Merry Christmas 2007!

Today is Christmas day! Merry Christmas, everyone.

On Monday, I went to watch the movie, I Am Legend, with Akira, Chaosmag and Kyo. I must admit, it wasn't what I expected. It was a very slow-paced, scientific tragedy instead of an action movie. I should learn to check Rotten Tomatoes next time before I pick a movie. After the movie, it was dinner at Pizza Hut before we went home for the night. We had actually wanted to eat at Breeks but it seems that the branch at Ang Mo Kio had closed down.

On a side note, Aliens Vs. Predator 2 is next on my must-watch list, but when I saw the trailer in the cinemas, it was much more tame compared to the gory splatterfest that I saw on YouTube. I guess I would only want to watch that in local cinemas if it gets an MA-18 rating.

When I got home, I found my package from Japan sitting on my bed. They were here! My Pesoguins have arrived!



I actually bought them off Yahoo Japan (as usual with help from Hobby Shop K). I heard that the Pesoguin plushies were pretty rare so I couldn't resist it when I saw them on auction and I had some spare Paypal money made from selling stuff on Ebay.

My favourite is the one with the cell phone(at least that's what I think it is). He looks like a busy little guy, doesn't he?

Maybe he's ordering pizza.

Sadly, until I get about to tidying up my room, I don't have any space to display them.

My Heroes marathon began at night! I actually bought it on Friday from VideoEzy and it was the last copy they had.



I told myself I would just watch 2 episodes and go to bed but it was very nice and I stayed up till 4 am to complete the first disc containign 4 episodes. I woke up today at 2 pm and carried on watching. There are a lot of things going on with all the characters which keeps me hooked.

Oh well, it's almost near the end of the day. Now I am beginning to dread tomorrow because it is back to work. I remembered that I wanted to do some Christmas shopping to get my bosses a present but alas, I was too lazy to do anything about it.

December Holiday Season!

Yes! The string of year-end holidays are coming, starting from Thursday (Hari Raya Haji) and lasting all the way to Christmas Tuesday. While others at my workplace are planning on week-long vacations, my idea of spending the holidays is simply taking leave on Monday. This super-long-weekend is going to be great.

I think I have not gotten this much free time in quite a while ever since I started working. I am actually afraid that I may not have enough time to do everything that I want. Aside from the usual gaming, I plan to do a little bit of shopping just to give myself an excuse to get out of the house, mingle with the crowds of Orchard road (or some other place) and see what cool things I pick up. Maybe if there are others like me who wish to do some Christmas shopping together, we could meet up or something.

Anyway, I will be doing some wrap-up/looking-back style blog entries to commemorate my rather eventful year (and also help breathe some life into this blog) so check back in the weeks to come. Cheers.

It's the Start of December!

The company is having its annual convention so it means every manager will be in Korea for the entire week. The office is pretty deserted aside from the occasional agent who comes in to settle some personal work. If this were like some crazy American sitcom, you'd be seeing all the dull admin staff crawl out of their boring little cubicles and party out in the open.

Anyway, I think I won't be seeing much of my boss around this month since she has several overseas business and family trips to make. Such little surprises in life that make me happy sometimes. When even your boss takes a break, you can't help but feel a little switched-off, too.

Somehow, I feel that this year's December will be pretty different for me. For one, I am now working so I won't have all the time in the world to do anything that I want. I really miss those days. Incidentally, it was this time of the year when I bought a new laptop from SITEX 2006 and started playing WoW.

I hope that this month will be quite meaningful for me and all those around me.

A Little Break from Hardcore Gaming

I have recently got a little more free time since my WoW guild stopped raiding. That means no more coming home knowing well ahead that my nights have been fully booked. No doubt, raiding is the core of the game and it's fun, but one starts to feel the strain when you realize that it is taking up 4-5 out of 7 days every week.

I'll miss raids but, in the meantime, I will learn to appreciate this change in my daily routine as I can now play the game at my leisure and set aside time for other activities like web-surfing reading or watching TV. Maybe even sleep early.

Worst PC Game Launch. Ever.

Alright, I can overlook the fact that Hellgate: London is a mediocre and repetitive game but its first few weeks of release had been the most horrible thing I have experienced in my entire gaming life. I never knew so many things can possibly go wrong in a short span of time. The situation is so catastrophic that I am surprised IAH games haven't closed down yet. This is worst than the time I was playing Priston Tale (shudder) many years ago. And that was a free game.

What you are about to read may be one of the biggest farce in local gaming history.

Week 0: The Gates are Open!

Local gamers picked up HGL only to realize that they were playing an early Beta version of the game, albeit packaged nicely in a shiny box with a price attached. (US gamers get a retail version update known as Patch 0 the moment they go home and run the game.) Over the first weekend, players soon hit the Beta level cap of 22. Everyone was generally unhappy and flamed IAH on their forums.


