Don't stop believing

After 13 days of work and about 2 weeks of adapting to my new place, I finally can laze around in my room and on my bed today. And surely I am quite in a happy mood although there are still a lot of things that I need to do. I brought back a file full of invoices to check and sign, I have a video and an article to write by tomorrow, and I have a few emails that I have yet to reply. Perhaps it is because I am going home in 2 weeks time for my birthday :) I am more excited about the going home part rather than the birthday. Lol..

Being overwhelmed with invoices is always bittersweet for me. On one side, I am irritated with the constant work that I need to clear. On the other side, ironically, perhaps it is God granting my childhood dream. When I was a kid, I often joked with my parents that when I grew up, I would like to be like my dad: becoming a boss, just sit in office, scold people and sign papers. Well, I am somewhat there now except that my sitting down time is much less, my pay is much less, and I got scolded by idiots too.

So indeed, God hears my prayers and grants them in unexpected. So don't lose faith and keep on praying. The next ones on my list are big house with swimming pool and a lot of statues (I guess my anime figurines can be counted so again, Alleluia!), a great family with a loving wive and 2 children: 2 sons and 2 daughters, and eternal youth. Lol.. Before going for mass today, I suddenly got the thought of asking when my sisters would be getting married. I wanna play with kids a.k.a their kids as I am not ready to have my own yet. Lol.. I kinda changed my mind seeing how little rascals were making their parents' (and everybody's) lives difficult at church!

It also made me a realise that no matter how much I complain about my job, it is not the most difficult or the most tiring on in the world. I think PARENTING is the most difficult and tiring job in this world. It begins on the day the first child is born and it continues until the day you leave this earth. I was thinking: babies/infants are so irritating and can I just have my kids born as a teenager straightaway?? Hmm.. I think parents get more headache when their kids hit teenage years ba haha.. Even when the kids reach adulthood, I am sure parents will still get worried and think about whether their kids will find great spouses and happy family lives on their own bla bla bla...

The next time I am going home, I will definitely ask my mum how I was when I was a small kid. Was I a cry baby too? Did I give them a lot of trouble by continuously whining and throwing tantrums etc?? Haha.. I have no memory of how I was when I was a baby and infant. However I do remember all the headaches I gave my parents when I was fighting brutally with my sisters when my parents were working or when I fell down from playing Tarzan from the ceiling. Sorry mum and dad.. I love you still ^o^

Oh one last thing, I managed to sell another toy after so many months. Haha.. Yay!! I will continue praying that I can quickly sell those toys I no longer want.

I never know or hear about this Gundam before. I bought this together with HG 1/144 Deathscythe Hell that I did not own. I can't remember how much I paid for both (but definitely < USD 10) as I got a full refund for this. I bought from this seller as on his ad, he showed the Deathscythe Hell with Duo picture on the box but the one I received is another version which has no Duo picture. Of course I complained because I only collect those with pictures of the pilots wor..

Anyway this is kinda vintage as it was released in 1992 so it is 22 years old already! OMG! Haha.. Ironically during one of the toy fair at Kinokuniya last year, I saw the blue colour version of this! Haha.. Reproduced one I guess?? Lol.. Considering the obscurity of this Gundam and the fact that one of the plastic piece came off the sheet, I should be glad that I was able to sell this for $15.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

After my dental appointment this morning, I decided to hang around at Kinokuniya for awhile before having my lunch and then going back to resume my sleep. The casts of Spiderman 2 are in Singapore for the Earth Hour 2014 and I was hoping to find some magazine articles which cover about this. As I was browsing through a film magazine, I saw some screenshot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier which were quite bad-ass. It was rated 4.5 out of 5 stars and the movie was already released 2 days ago! I then decided to watch it.

I am not a fan of superhero movies which only depict 1 superhero. That is why I actually never watched Iron Man, Thor, and the first Captain America although I enjoy Avengers thoroughly. It is not helpful that my sister said that the first Captain America was so boring that she fell asleep barely after 10 minutes into the show in the cinema. Lol I reasoned that there are 5 superheroes here (Cap, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Falcon, and Winter Soldier) so perhaps it will be able to complete against the Avengers.

