Go See Night At The Museum, Please!

God, this movie is fun. Great story - underdog divorced father Larry played by Ben Stiller needs to prove his worth to his son Nick by providing a stable life i.e. a real job. He becomes the night watchman at the museum of natural history and that's where the fun begins. No harm telling you that all the exhibits come alive but there's more to it than that - it's about being great - just let Teddy Roosevelt explain.

Butterscotch, Hotshot, Cupcake, Snack Shack, Hot Dog - terms Gus (Mickey Rooney)uses on Larry. Did I miss any? And Pocahontas, I mean, Sacajawea, is one hot red indian.

Check out the trailer Night At The Museum at http://www.apple.com/trailers/

Saw it with Ariel, fellow Woodlander who was also bored at home, trapped by rain, freed by film.

Ain't Got No Monkey's Back

Hah! There's nothing up with the back. Armed with the Xray taken last week at SATA (they should really add a heater to the cold metal table one has to lie on to get blasted with radiation), I paid a visit to the doctor's for an evaluation of my debilitating lower back condition.

Guess what? The doctor said that the human spine isn't as strong as it should be. Unlike other upright animals which walk on 2 legs like man such as gorillas, humans have relatively thin spines. Gorillas apparently have chunky ones, with stronger, wider lower verterbrae sections. (By this time, I was chuckling) Examining the Xray film, he concluded that there was no spinal trouble, no discs about to slip off and no need for an MRI. All that was wrong was that the final end of the spine was aligned straight, when it should be curved (see the right side of Xray above) - a sign of muscle contraction and pain. Wahzan! So there's no cure but patience and more Anarex and Tramadol. He even taught me a back strengthening exercise.

So now I am drugged up, again. My mother wants me to go get some acupuncture done - a temporary pain relief but not a cure according to gorilla doctor. So now my back hangs in the balance, torn between drugs and needles, in the wishy-washy ying-yang cycle of relief and agony. Ah, I can feel the pills kicking in...

Head Banging Xmas Eve

Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum. Merry Christmas everyone.

No, I wasn't part of any Pirates re-enactment although 'Mariah Carey' did make an appearance at Kim's annual Xmas shindig at Royalville. We all knew she was sleazy, fishnets and all! Ahem.

It was a nice, quiet fried affair - lots of balls of the fish and sotong variety, bee hoon to the hilt (of a casserole dish), samosas (yummy) and chicken wings (snapped to maximise economy of consumption by housewife/aunty standards). Plied with Absolut Red Ruby mixed to perfection, the party got along just fine. Furqy then produced his FCUK poker set and we all got down to how-to-beat-the-IR lessons with Kok Leong. With no money involved of course. Blackjack followed by a few rounds of poker were enough to bring us to the midnight hour where we shook hands, hugged and wished one another good will for 2007.



Then it was time for presents. At this juncture I must apologise for my lack of preparedness. I distributed carbo and sugar as part of my return-to-Fatkins diet, a ploy to get thin pple as largeseque as I am. I got too many good things - more food and a toy car. I am ashamed I could not reciprocate. I owe you all drinks. Thanks for the prezzies.

Intellectual stimulation came next. We played Cranium and boy, is it fun. One gets to spell (yes there is only one 's' in abysmal, damn it), hum tunes (yes, this mountain is not high enough for some), figure out the meaning of words like tautology and impasto, learn that 20/15 eyesight is better than 20/20, recall that it was 'Play It Sam' in Casablanca and understand that it is not possible to sculpt 'Fig Leaf' with Playdoh. In the end, the victorious team of Edwin, Furqy and Gurmit rubbed salt into the wounds of the rest of the highly-entertaining losers. Haha.


Thanks to Kim, Andy, June, Kok Leong, Edwin, Furqan for keeping the good times rolling till 3am.

Dinner At The B's

Dinner on the Saturday before Christmas was the 2nd party of the season. It was an Indian affair, me being Indian and the hosts being of similar origin. Haha. We, the Union gang, stormed the Barbozas at about 8pm for an evening of delightful food, drink and conversation. Sounds uppity but it wasn't.

Once again, we were wowed by Anita's skill over the stove. We had potato cutlets with mint chutney, pita with cucumbered yoghurt, grilled spicy prawns, chicken, grilled cottage cheese and spinach basmati rice. Did I forget something? Yes, the heavenly (wait, devilishly sinful is a better description) tri-chocolate mousse cake. Stuffed we were, and Clarence's generosity with the gin saw off a nice evening with friends and new acquaintances.

Maybe the gin is to blame for the fuzzy pixes.

Retro Xmas

I have failed to elaborate on the company Xmas party. It was a touted as a Retro affair which gave many the opportunity to don prints and platforms. Others stole the show with bad wigs and flower power. I won the best dressed.

