Boys will be boys... Toys will be toys...

Just last week Monday, when the whole platoon were kinda forced to take the day off, Joel took the opportunity to exploit ask me to photograph part of his Power Rangers Megazord collection as well as 2 of his Transformer toys. Given the opportunity to kill time as well as to actually do something productive, I agreed to this request which turned out to be pretty intense, insane but yet, ultimately fun!

So we met up pretty early in the morning for breakfast before the photo shoot over at my place at Compass Point. After which, we headed over to his sister's house where he temporary stored his toys because there were three HUGE bags of them and it wouldn't be convenient to bring it around for breakfast now, would it?

Then, off for the shoot!!

Well of course, I'm blogging this because I'm very bored right now and have nothing better to do and also, since the photos are so shamelessly well taken, I might as well show them off right! However, I'm only featuring 10 photos out of the 99 that I settled on after post-processing (I had like almost 400 frames to pick from and spent like 24 hours in total editing the entire film!) so I do not lag your computer too much.

If you are keen on the full album, be sure to drop by my Facebook page yes? If you can't access it, then tell me! I'll see what I can do for you because you know, I don't really accept strangers on my Facebook page, you know you know? Because I'm so popular.


Let's start!!

In business term (even though this is not a paid shoot), the one on the right is my client, so to speak, Joel. He owns a massive collection of Power Rangers figurines and some of which, from what I understand, are actually rare and worth quite a lot of money. Guess he wants to take photos of them for his own pleasure as well as to archive...

Further in the frame is Jun Sheng and he came over to help us with the shoot because obviously, a photographer and the owner is not enough to figure out how to assemble these Rubix-robotic-toys.

Unless you live in a cave or under a stone, this vehicle shouldn't be a stranger to you. Yes~ It's Optimus Prime from Transformers! And obviously, it transforms. The first time I met this toy was back when I was in Boston doing my internship with GAMBIT - one of my friends actually bought one there and I know it costs a bomb (three-digit for sure) because other than the fact that it can transform into the robot, the proportions and the build of the toy is excellent.

If you find the Rubix cube challenging or unsolvable (in my unfortunate case), then you should give Optimus Prime a go! It's so difficult that even referring to the complex instruction manual, which no one should throw away because you might leave yourself with a toy that looks like a pile of scrap plastic, it took forever to assemble it to the robot form and back.

Optimus Prime in its vehicle form was the first toy that I photographed that day because Joel said that it would take forever to transform it to the robot form so in the meantime, I can photograph something else. Smart move.

Shaun was the one who transformed Optimus Prime to and fro and yeap, the photo does make him look sleepy. This is when he finally managed to transform the robot form back to the vehicle form for easy storage. Took him another lifetime to accomplish.

Here's Bumble Bee (I WANT ONE!!) - the yellow sports car with a personality. Well apparently, Bumble Bee seemed to be easier to work with because I don't remember hearing any complaints regarding it that day. Due to the fact that it would also take some time to transform, I photographed it right after Optimus Prime. And partially because I'm pretty excited to photograph one of my favorite Transformers even know I know nothing about the cartoons or movie.

I personally think that Bumble Bee was the Most Photogenic Robot that I had photographed that day because it's capable of doing so many poses and his head can be moved~ In fact, I took some close up of his face (which unfortunately won't be showed here because I'm too lazy to find that photo to upload but you can find it on Facebook) and it was really cute. Another three-digit robot in terms of it's price. Joel's rich~

The major headache challenge of the day, 7 boxes of Power Rangers Samurai Megazords! You might think that we're well overaged for Power Rangers (aged 19 - 23) but we still love our childhood heros. Honestly, I have not watched this season of Power Rangers before but the Megazords are pretty interesting and complex. Well here's the 5 Power Rangers in case you need some visual reference to know which series we're talking about - taken from the top of the Megazord's box.

A close up on the default Megazord for this series of the Power Rangers. I have no clue what it's called... Basically, in Power Rangers, each hero gets his own Megazord - also known as an enormous fighting robot, which can be combined together to form a larger robot. Cool stuff since I was young~ What's really neat about these Megazords are that they have various versions and configurations and each Megazord can combine with one another for a different look and purpose (in the show, at least). For instance the next photo...

