SNSD Girls' Generation Concert Update

Ooh, 5500 tickets really sold out within 4 hours of sale on 29th Oct. Cool! RITS (Running Into The Sun, yeap that's Beatrice Chia's company), planned a second night concert on 10 Dec. Read it here.

Good luck to those to haven't gotten their tickets yet!

SNSD/Girls' Generation Singapore Tour - Sistic Booking

SNSD (소녀시대) or Girls' Generation Singapore Concert ticket sales starts today for OCBC cardholders. Here's the Sistic link. Not a good experience though. Internet sales started at 10am but had blank page loading... the system seemed not able to handle such a load. Hehehe, many many SNSDs supporters in SG? SONEs (소원) unite!

Up till 10.16am, then only managed to get into online booking. But, all tickets are in red! Means "seats unavailable"! Serious? So many managed to book during the first 20 mins? Really? Or maybe they're releasing tickets in batches? Not sure how the online ticketing algorithm is for STIX. But interesting to know though ;)

Anyway, as the page was reloaded a couple of times (before the system kicks the user out periodically), noticed that some of the tickets for different different categories are available for single seats every now and then (depends on luck also!)

So first few tries, don't know what happened but managed to secure Cat 6 tickets (balcony I think, but I was selecting other categories...), so was considering whether to just get this one instead cannot get any. But can't even proceed to next step (though timer says user has remaining 5+ mins to consider) as suddenly, the system kicked me back to selection page. Bummer.

no more seats on first day of priority sale?

Something was not quite right with the system too. Sometimes will see the captcha portion, sometimes don't. If it doesn't appear, most likely will be kicked back to the same page again and again and again till timeout or bandwidth exceeded etc. So be patient and load the page till the captcha appears.

Probably depends on luck too, as the tickets may seem unavailable due to people who are holding them and making decisions. For example if a user managed to secure say the tickets in two different browsers and he/she only intends to purchase say 6 tickets, then it means the total tickets being held up could be 6 x (number of browsers opened when user wanted to try his/her luck). So this will deprive others of having a chance to select their tickets.

So be patient, and no worries because sales to public starts on 1 Nov 2011. Still have chance #2 to watch the girls perform on 9 December in Singapore Indoor Stadium!

coffee or tea

Couldn't resist ordering this:

hahaa, my namesake.. sorta.. well, not quite but amusing still

Quite nice and a change from the usual coffee. But given a choice, would've preferred coffee still.

Starbucks Malaysia

ain't that an expensive cuppa coffee

conversation with taxi uncle

Had an interesting taxi ride yesterday. The taxi uncle smelt like cigarette smoke, talks animatedly and is about 50 years old.

He was telling me about his 'girlfriends', how girls always sticks to him, how easy it is for him to have girls coming at him either at clubs, beaches etc. Also interesting stuffs like how he became an 'uncle' to his ex-gf that is now married to a caucasian man, and how he still goes out with them. I mean, that is like kinda of weird, no? He was in relationship with the girl before and now that the girl is married, he still goes out with the married couple? He said obviously the caucasian guy didn't know about their past. I pity the groom, I guess.

Then he bragged about his stay in Bali where he mixed alot with the beach cowboys. How Japanese women will pay for everything like food, gifts, etc. And how the locals will resell the gifts.

Looks like he's having alot of fun in his life! He said he even did it in his taxi before. I was like -_-
Then he said, he has dettol'ed everything.... yeah, whatever!

away

Will be in KL in a couple of hours time. Back on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, take care and have a good week!

My Waterway @ Ponggol

Explored Waterway @ Ponggol today. It is Singapore's longest man-made waterway, which incidentally is opened to public today.

free shuttle from Ponggol MRT for today only

signage

special activity for today, sand-sculpting

Some view of the waterway and park.

No barriers? Careful not to let children wander too near the water

no demarkation for bicycles and joggers?

longkang with nice pebbles

resting hut for weary visitors

activities during opening day?

short bridge

overview of waterway

HDB flats as backdrop

end of exploration

소녀시대 comeback album - The Boys

The Boys (English version)

After one year of absence, SNSD (少女时代, 소녀시대, Girls' Generation) attempts international market via their third album, The Boys, released on 19th October 2011.

Out of all songs in this album, I like "The Boys", "How Great Is Your Love" (봄날 ), "Sunflower", "OSCAR" and "Lazy Girl". The title song "The Boys" sounds very americanised but that's understandable since it is produced by Teddy Riley. At times, this song felt as though it can be a cheerleading song. "How Great Is Your Love" is a ballad and the girls sound best in this. "Sunflower" feels very 80ish, quite Bee-Gees like.. in other words; retro. "Lazy Girl" has a playful feel to it.

"How Great Is Your Love" lyrics was written by Sooyoung and Taeyeon wrote the lyrics for "Lazy Girl". Taeyeon is leader of the group while Sooyoung is better known as one the shikshins (食神) =P

words

Not sure why, but there are adults out there that are still confused between these two words: dateline and deadline.