Yes, it is strange I admit. That very afternoon I had no clue what to wear. Having thick spectacles I thought I might was make it a Nerdtro party and went as a school teacher. Short sleeved shirt (unfortunately not white), retro tie, 2 pens in the breast pockets, tight grey trousers. I should have brought along a wooden ruler to thwack the misbehaving (believe me there was plenty) and ensure orderly behaviour.

Well I won the best dressed because the MC required us to improvise a dance routine based on the I'm Too Sexy song by Right Said Fred. I undid my belt, swung it in the air, undid one button, exposed that bit of skin and hair, and managed to garner $10 in patronage. OKlah, for one night's work.

Edwin and Carolyn topped off the festivities with their rendition of a Bollywood movie dance scene. It was such a hoot that I organised and led in the chorus line of backup dancers during the encore performance. What a blast.

Hats Off

He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own - Confucius

As people, we interact and cause our life paths to cross and interweave. Plonked on the other side of Ronnie's partition earlier this year, I got to know the bugger a little better and guess what, he's one of the good guys, with a ripe head (currently blond) on his shoulders, a keen eye and wisdom beyond what most people seek. Though his cynicism and acid tongue sometimes warrant a smack on the head.

He's off to greener pastures, and off to change more life paths for the better :)

The Recent Turbulent Past (Meet My Friend Payn Killah)

The past month and a half has been an intriguing chapter in 2006 for many reasons. For starters, there was an upheaval of sorts at work with many comings and goings, hints and allegations, Als and Simons, meetings and huddles, even paper theft. Then i went to my first reservist in-camp training, ever! The army forgot about me, left me to become the blob I have snugly fit into, and sent me a invitation 11 years late, to join my peers to hang out in olive green, uncomfortable uniform. I managed however to sneak away from my military duties with an official permit of excuse (in layman's terms, an off pass, haha!) to hang out with my colleagues in Bintan. And I do mean literally hang. The adventure taught us all one lesson - that together we can achieve anything, and that one can be 32 years old and still be scared shitless. Then I went back to the army to join my peers in the jungles of north-western Singapore to build tentages, prone on soggy soil, lay out concertina entrapments (to keep the dogs out), perform sentry duties at 6am, heat and eat food from plastic packaging (lo and behold my lovelies, there's peanut paste dessert now), count store items, clean rifles (I couldn't even remember how to strip the weapon!), and be fed well.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I hurt my back. The compressed nerve decided to turn on the pinch of death and cause me endless shudders of pain and agony. This is a long standing problem. The last time the damn thing decided to make its presence felt was early one morning when i was ironing for work. I sneezed and i was instant and effectively paralysed from the hip down. My sister brought to the neighbourhood clinic on my father's wheelchair. The doctor didn't have the right medicine as I am allergic to most NSAIDs (aspirin type painkillers) gave me 'the other' painkillers to ease the suffering, probably an adverse reaction to my unbrushed set of teeth and unwashed body to punish me further. Today, eighteenth day of December 2006, my back gloriously hurts. I did an Xray this afternoon (damn the frigidly cold metal table). My fate with the MRI machine will be revealed in the next few days.


In addition to all this madness, my sister got ROMed, my company did the annual Xmas bash where I won the 13th prize and the best dressed award for my impersonation of Clark Kent the school teacher with stripper tendencies (the MC returned my belt loop), my sister had her wedding dinner, and to top it all off, I aggravated my back condition by helping my father in and out of his wheelchair.

And I have become lazy. The laziness is an overall aura of apathy, ennui and mental murk accentuated by the fact it’s the festive season, am not too sure where my job is going and I have been to Mat's Xmas party.

Thus ends this episode of the pain up north and around the last vertebrae.

The First Xmas Party This Year

Hey, tis the season. It was the annual Mat Xmastravaganza at his apartment in seedy Balestier, where you are reminded of JB, can buy enough lights to rival Shinjuku, and may consume bak kut teh at any time of day or night.

It was a small affair, with small food and too much drink. 25 or so people made enough ruckus to ensure Mat got another letter of complaint from the neighbourhood. There was mad-rush gambling and people playing with numbers and fingers. I also learned that the 2 soft toy pigs in the bedroom are Marco and Gina. I left at 4am, way too late, with Mat going all gibberish (he's like that when he's had too much alkie).

Merry Matxmas and Happy New Beer.

The Humbling

It turns out I am the fool. The one who speaks too loud, too quickly, of unsound mind and tinderbox temper. Right now, the events of a week ago haunt me even more now that they are a blur. A blur of confusion coupled with fingers pointed in the wrong direction. Not that I need to point fingers still. It's over, and isn't worth dragging up regardless of intention of each attendee or principle of judgement. I concede. I have expressed my sentiments and they have been acknowledged. This event is a lesson, one of temperance, respect and appreciation of truth and relationships. In the midst of all else that was and is changing around me, this constant should not have been one to subject to tension.