This is the classic Megazord combined with a clawed, lobster looking like one. Cool eh? There are a thousand and one configurations and there are more than just these few. Like I've previously mentioned, Joel brought 7 boxes of Power Rangers Megazords and each have their own transformations and combinations and permutations. Seriously, the Math is crazy~

Furthermore, there were some combinations that were so huge that the entire configuration couldn't fit in my light box and I had to dissemble it just to get photos of those configurations and the post-process was the most tedious I had ever Ever EVER done in my life in regards to this form of photography. But, it was a great learning experience for me~ :D

Besides, who actually get to play with robots the whole day and take photos of them? Not little kids~ Us!! People in the army! The irony~~

As you could have imagined, for robot appreciators, my room was like a candy store. For me, I think it was in an epic mess. Plus, my room is not very big but I had to house 4 guests plus myself, making it 5 human beings packed in this sardine can. Pei Da had no other space to sit in so he made himself extremely comfortable on my bed and napped throughout the shoot since he arrived (he arrived later). But without him, we wouldn't have someone drive us for lunch when we had a break - which translates to "My camera ran out of battery and requires charging in the midst of the shoot". Rest deserved, yes? :)


I must say, the entire process of the shoot was really fun because you get to play with toys (hee hee~) and photograph them! Well even though I didn't really get my hands into assembling the robots because they are wayyyyy too complicated for my simplistic mind, I enjoyed watching how a toy can be so versatile.

On top of that, who actually really play with toys nowadays? Kids these days have the iPads, iPhones, PSP, DS, what-electronic-nots you've got and I bet they hardly play with these toys anymore. No wonder Toys R Us are closing down one after another. I can even bet that game shops get more customers these days than toy shops do during Christmas.

Sigh~ As technology advances, so do the things people do. That was the rationale behind my 21st birthday - TOY MUSEUM, to revisit the days when we were young and when we used to play with things like cars, robots, Barbies, etc. It's still good to know that there are collectors out there who love their toys. :)

Well anyway, Joel said that he might have another assignment for me soon and I'm actually looking forward to it, even though I know that it would probably mean that it would be a full day shoot with endless processing at the end of it but ultimately, for good photos, it will definitely be worth it! :D

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broylim Birthday ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ PART 3: プレゼント + word shutter is ONE!!

Before I start...

word shutter is officially 

1 YEARS OLD!!

YES!! This is like my don't know which version of my personal blog but so far, I have no complaints blogging on Blogger because there's been so much improvements since the last time I blogged here way back when I was in lower Secondary. It's easy to use and extremely flexible in terms of customization so it really makes me feel like I own my own blog~

I shall take this opportunity to thank all my readers (even though I think most of them come here the One Direction album unboxing but still~ :D) for actually making me feel like the things I write are relevant - especially my CD packaging reviews because those are the ones that garner the most views. No one's really interested in my personal life it seems but I will blog them anyway to document my life and to share my views with the world - even if the world is just a handful of people!! :D

I will continue bringing more content to this blog - hopefully more diversified contents, and definitely more unboxing of more CDs (yes yes~~!!) and of course, more photographs that I've taken!! Hope that y'all will continue supporting word shutter yes? :)

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

Back to today's post!!

After three days of blogging about non-DVD/CD topics, I've finally made it to the final post of this LITTLE MONSTER collection - featuring (if you can't read Japanese), the プレゼント (presents) that I've received from everyone this year.

But before I start...

THANK Y'ALL FOR ALL THE THOUGHTFUL GIFTS!!

I really appreciate every one of them because
they somehow made a difference in my life even if it's in a small way.
Your thoughts are appreciated~
I feel so loved~~

To do these presents justice, I took, yes, photos of each and everyone of them. Or at least most of them because there was one that was particularly hard to photograph so I kinda gave up. :| So here I am, sitting alone in front of my light box shooting away like the lonely person again - self-indulging in the process of photo making...

