stuffed bear, so I thought I would have a milkshake. How silly of me, considering that it was S$12 for a bloody beverage. It tasted nice but was served very plainly and was not worth the price I paid.

Check out my pathetic milkshake in the background

Personally the decor reminded me of House@Dempsey for some reason, but I really like the country chic of the cafe. Bär and I were sitting on the boxed seats, which we later realized was vibrating because there was a speaker or boom box underneath. And the cafe kept playing jazz music so we were shook at every bass note. Bär compared it with sitting on a giant dildo. Like he'd know?  

The little bears were cleverer. They both chose the 2 scoops of icecream portion at S$5 each. Since my milkshake is one giant ball of icecream beaten to death (they said they used the actual icecream), I'd say they got the better deal.

Actually I wanted to try the lotus root crisp but no one offered me *sobs*

As for Bär, he asked the lady boss what was their best dish, and she said that it was their banana pancakes. I whispered to Bär how did she know that, since they were only opened for four days so far. Bär replied, hello the chef will have some specialties before opening right? Anyway ignore my bimboticity, it turned out to be true. The pancakes were pretty good.

Bananas were hidden in these blankets of yumyum

I would say that Benjamin Browns is a nice place to hang out on rainy days. Other than the pathetic milkshake (which came served 3/5 in a glass with no umbrella or cream or anything and is totally overpriced), I would say the ice cream is a good deal. Pancakes were ok for their price. 

Benjamin Browns

Opposite California Pizza Kitchen (#01-23)

Forum the Shopping Mall

Epic Disastrous Experience at Two Face Pizza and Taproom

Went out for dinner with B1, Mr Bear (I decided everyone other than Bär, Onkel H, 12 and B1 will be simply called Bear) and Mrs Bear. It was a culinary disaster of epic proportions. Oh ja, blogging more now because it's the holiday season and I achieved a massive milestone at Arbeit yesterday so phew, the chain around my neck is a bit looser now.

We were supposed to go Abe Diner (2nd failed attempt) but because I thought that the Abe Diner, being new, would have lots of seats but it was as small as it was nondescript-looking. And it was heavily patronized by the Japanese salarymen. I suspect it was because of the ad they put in the Japanese free magazine. Anyway so we had to sit outside in the relative twilight and I cannot stand cigarette smoke (it makes me sneeze and have headaches).

On top of that the prices were not very competitive, Abe Diner being more of a Izakaya, and selling limited food items. I pointed at the coffeeshop opposite. Why not try that? It looks relatively filled and was more brightly lit.

Kopitiam by day, pizzeria and taproom by night

Since Mr and Mrs Bear had their tummies filled up with the buffet tea they had, they were ok with the move. And B1 has no culinary opinion. We took up seats at the coffee shop (we call them "kopitiam"s in Singapore). The concept was quite clever. By day a coffeeshop with many stalls, at night it was a one taproom and pizzeria, called Two Face Pizza and Taproom, with blackboards shielding the food stalls from view while describing the menu items.

Its focus was primary finger foods, pizzas and bier. I scanned quickly one of the blackboards. Ok, fries S$4, fried pork belly with maple mayo S$8... wtf? My fav Foie Gras? There it was PAN FRIED foie gras with fries. Ok must order.

So we ordered the following:

Fried Pork Belly

PAN FRIED foie gras with fries

Seafood pizza

Fristo Misto of Calamari (the lady heard salah, and thought we ordered carbonara)

2 Cokes

2 Sapporo biers

The idea was that Mr and Mrs Bear were still very full so they just wanted to eat their calamari and drink some coke. I wanted 2 starters as my meal and seafood pizza was for B1. 

When we ordered, the lady was polite but distracted. She told us the Sapporo beer was cheap, only S$7 a glass. Then she indicated the glass inside the fridge. B1 being the Bier glut, asked her what is the capacity of the glass mug. Was it a pint?

"Standard size like other places."

Pork Belly with maple mayo

The waiter started serving the pork belly. Most excellent. The fries that came with it were edible. One thing bad about it was that the mayo was too little. Maybe it was because I was very hungry. I started grazing at the basket with my greedy paws.

