love&pain

电话响起了
你要说话了
还以为你心里对我又想念了
怎么你声音变得冷淡了
是你变了
是你变了

show to watch

awesome show

these are all..

but just numbers on a machine. soldier on!!

msn

we were talking about going to holland v for dinner next sat. qq loves the shellfish.

qq ; says: (4:12:23 AM)
hahahs. but i don mind lahs.. i like tt gong gong!!

:: Simple Logic :: [ feeling the blues ] says: (4:12:35 AM)
ya gong gong like u

a place i haven't been..

for the longest time!

Pesta Raya!

night-scape

ahh.. memories

and was around tampines safra when i saw this brilliant landscape. i think sunsets are nicer than sunrise.

and one from the artist.

bodycombat number 3

i just finished my bodycombat class (my third one), but who's counting. awesome i can feel the fat dissolving, but that's just me. and who cares if i was the only guy in the class? lol.

awesome awesome song!

daniel powter - next plane home

yummy or not?

it's my first ever, proper (subjective) cooked meal i did.. all by myself! more to come! lol.

terriyaki salmon aglio aglio

being singaporean means...

pushing a trolley to this queue, totally ignoring this sign.

today, tomorrow and so far

today i... 

fried my first fish - terriyaki salmon in olive oil

tomorrow i...

will wake up in time and go for the body combat class

and so far...

i have been eating salad with fish (tuna/salmon) for the past few days (dinner)

i love lunches...

..with my grandparents! cos dinners are always so rushed and no time to hang out after. today we went east coast for carl's jr then walked along the beach a bit. nice weather and breeze.

at carl's jr.

can you tell my grandpa's very full?

my grandma's camera shy.

my grandpa's unfinished portobello mushroom burger.

leftovers.

saw kids cycling and people having a dip in the water. i just love the beach just it's so relaxing and calming, especially on days like today when there's no crowd and you see a few people cycling, skating, swimming and fishing. the world is great on days like that!

i love my grandparents!

sianz

... cos i missed my body combat class. i can't believe my alarm rang and i turned over and slept back! i just ran 15 on the treadmill and it just doesn't seem enough!

hot!

iPhone named 2008 Gadget of the Year

After they tallied the votes, iPhone came up a big winner in the 2008 British Technology Awards. It not only claimed the award for Gadget of the Year but won the Best Mobile Technology, Most Stylish Technology, and Technological Innovation of the Year awards, as well. iTunes also won honors, seizing the Best Music Technology award for 2008.

the memory of running, by ron mclarty

i've had this book for ages. but i don't know why i've never blogged about it or highly recommended it to someone else. i guessed it just faded away after i read it. maybe it didn't get as much hype as "the kite runner", or it wasn't written by someone who had massive success with previous books, like mitch albom's "the five people you meet in heaven". so i guess it got lost in my collection.. until last week. i spent a slow week re-reading the book and i really appreciated it.

a fat slob who is a alcoholic and depressed, smithy ide is forty and sad. he hates his job and his apartment. smithy doesn't have friends and still goes on vacation with his parents. his sister, bethany suffered from a mental illness that led to her disappearance. the tragedy never detached itself from the ide family.

when his parents die because of a car crash, smithy goes on the road on his bicycle, one night in a drunken stupor and carried on across america. he meets all kinds people - sick, in need of help, unreasonable. he helps and listens, falls in love along the way. with a bag and his bicycle, smithy ide is on a quest that leads him to a better life.

this is a debut novel but it is filled with lots of heart. smithy's emotions are real, and you feel his happiness and pain, wonder and sickness. you read with fervor when smithy talks about bethany's past, and many chapters leave you hanging on to the very last word, as you wait for the author to go back to that incident. the novel is a joy to read and now's the time to say it.

I HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!

fitness first

will i finally be hot fit?

weekends =)

weekends are my favourite days of the whole week! not because i dread getting up weekdays morning to go to work (i'm unemployed), not because i get monday blues (i sleep in late mondays and every other day), and definitely not because i worry about lunch cos by the time i'm up, it's just nice for dinner. man i live a good life!

but i digress. weekends are the greatest cos everyone books out by saturday and we always have a great time! 

just yesterday, we had the greatest BBQ ever in history of all BBQs!

haha okay we didn't. it was normal, burnt food and all. but it was as fun and we had a blast. what i remembered from last night:

felicia - waiting for the sotong to cook

darren - head chef

shonia - waiting for chicken wings to cook. only the wings

alvin - correcting shonia

joycelyn - "... so that you can flirt with his sister!"

woo - "his sister is disgusting."

daniel - wah finally see him

qq - gambling (as usual)

yihao - smacking boxer

me? i like to imagine myself as the assistant head chef but apparently what i thought of my cooking wasn't a shared opinion. i thought my chicken wings were magnificant! i felt my chicken filet was an art masterpiece and the fish toufu i grilled? BBQ perfection can.

but i guess the others didn't think so. lol

apple may shut down iTunes

Apple is not pleased.