Week 1: Welcome to real life Hell...

To help appease the gamers, IAH announced that they will patch the game on Tuesday to remove the level cap. Patch 0 will still have to wait, though. Maintenance ended on Tuesday but... no changes was made to the game at all! Flames ensued. And we learnt that we have a useless bimbotic CM (Community Manager) who only knows how to post ditzy remarks and spam pics of 'sizzling hot' babes.

The server was brought down again on Wednesday to finally remove the level cap and this time, it went through. However, in a most unexpected turn of events, all level 22 with excess EXP automatically skipped levels, causing them to miss out on stat/talent points. Characters were bugged permanently this way. More flame threads appeared on the forum.

IAH announced that they would be looking into the matter to try and 'fix' characters. From a technical standpoint, I already knew it was impossible to alter the game code for each and every bugged character. I played on, bracing myself for what I fear might happen next...

And it did. On Saturday, IAH announced that there would be a character wipe to make way for Patch 0, the reason being that their Beta-version database was incompatible with it (My penguin senses still tell me it's largely because the bugged characters were irrepairable ). Sadly, the wipe/maintenance/patching will be on Monday. It was a weekend with no HGL for players everywhere. Flames carried on in the forums.


Week 2: ???

Monday was supposed to be fresh start for everyone so that we can forget the game's rather shameful first week. But alas, IAH has let down its gamers again with a last minute announcement; there would be no maintenance and Patch 0 has been put on hold until further notice.

Massive flame threads continue to pile up on the Hellgate forums and it has become my source of entertain during work hours.

Looks like the entire game has come to a standstill. It would be interesting to see how IAH can screw up even more.

My Internet has Been Saved!

I didn't have the mood to blog at all for the past week since my MaxOnline connection was messed up. Lots of people I spoke to pointed out that it had to do with wireless connections being generally unstable. Alas, it was Brainy who came by to help since had similar setup at home. It was as simple as just plugging the router to the laptop with a cable and I was then enjoying a smooth wired connection even during those dreaded peak hours.

Mr. Mint saves the Internet!

Though now there is an unsightly cable on the groud running across the living room and into room. My family doesn't really mind, though. No one uses the living room anyway.

What's Happening to StarHub?!

It started happening in the 3rd week of November. My Starhub MaxOnline connection began to lag like crazy and disconnected repeatedly during an evening of WoW. I was kinda panicky; was it 'time's up' already for my Asus computer or maybe my router/modem? It looked like yet another technical tragedy was going to happen under my name.

A quick visit to Hardware Zone made me realize that I was not alone. Connections to Starhub has been slow for everyone. Starhub had started capping overseas transfers (what, they want us to only visit local sites?) and just being a pain to their customers. My friends suspect that the end-of-year holidays are here, resulting in more students squeezing in to share the fat green pipe with me. This is kinda worrying for me. Lag doesn't really matter while web-surfing but lag kills gaming. I can't play during peak hours like weekday nights. It's beginning to bother me a lot.

I really like Starhub and wish to continue with their service. I'll see if there is any way to get this resolved. Otherwise, I guess I will have to start switching ISPs soon. Can't live without Internet gaming...

Hellgate: London - Hype Sells!

I went to pick up the Hellgate: London collector edition over the weekend. The amount of hype building up around the game prior to its release was really immense; there was a TV commercial, a front-page feature in Today and a massive launch party at Funan. I wasn't even considering the game at first but, with so much hype and publicity, it was hard for me to resist giving it a shot.

Having spent some time with the game, I felt that it was pretty average in every way. It was a typical action-RPG in a sci-fi setting. There wasn't anything ground-breaking or innovative about it.

That doesn't mean it's bad, though. It's still an enjoyable and addictive game, though some people are going to be disappointed that it does not live up to the hype. I'll probably blog about it proper after exploring the game a little more.

Monday Blues... Then Comes the Surprise

I had an early bout of Monday blues as the clock struck midnight on Sunday. It felt a little depressing to let go of the weekends. Not that I am sure how this particular weekend was any different from the rest. Maybe I was just ill and needed another break even though I just took off last Wednesday.

Tuesday was a special day as it marked my 3rd month working at Great Eastern (I started on the 16th of July). I was quite surprised that my boss remembered the date and approached me. It was just a quick talk; permanent employment and a little pay raise (yay!).

Personal WoW Blog

I have created a seperate blog where I can freely post my World of Warcraft entries.

All you WoW fans, feel free to check out The Penguin Crusade.

RT is Over, What a Relief

My two months of RT finally ended last Thursday. I was overjoyed as it was becoming more of an annoyance to me as I kept wishing for its conclusion. Now I am back to my 'normal' life. I can enjoy Sundays at home for a change.

To sort of celebrate this most exciting event, I decided to take off next Wednesday so I can rest at home (hehe, first time I have taken off from work).