It all went downhill from there.

Where was the cutlery? A waitress passed by and said she would get us the cutlery and plates. First oops. The cutlery were filthy, and the smaller plates for eating were served stacked so when we shared them out, we found one plate had crumbs, another had a dollop of chilli. Ewwww.

Dirty plate with chilli

The waitress had dashed off to grab water for us. When she came back she saw our grossed out faces and said she would get us new ones, but in the meantime did we still want the water? I later noticed that Mr Bear didn't touch his, and Mrs Bear only drank a little.

The waiter popped by and dropped off the pizza and the bier. Oops #2. The beer was served in like 300ml mugs? So little... and wait, one was only 2/3 filled and the other 3/4 filled. That is terrible. B1 was PISSED. He is no epicure (I notice that he only demands high standard when it's my cooking, that ass) but don't come between him and his bier. He was annoyed enough to demand that the bier to be topped to the correct capacity.

Seafood Pizza

He pointed at the 2/3 bier and said "this beer looks like it has been drunk." The waiter said sorry and that this was because of the foam. WTF *haha*. I swear B1 gave him my "vendor look".

Anyway the guy apologized and ran off to fill the bier to the correct capacity (I hope he didn't spit into it, but it didn't look that foamy *haha*). B1 was still mad about the beer quantity. Standard my ass, I heard him mutter angrily, drinking his bier.

The  waiter came back and tried to serve us more pork belly. We said we already got our order then he walked off only to come back five minutes later with a plate of cabonara. ???

"We didn't order that but if you want to give us it's ok." I laughed. The waiter didn't find it funny and pointed out that we did order that. Sigh. Turned out the lady misheard me, but it was our own fault for not checking the receipt. So we just ate it. Mr Bear being stuffed (stuffed bear *haha*) nibbled at the bacon and remarked "why is this bacon black?"

B1 replied "why is the cabonara brown?"

Mr Bear "I think it is mushroom."

Me "where is the mushroom?"

Burnt Cabonara

Four pairs of eyes stared at the plate. No mushroom was harmed in the making of this dish. Clearly the cream was murdered that's why it was a dirty brown with black flecks (which was definitely not pepper). Hmmmm. Still I was hungry so I ate up. Mr and Mrs Bear were super turned off.

B1 concentrated on the seafood pizza which came with scattered bits of lala clams, miscellaneous squid and prawn parts. I flicked off the prawn, and tasted it. I like my pizza very thin so I thought it was ok. Not fantastic but 5/10 kind of standard. We could all hear the waiter apologize to the table behind us.

"Must be the way they operate. First apologize then serve." Mr Bear observed drolly.

I continued munching and we yak yaked a bit more. I was almost full when the foie gras arrived. I had been looking forward to it. I had been waxing lyrically to Mrs Bear that the best way to eat foie gras is to have it pan-fried and hot on a nice steak. She looked kind of ill.

When I looked down at the basket. I was like ...

WTF IS THIS SHIT?

2 sad-looking pieces of carbon sat on a basket of soaked fries. EWWWWWW. They looked like something a severely constipated dog pooped out after grimacing on the grass. The dog would definitely have had a less pained look than me, who approached the basket with a hesitant fork.

Carbon in a basket

"It is supposed to be pan fried. Why the fuck did they burn it until like that? If it were deep fried, I would never have ordered it!"

Yup, looks like carbon. Tasted like carbon. How could they treat this beautiful product like that? Mr and Mrs Bear did not even dare to touch the basket other than making a collective ugly face at it. B1 just drank his bier.

We should complain, but at that point, we couldn't be bothered already. S$14 for this literal crap.

Mr Bear pointed out that fries on their own cost S$4. So basically I paid S$10 for this two lumps of coal.

This really dampened my mood. Mr Bear remarked that the cafe was aptly named, the menu is one face, the food is a different face. I know the cafe was only opened for 3 weeks. But this is crap. I can accept bad service in a new restaurant but food wise. wtf. Where is the QC? You can't serve this to people and expect to get away with it.