Released on 27 March in Singapore but I can't find a big size Singapore poster.. Haha..

So how did the film fare? Hmm.. just a warning.. spoilers ahead.. Haha.. Not as good as Avengers but it deserves at least a 4 stars. Let's start with the good things. 

The movie feels like an action movie as the superheroes here are just normal human being with above normal physical abilities and prowess. Not much CGI needed to depict superpower abilities like flight, thunderstorm, telekinesis, etc. There are a lot of hand-to-hand combats and they are that good that they made me cringe.

The story is quite straight forward about S.H.I.E.L.D being compromised with H.Y.D.R.A infiltration. Nothing fantastic about it but kudos to the actors who are able to depict the gravity of the crisis of truth. You don't know who you can trust and so on. I hate Cap in the comics as he can be quite an arse but Chris Evans is hot! He has a hot bod but I am not complimenting on that. I find him hot as he makes Cap much more likeable in the movie. Yes, he is still patriotic and idealistic without the I-am-better-than-you-so-you-better-listen-to-me (which is why I hate Cap in the comics). As seen in Fantastic Four movies, he can be a joker but this is not possible due to Cap's personality. In fact, his "romance" and "friendship" scenes are rather flat. However, it can also be because he is still confused and adapting to the 21st century,

As a fan of women who kick ass, Scarlett Jo gets a 2 thumbs up from me! A bit biased here as I prefer to watch acrobatic and stealthy fight rather than head-on muscle fights. Unfortunately, Black Widow mostly fights the "extras" soldiers that she has little difficulty in fighting. I prefer her in Avengers where she got more difficult fight and there were more grunts. I thought that showed her strength more. Again, Scarlett Jo is still very good to depict Black Widow that you don't know whether you can trust or not. Despite being shot when fighting Winter Soldier, she is able to still show the willingness to fight as well as a bit of vulnerability that she may be on the losing side without being a damsel-in-distress. I hate her rebonded hair here but there is a scene where her hair is being dried and it showed the wavy hair she sported on Avengers. Hehe..

Samuel L. Jackson will always be the perfect person to depict Nick Fury so no complaints on him. Kinda expected that his death is fake as Nick is known to have real life decoy models in the comics. So it was clearly mind blowing to find out that his death was being faked by injecting a medicine which slowed down his heart beat tremendously that people thought he was dead.

Moving on the the not-so-good parts now. First, the dialogues are awfully dry and it feels quite draggy at (many) times. I guess that's why Avengers is still the best for me as it has both witty scripts and great action scenes. Second, for a movie titled Winter Soldier, the mentioned guy plays an awfully small role. He serves little role in the plot and is just a killing machine with few lines here. The relationship between him and Cap is not thoroughly exploited so that is a big disappointment! Third, the climax feels anti-climatic. Despite how scary Project: Insight is, the final fight does not convey the importance and the gravity of the situation and the need for the fight. Fourth, Falcon which is not being fully exploited too. Anthony Mackie is great and although Falcon did have a golden time in the sky, it felt too short for me and how he was grounded by Winter Soldier who completely destroys the wings was terrible. I feel that he should and could contribute more in the final fight.

There are 2 extra scenes during the ending credits. I only saw the first one as I did not expect that there would be 2!! Haiz.. This is why I hate watching a movie without reading spoilers first.

Anyway, movie season is coming soon. The next ones on my watch list will be Noah (next week!), Spiderman 2 (early May), X-men (late May), Maleficent (late May), and How to Train your Dragon 2 (June). Hohoho.. The first 3 are definitely must watch but the last 2 will depend on reviews and my mood too.

Sausages

I survived working on 4 consecutive Saturdays (inclusive 1 Saturday with stock take too!) and to end it, I had to "work" today too! I had to open the door for the cleaners to scrub the floor and do a thorough cleaning to prepare for the upcoming JCI audit. It took 6 hours and even though today is a Sunday, I am not entitled for 1.5x time off. Sigh.. Still.. 6 hours just waiting for people to clean and do my admin work is better than 6 hours working to clear the crowd when I claim my time off.

