this is actually the fourth time i am writing a blog about watching cats. the first time i was really hyper about it and ranted a lot, and then my dad came to use the pc and closed the window.

the second time i felt i was ranting too much, so i deleted it.

the third time was just now, when i tried to click on my mousehunt tab but clicked on some stupid toolbar by mistake and the draft got washed.

so this is the fourth time i'm writing this and i just can't muster the enthusiasm about it anymore. (-___-)

i watched cats. it was great. yay yay weightless Mr Mistoffelees, the wicked cool RumTumTugger, the sexy barritone Munkustrap and the pretty-everything (looks, body, voice, dance) Bombalurina. i love you all.

the songs were really catchy, and i loved their voices and charisma. so i bought the CD. however only the 'original london cast' CD was available, and it really really paled in comparison. if not for the lyrics, i can't even recognise the characters they were supposed to be sung by. its like... there was no soul? bleaaaah. wasted 30 bucks.

And on Saturday i went for the full day comics talk thingy.

it was damn freaking cool. never mind that i was the odd one out with no friends with me and that i overheard someone saying "can you tell who are the writers and who are the illustrators? illustrators are generally weirder while writers still seem normal" - i wonder which of the two they thought i was.

it was still too damn freaking cool. the president and organizer was Jerry ('Get Carter'), and the Johnny ('Mr Kiasu') and the Sonny Liew ('Malinky Robot' his works were featured in international anthologies series such as 'Flight') came down to give talks. i might want to join ACAS some day. i'll focus on the competition for now though.

24 page comic - theme: sci-fi or fantasy. join join if anyone's interested~! :D

i don't want to go work tomorrow.

i really don't.

i'm in a super low mood today, and i'm depressed.

*sticks head in a pillow case under a blanket in the bed*

one of those uber depressing and sucky days where things go wrong, and my only excuse for it is: 'sorry.'

as you know, my poor investments are chronically in the red. but very recently, due to the miraculous (and baseless) bull run, some of my stocks actually recovered their cost value, and i even made a little bit of profit~!

of course we all know this isn't going to last for long, so i got my dad to help me sell off my holdings.

he couldn't.

the trading system wouldn't allow it.

we thought it might be because there was a mismatch between my broker's statement and my actual holdings (positions reconciliation - this is what i do in my work), and dug through mountains of papers and letters on my desk to find my statement, only to find it matches.

and then we tried calling the helpline, but it was busy.

so he ran down to the brick-and-mortar at marine parade, and realized the cause - somehow or other the idiots had programmed a trading limit on me "for risk management purposes" "in case i clicked something wrong" "and blah" "in line with my trading history".

who the hell puts a trading limit on a liquidating trade?!

so i had to hold on to my time bomb of a stock and watch the price drop.

oh, and yesterday happened to be the first day this month that the Straits Times Index dropped. Would you like to look at the chart? see that one black bar one day ago?

and amazingly, though dad was there, he couldn't increase my trading limit as it wasn't HIS account. so i had to call in... and i finally got through this morning.

me (pissed) : "hi, i am customer account xxxxxxxx and i would like to increase me trading limit"

she: "oh, you would need to send in some documents for that"

me: "i want to LIQUIDATE my position. why would you NEED documents for that?!"

she: "oh. you're selling? i can just increase it for you here and now. when did you try to sell? i don't see your pending order"

me: "yesterday. pending orders get cancelled after a day"

she: "oh. okie, wait 10 to 15 minutes for it to be increased"

there you are. no request for id, no nothing, god they can't even trace the call to my registered hp number as i changed my cell.

if my dad had dragged my mum down yesterday she could have masqueraded as me.

retards.

everything's new in my home today.

the new mattress - the mother's day prezzie - was towed into the home today. so i got their old bouncy queen-sized mattress, while they got the new $600 seahorse 100% hardness foam mattress. it was really hard. just by lying on it for 5 minutes i could feel my back straightening out, lol.

and i love my new mattress. i love big beds. *happy*

and we finally said bye bye to annoying ol' starhub and got a MIO plan meaning singtel TV, singtel broadband and singtel line. fu fu fu. sayonara starhub and your annoying shared bandwidth and single cable thingy~!

in anticipation of the new angels and demons movie, i borrowed the book from my colleague and finished it in a haste. that was 3 weeks ago, and i finally caught the movie today.

i must say the book was only so-so, and the movie had lottsa loopholes and less suspense (god, they removed one of the main suspects), but if you take each of their good points and combine them together, you'll get an awesome product.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW. STOP READING IF YOU ARE GOING TO WATCH/READ THE TITLE.

1. THE BOOK had a pretty in depth explanation of the research institution where the anti-matter came from, and the institution was then suspected to be the hide-out for the Illuminati. Yay suspense, yay twists. In the movie all suspects were from within the vatican, which made it much less fun.

2. IN THE BOOK, there was an over-ambitious TV reporter tipped off about the plot. This further explains the perpetrator's need to publicize the terrorism - in the movie everything were pretty low-key, kind of make you think 'why'd he bother to be so showy if no one's watching?'