The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C. is considering a motion to increase the royalty rate paid by Apple to music publishers and the record labels from 9 cents to 15 cents.

The big tech company has threatened to shut iTunes down as early as today, Thursday, should they be forced to pay this increased rate.

Apple said the increase could force it to raise its song price of 99 cents, something they've refused to do even after crazy pressure from the record companies.

iTunes' Vice President Eddy Cue has also said that Apple could shut iTunes rather than raise its prices or absorb the higher royalty costs, "If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the … royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss — which is no alternative at all. Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably."

Eww. Sounds a little greedy to us!

The president of the National Music Publishers Association, the group pushing for the increase said, "I think we established a case for an increase in the royalties. Apple may want to sell songs cheaply to sell iPods. We don't make a penny on the sale of an iPod."

Interesting point!

We think Apple's full of it, though. Let's see if they'd really shut iTunes down!

Someone else will eventually emerge and take its place, right?

We hear MySpace Music a-calling!

taken from gossip blog www.perezhilton.com

javier the slacker

"what's up?"

just my luck

that i had to meet that gym manager yesterday and this woman at east coast park today.

was there with my mum, sister, maid and javier for dinner just now. javier was behaving very badly, jumping at kids, jumping at dogs, jumping at bicycles. I WAS VERY PISSED OFF. so i smacked his mouth and then she said (very loudly),

"YOU NEVER SMACK A DOG'S MOUTH."

okay thank you, shout louder please.

then she said things like don't smack a dog's mouth, it will hurt and he's just a puppy. yes it will hurt cos i intended it and yes he's a puppy and needs to learn. and her dogs were yapping away happily and straining their leashes. it's all fine with her cos i think they weigh less than 8kg each, and mine is heavier than all 3 of them added up. 

and she was glaring at me even though i smiled at her. WHY AM I ATTRACTING SUCH PEOPLE RECENTLY??

what. kids need to be taught so do dogs. if kids can be smacked why not dogs. i love javier and i love dogs but i do not believe in spoiling my dog and letting him do whatever he wants. saying no no no just doesn't work in some circumstances and she, ought to know better than me cos that was what's happening to her!

california fitness - novena sq

Unpleasant experience with California Fitness

I WOULD like to relate an unpleasant experience with California Fitness at Novena Square on Feb 13.

I was contacted by their marketing department of a Chinese New Year package which I was rather interested in, provided they meet certain conditions I was asking for. After a few rounds of discussion via phone with Ms Shan of Novena Square branch, we agreed at 11.30 that night that they will meet the terms I was asking for and invited me to visit them to sign the papers that very night.

What I found when I reached California Fitness was Mr Colin Fernandez introducing himself as gym manager who then started giving a sales pitch of another offer which I had already declined. When I told him about the agreement made over the phone, he replied that there was no way that package could be given.

What shocked me is the unapologetic manner in which the staff of California Fitness conducted themselves - they got a customer out of the home at 11.30pm purportedly to sign papers whose terms have been agreed on, only to find that this was not the case.

This is certainly not what I expected from a reputable entity such as California Fitness.

Tan Beng Chong

definitely not what i was expecting as well when i walked in yesterday afternoon! i made myself very clear that i was shopping around for a gym membership and wanted to ask more about california's. it seemed however, i said "I WANT TO SIGN UP TODAY" because the gym manager almost forced me to.

it all started well, smiles and small talk with the gym manager who brought me around. i was thinking.. okay, this seems like a nice place. lots of equipment, friendly staff and clean. good thoughts. positive thoughts. so we proceeded to the tables where he said he'd tell me more about their membership. great.

but he sees his friend and he goes over to talk, leaving me alone. but it's okay, i'm not petty. i can overlook such stuff.

then he comes back and he starts drafting out a price list for me on a paper. when done, the conversation went something like that:

me: "so this is the best price you can give me?"

him: "i'm the gym manager, and today's the last day of the month. this is a special price."

me: "okay thanks. i'll look around and consider."

him: "you're not signing up today?"

me: "no. i just wanna look around. fitness first having a promotional package that's almost the same price."

him: "you have seen fitness first's equipment right?"

me: "yes, and it's not any less selection, just that you have more quantity. it's okay i just want to look around."

him: "no need to look around. if you are looking at price, it's all the same."

me:' "i'm not. i rather pay $30 more for a swimming pool."

him: "what do you want a swimming pool for?"

me: "i like to swim! you mean i cannot have a choice?"

him: "swimming only relaxes your muscles."

me: "it's okay can i have the piece of paper, i will look around."

him: "no you cannot."

he very rude! arghh! i'm fucking pissed and damn shocked that such an established gym can have such a rude gym manager. you tell me lah! in between he did offer another package that was a year long but i had to pay upfront 12 months. crazy! after such attitude he think i will sign with him? or i don't want to think twice? he implied many things ok. he implies that fitness first was not up to par, then he implied that i cannot afford to pay so much, then he challenged why i wanted a swimming pool.

i left the place astounded.