So well, because jL there suggested (see, I listen), I decided to dress up as me for Halloween. Because I’m scary. Specifically, I was a zombie (because it’s classic) dressing up as me because I’m the scariest.

I went to work with the mask on and I couldn’t see my way. So I pressed the wrong button in the lift. And there were people in the lift. So I got off at the wrong level, then slowly stumbled my way to the office.

This guy took the cake though.

It’s hilarious. He went for lunch like that.

And this is possibly my favorite photo of the day.

Smelling my toes is not a good idea, regardless of whether there’s an unidentifiable bad smell emanating from somewhere. Because I’m not very flexible.

For the record, my feet smell fine. The stench is from the window.

… their Halloween getup suggestions.

Nike Takeover of Umbro

Sports giant Nike is set to swoop in for a takeover of English brand Umbro. Umbro is best known for their commitment to football and their sponsorship of the English National Team. The move by Nike improves their position within certain key growth markets and the credibility associated with the long heritage of Umbro. Unfortunately in recent times, the crown jewel of Umbro, the English NT has faltered on the European stage and face a difficult task in qualifying for the upcoming European Championships which has resulted in less then steallar sales. The deal rumored to be worth £285m GBP (approximately $580m USD). An article was written by the BBC regarding this venture.

From HypeBeast 

I need a costume for Halloween and I’m going to work in it.

That means you can forget any suggestion of my dressing as a slut/whore/phallic object.

Excerpt from They Might Be Giants’ MySpace:

““Here everybody-we are BACK ON THE ROAD! Spent yesterday wrapping up a couple of interesting projects in the studio in NYC we had in our in-box for our few days off. Yesterday we did a re-record or Take Out the Trash for the next edition of The Sims, and it is recorded in Simlish (!?!). Simlish, the language the characters speak in the game, sounds kind of like a jibberish version of Ubby Dubby, French and Spanish, and ends up sounding like Japanese.of the Sims theme (composed by Mark Mothersbaugh originally) with the band and the massive TMBG horns of Dan, Stan and Kurt sitting in. We also did a live session with the whole live crew for XM with an interview with our ol’ ol’ pal from Massachusetts days Bill Kates, Subgenius aficianado and all around kind fellow. That should be on the air very soon.”

I LOVE TMBG!!!!

Today I finally brought my ass (and the rest of me) down to the National Eye Center. I did think that it’d just be a check and I’d leave with a patch over my eye for a week or two as treatment. But apparently no.

The problem, see (or not) is that when I look to my left, I have double vision. That is, say you put a pile of work to my left. I’ll see that as two piles and subsequently not like you a lot. So they ran a couple of tests on me and I thought I’d share the 3 hours or so that I went through.

There was the usual eye tests, of which it’s ascertained that my vision, with glasses, is perfect. The more interesting tests involved my putting on a pair of duo-colored apparatus, much like the green-red 3D glasses that omni-theatre shows have you wear sometimes. One rather amusing test went like this:

Doctor: (my glasses were white on one side and red on the other) Are the red and white lines straight?

Me: Yes.

Doctor puts a prism lens thing in front of one eye.

Doctor: Now are they straight?

Me: Yes. Wait, I see two lines. Were there supposed to be two lines just now?

Doctor: Yes.

Me: I just saw one.

Another test involved green-red glasses and I was supposed to use a green pointer to point at a randomly-appearing red dot on a screen.

“I see two dots. Which one do I point to?”

The last test of the day involved having eye drops that dilate my pupils and side effects include having blurry near vision for the rest of the day. Like with all other medical procedures, this came with a disclaimer flyer that reads along the lines of “The eyedrops that have been put in your eyes will cause blurred vision. You will not be able to read or drive well…” It’s also interesting to note that the cashier asked me to check my bill when I paid up after.

So the diagnosis is that there’s something obviously wrong with my eye muscle. But the cause is still uncertain and it could be anything from thyroid eye disease to brain tumors to injuries to the eye (ie. watching too much porn, etc). I’m supposed to be back in 2 weeks for blood test results and (maybe) a brain scan (no jokes about scanning non-existant things please). In the meantime, I’ll have to figure out how to make insurance claims.

If you happen to be here in Singapore in the next 2 weeks, this is what you should be watching out for.

I did the layout for the poster so praises and fanmail are welcome.

There’s a supplement in this week’s newspapers on the 100 best dishes around Singapore. The writing team’s apparently quite established (ie. they’re not new writers) but the writing’s so bad I thought I’d reprint some of it here.

On Almond Cream Dessert.

“I know of people who cannot bear almond cream because they say it smells funky.

I used to think that too. But that was because I was introduced to it at less discriminating restaurants which make it from an instant powder that smells of bed bugs.”

On Fugu (pufferfish) hotpot.

“One always gets a thrill eating fugu or the poisonous puffer fish because of tales one hears about people dying after eating it.

 Actually, no one in Singapore has died from it as far as I am aware of because only licensed chefs who know how to remove its poison are allowed to prepare the fish for eating.”

On the pork in katsu don.

