Grandma's Cremation

Grandma passed away 5 days ago on December 21st. Her heart failed her after her surgery. She was 92 years old and nobody should undergo surgery at that advanced age but there wasn't a choice.

2 nights ago, me & my Lioness went to her wake at Toa Payoh where most of my relatives finally saw me after like 10 years or so because I was MIA all these years. It was nice to receive all the hugs from the ones who used to be close to me during my young growing up years.

Grandma's face was looking shrunken inside the coffin but at least she had a peaceful countenance on her face.

It's Christmas today and it's also grandma's cremation day at 光明山 temple. My Lioness & me planned to take the first train since we had to arrive at the funeral at Toa Payoh by 7am. My poor Lioness had to struggle to wake up when I woke her up at 4:30am, so I let her continue to sleep for a little while longer.

We arrived at the funeral late anyway thanks to the rain that came suddenly while we were on our way to the train station. I have already started to HATE the rain lately with a passion since it always seems to come at the most inappropriate times.

When the Buddhist funeral rituals were completed and Grandma's coffin was loaded up to the transport, we formed a procession, followed behind the van ferrying grandma and marched toward the coaches that took us to 光明山。Our procession was a gesture that us, who are grandma's descendants, escorted her as she made her way to the afterlife.

Grandma's sons and daughters (including mum) had to wear white socks without their shoes as they followed directly behind the van and the ground was wet. Poor things. It then started drizzling and us men had to go around making sure that the women, and especially the children had shelter with whatever umbrellas we had with us.

At 光明山, a final Buddhist ritual was conducted before grandma's coffin was put in the furnace. Those of us who are of other faiths stayed at the back since we didn't participate in the ritual. So I stood to attention and bowed my head and offered a prayer for grandma as a sign of respect. Mum started crying and I went over to comfort her.

After grandma was cremated, we went back to the funeral place to rest before those of us who volunteered went back to 光明山 with grandma's sons & daughters to put her ashes into her urn. Once that was done, we brought the urn containing grandma's ashes down to the basement to place grandma's urn at the allocated space for her.

Inside the basement walking among the columns and rows of urns, I had to labour for my breath, probably due to the combination of the layout and depth of the place. I couldn't help but look at the photos and date of demise for the urns I've passed by. A handful of folks died so young.

When grandma's urn was placed at the allocated place bought by her descendants, we went back to the funeral premise, hung around for awhile, chatted, I played with the kids and we took photos before we left for home.

Rest in peace, grandma.

Teaching Folks To Play Guitar In A Comfortable & Dumb Manner

I uploaded this video of me playing my favorite song 'Comfortably Dumb' by Extreme last year. YouTuber BBQworst023 left me a message on that video page requesting me to do a tutorial video for the song.

So I picked up my Washburn N2 (Little Storm) modded with a Gotoh Floyd and a Seymour Duncan '59 neck humbucker pickup and made the following video which includes my own improvised guitar licks.

Always add in your own personal touch to every song you play; it's one of the best ways to improve musically and training your ears.


I don't know BBQworst023 personally but making this video was a joy.


- De Lion Speaks

On The Horizon: Amazing Spiderman

First, we had First-Person shooters. Now, we're gonna have First-Person Arachnid.

Awesome. That's despite the fact that I have arachnophobia. Anything with more than 6 legs is an abomination to me, but that's just my own irrational fear that doesn't carry any insult to the creations and handiwork of almighty God (though my arachnophobia is reasonably justifiable, considering it evolved because of an incident between the past toddler me who couldn't keep his hands to himself, a big kampong spider and an injection all toddlers would find painful). Man will always be the scariest creatures anyway. Well, they won't appear so bad when it comes to the female variety with long slender killer legs.

Spidey has always been my favourite super hero. While the rest never speak more than 8 words everytime they talk, Spidey gets all the long-winded witty lines. Heroes shouldn't be as himbotically dumb as Rambo in the first place who couldn't even mumble coherently, much less talk.

Can't wait for this one, since the Tobey Maguire version turned out to be like a web-spinning Rambo movie. And I can't stand Tobey's hairstyle in the movie which everybody's grandfather had when they still had hair, ugh.. well, except for the one he was sporting during the period when he was the bad Spidey with the black costume.

Bring back the wit & the better hair, Hollywood. I have both my eyes on 8 of yours.



- De Lion Speaks

Cam-Whoring: Me & My Main Workhorse

My Washburn N4 made out of Padauk wood and modded with the coil-split system is my main axe. I've lusted after this guitar since the 90's and finally got my hands on one the day after Christmas in 2009. I named mine 'Abysmal Gale' and what a beautiful guitar she is. Her growls, screams and purrs are ambrosia to my ears.

She's my most precious possession.

So today, I decided to take a picture with her and I had a lot of fun filtering the taken photo through the iPhone apps Camera Bag and Label Dispenser before filtering the whole shebang through Instagram and Adobe Photoshop for the texts.

And this is what I've produced:

It was fun and the whole thing was done in less than 25 minutes. Probably shorter. Who's counting anyway when one is having fun.

Deck The Halls

Our Christmas tree is up :) I'll be hanging around for longer periods in the hall now, especially during the nights. O'Lord, thank you for thy gift of salvation to mankind. You Rock, Your Majesty.

As for you, Santa, I'm sorry that I've been naughty this year. Again. As always. Still, I'll write what I need for a present this Christmas & leave it under the tree. I'll make sure it's big enough for the missus to spot it too ^_^ Those flickering lights ought to help.

A Little Update

I haven't been blogging much lately and the few recent entries have been made days or even weeks after from when they happened. I mentioned somewhere in this blog that it's best to make the blog entries as soon as their events occur to ensure the best accuracy.

Guess I couldn't keep up with myself lately and that's not a good thing. But at least I have the photos to jog my memories. Anyhow, I need to change things and get back to writing the blog entries on the very same day their events occur. Shouldn't be too hard as long as I slow down my life a little to allow myself to keep pace with myself.

I'm typing this on my blogging app while sitting inside the cinema at Jurong Point with my Lioness waiting for Breaking Dawn to start. It's my first time starting a blog entry while in a cinema, how refreshing. Yeah, I should really try to blog at more odd and exotic places to keep the flames of passion for blogging burning.

Oh, the movie previews are showing now, so laters...

Later...

The movie has ended. I thought Dakota Fanning would be starring in this one but she only appeared for like half a second during a flashback scene. Talk about cheated >:(

I'm now continuing with this entry at the basketball court near our block after making sure my Lioness has gone back home safely. It's a nice & breezy night. Hope it won't rain near dawn though, I'm thinking of going for a run. I've always preferred running during midnight at Jalan Bahar though, but ever since the sole 24 hours coffeeshop there changed hands, it's no longer 24 hours.

So running during midnight when the coffeeshop has already closed would leave me stranded, since I always buy a cup of ice water there after my run followed by a packet of coffee to be enjoyed at the dark and quiet playground there.

Bugger that. Change is not always a good thing.

So how have I been lately? Heh, took me that long to cut to the chase here. I've been OK but tired out lately and I'm waiting for January 7th when me & my Lioness will be going for our Korea trip. Time crawls when you're counting on it and I've been waiting for the tour agency to call me for updates regarding the trip. If they don't give me a ring by mid December tops, I'm gonna go clamping down on their asses.

