whatever: February 2005

a night of notable driving

think i began tonight's drive with a slightly more peaceful attitude. as usual, i was driving my brother back to (army) camp. and just before i stepped out of the flat (actually while i was taking a shower) i thought to myself, i shall try to not prove anything on the road. i shall try to be more considerate. i shall try not to get pissed by other drivers. coz there's other greater things out there that deserves our attention.

i'm quite proud of the fact that:
- i didn't beat an amber light. usually i do.
- i tried to slow down while going down a curved ramp. i was still going quite fast.. but i tried. despite that there wasn't any vehicle in front of me. usually i slow down only coz the vehicles in front of me do.
- i let some cars into my lane. which is more than usual for me. the usual is probably one or two cars?
- i tried not to rush across a traffic light. usually i'd worry that it would turn red *just* as i near it. but amazingly today, despite thinking it would do that, i continued to cruise along at 65km/h (as the speed limit is 60). and to my amazement, the traffic light remained green! you see, sometimes it would turn red despite that there's no traffic in the perpendicular direction. thus creating a situation where cars have to stop for nothing. no pedestrians. no cars. we're just stopping for the light. that's why usually i'd try to beat that particular traffic light. observe it from afar [it's a long straight stretch], accelerate a little as i near the light.. and since i wasn't feeling very garang* tonight, i didn't accelerate. ok. it's really nothing much, cept maybe a little coincidence that made my drive a little smoother. heck, my life is boring, i know.

then as i neared the camp, i was stunned by the sight before me.

there was darkness. the street lights were down.

when i first drove my brother to camp, i was kinda overwhelmed by the desolateness his camp is located in. for heaven's sakes, the nearest forms of civilisation are cemetries and fish farms! i thought i live in an urban city! after we get off the long straight stretch of road where the speed limit is 60 (this long straight stretch of road serves as some emergency runway, hence the length and amazing breadth of it.) we have to travel on this.. two-lanes road (one lane for each direction of traffic) that cuts through.. many trees before i make a turn into more trees, but eventually we would reach his camp. however, i should mention that these roads that run through the trees are properly tarred roads. we wouldn't want our dear military men to drive themselves off into the woods, would we?

sometimes my imagination would run a little as i drive amongst the trees. coz there's nowhere else in singapore where i frequent where i would encounter a road as such. during my first few trips on the road, i would fear some strange freak jumping into the middle of the road. but my imagination became a little docile after more drives.

and tonight, i gained a new sense of awe for that road. as i don't know how to switch my headlights to the high beam function (i thought the high beam might illuminate a greater distance and aid my driving a little) i had to drive at 40-50. carefully along what little glimpse of the line that demarcates the two directions of traffic i could see from the illumination of my headlights. hoping real hard that i don't drive into another car (i shouldn't since i should be able to see the oncoming vehicle's headlights ever so clearly) or worse, into some trees.

it didn't help that the windscreen was getting really badly misted up despite that i had turned on the demister almost right after i started my drive. it simply misted up even more in the pitch darkness. even though i wound down the window by a *little* bit (what? it was pitch dark outside.. i was scared), even though i'd turned off the air-conditioning (and apologising to my brother *after* i've turned it off. before that we were just driving in silence. we didn't even say anything when faced with the pitch darkness before us. it was almost as if we drove in pitch darkness all the time. so that was basically the first time we talked throughout the drive. if you consider "sorry i can't see the road" "yah i know" a conversation. think we were just too tired to talk) the windscreen continued to mist up! i even had to turn the wipers on a couple of times.

so there i was, driving in darkness. and now i think i can understand what the authors of 交换日记 3 - 请问法国在哪里 (fax diaries 3 - oui france, they provided the english translation of the title.. don't ask) felt as they drove to their lodgings in la romieu. never have i imagined that i would encounter a situation like tonight in singapore. it's kinda refreshing. a little nerve-wracking. but refreshing nevertheless.

then i had to drive home and again i had to battle the darkness. this time, without a passenger beside me and i had a tailgating car behind me. which was driven by a man, who had a female passenger beside him. grrr.. he could have overtaken me if i was that slow (though i must say overtaking in the dark is quite a stupid idea) but it's pointless to worry the driver in front by tailgating! heaven's sakes, i was driving in the dark, alone! bloody jerk.