Boring Month of Remedial Training

I am now in the 2nd phase of my RT and having to go to Bedok camp 3 times a week has been quite unbearable. That's training almost every other day. I had fallen sick and was thinking of getting an MC but once again, through the modern miracles of self-medication, I have gotten better myself. Meh.

I realized that it is the fasting month and the Malays in my RT group are all excused from training. They just come here to sit, eat and make merry while everyone else suffers. This was the same thing I encountered last year and now I am convinced they all deliberately signed up for RT during the fasting month to slack. That sucks. A lot.

I noticed a few interesting things in RT this year. Since I don't know anyone, I'm mostly just eavesdropping. There was this NUS guy (either he didn't know fulltime students are exempted from RT or things have changed) who chatted about South Park, WoW and the Odex incident. Then there were these two guys who played Gundam Seed Destiny Vs. on their PSPs. Maybe I should try to find people to register for the same RT schedule as me for next year though it is probably highly unlikely.

The last day of my RT is the 4th of October. I really look forward to that. Fortunately for me, it is near the end of the year and I have not been called up for reservist ICT. I hope I can continue to keep slipping under their radars.

A Little Bit of Reminiscing

These past two weekends had been pretty enjoyable for me. It's mainly because on both Sundays, my RT training was cancelled due to the Army Half Marathon and then again due to open house. The first month of RT will be over soon; one more month to go.

Life has been pretty mundane for me. I just go about my daily routine of work-WoW-sleep, work-WoW-sleep. I decided to be a little different this past few weeks by getting back in touch with my favourite old past-times; video-gaming and card-gaming.

I dropped by at FunZ Centre to shop for games and pick up Brave Story: A New Traveller (I was thinking of watching the movie as well but it seems so obscure and no one bothers to give it a try. haha). It seems like there has been some interesting titles lately among the sea of craptacular games over the past few months. I may not be able to play much anymore but I'll try to squeeze in some game time between work and WoW raiding.

I also drafted Fires of Outland at Toa Payoh with friends. I still prefer AMK's McDonald's with the McCafe but alas, we have to move on. Toa Payoh's not too bad with its massive selection of places to eat but the taxi queues are insane. During the draft, I managed to pull the Spectral Tiger loot card. After a lot of hesitation, I finally decided to redeem it for my own use. It probably would've been more logical to sell it for a hefty sum but the MMO gamer in me told me to keep it. I feel that it looks kinda plain but I did read they were going to improve the look in an upcoming patch.



These past few weeks reminded me of how much I miss playing the WoW TCG. However, I am somewhat miffed that any card game that is not M:TG does not garner much widespread recognition and success on our boring little island. Sure, I see lots of trades and gaming activities going on at Sgcardgames.com but I feel that the community feels a little weak and dispersed (I know that doesn't make much sense but I don't really know how to describe it). Oh, well, I guess so long as there is still official tournament support, I'll keep on playing it as always. I am always looking for a good reason to tear myself away from the computer and get out of the house on weekends.

Hooray, Nokia 6210c

I've gotten a new phone recently. It's the Nokia 6210 Classic. I have been wanting to shop for a proper new phone but my mother got this one from her Starhub subcription promotion and didn't plan to use it. So much for wanting to buy my own phone with my own hard-earned salary (I think I wouldn't have known what model to buy anyway).

I learnt from surfing around Hardware Zone that the 6210c is pertty new. I spent the first couple of hours fiddling around with the thing and putting my MP3s in. All I can say is; I am most delighted. I've finally got a 3G phone that can snap non-blurry pictures and play video/music (my PSP just became obsolete). The buttons are a little tiny but it's something that I'll have to get used to. I still have no idea how to configure the Internet settings on it but it's okay.

I'll probably need a new handphone pouch. The thing feels pretty fragile like, as most people say, a candy bar.

The Penguin is Cute No More!

Hello everyone, I will be changing the address of my blog on the 26th of August (Sunday).

The new address will be: http://penguinsnest.blogspot.com/
(Assuming the URL is not taken and the renaming thing works the way I think it does.)

The reason? My current address ("cutepenguin") sounds like it belongs to a female blogger. I named it that way last time because I came up with the address name before the blog's name. The address also sounds pretty common; it's one of those URLs that people can easily stumble across by typing random stuff into their address bars (probably just as random as typing chucknorris.blogspot.com). I don't feel safe that way.

Be sure to update your bookmarks and links! I'll be mentioning the change in my MSN title and sending out e-mail as well so everyone knows where the penguin has moved to.

The Storm is Over (I Think)

I almost thought I would be out of the job this week.

It was fast becoming obvious that my boss had hired me with the intention of making me an insurance agent. All those SCI (Singapore College of Insurance - wow, I never knew such a vile place existed) textbooks she had entrusted me were more than just for casual reading and she had signed me up for their exams in September.

