This week’s Star Blog topic: “Tell us all about what happened on your last birthday.”

What I did for my birthday this year can be described in one sentence.

I had dinner with my closest friends at a restaurant and they gave me a birthday cake and present.

But we have a 400-word minimum for Star Blog, so I couldn’t stop there. I continued writing about my apathy towards birthdays.

I had actually written about 370 words when an unexpected voice at the back of my mind came hurtling through to the foreground, stunning me with an ugly truth.

I deleted everything I had written, then. In its place was another story that begged to be told.

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I didn’t take many photos on our second day of Genting because we kind of hung out at the casino all day and, as you know, photo-taking is not allowed inside.

But we took our first photo of the day outside our hotel room.

First World Hotel is a really crappy hotel. Well, okay, it’s clean and all, and it’s a lot better than it was two or three years ago. But it’s really bare and no-frills.

The lift lobby is quite nice, though. From the 23rd storey, we had an amazing view.

What’s baffling was the army of middle-aged Muslim women sitting along the corridors, outside doors, the first day we arrived.

As you can see from the photos, the corridor isn’t very wide.

Imagine about three or four well-nourished women sitting outside each door, leaning against the wall. Multiply that by about 20 or 50.

Nanny Wen’s and my room were located right at the end of our neverending corridor. I think there were about 200 rooms just on our corridor alone (and each floor has several corridors).

Why were these women lined up along the corridor of the 23rd storey? The Goonfather said they were having picnics like people have picnics along the corridors in our hospitals.

But they weren’t eating, duh. They didn’t make a lot of noise, either. Just very quiet chatting.

They were there for only a day.

We had complimentary breakfast at First World Hotel Cafe. It’s a HUGE dining hall. About three times the size of a wedding banquet room in Ritz Carlton Singapore.

It was really crowded, too, but we managed to find a little corner that was relatively quiet.

The whole place was basically chaotic. There were about seven or eight buffet segments spread out over the entire hall. Some had ready cooked food. Some had chefs cooking, like eggs and french toast.

Every segment had a long queue, especially the cooking ones. It took us like 15 or 20 minutes to get our food and settle down for our remarkably sloppy meal.

We had to check out after breakfast because we were going to stay at Resort Hotel for our second night. But check-out was 12pm while check-in was 3pm. So, we spent some time at Starbucks while waiting for lunch.

Starbucks was the only other place I could get a network connection. (The other place being the spa we went to the first night.)

I worked on my Star Blog assignment while the rest chattered away.

Resort Hotel is a lot more luxurious than First World Hotel, although not top of the line.

But after First World Hotel, Resort Hotel felt veritably five-star.

While First World had Starbucks, Resort had Coffeebean. My Internet needs were met for the whole trip!

I had a bit of a panic on Sunday night, though. Our Star Blog entries are supposed to be due in by Monday, 9 am, every week.

I usually work on it intermittently over the weekend, then on Sunday night, I would do the final edit and send it off before going to bed.

Coffeebean (with its free wireless) closes at 2 am. We returned to our hotel from the casino at 1:15 am. So I had 45 minutes left to do my final edit and send! (Sometimes, if I make changes, my final edit could take me three hours.)

Fortunately, I managed to finish everything with 10 minutes to spare.

Our room in Resort Hotel:

Very nice and comfortable room. Too bad we didn’t get to enjoy it much since we were out most of the time.

Nanny Wen being herself:

Final photos on final day:

After breakfast and a bit of playing at the casino, we checked out and hopped into our car and drove to KL for dinner.

I didn’t take anymore photos for the rest of the day because I was sick of taking photos. Sometimes it happens.

We reached Singapore around 1 am. Tired but happy!

I kind of enjoy Scrabble but I usually avoid playing it because I am too impatient a person to stare at jumbles of letters for extended periods of time trying to make highest-scoring words.

Once I find a word, I’m often too lazy to think of alternatives, which, of course, makes me an attractive candidate for the Scrabble Hall of Shame.

But the funny thing about me is that, no matter how little interest I have in a particular activity, when its served up in the form of a video game, I will instantly like it more.

For example, I have no interest in slashing evil villains’ faces into ribbons using clawlike protrusions coming out my hands in real life, but I really enjoyed doing that on the Xbox 360.

That being said, I was really thrilled to receive a copy of Scrabble Interactive: 2009 Edition for the PC.

I enjoyed the tutorial. It took about three hours. Longest tutorial ever I played.

