the wacky wombat weblog

There’s one thing that I don’t get. Crocs.

Not the animal, but the shoes.

It’s ugly, and you can’t decide if it’s a shoe, or a slipper, or what. And it makes your feet look 10 times more bulgy, like bear feet or something. And did I mention that it is ugly? (If you don’t know what I’m refering to, click HERE and here, for visual evidence.

That’s why I don’t get why is it so popular at all? Yellow, blue, green, orange, red, purple, pink, black. They’re all ugly. Plus, as with every footwear fad in Singapore, imitations appear at every street corner, pushing fake crocs in all their hideous imitation colours for 5 bucks a piece. THAT, is even more irritating.

If all you want is ventilation and comfort, why not just wear sandals/slippers? At least that’s pleasing to the eye.

But I guess I’ll make one exception. Mini mini crocs look super cute on lil’ kids. And by lil’ I mean like a 2-year-old toddler. I saw a cute toddler with a tiny pair of purple crocs and that was the only time it didn’t look weird. I suppose the fact that it is 10 times smaller than the average adult size makes it look non-bloated and non-bear-feet-like. And I suppose the ultra cute factor of a 2-year-old cancels out any ugliness on the shoes’ part. :p

Chess is never my thing. An intellectual game? Yes. But seriously, it’s too boring and I won’t sit through it to prove my intellect (or the lack thereof).

Puzzles are Ok. It’s fun, only if I can at least solve some.

But throw in a few cute animated cows, some hay stacks, and the coveted animated throphy, somehow this puzzle game becomes a whole lot more addictive!

I’ve been playing this sorta as a fun thing to relax and unwind after school. But now I’m stuck at level 34 and my cows are going nowhere!

I like that it’s such a simple game: your aim is to get the grey cow to the trophy with the arrows given. But it’s challenging at the same time yet not beyond solving (so that I can feel a little smarter hehe).

Guess I’m just not much of a 3D gamer cos it makes me dizzy and I can’t navigate 3-dimensionally. Old fashioned linear games like Mario are my kind of thing. Which is why I’m so happy some smart tech geeks did an emulator system (or something) and I can play good old Mario online HERE.

whee!

Let’s face it. I’ve gotta admit. Cravings, and hunts for the next fix that never came. I’m suffering.

Ever since I got back from Japan in August, all japanese food in Singapore tastes icky to me.

I’ve been going on this aimless hunt to find decent cheap japanese food in Singapore. They used to taste Ok to me. Nothing great, but ok lah, still edible. But now, everytime I go to a food court or some sort, I’ll inevitably end up trying the japanese stall, and go ‘bleah’ everytime.

I got suckered again yesterday. Decided to grab lunch at a food court, and of course, I saw the japanese stall and decided, ok, I’ll give it a try. Chose tempura rice, cos I mean, how wrong can tempura get, right? It’s just a bunch of fried vege and prawns! But guess not. There’s just always something wrong with the seasoning and flavouring. Ugh.

So now my final conclusion is this: rather than waste money eating at food courts and ordering noodles at sushi bars, I can pursue 3 options:

1. Pay only 3 dollars for NTU Canteen A’s japanese food. Nothing great, but it’s wayyyyy cheaper than anything out there by at least a few bucks.
2. Eat only at the expensive restaurants where they’d (hopefully) bother to prepare the food the right way. But this is not a sure thing, cos if it turns out yucky, it’s gonna hurt not only the tastebuds, but the wallet too.
3. Wait half a year more when I’ll finally get to go Tokyo again and eat eat EAT!!!

for nostalgia sake, here’s some old food photos I took in Tokyo.

from top L, clockwise:

1. our weekly favourite Maru-kin Hakata ramen, humongous bowl with everything in it. 1000yen but super worth it.
2. Freshness burger. Look at the thick burger patty, tomato, everything! beats McD’s hands down.
3. thick juicy fresh mussels. *slurp*
4. more ramen. Except this is INSTANT NOODLES! Instant noodles with egg and meat, just like the real thing! 0_o

As I was flipping through the yellowing pages of photos….

Ok ok, it’s more like a digital photo album, and it’s not really that old. But I found this cute picture!

This was taken in Au Yong’s tiny box pad in Tokyo many months back. That’s Pnyek (the scaled-down soft toy version of the bear that I discovered in Tokyo). For some reason, she looks so damn sneaky in this photo. As if she should be sleeping too, but she’s broken her bedtime rules and decided to sneak out from under the quilt covers. Tsk tsk.

And then there’s me all oblivious and deep in sleep. But it looks like Pnyek isn’t the only sneaky one. The other sneaky fella is the one who took this photo! :p

Just came back from a location recee for my next short-documentary project. And it was a nice lil’ afternoon with the horsies at the RDA (they’re an organisation that uses horses and ponies to provide therapeutic horseback riding to the disabled people for free)

I’ve always liked horses since I was little. Watched too much TV and cartoons with magnificent horses trotting and galloping around I suppose. :p

So beautiful, right?