When broken bones heal, they heal stronger. Like I said before, the fabric will not be the same. I don't know about anyone else but that change will be in me. I am not stronger but guarded and resigned but better for it. Scars and all. Nonetheless, whatever reparations I make, this lion is bruised. It will rise with caution and constant checks, mindful of the number of glasses that have emptied. Like the soul that was drained and emptied with each passing day. I am sorry.

The End Of The Innocence

I have rummaging for analogies to describe an upheaval. It started off with spiders' webs, all entangled yet cohesive, but with one spider's doing, a large tear opens up in the fabric.The tear isn't detrimental, just destablising and disturbing to onlookers. The flies still get caught and eaten. Just fewer maybe till the tear is healed as the spiders intervene. Another perpespective to this would be of a windscreen.On a car, keeping the air and bugs and dirt out. But being held in such tension, all it takes is a simple, sharp spike to shatter. And boy does it shatter, much like a spider's web. All the pieces stil in place, held together by friction and superficial bonds. The fragility is alarming. Swift and sudden streaks break across the transparent vista, blurring everything. You could still drive but really carefully. I have thought of applying a machine, working without a few parts, or a computer where one program does not want to work but the rest of the device still functions (much like my Bluetooth software). Sounds lame, and that's how i feel.

This abnormality in relations may last. Even if hands come to be shaken and eyes start to meet, it is not something that is easily forgotten. Scars remind us. A wise man, younger than I, once told me to 'Let it go'. Apply liberally to all things, especially emotions that hold us back from the greater realm of enlightenment. It is very difficult, I am human (no matter how superhuman I want to be). This is the same fabric that holds us all sane. The fabric is now torn, and shame is worn for all to see. I am afraid this tear isn't going to be easy to fix. The glue to fix this shatter will have to come from the farthest places. Inside intangible, bottomless nooks, and nursed with time.

And I am disappointed, and in true Virgoan fashion, both with myself and those around me - has all this time meant this little? Makes you wonder about ties that bind. Am I the only fool? I have been asked to initiate healing. Yet I am adamant. False pride? Misplaced chauvinism? Fear of giving in? Anger? I don't know. And it will eat me. It has already started rumblings in the cogs of my mind, oiled by my insecurities, fueled by the Devil inside.

New Heights

For the company away day, it is apparently traditional to put members of the company in random groups and subject them to torture. Kidding. Well we were scooted off to Bintan nonetheless so that no one would hear our screaming and send aid. Kidding. On the island that is the better cousin to Batam, we were grouped (I was in A3) (Not as big as A2 but larger than A4, good for spreadsheets and schedules). We did indoorsy things like play with Lego, run in and out magnetic fields and rooms, manouvre through flimsy octahedrons and discuss our actions in these tasks.

The outdoor stuff was stupefying. We had to make our way to the top of a 30m tower by traversing balance beams, climbing rock walls and jumping in mid-air. I was scared shitless. Not literally. But bad enough as I got this fear of unprotected height. Well, after squeezing many hands and absorbing enough advice from my fatigued group mates to summon the courage to do leaps, I made it to the top. In the end, we ALL made it and flying-foxed our way to relief and ground zero. It's quite an achievement that everyone accomplished the tower climb - we all came down feeling like winners.

The night took an alcohol-induced turn with dancing, silly games, conversation and mayhem. The pictures here don't do justice, believe me. Ahem. By the way, that is poor Carolina I am being pushed into smooching. Evil cupid-type friends i have.

Lazy Man Blogger

I am lazy man. Note that this is different from stating "I am a lazy man". In the former, "lazy" is a comment and is a contextual utterance. Since I am on painkillers and have been on them for the week, I think the initial sentence was drug-induced. Also "man" is used like "lah" as commonly applied in Singlish. In the second, more definitive sentence, the man is lazy and cannot be altered otherwise. It is a declaration or a confession, like those you start off with in Lazyass Anonymous meetings.

Contextually, I have not been blogging since early November. It is quite embarassing. As a defence, I admit to working too late, going on reservist, attending the company training event in Bintan, going back to reservist, going out with pple leaving the company, having 4 pints of cider, watching Happy Feet and being at peace with the sofa and TV for the weekend. Yup, lazy. Hence my lack of blog entries.

Tomorrow I go back to work. And the horrors that await me there. I am sure they will not be hiding in the dark crevices of the photocopier but rather swallowing me whole at the Work In Progress meeting at 1030am. If i coat myself in Dettol, will the monsters spit me out?