My body finally got sick of my improper dinner for the past few months. I am trying to lose weight by cutting on diet, especially dinner. Nowadays my dinner only consists of a few pieces of bread at most and so far I had no problem. Not until having only cookies (which was baked by a friend) for dinner on Friday. On Saturday, suddenly my whole stomach was in pain when I shit! Shit.. it was damn weird. I did not feel anything when I was having breakfast. It was only when the first shit came out that the whole stomach seemed to "collapse". Not sure it was gastric, cramps, or more serious things like hernia or appendicitis. After whacking 20mg of buscopan, 20mg of Omeprazole, 20mg of Famotidine, hot dog, and egg sandwich that everything seemed to calm down. As a joke, I really thought I could possibly be pregnant. After cravings for certain food for the past weeks and then suddenly stomach pain/cramps now.. Haha..

Today I went for afternoon mass at Church of Sts Peter and Paul again. Last week I went there too. I had been there a few years back during the church visiting before Easter and I disliked it. Haha.. However, the timing for the afternoon mass is quite convenient at 420pm. Just nice in between shopping time and dinner time. Unfortunately it also coincides with afternoon nap. Boring priests, hot and humid weather with no aircon, and the soft breeze and the turning of the wall fans make a perfect sleep-inducing condition. Last week I slept through the readings and the homily and today I fared much better with sleeping only during the 2nd reading. Lol. Yes.. still dozed off despite pinching myself at many parts of my body. Anyway, I did not feel so bad as the person next to me was also having difficulty keeping awake. Bleah.. I should try to wake up for 7am mass subsequently!

Wanted to get 1-for-1 Share Tea but I heard that one of the promotional items was already sold out so I left the queue. Thanks to the gastric yesterday, I decided to have a proper dinner. My cravings for Western food are still not satisfied. And although I am quite bored of Japanese food, I am still thinking that Japanese food will still be okay. In the end, I made up my mind to try one of the "restaurants" at Takashimaya basement 2. I had sausage platter with 100mg of rosti from Ambush. The 3 sausages were not really satisfactory. I was quite surprised that I still wanted sausage considering that last Sunday I just bought 2 jumbo sausages for dinner from Raffles City's Market Place and the craving repeated itself on Wednesday for another 2 jumbo sausages form Takashimaya Cold Storage. Haha.. Quite ironic that these supermarket-made sausages taste better than the restaurant's quality. Anyway.. 7 sausages in a week?? Lol.. I have to say that sausages are my 3rd favourite food after Indomie Goreng (number 1 as I don't get sick of eating this every day) and Shumay. Haha...

Kinokuniya is also having a member sale and after much deliberation, I spent like mad again!! Haiz.. My spending for March really exceeds my salary :(

$197.97 ($158.38 after discount) loot from Kinokuniya

I was quite sure about Kuroko no Basuke TV Anime Characters Anibus books as there are plenty of illustrations. But I spent a looot of time thinking about getting the New Prince of Tennis Pair Puri books. Firstly I was not sure if they are manga or they are illustration books. Secondly the 7th volume was missing. I hate having incomplete set :( In the end I just whacked and bought them. They are not exactly manga but they are still not up to my expectations. Haiz.. Most pages are still writing bla bla bla.. Did I regret? Surprisingly not really.. I also wonder why.. Anyway, there are a lot of translations online so I guess I would be able to understand the content. Why is the number 7 missing? Haiz...

Fairy Tail Box 2 was an impulse buy. I enjoy Fairy Tail but I am not a fan. But oh well, only the last copy left so might as well grab it.

