Have you ever watched a movie and… even though you didn’t like it, “tahan” (persevere) in hope that the movie got good, to try and salvage your 10 or so bucks? I have. Sometimes, it’s worth it - Episode III’s slow start, super-cheesy lines ( courtesy of poor Ewan Mcgregor in particular: “You’re not gonna get away this time, Dooku!” / “Sith lords are our speciality”) and awkward kooky scenes between Padme and Anakin notwithstanding, watching the defeated, burning Darth Vader scream “I hate youu!” while sliding into the lava made it worth it.

The last twenty minutes of Ep III alone made it… more than worth it.

On the other hand, sometimes you sit there in hope for the kick-ass fight scene that never comes, or the really funny gag that isn’t. Jett Li & DMX’s Cradle 2 The Grave was honestly the most anticlimatic movie ever. I shouldn’t fork out money for two hours of… indifference.

*video-game blabbfest ahead*

i just wasted the last three hours of my life playing a game in HOPE that it would get good: Tactics Ogre. After reading several glowing reviews on GAMEFAQS, I expected it to be good. Well, maybe after playing FF Tactics on the PS to *death* I have really high expectations for a strategy RPG, but still.

This was utter crap. It never got good. I thought the initial slow-ness of the game’s pace was ‘cuz my characters levels were really low but… I mean, come on, if my mage can stand toe to toe with a similarly-levelled enemy knight and not DIE in like 5 turns… this is utter bullshit. My entire party had to gang-bang *each* enemy for more than a turn in order to take him down. The hell? I just gave up on the game. I really wanted to like it, too.

Okayy, so I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to over the last week. Tough. Still…

I did pretty much settle most of my financial stuff, work out a bit, watch a bitchload of television, complete TWO rpg games (which actually is quite a gaming achievement)… and yeah, I finally cleaned my room. w00t!

It’s really early Tuesday morning, and I’m unbelievably bored; I’ve spent the last coupla days catching up on a term’s worth of sleep. Massive bumming. Not that I’m complaining - I won’t get the chance to breathe a fortnight from now…

In the mean time, though, things are aaight. Watched Jesus Christ Superstar on tv again. They practically show it every Easter / Christmas, man, but it never gets old. It’s soo good… I love how Jesus n His apostles are dressed in hippie-robes. And Judas kicks serious ass, honestly. The pharisees too were really good.

Spent the last half hour trying various ways to clean my Apple iBook… with much futility. I swear, cleaning an M16 or even a friggin SAW is easier than getting these $%&#@ stains off. I can’t get these stains off - I’m a guy. We *make* stains - we don’t take them off. Sheesh.

Aiyah. Oh Martha Stewart, where art thouuu?

PRE-OPS BRIEFING:

On Tuesday, 20-12-2005, 2100hrs, BLUELAND armed forces conducted an area cleaning operation, OPERATION ROOMHASNTBEENCLEANIN3YEARS. Area of ops included JOEL’S ROOM; the following pre-op reconnaissance photographs were expertly taken by recce teams…

chest of drawers / bookshelf / SLAM magazine collection / jeans schlump-ee

OPFOR appears to be in general disarray - with generous helpings of pyjamas, crumby plates & textbooks…

Presence of 02 X 15lb Dumbbells next to PSY100 textbook verified

POST-OPERATION RECCE SITREP:

An hour or so later; 01 X big trashbag and lots of wiping later, JOEL’S ROOM is restored. Post-operation surveillance of key terrain features have yielded the following pictures:

standard chest-of-drawers layout

everything is “flushhhhh”-ed

“pwnage”!!!

Aaah. The glorious present; not SUPER tidy but if sargeant carter was here at least i wouldn’t send him into a vein-popping fit. again. (like when he and the dudes came over to my place a year or so ago and found every horizontal surface covered in maxim’s, newman’s, SLAM’s and 8days…)

Very proud of self. Not an outstanding area cleaning but very passable, if i may say so myself. ESPECIALLY for my track record of untidiness… my bunkmates can attest to my triple-doubledecker bunk-beds of junk…

Still, like any sargeant worth his salt, I found my share of “magic dust” a coupla hours later… pfah whatever.

magic dust - bane of the area-cleaner

ooh am in a good mood from metallica and exercise. metallica is so good and their S&M concert cd is fantastic stuff. which i got a year or so back at $25 or so at sembawang music centre instead of hmv which slapped on an “import” tag on the exact same cd and was selling it at $4o!!!

now who says guys dont know how to shop for stuff.

the holidays are deceptively long… but are in fact, pretty short if you break it down - which i will. i have all of three weeks to do what i need to do… so lets begin by laying out what i WILL get done this week:

1. finalize paperwork for all that financial whatnot ive been putting off…
2. pack my room and organize my notes, files, books, cds, etc… this i will get done this afternoon. just watch me, sargeant carter. i promise “before-and-after” photos.
3. (possibly) get my eyes checked. i am living in an increasingly buzzy world. fuuuck.
4. work out everyday! whether in gym or not…
5. finally get to reading some proper non-school books, like che’s motorcycle diaries and dan brown’s angels and demons
6. begin catching up on weeks-behind psychology readings and note-taking…

yes. thats it. by this sunday night shall see how productive i am.

oh and since the exams ended ive been having really strange, vivid dreams. since thursday ive dreamt that:

• i still had one more paper - which unbelievably enough was CHINESE - and was madly cramming away with a “shou3 ce4″ trying to memorize hundreds of words…
• i was in this truly freaky memory-melange of the university and my old army camp, where i was walking around school filled with majors and warrant officers and i had to salute people while walking around the corridors in between lectures…
• i was exploring this dank dungeon with my fellow khaki-clad explorers in search for some holy book and uh, being attacked by vampires, went around frantically reading some sacred inscription on the book which turned the vampires into grave dust. upon escaping the tomb, one of the other explorers misread this weird incantation and caused four or five other suns to appear in the sky, to the horror of everyone… and then credits rolled down across my consciousness, sheesh.

ughhh…

okay so i went to exercise today, and somewhere between jogging and shooting a ball around my head started hurting like crazy, and by the time i got home every move of my head, evey step i took sent throbbing jolts of uh pain… up my uh head?

what a bitchhhh ive been in bed since i got back ugh…

okay, exercise cut, folks.

exams are over!

aha. so i have about three or so weeks of christmas holiday… and to kick things off on a NON lazy note, i shall go work out tomorrow, and shoot around a bit at the court if its free! im so excited haha havent touched a ball in… four months. thats longer than ive ever been without ball in my life since like, primary four or so.

whee! holidays! need to catch up on readings though. sonovabitch readings…

knee will be 100 percent in may or so, but i think it will be a lot longer before i can play competitively… your body just doesnt forget getting hurt like that so easily, you know what i mean?

so yeah, no more reckless drives and uh craziness from me. for now at least. ughh no more getting hurt not worth it its been 4 months of pain and trouble.

STILL. can shoot again! jumpers, at that. NO PULL UP JUMPERS THOUGH thats how i got hurt. no dribble pull ups. at all. just jumpers. square footed ones. no fadeaways? fadeaways… gahhhh the hell. seriously. the hell.

sighhh. what has become of moi, the Sultan of Garangness himself… how the mighty have fallen, indeed.

oh, and the list of stuff im gonna do? hah whatever ill do it tomorrow. (haha…)

tomorrow we worry. tonight we rejoice in the end of the term!!!

ps. just saw the truman show on teevee. great great movie. jim carrey is such a good actor when he isnt being lame…

phew.

i just, over the last two days, did every math paper on the website for practice… from last year’s one all the way back to ‘98 when i was in sec one. i didnt even goof around today or play super nintendo or watch nba or exercise. will not laugh at muggers anymore like did in sec school.

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeshhh.

hopefully will be worth it for tomorrows paper.

so tired.

PFAH and this morning at 7am was woken up by my dad who was thought it was thursday! it is wednesday. i switched on the TV and like the morning news said wednesday morning 7 am. not fun. not fun. not fun. and he was like “you have an exam this morning!” which… was obviously not the case. waking up before the sun rises is really, really not cool. the hell.

without a doubt one of the Worst Things Ever in recent memory.

ughhhh…

well good night and amen to exams…

PS.

tomorrow will come up with list of stuff will do over the holz… comprehensive liiist.

hah!!

just got back from commerce exam. which wasnt TOO bad but wasnt good at all. i had to resort to snazzy Princeton Review “Cracking The SAT” techniques (read: guessing) for a THIRD of the paper… haha.

pfah. and ahem ahem in line with TRADITION, we had a whole topic of half-hearted, badly phrased and worse of all, grammatically wrong questions (!) from He Who Must Not Be Named.

sonovabitchinbastard. at least he could’ve had someone proof-read his questions. i think its just lame how some of the professors in this course can be so absolutely brilliant and amazing teachers and some can be just plain indifferent.

heh heh one good thing happened today though. was at chinesey bakery buying some egg tarts… and the bakery lady gave me an extra spring roll on the house! looks like bae yong joel, grizzled veteran of OPERATION CARPE TAI TAI 01, hasnt lost his touch. umm. yeah.