Paint The House Sandstone
3rd April 2006, Monday
My first post for the month of April and in the matter of days marked the 1st anniversary of this blog...how fast time flies...
For this month, my wife would be off to northern Italy for her job stint as I would would regliously striking off the dates on the calendar, counting down the days for her faithful return...
A lot of people kept insisting that I should savour the last few months of singlehood...man, what you expect me to indulge in? Booze, Party all night long, One Night Stand?? I'm no Sarong Party Brokeback Mountain Boy scout you know...
On Friday, went for the reunion gathering for the now disbanded DSF wreck crew with the exception of Bobby of course.
It took YM a good month or so to finalise the meeting date and it took us an hour or so late to rendenzvous with her at West Mall's Swensen family restaurant where she had been dehydrating in boredom...
LF was caught up at work as usual and when we went to look for her at around 6.30pm (which at this point on a Friday evening my workplace was still very much littered with personnels), Bobby showed her a gesture of fustration (teasing of course) right in front of his Indian supervisro; which led to him greeting us in hospitality which left us rather queasy.
Anyway we tried to update each other over dinner as YM had nothing much to fill in as her project has yet officially kicked in.
LF's got some laboratory politics concerning a lab biologist which had a tendency to come in for work late yet leaving on the dot (sounds like a "shit" I know) which drew the ire of her rather demanding boss.
BY was harping about how please she was with her work environment and kept insisting I should join her especially with a job opening in her department.
Well this issue had been tossing and turning in my cranium for months now and with the state of my company rather dilapidated in terms of morale level which was getting to me; as well as recently I found that my supervisor is beginning to be more favouring the presence of Bobby who like JxMMy beginning to showed stoic enthusiasm in his work and revealed a walloping amount of interest in life science research, thus leaving me in a rather "alienated" or even prejudiced position in my area, so perhaps a change of a workplace would be ideal, especially working with someone like BY whom I had developed a level of chemistry with.
Bobby was getting bored with the proceedings since he was very much clueless of who's who in the gossips we were spouting and was restless as he wanted to watch a couple of dramas on Channel 8 at 9pm, so he made an early depature while the four of us remained to continue chatting till 10 plus when the restaurant was closing.
On the way back, it was pure coincidence to encounter on e of my old NUS Science Club Management Committee,. and one I do not fret upon meeting, "Xiao Bai".
She just finished her weekly cell group session (nothing to do with imprisonment or life science, but with her religion), and was on her way back.
It was then she realized that me and my lass are getting married and I believed soon many others would know as well pretty soon.
On the April Fool Saturday, I finally managed to collect my replaced portable HDD after missing out the opening hours last weekend by mere seconds.
A huge haul awaits at La Tendo and I made myself useful by assisting Tay-chan with some gashapon packing at the store and was soon joined by Ferris and his brother, Bryan.
Like myself, Ferris had already expended his PROGRESS package even before it arrives in May with a Bangkok shopping trip in days time.
The rest of the La Tendo clique too made their transient appearances: Chan left when I had arrived as he rushed for work that faithful afternoon while Karen came at the right time to help Matthew and Tay-chan with the crowd gathering in the shop in response to the large shipment and short-handed by the Malaysia-bound Eng Kiong and Vincent who had to leave early to send his wife to the airport.
The gang was amazed by the amount of stuff I got for that day alone with the boxes stacking up to the brim of my height as if I was preparing gifts for X'mas.
I was really glad that Tay-chan was appreciative of my publicity effort via my own webpage which generate some interest from overseas and thus orders started coming in via that channel.
They rewarded me with a set of trading figurines which I had hounded Tay-chan for ages which definitely eases my shoe-string budget a bit.
I was rather late to meet up my wife at AMK after once more she was cooped up from knocking off at the usual hours of 7 plus.
We were dazzled by the progress of Dad's house-painting. He took a self-annotated leave from work this afternoon to concentrate on painting the living room first to allow my display shelf and the shoe cabinet to be delivered later this week.
His main concern was that I could then start to transfer my huge figurines collection to the shelf, facilitating shifting of furniture in their future bedroom without me chastising about disrupting the display of my collections.
