gnatweds

We just watched Pterodactyl on the Cinemax channel. Goodness knows why we started watching, but let's just say that it was so bad that you would have had to pay me to watch it in the cinema. The kind of bad that makes your eyes water in sheer agony especially at the one liners.

The plot: Somewhere in the Turkish border, a (very very fake looking) volcano holds a secret: You guessed it! Pterodactyls!!! (as Judith would say "ya think?")

Okay, the actresses looked perfect, no matter how much the gore, they didn't pay the animators very much money so the walls looked like they came out of a video game circa 1988. And oh, it took a gadzillion bullets to kill one of the creatures, but these people can also shoot across a gorge and get it pin blank perfect and hit the bad guy.

Memorable lines:
Captain Bergin: Now, keep your mouth shut, or your teeth won't make the rest of the trip!
He also says: We have a saying here; we cry tomorrow because today we have work to do.

Okkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaay. Nonetheless, but a bunch of crap talking people around a living room as the movie rolls and it becomes kind of *fun* : point out just how perky the actresses 36DDDDDD busts were and huccome they still had perfect teeth and Kohl under their eyes (you realise how difficult it is to put kohl on? ) despite technically being in this crack commando team and being in the field. Hahhahahah.

ROD loh!

The acronym stands for Run Out Date. This is a very important milestone for male Singaporean citizens, because it stands for the date they complete their 2 year National Service stint.
(Actually, wishb - nowadays its called ORD Operationally Ready Date - to signify when they go into civilian life but can be called up to serve.. whatever lah, the point remains...)

And like all good acronyms, it is quickly adopted by the rest of Singapore. So my last day of work/school etc etc will be ROD. This does not apply to the last day of something pleasant however, like a holiday,

And when you're in ROD mode, you get well, a bit laissez faire - let it happen, let it go, you know what i mean? Like, oh la la la, let's go for lunch. Or, you have a story? Sure. You don't? Oh well, sure, okay. There are some press releases to sort through? Oh well, okay, I'll take my time and check em thoroughly. Heh.

Just a bit of packing left then come Friday, its "Adios" for a year. It's strangely sad and melancholic to leave a life I've known for seven years; the only life I've known since I started work. I have made some great friends there and gosh, I will miss them, my pals and my family here.

I comfort myself with the thought that its only a year though. Of course, its possibly the worst possible time to go - was *just* starting to get into the groove at the desk and all. But I had a chat with a colleague today, and well, the conclusion is: if you had to make a choice... what would it be? The career is important and all, but I guess, we gotta try to make us work too; and frankly, am not *quite* sure I like long-distance things.
The colleague also said that if he were in my place, he'd go too.

Here's an interesting question though: Wonder if G will pack up and come with me when its my turn to do something somewhere else? Well, that will be the test then right?

gnat has wed and now gnat will fly! heheheh
okay, okay, its corny I know.

BTW the boxes for the move have arrived but.... ugh... can't get started. Will leave it for next week methinks.

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After discovering the wonders (and ease) of vblogging - we couldn't resist. The other one's my favourite but this is Gene's favourite vid of the mantas.

They are in formation no less.

Okay, now I need help: which do you guys prefer? And is Youtube better? or Videoegg?

Leave a comment!

Cheers

Is this what's its going to be like in the US? When I have mucho time on my hands and all I do is blog blog and blog? :)

BUT finally! Have managed to get vid up on blog. There are two that seem to work for me: Youtube and videoegg.com chose Youtube's cos it's a bigger screen.

Anyway, now my friends (yes you Art, and Wee Ling) have been pointing me towards Taitai blogs in view of my impending status. Apparently, I'll have all the time in the world to do up this lil bit of cyberspace.

Found this naughty link on one of them. Its hilarious: Its the karma sutra animated. Minors DO NOT CLICK the link . Although this is akin to like putting a big lollipop in front of a kid and saying do not eat. Hummm. But it is funny!

Well, if I get complaints, I'll take the link down.

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More photos, courtesy of my trusty 1.3 megapixel sony ericsson camera phone

A typical sight every morning: gear on the boat, rigged up and ready to go. This is just a small part of it... especially if there's a full complement of divers, its almost impossible suiting up for the dive. By the time we struggle into our suits, we're like tired already! Of course, it doesn't help that I've become chiubbier in the last six months after the wedding (2 kilos! bloody heck.)


