the wacky wombat weblog

There was a lot of shopping during my last trip to Tokyo and I came back hauling a bunch of stuff. Including things I bought on a whim. Which I’ve decided to sell it off since I haven’t worn them yet.

Here’re some items from United Colors of Benetton. They’re all brand new (price tags still attached). Some are still wrapped in plastic. lol. All items are in XS size and I only have 1 unit for each item.

If anyone is interested in purchasing and plumping up their wardrobe, please contact me on this blog or e-mail to tsewei [AT] wackywombat [DOT] net.

Here goes!

#1. Long-sleeved collared shirt in eggplant purple

• Original price: 4,900 yen (~S$68)
• Now selling for S$50

Click to see details.

#2. Sweater jacket in white cotton

• Original price: 8,900 yen (~S$123)
• Now selling for S$90

Click to see in detail.

#3. Cardigan in deep forest green

• Original price: 4,900 yen (~S$68)
• Now selling for S$50

#4. Pink wool turtleneck sweater

• Original price: 2,900 yen (S$40)
• Now selling for S$23
• Wool, 3/4 sleeves

#5. Knee-length skirt in navy blue

• Original price: 5,800 yen (~S$82)
• Now selling for S$60
• Front zip with button, slit on the front, pockets on the back and front.

Click to see in detail.
#6. Handbag

• Original price: 6,900 yen (~S$96)
• Now selling for S$80
• Canvas with leather trimming, zip-top closure.12″ (L) x 6″ (H) x 5″ (W).

Click to see in detail.

* 100 yen = 1.39 SGD

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous Year of the Rat
from the wonderful folks here at
the wacky wombat weblog

(no, that’s not a rat in the picture - it’s the late Gigi the Pug)

If you’re in KL, hop on over to Lot 10 at Bintang Walk. You’ll see 5 magnificent life-size painted horses on display outside the Samsung Digital Media Plaza. One of them is painted by my sis Yein, so go go go and take a look!

My mom called to tell me about it, that my sis was spending 4 days painting a horse sculpture at a shopping mall (Sunway Pyramid). I was like, huh??? Just cannot imagine painting a life-size horse, from 10 to 10 each day. X_x Or even imagine a horse painted.

After asking for about a week (-_-”), I finally got a picture of Yein’s horse as it was being painted. Pretty!!

Also, apparently the public gets to vote for their favourite horse. So if you want, go pick your winning horse now, because there’s a free lucky draw thingy for voting too (always an incentive there somewhere). Samsung gadgets and TVs to pimp your house and tickets to a horse race or something like that. If you’re lazy to go to the mall (or stuck overseas like me), you can vote online too. It’s horse #5.

No prizes for guessing which horse I voted for obviously. I hope it’s still there at the mall when I make my trip back to KL sometime soon next month!

Just read this article from Economist.com (that appeared in The Economist print edition) about the Belgians don’t quite care that their country’s still without a new government despite having the general election since June. The author suggested that the country be dissolved, much like the spoof news flash that was broadcasted on their TV last December.

So here’s my take - a Top Ten list of why Belgium should not be dissolved:

10. The excellent Belgian dishes

9. We’ll all miss Belgian chocolates

8. Someone out there (not me, for sure) will miss Brussels sprouts.

7. The Adventures of Tintin

6. The Belgian King will be unemployed

5. Without Belgium, the Americans will claim they invented fries/fritters

4. The Germans might want to try to invade Belgium again (third time lucky, perhaps?)

3. No Belgian Grand Prix in the Formula 1 calendar

2. Dr. Evil will be stateless

… and the number 1 reason why Belgium should not be dissolved …

1. I’ve yet to have a taste of Belgian girls
1. I’ll miss my Belgian beers

<shameless-plug>

I’ve just started a new tech blog on Adobe AIR technology - head over there, check it out, and tell me what do you think: AIRdesktop.com

</shameless-plug>

One can never have too many pair of shoes is what I always think (unless you’re Imelda Marcos).

Was out with Au Yong looking for a new pair of sports shoes 2 days ago. And of course, I ended up finding something I liked, and bought it as well.

A new pink pair! For only 5600yen, it’s a pretty good buy. I’ll just have to make sure the white parts don’t get dirty too soon.

As I unpacked my shoes after the shopping trip, what interested me more was not the new pink shoe, but the box that it came in. Lots of stuff printed on it, and some didn’t quite make sense (at least to me it didn’t).

“Average contents: 2″??? These ARE shoes made for humans, right? With 2 feet? I’m sure they had to print that, oh you know, just in case someone buys it but expects 3 individual shoes in there (one’s for his head, or hand or tail, you see) only to find 2 in dismay and sues the company???

auyongtc: Or what if it’s written on the box Average contents: 1.75 ? Does this means that there’s a 25% chance you’ll not get the other shoe? LOL

Don’t quite know what to make of some of these logos either. (from L –> R)

1. umm, battery not necessary in utilizing this product? fair enough, makes sense.
2. “Products may differ from those shown” –> um, ok, my shoe certainly doesn’t look like this logo.
3. no swimming while wearing these shoes? do not double as flippers. hah.
4. “Shoes sold in pairs only. Sale of single shoe is not permissible.” –> bad news for poor ole’ one-legged pirate captain on wooden-peg.
5. this last one is the best. What does it mean? “Shoes best for running during escapes”??? “With these shoes, you can have a clear escape and no one can catcha!” ??? (hm, good for prison breaking lol)

The box also provided a helpful chart to help you compare and find out your shoe sizing under the various different measurement systems around the world, including a even more helpful size comparison to daily items.