Here we have the X-Mini II orange capsule speaker and the Apple Magic Mouse from Alvin! We all know that the X-Mini speakers are packed with awesome sound so loud and so bassy that the speakers actually moves when you blast your iPod on maximum volume. He got this for me because my Green Alien speaker's sound quality isn't as good. Thoughtful thoughtful eh~

The Apple Magic Mouse is something that I've constantly been fascinated by. Every time I drop by an electronic store, I would go play with it because it's so nice to click! The top of the entire mouse is a button itself and you can scroll by just running your finger up and down anywhere you want. The mouse also allows you to right click~ But the reason why I didn't get the mouse was because it's apparently not very good for photo editing (which I actually busted because once you get used to it, it's reasonable but a tablet would still be better for precise control) and that it's a little pricey so it came as a surprise for me when I received this one. :)

Have you seen these bottles before? They are made of plastic and are foldable so once you're done drinking from it, you can fold it into a smaller package for easy storage. Cool eh? Even comes with a clip for you to clip on your bag or on your pants if you don't want to risk a water bag bursting in your main compartment of your bag. This Vapur Anti-Bottle is also from Alvin because he knows I lost my Nike lime green bottle (sad~~) some months ago. My best friend has the best memory eh?

And the last present from Alvin is this book - Cat Capers: Catitude for Cat Lovers. It's a photo book by photographer Gandee Vasan and yes, the book is packed with photos of adorable felines doing what felines do the best - being extremely cute! The occasional poetries and trivia on cats keeps the book light on words and extremely heavy on photos. Due to the fact that it's all photos, I took only half an hour to get through the entire book~ So cute!!

Have you guessed what's inside that package that was featured in the ZHADAY post (Part 2 for the numerically inclined)? It's a Levi's leather bag! I'm not sure whether it's real leather or not but I love the material because it's so soft and actually quite huggable. Thank you, ZHADAY, for this bag~!! I think they had probably seen me with only one bag so they decided to give me another one to mix up my style a little bit more~ :D Couldn't take a photo of the whole bag because the space in my light box is limited. :S

They also gave me a blue, V-neck T-shirt which, if Hazel didn't mention, I wouldn't have realized was actually stuffed inside this bag. Didn't manage to take a photo of the shirt too, unfortunately, but I would definitely wear that shirt because it's kinda me - flat and simple.

On top of the bag, Daniel also gave me a huge glass container of these famous Sticky Smiley Rock candies! I remember there was one Christmas where he also gave out Sticky candies and unfortunately, I left them out for too long and it was kinda inedible at the end but this time, he gave me a second chance to try this entire glass of smiling goodness! So now and then, I would go to this container to pick a candy just to make sure I don't waste them again. 

The small birthday card found on the wrapper of the Levi's bag. :)

And for the most evil one of all - the counterfeit boarding pass made from scratch by the IS Platoon (actually, Jia Wei did most of the counterfeiting from what I understand) which doubles as a birthday card! In case y'all can't read what was written in the previous post, here's a clearer photo of it. If they didn't tell me, I wouldn't have known that this is a fake and would bring this to the airport on the day we head to KL~ On top of this counterfeit boarding pass is also the real deal so yes~!! :D

I hope y'all can actually read these heartfelt wishes from my platoon. It's a little small, no? But try to squint a little~ :P Lots of references to my constant tweeting and Gaga and alarm clocks and yes, BITCHING, in their wishes. Well, some key words to summarize who I am. :)

Last but not least, the limited edition steel case version of the movie "那些年，我們一起追的女孩“，or in English "You Are the Apple of My Eye". Click on the title for the unboxing of this amazing box set from my beloved sister, Vera!! Well, Miss Sister was uncertain of what to get me for my birthday, as usual, so I gave her the suggestion of getting me this DVD since we both want to watch the movie again anyway. On top of that, I just want to take photos of this amazing packaging so yes - we killed a few birds with one steel case.

And yes! This marks the end of this 3 part blogging "marathon" of my 22nd birthday celebration - LITTLE MONSTER! I can't believe that I've grown on by another year again but nevertheless, I will continue being who I am until I decide to grow up even more mentally!