By the end of Saturday night, those beveled walls in the living room were painted the darker shade of sand stone, or at least the first layer of paint.
My parents woke up before the morning dew settles on Sunday to finished up that portion and starting on the main wall.
My lass and I (for a good 2 minutes) lent our hands with some painting and even went to get more sandstone for the perimeter painting. So by around 5 yesterday afternoon, the living room was very much done with only minimal touch-up needed to be done.
The main wall color was a light sand shade which perhaps due to the strength in the pink tone of the former wall color wasn't too obvious. However at under lesser illumination, the shade was really obvious and compliments with the sandstone perimeter, endowing our living room a certain contemporary feel and even a tinge of Medditeranean style with the sand covered shade.
It was generally gloomy in terms of weather for a large portion of the afternoon which certainly was a fine catalyst for us to laze around and perhaps indulged in forty winks.
We also tried to watch a teen-angst-comedy dorama from TBS back from 2004, "Stand up! " which my lass nearly bought, only to be prevented from doing so due to the fact that her brother had already jumped the gun with the purchase eons before her.
A tale set in heartland Tokyo where 4 childhood friends growing under close scrutiny of a group of overly-conservative parents who are all part of a retailing street, thus forming a closely-knitted committee to safeguard the welfare of their business and ensuring their children is barred from getting into any pre-marital sex.
However in the midst of raging hormonal behavior of the summer of the 17 years old, the 4 lead characters (reprised by Ninomiya Kazunari of ARASHI, Yamashita Tomohisa of NEWS as well as Akira from "Nobuta wo Produce", Narimiya Hiroki (the "bishounen" my lass had been gaga about in "Orange Days") as well as Oguri Shun (Hanazawa Rui in "Hana Yori Dango")) trying all means and methods to break the taboo of being the only virgins in school, thus been famously labeled as "D.B.4" (D stands of a term in Japanese for "Virgin" while B stands for "Boys").
Then came Suzuki Anne (from "Initial D") as Chie, a childhood sweetheart of their who blossomed into a girl remotely close to their ideal sex fantasy and came into their lives.
It started looking much like a Japanese answer to "American Pie" and I felt some of the storylines sort of ended in such way that the series should end by that junture, which was just episode 4 or something.
However some story arc was really hilarious especially when the adults were added to the mix such as the election for the chairman of their absurd committee which was won by a dark horse, the mother of Yamashita's character, Ken Ken who was the most open-minded of all parents and an owner of a Love Hotel (what else)
I also was floored when Narimiya's character, Udaya enticed Ninomiya's character, Shou to join the Shinokawa Rock competition so that they would shine in front of adoring female fans when their buddies were too coop up with their own relationship.
They failed terribly even before they could perform when a hyped-up Udaya made a gutiarist leap too high and too wide a projectile, he fell of the stage!
There's also a scene when Shou-chan got smitten with classic love story-based doramas which were actually spoofs of "Tokyo Love Story", "101 Proposal" and "Asunaro Hakusho" but casted oji-sans and oba-sans as the lovers,a bit too disgusting to reprise those classic scenes.
Which led to Shou starting to get horny and entertained himself with porn but with headphones on, so that his family member would not be alerted by his promiscuous indulgence.
At this point, his sister barged into his room, kicked the connection of his headphone from the TV and was taken aback of the loud orgasmic shriek of the actress in the show, resulting in Shou been badly beaten up for his vice.
The show is filled with out of this world characters as well including 2 "love mentors" for the lads:
a really hideous-looking Tanaka who was expelled from school at the very beginning for comitting some risque activities a a really plump girl. Then throughout the show we'll see Tanaka now and then, sticking his thumb up to the boys, everything with a new outlook and an equally ugly lady in his arms.
Then there is a suave-looking guy from a rival school who is time and again seen in the arms of older women which he preferred I guess.
There's a lady of a traditional sweet snacks shop who was spotted in porn movies, whore house and anything not too decent.
A street-loafer who was a resident of a playground the group hang out who was always seen eating expensive cuisine, no one would imagined he would afford.