As for my work, my Sales Manager Jason & Product Manager Luke told me that I'm gonna have more marketing responsibilities piled on me next year. Jason is gonna brief me about that some time in December. I hope that won't affect my mood for Korea since I've always disliked marketing activities. I still prefer what I'm doing now: sales.

I told Jason that no matter what happens, don't take me out of the field since serving my customers directly is my passion and having kind wonderful folks for customers helps so much. And I've told Luke that work-life balance is my motto and inevitably, he asked me about my ambitions (Reading between his lines: or a lack thereof). Sheesh, of course I have ambitions. I told him my ambition is to have an expanded product range for a start.

It's a matter of balancing ambition with what I aspire and require out of my life and balanced with my limitations. I told Luke that I'd rather not be promoted or have a salary increment than have an unbalanced work-life lifestyle and fail to meet up with the new expectations expected of me by the company.

You only live once. If I earn less, I'll just live within my means. I need time for my own personal pursuits too outside of work. Having just 2 days out of 7 for rest and personal pursuits is not too much to ask for. There's such a thing as self-actualization and personal goals outside of career. It's called 'having a life'. Just ask Maslow. I hope Jason & Luke understand what I'm trying to point out to them.

Another thing: I've finished the delayed maintenance of my main guitars which I've put off for some time. Well, except for my main workhorse, my Washburn N4. That's only one guitar left to go and I should be able to finish the job tomorrow. As for the rest of my main axes, they are now sporting spanking new looks. This one big heavy stone is almost completely lifted off my chest.

And finally, I've lost some weight. Deliberately. I'm not fat at all and my friends have been telling me I'm still slim. I just enjoy feeling good about it and I prefer the way I look when I'm slimmer than I already am. All the skipped meals and cutting down on meal portions helped lots. Besides, why wait till you are all bloated up to start managing your weight? The Path of Least Resistance is the best way to go.

Well, that's it for the little update of my current life's situation. In conclusion: I'm still alive & kicking, sorry to disappoint you. I hope that Life is treating you well, dear gentle reader.

And by the way, if you have never watched the previous movies in the Twilight series, don't bother with Breaking Dawn and end up scratching your brain's casing in confusion. You won't be able to understand the tail if you have never seen the head and upper torso. Or something.

Monkey Business At Raffles Hotel

You thought this one was about some one night-stand at Raffles Hotel, didn't you? If you did, sorry to disappoint you. If you didn't, then perhaps you are under 3 and it's advisable to come back here after your 3rd birthday.

You see, there's this pub called Long Bar situated on the 2nd floor of Raffles Hotel where you can have free flows of peanuts and cast their shells willy-nilly on the floor and you won't even get fined for littering.

It's my first time here and walking into the pub, the crunching popping sounds I hear under my shoes with every step I'm taking tells me that yeah, the floorboards are indeed covered with discarded peanut shells. My eyes confirm this fact when I look downwards. It feels like the ground is moving too. There's something quite uncivilized about this even though it's a quirky and amusing thing.

Well, you know what they say about doing as the Romans do when you are in Rome. So being in this place flicking peanut shells about makes me feel like a monkey.

And for some strange reason, the box of peanuts on the table we are sitting at seems to be inexhaustible with a never-ending bottomless pit of peanuts that reminds me of Doraemon's magical pocket. No matter how many peanuts we are eating or throwing around, that box always look filled almost to the brim with peanuts. The level of peanuts in it doesn't seem to be getting any lower, much to the disbelief of my eyes. Gosh.

Anyway, when it comes to alcoholic drinks, they are overpriced here as compared to any other pub or bar. My friend's glass of cocktail costs more than 25 bucks and so does my glass of long island.

Ambience-wise, the dimmed lightings and colonial furnishings are kinda cozy if you ignore the ghetto-like feeling you get when you move your feet around and hear that out-of-place grating crunching noise. I like the moving fans hanging from the ceiling; they sway back & forth at an automated leisurely pace and it makes me all dreamy-like just staring at them.

They don't play loud music here, you can still hear your friends talk. Live band is on the second floor.

The service level is alright. The staffs are nice and friendly. Would be an odd thing if they weren't. I mean, this is Raffles Hotel where hotshot celebrities like the late MJ chose to reside at when he was last here.


Aw man, I really pity whoever has to clean this place up after closing time.


- De Lion Speaks

Eruption Pharmaceutical Style

I think I could have invented a new medical term today at work: 'Follicular Eruption'.

I thought it was pretty cool but it made my colleagues erupt in hideous laughter. This is what happens when you bombard your ears with too much Van Halen goodness before sitting in for a Pharmaceutical quiz test:

Mum's Birthday

My lovely nieces

It's mum's birthday today. When the Mother Hen is having her birthday, she will gather her chicks some place for a celebration. So this year, we went over to Buffet Town at Raffles City shopping centre for buffet lunch.

Man, I gotta say; there is really a huge buffet spread over here with selections like Italian dishes, Japanese dishes, local dishes, etc.. So much that I initially couldn't decide what to eat. Heck, I couldn't even tell if I had actually sampled them all. If you are not watching your waistline, you ought to have a good time here.

As for tastes, just like it is with all buffets, there will be dishes that you will find yummylicious and other dishes that you will find not so great or even yucky. But I'm glad to say that overall, the food here ain't bad at all and I didn't come across any dish with the Yuck factor.

When I was done with the eating, I took a stroll around the restaurant and came across the awesome artwork on the wall tucked in a corner further inside the restaurant. The artwork depicts some cool things about Tokyo living. Here's one more for your viewing pleasure:



Happy Birthday, mum.

We love you and thanks for bringing us up and thanks for all the selfless sacrifices you've made for us.

Quick, go give your mum a mighty hug. She deserves that and more.

My 2011 Birthday Celebration

It's that time of year again when I had to add a +1 to my age - Involuntarily. I had to be dragged kicking & screaming past the dateline that made me older today. I've celebrated my birthday with family, friends & colleagues already before the actual official day, since my official hatch day is reserved for my Lioness, as always.

We started the celebration real early - at 5 plus in the morning, we went to Boon Lay Place for a dim sum and 小碗面 breakfast where we chatted for a couple of hours before heading back home to rest.

We had a mind to go out in the afternoon but it started pouring. So we extended our rest at home. My Lioness had a surprise planned for me for dinner. She does that every year for my birthday, cracking her head for places I've never dined at before. At the rate that we are going, I wonder if we might run out of dining places in this small country by the time I hit 100; unless the rate that they build new dining places surpasses the rate I grow older.

Just like I always do every year, I try to guess the surprise dining places my Lioness wants to bring me to. Based on her clues that I tricked her into letting slip, I guessed she would be bringing me to the Jurong Bird Park area this year. The look on her face told me I was right, even though she tried to side-track the issue.

So she admitted that her plan for the afternoon was to bring me to some place within Jurong Bird Park before dinner where the staffs were supposed to treat me like a king since it's my birthday. The poor girl has already booked and paid for the place but the rain ruined this Plan A of hers. So by the time the rain has subsided enough for us to go out, we had to go straight for dinner. For this year, she brought me to The Village just opposite the Jurong Bird Park over at Jurong Hill.

So the surprise dining place turned out to be Shiu Yakiniku within The Village itself. True that I've never dined here before. Despite the fact that they highlight mainly their Japanese dishes, they have Korean dishes too.