anyway, i managed to get back to civilisation without a scratch. i was cruising on the expressway, when i noticed something in the sky. my first thought was 'it's a flyaway balloon". but then it was pretty stationary if it's a lost balloon. and it didn't look like the moon. it wasn't round, nor was it crescent shaped. it looked like a 3/5 of a moon. but it was.. reddish..? upon further observation, i came to the conclusion that it was the moon, despite the unusual colour and shape.

some nights i would gaze with wonder at how bright and white the moon is. and just admire the beauty of the mooon. but tonight was one of those rare nights where i caught the reddish moon and find myself wondering if i'm seeing things. come to think of it, the streetlights seemed somewhat reddish tonight. maybe that's what rose tinted looks like. but it's still rather scary to see something i thought i didn't recognise in the sky.

on days like these, i question my existence. look at the blog of my friend, she's having a ball of a time in spain. and here i am. writing about reddish moons and driving in the dark?

i want to see parc guell. i want to travel. i want to see the world. i want to meet more people. i don't want to live with my parents. i want to move.

damnit. i've got to get a job.

*garang see this.

tony's handprints

PC300001
Originally uploaded by isilearine.

this is a photo my brother took when he went to hong kong in dec 04. he borrowed my digicam (technically it's the family's digicam. but i'm really the one who knows how to operate it. well, now my brother does too, but don't think he's as savvy with all the functions. not that i am, i'm just a little more informed of the possibilities of the camera) for the trip.

i was just curious what photos he took. and the first photo the camera displayed on its lcd was this! and i kinda did a little quiet scream. it's tony's handprints!!! we have this handprint gallery in singapore too. but it's a pretty much forgotten attraction. you can find handprints of celebrities hung along the walkway of the not defunct cinema, capitol. i remember how in my teens, when i used to frequent the area, my friend and i would just notice the handprints of all those celebrities as we walked past. not sure if there's one of tony's though..

but the ones we have in singapore have the signatures of the celebrities! and some of them have real nice signatures. considering that they had to sign in went cement, they did a pretty good job. some of them have really ugly signatures though..

but still it's nice to have the photo my brother took. sweet..

Flickr

This is a test post from

, a fancy photo sharing thing.

the end

yup. i've finally done it. i have finally finished my 2004 xmas presents. i kinda call them xmas/newyear/cny presents as they've taken quite a while to actually materialise.

i began this ambitious project way back in nov 04. and now, after four months (well, i didn't exactly spent four months on this. it took me four months to complete the project, but really i just worked on it every now and then, whenever i felt like it. guess that's why it took so damn long), two-three glue sticks (never thought i could finish *one* glue stick on *one* project. to think i'd actually managed to finish two and start on a third one), almost my entire ink cartridge, approximately half a penknife blade refill, quite a lot of paper and wet tissues (to clean my hands after handling with glue) i can finally say that i'm done.

all in all, i've made a total of 21 calendars (not including a prototype). along the way, the workmanship got shoddier. what do you expect? but still i'm sorry if you got one of the shoddier made ones and actually happen to be reading this. gomen!

anyway i've decided to post up some photos to chronicle my.. journey. looking back at it, i don't know if i should laugh at the absurdism in this shenanigan i'd pulled on myself or congratulate myself on making it through.

the first photo shows the second batch of printing i did on my printer. i'd managed out a first batch before the end of 2004. in 2005, i began my second batch of calendars. there is a third batch (comprising of *two* calendars. hardly constitute a batch.. whatever~).

the second photo shows the pile of scrap paper i'd produced during the production of the second batch. quite a pile. and from the corner of the photo, i guess one can tell my table is a mess itself.

this is the photo of the second & third batch of calendars. ran out of the envelopes i was using. so the last two were made with envelopes of a different paper. the shot was kinda shaky. i've got shaky hands.

this is a close up of a finished product. the back and the front of it. it's all really quite primitive. well, i did do most of the work by hand. i designed the months' designs mostly on the computer, but the actual putting together.. my gosh, the cutting.. the gluing.. the squinting to make sure i cut as close to the borders as possible.. the backaches i suffered as a result of this project. but then again, because of the backaches i got, i've started practising my yoga again. let's just hope i continue to do so.