Turns out my feet’s smaller than a pair of chopstick. I will never be able to look at chopsticks from now on without imagining placing my feet next to it, several centimeters shorter. (sigh, why won’t my feet grow…)

And with all the hype around a greener environment and saving our world from spontaneous combustion, there is a helpful little recycle tip on a folded corner of the box.

Never thought a shoe box could engage my interest so much that I’m actually blogging about it. LOL!

Move over wombat. The position of ‘my favourite animal’ has just been usurped.  By…

The Anteater.

Yup. Saw a documentary a while back on Animal Planet when they were doing a feature on animals in the South America continent. The Anteater was huge, furry, and snoring under a tree. hahaha. It tried to run away from the camera but I think he was more like lumbering away than really running away. Anyway, that piqued my interest in the animal and started reading about it on wikipedia. Like, it eats 30,000 ants a day. BIG healthy protein diet.

Then, I was shopping around Ikebukuro the other day, and amidst the pile of tiny elephants and lions soft toys, there was one solitary anteater! Seriously, who sells anteater soft toys anyway? Except the zoo of course. Usually it’s just bears, dogs, cat, and bunnies. So I bought it.

Here it is in its new habitat. Foraging for ants (and found none in Japan!)

Just read this piece of news online just now.

It’s a useless piece of info, and probably untrue, but it really amused me.
I mean, how often does one get to say “Kim Jong Il ate my rabbits”?? hahahaha. That really amused me.

Also, the rabbit in the picture reminds me greatly of the wererabbit in Wallace and Gromit in “the Curse of the Wererabbit”. Freak-like, and gargantuous. And fluffy.

But on another note, I really wonder how North Korea is gonna survive down the road. The last I read on some blog about a ‘guided’ tour of N. Korea, an old lady was seen picking herbs from the public park, official explanation being “to feed her rabbits”, but the immediate assumption could be she’s picking the herbs to feed herself cos all the rabbits’ been eaten already!!

Poor North Koreans. Especially when their southern relatives are practically swimming in money (one of the world’s largest city/most digitally connected city/most expensive city/etc). It’s just terrible. But I really can’t think of how they can get out of that mess.

Somebody’s gotta invent carrots that’d multiply itself at 100 times the speed of growing one, then there will be enough carrots for people to eat (and to feed the gigantic rabbits).

side note (and irrelevant): this is probably the kind of news scenario that would end up being used as a topic for a comedy sketch on Studio 60, but that show has been canned!! argh.

 There’re 2 new things:

1. That new cartoon avatar that we have up on this blog, next to the welcome note, and next to the blog entries.

It’s our made-up Southpark characters. Me in my wacky hair, and him with his pirate obsession. :p

You can make one for yourself HERE.

2. My new Threadless tee is here! With a funny cartoon of a clown, puking rainbow.

It’s called Morning After. Apt. :p

look!

Nope, it’s called hibernation.

So, I haven’t been blogging lately. And I’ve been ignoring everyone asking me to blog, even tsewei. And they’ve all been asking why is tsewei taking over the blog, and even posting a Geek Speek blog post! Alright, calm down people. I won’t let this happen again. I shall hibernate less.

Here I am, giving an update of what’s been going on in my life since I last blogged. Was in Hong Kong early December last year to attend ITU Telecom World 2006 expo. Food there was nice, albeit a lil overpriced. Didn’t have much chance to go around HK though, stupid expo was held at the AsiaWorld Expo right next to the airport at Lantau Island. And then Benet came to visit in Tokyo. Spent a week going through some training and showed him what I know of tokyo (which is not much, btw). He’ll be joining me in Tokyo once the Immigration approved his work permit.

And then I went back home the week of Christmas. Flew into Singapore, and then travelled back to KL with tsewei. Met up with relatives and some friends. Ate, ate, ate. Everything I craved for. Ate and ate somemore. Bak kut teh, wantan mee, char siew and roast pork rice, mamak food and of course, mom’s home cooking. So sorry to the friends I couldn’t find any time to meet up. I had a strict eating schedule to stick to. Then checked out my dad’s latest venture into the fish farming business. Nice place. Refreshing. Retirement-friendly. And he’s only 50 this year. I’ll try to do that in 1 decade less! LOL!

Enough about back home. Kinda makes me miss it and want to go back again. Oh yeah, can’t find a Nintendo Wii anywhere here. Does it exist? I dunno. Wanted to buy one to bring home for the family - but just couldn’t get it anywhere. Gonna try this weekend at Kawasaki Yodobashi Camera outlet. Perhaps can find one out of Tokyo - wish me luck!

And Playstation 3 is everywhere. Boxes of it piled up at every store I’ve been. Poor Sony, first the blowing up lithium-ion batteries and now bad sales on PS3 barely 2 months past launch. Heads are starting to roll at Sony, I’ve heard. And let’s not get started about Blu-ray. Oh boy, sucks to be Sony right now.

Also, went for my annual medical check-up yesterday. No likey needles. No pain, just no likey. Luckily the nurse was quite pretty looking, distracted me from the sight of the syringe. So yeah, got pretty nurse here - then again, it was a private clinic. YMMV on public hospitals. Didn’t occur to me when she asked me which side would I like to get jabbed. So I chose my dominant arm. I’m a lefty, btw. Then it hit me when having lunch right after the check-up. How the fsck am I gonna eat hot soupy soba noodles with chopsticks on my numbing left hand? Smart move, luckily I’m almost ambidextrous when it comes to using chopsticks. Phew!

Alrighty, will write more over the weekend, especially if I scored a Nintendo Wii :p

P/S: Renault F1’s new car livery is hideous! I thought McLaren’s livery this year kinda sucked, but Renault knocked that one out of the park with a non-matching colour scheme. And what’s worse is when they continued letting Fisico have green colour on his helmet. Oh yeah, what’s with the fugly sidepod side mirrors, Pat?