Stupid conversation between the Goonfather and myself.

We were in the car, driving out to dinner, when he asked for a piece of tissue paper. In my usual clumsy way, I accidentally pulled out two pieces instead of one. I blamed him because it’s fun to blame the Goonfather.

“See lah!! You made me pull out two pieces!” I said.

Of course, blaming people doesn’t solve problems, so I considered my options.

Use the extra piece myself? Don’t need it.

Stuff it back into the packet? Feels a bit unhygenic.

Make a tissue hat for the Goonfather to wear? Naaah.

My best solution, I decided, was to pass the problem on to the Goonfather. Haha!

“I’m going to put the extra piece in your pocket,” I said. “You can use it to wipe your mouth after dinner.”

But as I was about to stuff the tissue into his shirt pocket, I noticed that he had some dollar notes sitting inside.

“Argh, I can’t put the tissue in here. You have money inside.”

“What’s wrong with money in my pocket?”

“Money is dirty,” I informed him.

“…,” he said.

“If the tissue paper touches your money, it will become dirty, too.”

“Why is money dirty?” he wanted to know.

“Cos it gets passed around from person to person so you don’t know where it’s been. I’ve been taught since young to always wash my hands after handling money.”

The Goonfather was speechless for a moment, so I pressed on.

“If you rub the tissue and money together, then you wipe your mouth with the tissue, it’ll be like wiping your mouth with money. You wouldn’t wipe your mouth with money, would you?”

“I wouldn’t wipe my mouth with money because I couldn’t afford it,” the Goonfather said. “People say money is dirty because they can’t afford to use money as tissue paper.”

The conversation had taken a ridiculous turn and I didn’t even know what I was arguing anymore.

I said, “But even if you could afford to wipe your mouth with money, you wouldn’t!! Paris Hilton wouldn’t wipe her mouth with money.”

“That’s because money is too cheap for her to wipe her mouth with,” was his explanation.

“But it’s not a matter of price. Nobody, no matter how rich or how poor, will use money to wipe their mouths.”

“That’s because poor people can’t afford to and rich people can’t be bothered to.”

“But it’s not about money! It’s about hygiene. And practicality! Money isn’t even absorbent. Would you wipe your mouth with a gold bar?”

“I would if I had gold bars sitting around.”

“Why would you use gold bars to wipe your mouth when tissue paper is better?!”

“Because I can afford to.”

“How the hell do you even wipe your mouth with a gold bar in the first place?”

“I’ll mash it all over my face and lick it.”

“YOU ARE DAMN DISGUSTING!!”

I put the loose tissue paper into my bag, which was probably about as hygenic as putting it into the Goonfather’s pocket.

Finally, the tissue paper was used to soak up spilled water at the dinner table before we even started eating, much less encounter the need to wipe our mouths.

So, in the end, all that trouble was for nought.

Categories: Regular Blogs
19 Comments »

I’m not giving away hamsters, of course. What I’m giving away are my hamster stuff because I don’t have time to keep hamsters anymore.

So I’m doing a giveaway contest for everyone to have fun and win stuff! Let’s have a look at the prizes.

The Prizes

They are mostly brand new. Some have never been used. Those that have, have only been used for two months and have been thoroughly cleaned, so they’re good as new!

#1 Pink Princess Castle

#2 Cosy hamster cottage

#3 Hamster house and bathroom

#4 Hamster wheel

#5 Hamster bed with cooling pad

#6 Hamster couch with cooling pad

#7 Hamster bathroom

#8 S.A.M. feeder

#9 Capsule hamster bathtub

#10 Cardboard playpen

#11 Cardboard playpen

#12 Mini food dish

#13 Grow Your Own Grass (hamster food)

#14 Hamster ball

#15 Feeding bottle

#16 S.A.M. elbow tube (x2)

#17 Wood carrot chew toy (x2)

How The Contest Works

Perform easy actions and get credits! Each credit you earn gives you one chance to win. A lucky draw will be conducted at the end of the contest. As long as you have one credit, you’re in the running for a prize. But get as many credits as you can to improve your chances of winning!