Not wanting to be converted, I approached her on Tuesday to talk things out. I was simply unsuitable for the profession. I said that I would not hold it against her if she didn't want to employ me as just an admin assistant. She told me that she would think it over.

And surprisingly, there I was, carrying on with my job as for normal. I am currently in my 6th week on the job. It looks like the storm is over.

A part of me really wanted a break from it all. Maybe I am very tired of my now mundanely routine lifestyle. Maybe it's just RT biting me and adding to my stress level.

Video-EZY Movie Rental Night

Last Tuesday, I dropped by at White Sand's Video-EZY to browse their movie titles. Usually when I go to rent movies, the reason is either I haven't watched a movie in theatres recently, or I foresee boring nights ahead with nothing to do. (Can you guess which is it this time?)

Video-EZY's rental fees is something that I will never feel comfortable with but I still patronize them because I like the convenience and atmosphere of the store. I browsed around and decided to rent Epic Movie and TMNT on DVD. Normally, I'd just rent VCDs cos' it's cheaper and I don't care for movie extras. But then I saw that the Epic Movie VCD was rated PG while the DVD version was M-18. I like to watch my movies un-butchered, thank you very much.

The movies were on a 3-day loan and I thought I could return them a day late since Thursday was National Day. The guy at the counter told me they were open on public holidauys so I still have to return the movies on time. Oh well.

Oh yes, while I was browsing at Video-EZY, I thought they were playing some WWE match video since I heard a man with a loud voice yelling and people cheering in the background. It was when I heard "This is Spartaaaaaaaaa!" that I looked up and realized what it was. Yup, 300 == WWE. Lots of muscular half-naked men running around. Same thing.

Epic Movie was rather funny & amusing with a rather meaningless ending. I am glad I didn't catch it in the cinemas. TMNT was pretty good but over a little too quick. Definitely check out TMNT.

August is Here!

I moved into the little office room yesterday. Privacy and a nice room at last. hehe.

I am looking forward to the WoW TCG sneak preview on the 12th of August. I haven't touched card games in ages. One of the main reasons is that Ang Mo Kio central has lost its lustre as a card-gaming hangout and I am too lazy to relocate. I'll just leave it at that. At least the local official support for the game is still good. The WoW MMO pretty much takes precedence over anything now but I can't resist the TCG since they are related. Anyhow, my guild has been making good progression, having downed two new bosses (albeit easy ones) in the last raid week. It's a pretty good morale-booster for us all.

Incidentally, my RT also begins this month on the same day as the sneak preview. It's in the late afternoon though, so I can still go in the morning. My RT schedule is pretty weird; Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. At least Tuesdays are WoW maintenance nights so it isn't too bad. I hope I can handle both work and RT without stressing myself out

No MSN Allowed!

The first half of the week has been quiet. My boss has been away attending to personal matters. I tried to use MSN but Geraldine warned me to not to. I wonder if all workplaces are like this.

I just realized that our agency is the only one with its own desktop computer sitting out in the open for our life planners to use. Geraldine sits inside the office at ther own table with her own laptop, doing her own stuff. For me, I have been sitting outside in the open and using the desktop where all the other life planners are.

I finished my work early and found some time to surf the net. I felt there was nothing to it (everyone needs a break sometimes). I wasn't sure if it was okay to do so here. Geraldine was surfing the net 'tactically' and it was perfectly okay for me to surf the net for my other jobs.

That was until, later in the day, Geraldine told me someone complained to her that I was playing games.

Playing games? Websites with colourful designs, art and screenshots do not equate to playing games. Meh.

Working Days @ Great Eastern

It has been a week at my new job as an admin assistant at Jasmine & Associates. I was the 'understudy' for the current admin person, Geraldine, who would be leaving at the end of the month. So far, it has been quite a peaceful first week. Geraldine always teaches me a few things then goes on with her work. When I am done, I just wait around for more things to do. The boss, Jasmine was away on course this week and rarely dropped by, so I had the whole place to myself most of the time. It felt very relaxing to have no one watching over your shoulder. I hope it stays like this next week. Overall, the workload is manageable, not too stressful and I still have time to play WoW every night when I get home.

The strange thing is that, up to now, I don't even know my exact salary (aside from a range) since I haven't signed any letter of appointment yet. The boss wasn't around most of the time and I only learnt from Gerlandine on Thursday that they don't practice preparing appointment letters. I guess I will try again next week. Hopefully I can bargain with her next week.

Insurance Agents

I went for a job interview for an admin assistant post on Thursday evening at Great Eastern (Eunos). Yup, it's that insurance company. Through our nearly 2-hour long exchange, the interviewer felt that I was a suitable candidate for the job and invited me for their agency's mid-year function on the following day. I wanted to turn down the offer (I'm not even employed yet!) and just stay at home but she hinted that it might influence her decision to pick me.

