It had been raining continuously for days now. I remembered the last time I saw sun shining brightly on mon, then its wet wet wet. Guess I have to cancel or push some my exercise regiment for the week.. especially a run yesterday. so disappointing… Hope it would be a sunny January!

& so its the eve of new year, mum made reservation at singlap inn steamboat restaurant & I guess I would be dropping by esplanade or so if permits for the midnight countdown. This would be my last post for 2004, come 2005 a great year ahead!

Take care.

The cable guy came by to install the new digital set-top box this evening as my sis wanted some new additional animax cable channel, only supported by digital cable. So starhub offered to swap our old cable box for a digital one. Spotting a contemporary silver/black look in place of our old cable set top box, which had been with the family loyally for almost god know when! 7 years or so? Its the 1st generation Texas instrument cable box spotting a black blocky shape with only a 2 digit red LCD screen showing the selected channel, no clock or so! even the SCV logo is still on. Old yet reliable, sad to see it being swapped for.. eww new technology…

I didn’t really got into the hype of digital cable yet, but it looks loaded compared to old analog cable. Compable to that of computers. Some features include allow real time viewing & selection of 16 channels at once, a more user friendly program guide, a games network, chat & messaging area & a niffy ability to remind you of favorite programs starting based on your saved prefs. It can even get filmware updates automatically from the network! cool.

I have a dental appointment on for my wisdom tooth tomorrow morning, hope I don’t need an extraction like last time…

Looks like this particular part of the world is mourning for the victims & families devastated by the tidal wave disaster few days ago, with endless drizzle & now pouring of rain here since morning. So what the least we can do to help the victims, well maybe in a monetary aid or so, that whats possible. Dropped by the Red Cross, Singapore building to make a donation towards the appeal for help & aid & I guess you can do the same too.

It boxing day & it would be a perfect day if it won’t for the the earthquake disaster around asia the fifth-largest earthquake since 1900, Originating from the indian ocean area. With many lives & property lost. For those in trouble, be positive & stay strong. May god bless.

On a lighter note, had dinner at home today as mum was having her vege-curry special for the family! She always never fail to amaze with her dishes… yummy! not to mention healthy too. Other than that, got a new banana boat dark tanning oil for tomorrow’s swim. Hope the sun would be up tomorrow. Spent most of today scanning & colouring the artpiece for my straits times classified graffiti competition. Though uncompleted, its starting to look pretty good. Now all I have to do is to get some glossy paper to print it on for submission when done. On my 2nd project for the week, started brainstorming on the design for my battalion logo. Currently I have ideas set for an armoured horse (armour) on a shield with tank track marks.

Finally got a reputable mouse working on my computer again, this time after fixing my old logitech mouseman dual optical. It had some right-clicking problems which very much solved by inserting small pieces of tape & plastic to raise the circuit for the buttons. I think I could do that on my microsoft intellimouse (if I can find a way to actually open it up in the 1st place!) which had been giving me problems lately, not to mention squeaky problems & the hassle of using an inferior substitute balled-mouse. Now it back to the good old dual-optical, not to mention precision, now all I have to do is the get new gaming mouse feet. No more jerky crosshairs in games or lines in photoshop for now!

Ending this entry with some news from cresene about her our interview article which was actually, intended to be published on the voices magazine but wasn’t approved by the editor in the end. Sad, it was a good one. You can check the article out at her site here.

I guess a new resolution for me next year is to post much shorter, concise posts like this one.

And so, christmas is the time of giving, or say the joy of giving, having say spent at least $250 on presents for my family & friends, guess it just the spirit of giving (& spending), the spirit of Christmas. haha!

Had dinner at AV the famous Rong Guang bbq seafood resturant before dropping by cousin gordon’s place to pass some goodies to his family. Headed to granny’s for the night, & I get to drove home thereafter.

Finished with the line art for my Straits Time classified graffti art competition, would be scanning it in for colour tomorrow or so. If you think of entering the competition, better don’t cos.. am gonna beat ya all! *blechz!*

Merry Christmas everyone.

Well its about 1/2hr to Christmas day & man is orchard road packed with people tonight, its so danged hard to get even within 2km within the vicinity, traffic is just to conjested with shoppers & those ever growing Christmas toys kiosks. Anyway its dad’s turn to drive as I think I already had enough of driving for the week, I even got to pick him up from work before dinner!

This year, Christmas eve dinner with my family was at the Mariner’s restaurant. Specialising in seafood & stuff, its the 2nd Christmas eve we had dinner there but they are going for towards fine dining now, with little portions of steak here & there its barely sufficient for me in portions, though my dish had 2 full lobsters in it. Ordered an additional NZ tenderloin steak on top of the main dish. Didn’t order the usual escargots as we didn’t feel like it. Partly because of the free flow of salad from the salad bar which kept most of us munching the healthy greens.. & yes dad as always, can’t get enough of thousand island just as much kept telling him…

Its the eve, Merry Christmas everyone!

Drove into camp last sunday as mum & dad were overseas for a vaction, so that very much leaves the car for me to use. Having a car very much added to speed & convience for me, considering its the first time dad actually allowed me to drive on my own around. Driving alone have its thrills, not to mention being very independanT (& a lighter car!). Journeys worth noting for the week includes a nights off on tuesday where I got to park at a HDB multistorey car park for the 1st time near the jurong point area with john for some chill out.

The highlight for the week is largely the midweek outfield event which involves testing out some movement techniques & us riding around. I was the section commander, thats pretty muchof the work, lucky for me theres not much dismounted roles. If it is not just riding around in our M113s jumping into mud, eating monsterous clouds of dust of area D, throw thunderflashes of a speeding vehicle, shitting out in the wilderness, sleeping in the freezing night or get bug fested by mositioes. Man we can call that fun…

Its christmas eve & the block leaves starts today for the wing, so that would be till jan 3rd next year. (yea) with an excpetional dental appointment on the 30th this month. Done with sending all the OVM stores at the end of training yesterday, with some exceptional lost stores here & there which we kinda settled or kept in control. Looks everything’s all set for christmas tomorrow!

Projects for this week’s blockleave:
- Classifieds art competition
- Company & battalion logo

With respect to all my previous posts, I guess I did better start posting.. erm shorter blogs? or maybe use the “more feature” so as not to make things appear so lengthy.

Dinner was at singa inn at along east coast road yesterday, mum saw this offer for $15++ per head for a full steamboat seafood buffet. The range while I helped myself mostly to the yong tao hu & lettuces, the meat & drunkard prawns which don’t seem to be able to keep themselves down, till we umm put ‘em into the steamboat?

The spread is ok, the food though not very fresh but otherwise still within a passable/bearable area. The place is reasonably filled with people but not too crowded on a saturday night. The ambient is warm & otherwise cooling on the occasional seaside winds, the restaurant is built around a fresh water pond with a “boat, kampung” like feel. This open air restaurant also is built upon non other than atap leaves, which gives the rather traditional look but otherwise, how the elements off quite well too though its frail looks. Maybe we are too dependent on concrete for shelter!

There’s a driving range beside the restaurant too & dad conked out that hey, why not play some golf during my block leave? (which so would be on the week after next) I don’t know about that as I usually don’t golf just as much as my dad does, but I guess I can go dig my up dusty golf bag & give it a try maybe.

Visits to granny’s before heading home, man am I full.