Finally remember "Guitar Otaku" of "Densha Otoko"? Yes that otaku buddy of Densha who is really rich and had a fetish for anime girls' ankles. The same actor is seen here as a sissy stall owner of a deli the lads hang out.
While the female viewer demograhpic group should be appease by the fact that 3 of the 4 lead actors are hot commodities in the Japanese entertainment scene and proven eye-candies and Ninomiya himself is not a member of a Johnny's boyband if he does not exude certain charm to knock teenage girls off their feet.
Meanwhile Suzuki Anne is definitely not one I would want to see too often, as her protruding eyeballs can be quite intimidating.
However on closer observation there are a few nice looking damsels throughout the show including Mizukawa Asami (Rin Rin-chan in "Saiyuuki") who toyed with Oguri's character for a long while, Murano Mia who acts as a girl who had a crush on Oguri since young, Akina of Folder Five who is a violent leader of a group of ruffian girls who torments the group everywhere they go but in the end fell for Udaya after the Rock competition.
Last but not least, Shaku Yumiko as the teacher which charmed Shou off his feet and with her impressive "assets" & non-existing acting skills, she sure is a idol-turned-actor.
So this show kept me entertained throughout the weekend and I should be finishing it by this evening, the short and sweet characteristic of Japanese dorama!
Over the past few days also learnt some great skills to pick up which is thought by a genius but can be achieve by even the dumbest person on earth.
Firstly an unconventional way to fold your T-shirts originated from Japan and shook the whole with how easy it is to fold the shirts in almost similar neat fashion without breaking a sweat.
Then YM just sent a useful video on how to peel the skin off boiled potato easily by dipping in iced water...another impressive tip from our Japanese friends.
Just weighed myself during gym today after a talk on weight with my buddy over MSN got me interested in knowing how much weight I had shed...85.5kg now...And my aim is 80kg before my wedding which now seems really attainable...
Though my ideal weight should be around 75kg, but 80 surely is better than 92 which I carry to begin with...
My first post for the month of April and in the matter of days marked the 1st anniversary of this blog...how fast time flies...
For this month, my wife would be off to northern Italy for her job stint as I would would regliously striking off the dates on the calendar, counting down the days for her faithful return...
A lot of people kept insisting that I should savour the last few months of singlehood...man, what you expect me to indulge in? Booze, Party all night long, One Night Stand?? I'm no Sarong Party Brokeback Mountain Boy scout you know...
On Friday, went for the reunion gathering for the now disbanded DSF wreck crew with the exception of Bobby of course.
It took YM a good month or so to finalise the meeting date and it took us an hour or so late to rendenzvous with her at West Mall's Swensen family restaurant where she had been dehydrating in boredom...
LF was caught up at work as usual and when we went to look for her at around 6.30pm (which at this point on a Friday evening my workplace was still very much littered with personnels), Bobby showed her a gesture of fustration (teasing of course) right in front of his Indian supervisro; which led to him greeting us in hospitality which left us rather queasy.
Anyway we tried to update each other over dinner as YM had nothing much to fill in as her project has yet officially kicked in.
LF's got some laboratory politics concerning a lab biologist which had a tendency to come in for work late yet leaving on the dot (sounds like a "shit" I know) which drew the ire of her rather demanding boss.
BY was harping about how please she was with her work environment and kept insisting I should join her especially with a job opening in her department.
Well this issue had been tossing and turning in my cranium for months now and with the state of my company rather dilapidated in terms of morale level which was getting to me; as well as recently I found that my supervisor is beginning to be more favouring the presence of Bobby who like JxMMy beginning to showed stoic enthusiasm in his work and revealed a walloping amount of interest in life science research, thus leaving me in a rather "alienated" or even prejudiced position in my area, so perhaps a change of a workplace would be ideal, especially working with someone like BY whom I had developed a level of chemistry with.
Bobby was getting bored with the proceedings since he was very much clueless of who's who in the gossips we were spouting and was restless as he wanted to watch a couple of dramas on Channel 8 at 9pm, so he made an early depature while the four of us remained to continue chatting till 10 plus when the restaurant was closing.