3. IN THE BOOK, the last brand was kept a secret, Langdon didn't know about there being a fifth brand until the very end. this gives the readers a surprise, that huh? we've not reached the end of the killings yet?

4. The 5th brand IN THE BOOK was the illuminati diamond! it was changed to a cross-key in the movie! Was it because it was too hard to make, they can't get the permission to screen, or the director is afraid the audience can't see the complicated design? it was such a waste boo hoo.

5. IN THE BOOK the camerlengo's scheme wasn't this chancy, and the anti-matter canister isn't this toy that you can charge up in 5 minutes. the canister was a gone case if it can't be brought back to the research lab to be recharged, and the camerlengo plotted to pretend god gave him a revelation about where the canister is, prepare a helicopter with parachutes for take-off, run off, get the thing, and fly off like a hero. not like in the movie, when they last-minutely realize the battery was running out faster than anticipated, they couldn't recharge it in time, and then he ad-hocly ran off with the thing and into the chopper.

6. IN THE MOVIE the assassin was so COOL. unlike the super villianized perverted sadistic accented guy in the book, he was quick, honorable, clean-cut and and and cool. it was a pity he failed killing the 4th preferiti though, he should have just killed him before driving off - its irresponsible to leave a job half-done yo~ tsk tsk.

7. IN THE MOVIE the assassin died an honorable death by back-stabbing and bombing of his car. in the book he got killed by Mr. Robert Langdon the NOOB. grrrrrr, that's sacrilege!!!

8. IN THE MOVIE the parachutist was blown around like a ragdoll in a raging tornado, just like it should be. in the book the guy landed perfectly on the top of the construction site with his black parachute hidden in the darkness so damn miraculously that the public proclaimed 'its a miracle~' and sang his name.

9. IN THE MOVIE he committed suicide and it was explained to the press that he died of internal injuries sustained during the reckless parachuting. good job covering up, vatican! In the book he just upped and burnt himself with zero explanations in plain public sight. (o__O)

10. IN THE MOVIE the security guy was with Langdon when he destroyed the archive, and there was relatively little damage to the records - it was only one shelf. in the book it sounded like he destroyed everything and i wished that he'd died to preserve the archival records man. and he melted the page~~!!! HE IS SO GOING TO ARCHIVISTS' HELL! (this has nothing to do with the flow of the study, only that i feel much much better about it)

11. IN THE MOVIE langdon was lent the D3 book that he wanted so much to borrow. which made sense and would be great for his academic research. in the book the vatican lent him the brands. like wtf. lend him the book, man. he can get the patterns on the brands off the front page of the newspaper.

Lots of other stuffs got changed, but i don't really give a damn about those. Its just the above 11 points that made an impact on me. it'll be so cool if they had a second edition of the book, encompassing the good points from both mediums.

you wish.

Its been a few long unproductive weeks. today was a holiday~ some US and UK holiday, and i'm going back to work tomorrow. its been forever since i'd been out on a weekday, half the time i thought it was sunday, and was confused by the number of schoolgirls around and the lack of people. the other half of the time i felt uneasy about being out on a monday, like somehow i mixed up my schedules and i was actually due for work. i kept checking my handphone for a call from my boss. overall, it was a very uncomfortable day.

would have been more uncomfortable if i didn't see a fellow colleague on the train, also on her way out to shopping.

shopping. went out to orchard with hl (god, i haven't been to orchard for eons. had it been 9 months?) for the 20% kino sale. we walked around the whole place, browsed investment books, manga and art books, and left empty handed. so much for a book sale. bleah.

i need a book on manga layout and setting scenes! the bookstore is swamped with 'how to draw your own manga character' books, some of which have hideous examples, but nothing on how exactly to DRAW the bloody manga. guess its more research, research, research on existing titles.

on a side note, when you buy $20 and above at OG you'll get a free pearl, with free workmanship. what happens is the shop staff at the collection booth sits with a sharp sharp knife in front of a line of oysters, and she'll cut out the pearl in front of you. i felt a little nauseous looking at her tearing viciously at the meat, and very very bad for the  poor guy, altho i'm pretty sure he's dead already while she was harvesting his pearl.

eww.

but i received an ultra big, and perfectly symmetrically oval, milky white pearl. even the counter-staff offering free encasing services commented that it was big. hee. putting a clasp on and stuff comes free (but $$$ is charged for the gold chain) and i was very very tempted to turn it into a necklace. but i took one look at it, and thought it would be too much of a pity to punch a hole into the pearl, so i went off with the pearl in my pocket.

so now there's this one pearl sitting in front of me, looking very lonely and out of place.

my mum thinks i'm stupid, coz pearls are really cheap, especially these kinds, but i feel this kind of motherly affection for it, i mean, i saw it birthed from its dead oyster-mom, if you get what i mean (i'm sure you don't but never mind).

awww its so cute.

i am on leave starting tomorrow! at long last! and i'll be going to taiwan to have fun and forget it all for a week!

woo hoo!

*waves and disappears*