By the way, who is the shirtless guy at the corner?? Aha!! He is actually my loot from last week. Haha.. I saw him on display at a shop in Funan IT mall. I noticed that it is actually the shop which used to be located at Wheelock Place. He was $40 and I was hesitant because he came with no box :(  But as you see, I decided to get him even though I am not a fan of Evangelion haha.. Well, Kaworu is not bad looking and the pulling factor is that he is shirtless!! Lol!! It is quite seldom to have a shirtless male figurine wor.. Sadly he is not anatomically correct with the absence of nipples. Haha.. Anyway, let him stand there to remind me of how I looked like many years ago when I still weigh 53 kg and let him be an inspiration for me to lose weight.

Anyway, more pictures of him below.

 View from the 4 sides

The base

Close up of the face and upper torso

Lower torso

I seriously think he needs to eat more.. Come I share with you some of my sausages. Lol..

Falling apart

I am still adapting to my new place and I have yet to feel really comfortable. I have been going out after work to minimise the time at home and this leaves me quite tired. I am also still lazy to unpack my items and my room is still in the same state as last week. Haiz.. This place is only 2 stops away from my old place but it is so much troublesome to reach my office in the morning. I have to sleep early (perhaps it is not a bad thing) and wake up early (this is the problem!). On Monday, I left house at 815 and I managed to reach on time in the office by 900. On Tuesday, I had to arrive by 845 so I left earlier at 800. I still reached at about 900 -_- I guess walking to 163 bus stop is still a better choice for me.

On Tuesday, I finally finalised my financial plans with health insurance, life insurance, and long-term saving plan. The yearly premium for the life insurance and long-term saving plan will cost me $10k and that's all that I have in my bank account. Sigh.. The rest of my money has been locked in fixed deposit and in a savings account which I don't wish to touch. No idea how I am going to survive these coming months. I went to the bank to ask for a raise in my credit card limit to buy me some time but I don't if it will be approved as my monthly income is only like $100 more than my income when I first applied for the card 1.5 years ago. Haiz.. In addition, I also break my monthly spending on toys. In a few months time, once my PR formalities are completed, my take home salary will be much reduced as compared to now so I don't think I am able to afford current lifestyle with my toys. That's why I went a bit overboard this month. Haiz.. Being emo and stressed with both work and personal life does not make things better too..

The only thing I tidied up for the past few days is my latest annual health screening results. However, after comparing with last year's result, it is really a wake-up call. I gained 5kg and my waist circumference increased by 7cm in just 1 year. My total cholesterol, LDL, and TG all went up and my HDL went down. Thank goodness my sugar is more or less the same. I guess all the potato chips, instant noodles, bubble teas and fast food in 2013 really take their toll on my body. Currently in my attempt to avoid all these, albeit for acne reason, I end up with cravings for sweet and cold stuff.. or ice cream basically. Haiz.. if I don't put a control on this, my sugar will go up too for this year's screening.

When I don't avoid all these unhealthy things, I can see the effects but when I avoid them, I don't see a reversal. My acne problem is really making me very emo and angry. It is 3 months now that I am not having any potato chips, instant noodles, AND fast food. See.. it's an AND and not an OR. No change in my face and I still have new ones popping out even when I am already using Differin gel + Benzoyl Peroxide. Differin is already the most potent acne treatment and if it does not work perhaps I should consider plastic surgery next.

I just returned from attending a briefing which was held after office hours. My boss could not make it and I was arrowed to attend on behalf. Bleah.. Nothing was really useful or interesting about the briefing. However, I have to admit that I was happy with the dinner. There is a stall selling Indonesian food at TTSH and some of the food is really creative. I bought Gado-Mie which is basically a noodle with Gado Gado style. I was so happy when I saw the person opening a pack of Indomie Goreng! That is my second most favourite food after the first one which is Indomie Jumbo!! Haha.. Despite the Gado Gado sauce and all that, I could still taste the Indomie flavour!! Waaah... orgasmic and nostalgic if I have to say. 

On the bus ride home, I received a text from my friend since JC days if I wanted to try her freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. Of course I would. I always have space in my stomach for dessert and sweet nice things. Haha.. 

So yeah.. a bit of positive things in this quite emo week.

