Michael Bay oughta be Shot (by his own explosives)

29th June 2009, Monday

Before we begin, would like to show my appreciation for YH to treat everyone to watch "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" after she had successfully sold the car she won from the lucky draw for shopping at Suntec City which was by coincidence the venue we caught the film. It was down to pure generosity and the joy of sharing from her but sadly the flow of a pretty lousy film spoiled the night for me....

The association with Michael Bay's explosive, adrenaline filled action films began with "Bad Boys" which I caught on a video tape at TW's place.

My first theatrical experience of his film was "Armageddon". It was the apex of all disaster films of that era and really put "Deep Impact" into smithereens in terms of box office taking.
I remembered I thoroughly enjoyed the film and was at the verge of crying when the surviving Freedom crew made their truimphant return to earth after really did blew the meteorite into smithereens and Chick (Will Patton) were embraced by the son he had never saw till now.
Of course the movie went sour when Channel 5 showed it like 4000 million of times together other Michael Bay features like "The Rock" and the "Bad Boys" series.
It was also we can see that Bruce Willis couldn't act for nuts and Liv Tyler just always pout her thick lips to earn her bucks like she would as Arwen in LOTR.
Not forgeting "I don't wanna miss a thing" had been banned from my iPid playlist as "My Heart will goes on" and "Heaven's Knows".

"Pearl Harbour" was one of the first few date movies with my wife back in those days. I did had a thing for war epics and in an age where the more explosives the better without the need of any storyline to back it up.
The movie was terribly long and for the first time in my life I had to leave in the middle of the show to pay a visit to the Gents.
It was not totally awful especially Cuba Gooding Jr had a reasonably good performance and for once viewers got to see how hot Kate Beckinsale is.

Then came the much hyped collaboration with Steven Spielberg and his Dreamworks production for a 1980s cartoon which got many fanboys wet their pants and cried till no tomorrow when Optimus Prime, dying from the clash with Megatron and passed the Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus in "Transformers: The Movie".
Expectations were heightened as the movie drew closer before premiering in 2007.but when news leaked out that the design of Optimus Prime had a mouthpiece, many fanboys just went crazy.

Personally I was not a big Transformer fans and readily accepted the irradical ideas Bay and his crew had for their live action version of the Robots in Disguise.
But what I couldn't stand was the fact that he put so much focus on the US army and all the scenes showcasing the army weaponry prowess.
In the end the pace of the story worked out fine with Shia LeBeouf's performance's adequate, Megan Fox sizzled up the screen, Bumblebee delighting many fans with his interlude of radio broadcasts as speech and of course Jon Voight was in it. The movie was watchable and had it's entertainment value.

With a smashing box office return, it was of no wonder that the money milking Bay, Spielberg and co. began the production of the sequel almost instantaneously.

The bastard child from the rush job and a result of the ultimate milking scheme came this sequel which everything bad about a Michael Bay's film was brought to live.

It was action pack almost from the beginning to the end and explosives and other techno effects all set to blow the audience's minds away... I don't mean to sound indifferent or pompous but I think I had outgrew that, so that already didn't appeal to me.
There was a greater number of Autobots and Decepticons including the Fallen and Jetfire which will really beef up their toyline to suck collectors' blood.
While the concept of Soundwave as a satellite was cool, Devastator looked totally awful.

Megan Fox pouted and juggled her bosoms twice as much to make up for her lack of acting ability while Shia was getting on my nerve and they even introduce a secondary irritatable characterin Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez).

There was a serious overdosage of the American military shit this time and for me the point of US soldier engaging in battle with Decepticons always will burn my brain cells.
Not forgetting the over dramatic scenes Michael Bay love to incorporate with all the slow motion and dramatic chase or over the hill conversation between Sam and his father at the near end.
Not forgetting Bay's depiction of Shanghai and Egypt is laughable...One major issue would be when a local police helicopter landed, you could see the Chinese characters for "Police" but it was in Traditional Chinese but in China, they used Simplified Chinese...Go do your home work, Bay!

The build up to the climax was actually decent like a wild ride of sort and John Turturro reprising the Reggie Simmons role was entertaining but with a limit. Of course Rainn Wilson as the college professor is a point of salvage (with any cast of The Office is good by me).
The latter half hour was a torture for me as you can see it was heading into the direction of Michael Bay's ultimate wet dream coming through...
Even the final scene with Sam and Optimus standing at the bow of a aircraft carrier

I sensed a second sequel once Megatron and Starscream survived and escaped and was verified that it was due for July 4th, 2012...

