Once again, my job takes me to the most unlikely of places. Who woulda thought there could be creepy tunnels in clean, green, sterile Singapore?

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Ok, maybe you’ve known about them all along. I’m ignorant, can?

Anyway, the tunnels are located in Labrodor Park. Who the hell even goes there?

The Goonfather said that the only people who go there are DOMs. (You can take up a case with him if you go there and you’re not a DOM.)

It was 7:50am. He had driven me there for my shoot before going to work himself. I was supposed to meet the film crew at the Labrador Park carpark but I was 10 minutes early and they weren’t there yet.

The Goonfather said he couldn’t leave me there to wait alone because I might get harassed or something.

I said, “It’s bright and early in the morning. Who’s going to harass me?”

“It’s dangerous here,” he said.

“There’s no one here!”

“Exactly.”

“…”

“See there… and there,” he pointed to several empty carpark lots.

Crumpled, used tissues littered the empty lots.

Took a few seconds for me to register the significance.

“Are they… does that mean…?”

“Yes.”

“But… nobody’s gonna come here in the morning to… er… use tissues,” I argued.

“It’s dangerous,” he repeated.

I decided to leave it at that and allow him to wait with me.

Of course, my first impression of Labrador Park was: Gross! Why the hell are we filming in this creepy ulu pandan place?”

Second impression (after a couple hours): Cool! Got secret tunnels!

No used tissues of dubious origins in the tunnels. Phew.

Anyway, for those who are as suaku (frog in the well) as me, the Labrador Secret Tunnels were built in the 1880s (I dunno what for) and were used by soldiers during the World War II (to store ammunition or hide in or whatever). After the war, the tunnels were forgotten and covered by vegetation.

Park officials discovered them in 2001 and, now, they’ve become a tourist attraction and you need to pay money to check them out. I didn’t have to pay because I was filming in there. Haha.

Of course, we didn’t have the benefit of a guided tour nor were we treated to creepy stories of death and destruction in the tunnels, but it was pretty cool just exploring the place.

Despite the many lamps lighting the way, the tunnels are quite dark and scary. I wouldn’t dare to wander in there all alone. And it didn’t help that our producer told us he could feel certain “presences” every time he walked past a specific spot in the tunnels.

Some discoveries are better kept to yourself, you know?!

Here’s a picture taken with flash so you can at least see what a tunnel looks like.

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The place smelled really musty and dusty. It was claustrophobic and creepy. I can’t imagine how the soldiers must have felt at the time with war and destruction raging about just outside of them, always fearful that the tunnels would cave in on them should a bomb locate them.

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All the destruction in the tunnels caused by the war have been preserved, complete with stone debris and fallen planks.

There was also this scary, dark room with a few display cases showing genuine shell fragments and such.

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Keep in mind that the whole damn place was really dark and the only light source was a small handful of gloomy yellow lamps. (They just don’t look dark in my photos because I have to use camera flash to capture anything at all.) Some pockets of areas were so dark we had to use torchlights to see where we were going.

There was a room with newspaper articles published during wartime.

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Cool!

We also met some “soldiers”.

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They were, of course, fake people. Not sure if the “props” are authentic. I didn’t have time to read the plaque or examine the installation.

Interesting as the tunnels were, it was good to surface in the sunlight again after being stuck in a dark, dank dungeon for an hour or so.

This is the entrance to the tunnels.

Doesn’t look that creepy from the outside.

What a cool place. I love my job!

It seems that I’m recognised as a gamer more than I’m recognised as an actress because I keep getting interview requests as a gamer, but no one ever wants to interview me as an actress.

The media loves Sheylara the gamer but doesn’t give a hoot about Qiaoyun the actress. *sob*

Some time back, I was interviewed by The Straits Times and Playworks magazine as a gamer. Recently, I was interviewed for a TV programme about gaming. It’s not out yet, though. Will update when it is.

For part of the interview, the TV crew invited itself to one of my Wii parties.

I wish they could have focused more on me as an MMORPG gamer because that’s really my main passion. But I guess it’s more visually exciting to watch someone prance around with a Wiimote than to watch someone stare at a computer screen.

So I invited my friends over and ordered tons of delicious junk food.

Major droolage! Fuel up for the coming major exertion!

Except that the boys were really boring and chose not to exert themselves, preferring to sit on their lazy bums to play Monkey Ball.

I can imagine they’d be lying down on the sofa to play less intensive games like, say, Ridge Racer, on the PS3.

They were asked to ham it up a little for the camera crew.

So they put on bigger smiles.

dotdotdot.

Anyway, the main event was the interview.

I had to answer many questions, some of which were about my personal gaming experiences, while others were commentary-type questions that made me feel like I was doing a GP essay.

This is my “Waiting for them to Finish Setting Up the Lights” look:

“Animatedly Answering a Question” look:

“Are You Taking My Photograph?” look:

Through the director’s monitor:

I don’t really like being interviewed, actually. Especially on video. I take a long time to come up with good answers. I’m not very good at talking, preferring to write.

Anyway, the ordeal ended and the camera crew left and we played Mario Party 8! We had to take turns because that game only accommodates four players.

I can’t remember why I was grimacing and why Wang Wang and Minou were looking at me grimacing. But I think I grimace a lot when playing the Wii. I scream and giggle a lot, too.

Maybe that’s why I won the girls vs. girls match. I think the girls were unnerved by my periodic hysterics.

When we played, the boys ate. When the boys played, we ate!

Such decadence. Such fun!

I sold my Wii after this party because I simply don’t have time to play it anymore and, like I said, my main passion is in MMORPG. So the money I got back from the Wii sale will finance my new graphics card! Wheee!!

