Letters to my future self

31th aug - scatterbrain

was on the train today, looking at my lil' notebook, working out my finances. then i remembered about the money for the bash hasnt been settled yet. which we should before lun leaves for beijing.
then i remembered that mel's going to fly to thailand too, cept i cant remember when he's flying off.

send a quick message to lun, asking him if he knew when mel was departing.

right after i sent the message, i looked at my watch and... "oh ... crap... crap crap crap."

i actually think i was supposed to send lun off yesterday. -_-"
it slipped off my mind, like totally.

and if lun's off already, it means that mel isnt around either.

good going, koon.

ARGH.
D'OH.

-out-

Letters to my future self

28th aug - reintroducing the concept of order

stayed home today. did some major tidying up today, it still looks very messy, but at least i've made up my mind more or less which stuffs i'm keeping and which i'm discarding away.

to go:
-MTG (to discard)
-LOTR (to discard)
-Mageknight, heroclix (to discard, if anyone is interested in these plastic miniatures, please drop me a msg)
-Storybooks that i've outgrown (to give away)

to rearrange:
-VS
-L5R
-Manga
-misc books

some 5kg worth of cardboard hits the chute tonight, much much more coming.

financial restructuring underworks, its about time i'm sick of how i'm living my current lifestyle.
the word for the day is "change."

-out-

Letters to my future self

27th aug - of friends and farewell

ok, stop asking me about my previous post. i did great disservice to someone and i'm apologising for it. if you feel that there isnt anything that i did thats worth apologising for, then the previous post isnt directed at you.

the irony here being that just 2 posts back, i was qouted as saying "...i could not let myself play the role of the insensitive bastard" and there i am 1 day later portrayed in that exact role. one of those famous "shoot-myself-in-the-foot" comments.

anyways, the group of us saw kun off yesterday night. its good to know that people are doing well in their studies i suppose. 1 headed for new york, 1 in beijing, 3 in nus, 1 aiming for nie and i'm still in the middle of no where, heading no where. oh well.

apart from their holidays, where we're likely to organise a get together for lunch/dinner, i doubt we'll be meeting very much from now.

slightly less upsetting news - been working on a new blog template, sketches done at the moment. probably revise them over the week. need to find out more about the technical aspects thou. i doubt blogspot gives me the freedom i need when i comes to expressing my new templates, so i'm looking to get a domain or sub-domain space. anyone got any information on the related topics? i'm not looking to pay alot thou (free if possible, really.) hoping that i can upload all the stuff when i officially clear myself from THE organisation.

-out-

Letters to my future self

aug 26th - sincere apologies

if i've caused to any of you any serious inconveniences or trouble recently, i'm very sorry about it. i assure you that its not intentional, it just did not occur to me to inform you about it when it happened.

i'm very, very sorry. yet all i can do i assure you that it would not happen again.

-out-

Letters to my future self

Aug 25th - Infinite Rage

am extremely pissed off today, nothing i do today seems to be heading in the correct direction.

too leave off work just to attend some randomly stupid function, only to return a favour. being a function, i automatically assumed that the dress code would be casual or at the very most smart casual. oh boy, was i wrong, its in uniform. how intelligent.

i was given a choice to either borrow a set of unifrom or to go home and get myself changed. which is as good as not giving me a choice. she refused to let me skip the whole thing. i half contemplated on just going home and not to return again. but no, i could not let myself play the role of the insensitive bastard.

rage. anger. it was SOOOO bloody inconvinent, 1st of all the function is located in a very bad position. 2nd, i was heading to town after that, which also meant that i had to bring along a set of clothes. goodness, i went to the function CARRYING A SLING BAG AND A BIG PAPER BAG CONTAINING A PAIR OF SHOES. i hate all of you, really.

as of now, my uniform and boots are still at OC, have to lug them back tomorrow. which is still bad, i have to see a friend off at the airport. good going, koon.