Woohoo!

I was slurring words of discontentment in the theater near the end to the dismay of my missus who supposedly enjoyed it more than myself.
It seems like I won't be catching anymore Michael Bay's film any sooner, not after I finished going through the "Bad Boys-The Rock-Armageddon-Pearl Harbour-Bad Boys 2-The Island-Transformer" marathorn...woo the humanity!

Rest in Peace, King of Pop

26th June 2009, Friday

Shellshock was exactly what I felt when I heard of the passing of Michael Jackson whom I refer to as Wacko Jacko in recent years had passed away at his Bel Air Mansion due to cardiac arrest at the tender age of 50.

The jokes made of his child molestation trial was actually a mean to see that people still care

Despite his demise over the past decade with the line of controversies and failed resurrection of his music career, the King of Pop is still an icon and certainly played a crucial part in my childhood...no I was not touched by him anywhere when I was young only perhaps my soul...hmm even that doesn't sound right.

I think it was when I was 7 or 8 when my paternal aunts were still crazy about American pop music with MTVs and Solid Gold back in the mid 1980s.
When the music video of "Beat it" came on, I was bought. The catchy tune the spectacular dance choreography and Michael, still black back then, with his signature red synthetic jacket surely had the whole world under his feet.

Michael Jackson - Beat It

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This made Michael my idol back in 1986

My aunties bought me the "Bad" album in 1987 and it nearly "dissolved" into the cassette tape player when I listened to it such umpteen times.

Then I caught the music video of "Bad" and I was hoping to get what Michael was wearing at the same time what happened to his skin.
But it was at this juncture that MJ looked the most decent before he went on to pay more visits and surely more truckload of money to his plastic surgeons.

Even in 1991 when his "Dangerous" album, I was quick to buy me a copy. Like "Bad", this album had high replayability with so many great songs and of course he outdone himself with those MVs which was ahead of its time.

The subsequent years saw Michael heading toward his demise with all the allegations, trials, nose-droppings, hooking up with Lisa Marie Presley, making babies with his nurse etc etc.

All I could say is Michael was my very first pop idol and I am sure to many millions of children (damn doesn't sound right in this context again) back in those days.
As I told my buddy over MSN, if he had stayed sane and black till these days, his legend would continue always and always.

Well here's my ode to the icon and the true King of Pop, may you rest in peace (that is if you didn't fake your own death that is)

Japanese word of the day: マイケル・ジャクソン (Michael Jackson) Man MJ was a god in Japan as well...they might even offer him their offsprings

Wow, seems like it had been a great weekend...

22nd June 2009, Monday

When I was bitchin' to the missus as she was in the midst of some "mahjong tiles-memory matching game" on her Facebook that I dreaded Monday while myself in the midst of a late surge of Japanese dorama marathon of recent episodes of "Shiroi Haru 白い春" (Trying to hold back the tears when Abe Hiroshi had to lie about dislike his own daughter), "Mr Brain" (equally piqued over the fact they left a major cliffhanger and we had to wait another week to find out who is the murderer) and catching up on "Tenchijin 天地人" (More Abe Hiroshi is good for health).
I should really had no qualms about the past 72 hours which had been grooving out fine as a seemingly perfect weekend.

As scheduled, I applied for leave on Friday to the incense of the missus as she dreaded seeing me in bed still while she had to drag herself to work.

Rented a couple of Frat Pack-associated movies "Semi Pro" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" which I hope can become a staple of entertainment on weekly basis now, kicked off my day on Friday morning as the rest of the day was cascaded with Football Manager and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 but hit a glitch when CS called and announced his no-show for the gaming that evening with a machinery issue that would keep him at work till the wee hours.
It surely took the gloss from what looking to be a great night with Foo hoping on the bandwagon as I hailed the cab after my hair-cut and picked him up along the way en route to TW's place at Telok Kurau.

The ribbing was still present but the usual angst antics of CS would had been even better but little did we expected to complete the full leagu till 5 in the morning.

Foo, visibly fatigued the day's work and then the long hours staring at the LCD TV while his thumbs numb from handling the PS3 controllers, collapsed on the parquet floor and totally knocked out.
TW soon to follow as he was decimated by the snooze monster. I caught myself some sleep on his workstation chair before the first ray of light came about and I hustled Foo to make our way home.