On the way back, it was pure coincidence to encounter on e of my old NUS Science Club Management Committee,. and one I do not fret upon meeting, "Xiao Bai".
She just finished her weekly cell group session (nothing to do with imprisonment or life science, but with her religion), and was on her way back.
It was then she realized that me and my lass are getting married and I believed soon many others would know as well pretty soon.
On the April Fool Saturday, I finally managed to collect my replaced portable HDD after missing out the opening hours last weekend by mere seconds.
A huge haul awaits at La Tendo and I made myself useful by assisting Tay-chan with some gashapon packing at the store and was soon joined by Ferris and his brother, Bryan.
Like myself, Ferris had already expended his PROGRESS package even before it arrives in May with a Bangkok shopping trip in days time.
The rest of the La Tendo clique too made their transient appearances: Chan left when I had arrived as he rushed for work that faithful afternoon while Karen came at the right time to help Matthew and Tay-chan with the crowd gathering in the shop in response to the large shipment and short-handed by the Malaysia-bound Eng Kiong and Vincent who had to leave early to send his wife to the airport.
The gang was amazed by the amount of stuff I got for that day alone with the boxes stacking up to the brim of my height as if I was preparing gifts for X'mas.
I was really glad that Tay-chan was appreciative of my publicity effort via my own webpage which generate some interest from overseas and thus orders started coming in via that channel.
They rewarded me with a set of trading figurines which I had hounded Tay-chan for ages which definitely eases my shoe-string budget a bit.
I was rather late to meet up my wife at AMK after once more she was cooped up from knocking off at the usual hours of 7 plus.
We were dazzled by the progress of Dad's house-painting. He took a self-annotated leave from work this afternoon to concentrate on painting the living room first to allow my display shelf and the shoe cabinet to be delivered later this week.
His main concern was that I could then start to transfer my huge figurines collection to the shelf, facilitating shifting of furniture in their future bedroom without me chastising about disrupting the display of my collections.
By the end of Saturday night, those beveled walls in the living room were painted the darker shade of sand stone, or at least the first layer of paint.
My parents woke up before the morning dew settles on Sunday to finished up that portion and starting on the main wall.
My lass and I (for a good 2 minutes) lent our hands with some painting and even went to get more sandstone for the perimeter painting. So by around 5 yesterday afternoon, the living room was very much done with only minimal touch-up needed to be done.
The main wall color was a light sand shade which perhaps due to the strength in the pink tone of the former wall color wasn't too obvious. However at under lesser illumination, the shade was really obvious and compliments with the sandstone perimeter, endowing our living room a certain contemporary feel and even a tinge of Medditeranean style with the sand covered shade.
It was generally gloomy in terms of weather for a large portion of the afternoon which certainly was a fine catalyst for us to laze around and perhaps indulged in forty winks.
We also tried to watch a teen-angst-comedy dorama from TBS back from 2004, "Stand up! " which my lass nearly bought, only to be prevented from doing so due to the fact that her brother had already jumped the gun with the purchase eons before her.
A tale set in heartland Tokyo where 4 childhood friends growing under close scrutiny of a group of overly-conservative parents who are all part of a retailing street, thus forming a closely-knitted committee to safeguard the welfare of their business and ensuring their children is barred from getting into any pre-marital sex.
However in the midst of raging hormonal behavior of the summer of the 17 years old, the 4 lead characters (reprised by Ninomiya Kazunari of ARASHI, Yamashita Tomohisa of NEWS as well as Akira from "Nobuta wo Produce", Narimiya Hiroki (the "bishounen" my lass had been gaga about in "Orange Days") as well as Oguri Shun (Hanazawa Rui in "Hana Yori Dango")) trying all means and methods to break the taboo of being the only virgins in school, thus been famously labeled as "D.B.4" (D stands of a term in Japanese for "Virgin" while B stands for "Boys").
Then came Suzuki Anne (from "Initial D") as Chie, a childhood sweetheart of their who blossomed into a girl remotely close to their ideal sex fantasy and came into their lives.
