Serendipity

Ben Stiller ("Meet the Parents"), Chris Rock ("Chris Rock Never Scared"), David Schwimmer (TV’s "Friends") and Jada Pinkett Smith ("Collateral") star as the voices of four zoo animals who hang up when they hear the call of the wild.

Alex the Lion (Stiller) is the king of the urban jungle, the main attraction at New York’s Central Park Zoo. He and his best friends Marty the Zebra (Rock), Melman the Giraffe (Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippo (Pinkett Smith) have lived their entire lives in blissful captivity, with regular meals provided and an admiring public to adore them.

Not content to leave well enough alone, Marty allows his curiosity to get the better of him and, with the help of some prodigious penguins, makes his escape to explore the world he’s been missing. Alex, Melman and Gloria go after him, but before they can go wild in the streets, they are captured, crated and put on a ship to Africa… to be ultimately set free.

When those plotting penguins sabotage the ship, Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria find themselves washed ashore on the exotic island of Madagascar. Now, these native New Yorkers have to figure out how to survive in the wild and discover the true meaning of the phrase "It’s a jungle out there."

*****

Two words to describe this funny Disney flick. "Damn hilarious" Again, it was a show that made us laugh over and over today.. I think my grammar’s getting poorer, all I describe of a comedy is "damn hilarious"…

Saw a lot of kids in the theatre, and heard many loud cackles and conversation, it was really a laughable [pun-intended] event with all its scenes.

The part about Alex [the Lion] getting hungry and hallucinating that everyone else was a piece of juicy, tender steak was so cliche, yet so brillant. So Mr Alex bit his zebra friend for more than once.

I think Disney is best at such shows that personify a person. I wish I could learn about animation! Hehe…

*****

On a more serious tone, let’s talk about stress, in my opinion.

People, from all walks of life and demographic, would feel stressed at a certain point in time. It is something very personal, yet we do feel it, like it or not.

Nevertheless, it is not what you are encountering that is making you stressed out. Not the exams you are taking, not the workload you are faced with, not the people standing in a toilet queue, while you have to settle something BIG, not the financials which you must pay etc.

What is the atom of stress? What is the lowest common factor of stress? What is the pixel when you are painted a picture of stressfulness?

It is just TIME.

Time restrains us, it prohibits us from getting all that we ever wanted or need by going through opportunity cost.

You coach your sibling in his or her studies for an upcoming exam, and you "lose" the time you spent on your own revision.

Your work is piling up, and there’s no way to clear them, unless you have, like 72 hours in a day. Given time, everyone can earn a million, even the people with the least salary. You would be a millionaire by the time you live to a thousand, or maybe older!

Yet this simple idea of time constraint drives people nuts, literally. You will never understand a person’s struggles for something he or she does not excel in, in the same way a friend who got straight A’s in her studies would not be able to console someone who just barely passed their exams.

I need to skive a little bit more so that I won’t be stressing myself out. Haha. Lately, I’ve discovered that 24 hours is 24 hours no matter how well you plan of it. If something takes up 2 hours, it is going to take up 2 hours no matter what. I know this is kinda pessimistic, but not to worry, I’m blogging to ease the tension. =)

Good night. But Madagascar really did cheer me up today, and I want the soundtrack of the cute rap by that "guinea pig" King in that show!! It’ll be cute, I supposed. =P

Recently, I’ve been pretty free with my Internet account being deactivated, and my access has been stripped off a lot of programs [thus I can't do a lot of things],thus I have absolutely nothing much to do except a few tasks here and there.

I reckon my SMS usage is going to go up unless they are going to activate my Internet usage. =(

I’ve had a very long lunch today. Initially I went off at 12 noon, walking around and window-shopping to see what I could buy or spend my time with. It was extreme boredom having to repeat your lunch with a spate of repeated routes and after-lunch activity.

Went to Harvey Norman to have a look at their beds and the decor. It was interesting to see how they arrange their stuffs together. Yours truly is a procrastinator who ought to be shot. I know, I know. I have to tidy up the room.

See the appended pictures for great bedroom ideas. =P Too bad they are more for master bedrooms than single bedrooms. But their decors are quite interesting.

p/s: Which one do you like? =P If they are 1 to 6 from top to bottom?

*****

I was recalling the past where my fellow temp would suggest dropping by Jurong Point’s arcade to "de-stress". She looked like the kind where the arcade would be the last place on earth for her to visit, so don’t judge a book by its covers, like they say. I was 19 that year.

It kind of sound childish, but I find that it is a good way to de-stress. Some might argue that it will increase the risk of you getting high blood pressure [hypertension] or heart attack since you would be overly excited in your game.