Valkyrie Profile ~Lenneth~ Sculpture Arts

It has been a really looong time since the last post about my toys collection. In fact, this post is close to half a year late since when I received the item. Today I will show off one of my holy grails: Valkyrie Profile ~Lenneth~ Sculpture Arts. I never can understand why there are not many Valkyrie Profile related items. The game is unique, interesting, and pretty good while the art and character design are impressive too. Thank goodness Square Enix included this into their Sculpture Arts line and this is much more impressive than Final Fantasy ones.

A bit of story on this item, the piece that I own is actually my second piece. The first piece arrived with a bit of damage to the "light rays". Not a major damage but I decided to make a claim because at the same time I could not slot in the pegs to their designated slots. Imperfection on such a high value item is not to be tolerated. I received a full refund, well not really full because there was currency conversion which set me back by $8.93. Another reason for me to return because there was a second piece put up on sale so I decided to try my luck and bought this second piece in the hope of perfection. 

Considering how beat up the external shipping box was, I was very happy that the content was undamaged. Due to the overwhelming size, the seller had to make his own gigantic box to fit this in and hence the terrible appearance of the box.

Sadly this second one also suffers from the same issue with the pegs. After further googling, I discovered that this is a QC issue which affects all figurines!! Damn you Square Enix! Haiz.. In total, this second piece cost me about $50 less than the first one. After conversion I paid $786.55 (inclusive of shipping and customs) for this beauty which is considered not bad since her original retail price is 54000 Yen. I am in a self denial mode as I noticed that shops were selling this at about 40000+ Yen (or about 20% off) when it was first released.

I am not going to highlight the good things about this as from the images alone, I believe that everyone will agree that this statue is impressive. This is completely in a different league even when compared with the already impressive Final Fantasy VIII Transcendent Artist's Collection. The box is gigantic at 44cm (L) x 32cm (W) x 64cm (H) and the whole statue stands tall at 43cm. Lenneth is also quite big as compared to Final Fantasy VII Sculpture Arts which have very small characters as compared to the background. The whole thing weighs close to 12kg!!

Lenneth is floating on a church diorama. I have to give 2 thumbs up as the design is really successful to depict her flying in the air. On each wing, there is a small peg to be attached to the background. At the same time, the "ray of lights" effect comes with a pike each to be inserted to Lenneth's sides. Unfortunately, there is no way that these for peg-slot pairs can be fitted. Without forcing anything, only 3 pairs can fit nicely making the whole figure unstable. Forcing all 4 pairs to fit will cause one of her wings to "break" from her back and the pegs at her wings are at the thin parts of the wings which may potentially cause breakage in the future with long duration of display.

 The peg issues

Forcing the wing pegs to fit results on the right to come off from Lenneth's back

The other complaint (I promise this is the last one) that I have is how the "rays of light" is too yellow (dirty yellow in fact) that the whole figurine does not look as impressive as the official images. 

Okay, enough for my words and complaints. Let us enjoy the pictures :)

The 4 pictures above are not exactly the box. The box is just plain white inserted to a 4-sided cardboard with the pictures above.

Let's open the box

The manual on where to insert what

Lenneth's body and head, sword and sheath, as well as the church ceiling decoration on top

The church diorama and the 2 "light rays" effects

Let's start assembling it.

 See how the 2 "light rays" do not look right and balanced even without Lenneth

The statue in its full glory

Side views

Back view

The awfully plain base contrasting with the over-the-top cool statue

 Close up shots to appreciate the details

The details on her armor and the wings. Not the boobs!

 Angel stained glass from the front (left) and the back (right) of the church base

 Nice details on the carvings on the wallas as well as the stone texture of the base

However, when you try to see more closely, you can see numerous imperfections

No idea if the darkened parts are due to fingerprints??

Small paint chip

Another paint chip at the bottom

Sort of bent eh?