But I hope we can still have Wii parties in the future. My Wii was sold to Minou and Kerrendor, hehe. And two other couples in our group have Wii, too. *hint*

A big wet smoochy thank you to Wang Wang and Morte for letting us crash at your place, and to all my friends for the fun!

You’ve all heard the phrase “bad hair day”. Maybe even used it yourself.

But have you experienced a bad face day? And I don’t mean like when you have a giant zit blossom overnight right in the middle of your nose. I mean like everything seems normal but you just feel that you don’t look right.

I get a bad face day once in a while.

The other day, The Goonfather was driving me to a wardrobe-fitting session. I made some finishing touches to my makeup while sitting in the car (usually do that to save time). Fiddling with lipstick and gloss, I dabbed and blotted and dabbed and blotted and dabbed.

Finally, I gave my verdict. “I’m having a bad face day,” I told the Goonfather.

“What’s that?” he said, keeping his eyes on the road like the good driver that he isn’t.

“You know, like bad hair day? Except that what I’m having is a bad face day.”

He pulled his eyes off the road for two seconds to examine my face.

“You look great as always.”

“No I don’t. I’m having a bad face day.”

He didn’t argue back but shrewdly decided to go back to being fascinated with the road.

I continued frowning at myself in the car mirror.

Well, I don’t know, it just happens. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I think I look great. The next day, I do everything the same. Same makeup, same hairdo. But I look in the mirror and I think I look like shit. Something is wrong but I can’t pinpoint it. And I can’t make it right no matter how I try to fix my makeup.

And I don’t think it’s the makeup, anyway. I think it’s me. So I conclude that when something like that happens, it means I’m having a bad face day.

Or maybe what I have is a borderline personality disorder.

Who knows.

Have you ever had a bad face day?

Last week, I brought The Goonfather to Superdog at VivoCity because I had tried it once and loved it. The Ripper hotdog was crunchy and juicy. The bun was crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The sauce was yummy.

But my second trip turned out quite disastrous.

1. We were overcharged because the counter girl thought she was damn smart.

   We had used two discounted-meal coupons in our order. We also ordered two individual items. But the counter girl didn’t key in the items as that. She split up the items in the discounted meals and keyed in everything individually.

   The Goonfather told her that the tally wasn’t right because of that. She insisted she was correct. They had a ten-minute discussion which I didn’t hear because I was waiting at the seating area. Finally, he gave up arguging and sat down to work out the sums.

   After a while, he figured it out and brought the receipt back to explain. The manager said he would check it out. It took a few of the staff 30 minutes to discuss and check, after which they came back and refunded us $1. *lol*

2. They used the wrong bun on the wrong hotdog.

   We ordered a Spicy Italian and a Ripper. The menu specifies that the Spicy Italian comes in a soft bun. And I know the Ripper comes in a toasted bun.

   When our order arrived, the Spicy Italian was in toasted bun.

   

   The Ripper was in a soft bun.

   

   Both wrong.

   I know the hotdogs actually look quite delicious in the pictures. But read on.

3. The Spicy Italian was charred and didn’t taste good. It was dry and tasteless.
4. The toasted bun was dry and hard throughout, unlike the first time I had tried it.
5. The Ripper tasted wrong. It wasn’t crispy, crunchy and juicy like the last time. It tasted more like cheap canned hotdog.
6. The Ripper’s bun was coated with sauce when it came. By the time I was done with my meal, my fingers were disgustingly sticky. Aren’t they supposed to put sauce on the dog and not on the bun? (On the plus side, the sauce still tasted as good as before. Haha.)

   

I’m totally mystified. How could things get so bad so fast? Perhaps it was “one of those days” for the restaurant.

We also had a burger, which was quite nice but not spectacular.

But our overall experience was disappointing. After my first time, I had thought I’d found another nice fast food which isn’t too expensive. I love fast food and was looking forward to becoming a regular customer.

But after this round, The Goonfather swore he would never step back there again. Haha.

Oh, well. There’s always McDonald’s.

Introducing… my beloved precious huggalicious brand new gaming rig!

I bought:

Motherboard: Asus P5KR Raid/GBE/DDR2 1066/1333FSB/Sound
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66GHZ 1333FSB/4MB L2)
Power Supply: Coolermaster Real Power 450W
RAM: PC 6400 Kingston HyperX DDR2 800 1GB (2 pieces)
Hard Disk: WD3200AAKS 320GB- KS/16M SATA II (2 pieces)
DVD Reader/Writer: Samsung 20XDVD-RW SH-S202J IDE
Casing: Coolermaster Elite RC-330-KWN1-GP
Keyboard+Mouse: Microsoft Desktop 500 (Black)

Total damage: $1305 (including 2 fans)

Because I’m only playing World of Warcraft now, The Goonfather said I shouldn’t buy a graphics card, since any old lousy card is good enough for WoW.

I will buy a GeForce 8800 GTS when I tire of WoW and want to return to EQ2, or when Warhammer Online comes out next year.

And then I’ll also buy my dream keyboard and mouse!

Microsoft Reclusa.

Microsoft Habu.

Both were created by Razer specifically for gaming. They’re like $120. Each.

But they’re sooooooooooo pretty and they have blue backlights! Matches my whole setup. I have a black LCD monitor and black speakers. All black and shiny!

With blue beng lights all over.

My beautiful fan. (The other one is on the other side of the casing.)

Oh my gosh, beautiful, beautiful innards behind a see-through casing!

I could hug my computer to sleep!