My Lioness knows I love BBQ hotplate food, so she brought me here. I was well prepared; I dieted for the couple of days before this. It's only during occasions like this that I allow myself to indulge in gluttony.

The food here was really not bad at all. When it comes to such food, the marination of the meat determines most of the overall taste and I could feel my taste buds tingle with delight. Still, I prefer Taiwanese BBQ hotplate and I think I can savor those again come March in Taipei, and in cold decent weather too. Yippee \o/

After dinner, we went behind the building where the prawn farm is located to have a look-see. Lots of peeps were prawning; something I can't quite understand the 'joys' of. So I came here out of curiosity to see if I would catch anyone having an orgasm the minute a prawn bites just so it might help me to understand why prawning can be such a fun activity for some folks.

No orgasm. Just lots of beer and barbecuing of caught seafood.

And speaking of beer, I was looking for a nice watering hole to hole-up for a mug of after-dinner beer, so after walking around, we found this restaurant-pub called 'El Barrio' situated just behind Shiu Yakiniku. Judging by their menu and the food the guests were having at the central occupied table, El Barrio specializes in Ayam Penyet, a famous Indonesian dish. They even have an extra spicy version and the words 'try if you dare' or something similar written in the menu for it.

I like Ayam Penyet but I had to forgo it this time round and just settle for a mug of Heineken since I came with an already full stomach. I would love to try their Ayam Penyet if I have the chance to go back there again someday.

Well, so that was how we celebrated my birthday this year. Could have done lots more and visited more places if it wasn't for the rain. But we practiced Quality over Quantity, so it was still OK. I'm still wondering how I would have been treated like a king on his birthday if we had been to the place inside the bird park she wanted to bring me to that we have missed, though..

Until next year...

Tang Ties The Knot

November Team.

That's the name given to the 'platoon' I was attached to during my National Service in 1995. Our unit is a classified one in the Air Force. Straight after our basic military training, we went to the military School of Transport to get our military driving licenses before being permanently assigned to our unit. We were called 'November Team' because our team was formed in, well, the month of November. Military Rocket Science.

Tang was my team mate and we went through our National Service and reservist trainings together. I said 'was' because most of us in November have already completed our reservist cycles and are no longer liable for any more call-ups. Meaning: we have completed everything for good, done our duty to the nation as citizen soldiers and our batch of November Team is almost already as good as disbanded, what with only 2 or 3 guys left who are still serving, but not for long. They themselves have like just a couple of reservist duties left and that's it.

We have already started to fade into military memory lane as remnants from the past. Boy, what a past it was. We were all at the prime of our youths.

And today, Tang tied the wedding knot with his lovely bride Suz. The wedding dinner was at Hotel Royal Plaza and just like the previous wedding dinners I've attended, I was late again for this one. They usually start at 19:30pm but I've been arriving at around 20:30pm and this time was no exception. Has it become a habitual thing? Beats me.

Anyway, when I arrived, the first person I saw was Tang, all dressed up in his bridegroom's outfit and after poking fun at him, I went into the ballroom to look for my team mates since we were assigned the same table. I had to pass by the pool area outside the ballroom and found myself thinking: "what a lovely place." I like the pool area and the fact that it's just outside the ballroom. The whole place kinda gives the impression that tells you to dine & wine and then go take a relaxing dip. Or simultaneously.

I haven't seen the guys for some time already and it was swell to do so again. Not everybody from our team could make it for the wedding and Hong, Tay and Ding brought their spouses along.

When I saw them and their wives, I couldn't help but be reminded again about how far we've come and how advanced in age we are all getting. The guys still look so young to me though. Could have been the food and water they've been feeding us in camp. Time has stood still for the boys. It was awesome seeing everybody still so young looking since that did help me feel better about myself too.

What denial? We all need a reference point to gauge ourselves and what better gauge is there other than the men who have gone through the prime of your youth with you together during your National Service? So if they still look young, it means I ought to look young too even though admittedly, I'm the oldest guy in the team, yes? Let's just leave it at that, tsk.

All those memories - the sleepless nights, the Rock & Roll & Heavy Metal music, the confinements, the defaulters parades, the partying, our haunted bunks, peeing along the drain outside our bunks at night at a certain camp because we were all afraid of the ghost haunting the toilet there, the FOS duties, the guard duties, the 23:59s, the first parade tasks, the exhaust and engine smells of our military vehicles, the bickerings, the military punishments, the mock rapes performed on mostly Lek, the perspiring and sufferings inside our vehicles during our trainings under the bloody hot as hell sun and the National Day parade duties with Tay all came flooding back when I look at their faces.

And oh, there were also the mini sand storms that engulfed us, the grease, the dirt, the dust and the sand that sticks on your skin, gets in your hair and into your mouth that you learn to ignore. Yup, we know how dirt and sand taste like.

It was awesome despite the military kinks and hiccups here and there.

The lovely couple

Shortly after dinner started, me & my team mates were invited to join Tang & Suz and their family for a series of toasts to the whole ballroom. I was standing just behind Tang and took a First-Person Shooter view of the scene from the stage.

Hong, who is the wise-cracking funniest guy I know, told us to start with a really low pitch shout of 'Yum' that slowly built up in crescendo and pitch before ending with a mighty 'Seng' to complete each series of toasts. The family members of Hong & Suz turned around, looked at us and chuckled. This was the most fun Yum Seng toast I've participated. Everything always takes a fun twist with Hong around.

So since we haven't had enough of the toasting, we did it again back at our table and again, I took a FPS shot of it. I've been having beer all along but this time round, I was toasting with a glass of Martell Blue Label. This was the first time I've tried it and what an awesome smooth liquor Blue Label is. I'm not a liquor guy but this one was just great.

Later, Tang & his bride got on stage to play a little game where he had to grab grapes with his mouth and transfer them to Suz's mouth without using their hands. Unexpectedly, when Tang grabbed the first couple of grapes, he began chewing on them and nodded to Suz while making thumbs-up signs at her to let her know how great they tasted.

Apparently, weddings are hungry business. That was a LMAO moment. After the grapes, they both had to kneel down to go for a bunch of strawberries strung together below the grapes. Through thick & thin, through grapes & strawberries & through the ups & downs, irregardless of height. Wedding vows are hardcore sweetness.


All these while, I've been fleeting around the stage as if I owned the place; standing and kneeling and angling myself to take shots of the couple with my iPhone's camera and Hipstamaticed them. They were great sport, catering to my requests to pose around for me.

After dinner, we went up to the couple's hotel room and I was finding the rooms quite cozy after using my imagination to zap everyone else inside the room out of existence temporarily and studying the ambience and furnishing. The bed looked pretty comfy too and I had to resist diving onto it.

Then Ding did a hilarious thing: apparently, there is this belief that if a virgin jumps on a newly wed couple's bed before they touch it on the night of their wedding, the newly weds will be blessed with fertility and have timely babies. So Ding whipped out his phone, put a picture of his young son on the screen and jumps his phone all over the bed. I think he did that because he believes that everyone of us present, not counting the bridegroom & his bride, are no longer virgins.. Man, he didn't even ask.

We chatted and drank a bit more before calling it a day and leaving the couple to enjoy the remainder of their wedding night alone.

And I cant resist myself here and so, i'm posting the following pic of what I saw on the table in the hotel room:


That must've been the handiwork of 'Colonel' Hong ✔ November Team, you guys are simply awesome. And delightfully hilarious. God bless every single one of you and may Life always treat you and your loved ones kindly.