It started looking much like a Japanese answer to "American Pie" and I felt some of the storylines sort of ended in such way that the series should end by that junture, which was just episode 4 or something.
However some story arc was really hilarious especially when the adults were added to the mix such as the election for the chairman of their absurd committee which was won by a dark horse, the mother of Yamashita's character, Ken Ken who was the most open-minded of all parents and an owner of a Love Hotel (what else)
I also was floored when Narimiya's character, Udaya enticed Ninomiya's character, Shou to join the Shinokawa Rock competition so that they would shine in front of adoring female fans when their buddies were too coop up with their own relationship.
They failed terribly even before they could perform when a hyped-up Udaya made a gutiarist leap too high and too wide a projectile, he fell of the stage!
There's also a scene when Shou-chan got smitten with classic love story-based doramas which were actually spoofs of "Tokyo Love Story", "101 Proposal" and "Asunaro Hakusho" but casted oji-sans and oba-sans as the lovers,a bit too disgusting to reprise those classic scenes.
Which led to Shou starting to get horny and entertained himself with porn but with headphones on, so that his family member would not be alerted by his promiscuous indulgence.
At this point, his sister barged into his room, kicked the connection of his headphone from the TV and was taken aback of the loud orgasmic shriek of the actress in the show, resulting in Shou been badly beaten up for his vice.
The show is filled with out of this world characters as well including 2 "love mentors" for the lads:
a really hideous-looking Tanaka who was expelled from school at the very beginning for comitting some risque activities a a really plump girl. Then throughout the show we'll see Tanaka now and then, sticking his thumb up to the boys, everything with a new outlook and an equally ugly lady in his arms.
Then there is a suave-looking guy from a rival school who is time and again seen in the arms of older women which he preferred I guess.
There's a lady of a traditional sweet snacks shop who was spotted in porn movies, whore house and anything not too decent.
A street-loafer who was a resident of a playground the group hang out who was always seen eating expensive cuisine, no one would imagined he would afford.
Finally remember "Guitar Otaku" of "Densha Otoko"? Yes that otaku buddy of Densha who is really rich and had a fetish for anime girls' ankles. The same actor is seen here as a sissy stall owner of a deli the lads hang out.
While the female viewer demograhpic group should be appease by the fact that 3 of the 4 lead actors are hot commodities in the Japanese entertainment scene and proven eye-candies and Ninomiya himself is not a member of a Johnny's boyband if he does not exude certain charm to knock teenage girls off their feet.
Meanwhile Suzuki Anne is definitely not one I would want to see too often, as her protruding eyeballs can be quite intimidating.
However on closer observation there are a few nice looking damsels throughout the show including Mizukawa Asami (Rin Rin-chan in "Saiyuuki") who toyed with Oguri's character for a long while, Murano Mia who acts as a girl who had a crush on Oguri since young, Akina of Folder Five who is a violent leader of a group of ruffian girls who torments the group everywhere they go but in the end fell for Udaya after the Rock competition.
Last but not least, Shaku Yumiko as the teacher which charmed Shou off his feet and with her impressive "assets" & non-existing acting skills, she sure is a idol-turned-actor.
So this show kept me entertained throughout the weekend and I should be finishing it by this evening, the short and sweet characteristic of Japanese dorama!
Over the past few days also learnt some great skills to pick up which is thought by a genius but can be achieve by even the dumbest person on earth.
Firstly an unconventional way to fold your T-shirts originated from Japan and shook the whole with how easy it is to fold the shirts in almost similar neat fashion without breaking a sweat.
Then YM just sent a useful video on how to peel the skin off boiled potato easily by dipping in iced water...another impressive tip from our Japanese friends.
Just weighed myself during gym today after a talk on weight with my buddy over MSN got me interested in knowing how much weight I had shed...85.5kg now...And my aim is 80kg before my wedding which now seems really attainable...
Though my ideal weight should be around 75kg, but 80 surely is better than 92 which I carry to begin with...
Japanese word of the day: (Paint) Nowadays with the advance of chemical engineering, wall paint now smell of shampoo rather than the pungent odour that we had to endure in the past.
posted by Kei at
2:00 PM
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