Tried to sleep after the missus had already got her day going as she went to meet a friend at 8 plus, but some persistent drilling kept me awake till around 2 in the afternoon when I actually felt into slumber but merely for a couple of hours.

The lads had planned a dinner for some nostalgia reminiscence but many of those joints we had hit back in those days had either closed down or being replaced by new upstarts.
After much pondering, we decided to meet at Thomson Plaza, the place itself was a relic of my youth.

Just as I was preparing to make my way for my bus ride to Thomson Road, the sky opened up as cruel raindrops pelted mercilessly, so vehemently that there was no visibility at all at the peak of the torrential raining.
It certainly delayed my schedule and things weren't help by the wretched wait for the bus which seemed to be the longest wait among the cluster of bus service for that bus stop.

That was surely a classic wretched way to start the night.

The dinner was attended by CS' lass, LL and eventually joined by my missus, returning from a trip to Johor Bahru.

We dined at this family-style restaurant cum dessert shop, Miss Clarity along Thomson Road and before you knew it, our "aura" came into effect as diners started to made a frantic beeline out of the place and by 9 pm the restaurant was empty with the exception of us doing our usual antics and throwing our usual corny jokes.
Seemingly LL had a great laugh over the course of the dinner that her facial muscles were in spasms by the end of it.
It was truly gratifying to see our other halves getting well aquainted with us and one another as our friendships are always going to be endearing and surely beyond our usual game sessions or what-nots.
The biggest running gag between us on that soggy Saturday evening would be CS not being pleased with the words I had projected him to be in front of his girlfriend and was determined to had me assasinated.
Of course we did caught up of people from the past especially their old Secondary School friends, scarily most I had came to know as well.

The best thing that could happen on a lazy Sunday afternoon would be profuse raining, setting a gloomy yet cooling atmosphere and you have snacks and endless entertainment on the TV or PC and you just laze your day away.
That's what I did and for the missus catching up some lost sleeping time over the week.

Durians are cheap and in abundance of late and we got to savour the "yellow sin" in large satisfying quantity over the weekend to our heaty delight.

So a fabulous weekend of sleep, games, movies, doramas, great company of friends and durain, doesn't get as good as this...

Japanese word of the day:完璧 ~kan-pe-ki~ (Perfect) Of course the ultimate fantasy is 4 of us engaging in a PES marathon with the usual squabbling while our other halves feeding us durains...

Swinging with the Pepsiman

15th June 2009, Monday

Looking at the 12K of hard earn cash being "invested" for the audio gadgetry pleasure of my buddy, I can vouch he is living for the moment and surely nothing wrong with it.

It was a date with CS on Saturday as he beckoned me to join him for a trip to the PC show. With a strong disdain for the omnipresence of the huge crowd making maneuvering around simply impossible at times, I usually would give such exhibitions a miss unless there is a piece of IT product needed to be bought urgently.
But with nothing on hand on a rather cloudy Saturday morning, I obliged to Mr Pepsiman's request.

The trip ended empty-handed for both of us as we had not had the scant intention to splurge but we nearly did when some local start-up company was all guns blazing to solicit the crowd with a tool which can cut household electrical bill by 20%.
It surely drew our interests much like the next bill-concious Singaporean at the show. But neither of us went near to dishing $200 for it, well we nearly did.

The top draw for us was at the Gain City booth where the latest Samsung LED TV was on show. The slimness of the TV and the overall design just made us salivate but the introductory price of $3000+ (including discount) was the putting off factor especially when we knew the price would plunder in due time.
Our own LCD TVs at home are working fine as well, so no incessant splurging that day fortunately.

I managed to pick up some pamphlets of the top end printers (with many built in features like faxing, photcopying etc) as the missus deemed interested in getting but not just yet.

The target was to get out of the show by 2 but we got off much earlier than that. We then headed to Millenia Walk where he was interested in some designer chocolate from this "Chocolate Research Facility" as his other half seemingly had a sweet tooth.

We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on some things in our lives as of now as well as hitting the nostalgic note.
He was very much alive when he spoke of his adventure while improving the gadgetry of his car which was pretty interesting to listen to as no one really get to see a Maserati on the streets of Singapore any other day, especially not when the owner is a teenager born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

It was apparent that my buddy seemed immerse with upgrading his car but he was conscious not to go overboard especially when he had other interests (i.e. gaming) to catch up on.
But he did had intention to settle down with his lass, just he looked more captivated with living for the moment.