Eugene doing his zone-ing out, this-is-the-life, work-what-work?, thing at the back of the boat.

Oh! We did spot a Mola Mola (sunfish) that rare rare fish that everybody wants to see... but not underwater (darn). We saw it from the boat, sun tanning on the surface, its fin was huge. Didn't manage to get a real sighting on our actual dives though.



Meet Angel! Isn't she the cuuttttest? She's about a month old, and has these amazing stripes. Bitey at the moment and very playful; Very cute - which meant that she was terrorised by yours truely after every dive trip at Yos' HQ.


Beautiful sunset at fancy schmancy hotel: The Legian, which Phil was staying at. Nice ah?

...in Bali, our last stop for sun, surf, sand and of course diving. For the next 365 days at least.

The staff at the Conrad did a great job of welcoming us back, even remembering the comments we left the last time we stayed with them in 2004(with the help of computer filing of course).

There have been several changes since we were last here. Fuel prices have doubled translating to a similar rise in taxi fares. For instance, the cost of cabbing it from Benoa to Seminyak and back worked out to be about half the cost of our dinner. Hence, we spent the following nights eating at restaurants with free pick-up. heh.

The other striking thing was the paucity of tourist. Hotels are operating at 30-50% full capacity. When asked whether this was due to the low season now, someone replied "there is no high season anymore". Apparently, this all happened after the second terrorist attack at Jimbaran. Which seemed a bit odd as tourism picked up quickly and rose to even higher heights after the first attack.

but in anycase, Bali is still a great place to escape to and I'm sure I'll be back terrorist attack or not.

here are some photos...

a nice spot by the beach to watch the world go by, preferably with a gin tonic in hand!

here's Nat going "wheeeeeee" happy that we upgraded to the lagoon access room instead of the normal one on the 4th floor.

our friends at YOS marine. On the left is divemaster Cong, the chap we've been diving with in Bali all this while. On Nat's right is Martinus, one of the senior dive staff at YOS. (can't remember the other chaps name, ooops)

and last but not least .........the star of the show, the mantas!

We're back from our week long trip Bali.
Net access was expensive and intermittent; so haven't been able to blog much.

But first up:
We saw MANTAS!!!! Wooohoooooooooo

This is Eugene's 120th dive trip and my 60-somethingeth one and having traipsed all over the world, we finally see them in Bali. And we see them several days in a row no less. Excellent stuff.
They are quite big; the biggest of them is about 3m - 4m(wingspan), and they are incredibly graceful! One flap and they're off... and perfectly balanced despite the swell.
The dive area is called Manta Point: and it seems they only come when the tide is high (unfortunately, that also means bad visibility because there is a huge swell and it sweeps up the sand on the bottom of the ocean )
(NB: Lots more photos on the flickr badge on the right column of the blog.)

There is one particular boulder they congregate upon - because the fishes there pick out the parasites from their gills and skin... a cleaning station in other words. They even line up for their turn.

And they can be quite curious about you too. They come up and eyeball you a bit before flapping off but trust me, its hard to catch up with a Manta even if you think they are going slow.

We went with good old Yos Marine Adventures - whom we keep going back to - and our great DM, Chong. (Ask for him if you do decide to go) Tulamben is always a good dive, even if its hours away by van. But the best diving is around Nusa Penida, an island about an hour away by speedboat. Manta Point is on the east side of the Island, and Crystal Bay is apparently where all the Mola Molas come through.

There are currents though - one dive, it was like a 4 knot drift: we have a hilarious vid of this guy clowning it up for the camera and getting swept right into the coral. On another we had to fight the currents so we wouldn't be swept away into the open ocean. All I can say is that we were super pooped at the end of it.

We had six dive days, and met a really nice chap - Phil - who can *really* hold his own when it comes to air consumption. He accuses us of having gills/not breathing underwater but he can last up to 75 minutes anyhoos. But that one dive, he had all of 10 bar left at the decom stop. Gene had a lousy 200 PSI left. (We were too involved looking at Mantas) I decided I'd hold on to Phil just in case he needed the Octopus. (I still had 50 bar) - but he's like a good luck charm - excellent dives with him; so no regrets man.