Simple Rules

1. Use the same name and e-mail address for all the actions you perform so I can keep proper track of your credits.
2. E-mail all entries (or questions) to hamster@sheylara.com.
3. People living outside of Singapore can take part and win! (You just can’t win the Pink Princess Castle, unless you’re willing to pay for shipping).

Ways To Earn Credits

1. Post a comment here saying “Sign me up!”. (1 credit)
2. Write a post on your blog about this contest, linking to this page. E-mail me the post URL when it’s done. (5 credits)
3. Ask your friends (who are not taking part) to write a post on their blogs about this contest. E-mail me the post URL when it’s done and remember to say your name so I know who to give the credits to. (5 credits per post)
4. Put me on your blogroll or links page. E-mail me the URL when you’re done. (3 credits)
5. Participate in the daily banner contest. (1-3 credits per day)

Daily Banner Contest

1. Every day, you will see a different question on the contest banner on my blog’s side bar.
2. Each question will be displayed for 24 hours, so check back every day to see a new question.
3. Write your answer and hold on to it.
4. There will be 20 questions in total.
5. At the end of it, e-mail me all the answers you’ve collected.
6. You don’t have to answer all questions, but more questions answered means more credits!

The first question will appear on April 17, 2008. Remember to check every day to get the daily question! Once a question is gone, it won’t be shown again!

Prize Collection

1. Winners will be notified by e-mail.
2. For people living in Singapore, I will specify a time and place for everyone to collect your prizes.
3. For people living outside of Singapore, I will mail the prize to you, but allow 6-10 weeks for shipping.

That’s all! It’s very simple! Sign up now, tell all your friends and win some really cute hamster stuff!

Start earning credits now!

*The contest is over! Thank you all for your participation!*

Categories: Hamster Tales
87 Comments »

The best time to write a food post is when you’re hungry.

Drool over your own photos, salivate at your words, die of hunger at your own hands.

Totally evil and masochistic.

So, today, I’m drooling over something which was already famous before I was born. (Really.)

It’s the Clementi Road Paper-Wrapped Chicken!

It doesn’t look very appetising in the picture but I assure you it tastes great. The bite-size chicken pieces are all tender and juicy as hell.

This delicacy can be found at a place called Union Farm Eating House, which serves a wide range of Chinese food. But everyone goes there mainly to eat the paper-wrapped chicken.

You’ll love the surroundings. It’s an old, rickety building sitting on a piece of kampong land boasting overgrown grass and granite pebbles that threaten to trip high-heeled ladies.

As you sit at your table waiting for your meal, you’ll be entertained by a neverending series of disturbing noises that sound like a cross between a baby crying and pigs in heat.

It is the sound of chickens getting slaughtered for your meal. Apparently.

That’s a bit sick but you’ll learn to tune out the sound and look forward to having a very, very fresh meal.

We also ordered this:

Super must-try sotong balls.

Very solid, very juicy, very tasty. But you must eat it while its hot before it loses its oomph.

I didn’t eat it right away, you see. While my friends were oohing and aahing and omg-ing about how the juice spurts out when you bite into each ball, I was busy photographing my food.

When I finally had time to take a bite, my response was, “So nice meh? Siao lah, you all. Normal only wat.”

And then they all started throwing peanuts and napkins at me.

“YOU MUST EAT IT WHILE IT’S HOT YOU DODO!!!”

Tsk tsk. Such violent friends have I.

Union Farm Eating House is at 435A Clementi Road. (It’s just beside the Singapore Institute of Management and very easy to find.)

Categories: Food Files
18 Comments »

Like, I should never have brought the Goonfather to the ballet.

More accurately, I should not have let Morte come along, too. When the two of them get together, it’s like the Morning Express on Class 95 on crack.

Sure, sometimes it’s very entertaining. But sometimes you just want to clobber them senseless with a rolling pin.

I’ll talk more about that later, but I want to talk about the ballet under the stars experience first!

We arrived about two hours before the performance. Fort Canning Park was already packed with picnickers.

Okay, it’s not that packed. You should see the place at 7:30 pm!

I should have taken another photo at 7:30 pm from the same angle for comparison but I didn’t because I was by then comfortably seated. And I had taken off my 10-minute boots and just didn’t feel like getting off my butt.