Now fall in and have an awesome life, guys. Ode to November and cheers to Tang & Suz.


- De Lion Speaks

Tickets To Korea & Birthdays

At the travel agent:

Me & my Lioness have decided to go to Korea after my dilemma about whether we should go there, or to Europe or America. She's leaning towards Korea and since Korea is on my gotta-visit list too, just as well. Korean dramas had a lot to do with influencing her inclination, why am I not surprised?

When we were in Hakodate in Hokkaido on the night of 25th March, 2010, I made a solemn promise that I will bring my Lioness & myself back to the snow some day again. So going to Korea in January next year will allow me to make good that promise. Might as well fulfill my promise at the place she wants to visit so eagerly. I wonder how many merit points I'll be scoring with my Sweetheart for that.

So today, we went to Hong Thai Travel Services in Chinatown to buy our tour package to Korea since we were quite impressed with their Hokkaido package and their tour guide who took excellent care of us during our trip there last year. I hope the tour guide assigned to our Korea trip this time will be just as great.

The Korean DMZ (Demilitarized Zone - the border between North and South Korea) has always been a must-visit for me. So it's just too bad that the Hong Thai staff who attended to us told me that that place has been banned to tourists since last year. Why? Because some fool of a tourist tried running across the border and got shot to death by the North Korean border guards. The stupid fool has ruined the market and lost his life in the process, bugger that.

I'm seriously pissed with that. That's one wish of mine I gotta scrap off now all thanks to some masochistic suicidal mofo. Anyway, just in case you didn't know already, North and South Korea are still technically at war with each other since no concrete armistice were signed between the two ever since the Korean conflict.

We bought the tour package and will be flying off to Korea on the night of 6 January 2012 on the 23:00pm flight and will be flying back home on the 13th. The temperature there then is projected to be -15 degrees. That's gonna be freaking cold and I gotta make sure to get an additional proper winter coat for my Lioness since she only has one. It pained me to see her wearing the same coat everyday when we were in Hokkaido. Perhaps I'll get an extra one for myself too, we'll see.

And the reason why we have chosen January was because initially, we had a mind to spend Christmas there but the price difference between December, which is a travel peak period, and January is a few hundred dollars per person, ouch. Well, I won't mind spending Christmas at home anyway, we have the Xmas tree at home for standby, which is a lovely thing anyway.


Birthdays celebration with the family:

Right after we bought our tour package, we went over to Bumbu Restaurant at China Square for Thai and Indonesian cuisine with my family to celebrate the birthdays of my brother-in-law, my 2nd sis and myself. My bro-in-law & my birthday is upcoming and today is the official birthday of my 2nd sis.

My 10-years old niece Andrea gave me a birthday present which she wrapped up oh so nicely for me.
*Sniff* So sweet :')
I'll be unwrapping it to see what's in store for me on the actual day of my birthday. This is the 2nd time Andrea has given me a birthday present. Gosh, come to think if it, she must be my youngest fan since she was just 9 >:)

We were having buffet dinner and Bumbu's buffet system is such that we placed our orders with the waiters and waitresses, after which they would bring the dishes to us from the kitchen once they were ready. We just had to sit tight and wait to be served.

And it's difficult to take snapshots of the different dishes together because each cuisine was served in small portions that were snapped up quickly by everyone and there were 9 of us. We were hungry, so I couldn't torture my family by telling them not to dig in until all the dishes have arrived, can I?

Still, I did manage to take a shot for this blog entry but it ain't perfect since one of the dishes you see in the pic had only so much food left on it. Every dish except for a couple were delicious. Loved their fried eggs and omelette.

I just wished they could serve the dishes in bigger portions for bigger tables like ours. Because they didn't, it explains why they always had to hustle back & forth to the kitchen since every dish was obliterated by our many mouths quickly. They could have saved themselves some repeated trips to the kitchen otherwise.

I could tell the waiters and waitresses were kinda stressed out, serving every table with forced smiles while suppressing dormant wrath within themselves like dormant volcanos. Can't blame them for such self-induced torture brought about by their management's decision regarding serving plate sizes.


And right after our dinner, we brought out the cake. 3 candles for 3 wishes for each of us birthday boys & girl. 2nd sis was the one who made her wish first and she accidentally blew out all 3 candles at once. I guess she has strong lungs on her. So we had to relight the other 2.

Happy Birthday to us :)

The ladies heading up to the house

Mum & Andrea then came over to our place to stay for the night. They visited us many times already but this was the very first time they would be staying over. I'm happy because I'm always telling my mum that the doors of our house will always be open to her and finally, she & Andrea had a chance to stay over, even if it was just for a night. Our guest room has always been well-prepared for my mum & family anyway.

And now that my mum & Andrea have had a chance to stay over at our house, our love nest now has a more defined 'Family Flavour'. The next day, the 4 of us, together with my mum-in-law, went over to 店小二 over at Jurong Point for lunch. Oh, and before that, Andrea surprised me by requesting me to make more vlog videos, of which I've stopped doing for some time since I can't stand watching myself talk on camera.

Her request really took me by surprise and I was actually stunned there for awhile before I could answer her that I will see what I can do. Looks like there's at least one person in the world who can actually stand my nonsense.

After we have finished our food, mum got up from her seat and using the pretext that she wanted to look around, she went to the cashier in stealth mode to attempt to pay for the bill. But she couldn't fool past my Scorpionic intuition with her Scorpionic stealth and so, I raced past her and footed the bill myself instead. The whole lunch was over a hundred bucks.

Mum is always having my interest at heart and places her children above herself. It's our turn to take care of her.

I love you, mum.

That night, I walked into my guest room and found myself missing my mum & Andrea badly. There was a lump in my throat that I had to swallow hard..


- De Lion Speaks

In Memory of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has passed away. I'm drinking in his honor now.

Why Steve, why leave us hanging like this? What's gonna become of the future for Apple and the gadgets we can hold in our hands because of your genius? My best friend whom you have inspired so much is nursing a broken heart and he shed tears for you today.

My iPhone 4 is the first and only Apple gadget I own, but I've never fallen in love with a gadget so much. No other gadget has been that involved with my life as much and closed the distance between the world & myself so much. And that's all thanks to you.

Today is a day of depression and uncertainty for the entire world.

Rest in peace, Steve.

Some Thoughts About The iPhone 4S

Talking about the iPhone 4S with an Oxford-certified top-notch HaXx0r I wouldn't dream of offending. He also happens to be my best friend since childhood. He's a genius, which probably explains why he doesn't use Facebook.

When it comes to the iPhone 4S, they probably added an 'S' behind for good reason. I can't recall who told me that 'S' rhymes with 'ass'.

I suppose the only exception would be if the real 5 takes forever to become available.


The fun continues with a final word of kicks to the groin to add insult to injury.

*Drama Geek Mode Off*

It ain't all bad :) Will the real 5 please stand up & don't take too long to do so, otherwise, I may just recall whoever it was that told me '5' looks almost exactly like an 'S'.

QoL Event - Final Day

Today was the final day of the Qualities of Life event at Suntec City. Tomorrow till Tuesday, I'll be enjoying my 2 days off-in-lieu. Was looking forward to that. Besides, my soles needed to rest from 3 straight days of standing around at our booth.