oh and that function? its a scam, might as well call it a career talk. utter waste of time, basically we just sit in the auditorium listening to a bunch of people talk crap (btw, the cisco inspector's presentation was horrible, i totally couldnt tell whether he was just nervous or his english is bad, or both) then proceed outside of refreshments, if i had known that it would be like this, i would have asked someone to take attendance for me. and oh yay, i got a lousy jacket as a a souvenior, to remind me of how trouble i had to go through and how many variants of "i will not take no for an answer"s i heard. go me.

later in town, there was draft. of all days, i picked today to open a foil hawkeye (pack 1) then a foil cap A (pack 3). which was fine, it made my draft deck very powerful (was already in tbolts/avengers when i got the cap). except a result of 1-2 placed me 8th out of 10 people. 10 men draft, 3 rounds swiss, 1 game matches. i cant tell you how i hated this.

i also cant tell you how stupid i felt after missing all of my 5 3rd drops, refusing to even draw a single one all the way to past turn 4, holding on my hand 1x a 2nd chance and 2 cobolt mans. turn 3 pass, turn 4 pass. good going, koon.

then i got openly insulted by berthram, i swear i could have just beaten his face in back then but no, i have better places to vent my anger. i still think he's a FUCKER. a bloody one at that. even orry tried to console me after that, haha, what a joke.

have never been so angry for the whole day in the long time, now, i'm just tired, very tired. bowing to the power of bureaucracy and getting insulted, way to go, koon.

ARGH.... RAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
-OUT-

Letters to my future self

aug 24th - life on a budget

life continues on the edge, today's quest brought me to ang mo kio right after coming off a draft at raffles city (placed 2nd out of 4, imo avengers is a silly format). went over with adrian to the card shop to get some sleeves then off to get some food (for him, i'm supposed to be on diet).

apparently s-11 closed down for renovations, i think. we around abit more until we came to the hawker centre. wondering what to eat, we first got ourselves some seats then walked around somemore. until this stall caught both our eyes.

smacked right in the middle of the hawker centre, the stall looked quite out-of-place, its almost like its 'too modern'. even its signage is quite special, it reads "eMeal @ ang mo kio". impressive word play for just a stall signage. what was more surprising to us was that the rice there sells for 1.90 (curry rice, with choice of curry chicken, fried chicken or fish, comes with curry cabbage and a fried egg). the last time a meal at a hawker centre sells for less then $2 is probably some 5 years++ ago.

both of us ended up ordering a plate each, its self service. then came another surprise, the food is served on disposables. which in other words, they arent wasting any money hiring people to deliver the food to the table nor to wash plates and utensils, just pack and go.

how brilliant. the food's serving was quite good, tastes quite ok. i can already imagine a young man being the brainchild of this idea running a whole chain of such stalls making a hell lot of money. (ok, apparently i heard from my mum there's also 1 stall in clementi near my grandma's place)

i'm impressed.
so much for supposed to be on a diet. then again, its only 1.90. *grins*
-out-

Letters to my future self

23th aug - diet

need to start dieting, for more reasons then one.

Zzz

-out-

Letters to my future self

aug 22th - self reflection

i was told today that i had this habit that i havent been noticing about myself.

apparently i have this tendency to go the extra mile to do some stuff... but more often then not, these efforts arent appreciated. which, i think is fine actually, except, i also have this tendency to complain and whine alot after that. (not appreciating my efforts is fine, thou, if someone actually complains.... heh, i can go on complaining and whining for over a week)

events that come to mind are singapore's only LOTR team event, the boardgaming nonsense, etc.

come to think of it, its like taking a penalty kick. it takes alot to go up to the spot and take the kick. you score when people appreciate your efforts, hit the woodwork (dio diang!) when people dont.
while most people dont remember much after that, the person who misses the penalty will remember it and it will haunt him for a realllllly long time.

other news, have thrown the towel on the project, i'm not getting enough assistance and i dont have the time to be doing it almost entirely by myself.

my avengers playsets are more or less completed after mysteriously managing to trade/buy/open 4 cap's today. the highest number of monica rambeau's i've once owned is now raised to 10 from 9 (i'm GOD-LIKE!).

however, also due to the above, i'm swimming in debt now. strangely enough, i thought working is suppose to bring balance to my financial woes. apparently not, given the added totals of my salary from work and my ns allowance, its still not really in the positives yet. between buying cards, celebrating occasions, lending out money, not quite enough. currently its -500++ vs +200++. then again i'm still waiting for some online stuff to clear. its been almost 2 weeks and i've heard no news, i'm getting worried. if it doesnt clear soon, i might need to be selling arms and legs.

i need to pray for more work until then.
living life on the edge... exciting, but dangerous.