But it’s fun because it’s presented in the form of a progressive challenge. It comes with a cheesy storyline, with references to Egyptian mythology and all, but it’s acceptable in the grand scheme of things, if you try not to be too picky in general.

The tutorial not only teaches the rules of the game, but also imparts basic tactics for becoming a better Scrabble player. You also learn the UI and controls, so try not to skip the tute.

One thing I love and hate about the PC game version of Scrabble is the Mentor feature.

You can click on it any time and it will show you a list of all possible words you can form, with scoring, even. So, basically, you can just cheat your way through a game and get genius-grade scores.

I love it because I’m lazy to think up my own words, remember. But I also hate it because games stop being fun when you get to cheat.

I hate that the temptation is there. You can’t help succumbing to it, especially when you have cheater PC opponents who of course know the best words to form because they’re the computer.

But never mind all that. It’s Scrabble. Either you like it or you don’t.

What you want to know is that Scrabble Interactive: 2009 Edition offers several different variations to the classic game, with two of them being brand new over the 2007 Edition.

Here’s a look at the bonus modes:

Duplication

This variation of Scrabble is used in actual tournaments. Basically, it removes the chance portion of the game and tests players only in skill.

Every player gets the exact same letters in every round. Each forms a word and receives the scores earned for the word. The highest-scoring word gets placed on the board and the game continues, with everyone receiving a duplicating fresh set of tiles.

Tempest (New)

Each player receives a random set of action cards which they can play before each round to modify the game. For instance, you might play a card that forces your opponent to use only three tiles maximum in that round. Or you might have a card that steals your opponent’s points for the round.

Srabble Hold’Em (New)

This mode adapts the rules of the popular Texas Hold’em poker game. Each player gets two tiles and the table gets five shared tiles. Bets go around the table as each shared tile is opened. At the end of it, the person who forms the highest-scoring word from the personal and shared tiles wins the pot.

Anagrams

This is a training mode. You’re given a bunch of letters and you have to form as many words (using all the letters) as possible within five minutes.

Escaletters

Another training mode. First you get three letters. You form a word. Then you get the same three letters plus one. You form another word. Then you get the same four letters plus one. You form yet another word.

You get the picture.

Puzzletters

This is kind of like Boggle except with more letters to choose from and the letters you use get, well, used up.

Besides these variants, the PC version of Scrabble Interactive 09 also allows multiplayer via LAN and Internet.

For some reason, I wasn’t able to log in to the server to play. There was some network connection error. I was quite relieved at that, to be honest.

I’m not sure I want to advertise my Scrabble Hall of Shame candidacy to the world.

On the whole, I think Scrabble and word lovers will enjoy this game. It’s kind of hard to find physical people to play board games with in this day and age, so people need to turn to a computer game to satisfy the occasional wordsmith craving.

I prefer the bonus variations to the classic game. They’re less stressful, therefore more fun!

Scrabble Interactive: 2009 Edition is available for PC, Wii and DS.

I’ve been kinda dreading blogging recently.

Maybe I’m a little burnt out, or maybe I’ve been spending too much time playing stupid Facebook games.

I just feel a kind of stuckness in my mind. Kind of like when Professor Xavier (from X-Men) has his telepathic abilities blocked by his enemies.

Except that my enemy is probably just my own mind.

Or maybe it’s the Facebook games. I think they’re making me stupid.

But, at the same time, I’ve been playing CSI: Deadly Intent. I can’t be that stupid if I managed to complete the game. I’ve completed all five cases in the game and I feel slightly smarter for it.

Unfortunately, smarts have nothing to do with blogging. People want to read interesting, engaging content and not necessarily smart ones.

So, how do I make my mind think interesting, engaging thoughts again?

The problem is, sometimes, I think people don’t really want to read. They just want to see photos, as evidenced by the fact that readers often leave comments asking questions which answers can be easily found in the text.

My life as a blogger would be so much easier if I could just turn my blog into a photo gallery and just post photos without having to work on writing interesting content.

Maybe I shall try that.

What do you think?

People perceive me as stuck up when they first meet me.

I think I give out that vibe because of my shyness and because I’m always lost in thoughts, in my own world.

(I can’t really help it. The thoughts come unbidden and I’m suddenly drawn into another reality in my mind.)

Other than that, I couldn’t be sure what people think of me, so I decided to ask.

I sent out messages through various social media channels asking people to tell me what their perceptions of me were. I received a huge load of replies from various categories of people.

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