“Sprinkle some of the pink Himalayan salt on the slices of pork - it enhances the mild flavour of the pork.

And while slurping up the delicious pork miso soup that comes with the meal, marvel at how an ancientbreed of English pig made it to Japan, only to make waves all over the world, including in Singapore, where it is served with a little pile of pink Himalayan salt imported from Japan.”

 On Braised Pork Belly

“The amazing thing is that the pork does not even feel fat because of a slightly vinegary gravy that cuts the oil.

All you taste is the fragrance of fat and meat merged into a heavenly sensation.” 

I’m better than this. If anyone needs a food writer, I’m game.

Yea, I’m flabbergasted too!

Command & Conquer Gold is apparently available as a FREE download now.

Get it here 

Introducing the latest Disney game on the block. Happiness and sunshine in a box (see especially girl third from left).

Skate, if I haven’t mentioned already, has some bugs in it - sometimes your skater acts funny or  gets stuck in spots. Other times, trigger points don’t load like they should.

And then yesterday, the game froze on me.

After the second time this happened, I took out my disc and to my horror, there’s a scratched ring all around the disc. 5 minutes later, I sent out a letter to Xbox Customer Support asking for help.

This morning, I received a generic ‘We understand but…’ email from Microsoft. Choice bits as follows:

“I do apologize for the inconvenience. I understand that you play a game, use the Xbox Dashboard or the Xbox Guide, or wait for the console to start, your Xbox 360 may freeze, and there is a scratched disc on your Xbox Game Disc.”

“The Xbox 360 is a high end piece of hardware and should not be moved or jostled while a game disc is in play.”

To summarize, they’d replace my game if it’s a Microsoft-published one if I’m in Australia or New Zealand. I called the Customer Support hotline and the lady told me that I can get a replacement Xbox 360 but not a replacement game. I asked her what good that’d do since it’s a design flaw that ALL Xbox360s are plagued with. She tells me that she can’t do much for me other than give me tips on how to care for my games and console (the word Xbox 360 was repeated incessantly) including the fact that I should put my console on a sturdy table and always take the game out after play (bullshit). I remarked sarcastically that this won’t prevent slight earthquakes from ruining my games. She says that earthquakes don’t happen in Singapore to which I replied “Yea, they only happened a few times in the past month”. She agreed, “Yeah, they’re infrequent.” I gave up talking.

Introducing the Slipper Genie. Slip these on, walk around and clean up your house at the same time! If it ships for cheap, they’ve got themselves a customer.

Link

1) See an eye doctor.

This is becoming severely ridiculous. It started with focus difficulty all of a sudden. Then it became a matter of training myself to concentrate on seeing things ‘properly’ (it’s hard to explain this; I’d probably find this notion rather ridiculous if I weren’t plagued with the condition). And it got worse. There’s blurred vision, headaches and I’ve difficulty seeing things that are in a line.

I hope it’s not a scratched cornea or something.

The weekend was spent clearing out all manners of rubbish from my room because I’m getting new furniture and a spot of skateboarding (both virtual and otherwise).

And this reminds me that I forgot to get a pic of this mouse I found - It’s a ball-mouse and it is so old it doesn’t even have a USB plug. I also found a few boxes of 5.25 floppy disks, magazines dated 1997, Happy Meal boxes (I’m keeping those) and random pieces of notepaper.

Then there’s this:

This is the first full-time job I applied to in my life. It’s dated April 15 2006, slightly more than a month before I graduated. I never received a reply, I didn’t follow up on it because I got caught up in exams and the like and by some twist of fate some months later, I ended up with the job - I later found out that they’ve never received my application.

————

I woke up bleary-eyed on Saturday mid-morning (more of noon actually) to have my mom excitedly (to a bleary-eyed person that is) telling me that she’s going out (without said bleary-eyed person) and she’s left food on the counter for me. Uncooked food. It’s interesting though, to note how she assumes that I’m going to spend the entire day at home (which later turned out to be true) and have no plans to get out for lunch.

I’m expected to cook for my dad too, apparently.

Remember those cute Powerpuff Girls shotglasses I spoke about sometime back? They’re perfect for introducing hard liquor to 6-year-olds! I found whipping cream (ie. unwhipped cream) in the fridge, whipped it (because I’m bored) and topped a mini fix of Bailey’s with it. There’s so little stuff in there you can’t taste anything but hey, Bubbles makes me haaaappy.

And THEN FINALLY I went out…

… to continue on my fruitless attempts to learn the ollie. I’m pretty certain that half my neighborhood thinks I’ve gone mental what with the assortment of wheeled objects I’m playing with at the grass patch near the lift landing.

There’s apparently an 11-hour endurance bike race coming up and I’m contemplating uni-ing it as part 1 of qualifiers for Ride the Lobster. I wonder if I’m up to it though.

*EDIT* Oh, I meant to include this - If you noticed, my photos are all blurry. That’s because after taking what must have been 100 shots of various settings of various objects, I then noticed that there’s nothing wrong with my settings but there’s a GIANT KIDDY FINGERPRINT ON MY LENS.