And so, despite the fact that I wasn't even hired yet (she mentioned there were two more candidates to interview), I attended their function today at Sentosa. The boss picked up several other colleauges at Tampines and I got a ride from there. There were about 10 agents in their little department. We had lunch at the Cafe Del Mar. The most uninteresting part of the day came when everyone started talking about things I didn't understand during the presentation.

Oh, well, I learnt that I was hired and would start work on Monday. As an admin assistant, of course. Though they did hint that I might be able to convert to a 'Life Planner' in the long run. Sorry, but I don't think I will ever dabble in insurance. Wish me luck on Monday!

Rolling Bomber Special!

Earlier in the week, Miya, being the nice person he is, recommended me for a part-time job near my home. I was pretty much bursting with excitement and looked forward to the interview on Saturday. Unfortunately, I was informed just the night before that I was not needed anymore. It kinda popped my bubble. Oh, well. Back to my regular job-hunting routine next week.

All in all, it has been a pretty typica, run-off-the-mill week for me. I still spend most of my time at home playing WoW and only go out only for meals. August is coming; things will change when I go for my annual RT again. That's very saddening.

Oh yes, Chaosmag showed me this crazy funny video which will always leave an impression on me. It starts off absolutely hilarious but gets somewhat deep towards the end. Have a look at:
"Rolling Bomber Special"

And... it appears that Blogspot is broken at the moment and I cannot input any text into the Title field. Tried it with both my computers and it's like that. Edit: Found out from the help forums that I have to point my cursor at the top-left corner of the Title field.

What Have You Done to My Room!?

I went on a little emo-streak last night when I got home. My mother had move around the furniture in my room without letting me know. She had my bed replaced with a new one (which I was actually okay with), but she emptied my cupboards and packed all my 'junk' in several large boxes. I spent the night wading through boxes to retrieve some of the important stuff that I use everyday (like my video games, trading cards, installation CDs, adaptor, cables, etc). I'd take a photo of my room but the USB cable for my camera is lost among the boxes.

Looks like I have to spend some time these few days to undo the mess. I was so pissed last night I couldn't sleep. Parents have no clue about privacy. The new bed & mattress is awesome, though.

Anyhow, I watched the Transformers movie at Ang Mo Kio with the gang (before all the nastiness above). I was hoping to get seats at the new AMK Hub cinema but tickets were sold out so it was back to old & anicent Jubilee. The movie was far better than I expected. One of the nicest movies I've watched in a long time.

New Layout!

I was playing around with the 'new' Blogspot (it's new to me cos' I don't explore it much) and learnt that it was now customizable via a neat user-friendly interface. And so, I am now playing around to see if I can create something nice & simple out of it. Wee.

Out of Job; Back to Warcraft

It is now 3 weeks after I left my job at SMART taxi. The last few days at SMART had been pretty relaxed for me as I mainly handled simple filing and report-writing duties as part of the handover to the one that was replacing me. Incidentally, fellow colleagues started leaving one by one during those days and after I had left. It somewhat made me feel good that I was abandoning a sinking ship and several others shared my view.

I am back to playing WoW and have reprised my role as main tank for my guild. Our progress have been steadily improving with the recruitment of new raiders. It looked like the days of being stuck with insufficient raid classes is finally over. I would say our progress is pretty good.

I guess I'll be enjoying myself for quite a while again before I resume job hunting again.

The Countdown Begins

I am feeling kinda relaxed as I am typing this because I am planning to take MC for Wednesday. I know it is quite evil of me (my colleague will be all alone) but I'll just treat it as 'compensation' for the second week where I had high fever but tossed my MC aside.

Anyway, I have began counting down to the day that I would be leaving my company. That would be the 23rd of May which means I have completed one month. I actually made the decision last week. It was a Tuesday when I woke up and felt very heavy-hearted; I have stopped looking forward to every new day. I got to work, still feeling sick due to my fever, then, within the first hour, the phone rang and some retarded driver had an accident. I felt angry and sad at the same time. And so, I spoke to my department head, Siti, and told her that I would resign at the end of the first month.

I had wanted to keep a low profile then leave quietly on the last day. But as days went by, more people from other departments began to realize I was leaving. They started talking to me, mostly offering me encouragement (some even asked me if I had any job recommendations because they wanted out, too!).

I'll be looking forward to my freedom again coming next week.

Fever is Killing Me

I have been sick for one whole week. Somehow, I feel that this was not the typical flu that strikes me every year. I have been to two different doctors so far and the fever & headaches simply won't go away. Every night when I get home, I would just go to bed striaghtaway. If I don't get well soon, I think it may be time to get myself checked into a hospital.

What I do know is that part of my illness is probably due to work stress. The number of people working in my department had been halved ever since two of them transferred out. Right now, it's just me and Faritha. Okay, I would consider us as 1.5 (with me being the 0.5) since I am still new and pretty clueless as to what is going on. Both of us now suddenly have 50-100 more cases under our names since the other two bitches left (the least they could do was to tie up their last few cases and organize their files before leaving). And the irony is that, everyday, I see other departments getting new staff even though they already have like 3-4 people. Where is the love for our accident/claims department?

