Time crawls.. It has been only about 1 month since I am back here and start working but I am already feeling very tired. 6-day week feels excruciatingly slow and tiring now after experiencing the joy of 5-day weeks twice. I find this ironic because 6-day week used to be my norm in the preceeding 9 months. Anyway, this is a week to feel joyful. For the past days, I consider my luck as good because the crowd was more or less cleared before 5pm. Woohoo.. Although not much difference in terms of leaving time due to the counting money time at the retail and payment sides. Still, waiting for them to count money while I do nothing is more shiok than having to clear 40 or more patients after 5pm. Lol.

I am proud of myself with the fact that I have not bought Coffee Beans or Starbucks for the past 1 month. Tried to do the same for potato chips but that failed 2 days ago =x Bubble tea-wise, it was a gone case since 2 weeks ago. I hope I can "fast" from fast food after next week when the McD Hello Kitty plush offer is over. Lol.. Nowadays I completely have no time for night jogging. Sigh.. I am getting fatter :( Can't even stand seeing my ownself in the mirror =x I have a bit of craving for Subway for the past 2 days. I used to consider Subway as the healthiest among all fast food chains. Thanks to pharmacy, now I no longer think so. All the processed meat (ham, salami, and friends) will increase the likelihood of hyperurecemia and/.or gout if I keep eating. Oh not to mention that last week I had a terrible nightmare in which I was diagnosed with diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol. That is as good as a slow death sentence.. How I miss home-cooked food.. It is just sickening to think what to eat for lunch and dinner everyday when I am already sian with all the food I usually eat.

Enough rants!! Hehe.. I want to talk about AKB48 now. I just found out that there is a new single called Manatsu no Sounds good.. whatever it means but the song does not sounds particularly good to me. I have to admit that I am not usually crazy over singers. I am more into good songs. And for this time, I don't particularly like this single, especially the first time I heard a part from the commercial. As typical summer song from AKB48, the music video is basically the girls dancing and jumping around in bikini. Sigh.. I hate it when people make girls sort of sex objects like this.. Cruel entertainment world.

This is the Dance Version. The official PV opened with the girls in war zone and followed by his dance on the beach. Does not quite make sense right?

I still prefer their previous single which I shared here (yay for the official video from their youtube channel). I found a video of their live performance. It seems that no matter how good they seem, when they sing live, it is no where as good as the studio version. No idea why they sound so "low" and so uninspiring here.. And someone please FIX that irritating trumpet sound! zz..

Time to bed soon. I hope I can sleep properly tonight. For the past few days, I had been oversleeping when I intended on taking a short nap only o_0

G Gundam

 

Whoever says Gundam Wing is the shittiest among the Gundam series must be ignorant about G Gundam. I finally got the chance to read the manga. I am not a fan of it right from the start. But at the last few pages of Gundam Wing manga, there are always 4-panel comic strips with cross over character from Gundam Wing and G Gundam. Although most of them are kinda lame, some are funny nonetheless. That's why I thought G Gundam has interesting characters and hopefully interesting stories too.

After my cousin who stays in US successfully help me get the old Gundam Wing mangas via amazon.com, I decided to try shopping using amazon.com too. As I mentioned previously, Amazon is kinda sucky. The second hand mangas have good price. In fact, I got all 3 volumes of the G Gundam manga at less than $1 each. However, the shipping fee is the killer at about $12.49 for each. Ridiculous relative to the price of the items but reasonable enough relative to the price in Kinokuniya (if they are still available).

Anyway, I find G Gundam is like a "joke" among the other Gundam series. There is no war here. To prevent the various factions from warring, a Gundam competition is held every 4 years. The purpose of this show of power and might is to deter war. And the colony represented by the champion has the right to be the leader/ruler until the next tournament. So basically it is something like fighting tournament with robots instead of human. Thus throughout the story, it is mostly about various fighters fighting one another. Throw in missing brothers, revenge for parents, and self-regenerating evil Gundam as the final "boss" make the whole mess even messier.

The concept of the robots are quite unique. Unlike typical gundams, the pilots here do not control the robots like war machines. The robots are something like physical manifestation of the pilots dueling with their respective martial arts. Inside the cockpits, the pilots are not controlling buttons etc but they are physically punching, kicking, etc. I think the anime may be interesting as I would like to see how they depict the robots moving like humans although frankly, this will be like a Dragonball goes haywire in mecha form

Shit! What the fuck did I just watch?