We shouldn't be too concerned with dateline, since that is the Meridien Greenwich line (which of course, is an imaginary line down the Pacific Ocean on which the day begins and end).

But because our bosses always ask (or rather demands) us to submit certain proposal, complete certain projects by a specific date and time and thus, we should be most concerned with deadlines. Deadline sounds morbid, but yes, deadlines should instill fear and for the person presented with a deadline, we really need to work hard to get it done by then!

But sigh... have you noticed? Do our peers or subordinates nowadays really adhere to deadlines? Maybe that depends on whether there are any rewards or punitive measures in place when a person completes the task on time or after the deadline. In an ideal world, everyone would be working in automatic mode with the assumption that everyone of us wants to do well in our job role.

But then, who's living in an ideal world?

nice to see you too, old classmate!

Had a mini-reunion of sorts with my Primary school classmates. Just three females and one 4-year old kid. It was nice to catch up with one of the most havoc girl in my school. My two classmates updated on the whereabouts and 'latest' (but probably outdated by like a year or two, maybe!) known activities of the others. Am really glad that most of school friends turned out quite alright in our adulthood. Our school and teachers would've been proud.

Entertained my friend's daughter and got myself an invitation from the 4-year old to stay over at her house. Hahaa, cutes! Told her tonight I can't, so she asked if Monday is ok. I said, "Monday I have to work." Then she asked if Sunday is ok. Hahaa, kids nowadays are soooo specific! =P

important date

SNSD's SG concert is to be held on 9th Dec 2011. Yay! Hope I can secure the tickets. Woohoo! Nine long legged beauties, can't wait~

annyeong haseyo! 안녕하세요

Currently obsessed with things Korean. Was at Sol Mart, Novena Square 2 to stock up on instant noodles. So here's what I've gotten two weeks ago.

instant noodles and snacks

At $1.20~$1.50 per pack, it makes a very filling, tasty and cheap lunch. Please do not try those low calories version though. I did and it was bleah! Just get the regular ones. I think I like Jin Ramen better than Samyang.

I like makgeolli (korean rice wine 막걸리) way better than soju (distilled rice wine, 소주 or 燒酒)! In Korean dramas, usually you'll see those yuppies downing their sorrows via soju (like many many green bottles on their table that kind), while makgeolli is more commonly drunk by the older folks somewhere in the villages. Seriously, I think I am more suited to be a farmer than a yuppy...!

Sol Mart do sell makgeolli at $6 per can or $15 per bottle. Expensive stuffs, yeap. Drinkable and pleasant, and of course, slightly sweetish. Jinro makgeolli in bottle form seems seasonal though. Sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't.

Another seasonal item, was the Korean grapes. They had it in stock and asked if I wanted to try, so I got a small bunch for $5.50. Already tried the Taiwan version. So the only champagne grapes country yet to be tasted, are the ones from Japan. At the most expensive pricing ever!

ok, packaging has Korean words that I can't read

Korean champagne grapes (with seeds)

looks like this

Okay... I think champagne grapes are somewhat an 'acquired' taste or rather texture... Usually 'acquired' taste would mean something that tasted funky. Don't get me wrong, these types of champagne grapes smelled just fine. In fact, it has the perfume of champagne when you sniffed it. However, the texture of these grapes was just something that I didn't expect from a grape.

The grapes were sweet. But when you eat it, the whole blob would be sucked into the mouth. And it does remind me of Qoo (you know, that drink...). Not sure if I'd spend top bucks to eat the Japanese version though. I think I still prefer the poor-man's grape which is our regular seedless version that has a firmer and 'crunchier' texture.

Here's a song on my playlist recently:

excuse me

Was at the EZlink top up machine today. In front, was a young lad who's not a local. He placed his kopitiam card onto the machine and seemed puzzled on why the card is not detected. He removed his card and placed it on the machine again but it still can't detect. Had a clear view of what he was doing, so stepped up to him and pointed out to him that he got the wrong card. He realized his folly and changed to the right card. I looked at his kopitiam card. It was not even the same colour as the ezlink card, so don't know why he made that error...

Anyway, the line was getting longer but he seemed to be having difficulty again. I looked and saw that he pressed 'ATM' option for payment mode but decided to cancel and pressed 'Cash' but somehow he took off his card from the machine and repeated the process by selecting 'ATM' and then cancel....

Was getting impatient, so went up to him and asked if he wanted to top-up via cash. He said yes. So I told him to choose the 'Cash' option, put the money, press 'Ok'.. albeit in a little not too friendly tone. When he was done, he turned to say his thanks.

On hindsight, I should have been friendlier. After all, he was in a foreign land and probably doesn't know much English. Need to find back patience. If anyone has seen her, please inform me.

square one

So, this is it. This is how it is going to end.
Back to where it was (only now is worse).

Reality is scary. Many things can happen in a day. Last week was bad. But the worse is yet to come.

What now? How do we proceed from here? What can be done in the view of such circumstances? Nothing can be said to reverse the situation. Irreversible damage.

Decisions must be made, information need to be disseminated. And face the consequences.