A little baby mushroom

I was mournfully watering my plants this morning (it was a bad morning), when I noticed a little mushroom growing at the base of my aloe vera. wtf?

It kinda faded in the afternoon

This is going to sound extremely blonde but how in the world did mushroom pores reach where I am living? Considering that I live on the top floor (I like to think of it as a penthouse, but it is more like a juvie hangout).

On another note, my quest to grow edamame plants (so that I can have lots of edamame to eat) is failing badly. My edamame plants do not look like those that my mother grows in her garden. The little bastards look defeated, crawling out of the pot for sunshine, unlike the strong stalwart soldiers my mother has. I have to admit the area outside my apartment is not very plant-friendly, considering how it can very windy outside (never windy inside the house *%##@). So far I have lost a corn plant and a edamame due to strong gusts of wind snapping their stems.

Blogging and Camwhoring

I love to read blogs because it allows me to live my meaningless life as a plasticine penis through others' more exciting lives. I really don't have a life. I work, I don't sleep much, I play Company of Heroes, and sometimes I play the violin, paint, write and now sew.

I esp like reading younger girls' blogs not because they are filled with "deep" thoughts and observations of life (trust me, they are not) or that I am a stalker but rather because they are filled with delightful photos of them camwhoring with their friends. I am especially morbidly fascinated by those with the girl taking a photo from a particular angle, because it makes me very determined to find a picture where the girl is *oh horrors* facing a different direction. But these girls are usually very determined to take from the same angle with the same smile, so I have yet to succeed. Each photo looks very surreal while very beautiful. (You can go ahead and ponder the irony that I don't post any photo of myself, yet I love to look at photos).

I remember once reading this lady's blog (she has stopped blogging), where she has a super pretty friend who always faces the camera from her left and with her head tilted. Imagine my shock, when I was walking past Cuppage Plaza on my way to Z's wedding (at Four Seasons), I saw that girl. Freaking hell, she was like 10X prettier, sexier and she was average height (but wearing super high kitten heels)! I had always assumed that she was short because her friends were taller than her.

She was smoking though, ewww, and standing next to the dustbin while holding the cigarette expertly between two manicured fingers. I was like visibly gaping, as if I saw a celebrity. She did give me a very nasty WTF face. But nonetheless, very beautiful.

WTF?! Someone has been stealing my shoes!

Jet Lag has made me stupid as well it appears. The day I went back to work, still addled-brained, I stood outside looking at my shoes, thinking to myself, hmm, I don't seem to have any wearable shoes left. Must go and buy...

I even told at least 2 colleagues that. So I bought this Mitju pair which I totally love, and was going to blog about it. Since I have a running series of blog entries on shoes I have been buying, I decided to check through the older entries to see what shoes I have been buying... when I realized. Hey, that brown pair is missing! And then I scrolled further back, two other pairs from another set were missing too!

I am definitely sure that the brown pair was outside my house before I left for Germany. I was working on the day I left, and came home very late, one hour before I was due to go to the airport. Since my aunt was helping to check on the house every other day, I thought it was no biggie.  Anyway when I think back, the black heels have been missing for a while...

What boggles my mind is that my shoes are not even expensive! Some years ago, my colleague came to work in a funk because her gorgeous leopard print pumps were stolen. Mind you, she was just carrying her baby into her mother-in-law's house then when she came out, her shoes were gone!!! But those were expensive!

I don't know what is worse, the fact that someone has been stealing my shoes or that I have been buying so many I didn't notice that they are missing...

The Joke about the Headache

I have been suffering from jet lag since coming back last Tuesday evening. It has gotten to a point where I was telling T and R that I wanted to smash my head in with a hammer because I couldn't sleep. The eyes are tired but the head won't hibernate. You know that kind of feeling?

Speaking of headaches, B1 and I were waiting for the bus 21 just outside our lovely but mosquito-infested B&B, Haus Ballwein, when the unusually observant B1 noticed this stuck against the bus stop post...

"What's this?"

"Not now, I have a headache." I translated.