Monday, May 30

Tamiya Race Cars


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Originally uploaded by djkeishi.
I was utterly surprised when I chanced upon a Tamiya race track at IMM 4th floor last weekend. I was a huge fan when I was in primary school (and that was I think almost 1.5 decades ago). I remembered buying the Tamiya kit box in which I can put in 4 cars and I really took pride in soup-ing up the car with additional car kits, stickers, ball bearings, rollers, stabilizers. If I remembered correctly, I spend all my Xmas ang bao money on this hobby one year. It was so in the rage then, and so totally surprised to see that kids are still playing them now. Where did they learn about Tamiya cars?? Aren't they all into Gameboys, Sony Playstations, XBox, and all that digital stuff?

Anyway, my beloved Egress Black Special (my top ah beng model car) disappeared from my box one day, and up till today, I didn't know what happened to it. I suspected that it was stolen. It was then that I decided that I was no longer keen in rebuilding another car from scratch, after spending close to $200 bucks (a lot of money for a primary school boy at that time!) on modifying this particular one. Anyway, I never actually got past the heats in those races that I brought my car for.

*buggers*

Sunday, May 22

PSP


PSP
Originally uploaded by djkeishi.
Was out garavanding in town on Friday afternoon and happened to walk into the Sony Gallery store. Actually one of my colleagues Edmund had bought an parallel import set months ago, but this was the probably the 1st time I held it for so long.

The PSP seemed to have easy-to-use navigation. What's more, I believe that you could load in movies, MP3s, photos and whole load of other shit. It's really one up against Creative's Media Player (which name I cannot remember also). The screen resolution is also darn good and looks much better than my TV at home. My only gripe is that holding the PSP in your hands mid air tend to make your shoulders hurt after a while, especially when you're so intense trying to get to No 1 position in the race. All in all, something that I could look forward to getting later on in the year.

Levenge Of Da Sit


Levenge Of Da Sit
Originally uploaded by djkeishi.
Finally managed to catch the much-talked about movie yesterday @ GV Plaza Singapura. Had shity seats (3 rows from the front) and had to crane my neck the whole time but I guess it wasn't a bad movie at all. Popular opinion that this was the best among the 2nd 3loGy and I have to agree.

Thursday, May 19

Outnumbered, Never Outgunned

Sad Keishi once again goes in search of a basketball court. After a taxing day at work, I decided to go shoot some hoops, but had to go try to locate a basketball court again.

After steering away from Jason's place, I headed to NUS Sports Centre - damn it, the lights were already off. Disheartened, I headed for PGP just to see see. Lo & behold, the court lights were on. Woo hoo!

Prince George's Park Residence brings back memories since I stayed there in Feb - May 2002 (after I came back from my Holland/ Europe trip). As with all other things in life - when I was staying there for almost 4 months, I somehow only went to the court less then 5 times. In fact, I stayed at the block just beside the court (inside the picture)



However, it was terrible living conditions and I frankly do not recommend it. Firstly the blocks are built in such a way that 90% of the "apartments" are not facing any natural wind/ sea breeze. It was like a microwave oven in there all the time. I remembered I even had one of those huge ass industrial fans in there, but because the room was so god damn small to begin with and literally with 4 walls around you, the whirling fans became damn irritating in the nighttime.

Luckily enough, I was given a block close to the food court & mini mart. If I were given a place at the edge of the residence area, it would be a good 15 mins walk from the bus stop I reckon. Oh yes, I also rememebered there was a rule that you cannot bring in a girl to your room at night if you're living in a boys-only floor. Haha. What a dumb rule. I wondered who heeded the rule. I thnk only Singaporeans. I think the Chinese nationals and the exchange students are always the ones with all the action behind close doors!

Speaking of which - the chinese people seem to be all around, everywhere. I think one day, there'll be so many students from China that they'll invade all the institutions. In fact at the basketball court, I think I was the only Singaporean there. The rest of them (20 or so) were Chinese nationals. I was outnumbered 20:1.

BTW, Mr Brown has released his latest SNE to the world. Miss it at your own peril!

Stars Wars III got released today, well actually tomorrow but the bastards/ cinema operators decided that why not do a SNEAK preview and get in more revenue anyway? I wld reckon every single seat today had been sold out islandwide.

This is my favourite character since Episode V (I think this was when the Storm Trooper 1st appeared!)

Wednesday, May 18

I am ALL powerful now


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Originally uploaded by djkeishi.
My very 1st book that I bought from Kino yesterday after being a cheapo since they opened from Day 1. So there you are - after I read this already will become POWERFUL EXHIBIT Marketeer. Haha!