if you squint, you might be able to make out the thing on the back of the calendar. it's a "logo" i came up for this project. basically it's a hand, followed by my name (boon) and the year this project began in [(20)04] with a "serial number" at the bottom. it's really just for laughs. and to remind the recipient that this was a freaking handmade thing.

now, if you're zf don't look below!!!! i'd rather you see the real thing first.. i'll need to mail you yours and air mail still takes days. plus, i'll need days to post the thing. "P so kzf! skip the below bit!!!!

and here's a jpeg of the designs of all the months. i've attempted to watermark the jpeg. hmmm.. but it's not really obvious till you click to view it as a larger picture.

so there. still need to hand them out to the many people.. sigh. and i'm sleepy.

cooking shows

i've quite a thing for cooking shows and food related shows. some of my favourites include jamie oliver shows, a cook's tour.

jamie oliver
frankly speaking, i don't really know why i watch his shows and not others (eg nigella). i don't like nigella coz her cameraman moves too much, focus too much and basically watching her show gives me motion sickness.

jamie's endearing. and he's a rather sloppy person*. think that adds on to his endearing-ness. i find his recipes rather easy to follow, cept for the fact that the stuff he uses are not as readily available in my mother's kitchen. it's all really due to that he's british and i'm not. i'm not really surrounded by stuff like rosemary, sage, fennel, cream, cheese, bruschetta? and so on..

i did manage to make a chocolate fruit cake of his once. mine ended up more of a nut cake since i couldn't get the dried fruits.but it turned out quite good nevertheless.

today he did this thing called a semi freddo? it's a dessert thing that's somewhat like an ice-cream. looks really sinfully interesting (it used double cream).. hmmm... i am tempted..

anthony boudain
i love watching his show called a cook's tour? where he goes to various places and try out the local cuisine. he's entertaining coz he says the silliest stuff. ah.. anthony.. where are you? i miss thee..

keith floyd
is not really eye candy, but he's ok too. but it's always rather queer to see him cooking in the middle of nowhere (some examples of weird cooking places, in some open space in some african village, in the middle of a jungle..) but i guess that's why it's interesting to watch him?

two australian fellas
they are eye candy! but since i don't really know the schedule for discover travel & living? i don't really follow their shows. they're not THAT cute that i'd follow their show religiously. oh.. i discovered one of the fellas appeared in a oliver's twist (can't really tell which season of OT it was.. they're pretty similar in the set design. different kitchen layouts though. i prefer the one where there's a built-in rubbish bin. where he just lifts this circular slab off the table and shoves the skins.. the seeds into the bin)!

the chinese girl (kylie kwong!)
i think her shows are quite interesting coz her cuisine's somewhat of a fusion (she being a chinese living in a western society). which interest me since i'm a chinese watching too much jamie oliver. i want to know how i can go about bringing the west and the east together (in food).

yes. i'm quite a discovery travel & living fan. tsk.

anyway, back to jamie oliver. the reason behind this blog. i'd just caught an entire episode of pukka tukka. and he looked so less chubby! pukka tukka was filmed in 2000/2001. and just compare him then to him now (in oliver's twist ) and you would realise his cheeks were less chubby and his torso was less chunky! don't ask me how i can tell when he's usually in a rather loose top/sweater. and i'd just wanted to write about this really. i hope i don't balloon up too much in the next five years.. i'm already big as it is now.

but really pukka tukka's quite good.. supposed to be a show abt cooking on budgets and stuff..

