thoughtless ramblings

ooog. no mood to blog the past few days. not sure why either.

it's been pretty boring, anyhow.

caught X-Men III on wednesday evening. pretty flashy show, though the storyline wasn't exactly thrilling. but things were pretty fast-paced, thus causing the show to end about 30 minutes earlier than its predecessors.

next up would be Superman Returns, i guess.

after that rushed back to camp for COS duty for thursday. ack. sucky. but at least it isn't on a weekend. that's something to be thankful for, in any case.

survived through thursday, it being a relatively quiet day as compared to my other days as COS.

literally rushed out of camp on friday morning and basically lobo-ed the whole day away.

Heroes of Might and Magic V finally finished and i'm glad to say i'm not disappointed with it. graphics are wonderful and the gameplay seems good.

on other fronts, Windows Vista is rumoured to be slipping further from its previously announced release date. if this goes on any further, i'm most probably going to end up with a Mac and install Boot Camp on it instead. pfffft.

oog. being sick is never fun, especially when it all comes together:

1. fever (38.1 °C)
2. sore eyes
3. sore throat, in conjunction with
4. cough
5. running nose

sigh.

food is now bland and tasteless, thanks to the fever.

my body feels like jell-o, no doubt due to a wonderful combination of my cough mixture and flu medicine.

but at least i get to come home instead of staying in that god-forsaken place, also conveniently known as Maju Camp.

i'm still pondering whether i should go for the Advanced Trainfire Package, a.k.a. ATP for those in the know. officially, i've got two days of ATTN C and thus, i'm medically exempted from tomorrow's ATP. but the idea of being attached to another company for my ATP is not very tempting.

after ranting about how my NUS application was not processed after eons, its status was finally changed to Application Denied.

crappy life, huh?

i'm in a state of shock, actually.

just watched Poseidon at Lido. it was... watery. i dunno. maybe it's not to my taste, but i'm surprised that i forked out $9.50 to watch a couple thousand people get drowned/burned/electrified to death. not my idea actually. i wanted to catch M:I:III, but my folks wanted to watch big-cruise-ship-sink instead. mehhhh.



but at least i got to see the trailers for X-Men III and Superman. on my to-watch list:

1. Superman


2. X-Men III


3. The Da Vinci Code

Silent Hill seems like a pretty decent movie though. i may opt to go for that too. depends.

i'm pretty nostalgic for old games now. i'm not sure why. been playing Red Alert 2 and Transport Tycoon Deluxe. i'm as happy as a lark now. but on its way is Heroes of Might and Magic V. yay.

you never know how wonderful sleep is until you try sleeping from 2am to 4pm on the same day. hooah. call me a pig; it just feels great.

spending the past two days at home drifting around, enjoying the temporary taste of freedom, mainly because the coming weekend will be burnt in the holy name of ATP. my ass.

on a totally unrelated note, i re-discovered the joys of DOS gaming today, specifically Major Stryker, a game which i totally loved as a kid. ditto to Alien Carnage.

sleepless at 1.40am. i know i'm tired, but i can't get to sleep. i'm not even sure i should be sitting in front of my lappy.

bah. all this anxiousness caused by the waiting for my NUS application result is getting to me. i sent in my application thingy in feb but until now, my application status is stuck under Application Received. well at least if you're going to reject me, can't you do it faster and spare me the anguish?

sheesh. i'm gonna go apeshit soon.

bed. here i come once again.

ooog. Blogger took heck of a long time to load tonight. three possibilities

1. knee-jerk reaction to blame blogger
2. my internet connection is on the blink
3. lappy needs to see a doctor (or undertaker)

sigh. the perils of spending too much time in front of the computer.

oh heck. it's officially over.

the 65th BSC is now a memory of the past.

yay.

never thought i'd take so much pleasure in saying that. our CO actually bothered to come down to our certificate presentation ceremony. i'm impressed. but anyhow, he was a general naysayer of doom. i think he took perverse pleasure in telling us that after we settled down back in maju camp, we would be soon deployed as POI troopers. he had the cheek to ask us why we were so tensed up. grrr.

after all was checked and accounted for, it was finally someone else's turn to watch us do our out-processing and leave SIW. mildly satisfying, to say the least.

on the tonner back to camp, i mulled over a few things, thinking back on the course itself and what would my remaining NS liability bring me. i'm usually the sort who leaves fate to work its own diabolical terrors, but i just couldn't help but idly wonder.

maju camp: a place of old buildings and old farts, but yet, a familiar environment. once the stores were all returned, i proceeded straight to punish my throbbing nose by standing smack in the middle of my dust-infested bunk.

i swear i came within an inch of taking a parang to my nose...

obstinately refusing to bow before the opposition in true PAP style, i proceed to burden my cupboard once again with my not-so-worldly posessions. it would seem odd that a smaller cupboard somehow seems more luxurious than a bigger one. don't ask me about that. i have trouble figuring out my thoughts while my nose is attempting to commit ritual suicide. spent the next couple of hours counting spiders scurrying about before finally getting the green light to change to civilian clothes.

as the wise ones say: out of the frying pan and into the fire. we gathered in the platoon office for a talk with our PC and new PS. goddammit. the two of them are a match made in heaven. they have the exact same gung-ho attitude towards army life. very depressing to hear the both of them tag-team and squash our freedom like a bug. in short: our life is not going to be good. argh. if i had known this was coming when i was back in SIW, i would have hope for the course to drag on longer.

currently, i'm on off till thursday, but since friday is a public holiday, gonna book in on sunday. next week, our weekend will be greedily consumed by ATP. urk. life sucks.

it's kinda dumb: them making us book in on one day, and booking out on the other. but then again, i don't think i would like to get stuck in SIW for too long a period of time anyway.

field ranges are... peculiar. they seem to be an exercise in expending rounds.

can't hit the target? draw more rounds and go again!

that seems to be the main idea.

went down to beach road today to get the 'SNIPER' tag sewn on to the left side of my jungle hat and my name on the right. the tag is fine, but my name seems a little bit too small. but at least it's not eye-catching: the guy before me had the words 'ARCTIC FOX' sewn on in bright orange on his jungle hat too. but i think he's from recce.

headed down to old airport road in an attempt to have rojak for my lunch. i swear it's a goddamned conspiracy. two times i've been there and on both occasions, the store remains stubbornly closed. i know that it's not there just to serve me solely, but... it's just spooky.

even the curry puff store uncle decided to go on vacation with the rojak ah pek.

*rants*rages*

ended up having pizza at Scott's Pastamania. i think the staff there are starting to recognise my face. oh woe.

at long last, my sniper course is coming to an end. it has been an ardous nine weeks, stuck at SIW.

contrary to my own expectations, i have actually managed to complete the course successfully and attain my sniper marksman badge. i do not usually believe in a higher being, but miracles like these make me wonder.

in any case, i'm finally returning to maju camp, and hopefully back to our old lifestyle. but with our PS gone, i guess it would be most unlikely.

won't stop praying though.

on an entirely unrelated note, i hate uploading pictures in friendster. darned php script keeps causing my browser (regardless whether it's IE or firefox) to time out. and thus i persist in uploading the same picture and i end up with a whole gallery full of the same picture.

*curses and swears*