-out-

Letters to my future self

aug 20th - bumping into people, both new and old.

standing behind the counter all day also means that i'm subject to a certain amount of human traffic each day, more if its a weekend. given the size of singapore and the few places that teenagers actually hangout, there's this tendency to bump to people.

take today for example, 1st it was jason, one of my juniors back at station. he's now a trainee with THE organisation. sometimes i just cant comprehend some of the things people do. they unerstand that the organisation sucks utterly, but they still end up joining anyway. d'oh.

then i bumped into mel, who meeting a friend(s?) in the same building. then aqbar, one of the nicer ppl i've made acquaintance with during the days at nyp. come to think of it, many years back, the situation was some what reversed when he was working with the cinema and i was catching a movie. haha.

then there's always perlin next door, part timer with e-games, i think. studied same course at nyp, suffered more or less the same unfortunate fate.

anyways, note to self: to read more comics (or rather the more popular titles, at least), makes it easier to introduce material or summerise stories when people make enquries.

to read: vertigo - fables, 100 bullets, v for vendetta, watchman. marvel - dissembled series, astonishing x-men. dc - batman hush, batman and robin, batman wargames/war drums

to do: project. no real work has been done yet, its still all on paper. ARGH!! i'm so never going to make it on time. this is like DMD all over again, same kind of assignment, same kind of dateline. hopefully not the same kind of fate.

the clock continues to tick......

-out-

Letters to my future self

aug 19th - about work

oh my, this is my 4th week into work, i think. so far so good. however there are a fews things i've learnt recently:

1. its possible to get tired from just standing/sitting around, not doing anything. as a matter of fact, being kept occupied with work seems to make the body less lethargic.

2. boredom = bad. bored ppl do alot of stupid things. which is probably why sentances beginning with "out of boredom...." dont end on gd notes. i'm really beginning to understand why when hansen says "i'm bored...." everyone takes cover. i used to only understand the take cover part, now i fully understand it all.

3. looking at the days takings doesnt make it grow, it only makes you feel worse and sometimes even compelled to take actions just to make yourself feel better. (which is generally not a good thing)

apart from that, i shdnt really be complaining. there is still the issue of the mounting debts, but that will probably be solved... eventually, i hope.

-out-

Letters to my future self

15th aug - the weekend

so the birthday's officially over. the trail that was planned was much easier to clear then expected, perhaps the hardest one turned out to be the easiest cos kun was at the esplanade the week before. ><"

come to think of it, i might have considered taking some of the shots differently. like the 'i was here' if i had shot it from ground lvl upwards, i could have produced vastly different effects and probably way much harder to guess.

oh well, better easy then hard i guess, fustration = not fun. oh well, at least he did consider for once that my wheelock shot could have been plaza sing due to the 'PL' and my shot of 'IS' got considered as pasir ris when its supposed to be bugis.

close, but not good enuff, i guess.

went drinking at a pub past midnight when plans to catch a movie at yangtze failed (some ppl jus have very wierd ideas). drank abit then went back to KO at the hotel.

not great, but its about being in the company of friends that makes the event special, i guess.

pcq was on sunday, got blown to bits... again. fairly gd deck got bashed to bits when i lost at least 3 games randomly. 1 was to a random call down lightning that replaced into a justice like lightning, exhausting an impt character for the win (try getting struck by lighting twice. not funny). one other was lost to a random hidden 1 drop that my opponent played on turn 8. it turned out crucial as if he didnt have that 1 more pt of atk, i would have won the game (1+15+2 pt plot twist vs 17 def and a 1 pt plot twist). ARGh.