*when i say jamie's sloppy it's coz he.. doesn't really seem to wash his hands. or his foods. i was quite bothered at one point of time when i realised i hardly ever see him wash his veggies. doesn't he know there's something known as insecticides and pesticides? but maybe his food have already been washed and all.

also his table top doubles up as a chopping board.. i always wonder how clean the table top is.. but really, he's not as sloppy as i make him out to be. watch his show and judge for yourself.

mv05_constantine v0.1

title: constantine
director: francis lawrence
main cast: keanu reeves, rachel weisz

i was somewhat apprehensive about watching this, since there *are* other movies that i would like to watch. but i have to admit it's pretty good. but if you haven't watched it and you're intending to, stay till the credits end!!! there's something after that. damnit. i missed it. well, if you did miss it like me, you can find out what happened here.

i was kinda reluctant about watching this coz it's a keanu movie. if you've read my earlier blog you'd know that i'm not a big fan of keanu. he's ok actually. it's just that he only has one look. it can get kinda boring after a while. but i can't really deny that he's quite cute. until he does that i'm-so-stoned thing..

keanu was ok in this film. the perpetual-stoned look is actually quite acceptable in such films since he is quite attractive to the eye. he did get a little disbelievable at some points (when he tried to act). also he didn't really looked so terminally ill. i would expect a chain smoker like keanu's character to look.. more like a chain smoker. like discoloured lips.. bad skin.. there was only a couple of coughs (some bloody) that reminds you now and then that he's terminal.

the idea behind the movie, the wager between god and satan, the "game" where both parties can't step into the realm of man is interesting (this is where halfbreeds come into play). the dabble in the occult, the war between good and evil is actually quite good material for movies. ok, i'm interested in such topics, so i find it interesting. somehow, making a movie out of such topics rarely does justice to the inspiration. a movie generally shouldn't be too long as audience has a limited attention span, so very often, lots of issues are just dealt with a really light touch. being a comic book reader, i guess i expect more to be milked out of the topic.

watching constantine has whet my interest in the original comic, hellblazer. would probably try to get hold of it. hey it's by alan moore! alan moore's comics are quite a favourite of mine. i like the way he thinks. it's so twisted it's wicked.

i thought the effects of the film was commendable (or maybe i've just watch too many b/c/d grade films). the depiction of hell as an apocalyptic version of LA (or some american city) was interesting. i mean, who would imagine hell to look like earth after d-day? usually the imagery we associate with hell involves heat, fire, desert? open space?

ok, i'm not exactly making a lot of sense here. think it's coz i'm kinda sleepy and my nose is slightly blocked. hmmm.. but i think constantine is a pretty entertaining movie. kinda scary at points. reminded me of the exorcist. i got kinda scared at a few parts of the movie. but the idea that inspired the movie is way cool. i'm really looking forward to reading the comic..

the story behind my little vandalism act

this is something that i've put together for a friend of mine. it's sort of a modified version of something i saw from a magazine (real simple, i think. think i quite like that magazine).

the story goes like this. this friend bought me a belated birthday brunch. when we were given the bill, i pried the metal plate off the leather folder they always serve your bill in. and basically i've just framed it up and i'll be passing it to my friend any day soon.. just kinda like a thank you gesture, i guess. and to think they thought i was just a random crazy vandal. this should show them that i'm really a sweet (har~), thoughtful, random, crazy vandal.

here's a blown-up picture of the visa plate. the things we can do with some nice paper, a little wire mesh, ikea products, stolen metal plates and uhu glue..

dinner on 5 feb

har! finally got hello to work! it didn't work on my last (2?) blogs. and strangely enough it works here. but i can't seem to get rid of the border around the picture. hmm...

ah well, these three photos are that of my dinner earlier on. which i had at around 10pm. kinda late for dinner but what the heck.

i was thinking of having a nice niang dou fu* soup. and since my mother decided to take on my offer to cook soup for my brother, i had the great honor of cooking for that somewhat fussy eater (fussy in that he has a somewhat more discerning palate than me).

unfortunately, i'd only bought enough niang dou fu pieces for myself. so we raided the fridge which was well stocked for the impending reunion dinner anyway (that is going to be a steamboat one.).

and we ended up with that huge pot of.. thing. i tried to capture the depth of the pot in central picture. the spoon there is just your typical chinese soup spoon. and in the picture on the right, i tried to capture the diameter/dimension of the pot. i can put my widespread hand in there with ease (note my fingers).

we actually had to transfer the thing from a smaller pot into this monster while we were cooking. as we hovered over the stove, my brother couldn't help laughing when i mentioned that it looked like we'd cooked enough soup for our entire family (of four) and point out that usually my mom's soup (which reaches that height of the pot) was mainly soup. what we had there was a tub of.. food.