Tuesday's Terrible

Well, maybe it wasn't all that terrible but the week looks bleak ... hopefully the long weekend comes soon. But then again, it'll be over in a jiffy and then I'll be even more depressed! Got to deal with it, I reckon.

I just got my appointment letter today via internal mail as well. I guess most people would be ecstactic, but I'm kinda cautious about it. I REALLY dunno how I got myself into this ... "mess"?
Life moves on, got to deal with it when it comes again I guess.

So Jerrine got back on Sunday but we didn't have a chance to meet. So we met up for dinner yesterday at our old haunt. Well, it's almost an old haunt because we've already been there 3 times! But it's a really affordable place and highly recommended. Largely because it's cheap. Only that it's a little squeezy. I think eating with more than 3 - 4 people will be quite terrible.

So, Jerrine, in her usual self, ordered like she was feeding a village of care bears ...



Anyway, we managed to wolf down 90% of it ... Enjoyable meal as always! Ah Pek DJ Kennerve came by to meet us after that as Onyx was opening and he needed to pass us come invites for the launch! Kinda weird receiving an invitation for the opening of a place that you have worked at before, well sorta of ... Anyway, yes guys and girls ONYX (One Fullerton) will be officially launched this Friday, so those of you who do not have passes - Too bad. I'm not sure how to get them also, but I do hope there's some nice complimentary drinks and food to go around.

On another topic, chanced upon NUS mate darkstar flashboy's blog aka Willy Tan blogsite and thought I'll link it anyway (though no one ever visits this site ... ). He's recently organized the Monday Sessions @ Bar None (2nd one was the Monday that just passed). Really respect da man ... got so much energy to plan & organize these series gigs for the local scene.

R.E.S.P.E.K.T!

I reckon it would be out of passion for the music .. which explains the rationale behind this super-stylo look during one of this recent performances outside the Esplanade.




Oh well ... here's another one acting all goofy with the rest of the crew, which is called The Love Experiment



Maybe I will pop by next Monday!

Meanwhile, check out his website www.agingyouthproductions.com with loads of event news and other stuff ...

Sunday, May 15

Bounce Bounce

Just back from my session of basketball@ NUS with Roy, Weng and (oh no ... can't remember his name). Was terribly out of breathe most of the time - that explains the tum-tum around my waist (yes, that's my alter ego - I even gave my tummy a name). And to think I was almost 'a legend' back in secondary school, but that's another story altogether. Those day are well over. Nowadays, if I can get my ass off the bed at 8 am during the week, it's already considered an achievement for the day, let along shoot some hoops. BUT I do hope to continue this regime on a regular basis.

Back to the evil clubbing diaries over the weekend - well, not that evil.

So after DXO last Friday (which incidentally is the short form for Dance eXtraOrdinary), we headed off to Wine Bar @ Zouk for some more drinks. Copyright from UK were spinning at Zouk but because we only had 2 member cards between 6 of us, we decided to just stand around. Yes, STAND around - getting a table/ seats @ Wine Bar is harder than kena-ing 4D, I tell you. Anyway, not that I was bothered too much, I was only gunning for the party nuts. Woo hoo! Other than the nuts (which is a SAD SAD highlight for me), the rest of the night was pretty much uneventful. Reached home at 4-ish am and crashed in bed @ 5-ish.

I spend the entire Saturday (yesterday) sleeping, though not that I wanted it ... but I was really too tired. Got a message from Sexy Boy that we're headed out with the old classmates again (2 days in a row! Amazing!). It's funny how I dun see them for the last 10 years or so, and now we're going out almost everyday (we met last week too!) . And we have something planned out for next week too it seems and for Masni's wedding on June 5th!

Dragged myself out of bed at 8:30 PM, yes PM, got changed and headed to Thumper. And before that, I texted beloved Mr Eng who nicely put us on the guest list along. Wierdly enough, the door bitch, I mean, door host, asked me for my IC, which I was quite ready to pull out. Anyway, I think they really wanted to keep the ah peks and aunties exclusive to Thumper. So I told her, I'm on Mr Eng's guest list. But I had to pay a 1st drink cover anyway.

Which was kinda weird. Why have a guest list when I had to pay? Maybe I'll ask Mr Eng another day. Not nice to ask him then la.

So at 11:15 , the resident band What the funk! came on the started playing some covers of some really popular tracks like Justin Timberlake's Rock DJ - you know, that kinda of party tunes.