Being childish isn't being irresponsible - it's respecting who you really are and embracing your true self!

Oh yes~ Be sure to catch the previous parts if you missed them because I spent hours working on them okay! Give me some credit, yes? :) Even if you don't read every single nonsense word I've written, at least enjoy the photos yes? Because I must say, comparing this year's film and last year's, my photography did improve okay~! :D

Time to sign off~ Thanks for reading *waves to the single reader over there* :)

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

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broylim Birthday ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ PART 2 ZHADAY

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

So, did y'all read the previous entry? Did you did you? Well I don't really care if no one did because I enjoy blogging all these anyway. Hahahaha... But it would be a bonus, yes? That people are actually reading the nonsense that you constantly churn.

Anyway, here's the continuation to my birthday celebration. Unfortunately for me though, this year, I celebrated my birthday one day before the actual day and one day after the actual day (as featured in this entry) because sadly, no one wants to celebrate my birthday on the actual day with me other than my sister. But that doesn't affect me (well, maybe it inspired me to write LITTLE MONSTER but still...) because I have amazing friends who surprise me time and again.

And this time, boy did they surprise...


It all started out with my meeting up with Alvin at his house, dropping my Macbook at his place so that I don't have to go around the entire northern area of this cloudy island on April 7, 2012 carrying a laptop that weighs a tonne. So the plan of the day was to catch this film first...

Mirror Mirror
Source: http://www.movietvnews.net

Mirror Mirror, starring Julia Roberts as the wicked witch with a fabulous sense for fashion. This comedy is light hearted, unlike the ones that I've been watching these days. Tells the story of the classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in a different tone and of course, with some twists and amendments to the original story. Good comedy but definitely has room for improvement in my opinion. For instance, why find such a gorgeous looking witch?


Moving on... The movie was actually not part of the grand plan, according to the Alvin (and the "Chipmunks" behind this whole plan). I knew that he had something up his sleeves because he did say that he would bring me somewhere else after the film but no matter how much I tried to get hints from him, he kept pretty quiet and laughed my questions away. Oh well~ It's a surprise for myself so I should respect that, yes? :)

The movie was just to kill time, really. After the movie, we headed down Woodlands MRT station to catch Bus 856. I tried to search for clues while taking the bus like looking at it's end destination and all but couldn't really get an idea because the bus heads over to Yishun and I can't think of what we can do at Yishun.

But something made me suspicious though... I knew that he had something up his sleeves but I don't know what. All I knew was that the place is going to be indoors (because it was raining at that moment and I asked him if it would ruin the plan) and that we have to be there at 6:00pm sharp. Given these clues, what would you have guessed? Difficult right!!

Determined to get more clues, I started throwing random locations at Alvin and the first one that came to my mind was "Sembawang". I guessed if we were heading to Sembawang. He laughed. He didn't even make the attempt to tell me that it's not Sembawang so I gathered that we're probably heading to Sembawang.

The extremely long bus ride didn't give any clues neither because most of the areas that the bus covered were mainly factories and places that you wouldn't go to celebrate someone's birthday. But I knew for sure that the bus would head to Sembawang but didn't expect it to wind through an entire estate of factories...

Indeed. We arrived at Sembawang Shopping Center and everything seem to fall into pieces because I know that the shopping center has this...

What else? TEO HENG!! I think it's a known fact, like gravity, that I love singing and where else would be a better place to celebrate my 22nd year on this miserable planet than to make things better by singing our hearts out at this karaoke place? And since singing is most fun with a gang (unless you're singing with just Raven Chua then it's a different story ;D), I knew immediately who else I would see inside...

These fun loving ladies! Hazel, Ain and Yahya! Initially, I thought that they had forgotten about my birthday because I had not heard from them since the last time I met them back in January. Normally, they would plan for everyone's birthday so I thought that maybe they were busy with work and couldn't plan for mine but I was wrong! In fact, I feel a little guilty to think that they would actually forget about me. :S

And of course, the handsome ones also turned up for the celebration - Alvin (mastermind of this entire "sinister" plot), Chong Yee and Daniel. Was really glad to see them because it's been quite awhile since we had caught up with one another. Yin Zhi couldn't make it to the K session but he met us afterwards for dinner so we basically had full attendance that evening! Because of everyone's busy schedules, it is challenging to get everyone together to meet up but I'm so happy and surprised that they all took time to celebrate my birthday with me. So thankful!!