It’ll be a busy Tuesday next week when we go on the shoot. Hopefully everything goes well. Production excites and freaks me out at the same time. I’m just paradoxical. 0_o

So we’ve been wondering, who’s been lurking this blog without ever leaving a comment? We know we haven’t been blogging much, but sure are curious about who you are. So just take a moment to comment on this post and tell us who are you, how did you know us (or found our blog), and say something nice

I was back in PJ last weekend. Just a short trip to escape from the claustraphobic island (and to regain my sanity), and also to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with my family.

Since I usually have a lot to say about my trips back home, I shall systematically file them under The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Let’s start with The Good…

1. Mid-Autumn was good, except I didn’t actually taste a mooncake until after it was over, haha. And with the haze, the moon was sorely missing. However, since the government has failed to inform us to stay indoors away from the haze, my family then decided to embark on a new concept of mid-autumn festival celebration – haze-coated BBQ (yummy), and recycled lanterns back from the years when 6 paper lanterns cost only RM3.60 (it’s a good thing my mom kept them, doesn’t feel so bad when they burn up heheh.)

2. I enjoy being back at home. Feels good to live in a space that has a proper garden (Ok ok it’s just a square of grass but it makes a difference when you don’t even have a balcony to put your potted plants in SG. Plus potted plants die in my care, so it’s no good).

3. Food Food Food. It is only in PJ and KL where I’ll eat 5 meals a day: breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, supper.

4. I just found out by chance that 2 of my friends from completely different social circles of mine, actually know each other! This has happened so many many MANY times, I am now damn convinced that anyone born between 1970 - 1990 and live and studied in PJ are somehow connected to everyone else. And it’s not like PJ is some small kampung, it’s a freaking ‘officially a city’, jam-packed with people who only have one objective on Sundays: to drive to 1Utama and create a traffic deadlock several kilometres long just so they can shop and eat. Anyways, I love surprises like these, to know that my friends are all one big happy family LOL.

5. I got to play with my lanterns. whee! (bonus points for salvaging the one and only green lantern. I like green lanterns.)

6. New hair cut! Chopped off my old curls, and got a cute hair-do. Except it’s not looking quite as cute as when they first finished it since it’s started to curl on its own accord.

And now The Bad…

1. Traffic jam in Seremban on my way back on the bus to KL. What the heck is there in Seremban that could cause a jam? It’s a sleepy lil’ town! >.< But since I slept through most of it, so I'll let it go this time.

2. The LRT broke down!! Right when I needed to take one back to PJ from the icky puduraya bus terminal! It’s bad enough that the ticket machines were spoilt (they perpetually are anyway). But when I went downstairs for the train, OMG, the whole place was full of people! Apparently trains were delayed for so long, the crowd just got bigger and bigger. And for the first time in the history of KL, people were actually made to queue up and be courteous to others and wait for the trains! Rare sight I tell you.

Then I started to freak out a bit when one of the trains before me went bonkers and suddenly stopped in the tracks seconds after it pulled off. But good thing the train that I got on to was alright, except someone stepped on my feet, and idiots behind me kept pushing their way through. Ugh. Remind me again why KL sucks. Next time I’m gonna take a bus that goes direct to PJ from SG, so I don’t have to step into the smelly city at all. Everytime I travel to KL, I’m sure to encounter a transportation crisis: last trip was the KL flash flood that left me stuck in floating garbage for 2 hours in the city, and now the ‘high-tech’ train breaks down.

3. And my adopted stray cat sort of forgotten me. She had this blur look on her face when I came back, and went to hide at the back of the house. >.< But after a few nice rubs, she's happy again. Stupid cat.

Ok, now the Ugly…

Don’t have a picture with me, but the haze in KL is terrible. I couldn’t even see KL Tower when my dad drove me downtown back to the bus terminal on Sunday. >.< And the worst thing is how no one is doing anything about it. The government is very clearly not pushing for any actions to solve the problem for real, which is seriously annoying. Now’s probably the best time to promote holiday getaway packages to places like Genting and Cameron Highlands — untainted by haze.

So yup, summary of my rare trip back home. Wish I have more chance to do that. No matter how tight my schedule to meet people is when I am at home, I still feel very relaxed. Now I can only pray that all my projects go well, and soon I can go back and chill again in December.

From: McdonoughQOnline@BoarderMail.com
Subject: Our program still has openings
Date: October 6, 2006 12:50:09 PM JST
To: auyongtc
Reply-To: McdonoughQOnline@BoarderMail.com

Are you still interested in our “Work Experience Degree Program”?

If so, give me call by Friday and we can enroll you in our next program.

Currently it is taking 1-2 weeks to receive your DIPL0MA and TRANSC1PTS.

Here is the number to enroll:

1-206-xxx-xxxx

Our staff is limited so just leave a message with your name and number.

Hope to Talk to you soon
Jackie Ballard
Administrative Assistant

Right, an administrative assistant that can’t even spell diploma and transcript wants to spam me a fake degree. Of course, he deliberately changed it so that anti-spam softwares can’t detect it - but that says so much about his credibility. Oh well, idiots are born (without a degree) all the time anyway, there’s still business for him I’m sure. Then again, creating an easier degree programme is just challenging God to create a better idiot who can’t pass even this fake degree. LOL!

I can’t help but to post this clip up. Check it out and decide for yourself:

As for me, I think the floodlight on the court is much brighter than the 2 of them combined… ROTFLMAO!