The dance floor really looked like a mish mash of nationalities from eastern europeans (perhaps from the fashion show before that) to sleezy middle aged men to filipinos maids look a likes. No offence but I was seriously wondering if their Sirs & Madams had let them out on a Saturday night. Hmmm ... Well, forgive me (you know the thing with blogging these days, can suka suka kena sue one, my bank got no money one hor ... ) . Was trying terribly hard to spot something even half decent, but there were none. Guess Jerrine must be damn happy if she reads this.

I figured since I already paid $20 bucks (oopps, Joshua paid for me ... sorry next day pay you back), I might as well TRY to enjoy the MUSIC. Anyway, at about 1-ish, I couldnt take it anymore and decided to go out for some fresh air. Decided to then head off to our next destination ONYX (residing at my old work place).

It's kinda weird how you know the place almost inside out at one time and then now, everything seems quite new, the staff, the layout, the drinks, the music. But it's al good really. It was the PROGRESSIONS night, and incidentally the guys behind it (DJ Yukun, P@T) did a good job in promoting the night ever since the very first one that started AT Centro 2 years back.

There was a good crowd. Music was excellent although at times, it was almost Dutch Gabbarish. Yikes. Anyway took some pictures so ... enjoy.









See ya guys soon!

Thump! Thump!

Just got back from a weekend of partying ... was REALLY looking forward to couple of good nighotouts after a whole week of stress at work.

Started off yesterday night, and met up with old classmates from Secondary school, Joshua, Kim Chuan + girlfriend, Carol, Sihui. Relatively small group but it was a good idea. Legendary Culture club, pop icon DJ Boy George was in town to perform at DXO. Thanks to Godwin who put us on the guest list, we stolled on into the new club located at Esplanade (the old Embassy lah). Was greeted by a decently filled club and some very good first impressions (deco wise & sound system). By some miracle, we managed to find a nice corner to ourselves and decided to order some drinks. We looked around and noticed this Stars Wars-looking device, imported from the future.



On closer look, it was actually a mobile draft tap. They dun serve jugs there in DXO, only these things they called "3L towers" or "5L towers". We were intrigued and decided to go for it though some amongst were driving. Anyway, this was when the misery began. Here's my experience :

Getting TO the bar front: 15 mins
Getting Attention of Bar: 8 mins
Getting the drinks: 5 mins
Getting the cups: 15 mins
Getting back my credit card: 10 mins (they couldn't find my god damn Clear card)

Total : 53 mins. Maybe it's a little biy exaggerated but I sure spent about 45 mins there in total. Bad service, bad bar, bad staff. Worst still, the so called 3L tower I got only got managed to churn out only 4 - 5 glasses of beer. What a complete Rip off! It was half full of foam!

BUT the music was pumping and the crowd was really up for it. So DXO gets an "A" for music action but F- for drinks.

More about what happened later on in the night but my neck's arching (and it's almost 6 am), so I better hit the sacks now!

Tuesday, May 10

Hello hello

Today I am in a much better mood probably because I do not have to meet big boss tomorrow. Big boss meeting today went OK I guess. He went on about philosophies of working life, and how we must read magazines even if we want to specialize in certain areas. It was darn keeping my eyes open, let alone a meek smile if you ask me. I was just looking straight in the eye, trying damn hard not to look like an idiot. I think in life, that's all it's takes really - just dun look like an idiot in the most adverse situations. I pity those that really looks like idiot.

Then again, Keishi here is a real nice person at heart. So no more bitching about idiotic looking people. I think it's far worst to deal with good looking people who acts like idiots. At least idiotic looking people behave as they are, and are true to themselves.

So back from work today, I had a great desire to play with my ball.

The basketball, I mean. Pls forgive the corny joke. Sucks ass if it didnt't even come across as a joke. So there I go all dressed up in my Nike "looks damn takong special breathing material", grab my ball, i mean basketball in my hands (newly bought from Queensway last week) and headed out of the house.

But ... I didn't know where the hell was the basketball court around my area. See - the thing is that many years ago till about 2 years plus - the garmen or rather the pubic association of singapore decided to tear down the courts at my CC just 2 mins from my house. It's now being used as a training ground for real young kids to learn martial arts or real old folks to practise their qigong or whatever.

I heard "they" build a court somewhere near my estate, so there I go in search of THE basketball court. Hell, I really wanted to test my ball. I didn't want to risk bouncing the ball on the wet floor yet since it had been raining the whole evening.