Seriously, I have been hating my job ever since my workload suddenly increased ten-fold for no good reason at all. I can never seem to finish whatever I am doing and then I suddenly get even more work to do. I am normally a very sporting person but falling sick because of work (and being unable to recover) is probably an indication to me that I have reached my limits. I imagine what would happen if I were to quit the job and then there will be only one person left to do the work of four. Maybe then the department heads will wake up.

Welcome to the Working Life

I have been meaning to blog about my new work but every time I think about it, I am overcome by sadness. Oh, well, here goes.

I received the phonecall last Monday from SMART taxi saying that I was hired. I was quite excited, though, so I just agreed to the job offer and cancelled my other interview with a 'feng shui' company.

On Wednesday, I began my duty as a Operations/Claims Assistant (that's what the appointment letter says) in the Insurance & Claims Department. My working times are 9 pm to 6 pm for 5 & a half days every week. To summarize what I do; I am in charge of doing accident reports, which includes everything from interviewing the driver to finally engaging a lawyer for them. It's actually a lot of work and since I am still inexperienced, I have to keep asking my colleagues for help. Every day, I pray that that the roads are safe so that I don't have to handle any accident cases. Unfortunately, I learnt that Singaporean drivers are very careless. So far, the accident record has been: WED (1), THUR (4), FRI (0)

What really came as a shock to me was that, on my first day of work, I was made by my colleagues to handle one accident case already. I felt it was inappropriate since I was still new, but come to think of it, such 'arrowing' has always been viciously prevalent everywhere, even during NS days. And so, I now already have numerous cases on my hands. I find it even more appalling that one of my colleagues is getting transferred out next Wednesday and she happily told me that she will be handing over all her cases to me. What the 'F' is wrong with these people?

Anyway, I also cannot really say that I like my job for now. True, I was quite happy initially that I have gotten a proper job at last (after 18 months!), but come to think of it, I was job hunting just because it was deemed the typical thing for most people to do. If given the chance, we would all prefer to idle at home everyday, doing the things we want to do. I already miss playing WoW reguarly. Now I only have about 5+ hours to myself every night when I get back, then it is bed time or else I'd be too tired to handle the stress from work.

I hope that I will be able to get used to it soon. I am guessing my current state of depression is due to the my body's adjustments to the new lifestyle. In the meantime, everyone should keep on praying that our country's roads are always safe so I don't have to handle any accident cases. I am already looking forward to Tuesday because it is Labour Day.

A Surprising Wednesday

I was up on the whole of Tuesday night because I couldn't get to sleep. I just idled in WoW, chatted with all those that were up and dueled a bit. I hope it is not insomnia again. Before I knew it, it was 8 am on Wednesday. I had a McDonald's breakfast then went to sleep.

I was awakened by my phone ringing at around 12 noon. It turned out that I was asked to go down to Tampines for a job interview at 2 pm. I tried to remember which job this was for but it was impossible since I sent over 10+ applications over the past week. I was grumpy from the lack of sleep. I went to print out my resume and prepared my results slips before going to lie on the bed a while more. It was soon 2 pm and my mother offered to fetch me to the Capital Building at Tampines since she knew where it was.

I found out that the company was SMART. I just know they have something to do with taxis or something. The receptionist gave me a form to fill out and I noticed that there were other applicants queueing for the same admin assistant job. And they were all ladies. Doesn't look good for me being the only male.

When it was my turn for the interview, a guy invited me in. He was quite a lively and cheerful person. And as with all my previous interviews, the first thing he said was "you are over-qualified for the job". The only difference was that he didn't say it in a chiding manner; it was more like he was surprised. This guy was different. We chatted and had a few good laughs. He was looking for someone who could handle accident reports and going on-site to talk to people. He said some of the taxi drivers were real rough and the job required some working under the sun. I felt that this was the best time to mention my Military Police experience. The interviewer seemed pretty pleased with what he was hearing and brought me to meet another lady to take down more of my particulars. She said they'd call me back in a few days.

For a moment there, I think I have a pretty good shot at the job since the rest of the applicants I saw outside were ladies. Oh, well. The interview left me in good spirits for the day.

I arrived home at around evening time and collapsed on the bed. I woke up at 8 pm, thinking I could attend my WoW raid but I felt totally lethargic by now. I apologized to my raid group, saying that I had totally no sleep at all for the day. Then I went to bed. Before that, I continued watching Code Geass and chatting a bit on MSN. I didn't want to feel like I didn't do anything on the computer for the day. hehe.

The Jobless Penguin!

I was considering seriously hunting for a new job after my birthday. I thought I could take my time with the resume-sending but it looks like I now have to step things up a little.