I was supposed to report at 10:45am but got there past 11:10am instead, heh. Had to get a cab too since I woke up late because of the previous night. Since it was a Sunday, we were expecting a better crowd. As things turned out, the crowd flow was just a tad above dismal, pffftt.

Lester was on duty today and since there was a branded goods sale on the 3rd floor by brands like Prada and LV, he & me went over there as we were discussing how we were gonna get belts and wallets but when we got there, we discovered that all they had on sale were ladies handbags and purses.

So much for belts and wallets, what an anti-climax for us guys.

Some boss of some company who was also having a booth at the event came over and talked to Jason about this petition he was organizing to demand compensation from the organizer of the QoL event since sales was bad due to the poor traffic flow.

He was gathering the signatures of as many participating vendors as he could to add more voices to the petition. So Jason & Luke added theirs. I would like to see how that one would turn out later in the day, heh. I couldn't help myself and joked with Jason that he better prepare us all to go on strike.

At Doctor Jason Hwang's talk

Some time during the afternoon, me, Lester, Jane and Luke sat in for a talk regarding nasal care and treatment conducted by Jason Hwang, an ENT (ear, nose and throat) doctor from Gleneagles hospital. Some of the nasal surgery videos he showed us made me cringe a little.

I was fighting off my sleepiness and tried with some effort to focus on the talk and look awake. The doctor struck me as really friendly and amiable and judging by what he said regarding his interactions with his patients, he seems to be a doctor with a great deal of ethics and care for his patients. After the talk, Doctor Hwang came to our booth later and I chatted with him.

Diagonally opposite our booth was the booth of Yun Nam, the company specializing in remedying balding problems. There was only this poor Chinese girl manning the booth all by herself today, unlike during the first day when there was a squad of them around. I wondered how she would be getting her lunch and dinner and so I went over to ask her.

This girl with a gentle demeanor told me she came from China to work here. She told me that I didn't have to worry about her lunch and dinner since she got to eat. I also saw Jerry, my friend and manager of Optopharm who was having a booth opposite Yun Nam's went over to offer the girl some food some time during the day. The poor girl looked kinda stressed out.

When it was near the end of the day for us, our neighbor the dentist decided to pack up and leave before we did and on their way out, his female sales manager who has caused my colleagues to raise their eyebrows told me to keep in touch with her. That caused my colleagues to raise their eyebrows one final time, heh.

The last thing I did before we packed up was me going over to Ayam's booth and buying cans of tuna and sardine for my Lioness and myself since they were on offer. Jason did the same when he saw me coming back with those cans. Before that, it was the fact that I saw Jane coming back with cans of tuna and sardine from Ayam's booth which prompted me to pop over there myself. Situations are usually just a series of a chain of mutually-influential events.

Remember that guy who went around collecting signatures for his petition for compensation by the organizer of this QoL event I mentioned earlier? By the time we packed up, ready to go home, there was no news from him. Ha, so I couldn't help myself again and made a joke to Jason that the guy probably got bribed to shut up about it.

No hanging out for me tonight; I had to go home to rest. I was beat and the soles of both of my feet were kinda sore. Standing at the bus stop waiting for the direct express bus 502 that would take me home straight, a young man approached me to ask for directions to the Esplanade. I asked if he was Japanese and he told me he's Taiwanese.

After giving him the directions, he left towards Esplanade and I suddenly found myself missing Taipei much. I've asked for directions from the Taiwanese when I was there at their turf and this time round, our roles were reversed. The guy gets to enjoy his holiday here while me, the local, had to make my way back home.

Well, at least my 2 days of off-in-lieu I've earned from these 3 days of work at Suntec has already started.

Things today didn't quite end on a jovial note though. After having waited for two 502 buses that were crowded and which I refused to take because it was gonna be a long ride home for me and so, I needed to seat down to rest but there were no empty seats on both buses.

Bus 502 used to be quite empty at the bus stop outside Suntec City because that was the point where it made a loop back the way it came but with the new Marina Bay Sands, it changed its route to cater for the crowd going towards the casino there from Suntec.

So I walked all the way to the bus stop behind Peninsula Plaza to take bus 174 which would take me directly back home too instead. It was quite a walk and with every step that I took, I muttered under my breath curses at the gamblers and the current overpopulation situation. Fuck them and fuck the current situation all brought about by just one thing in essence: greed. We have to endure and suffer because of all these fucking shit..

..and that's not inclusive of those locals who have condoned all these crap. I hope they enjoy what they have asked for. I hope they enjoy squeezing like sardines in packed buses and trains and having to tough it out through long rides (AND standing up) as well as the recent transportation fare hikes in the face of such deteriorating conditions. Or if they drive, I hope they enjoy the ever-increasing magnitude and frequency of traffic jams brought about by us running out of space like rats trapped in a claustrophobic box with 'Rat Race' written all over it.

I sometimes question if some people here have the capability to think ahead and understand the consequences of the things they wish for. The only thing that cheered me up a little was the thought of my 2 days break as I made my long walk to the bus 174 stop with tired feet and sore soles; paying the price of mass masochism.


- De Lion Speaks

QoL Event - Day 2

Today was the second day of the Qualities of Life event and I made it there on time by direct bus instead of blowing money on a cab, yeehar.

And it seems like I don't have to be so long-winded about this day since the situation today was the same as yesterday's: not enough crowd flow, dismal sales and the continuation of us shooting the breeze. Jace was on duty today and Charmaine & Daxin came by later in the day to visit us (they were off duty) and it was great having them around.

The travel fair

There was a travel fair going on in the exhibition hall next to ours. Since me & my Lioness have planned for an overseas trip in January and I was undecided if we should go to Korea, Europe or the U.S. of A., I popped over to the travel fair and got my hands on travel brochures & free magazines about those 3 places.

Admittedly, looking at the brochures and magazines made me more undecided since there is always something exciting and places worth visiting and experiencing in every country. I was feeling really squeezed: so many places I wanna visit, too little time, limited paid leave days and too much work to commit to..

All these just to make sure I have the funds for my livelihood, funds for my hobbies and funds to go traveling to satisfy my wanderlust and be torn between having to make choices regarding which, among several countries, I should visit with my Lioness because of the lack of time, limited paid leave days and too much work to commit to.


What a lovely vicious cycle :) I like it and am thankful for it; it's great to have choices and the ability to travel once in awhile, thank the good Lord for that.

Lunch today was chicken rice and again, I propped my food up on the display shelves and me & my colleagues munched away with nary a care in the world in front of everyone else.

I came to know the dentist occupying the neighboring booth from ours and his female sales manager came over to chat with me several times. That drew some raised eyebrows from my colleagues, heh. Jane kept insisting that sales manager had the hots for me. Like I said, we had nothing better to do given the dismal crowd situation.

When evening came, I got hungry and helped myself to the last remaining box of chicken rice nobody ate and that reminded Jason that it was already dinner time. So he proceeded to buy dinner for everyone and told me he would get fresh dinner for me since he was feeling guilty I was feeding myself with leftover lunch but I declined his offer. The chicken rice still tasted good and I told Jane who was manning our cash register: "我很容易养的."