See this picture of two well-dressed guys playing a shooting game. This reminds me of the time where another guy, who looked like an ah beng but was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with tie, danced proficiently on the Dance Dance Revolution [DDR] machine. He was dancing with two machines, by the way. It was madness because I took a video of his legs tapping on the blue and pink arrows and he was just too fast for the camera to detect his movements. Naturally, he drew a crowd.

Corporately dressed to kill - in the arcade.

So who says well-dressed people [those who can carry out their professional image in the outfits they are donned in] are not supposed to be in an arcade and spoil that image?

Anyhow, I dived straight to the Puzzle Fighter after exchanging a dollar’s worth of coins. They gave me two fifty-cents coins. Had I known, I would have used my own coins! It’s good that they are using local currency as game tokens, because you won’t feel compelled to play more than you had planned for.

Spent an hour playing that game and defeated the king. =P With just fifty cents, it was really a bargain. HAHAHA. =X This time round the game time was faster because out of the 8 stages that you have to cross to meet up with the boss [final stage], you have to win 2 out of 3 rounds per stage.

For example, if you are at stage one, and you win the first and second round, you’ll proceed straightaway to the second stage. But if you win first round, lose second, you would have to play a third to defeat your opponent. So it’s the "best of 3 rounds" logic. Naturally, if per stage you play 3 rounds, you’ll take up more time than when you play 2 rounds.

The game has been quite smooth today, I played 2 rounds for every stage [i.e. I won every other round]! =X

It became more crowded when my lunch-time was almost over. On my left was an Indian lady, and on the right, there was a couple, and the girl knew nuts about the games. Poor girl, she was being badly defeated because the boyfriend left out the portion where she could always use the timer gems to re-attack him, and that each character in the game has a special sequence where he or she will drop the gems.

Next time you play this, take note of the sequence of your opponent’s character. In my opinion, Felicia’s easiest to be beaten. I always use Donovan to play this game, and there is a very good reason why this is so. =) Those who are not in the know, please visit an arcade and see Donovan’s sequence! =D

*****

One more hour to knocking off, so I guess the blessing in disguise for skipping Madagascar [a name of a city in America] today, would be that I’m able to catch my 9pm show. There’s always the positive side to everything, right? =)

I believe the post title speaks louder than any words formed in the sentence I’m going to type in. Duh! By the way, this is an overdued post [the event happened in the past].

Since young, I’ve been quite "pampered" in the sense that I don’t travel alone. Or rather, during my adolescent years, before I moved to my new place of residence, my mum would bring us to everywhere we have to go.

So basically I wasn’t a very street smart kid. Or simply put, I became a road directory idiot!

To add to that, I can’t remember when was the first time I took a cab by myself. Travelling in a stranger’s car gives me the jitters, but the feeling’s enhanced even more with cabs. In the past, I would clung on to my seat uneasily, and it was as if every muscle in my body was clenching their fist tightly [this sounds lame!].

I would sit by the edge of the seat, and pray for the journey to be over quickly.

It wasn’t until a million times [of course not! It's an exaggeration to the Taxi Foundation funds I've been contributing to!] before I was more comfortable with travelling in a cab.

Today, I had the pleasure to relive that unforgettable clingy experience, much to my horror, of course. I was at Kallang, and it was pretty late, and the next day was a working day, so I took a cab home.

So one elderly cabbie turned in and stopped when we flagged for it. I’ve had this very ill omen when I saw how the cabbie hesitated to pick me up. Despite our wave to him to explain that it was okay not for him to pick me up but he stopped for a while, and then decided to take me. -.-"

I half-looked back, showing how I was not 100% willing to go off in the cab. But I was "armed" with Mummy’s dinner, so I had to leave early. He did not wind up his window since I boarded the cab. He left a little gap open at his side of the window when we were cruising on the roads.

That was alright, because I supposed anyone would want to have a little breath of fresh air after being cooped up in his cab [his business] for an awful long time - everyday!

So ke kept yawning loudly, with an intermitten melodied yawn now and then. So it was something like "hor..orrh..ooo……yawn yawn yawn…" Ah, heck it. You get the picture? I wished I had taped his "singing" down. Haha…

Halfway through, I could almost sense that he was trying to make conversation, and no, he wasn’t trying to hitch me up or something. "You bought your durians for how much?"

"Ah? You can smell ah? $3 lor," I replied in Singlish, sounding somewhat uninterested.

After a cool 5 minutes or so, he went, "Normally we know what the passengers bring with them, because we can smell it."

So he can double up as a sniffing dog [no offence, to dogs or cabbies!]?

-.-"

I was in cold sweat. No, I meant that figuratively, as I couldn’t take his responses. I had to knit my brows many a time when he spoke.