My 10-minute boots are so called because it takes me 10 minutes to put them on and 10 minutes to take them off because they have shoelaces and buckles.

Yes, I know I shouldn’t have been wearing boots to a picnic but they are also my rainy-day boots and it had rained earlier in the day and we had gone to attend some other event before coming to this one.

Back to Fort Canning Park!

I got us an almost-centre spot which was right in the middle of the park, lengthwise and breadthwise.

The stage design is pretty!

We were told that it was designed to blend into the natural environment seamlessly, so the sides of the stage end where real trees begin.

But you can’t ever escape the skyscrapers in Singapore!

Hahaha!

Can you see the two sneaky skyscrapers peeking above the trees on the right side?

I tried my best to ignore them and use my leet powers of imagination to immerse myself into the woodsy surroundings.

We were at Fort Canning Park to watch Giselle in the Park, an outdoor ballet performance by the Singapore Dance Theatre.

The Goonfather, Morte and Wang Wang had gone away for a smoke break, leaving me all alone (again!) so I decided to shoot myself.

In a friendly way, of course.

I think the picnickers behind me and the cheery green grass provide a very nice backdrop for my photo!

Okay, more photos later. Remember this one. There will be even more picnickers behind me later!

It was a really hot day (even if it doesn’t look like it). I think the earlier rain just made it worse. So it was hot and humid and there was not the tiniest breeze to be felt.

The Goonfather made me get him a beer at the makeshift drinks stall set up by the side of the park. What a tyrant!!

I did it anyway, because it was the least I could do for making him watch ballet.

This is the Goonfather pouring out his precious $4.50 beer:

And this is the Goonfather using his shoe as a cupholder.

He is damn disgusting lah!

This was quite a last minute outing, so we didn’t have time to prepare a real picnic. We dabao’ed food on the way. (”Dabao” is Chinese for “takeaway”.)

Roasted sweet potato!

Donuts from Donut Factory!

Taiwanese-style chicken cutlet!

Batter-fried mushrooms!

Bak kwa!!!!

I know it is freaking weird to bring bak kwa to a picnic. But I don’t care. I love bak kwa!!!

This is Bee Cheng Hiang’s gourmet-minced fusion. It’s the best, even if it doesn’t look it. But don’t blame the bak kwa, blame my photography. It’s a bit hard to photograph something sitting in a paper bag.

While we were digging into our impromptu picnic, I made everyone pose for photos.

You can tell the Goonfather really loves having his picture taken.

Me and Wang Wang.

Me and the Goonfather.

Again.

Anyway, after a lot of tomfoolery, the sky darkened and it was almost time for the ballet to start.

Check out the crowd now!!!

And that’s only behind me!

On one side of me:

In front of me:

Just me!

Me me me!

Then it was finally dark and the stage lit up!

And people clapped and sat up anticipatingly.

And the Goonfather said, “Yay! Can I go home now?”

I glared at him and boffed him on the head with the now-empty donut box.

“Be a good boy and watch quietly,” I told him.

And then it started!

What a sweet performance! Giselle in the Park is about peasant girl Giselle getting woo’ed by a nobleman, who sneakily disguised himself as a peasant in order to woo Giselle, despite already being betrothed to a Duke’s daughter.

Men can be such bastards.

When the male lead dancer bounded onto stage, my good friend Morte, silent until now, cleared his throat and said, “He put tissue paper in his pants.”

Then he and the Goonfather started whispering to each other. And then the sniggerings started.

I suppose I should be glad the boys were enjoying the ballet.

I thought the performance and everything around it was beautiful. I looked up in the sky to see if I could find any stars.

Hmm. Quite a starless night. Oh, there’s one tiny one in the right corner!

Oh, wait, that’s a speck of dust on my monitor.

Next!

In the middle of a scene when Giselle’s old, worried mother is telling the villagers how spurned young maidens who die become venging spirits called wilis, the Goonfather leaned towards me and whispered in my ear.

“You want me to tell you the story?”

I rolled my eyes but decided to humour him.

“Okay,” I said.