Honestly, Gundam mangas are never good. They are crap compared to the anime. However, the manga never fails to capture the main events in the anime. Thus even though there may be hope that the anime will be better than the manga, I am not interested simply because the plot is unappealing. After all, what makes Gundam series so engaging is the plot (the conflicts and the twists), the action, and the characters (though the mangas always fail in the characterisation department).

So far, among the various Gundam series which I have come across, I have to say that SEED is still the best. My favourite is still Wing. And G Gundam is the shittiest. Boo... Meanwhile, I should give Gundam 00 a try and hopefully it is something closer to SEED than to G Gundam =p

Double Down!

To celebrate the premiere of Marvel: Avengers movie, Singapore Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) had a special limited-time menu called Double Down since mid-April to mid-May. When you buy the Double Down meal, you can add $3.80 for upsize of Pepsi and Marvel: Avengers toys ^^ The toys aside, the Double Down burger itself looks sinfully tempting. It is essentially a burger with bread replaced with Zinger chicken patties. Between the chicken patties are bacon and cheese. Yum yum!! Fat fat!!

 

I ate 3x to get Captain America, Thor, and Hulk. For the last one, Iron Man, I asked my friend to help me buy the toy when she ate that. Haha.. I just met her this afternoon to get the Iron Man. The toys are pretty good. Initially I had no intention to buy or collect them at all. I only wanted to eat the burger. However, when I saw the sample as I was ordering, I thought that the face looked pretty nicely done. That was during the Captain America's period. Now comparing the 4 of them, I only dislike Thor's face.

To my surprise, the toys are not just figurines but they are interactive as well! There is a button which can be pressed at the back of each toy. Pressing it causes Captain America's shield to spin, Thor's arm to swing down (and the Mjolnir got thrown!! no wonder his grip on Mjolnir is flimsy), Hulk's arms to raise (and 'smash' down when the button is released), and Iron Man's hand to go up and the light on his chest to light up (unfortunately, the light is not exactly in the middle of the 'panel' on his chest! oh well, cheapo stuff so I shall not complain).

Overall, not bad for toys from fast food chain sia.. My only regret is that Black Widow and Hawkeye are not featured. It's gonna be cool if Hawkeye can shoot his arrow.. And I don't know what Black Widow can do. Sigh.. Might as well make it to 6 weeks promotion although it is going to clash with Hello Kitty promotion from McDonalds. That will be another story (after I collect all the toys).

Disclaimer: I am not paid by KFC to make this post. Haha..

I gotta break the promise I made in the last post which is to share about last week. The reason being I already forgot what happened last week. Haha... Yes.. Talk about aging and memory loss.

The pressure of officially being a pharmacist starts to take its toll on me. The only good thing is that I no longer need to be on the feet to pack for the whole day. The bad things are.. A LOT! Haha.. I no longer have the leisure to enjoy my lunch. I got more scoldings and racial verbal abuses. I got more things to do and plan etc. Sigh.. Perhaps the worst part is that I can no longer act blur or act stupid. Nowadays I feel a bit "small" when doctors make calls for enquiry. I always tell them that I will call them back later because for most of their questions, I cannot answer without checking the references first. That just shows how incompetent and lousy I am. Haiz.. From tolterodine, diamox, to drugs which may interfere with urine test, I did not know the answer :( Next week my ACC course tutorial is due (OMG!) and I have yearly competency exam from the company. D.I.E

I met irritating and nasty people daily and that just made me collect bad karma. Last night, I had a terrible nightmare about me being diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol -_- Kinda scary to have such dreams. I rather die young than having to eat tonnes of tablets daily o_0

It's time to move to non-work related issues shall we? I am still enjoying my new headphone. Unfortunately, thanks to my specs, I think earphone will suit me better. I just worry that my specs get deformed due to the pressure of the headphone. Totally did not think about this possibility when I bought it. Other than that, my life is as boring as usual. I am still waiting of my Gundam mangas from US. It has been more than 1 month and only half of what I ordered has arrived. Bleah.. Amazon really sucks.. I still prefer eBay. Items from US usually reach me in 2 weeks but Amazon gives shipping period of 2 months o_0 and not as if Amazon shipping fee is cheaper either..