but don't be deceived by the layer of pasta on the surface. it was really a mere layer. underneath it all, you have my few pieces of niang dou fu, other niang dou fu-like stuff intended for the impending steamboat, veggie, some dumplings and mainly stuff. oh yah! there was sausages from ikea that i'd fashioned into little octopuses! (like those made by tender, loving japanese mothers) they really do become octopuses! to think my brother never knew those japanese octopuses he saw in lunch boxes (in japanese shows) were really sausages in disguise.

anyway. i'd just wanted to make some form of record of that ridiculous dinner. to think the two of us actually came up with that humongous vessel of food. which we finished nevertheless. ~shudder~

* niang dou fu is a type of chinese food. it's basically a bunch of stuff like beancurd skin wrapping fish paste, beancurd stuffed with fish paste, deep fried beancurd stuff with fish paste, veggies (eg lady fingers, slices of bitter gourd, capsicums) stuff with fish paste, fish balls, meat balls.. ok. and other similar items. and you can have these bunch of stuff in soup or in some.. sauce. it's yummy. usually i like to buy it cooked with ampang sauce (ampang is actually this place in malaysia which came up with the sauce). but when i buy them to cook, i usually just cook them in soup. really much less work. and throw in a whole pile of veggies.

this is a test.

island of rude drivers

today i got seriously pissed by the rude drivers whom i share this little island with.

i was circling for a parking lot on this rather packed level of a multi-storeyed (it's more like dual-storey-elevated-above-a-bus-park) car park.

just then, i saw a car that looked like it's vacating its lot on my left! unlike some strange drivers who think cars have this magical ability to shrink and expand on demand, i manoeuvered slightly to the right and moved ahead so as to allow the driver to vacate the lot without scratching his car or mine or anything else for the matter. and i turned on my left signal light.

when i looked back to determine when i could reverse into the lot, i saw the the driver of the car (a purple march. like... purple? what's wrong with your tongue? i shall henceforth refer to the driver of this car/this car as purple march) circling immediately behind me hesitating for a while right in front of the car that is trying to vacate the lot. i kinda looked at her, trying to convey through my face that "yes, i'm signalling left to show that i saw that lot first". she looked back. and she looked. and she moved on reluctantly.

and right after the car vacated the lot, this freaking suv (who was behind the purple march) moved into my lot! it's like, hello? why do you think i'm signalling here? like.. is your suv built so much higher than other cars that you can't see a car in front of you that's signalling to show that it's waiting for the lot? basically the suv driver was just totally oblivious of me and my car.

so i had to continue circling the car park (as i cursed the suv driver). when i was back at the same part of the car park, i saw a car vacating its lot on my right! immediately, i slowed down and signaled to show that i was eyeing that lot. i looked into the rearview mirror, and lo and behold, the purple march was behind me again. when i looked in front, hey! a car even nearer to me on my left was vacating its lot too! i looked at my left side mirror and saw that purple march was left signalling so i thought i'll just stick to the lot slightly further away on my right. and i moved on.

as i moved on, i saw that purple march actually had her hazard lights on (when i thought she was signalling left), but what the heck, she probably could see that there's two lots and we can both park and since i'd already signaled for the right lot, i'd just park on the right.

and we parked. purple march parked her car in a jiffy. i took longer.

let me explain myself regarding my relatively wobbly parking skills. i've scratched my car in that particular car park before, and i'm scratched three cars once when i reversed too fast in a car park. so i try to prevent any other similar accidents. it certainly didn't help when i'd my mom right beside me screaming "slow down! SLOW DOWN!!" when i really wasn't going very fast, and when i knew that i'm not going to hit anything.

plus i was driving a larger car, a car without power steering, and i had to straighten my car. and to think when i first started driving i could park straight at my first go. all the time. and i never had the need to straighten my car. accidents and a larger car changed all that.

so as i was straightening my car, ms purple march walked across past my car. and as she walked, she stared. she just stared at me as she walked before my eyes. i had to look at her coz i didn't want to hit her (or do i?) but since when did people look right when you're walking straight (she was obviously staring)?