“So, this old woman is jealous of Giselle because she’s younger and more beautiful. She’s going to kill Giselle by feeding her a poisoned apple. So Giselle eats the apple and dies and later the prince comes and kisses her and she wakes up and they live happily ever after.”

“…”

Next!

Anyway, Giselle does die but not because of stupid poisoned apples. (By the way, there are no such thing as spoilers in ballets, apparently. They tell you the whole story before the show starts.)

So Giselle dies of grief (she literally dances herself to death, stupid woman) after finding out that her lover is a two-timing cheating bastard. And she becomes a wili!

She gets inducted into the wili sorority.

We were now into the second act of the show and I was genuinely surprised that the Goonfather and Morte didn’t sneak off during intermission to go get a beer at a nearby pub.

They made their way back to our picnic mat after their smoke break.

Bravo!

I suppose they did enjoy the ballet. They would sporadically whisper smartarse comments to each other and snigger themselves silly.

In the middle of a wili dance, Morte told the Goonfather, “Jennifer cannot be a ballet dancer. Her pedicure all gone.”

(Jennifer is our manicure-loving friend who sometimes appears on my blog as Minou.)

And then, snigger snigger snigger.

To their credit, they did it quite inconspicuously, without disturbing people around us (much). Sitting beside them, I couldn’t even hear what they said and sometimes I had to ask the Goonfather to tell me what’s so damned funny.

The sky got very cloudy during the second act.

It was weird! I took another photo of the sky to compare with the first one.

First photo (during first act):

Second photo (during second act):

The sky had brightened considerably.

It’s a little freaky how the sky complemented the performance. The first act revolved around the sweet love story of the two young lovers. At that time, the sky was clear and dark, with just a few stars twinkling.

The second act was about the wilis taking revenge on heartless men. At the start of the seond act, dark clouds started gathering in the sky, casting an ominous glow over us.

Weird shit.

I preferred the first act. I felt a little cheated by the sky. My Ballet under the Stars become Ballet under the Clouds!

The SDT building looks really pretty at night, all lit up!

Very conducive for sleeping.

Okay, I must admit that, while I love ballet and appreciate the beauty and grace of it, I find sitting through a long performance a little overwhelming.

You can tell by how I was looking around, giggling at sleeping people, admiring beautiful lit buildings and studying the sky, instead of looking where I was supposed to.

The performance lasted about two hours. Or maybe 90 minutes. Can’t really remember.

But I wouldn’t mind going for ballet under the stars again because the experience is nice and the picnic is fun. But I don’t think I will watch ballet in a traditional theatre (unless they have 20-minute performances).

And I certainly won’t bring the Goonfather and Morte together!!

Oh, yes. Thanks are in order to Nic (again!) for the tickets!! (Nic is my de facto ticket supplier for all cool events. Haha.)

Luckily for Nic, he was sitting elsewhere and wasn’t subject to the rubbish of Morte and the Goonfather.

It was a fun outing. If you’re interested, check out the SDT website for coming performances!

Categories: Regular Blogs
23 Comments »

This is the second part of my preview of the 10 most anticipated games coming out on the Xbox 360 this year.

The first part can be read here.

All the games were shown to us at the Xbox 360’s 2nd birthday party at The Screening Room on April 3rd. Well, some only had trailers because the games weren’t done being developed. But here’s a peek at the stuff we were shown.

Alone in the Dark

More gory zombie slasher survival thriller goodness coming your way!

It seems a common enough theme in games for heroes to wake up disoriented in an eerie, perhaps threatening, environment, posing a challenge to the player to figure out what’s happening and to get the hell out of there.

But Alone in the Dark has the privilege of being a pioneer in the survival horror genre (first released for the PC in 1992), so you can’t exactly accuse it of being unoriginal.

This remake has some potential stuff to look forward to, not the least of which is the episodic treatment of the game. It’s made to look like a TV series, with each episode unfolding just like a TV drama complete with recaps and plot synopses.

There is a lot more interactivity. You can pick up just about anything that’s sitting around and use it like you might in the real world. You can even combine items to help you get through obstacles. Brains and logic count for a lot in this game.