Not my holiday

Call me selfish but truthfully, I do not like people to come here. I am just a lousy host. It is not my holiday but I still end up fatter, broke-r, and more lethargic. It was just 4-5 days but it felt forever to me. I am glad that my sister is finally back home and tomorrow will be my aunt's turn. Lol..

Perhaps 80% of time spent with me was for food. I spent more than $200 for food just for the last few days. Crazy! That is more than half of the amount I usually spend for food in a MONTH. Phew.. Another 20% of the time was spent for shopping. I usually go out only when I have a specific aim or specific thing to buy. Going out for the sake of going out is just a waste of time, and money. It seems that what my mother says is true. You have nothing you want to buy but because you go out 'looking for nothing', you end up getting tempted on things you would not be thinking about if you do not go out in the first place. My sister was looking for Rilakuma plush and at one of the shops she entered, I found a very very nice Conan figurine. Ouch.. $30 and the quality seems good. Price is not an issue. The problem is space. Sigh.. I want to buy it! But I don't know whether my cupboard at home still have space for me to display.. Thank goodness it is not my holiday. Plaza Singapura is just there and in case I change my mind, I can always go there and get it.

My Nike bag is close to its ends. Its four corners are 'holey'. Kinda disappointed because it did not last as long as my previous Converse bag. And I expected Nike to be some awesome brand. Just like a few years back, it is almost impossible to get a bag with 2 compartments inside =( Gotta end up with 1-compartment bag. I should have bought the green FILA bag I saw last week since the fair was over this weekend. In the end I settled for a Converse bag again. There is a sale going on at ground floor of PS. Although the bag is only going for $10 less than its original price.. and although it is dirty green (not the leafy green which I like).. I still bought it.. Simply because it is cheaper than those bags in the shops I saw. I will need a bag anyways.. and there is no way I can get a 2-compartment bag so I just get the cheapest lor..

Sadly, we went to Mustafa last night. And I saw a 2-compartment bag from Esprit going for $52. Sigh.. The colour is a bit ew... (purple) but then I want the functionality.. Price is okay because generally slingbags are going for $49.90-ish.. And my budget is not more than $50 for a bag. Of course I did not buy it haha since I just bought the Converse bag a few hours prior to that.. Anyways, I am still too tired to open up the new bag and transfer my things there and discard my old bag..

In Mustafa, I bought a headphone for $16. A bit pain because never in my life I bought a headphone or an earphone.. I always use those which come free with MP3 players or handphones. Haha.. Thanks to going out to ION with my friend last weekend lar. Seeing headphones can go up to hundreds of dollars makes those <$20 so tempting. Haha.. Oh well, so far no complaints la.. Better than listening with nothing. But I don't know whether it is indeed worth more than those free earphones as I hardly listen to music with earphones.

I think that's all for tonight. Thanks to sleeping at 5am last night. I will share a bit more about the past week in the next post. Tomorrow perhaps..

Karma is a bitch...

I often say that at the rate I am writing complaint letters, it is just a matter of time before I get one myself. And today is the day which finally came! I got my first complaint. I hope it WOULD be my last although I am SURE that it will not be :p

To set up the appropriate mood, I shall start by sharing how foul my mood was after lunch. Then came an irritating man. He wanted a cough mixture which was given by doctor previously (Procodin). Too bad for that we did not sell without prescription. He did not know what I was trying to say and explain and that made me fed up A BIT. So I offered him alternative (Promethazine). He was fine with that and when I asked whether he got phlegm or not, he started saying he wanted something to cough out his pleghm.. Zz.. At this I got increasingly annoyed and asked him whether he wanted the one he previously got (which won't help with the phlegm) or he wanted something for the phlegm. If he wanted something for phlegm then stop requesting the one he got last time. Okay.. this is the background story which turned my mood to become even sour.

Now comes the main act. The person wanted to buy medicines for her 2 and 5 y/o kids. She could not speak English zz.. After this and that, I gave everything to her, told her this was for what and that was for what. For the doses, I just told her that the doses for 2 and 5 y/o are the same. Unfortunately she did not understand what I was saying and kept saying to the husband while showing the medicines "He never wrote the dose! He never told the dose!" Zz.. Then they decided to ask my friend who was next to me. Seeing that they no longer had the interest to talk to me, I went behind. My friend could not answer the question and asked me while I was walking backed. I replied in an annoyed tone "Same dose! I told them already what!". Ok looks like the couple who did not understand English suddenly got ENGlightenment (enlightenment to English) and thought that I was rude and scolding them. Fantastic! Plus the fact that I was blackfacing them (thanks to the previous idiot), the concocted story became even more powderful.