the most fustrating game all day is still my 5th round, i think. turn 1 pass, he plays a 1 drop. turn 2 i play beast (1 drop), he plays natasha. turn 3 i pass, he plays another guy. turn 4 i pass, he plays mr hyde. turn 5, my init, i play monica rambeau, he plays hawkeye(avengers), then with the remaining resource pt, discard piledriver targetting my monica. i scooped the moment i realised that hawkeye stuns my beast, his mr hyde is 9/9, my monica ko's if she stuns. i cant tell u how annoyed i was, turn after turn my deck refuses to cough out characters. i ended up dying with cobolt man in my hand, not being able to fulfil the double loyalty requirement. (i kept the hand of beast, cobolt man and 2 plot twists figuring that with a teamup i can easily play the cobolt man shd i draw into any of the 5 thunderbolts 2-3 drops in my deck), drew into multiple 5's, 6's and 7's. go me.

there. missed top 8 ... again. ARGH.

will be a very busy week, alot of work. still got the unfinished project which i have less then 2 weeks to complete. oh dear, so much work, so little time. then again, i rather have the money and no time to spend it then the other way around.

-out-

Letters to my future self

11th aug - life, from a different perspective.

went photo hunting today. due to the limitations to the camera i borrowed, i had to change some of the angles a normal photo is taken. the results were much better then expected.

in fact, it makes me wonder, why havent i noticed such things before?

is life really so busy that we neglect all the things around us?

all it takes is to look at it differently. like they always say "2 sides to a coin"

got to revisit some of the places i havent been to in a really long time and in some instances, never been to before.

i enjoyed it, it made me quite happy but my legs very tired.

heh.
-out-

Letters to my future self

8th aug - major annoyance

just came back from raffles city. there was a golden age event at mart. i brought my one and only golden age deck, the very same one i've been playing since marvel origins - the long.deck. still sore about not being able to play with the new teamup card, which means i'll have to stick with the ol' vulnerable marvel teamup.

game 1 i had to play ryan. GLEE, not a gd matchup. he's got breaking grounds and chopping blocks which can hurt quite badly if he times them well. and i have tiny robots that are as big as his g'nort bonus. brr. fortunately, he misses his 3 AND 4 drop, which makes it easy for me to keep my board presence. in addition, i get my favourite opening hand - school + longshot. aimed his 2 breaking grounds on my schools on 2 occasions, but as luck will have it, i drew into replacements soon enough. cyclops put on the pressure, kelly to burn for the win.

game 2 i get to play s.orry (titans). woopi-doo. longshot turns up on turn 3, a tad too late. struggled abit before those damn titans beat my face in.

game 3 i played bernie (manhunter emperor). i get the school, longshot opening. he accelerates my draw with gravesite. cyclops beatings + kelly burn wraps up the game fairly quickly.

game 4 is dave(new gods BH burn). his burn deck vs mine. school, longshot opening. somewhere during the 3rd turn i get global dominated. bah. cyclops piled up pressure, nightvision ensured that he had no tricks that i wasnt aware of, allowing me to play around dodges, insignificant threats. eventually he gets scarlet witch in play, but i'm ahead with enough life to burn then crowd control for the win.

game 5 was the most annoying. was up against mark liew (GLEE again. sigh). had the school, longshot opening. but the deck refused to cough up the nightvisions. hand size dwindled. had 2 of my MTU's blown away. cerebro's only half working. ultimate sacrifices offline. he didnt play vey well thou. still the game almost ended immediately when he play remoni-notra. he Ko'ed most of my non sentinel guys, leaving me with the robots and kelly. that gave me a lifeline. i recon'ed the longshot back. on the 1st activation, i realised that i've already gone through the deck once. after some quick math, i activated a 2nd time for wild and kelly. i missed. through nightvisions, i saw that my top card was kelly. ARGH. if i had cerebro'ed 1st then called, i would have hit. Nooo.... i had to chiu jian and call before that. if not i would have won. hitting that kelly would meat at least 2 more activations, since i have 1 more recon program in hand. then i can safely put everyone behind for the crowd control.