After 30 mins, I still hadn't found the god damn court, no hoops no nothing except that one INSIDE the Ngee Ann Poly Residence where there was a security post outside the place. Why, oh why is it so difficult to find a court?

So anyway I guess the highlight of the evening was that I stumbled upon a lost kitten who was damn scared of anything. I tried letting him play with my phone strap but it didnt buy it. So after 5 mins of watching its antics, the mama cat came along & started scolding the kitten in "pussy" language. It was quite fun to watch though at times, I wasn't sure if they were almost starting to fight instead of kiss & hug.

In the future, I have decided to head straight to the basketball court near Jason's house to end my misery search.

Hope you have a great week ahead.
Promotion

Promotion beckons and tomorrow's the final hurdle with the man at the top. I dunno what to expect and to be honest, I dun really give a damn. At the back of my head, I know it's my last chance to really screw it up and then, they wun give me the job. I'm pretty comfy from where I am, and with the company as big as it is, sometimes it's better to be the smallest fish around. Being the middle fish's a terrible position I think.

On the other hand, the extra money will help, though it's going to be a thousand times more responsibilites & work with that few hundred bucks more. I am really not sure if it's going to be that all worth while.

I've been asking myself recently if I believe in this opportunity. So far, I dun and I haven't got the inspiration for the magic moment yet.

Maybe tomorrow at 10 am, I will. Let's see.
It's been months AGAIN and hopefully I'm back on this blogging thing.

Really not sure why I've started and then stopped ... same old story again.

Recently, I've been reading loads of local blogs, getting inspiration from guys like mrbrown.com. It's my favourite probably because it's darn easy to type into the browser la. Don't have to thisthisthatthis.blogspot.com, you know ...

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and had been into a depressive mood for some reason. It's not just a certain aspect of my life - I think it's everything surrounding it. I wake up every morning not knowing where I'm headed to (well figuratively, not literally ... ), wondering why I'm doing what I'm doing, wondering about what's the purpose in my life, what's I'm headed for, and where I would be in 5/10/20 years time.

Will I still be as living off a measerly salary enjoying things we think we enjoy on the weekend (and killing ourselves over during the weekday?)? Will I still be going to the clubs to listen to some repetitive house music (but that's another story altogether)? Will I be stuck in a corporate rut? Will I be working my ass off paying off car or housing loans (read: compulsory debt) in Singapour?

I took 5 secs to come out with the answers - hell yeh, I reckon if I just do what I do now, it would probably a yes to all the questions above. Without a doubt. It's indeed simple to live a life here if you know what I mean.

I always seem to think "nothing ever happens here". I wonder if this's is a sick thought because sometimes, I do wish we had things like earthquakes & all these nasties calamaties. We're a small island in the world and it's amazing somehow why we dun get any of these shits everyone else in this region is getting. A tree falls down on a road and it's a big hoo ha on the Straits Times, perhaps even garnering a slot in ChannelNewsLater.

I think that's the problem why Singapore isn't as creative as we would like to be - because essentially in our everday life, we dun have real shit to deal with. We wake up every morning, knowing what to expect, what sort of weather to expect, what people we will meet ... what same food we will eat in the same food court, what movies (repeated ones!!) we're force-fed to watch on local TV. There's no major disasters, not collapses, no typhoon, no floods, no nothing, no riots, no movements, no opinions. We were never 'trained' from primary school how to react to adverse situations, how to cope with emergencies, how to think out of the box. The garmen asks us to think out of the box. I can but can the person I am working with "think out of the box"? Probably not and we're back to doing the old shits all over again. I think it would probably take 2 generations for us to change our mindset. Are we too late?

All the shit we're experts at dealing with is probably work related, and it's all a very vicious cycle. We take our lives here for granted and more and more people are absorbed into the system to believe and worship stability in their lives (read: not losing jobs, protecting their own asses, sucking up to bosses - ensuring survival to get the nexy pay check). Are Singaporeans truly happy people?

I think not. I think even the Africans are happier people even though they are poorer. But i dun see myself as any difference to them. At the 1st of the month, they start with nothing and at the end of the month, probably end up with nothing but along the way, they have the time to build relationships, build real friendships & bonds, get to know their families, explore themselves. People here work their keyboards and mouses off the whole month, dun get to see any friends/ families till late at night, and majority of those end up with nothing at the end of the month also to show for. Yes, this group of people do save but the savings end up where? I reckon back to the banks to pay up the housing and car loans so that they can live a life they think they would like to live.

It's sad, isn't it? I wish I wasn't living this life but I am, and I'm sick of it. What can I do?

So, are you truly happy?