Unfortunately, I am a proud man. I admit that this time it is my fault for getting the complaint. But I won't admit that I do something wrong. I just won't back down to rude people. Hello, you come to Singapore you jollywell learn English okay. I am not a racist or something but I have to say the Chinese, regardless of their nationality, are extremely rude and disgusting people. I have NEVER seen a Malay or an Indian insisting people to speak their language. Only the Chinese does and I find that very very rude.

Oh well, there is the first time everything. By right, I should learn from this experience. Oh well, I guess I will remain stubborn. If you say nicely that you only speak Mandarin, I will be more than happy to TRY speaking to you in Mandarin, OR get someone to talk to you. But if you DEMAND nastily for me to speak Mandarin, even IF I can, I will not speak to you.

What happened cannot be undone.. I am just hoping that the person who promised to write compliment for me really did so. At least it shows that I am actually a good person.. just that to selective people. Sometimes I am just amazed.. It is not a matter of providing good or bad customer service. It all boils down to luck. The people I serve well are not the type who will write compliments while the people I serve badly are the types who will complaint. Conversely, other people with suckier attitude serve badly to people who don't complain and serve well to poeple who will write compliments.. Life is not fair. Get on with it~~

I will see how my boss will screw me upside down tomorrow.. And ironically, I am the one nominated to join the Customer Service workgroup from my branch.. Haha~~

Friday was the pledge affirmation ceremony and that is the LAST official thing which marks the completion of my transition to be a full-fledged pharmacist. How glad I am! Don't take it wrong. The thing I am glad is that there will be no more of this kind of thing. Seriously, I just cannot stand a whole bunch of hypocritical people. I still don't understand how some people 'forget' about their friends whom they always hang around together with for 4 years in university. Now they hang around with their newfound friends from the past 9 months. How fake!! For me, friends are friends, and colleagues are colleagues. Some colleagues can become friends but not all. And by becoming my colleagues, it does not mean you become my friends. I don't buy such argument. If after FOUR freaking years in the same class and we are not friends (or for some perhaps we don't even talk), don't think just because we happen to be together in same training institution for 9 months then we can be friends. Phui...

Another thing which I cannot stand was the display of fake cameraderie (whatever it is spelt). Please.. Everybody shares their companies' dirty secrets with one another so really, no need to display such fake show. It is disgusting. Same thing with those who always praise themselves for how they manage to handle busy situation or nasty patients. We all know everybody is facing that day in day out. It is just a matter of choice whether you want to say how perplexed and irritated with these situations or whether you want to turn it around and use it as a boasting of what you do. Yucks.. This small thing oso wanna boast -_-

I also cannot stand people who boasts "Yay I am a pharmacist now!" or "Congrats we are pharmacists". Oh please.. Right from the start, everybody will become one. There is nothing to congratulate. It is sort of rite of passage. Okay that's all.. I am done with such display of boasting, show off, and holier-than-thou attitude.

Saturday was World Free Comic Book Day and Kinokuniya celebrated it by giving each member free comics. I received 1 plastic bag of comics (there are 25 in total) and 1 Thor Heroclix (oh well, the face is ugly and I don't play it). Anyway it is not really 25 comic books. Hmm how should I say it. Usually 1 comic book consists of several chapters. And before a book comes out, usually the stories are released by chapters bi-weekly or monthly as a "magazine". So basicaly I got 25 of such "magazines". I am really amazed with the Americans. Yup these are all American comics and some of them are printed SPECIALLY for this day. Even the Heroclix bear the logo "Free Comic Book Day". I wonder really how much money is spent. And there is a huge variety: Marvel, DC, Capcom, Disney, Peanuts, etc. Well cool stuff but it still does not sway me to favour USA comics. Lol.. If only there will be a World Free MANGA Day. I will be looking forward to it.

