Musings of a Daydreaming Wanderer

Yes, the procrastinatic side of me has struck again. Been busy these few weeks with a video for the incoming Air Defence Brigade Commander (how I got this task is a LONG story. To summarize, I’m under my squadron’s RSM’s charge), and another 2 video clips (Kujarra II and Cohesion) for ADB Commander’s visit to my squadron. Its damn easy to burnout myself doing these…I’ve never done 3 video clips straight in a row. Thankfully I’m still sane, except for a little fever last week and this week, blocked nose. Sigh.

I’m almost broke, thanks in no part to the amount of money I spend on gashapons every weekend. Being broke makes you think differently. Transportation fare is a killer, I realize. Not to mention the cost of food ordered during guard duty. Next month there’s a combat shoot, and hopefully I’ll get the extra $200 again for marksmanship. Looks like its back to intensive Ghost Squad sessions after payday next month.

Here I go again, 3 weeks without anything to write about. Not that I have nothing to write about, its just that I was too busy to write.

Anyway, I took 2 days off yesterday and today, because I was on duty at PLAB for the National Runway Cycling last weekend. Finally got my marksmanship bonus for this month’s pay day too. Now have to clear IPPT with a silver or gold to get more cash. I can’t freaking jump! If I can only jump further I would have gotten silver…and if I push myself harder, I could have gotten gold.

Went to Kino yesterday and bought comic books, since the 20% discount was on for this month, and I discovered that ordering books online from the US are cheaper than buying them in Kino…especially computer-related ones. So I’m boycotting buying books from Kino that can be bought cheaper online. I also RMAed my TwinMOS 512MB DDR RAM at their office in Burlington Square, but the auntie there gave me a defective RAM. LOL. I knew it. Gonna wait till next week to try RMAing again, and hopefully the auntie won’t give me a faulty one again.

Went to IMM’s Gacha Gacha Gala 2005 fair last Saturday. Wasted ~$30 on th machines there (and only one series - Mobile Suit Selection #35…I was a fool) and bought 2 boxes of Gundam Seed figurines at the shop that was sponsoring the fair @ 50% discount. Both boxes were Kira Yamato. Maybe my luck is running low, and I’ve got to charge my mana.

Back from Exercise Blue Diamond on Friday night. A mixture of both good and bad comments. On one side, it was slightly better than the previous month’s exercise, because it was 4 days 5 nights. Less mosquitoes, cloudy days and a small site with an asphalt road. And it rained quite often, so can get to hide from the rain. On the other, it rained almost everyday and caused the ground that we’re sleeping on to be waterlogged, especially the last day, when the soil turned from wet to muddy to waterlogged to swimming pool.

Went to Parklane on Saturday to pass a CD to a friend and spotted a book fair there. Got myself 3 books for $5, and saw a few other books at dirt cheap price. I, for one, saw one going for $15, instead of $83 at Kinokuniya. Hope it lasts till the next pay day, ’cause I’m very broke now because I “deposited” $100 into my M1 account to pay the phone bills for the next 3 months.

Finally completed Act of War: Direct Action yesterday. Bloody good game. Still got Vampire: Bloodlines, The Sims 2, Freedom Force and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory to play. Oh, and not to mention, Evil Genius as well.

2 more hours to book-in time. Can’t wait for this army life to finish or change, my civillian life needs to get into order seriously.

Booked out late on Friday because of “technical difficulties” with our equipment, so in the end they “arrowed” the RT personnel to stay behind and do servicing. In the end, we finished the job at about 2245. Along the way back home, I checked my mail and got a USPS Priority Mail containing the comic books I ordered on eBay. Sweet!

Saturday was supposed to be an extra duty day, but my unit swapped duty days with another unit, so I went back for RT on Saturday and then went downtown to buy the CoolerMaster CoolDrive 4 at $88. Then went to explore the places that have gashapon and shokugen as mentioned on last week’s Sunday Times, and spent $42 on the Gundam Seed Destiny EF Collection #1 at Simply Toys, located at Raffles Xchange (I went through 7 boxes to find Stellar. Grr. Should have bought her off eBay). Went to Far East Plaza (lots of fashion shops, and looks a little sleazy) to find that the shops mostly sell complete sets. Sigh. And The Arcade at Raffles Place. The shop was located in a corner of the building. Lots of money changers. One adult shop. Some miscellany shops. Maybe the suits working there don’t like unpredictability? Saw a young upstart driving an SUV with the front passenger seat loaded with Robinson’s bags and a big bouquet of roses. Hope I don’t end up in his situation some day.

Finally passed my Final Theory Evaluation in the afternoon at BBDC today. So now I’m left with a Final Theory Test and practical lessons. Guess the “practice lesson before the test” method works. After that, I went to CDANS to play with their air rifles/pistols but their staff said I had to register as a CDANS social member and attend the proficiency course (deja vu, anyone?) and then apply for a CDANS Gun Club membership. Well, at least the girl working there (or one of the members) looks cute. Still got thrashed by Ghost Squad at Jurong Point. Sigh. Another $7.50 gone. Well, at least I’m a Warrant Officer now. LOL.