I forgot to mention how he was either a bit hard on his hearing, or I was a tad too soft. I almost had to scream my lungs [exaggeration] to articulate where I wanted to go. He kept "huh-ing" when I reiterated my answers a few times. -.-"

There was a part when he lamented how he didn’t really like picking up drunk people, because all they do was sleep, and he would be so bored. -.-"

And he apologised [maybe he realised I don't really fancy having small talk with strangers] and tried to speak to me once more, mainly because he wanted to keep himself awake and keep his concentration up.

I had to converse with him, for my own safety. There were myriad times when he cut the other drivers’ lanes and they glared back at him, and he had to raise his hand up in apology. If I were the other drivers, I would have taken his "raised hand" to be something that screamed "nanny nanny boo boo, I’ve cut your lanes, so what?" That’s why I shouldn’t be put on the roads. Heh.

I clung on to my seat in horror. It was the most horrendous cabbing experience. I kept looking out for his license plate number, so I could text someone about it in case anything untoward happened to me. I even had notions of how I should have recorded several of our one-sided conversations!

Vivid imagination, I must say, but when we finally reached, I heaved a sigh of relief, and passed him a $50 note. It was to my expectation that he would ask if I’ve a smaller note. I told him that $12 was all that I have. Actually I had $14 [checked] and some coins. But the fare was $16. He went up to the cab driver in front, and asked if he had change. My cabbie had $31 with him, and was $3 short. And I was reluctant to pay $19 [my $50 minus his $31] for such a bad experience, so I didn’t intiate to pay him $3 extra.

The fellow cabbie didn’t have the change. So my cabbie came back to his cab, and drove me around, when he finally found his change at the 24-hour eatery near my house, he came back, and paid me the balance, and when he was gone, I’ve had evil plans by taking away my $50 note and running away. But it was dumb, because he took my note to exchange for smaller notes. -.-" I’m just kidding on the runaway part. Dark humour, get it?

For a weary, extremely tired white-haired guy, he was indeed quite "active" when he went around looking for cash and leaving me in his cab. Perhaps also ’cause such a awful long distance should cost much more than $12. And I even thought I could use that as an excuse to pay him $12 instead. Evil me. Bleah. So, no luck with that. Hehe.

Finally came home after much detouring, and I was glad that he was a nice taxi driver after all, since he drove me back to the spot which I requested [initially] to be alighted, and when the meter jumped as he continued his drive to look for money, he confirmed with me that it was $16 and not anything more. Actually I think it was $16.40 or something like that.

Is it just me? Or is the Friendster blog loading ever so painfully slow? Kudos to the developers for making this site a more user-friendly and less-frustrating one to use (even though it is after most people have lost their enthusiasm in Friendster, from logging in everyday, to once a week, to once a fornight). I’m sure they will improve the blog aspect some time down the road.

So while we keep our fingers crossed and wait for this to happen, here’s my post for today. It’s not quite in the "Games" section, but still, I just love to play little (Flash) games like these!

*****

This is a mad Dolphin Dash! Basically, this game is coupled with loud Japanese music and you collect coins, as many of them as possible. It really looks like the poor Dolphin in the game is eating some estacy pills. -.-"

Reaction Effect!! Tiles will connect each other so long if their lines touch each other. See what’s your highest score? Play it here! Apologies for the picture quality. My top score: 1810.

Now, this game is quite stupid, you just have to find the one click that will set off many chain reactions to get the high score!!

*****

Friday evening, there was supposed to be a fire drill in my office. But my colleagues and I ended up shopping around the stores in the vicinity. It was only a few flight of stairs (less than ten), but most colleagues, being the zealous kind, came down (by lift!) 5 minutes before the drill was scheduled to start.

I was quite disappointed! What if there’s a real fire?! I don’t even know where the stairs are! Help! But such a thing is quite unlikely to happen, perhaps one in a million chances? =P

Still, I think their notion is that "when you’re out of the building, you’re safe". But in time of a real fire, where’s the prediction going to be from? Hmm…

*****

Madagascar!! I’ve been wanting to see this show so long! The other day, I found out that it is actually the name of a state (?) in America. Blame me for being stuck in the well all these years, and for not knowing better. Heh.

Hi people,

This is my first time blogging. No, I’m just kidding. Haha, anyway, started this friendster blog thingy to check how it is like. It looks quite cool, but I don’t really like the interface though.

Might have plans to turn this into a food blog or something? Since recently has been eating a lot. =X Haha.

Left: Blue Berry cake from BreadTalk.

My mother got this for me on Valentine’s Day. She’s a sweet mum.

I’ve just realised that Friendster only allows 50 uploads per month per user. But I reckon you could always use some other domains to upload your piccies and link them here.

I was contemplating posting pictures of my guinea pig, and make him the star or something, but with the limit of 50 pictures per month, it’s gonna be hard. Very hard. =D

Check back next time for more good stuffs!