But now, its back to reality - the reality that we spent too much money (F&B at the Conrad is ridiculously expensive), the reality of a heckuavalot of laundry after a holiday, the reality that we are extremely sun burnt...

And we have come down with Bali Belly. Prob ate something fishy at this italian restuarant in Seminyak. (no, not La Luciola, which was as good as ever. Think it was the beef carpaccio at Ultimo that did us in)

Okay, will post up more photos when i have the energy... and when Gene gets down to downloading the pixes from his camera.

And if It's a Boy, Will It Be Lleh? - New York Times cute article for the moms/dads and moms to be/dads to be that we know.

Erh. No. This DOES NOT mean that we are/planning to/will have (or any possible permuation that you can think of) kiddies.

This is what happens when you're surfing the NYT for your morning fix of news, and clicking away from story about how some senators are hissy about how they weren't chosen to be briefed abt the CIA appointee, you see this Neveah thing: It's had a meteoric rise among the girls' names in the US from 2001.

Parents were apparently totally taken by this one Christian rocker, who went to the MTV awards with his daughter - and said this is my kid, Neveah - Heaven spelled backwards.

*roll eyes*

By the way, Neveah is 70th most popular girls' name.
Heaven is ranked 245th.

Yes. Am going to this land.

Sheesh.

But what is fun is this Interactive Graph at babynamewizard.com and the Lists of Popular Baby Names which you can search by year.
So you can search, say in 1971 when you were born, which was most happening name then; then groan in amusment about the other names...

In a last ditch attempt to enjoy the sun before we set off to -30 deg C winters, we're off to Bali next week for a spot of diving.

Of course, very intelligently, I left my dive gear in the boot of my car when Gene was supposed to have brought my regulator for a check.

Nevermind. It'll still be a holiday anyway.

It comes at a perfect time because I am being driven mad by the cockamamie bullshit moving companies spout at you - "You need to move plants?" Okay, it'll cost more. "We need to climb stairs?" okay, it'll cost more. "We need to physically move things?'' Yeah, I know, it'll cost more.

Also driving me crazy is packing up at work. THERE IS SO MUCH JUNK here; am surrounded by bunch of complete rubbish - including 1 Fed Ex press release. 1 Flask. Multitude of files. Approximately 800 - 1,000 name cards. Several address books and notebooks. 1 can almost-done Diet coke. 3 CD holders. Empty ang pow packets. 1 wireless camera detector. I tube steriod cream. 5 CD/DVD/VCD Jewel Cases. Argh. Unearthing books and trinkets I never thought I had" Two mugs, one wine goblet, tens of safety pins. One drug information booklet. A heck of a lot of medication/pills... the list goes on.

Kuang, who took the photos at our wedding ( Find him here ) just told me: this won an award at an international photo thing! Amazing stuff! That's mom and Ai-Lien on the boat (our soleminisation with the JP). Gorgeous ya?

We finally got the paperwork done at the US Embassy this morning (G's post-call and I started work at 2 pm today). It took from 830 am to 1145 am.
From 830 am to 10 am it was waiting in line in the hot sun outside the embassy in this snaking line.
From 10 some to 1135 am was waiting in a thankfully air-conditioned room, but filled with squalling babies, for an "interview" behind this glass panel which took, oh, approximately five minutes.
I don't even think they looked too closely at the papers we so painstakingly prepared man, and boy, did we go overboard on the kiasu-ness this time. Every possible documentation that we thought we needed went into the file, along with several extraneous photos.

But the highlight - if you can call it that... hey it was a long and boring wait! - was that in the waiting room were several "Wanted" posters, the most happening of which was the one with the US$5 million reward offered for Osama Bin Laden (and when will the American networks stop calling him by his dad's name.. humm - Bin Laden = son of Laden, no?). Anyway, plastered all over the poster were words like "MURDER" and "MURDERER". There was another Wanted poster in the room, but this time the guys weren't so big time. Four of them had to share the space.

Both of us opted for drinks at brunch after getting out from the embassy. *heh* and Gene's Hokkien improves tremendously under such times of trial and duress.

Hah! Just did my very first bit of plumbing in my life. Yes, almost 30 years into my life and all but now I actually *know* what's plumber's tape, and where the washers go... no, no not the dhobis who whack the stuffing out of your clothes, the other kind, rubber and black and o-ring-ish.