I was introduced to Standard Chartered Bank Credit Card Promotion. Immediate $80 cashback for each card. WOW!! Too bad I don't have any pay slip yet -__-" Anyway, now it is time for me to start about saving and having Credit Card. My current bank account is good enough for daily usage. But I want to have one purely for savings. DBS/POSB's interest of 0.05% is just disgusting. Sigh.. I am thinking of opening an account with CIMB which offers 0,8%. Actually it is small but then hey.. it's 16x more LOL.. What I mean by "for savings" is that that account will be where I park my money which is not meant to be used. That's why I don't mind even though CIMB only has 2 branches and limited numbers of ATMs. It will make withdrawing money even harder and hence a good account purely for savings. Lol.. I shall ask for more information tomorrow.

And I had a nightmare yesterday :( I dreamt that one of my teeth dropped off.. After that I told my mum about it. I hugged her and cried. Then I woke.. I actually was hugging my bolster!! But it was scary for 2 reasons: 1) Losing teeth for me who is still wearing braces is really A TERRIBLE nighmare! 2) My mum told me that if you dream about losing teeth, it may be a sign that someone is dying. The first fear that crossed my mind immediately was that something happen to my mum or my other family members :'( Thank God everything is alright.. God please protect my family :'( It is okay for me to die but please not my family..

Ok better sleep now.. Tomorrow 8am T_T

Marvel Avengers

I just watched this last night and it really blew me away. After years of hype (there were hints about possible Avengers at the end of ending credit of previous Marvel movies) and anticipation, the movie does not disappoint and it exceeds expectations. At the beginning, it is quite slow. I was bored as I had no idea what the heck terresact is and who the hell is talking to Loki at the beginning. The part where Nick Fury starts assembling the members are kinda predictable. They gotta be gathered together somehow. But after that, I had full adrenaline rush through the end. Phew.. I could feel my ears hot and flushing.

To be frank, I was skeptical about the movie. Looking at the cast of this movie, I expect it to be boring, just physical brawl and fist fights. Hulk -> physical brawl, rage, smack here, smash there. Thor -> Whack everything with his Mjolnir. Hawkeye -> come on, how "interesting" can shooting arrow be? Black Widow -> She is a spy who definitely relies on stealth. Captain America -> Throw shield and just fist fight. I prefer a lot of computer animation depicting superpower impossible to find in real life. That is why I thought this would be worse than X-men or Fantastic Four. Plus the fact that I find the concept of 6 heroes vs 1 antagonist is kinda lame. I prefer team vs team fight ala X-men. Ok perhaps it is just me and my biasness with Storm lol (Anyway I thought X-men 3 is shit. And I don't quite enjoy X-men the First Class because of the less mainstream mutants there)

I have a fetish of women fighting. But since Black Widow is the only girl here, oh well, there won't be much girl. And too be honest, I don't think she is pretty. Perhaps she looks better in long hair.. I don't understand her angsty expresison throughout the movie. One less appeal for me.

With 6 superheroes fighting for screentime, I was expecting this to be IronMan or Captain America and friends kind of movie. Just 2 main characters and the rest are just there to fill the hype. But the director are damn good. Seriously, I think more or less everyone gets similar share of the cake. Nobody seems to be more important or stronger or better than the rest. Everyone has their contribution. In fact, I find it surprising that in the end, it is Black Widow who "personally" closes the portal to the other world while Captain America is like doing nothing (oh well, too bad he can't fly). The depiction of teamwork really fulfils the idea of the Avengers, a team of superheroes working together, not a hero with his/her sidekicks. For this alone, I already regard this movie as being good.

On top of that, the script is great. It feels like a half-comedy from countless witty conversations and banters that the characters have. Some scenes are plain hilarious, funny, but yet believable and do not feel forced just to make people laugh. I guess that what makes them even funnier.

I have been watching tonnes of shit movies lately so watching a good movie like this feels like damn good. And it is quite rare for Marvel movies to be good. I personally never enjoy the "solo" movies. I never watch Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra, Wolverine Origins, IronMan I & II, Spiderman I-III, etc. I always prefer the group ones. And this is the other superheroes movie I really enjoy after X-men 2 and Fantastic 4 The Rise of Silver Surfer. X-men the First Class is not too bad story-wise but I just think the superpowers there are kinda lame (and the hot Emma Frost did not get to fight!).

So overall, I think the movie is just plain Marvel-ous!