ARGH... MAJOR ANNOYANCE.

this deck shouldnt be played so often, its very... erh... sore throat inducing. heh. note to self: to bring a notepad if i decide to ever play this in a tournment again.

on other matters, i got a call from station today. apparently i'm registered as a diploma holder and my name came up in the recent promotion excerise. kao, not funny at all. brought my poly transcript down to clear up some misunderstandings. WAH LAU EH, if i ever have to go back for 4 month, i'll so freaking kill myself.

anyways, i'll be quite tied up this week. working on 2, 3, 5 and 6. no complains thou, more work = good.

-out-

Letters to my future self

7th aug - an analogy

"eating out at east coast during the week end is like... trying to log onto an online game when all the servers are full. the 1st person who hits the enter key as soon as someone leaves gets the seat"

prob will be quite tied up with a project from... today onwards. dateline's quite tight, thats all i can say.

-out-

Letters to my future self

6th aug - broke

current financial status:

-150
-40
-50
-15
-2
-7.5

thats a deflict of over $200
ns pay wont be in until the 12th. part time pay wont be in until tomorrow.

on the lighter side of things, i did lend out some 180+, so come the 10th when he collects his pay, i could perhaps reclaim some of it back.

working on these buylists recently's making me really poor. in fact, quite poor beyond belief.

if it helps, i now have a 18cm stack of junk rares that i've been actively buying over the past week waiting to ship overseas. (omg, jus realised that thats over 600 rares, even at 50c per piece, thats over $300, and to think i paid more then 50c for at least 1/3 of them. no wonder i'm broke ><")

still, 1 week to fly over, 1 week to clear, 1 week from paypal out. enough time to grow a beard already. tsk.

still waiting for some stuff on ebay to clear, which brings on another worrying problem - what if i dont have enough money to ship the stuff overseas? argh.

oh boy.
-out-

Letters to my future self

1st aug - sneak peeking madness

sneak peeking here refers to going to the avengers prerelease, please do not mistake it or any sort of perverted activity. heh.

anyway, that was yesterday. blew a total of 40+35+35+35=145 on the event itself, which is worth it, i hope. some of the products which i got are currently listed on ebay, with some luck, these products will actually pay for the event itself. in other words, i'm playing for free.

the day itself wasnt so exciting thou, i didnt really get alot of the cards i wanted (which is ALOT) and due to the fact that i kept on joining, dropping and rejoining events, i didnt have alot of time for trading (which is bad). what was most annoying was that someone actually brought down a whole family of children, no doubt kids of his own relatives, to attend the last event, just to get more packs. after all in theory, its pretty much like buying packs at discounted prices. for each kid he brought, he got a tshirt, 5 participation boosters, 1 "you wore VS tshirt" booster and at least 3 boosters for finishing with 2 wins or less. thats 9 boosters and 1 tshirt for 40, profitable, i you ask me.

we were all jesting about hiring a bunch of banglas for the next sneak preview event. or even better, sent a whole platoon of ns men down.

i think they should somehow fix the prize system. like change it to: if you drop from an event, you are only eligible for booster prizes and not the "trade-in". this will prevent hordes of people from dropping from the event to get the playmats and the deckboxes.

this time also had alot of activity as compared to the green lantern event. the green lantern one had a total of 7 flights at the end of the day. this one went to 12. as a matter of fact, its supposed to start at 9, i got there at 9.15 and i had to sign up for the 4th flight ><"

Anyway with regards to work, this week, i'm exempted. not that i would like to, but i'm not scheduled. not at all, 7 days and not a single day. no doubt the pay is quite gd, but if i dont actually get to work, that isnt exactly going to finance anything. hopefully i'll get like 3-4 days of work next week, but we'll see how it goes. i hope it turns out for the better, if not i maybe forced to turn to other options with regards to employment.

alright, enough ranting for the day
-out-