I for one was not ready to try to deter him from that ideology as myself wasn't willing to take the next step in life readily.
But I am sure w e will both turn out fine at the end of the tunnel.

Nevertheless a nice day to hang out with CS which does not concern game playing or PC fixing; I am just glad to be able to catch up with my buddies at greater frequency of late.

Japanese word of the day: 瞬間 ~shun-kan~(Moment) It's good to plan ahead in life but sometime should try to live for the moment.

Watch Out! The Frat Pack is here to stay!

9th June 2009, Tuesday

In Hollywood, it is well known that certain directors love to engage the services of their pet actors or staff like how Peter Jackson love Andy Serkis, Steven Spielberg had pedophilia towards Shia LeBeouf, Guillermo del Toro trusted Doug Jones while J J Abrams always had a role for confidant in Greg Grunberg in his project.

We also know how that in the entertainment scene a certain clique of friends would always work together like Kevin Smith and his clique (Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Lee etc) as well as Adam Sandller and co. (Rob Schneider, David Spade, Chris Rock, Kevin James etc).

But one force in the Hollywood cannot be disregard... The Frat Pack.

The crew of comedian friends with the core of Ben Stiller, the Wilson brothers (Owen & Luke), Jack Black, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell had been under the media spotlight for their multiple collaborations for most of the 21st century so far and a derivation of "Rat Pack" & "Brat Pack" was slapped for their clique.

I have always had a thing for Ben Stiller's movies since "There's Something About Mary" & "Meet the Parents".
I just digged his style of comedy in which he played the frantic guy caught up in the most outrageous situation he needed to bail out of.

In many of those films, you'll see Owen Wilson, the big nosed blonde guy who slowly carved a name on his own usually an aloof arch rivals of sort.
Jack Black first caught my eye in "Shallow Hal" and looked like the irritating fat guy type but grew to be really lovable with movies like "School of Rock", "Nacho Libre', "The Holiday", "Kung Fu Panda" etc.
Vince Vaughn looked like a haughty no-good-do-er in shows like "Starsky & Hutch" & "Be Cool", was never really good in my book while Will Farrell's ancension to fame was a bit mind stifling unless you went to catch his underdog sportsman style of comedy like "Anchorman", "Talladega Nights", "Blades of Glory", "Semi Pro" etc.

Of course Steve Carrell had been a favorite of mine since "40 year old Virgin" and then as Michael Scott in "The Office".

I had been beekping tab of the movies by these bunch of guys predominantly Stiller, Black and Carrell but don't really mind Ferrell.
However their influence in the scene had spread so immensely outwards with their connections that the associated members of the pack had made a significant impact in the Hollywood scene since the past year or so.

Once close ally of the Pack is director/writer/producer Judd Apatow who himself is like the rising star in 2007/2008 and maybe stretch for the next few years since the breakthrough of "40 year old Virgin", "Knocked Up" and "Superbad".
He led a band of close associates and friends such as Paul Rudd, Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse etc who looked like big players in the comedy scene in the future.

The influence of the Pack might even spread to television since many had roots in Saturday Night Live, the successful factory to generate talented comedians at will.
Therefore the likes "The Office", "30 Rock", "How I Meet Your Mother", "Arrested Development" etc had traces of the Pack despite they were not working on it.

Despite the comedy might be a bit low-brow and uncouth for the masses (and very well-liked by the American viewers), I had a kick out of most.
"Tropic Thunder" is a great example of how Stiller and gang would do a great satrical feature on the good old Vietnam War craze back in those days.
Whenever possible I will try to keep an eye of any upcoming featured films of the Pack or of Apatow and associates.

It was by no mere coincidence that my weekend was filled with films which the Pack left their mark.

I caught "Night at the Museum 2: Battle of Smithsonian" which of course starring Stiller and Owen Wilson but the supporting cast and cameos were littered with friends within their circle of trust. Hank Azaria was the antagonist, the evil Pharaoh Kahmunrah, Bill Hader as the narcissitic General Custer, Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart, Jonah Hill as Brendon the Security Guard and a string of The Office crew like Ed Helms, Mindy Kaling and Craig Robinson.
Channel 5 was showing the prequel "Night at the Museum" on Sunday night of course.

As mentioned I rented some DVDs which included Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited".
Wes Anderson was a college buddy of Owen Wilson and therefore by no surprise Owen was in many of his films including Darjeeling.
It made 3 doses of Owen Wilson for me in one weekend.