why the heck was she staring at me? she had this rather hostile look. it wasn't a "you're such a pathetic driver" look. i get that a lot. though usually it's more of a "you're such a typical lousy female driver" look. but hey, why don't you try driving a manual car that has no central locking system, no power windows, no power steering and an unsmooth gearstick and let's see how you manage.

she had this "you bitch" look. like, look who's the one behaving like a total bitch who's brought up with no sense of manners? i tried to be good, signal, wait. and you're the one who seems to believe that there's an unspoken universal rule (which sadly, i didn't know about) whereby you show that you are eyeing a lot by using hazard lights *only*. apparently you think signal lights are only to signal which direction to turn even when there's *nowhere* to turn.

well, i'm actually quite rude too since i verbally abuse these crappy drivers in my car. i was just cursing the hell out of me in my car (my poor mom, but hey, she subjects me to SLOW-DOWN!!'s..) but at least i'm not like some crazy bitch who drives a car of the most hideous color and evil suv drivers who can't see things from commoners' point of view. (seriously, the view from a suv is really quite different. was a passenger in one before. it's just like how a tall person sees differently from me.)

so what can i say but that i live on an island filled with freaking rude drivers.

rm_02 questionable content

damn. forgot about this in my hurry to play sims2.

questionable content is one of my favorite webcomics. it reminds me a little of friends (the comedy). but heavens forbid the creator of qc to read that comment. think he doesn't like friends.

anyway, on this day, jeph (the creator) wrote an interesting entry (he writes some stuff with every comic he publishes). the issues about identity and authenticity. something i'd like to think n blog about one day. but today, sims2 hails.. (despite the wails from long overdue xmas/newyear/chinesenewyear? presents..)

keanu/tony + csi/csi miami

first, keanu vs tony

i've a friend who adores keanu reeves. i, on the other hand, am more of a tony leung chiu wai fan.

there was a rather huge photo of keanu in today's papers. and i think i've discovered why tony appeals to me more than keanu!

keanu has a rather nice face, in that his nose is straight. his cheekbones are.. there. his eyes are set not too badly. tony, on the other hand, has a passable nose, and he's a little short. but tony has the eyes! they have this worldly glint. he makes me wonder about the experiences he has had in life. they endear me to him. once, they'd published this photo of him where he had his back facing the camera. and he was just looking out the window. and even his back view was able to spew some sense of jadedness.

keanu on the other hand has rather empty eyes. even if tony was just blanking out, he still manages to look somewhat weathered and mysterious. keanu just look like he's stoning there. he doesn't really have magnetic eyes.

csi vs csi miami

i think i've finally theorised the reason behind my preference for csi over csi miami. the lead characters in csi are made more human than those of csi miami. some brief notes of the imperfections in the lead characters of csi:

grissom: hearing problem, questionable interpersonal skills, questionable of life outside work
warrick: gambling problem
willows: history of strip dancing, broken marriage
sara: thing for grissom, brief alcohol problem, relationship problems
nick: actually i don't think nick's character has been developed much. except perhaps during this episode when he showed the resilience he had in him when he accidentally leaked out information about some crime.
brass: problem with family

csi miami hasn't really dealt as in depth to their characters as csi has. well, partly i guess it coz there's only two seasons of csi miami, while csi is in its fifth season.

i guess i'm also not comfortable with the seemingly flawless horatio. seriously, i can't really vaguely note any imperfect thing to him. he takes the rap for raymond's infidelity. he tried to help yelina's date by telling him she didn't like champagne. can he do no wrong? there's also the way he talks. it makes him sound like he think he's saving the day. there isn't really that.. humilty. hmm... i'll need to think abt this a little more..

i'm pretty obsessive huh? i mean, i'm actually analysing why i like csi better than csi miami. for heaven's sake, they are only entertainment! but it's irritating to take a stand without being able to somewhat justify why you're taking that stand.

ok.. i want to play sims2. enough rambling..

whatever

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Monday, February 28, 2005

a night of notable driving

Saturday, February 26, 2005

tony's handprints

Friday, February 25, 2005

Flickr

Sunday, February 20, 2005

the end

Saturday, February 19, 2005