For instance, you could grab a coffee maker and beat a zombie over the head with it. Okay, that’s a no-brainer, but I mentioned that because that’s what you’ll get to see in this funny video. I filmed it as an Atari representative played game for us.

It’s hilarious how the crazy zombie wretch just refuses to die. Watch it to the end. I promise you you won’t regret it.

Alone in the Dark releases on June 24, 2008.

Official site on Atari.com.

===================================================

Mirror’s Edge

I like this one. We were shown a CG trailer highlighting the plot and special features, and I hope the game will be as good as the trailer looks. (Sorry, we’re not allowed to share the trailer.)

The protaganist is Faith (that will be you), a spunky neo-Asian chick who works as a courier in a sterile city set in the future.

She’s no ordinary courier, wouldn’t you know. Faith is faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Oh, wait. That’s the wrong superhero.

But she sure does kick ass, all the same. And her mode of transport is leaping tall buildings. Really.

Because the government monitors everything that goes on in the city and strictly controls the flow of information, there is a need for talented, gravity-defying individuals to courier sensitive information above the prying eyes of the government.

Yes, if you can leap from rooftop to rooftop, you can make a bid for Faith’s job.

So you get to do Matrix-like stuff in the game as you go about your business. You grab objects on the fly to use as weapons to help you overcome obstacles. According to the developers, the game is not about brute force. It’s about outhinking the man behind the gun.

The game camera is free-flowing in the sense that it follows your movement more realistically than most other first-person games. Real-time momentum is built in, like, you can’t come to a sudden halt in the middle of a sprint. And you will actually feel woozy when looking down or leaping off tall buildings. Unless you’re a daredevil with no heart.

Mirror’s Edge releases late 2008.

Official site on Mirror’s Edge.

===================================================

Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon

So, like, the tables are turned and the human race gets obliterated by a retro disco-era zen alien going by the name of Crypto.

In the words of the trailer: “To attain enlightenment, you must expand your mind, master time and space and blow the living crap out of everything.”

Sounds like everything you ever wanted to do, doesn’t it, you sicko? Especially since you get to destroy all humans, as the title of the game strongly suggests.

What the heck, this brand new exclusive trailer says it all:

Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon releases May 16 (UK, Australia) and September 15 (USA), 2008.

Official site on Destroy All Humans.

===================================================

FaceBreaker

Personally, it’s kinda worrying to me that there’s an actual sport revolving around beating people’s faces in. But if that’s what people like to do for leisure, who am I to object?

FaceBreaker takes arcade boxing up a whole new level with real-time facial deformation.

Yes, it’s not enough for people to see cars getting pounded in and smashed up in racing sims. People want to see people get pounded in and smashed up now. Oh, and let’s top it off with a cherry, why don’t we.

Put your photo on your avatar. Put your worst enemy’s photo on your opponent’s avatar. Uh huh.

We were told that your photo will get 3D’ed nicely so your boxing avatars will look just like you and your good friend, Billy Wanna Get Punched In The Face.

How about that?

Official site on EA Sports.

===================================================

UEFA EURO 2008

You can probably tell that I know nothing about sports or sports games, so I’m naturally biased and won’t be talking at length about this title. Haha. That’s just how it is, unfortunately.

All I can say is that the developers promise highly authentic stadiums and teams. And the game interface has been made easier for casual players to get into it.

Die-hard fans can check out the Be A Pro mode, in which you zero in on one particular player and develop his career from scratch.

Oh, and there’s this cool feature you can invoke when you score a goal. It’s called a celebration scene, during which you can make the scoring player perform celebratory dances while your enemy watches. And you can do it as much as you want, disrupting the game for as long as you want, to really rile your opponent.

Coolness! I like that, even if I won’t play this game.

UEFA EURO 2008 releases on April 11 (Europe) and May 19 (USA), 2008

Preorder is available here.
Official site on EA Sports.

===================================================

That’s all for upcoming games this period. If you liked my previews, tell me and I might do more. If you didn’t like them, what the heck, I still might do more because I like playing games and talking about them. So there.

Categories: Gaming Notebook, Regular Blogs
12 Comments »