Another movie I rented was "Role Models" starring Paul Rudd and Sean Scott William. Paul of course was a dominant figure in the Pack and the movie also starred Christopher Mintz-Plasse as the geeky Augie who enjoyed cosplaying as fictional fantasy character.

I wouldn't say I am a connoiseur for comedy but I love to have a regular dosage of laughs and the Pack, Apatow and even Sandler and co. are right up my alley and will be continuing to support them...

Japanese word of the day: 派閥 (Clique) Well it's always great to build a chemistry with your friend, especially in the creative field

Roman Holiday...with my wife style

8th June 2009, Monday

Time and money...two of the most elusive assets which men could never ask enough of.
Time and money.. also the main bane to create little tiffs between the most stable marriage.

I must admit I hadn't adorned either of the above in great amount to my wife over the past 3 years, once again highlighting how inept I am as a husband.

But when an opportunity arose with a bit of inspiration, I somehow tried to heal some scars culminated over the period.

The folks went for another Genting escapade but left on icy terms when my old man went on his cranky mode two nights before and shouted at my poor mother.
Well after 30 years I wonder how much more she could tolerate...

I applied for an off in-lieu from the Vesak Day in May which fell on a Saturday, so to spend sometime with the missus still in the "force-leave taking" practice from her wretched workplace.

We headed to Tampines One, the new mall more well known to be "that one with Uniqlo".
It was school holidays, so we assumed it would be pretty insane to part the sea of boisterous kids in town and Tampines is mere 25 minutes of bus trip away.
Boy were we wrong as the shopping hub of the Eastern part of the island looked to amass its own crowd on a Friday afternoon as well.
However at the cineplex, it was like years ago with my transient stint as a "Science Fun" instructor at a primary school with children running amok.
There was no sheppard out there good enough to curb this herd I tell you.

Fortunately they were to catch "Aliens vs Monsters" while we opted for "Night at the Museum 2" which had opened a week ago, so the kids might had caught that.

So movie, some shopping (at Uniqlo no less) and overworking our digestive system at the Japanese style Marche, known as "Manpaku" (literally mean well stuffed), we looked to had spent a rather meaningful day at Tampines despite me constantly hounding her not to splurge, a role I am well aquitted to fulfill.

We ended the evening watching rom-com (romantic-comedy) "27 Dresses" I had rented on her request while dousing ourselves with the sparkling Shiraz I had willingly and lavishly acquired.

Saturday was when she needed attend a seminar the day long as I had the whole place to myself, but lucky I didn't dance naked like Rachel did from "Friends", just getting more frustrated at how I can't score goals more fluently with that mediorce team in Master League of Pro Evolution Soccer. Then again i could always restart when results don't go my way, if only I have that same "PS" button in real life.

Sunday was out with the boys to set up stall at China Square Central but had a decent breakfast at Swensen's before I made my way.
The food was affordable, tasty and filling and there was no rabid herd of children in sight!
She came to pick me up at CSC where we expend my day's earning on some pies for breakfast, a Banana Spin from Spinelli (not grande, not venti, just large) and some groceries for dinner which she dutifully whipped up.
Although she had very limited cooking ability, I could never say no to my wife's pasta which she might had picked up at her stint in Italy.

The night before a long week at work ended with some squabbling as we watch more Japanese doramas as she blew my mind with more things on her wishlist to buy....

It was a decent 3 day affair where we shared nice moments over things we loved (food, shopping, watching movie or doramas) and I hoped it do wonders to galvinized a seemingly blending marriage life.
More ideas were thrown in the air as I could apply leave 2 Fridays from now to coincide to her next off day as we might go for some massage at her spa or even book a hotel room as we always love to...

Japanese word of the day: 修理しなさい (Mend) Trying hard to mend things up...

A Cool Night Out with My Chums

1st June 2009, Monday

The entire last week was culminating towards Friday evening when I had got TW and CS on board for a hang out session with the usual playing of games on the console and let the proceedings flow and see where it took us to.

My friendship with my buddy began almost 21 years back and it never seemed to waned as we were so alike in many interests and ideologies and he always knew how to entertain me.
Over the years I had grew tolerance for his staunch way of handling things, his passion in whatever he does as well as not conforming to how we would like him to, such as a simple matter of hooking a LAN cable to his Playstation 3.
CS was TW's secondary school friend but it was surely fate how 3 of us would stick out like an odd trio over the years.
Perhaps the time we had been apart (TW with his days in Vancouver and Osaka while CS spent 2 years in Glasgow pursuing his degree) had galvanised our friendship even further.