I think I am out of work. The office haven't called me down for 3 weeks already. So these pass 3 weeks I have been idling at home. I only called on the 3rd week (I was enjoying life as a free man for the first 2 weeks, thinking it wouldn't hurt) only to learn that the boss was overseas. I still do check the company's e-mail from home and, from what is going on, I believe that their e-mail account got hacked. I wonder how did a SingNet Business mail account got hacked.

It's back to mailing my resumes again. I'll pick up the Straits Times every Saturday now and look out for Admin Assistant positions. If anyone knows of any job openings that does not involve too much people-to-people interaction, let me know.

Birthday Weekend

Saturday was the 31st of March. It was my birthday. I didn't really plan to celebrate it, though. What I was really looking forward to was the Dark Portal Sneak Preview on Sunday. So I stayed home and played some WoW. Our guild got pwned by the Curator. That defeat, coupled with my excitement over the sneak preview, made me couldn't sleep all night.

I surfed the net till 8 am then prepared to leave for Suntec. I joined the first flight at 9 am with most of the gang. It has been a long time since I have been out of the house. I saw a lot of familiar faces and marveled at the new cards. I managed to go 3-1 in the first flight. We then decided to break for lunch.

This was when I suggested Curry Favor. I actually came across it while surfing some forums. The place was a little... underwhelming, I would say. The atmosphere didn't really match the prices on their menu. Nevertheless, I was yearning to try some Japanese curry and this was probably the only place I know of in Singapore that serves it.

After lunch, we returned back to Suntec and prepared for the last flight at 5 pm. It was pretty much worth it as the organizers always gave out extra products for the last flight. I scored 3-1 again. Everyone enjoyed themselves for the day.

As for me, I was totally exhausted. It was only around 11 pm when I got home but I took a quick bath and went to sleep immediately.

WoW: My Week in Karazhan

The past week had been a very fun and exciting experience. Our guild was raiding Karazhan and, for one such as myself who have never raided before, I was totally looking forward to it.

For those reading out for curiosity and wondering how come a game can last for one week, let me explain. A raid dungeon resets every Tuesday (maintenance day) so it means we are given around 6 days to attempt the dungeon, during which our progress will be saved.


Day 1:

We started off with Attumen the Huntsmen. He wasn't very tough since we had attempted him several times on previous trial runs. It took one try to down him.

After that, we made our way to Moroes. We weren't very sure if we were able to take him out this time because we were unsuccessful during our trial runs. Fortunately, we were well-coordinated this time, and after one wipe, we were soon dining with Medivh's undead house servant at the dinner table.

We were feeling lucky and decided to try out the Maiden of Virtue. We cleared our way to her room but got got thrashing. No hat trick for us. We called it a night and went back to read up on her.


Day 2:

We attempted the Maiden again, mixing up several strategies in the middle of the fight. The 10-second Repentance was the killer. The healers figured it out and we managed to down the evil slut. It was not a complicated fight compared to the Moroes encounter.

We began clearing the way to the next event, the Opera House, which was a random boss. We got the 'Wizard of Oz' parody. Needless to say, with four bosses running loose on the stage, chaos ensued and it was a wipe. Reclearing trash wasn't fun so that was it for the day.


Day 3:

Everyone started throwing ideas in guild chat before the raid begin. The GM came up with a plan and we decided to follow it. The roster for our raid saw a change we got a Warlock in this time.

And so, we went to attempt the 'Wizard of Oz' again. The character react like that children's tale. The Warlock feared the cowardly lion; the Warrior sundered the tin man till he was rusty enough for the Frost Mage to kite; the Fire Mage kept burning the straw man to keep him disoriented. One by one, they fell. All that was left was Dorothee and her puppy, Tito. We tried to take Dorothee out first but we accidentally killed her puppy. Hell hath no fury like a girl who lost her puppy. We soon got her down and then the wicked witch appeared. Everyone was in high spirits as we dodged her spinning tornado of doom while focusing all dps on her.

When all was said and done, it was curtains for the evil Crone. We were surprised that we managed to clear the Wizard of Oz event so smoothly.

We began moving on to our next destination, the Guardian's Library. It was there that we would meet the first real challange in Karazhan, the Curator (Did I mention that he drops tier 4 gloves?). Unfortunately for us, the Curator owned us bad. We only got him down to 70% at best. We decided to call it a night.


Day 4:

We attempted the Curator again. I was told to dps while the Protection Warrior tanked. It made me very happy that hybrid Arms Warriors like myself have a place in Kara (kudos to Blizzard). We did better but no cigar. Everyone was demoralized and the 20+ min trash respawns were adding insult to injury. There was no progress for the night.


Day 5:

This was the last day we could do Karazhan before the reset. I blew a lot of money to get my dps gear properly enchanted and bought all sorts of buff potions from the Auction House (byebye epic flying mount). I noticed all my raid members going all out at the Auction House, too. It looks like everyone was determined to down the Curator on this faithful day.