Well, a pretty OK weekend (finally). Finished my ATP range with a bang on Saturday - 26/28 shots. Marksman. $200 is coming my way LOL. Must be the ~$25 Ghost Squad “practices” I’ve been having for the 2 weeks before ATP.

This morning, I went to BBDC for my 2nd Final Theory Evaluation - failed by 1 mark. Sigh. This time, I booked a practice session before the eval test next Saturday - Hopefully should be better.
Went for a swim at the CDANS Bukit Batok clubhouse after that(using my SAFRA membership, muhaha. I can bring in 2 guests too the pool for $3/head). Alot of parents with their kids there today. Surprisingly, there aren’t any members of the opposite sex in the age category of 12 < x < 21 - either that, or I didn’t spot them. But that’s not the exact truth - When I was about to leave I saw 2 girls belonging to the above-mentioned category. DAMN! But overall, CDANS is a pretty nice place, and I expect that the pool will be deserted on weekdays.

After the swim, I went to Jurong Point and saw Sgt Hans there. Thank goodness he didn’t recognize me. LOL. Bumped into Weiling (I think that’s her name. Argh! I forgot my poly classmate’s name!) too. Didn’t talk much, just made some small talk.
Played $9 worth of Ghost Squad and didn’t perform well. Ghost Squad is harder than ATP it seems.
Got a Gundam Seed Destiny EF Figure at Comics Connection - its Shinn Asuka! I’m just missing Stellar Louise to complete the collection! Sad thing about the gashapon (locally termed as ‘tikam-tikam’) machines at the shop near CyberActive - they changed the machine that carries the Gundam Collection #35 (Gundam Seed Destiny set 1), and replaced it with #36 (Gundam Seed Destiny set 2), so I can’t complete my collection! Waa! But I gleamed precious information from the shop owner - they have damn good profits there as “overseas visitors snap up alot of gashapon” and they’re moving to Marina Square. On the other hand, the shop specializing in console gaming (forgot its name) also has gashapon machines, but they only got five machines. However, I noticed that they have 2 machines carrying Gundam Collection #33 (Gundam Seed) and #34 (Gundam Seed MSV). Hopefully when the machines run out of gashapon to dispense, they’ll replace it with #35 and #36. Hehe!
I also went to Music Junction to look for the Kenny G album, which has the duet CD with Wang Li Hong’s 唯一, and saw Bill Cunliffe’s CD “Enchanted Journey”, which was the #1 New Age seller at Music Junction, so I got the counter staff to play the CD. Some of the Bill Cunliffe CDs has a “Will you marry me?” label on the top. I grabbed the CD without the label.

Finally, I got for myself a pen-sized cushion case as a pencil-case, and a airtight and watertight box from Popular for putting a hard drive inside and freezing the whole thing in the refrigerator. Speaking of which, I suffered a hard drive failure on my Maxtor 80GB HDD last Sunday, and I recovered only 2 partitions on Sunday, which took me 8+ hours for a 32GB partition and another 2+ hours for a 8GB partition. I still got a 40GB partition to recover from that hard drive. Also, I got one Maxtor 40GB HDD configured to a RAID 0 array that went down at the start of the year, which I am freezing it using the box. Hopefully, when I return from camp, the hard drive should be working, and I can recover all of my data.

Today I went swimming (after a long hiatus from BMT swimming lessons) in the afternoon. Went for about 10 laps in the olympic pool before calling it quits (cause if I didn’t I would be late) and then went to Parklane with my platoonmates to play a custom Warcraft 3 map called “DotA Allstars v5.84c”. Very interesting gameplay. Wish I could stay longer, but I’ve got RT tomorrow, and I’ve got to wake up super early to get to camp.

Nothing much to blog about today, so I’m just gonna write off this entry like this. Sorry dudes.

Back from a 7-day outfield exercise at Specialists’ Hill near Pasir Labar Camp. I didn’t know there was a place called BCTC (Basic Combat Training Centre) near it - the camp looks like SISPEC for NSmen. Bleh. The only good thing about this exercise is that you can rest and relax because you work on shifts, unlike BMT field camp, where you go “chiong sua” the entire day. Other than that, its a muddy, dusty, rocky, rainy, swealtering hot, mosquito-ridden, sweaty, tiring, sleep-depriving, exercise.

Read in a Digital Life newspaper (last week’s? or this week’s? can’t remember) there’s this guy who made a MMORPG and got into an international game design competition (I think). Heh. Ironic he had to be my clansmen (for the uninitiated and culturally deprived, people with same surnames used to live together in communal villages in china, hence the term 家乡and 乡人). Maybe it runs in the family? Lol.

There’s been a few games that I’m trying to complete - Act of War: Direct Action, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and The Sims 2. Argh! That’s alot of play time! Wish I could have more time to play these games, along with juggling watching anime. Gundam Seed Destiny still rocks.

Anyway, I’ve got to go now, I need my sleep.