It could be a quartet of wrecking buddies but the missing link was as it said, "missing".
I assumed he was on call for national duty but he hadn't update me on anything else for like 2 weeks now.

The evening began when I got home slightly early after entitled to leave an hour early from work with the "Eat With Your Family Day" program encouraged by the Center of Fathering (what in the world is that?!).
After preparing the stuff I promised to bring along to TW's place at Telok Kurau, a change of scenery for a game session which usually was at CS' place or my place if it was just the 2 of us.

I arrived at CS' block at Serangoon slightly ahead of time and could feel the humidity driving me to the roof as the stickiness of the skin from the sweating just ain't my ideal way to begin the night.

Fortunately my IT-savvy friend didn't made me wait too long as we hopped onto his white Mitsubishi Lancer. He did pointed out he might not last long for the night as work during the day surely would take its toll at due time.

When we arrived, the first person...well we always regarded him as one was his household pet mongrul, Happy.
The aged canine was still enthusiastic over the years since I first saw him as a puppy which couldn't stop yapping away.
Behind him was a little toddler with a very familiar face... Immediately it got to me it was his baby nephew, now closing in to one and a half years old and developed sturdy limbs to see him walking steadily.

TW's older sister was staying with her family as she is expecting the 2nd child, the water at her place is sure fertile.

Little nephew yearned to join us for our virtual football yet he was not to comfortable with 2 strange faces wearing black shirts, came knocking in the middle of the night.
Nevertheless being the baby of the household and a pretty adorable one, it was understandable he is well doted and soon he would leave us on our own, doing some theatrics which his mother was real proud of before making his departure.

So we began some kicking about on Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.
Barcelona's comprehensive victory in the UEFA Champions League final at Rome Stadio Olympico was the inspiration for us to take the Catalans giant.

CS who surely hadn't touch the game in a long while was rusty but patiently we put him into the groove though we can't be too proud as he had set the level on "amatuer" since the beginning of time.

Chelsea with that bugged talent known as Joe Cole proved to be hard for our Barca but we perservered, i.e. kept replaying them in the exhibition till we ultimately reached our motive of just mauling the Blues from London.

Then we began a whirlwind Konami Cup which featured clubs as well as countries including a Cameroon side we faced in the semi finals, containing the clone of our star striker Eto'o.

It was a of hearty great fun to rib at each other's errors while glamouring each stunning goal we conjured especially when TW found the way to convert goals with well precision.
It would be better if we could all shut off our mobile phone but it was impossible as it seems.

After that tournament we began engaging in a conversation which we hadn't done as a trio for a while.

The crux of the conversation surrounds our life with regards to our career as well as our other half.
I vividly remembered a good 14 years or so back, we were discussing about how our lives would be when we reached 30... It was a tad too uncertain but we knew someone up there must have loved us, bestowing us a jobs and a partner which 3 of us deemed to be our live-long companion.

TW gave us an insight of his new job which required him to serve as the chief lecturer, he sure is going places among us.
But he had his issues with taking charge of a band of established professionals in his field who aren't exactly comfortable to taking orders from someone like himself with less credentials.
Meanwhile CS just hated his job to the core and when times are good, I forsee him making the jump.

We also touched on my missus' sideline which had one chap nearly "conning" CS to join, laying the bait of an attractive career prospective.
As much as I am fully supportive of my wife's involvement and her aspirations, we are all just too skeptical about the probability to be a success story as many inside had vouched it could happen.

Then there was some brainstorming for TW's forthcoming wedding and marriage in Singapore on the whole.
He had managed to economize his ceremony with a very understanding bride but he was incensed with the Singapore housing situation, refusing to pay a ransom for a HDB flat which one would hold for just 99 years.

We all starrted speculating how things would take a turn in this crossroad of our lives.
Personally I revealed my fear of how long could I see myself in my line as 40 might be too old for comfort in my field.
Nevertheless we are all just too glad to remain status quo, spending our leisure time playing games and doing very "fanboy" like stuff while our other halves led a more happening lifestyle on their own.

The time was close to 3 in the morning when by now CS' eyes were sodden with veins as his body was yelling for him to rest and we called it a day.

It was great time shared with 3 good friends and from TW, he would like to do it again...I hope it might not wait for another few years or even months for the next one.

Japanese word of the day: 連絡をとりなさい(Keep in Touch) The problem with good friends tends to be too captivated with their own lives and failed to keep in touch