Once again, we packed up before 20:00pm and split. Charmaine & Daxin already left some time during the afternoon. When I reached the ground floor of Suntec City, Miss Psychedelic called me up and said she wanted to hang out with me at Tawandang. So we did and took the following pic there showcasing my camaraderie with my buddy:


It's a dangerous thing hanging out with Miss Psychedelic: we always end up going home at a much later time than planned since we always have too many things to chat about. This meeting up with her was no exception. Jason told me I can report at 10:45am tomorrow.

By the time when I thought I would miss the last bus if I still hung around with Miss P at around 23:20pm, I forced myself to tell her I had to split. So she drove me to my bus stop behind Peninsula Plaza and I managed to catch the bus home.

By the time I got home, it was already way past midnight. After I've showered, washed my hair and waited for it to dry before I could hop into bed, I only had a few hours of sleep left before I had to wake up for work at Suntec City again.

Yeah, I was late for work the next day, heh.


- De Lion Speaks

QoL Event - Day 1

My company is participating in the Qualities of Life event held at Suntec City and today was the first day of the event. It's basically a healthcare event. Most of us vendors showcased our healthcare products but there were a handful of oddities like Ayam, the household brand selling their tuna and sardine. They may seem kinda out of place there but from the looks of things, their sales seemed to be beating everyone else's.

I was supposed to reach our booth at 10:30am to set up the props and products and got up at 7am plus but my manager suddenly sent me a SMS message at 8am telling me to be there by 10am. That meant I had to take a cab there since firstly, it was drizzling and secondly, the time I woke up was catered for me to reach there at 10:30am, not 10am. Bugger that. And no, I don't think I can claim the cab fare.

Our booth

I reached our booth in hall 404 a few minutes before 10am and proceeded to set up our booth with Luke, one of our Product Managers who was already there. The rest arrived shortly later.

I've been to lots of IT shows held at Suntec City with my previous company and those experiences were quite horrendously exhausting and I wonder if this event would be the same. By mid-afternoon, however, I came to the conclusion that if IT shows were hell, then this event was a walk in the park. See, the crowd flow was a disappointing thing.

We became so bored with the lack of crowd that we ended up trying to sell our products to one another. You can imagine the dismal situation, huh? We tried recommending our products to what few people who walked by but most of our time was spent shooting the breeze instead. And when anyone wanted to take a look at our products, me & my colleagues would mob the potential customer just to get into the 'excitement'. It wasn't pressure selling, we were looking for things to do.


The highlight at our booth was our 'Wheel of Prizes' that anyone who purchased at least SGD $10 worth of goods were entitled to spin. No matter where the wheel stops at, the customers would win something.

Later, Charmaine & Daxin, the 2 interns attached to my company arrived to help us out and their company did a lot of good to relieve the boredom. Those 2 young girls are funny and they cracked me up.

My lunch

Lunch consisted of yummylicious Nasir Lemak and either I was too hungry or the food was really great. Nah, it was more like a combination of both factors.

I was quite taken aback at how everyone of my colleagues were eating all over the place in the presence of everyone walking by and no effort was made to eat discreetly. Some of us even put our box of food on the display shelves and just munched away. I did the same. If I had done that during the IT shows with my previous company, I would have been screwed for sure. Honestly, I much prefer our current more carefree ways here :) I ain't complaining.

Since I was looking for more things to entertain myself, I sent a string of SMS messages to Jacelyn, my colleague-sister, lying to her about how poor thing I was and nagged at her to come over to accompany and entertain me. So after her work later, she came over. Glad you came, Jace, even if I had to trick you to.

By evening, it was clear that sales was gonna continue to suck because the crowd flow remained pathetic. So Jason told us to pack up at around 19:30pm and we left the hall by 20:00pm. We were quite surprised as we walked out that the guard was in the process of closing the exhibition hall doors. He told us that the event was supposed to end at 20:00pm. We all thought it was supposed to end at 21:00pm. Jeez..

Tawandang

So me, Jace, Charmaine and Daxin went over to Tawandang Brewery on the ground floor of Suntec to relax a little. I needed that since my soles were kinda tired from having to stand around for most parts of the day. They have a live band at the front section of the place but we went to the outdoor seats at the back section instead where it was humid and muggy as hell.

Anyway, apart from the name, I didn't see what was so Thai about Tawandang, honestly. The place felt more like an European pub or American watering hole to me for some reason.

When it was time to foot the bill, I used my Citibank SMRT credit card which I forgot is already expired but strangely, it still enables me to pay for my traveling using the SMRT and public buses, which is the reason why I'm still keeping it. I'm using my small Guess wallet today that only allows me to carry a limited amount of cards, instead of my bigger Braun Buffel wallet that allows me to keep all my cards in it. My SMRT credit card was the only credit card I brought with me today since I had to pay for transportation and didn't think I would have to use any credit card for other purpose today anyway. Bad idea.

So my card couldn't make the transaction because I forgot about its expired date and I ended up having to use cash to pay instead. That drew an "Again?!" from Jace since the first time that happened was when she was with me at some other place last time when I was using the same wallet. The girls already paid me their share (after rejecting the discounts I offered them myself) and so, I dug up all those cash notes they gave me and used them to pay the bill.

Shite, that was embarrassing and I really need to get off my ass and request for an updated SMRT card. Anyway, the following day, I squeezed my Citibank Dividend card into my Guess wallet. Just as well, because the following night, I went to Tawandang again with Miss Psychedelic.

Charmaine, Daxin & Jacelyn

Territory War & Bits of English Humour

Of course everyone who owns an iPhone or an iPad ought to know about the little gem of a tower defense strategy game Plants Vs Zombies. The sense of humour in this game is yummylicious and adds to the fun which is already yummyliciously fun on its own. I've completed the game many times over since each update brings with it more new mini game modes, extending the game's playability.

Since I like playing tower defense strategy games on my iPhone (as I have a mobile need to become smarter than I already am stupid), I went on a hunt today for more games from this genre and bumped into Territory War which shares lots of gameplay similarities with Plants Vs Zombies. Only thing missing is the clever humour though; at least I haven't come across any so far yet up till the current level I've reached within the game.

The story is about the struggle between the Roman empire and the Gallic tribes which was an actual incident in history. Remember those Asterix & Obelisk comics you read when you were in school? Well, the game shares the same timeline of events as the comic series.

Upgraded archers with ATMs at the back

You start the game with only Legionnaire archers shooting normal arrows and they can be upgraded to shoot fire-arrows as the game progresses, complete with new shiny armor. When I reached the second level of the game, I was wondering why I couldn't generate more gold to build more troops when it dawned on me quickly that the unit 'ATM' is the one that produces the gold to finance your war effort. They function just like the sunflowers in PvZ.

Ok, I did mention that there wasn't any humour within the game, so if you do appreciate the usage of the term 'ATM' to describe a gold resource-producing unit, then by all means, help yourself here and giggle.

More units join in the fray

Anyway, what bugged me initially about the game was that there is no adequate tutorial and I had to figure things out on my own. Good thing the game shares lots of similarities with PvZ, my experience with it did cut down lots of the learning curve for Territory War. In comparison, it all boils down to: instead of plants, you have Legionnaires.

Another thing that bugs me is that instead of the grid format used in PvZ where all you have to do to place a unit on the map is to tap on its portrait and then tap on the selected grid to place the unit there, you have to drag the portrait of the unit to the space on the map instead. I'm sure you can imagine here the unintended 'accidents' that can happen if you are not careful enough when you need to use fingers to drag things across the iPhone's small screen. iPadders ought to have a breeze with this though.