The dirty yellow light effects which are disappointing

I thoroughly enjoy and am a proud owner of this statue although objectively, I am quite disappointed with Square Enix's quality control. This statue was released in 2008, close to a decade after FF VIII Transcendent Artists Collections but unfortunately has lousier quality as I found no imperfections with FF VIII Transcendent Artists Collections. Paint issues may be considered minor but the peg issues are terrible. I am also disappointed with how the light effects appear much shittier in the real products as compared to the misleading official images.

Official advertisement as a comparison

I will still recommend this to the fans of Valkyrie Profile or to collectors who like cool and badass statue to their collection. I dare not to re-open and display this back after my house moving. Praying hard that nothing broke during the transport T_T

Salt for sugar

This week has been very tiring. Not only because of the course and the house moving, it is also because I went out for several times this week. I actually proposed to have a dinner on a day after our ACC course. Honestly, I felt quite shy because I don't usually initiate a social gathering. Thank goodness that my colleagues were receptive and off we go. It seems that we all have boring lives that none of us have any idea on where to go and what to eat. We decided to go to VivoCity which has more choices of food. We ended up eating at Sushi Tei for lame reason: usually Sushi Tei has a long queue during dinner time, if this time there is no queue, let's just eat there. After that, we had dessert at Ben & Jerry's. I always have a second stomach for dessert. I was contemplating whether to get their Sundaes. A bit pricey at $16+ each but after seeing that there will be about 3 scoops for 1 serving, I decided on just a scoop of ice cream. It was not because of the money, it was not because of my fear of getting fat, I just did not think I have enough space to stomach 3 scoops of ice cream. Haha...

Yesterday after work I went out with another friend. He wanted to have Japanese food and I chose his recommendation that I had not tried before: Akashi at VivoCity (again!). I have to admit that the food is quite good. I am glad that my friend is rather adventurous and was willing to try things we had not tried before like Tai (seabream snapper.. no idea what fish that is), Mackerel, and Swordfish. I, of course, prefer exotic (read: uncommon things) like sushi with century egg topping or foei gras sushi ($4 per piece.. lol). Overall, I am satisfied. I am quite surprised that I had not heard Akashi before. I tried Itacho for the first time (and the last time) about 2 weeks ago and I was not impressed with the range, price, and taste despite it being very popular. Hmm...

After lunch, we went to Starbucks. Obviously I was only accompanying my friend because I did not want to give up on my Lenten resolution in less than 2 weeks. Lol. But then.. I had Cold Stone after that!! Siao..

Basically 2 sushi and 2 ice creams in a period of 1 week. Kinda sick of Japanese food but I still love ice cream. The craving continued today. After almost 3 months of drought and no rain, finally it was raining today. And the rain just screwed up my plan for morning mass. I missed the 1130 mass so I continued on my bus journey to town instead. I wanted to check out anime figurines shop at Plaza Singapura and Funan IT.

On the bus, I received a message from another friend. By luck, she was loitering around aimlessly at Orchard too!! Lol.. So 2 lonely friends decide to have lunch together and hurray that she was kinda sick of Japanese food too. I had cravings for beef and Western food and after comparing a few atas places in ION, we decided to have lunch at Jones the Grocer because of the atmosphere. I ordered the Wagyu burger :) The food and atmosphere were great but the service was crappy. The food took more than 30 minutes (or almost 45 minutes) and we were not even served with plain water, not until I requested for the second time, throughout. For that, I don't think I will want to return. It was quite a good surprise when I saw the bill. The prices listed on the menu already include GST and service charges! So just $28 for my burger. Not cheap but I was expecting something closer to $40 after the taxes.

Is the price justified? I will say yes! It kept me full until dinner time ^^ I did not really want to eat dinner but I was just tempted with some sausages at the supermarket. I bought 2 and that was my dinner. After big contemplation whether to eat dessert again, I gave in to temptation when I passed by a stall in Raffles City selling Durian Milkshake!! Mamma mia!! Unfortunately, it sucked. Hahaha...

There is no way that I can resolve my acne and my fat problems at this rate. I managed to avoid fast food and junk food for the past 3 months in exchange for sweet food. Aaaargh!! I can recognise the similarities in the craving and the urge! Last time it was always salty food after salty food. Now it is sweet+cold food after sweet+cold food.