And so, we cleared our way in and it was time to try our luck again. The battle was fast & furious as everyone was going after the flares to dps them down before they overwhelmed the raid. Things went out of control for a moment but we soon got it back on track. I could feel that the tension was thick and everyone was totally immersed in the battle. Around 6+ minutes into the fight, the Curator enraged. He was down to 15%. This was our cue; everyone went ahead and wailed on the boss. I walked in and started spamming Execute. I didn't even know what was going on around me. All I remember was hearing was the constant yelling on ventrilo and seeing the damage numbers from my Execute. Then it was over. The Curator went down and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Everyone celebrated over the guild's first tier 4 drop which was awarded to the other tank. After the celebrations were over, there was one last thing to do for the night; the Chess event!

We started clearing up the loooong stairways in the Guardian's Library as we ascended up Karazhan. It was probably like 2+ hours worth of trash mobs. Along the way, we passed the rooms to all the optional bosses (Illhoof, Aran, Nethersprite). We finally made our way to the chess event, right before Prince Malchezaar's room.

It was a fun and casual game of chess with a WoW twist. We could attempt it again even if we lost. When we finally beat it, it was two free epic loot. By then, it was already 3 am. It was a nice way to conclude our last day in Karazhan. So that's it for now until the next reset. Let's hope we get further next time.

How I Spent My CNY

I had the entire week off for this Chinese New Year. Things were not as hectic as the previous year as I only had to visit my father's side of the family this year. There wasn't even the usual reunion dinner on the eve cos' of grandma's back problem. This simply meant that I had more time to myself. As always, my brother took overtime to skip all the visiting; he simply can't stand visitng relatives to this very day.

As usual, I spent most of the time at home playing WoW. I would've made plans to go out but somehow, I felt lazy. I really wanted to watch Epic Movie but it seems that it is getting terrible reviews so not many people would want to watch it. I still would like to watch it, though... in any form.

In the middle of the week, my WoW guild did a trial Karazhan run. We just wanted to try out the first boss for fun to see if we were properly geared. I was quite stressed being the off-tank and it was very exciting yet nerve-wrecking. I just knew I felt very elated and relaxed after we downed the first boss. Sure, Attumen is pretty much a pushover encounter but this is my first raid in WoW so I thought I'd savour the moment.

Sometimes when I was bored, I'd dig through my cupboard and found my Tuxedo Gin comics. I re-read the five books that I had and realized that I had wanted to purchase the full set but kept putting it off. So on Friday, I made a trip to Bugis' Absolute Comics to buy the remaining ten issues (at a discounted price, too). I felt somewhat delighted that I managed to

Other than that, it's mostly WoW again. And next week I gotta go buy the top-up card.

The Burning Crusade

Last Tuesday was very exciting for me. I went to Suntec to collect my Burning Crusade with everyone. I had planned to go at 1 pm to pick the game up and go home to play. However, we didn't expect such a massive queue that trailed out of the building. We couldn't decide on how to pass the time so we just ended up joining the queue. Nearly two hours later, I picked up my game and went home.

I am glad that the game installed and patched without any problems (I kept reading about defective CDs online). Before I knew it, I had joined the millions of gamers online venturing into the Outlands for the first time.

It has been almost a week already. I think everyone is very pleased with how the expansion turned out. The new zones and its inhabitants are interesting. The quests are refreshing. My main complaint is that the reported leveling time from 61-70 had been greatly exaggerated; it is not that long at all. I was hoping for at least 3 weeks before I reach the new endgame content but I feel it can probably be accomplished in less than that amount of time.

Nevertheless, TBC really lives up to the hype. Happiness to WoW players everywhere.

It's 2007, The New Year~

It's now 2007!!!

New Year's celebration was a simple dinner at Fish & Co's with Brainy, Alvin, Akira and Kyo. I was just planning to stay home that day and play more WoW until Brainy suggested it in-game. And then Himura SMS'ed me for a movie outing, so well, it looked like my day had already been planned out for me. I had always wanted to try Fish & Co's and I was pleasantly surprised; it tasted great! I watched Death Note: The Last Name which was real nice, too, even though it was very different from the original.

I don't really have any New Year Resolutions since I always cannot stick to them. So I would rather say, I have some wishes for the New Year.

1: I wish the key necessities of my life, namely my computers, my Internet connection and my WoW, will always be working for me.

2: I wish to go out more with friends instead of being cooped up at home. It's kinda contradictory to the above, I know.

3: I wish I can find a proper job. I am perfectly aware that it is kinda tough now since I have lost the drive to do. But still, a wish is a wish.

Oh, well. I don't really have much to look forward to every new year since I don't have to go to school or stuff (just... reservist.). I guess everyone else has a lot to look forward to. Here's wishing everyone else a happy new year.