Although... I will admit... it *was* done with my parents peering helpfully over my shoulder and they did bring the tools and spare parts.

The pipe between the shower head and faucet busted on Saturday night.
But Ta-Daaah! It's all fixed.

Ooo. Sense of accomplishment and all.

Anyway, seems like the home is finally packing it in after the year: Just as we are packing to get out, things are going funny: Pipes are wonky, batteries for remote controls are failing etc etc. Heh. Maybe it'll miss us. But then again, it *has* been a year that the batteries have had to turn on the TV, cable remote control, air conditioning.... hummm... maybe asking too much of them batteries eh?

Anyway, this has been an interesting weekend: couple of nice things happened and nice photos to share.
For the first long in kerryonks we caught up with Mr & Mrs Choh and Mr and Mrs Bahari. After their respective babies and all, its been tres hard getting out and about with them a la back in those days when G and I were in Uni. And the last time we attempted to party, Mr and Mrs Bahari fell sick and became nauseous. But this time, it was a wee bit better:


*laughs* As you can tell, they were much better this time round.

Here's Uncle Choh:


He's now the de riguer towkay and if you're ever in Beach Road market (where you buy the army surplus stuff) look for Dadine's curry puffs - they're actually pretty good.

Passed the taste test from my parents and all. And they are true-blue fussy Peranakans!

Dunno how long he'll keep doing it (his main business is something else) so go get it while you can. (*plug! plug!* Neil: do i get a lifetime free supply after this?)

Jokes aside: they are good. Have a try. Seriously.

We also met up this morning for blading/cycling session at East Coast Park - if you ever get the chance to meet and talk to Neil Choh, get him to tell you the story of how he cycled up North to Desaru and thought he'd have issues with fatherhood from then on - its blinking hilarious.

The process to apply for a US Visa is calculated to drive the applicant insane.
Maybe its meant to fob off the half-hearted cos i know that if we could, we would have said f**k off to the whole thing.
For a start: there are forms. And nooo, they couldn't have had easy names for em. Its the D-156, and the D-157 if you are a guy and D-158 for yet something else, add to the pernicious mix: adobe acrobat, cashier's checks, and conflicting information on different websites, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Disaster as I define it: Waking up early to get to the effing embassy at 8.30 am only to see a long queue, then spending 2 hours in the hot sun waiting in line only to be turned away at the gate because you don't have the appropriate forms.
Fua.
And, no, there's no such thing as a service counter where u can clear up these queries 1st.
The Hokkiens have very apt and very pejorative swear words for these type of situations.

Anyway, the last few days since the last post have been busy in all sorts of ways.
There was the downpour with thunder and lightning at Pasir Ris which I was caught in on polling night. Then the sniffles that came after for four days. Then mom and dad came back from holidaying in Japan - thankfully the cat did not expire while they were away - they would have disowned me otherwise.
Been busy at work trying to handover stuff - even though today (wha...) I did my very first interview as a panellist. Potential intern and all. Very strange from the other side of the table really.
Then Wy was back for a while, so managed to have a very nice dinner with her and drinks with the philo folks.
Alf has just SMS-ed, he's in town from Cambodia, gonna try to org something but everyone seems to be away this weekend.
Been calling from quotes from movers so we can start packing up (the house is a mess because the elections took over my life)

It all means one thing: the goodbyes are coming up pretty fast. Not very much time left till the actual move.

Gene's been a frump because of the move. Things aren't going to plan with accomodations and other things on the other side of the world, and it's finally hitting me that I have less than two weeks left of actual working days.

Oh gosh.

Says Gene: "I bought a lemon! And it's not even yellow!''

He is refering to his new O2 Atom, which he traded in his old O2 for. Yes, its not working very well.. He's wracking his brains over Windows Mobile 5.0.
This week has been a hard hitting one financially. Both of us had to service our cars - while mine came to 300 bucks, the sting is nothing compared to Gene's 3.3k servicing bill.
Then we just bought a computer cos I don't get to hang on to the work one while I'm no pay leave. hahaha - was too much to hope for right?

Anyways. Its 5.22 pm. I'd better go, working at night covering the good old polls. Crap.