The battle heats up

Just like PvZ, once any enemy trooper reaches the far left of the screen where your base is, it's game over. So the essence of the game mechanics and objective here is to make the most effective use of each unit's strengths and combine them together to destroy the enemy in the most efficient manner before they can reach your base. You win each level when you have obliterated every single wave of enemies the level throws at you.

You have to experiment with and figure out the most effective combos of units for your own style of playing and strategy and once you've mastered one style, you can experiment with another. That's the fun part of tower defense games. Different gamers have different gaming styles and whoever said that it's impossible to please everyone must have never played games before.

Getting mobbed

I'm not done with the entire game yet but so far, it seems that every unit can be upgraded as you progress further. And oh, just like PvZ, there are even those levels where you have to place units on bodies of water. In this game, you use wooden planks for that. I'm still stuck at one of such levels because I'm always getting overwhelmed by hordes of enemies before I could fortify my positions properly (right pic). There must be ways to pwn this level and the fun lies in discovering how to.

Every game has its share of bugs and this one is no exception. So far, the minor bug I've discovered is that if you turn off the music at the start of a level, it will reset itself to max volume again automatically when you progress to the next subsequent level or if you restart the same level. A minor thing, but an update to address this bug would be nice.

All in all, I enjoy playing this one so far and hope that some time in the near future, the developers will implement the tap-grid system for this fun little game. And I also have the feeling that by the time I reach the end of the game, my affinity towards it ought to be on par as the affinity I have towards PvZ.

And no, I don't play Angry Birds since I'm never comfortable with anything that has gone into 'mainstream' territory as well as crowd herd mentality. I've never liked crowds anyway, they can make me angry when they behave like kuku birds.

In other news, me & my Lioness went to watch a midnight movie - the British comedy Johnny English Reborn. The movie was supposed to start at 23:20pm and I was out playing Territory War. I didn't fulfill my plan of going home to prepare to go to the cinema because I was too engrossed with the game and ended up with my Lioness having to go over to where I was outside to meet me before heading to the cinema together.

So did I find the movie nice? Come on, it's Rowan Atkinson; the same guy who played Mr Bean. So you tell me if he's funny or not. Besides, it's British Humour, for laughing out loud; something that has a lot of bite and class at the same time. Anyway, the whole cinema was laughing all the way from beginning to end and it was a jolly good time.

Oh, and since it's British humour, there isn't anything unacceptably stupid regarding the storyline or script. However, there was something during the final scene that seemed too good, or rather, too 'accurate' to be true - I won't ruin it for you here if you haven't watched the movie yet but during that scene, Johnny's aim seemed a little too coincidental in terms of hitting the mark.

Actually, he wasn't even aiming since he didn't realize yet that the gadget in his hands was actually a weapon. However, if I were to think along the lines of: 'Hey, they are government-sponsored agents with state-of-the-art technology, so that gadget ought to have some auto-lock feature on the nearest metallic object', then everything kinda fall sensibly into place for me.

Besides, Johnny did have that gadget pointed in the general direction towards the target anyway even though he wasn't specifically aiming at it. Good enough for me when the line of thought mentioned above comes into play.

So leave your Grouch Mode at home and go watch the movie with lightheartedness. It's bloody hilarious and tickles your funny bones, mate.


- De Lion Speaks

Fixing My iPhone's Push Notification

It took me a few days to realize that ever since I've re-jailbroken my iPhone, my push notification service had been broken (pun not intended). It dawned on me when I discovered that my WhatsApp messages were received only when I launched the app. It was the timestamps on those messages that showed they were sent much earlier before I received them upon launching the app that made me realize so.

Initially, I thought it was just the WhatsApp server having gone all screwy, but when my alarm bells started ringing upon the realization that the situation has remained the same for days and I tested my Lioness' WhatsApp and saw that she could receive the push notifications and the messages on time, I couldn't help but acknowledge that mine was kaput.

So it took me a few days doing an indecent amount of research online and reading about the things other folks did in making attempts to rectify the problem. Nothing helped except for just one thing: PushFix. Lots of folks swear by it and so far, it's the only known effective way to resolve the issue - and you have to pay USD $5.99 for it.

Apparently, push notifications break when an iPhone loses its unique 1024 bit certificate and PushFix provides a unique certificate for your phone after you pay for it. It works by using your phone's unique IMEI series of numbers to identify your phone and providing a certificate for it.

And apparently, multiple restores via iTunes can give rise to this problem, even on non-jailbroken iPhones, as folks on the Net have reported. So if you are thinking you are all legit & high & mighty because you are holding an un-jailbroken iPhone, wipe that smirk off your face since this could happen to you too. Come off it, Apple doesn't love you that much. And for that matter, jailbreaking is not illegal.

What it means when it comes to your phone's unique IMEI is that you only need to pay for PushFix once and should the same phone with the same IMEI ever requires PushFix again, like say, when your push notification breaks again after subsequent re-jailbreaks on newer firmwares in the future, you don't have to pay for the service again to re-fix the issue. Handy.

Since not being able to receive push notifications is like always being the last to know about the party as well as always being the last guy to turn up at the party, I had to nip this pain in the butt right in the butt.

So I went to PushFix's site, paid for the service using PayPal after keying in my phone's IMEI so that PushFix can identify and acknowledge my phone, fired up Cydia and added the following repository source:

PushFix's Repo added

PushFix installed

Once the PushFix repo has been added, I went into it, looked for PushFix within the repo page and installed it. I then launched WhatsApp (and it prompted me to allow for its push notification service of which I responded with "Where in blazes have you been all these while?"), altered some settings in it to 'wake' its notification service up just to deal it a more assured double-whammy kick in the gut, closed the app, grabbed my Lioness' iPhone and used it to send a string of WhatsApp messages to my own phone and VOILÀ!!

My push notifications worked (tested on all 3 Edge, 3G and Wifi connections) and I was back in telecommunication business. And just as a side-note, sending messages to myself can kinda build some self-awareness along the way, I figured >:)

Not just WhatsApp, but all of my apps with push notifications are now working without a hitch. Good fuckin' riddance to always having to go through the hassle of blindly checking my social interaction and communication apps every 30 minutes just to see if I've received new messages like a paranoid. What if my friends thought I was being proud or girls thought I was playing hard to get just because I couldn't respond to them in a timely manner, Sheesh! No more of such bull crap :)

By the end of it all, my PayPal receipt stated a bill of SGD $7.63 after an exchange rate conversion from USD. This is the very first time I have to pay to troubleshoot my phone but hey, it's just a tad more expensive than a bottle of Heineken and definitely cheaper than a packet of smokes. Gee, peace of mind can still come cheap these days.

If you are finding yourself having to tango with a broken push notification service, trust me on this, I did my fair share of research and tried everything. I still cringe at the thought of the amount of time and experimental misadventures I had to go through looking for a fix. Through it all, Pandora (that's what I named my iPhone and I've decided that she's female) had to suck up all the abuse I had to throw at her in stride, the poor thing.

If I have to retire her some day, I'll give her something on par with a state funeral in her honour since among all the phones I've owned (smart phones and stupid phones), Pandora has been the phone which is 'closest' to me in terms of the amount of interactions I've had with and through her and the amount of workload I've squeezed out of her, like this blog, for example.

So when it comes to fixing broken push notifications, only PushFix works. For now.