Just all the talk about food alone is already this long so I will leave the toy hunting part for tomorrow... provided work did not kill me haha..

Ban jia

Finally it was time to bid farewell to my 'atas' life for the past 2 years. I am back to HDB now :( Sian.. Adapting to a new place will take quite some time but I can't help from feeling emo and claustrophobic in this tiny room. It will take me a few weeks to unpack my things back to normal. Sigh..

The lift upgrading work is very irritating. They are drilling right below my unit and my unit is only on the second floor. Not only the noise, I can even feel the vibration. During the initial unpacking, all of these really got on my nerves. I could not sleep or rest even if I wanted to. Can't imagine what will happen when I am sick and need rest. I guess fake MC is out of the question until the upgrading work is completed. Oh back to the stupid vibration. Thanks to the vibration, I guess I have to KIV displaying back my resin figurines. I am worried that with all the vibration, it is a matter of time before they crack. Better leave them inside the styrofoam case to cushion the vibration. I don't even feel confident displaying those made of PVC as the vibrations may cause the figurines to slowly "move" and perhaps fall from the display unit. Sigh.. Sian life lo..

This week should have been a good one since I was away from work for the past 4 days for an ACC course at SGH. Yay!! It has been very tiring to wake up earlier and reaching home later and still have to pack my things. I am so happy that yesterday my friend who lived at the neighbouring road was free to help me move some of my fragile items. She said she wanted to see my pink room too. Haha..

Anyway the course was quite an eye opener for me. On one side, I find that hospital setting is much more exciting. You get to think and use/apply your knowledge for different cases. In the polyclinic, things tend to be more stable and the knowledge which has been acquired but not practised will soon disappear from memory. At the end of the day, I guess what matters the most to me is work-life balance so I am glad with where I am right now. No politics, relatively better rapport with the other healthcare professionals, no OT, etc.

I went back to office today although I took leave for my house moving. My appraisal form had to be completed by Sunday and I really will not have time to do it if not today. Just 4 days away from office but it felt like a long holiday. I actually forgot the pass key to enter the pharmacy! Lmao... One tick off my to-do-list in exchange for the monthly error report to do. Bleah..

I better rest tonight as I have to work tomorrow morning. I hope I am not too tired to wake up on time and arrive on time for work too.

Problem with FromJapan again

Do you see any change on my blog? Yup, I have removed the referral link to FromJapan proxy. It seems that everytime I purchase figurines through them, I always come across problems. Unfortunately, this time there was no way out as the damage was only discovered by me.

The items are Final Fantasy Chrome of Squall and Aerith. Squall arrived with his hand broken. The broken hand was glued and the dried up super glue is obvious. There are even fragments of the dried up super glue. Aerith came with her staff dislodged from the hole where it is supposed to stand and again, her bun was actually broken and is glued back.

The broken hand

The glue fragments and the glue around the broken hand

The orange super glue on the bun and the broken staff

These items are described as "good" and "beautiful". Apparently FromJapan also could not be bothered to check the condition of the item despite the obvious sound that there was something inside being detached. I asked them to contact the seller and the son of a bitch refused to give me refund or a partial refund. The argument is that he was selling used items and despite the damage, the items were still in "good" condition. What a fucked up excuse.

20000 JPY is not a small amount of money and I shall take a risk of getting banned by them. As I made the payment via Paypal, I decided to open a dispute on Paypal. I hope I can get a 50% refund as if I knew that these items were damaged, I would not even bother bidding for them and I don't think that they would be sold at such price. Not sure how the outcome will be. Sigh...

By the way there is an update from Square Enix regarding my damaged Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini: Ace. I informed them that I do have a Japan address and they are willing to send me a replacement. It will cost me $50 to ship it back via vPost. Holy shit man!! Bloody fuck to Amiami. Basically it cost me $80 just for a dumb shit toy...

With all these angst over buying toys online, perhaps it is time for me to stop somewhere :(