And by all that's enlightening, I learned lots of new things regarding the finer intricacies of how the iPhone and the services associated with it actually work through this experience. The next thing I think I should do is to think of ways to capitalize on the extra knowledge gained and do something useful with it..

And you don't have to worry about security issues because the certificates don't reveal information about your phone. It took me less than 10 minutes with PushFix, so spare yourself the time, trouble and hassle if you are running late for the party on your own iPhone.

And in other news, I went to the salon just now to do something that involved my hair having to drink up loads of chemicals. I will not be able to dye it until a week later (better still, 2 weeks). Bugger that, the long wait for a 'purple haze' to envelope my head again is gonna be an excruciating one. Oh well, at least my hair is smelling really good right now after the salon session.

* Sniff Sniff *


- De Lion Speaks

Pharmacy Fair 2011

Every year, my biggest customer will hold a Pharmacy Fair and this year is no exception. Ever since I joined my present company in 2007, the venue for this yearly event has always been Le Meridien Hotel. So that was where I headed first thing this morning since I had to be there at 8am to set up our booth with Jason, my National Sales Manager and Luke, one of our Product Managers from the Marketing Department.

I hung out with Miss Psychedelic last night at Cafe Cartel in Plaza Singapore after work having drinks and chit-chat and we broke the promise of letting me go home by 9:30pm since we ended up with too many things to talk about, as usual.

I was supposed to get up at 5 in the morning to prepare to go to the Pharmacy Fair but I reached home during midnight. That got me worried that I might oversleep or something. By hook or by crook, I had to make it to the fair since the 2 managers accompanying me there this year would be attending a Pharmacy Fair for their very first time, so I had to take the lead with things there, especially with the interactions with my Pharmacist customers whom they are not familiar with.

So this morning, I found myself waking up at 6:30am (doh!) which meant I had to call a cab, since I had to take an hour to prepare myself. And since there was a traffic jam at PIE, I reached Meridien at 8:10. Bugger that, for that meant I couldn't have that morning cup of coffee I planned for at the coffee shop next to the hotel; something I do every year during the day of the event. Late birds don't get their caffeine fix and I willed myself to snap out of Zombie Mode and be on my toes. Couldn't afford to fuck up during the fair.

So I proceeded straight to the ballroom and bumped into Kimberly and Moh Wah, two of my Pharmacist customers who were in the organizing committee for this year and I handed to them the lucky draw prize sponsored by my company - a pair of Golden Village Gold Class movie tickets before proceeding to the booth allocated to my company.

Our booth

Jason was already there, he called me when he reached before I did when my cab was at the vicinity around the Istana and he has started displaying the props and product samples, so I hustled to do the same. Luke was still stuck at the PIE.

I saw A---, the Regional Manager for M------- whom I worked with before when my department helped his company with the distribution of their merchandise. His booth was just right next to mine. Nice to have extra company and he showed me the photos of his new China girlfriend on his phone. According to him, she's not his only girlfriend, he has like one girlfriend each in every continent he does business in. I guess some guys need love everywhere they go.

Later, Kenneth came to our ballroom since he was late and didn't wanna just barge into the ongoing talk next door. So he came to me and we chatted for a long time. I didn't see him ever since he got promoted to Area Manager from retail Pharmacist and catching up with him was swell and funny since we talked lots about married life and having kids (he got married sometime just before or after his promotion years back).

I teased him hard about why he's holding so long on having kids when he suddenly remembered that I have none too and teased me back. I was just waiting to see how long it took him to realize that while I was making fun of him and it was comical as heck.

Later at around 10am, the Pharmacists came out from the ballroom next to ours where they attended a talk and presentation event and they started filtering into the ballroom where us suppliers are stationed. One moment it was quiet and the next, you suddenly see them coming in in waves. This is always the moment during the fairs when I get into my 'Look Alive, Trooper' mode and snap to attention.

When they came to our booth, we handed them the goody bags we have prepared for them and handed a questionnaire for them to fill and passed them a piece of Golden Village movie ticket each, put nicely in their envelopes, which has always been very well-received with my customers. In fact, we have always been the only supplier that gives them the tickets.

But alas, it's just a pity that for this year, each of them received one ticket each instead of a pair. We have always given them a pair each year except for this time round and I'm still quite bitter about it and I've tried debating against the idea when it was first announced to me.

Suffice it to say, my department had a change of management and so, certain departmental modus operandi inevitably changed. I was told that we had to tighten our budget shoestring but at the same time, my company has undergone an expansion, moved to a much bigger premise, expanded in operations and logistics, won a SME award and just like the universe, apparently still expanding. Go figure. Still, we sponsored a pair of Golden Village Gold Class movie tickets as a lucky draw prize this year.

My manager told me that to make up for it, he would like me to organize lunches with my customers from the key outlets; on our company's expense of course. Honestly, it makes more sense to me to maintain the practice of giving my customers a pair of movie tickets each just because hardly anyone goes to the movies alone, rendering the whole thing rather half-hearted. Besides, I do go for lunches with my dear customers quite often anyway.

But still, I trust he has his valid reasons and our budget is probably really tight this year, considering that an expansion is not always a sure-shot guarantee that what is shown on the expenses versus revenue chart portrays a positive outlook on things, especially with the current world-wide economic situation which is expected to slide downwards towards the bleak side, if it hasn't started its way down the crapper already.

Anyway, following the booths visit and buffet breakfast (which I didn't eat since I was on diet and wasn't hungry anyway, next to the fact that I was feeling uncomfortably bloated for some reason), the lucky draw started and S.L., one of my favourite Pharmacists won the lucky draw prize my company sponsored and my heart leapt for joy for her when her name was announced. S.L. was funny, she later came and stood in front of my booth a few feet away, looked at me and using those big round pretty eyes of hers, gestured my attention towards those leftover movie tickets on the table in front of me.

She then walked over and asked me if she could exchange the lucky draw prize she won with 10 of those normal movie tickets. Smart enterprising girl. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that. Wish I could comply with her request though. So I supposed that she, not wanting to put me in a difficult position, flashed her pretty smile at me and waved me goodbye while saying 'bye bye' in such a sweet little-girl way. Libras have killer smiles indeed.

Later in the day, she and me WhatsApped each other and I took the opportunity to apologize and explain the situation to her since I was still feeling bad about it. In fact, even before the fair, I've already apologized to several of my customers whom I've had the chance to notify regarding the cut down in movie tickets this year. All of them took the news gracefully which made me feel even more guilty about it..

The fair ended around noon and Jason had to hustle off, so me and Luke loaded what was left of everything we brought over into his car before we split. I didn't inform Jason that for every fair I attended before this one, I was always given a pair of leftover movie tickets by every one of my past managers who attended the event with me. They themselves got a pair too as a reward for all the work. But since my customers received only one each this year, I didn't have the heart to request for any, so I kept my mouth shut about it.

For this year's fair, there were many new faces and I could no longer see lots of once-familiar faces I used to always see during the previous fairs. There is only a handful of old-timers left. People move on. On my part, I guess I'm the witness of this changing tide for all these years. Can't help but wonder if I'll move on too someday. A situation like this makes you wonder.

Until the next Pharmacy Fair next year. The next time you visit the Pharmacists, do treat them kindly, they are good folks.

And they like watching movies, I'm glad to say.


- De Lion Speaks