Just had to take a photo with the cheek mastermind behind this surprise. Though I managed to figure out mentally and solved the puzzle before actually arriving at the location, this is the first time that a surprise of this scale involving collaboration with other friends was planned for me and therefore, I'm really touched!! Well, this photo also shows off my flawless skin after digital touch up so if y'all are hiring someone to make your face look flawless, hire me!! :)

We sang for 2 hours and after that, headed back to Causeway Point to get some dinner at the Manhattan Fish Market. Here we have Ain trying to hide her face from the camera for the nth time of the evening. I wonder why she's been trying to hide her face from my lens though... Maybe because everyone knows that I'm the King of Unglam Photos? *evil laughter*

I find this photo amusing because Daniel's face looks really adorable - almost like he's sad at something trivial. I forgot if he purposely made this face for the camera or this is just one of those sudden captures but if it was a sudden capture, then it proves my ability as the King of Unglam Photos! *evil laughter again* But again, this isn't actually unglam in my standards anyway... 

SUDDEN THOUGHT: Maybe I should start a blog featuring unglam photos of people? Now that's a way to make yourself a public enemy... :P

The catch of that evening (at least the ones that I managed to get on film)! Fish and chips, chicken pasta in a cream sauce, mussels in cream sauce accompanied with bread and the seafood olio pasta. I had the seafood pasta because of the mussels and I think that it's really tasty but a little too peppery. The squids were tender and the mussels were so gooooooddddd~ Highly recommended if you want to have something other than the classic fish and chips at Manhattan. But again, with their wide array of food on their menu, you can pick whatever pleases you that day. :)

I thought that the surprises they planned for me were over after meeting them at Teo Heng but I was wrong... After stuffing our faces with seafood goodness, we went over to Civic Plaza and found a random spot on the ground and parked our puwets there to chit chat. But before that, Ain went to the toilet and seem to have fainted inside because she never came back and I was stupid enough not to be suspicious. But in the meantime...

Yahya suddenly whipped out her ultrabook (I must say, that ultrabook is really cool-looking, no?) out from her seemingly small bag of wonders and started working on her "homework". Well, since we're all sitting around and talking nonsense anyway, why not use that time productivity right? So while Daniel and herself are trying to figure out how to do the "assignment", I started shooting photos non-stop to kill time as well. 

Well it appears that the whole "Ain-got-stuck-in-the-toilet" thing was actually a cover up for Yin Zhi and Ain to go get a birthday cake! So we were minding our own business, sitting around like a bunch of gangstas in the middle of nowhere, Ain and Yin Zhi appeared out of from the glass walls of Civic Plaza with a cake in their hands and of course, I was surprised - again. I have wonderful friends, no? :)

And the "homework" was actually a screen of them wishing me happy birthday! So extremely sweet!! I think we should totally start like a detective company because everyone's so sneaky around and all. Or maybe because I'm way too gullible but I refuse to acknowledge that fact~

Nowadays when I give presents, I rarely wrap the because wrapping papers are so yesterday. Are you guilty of giving presents out without even bothering to wrap them? I bet some of y'all are~ This is the first and only present that I've received this year that didn't came in a plastic bag or came unwrapped (unless you consider the boarding passes the IS platoon gave me wrapped in an envelope counted...). Want to know what's inside, stay tuned, yea? :)

And just when I want to take a group shot of everyone, I ran out of juice for my flash gun so I had to settle for the built-in flash instead. No thanks to Alvin using my flash gun like some toy, firing bursts of light into innocent people now and then~ :P Oh well~ At least the memories are still well captured here, yes? :)

Before I end...

A BIG THANK YOU

to Alvin, Hazel, Ain, Yahya, Chong Yee, Daniel and Yin Zhi

for this wonderful birthday surprises! I'm honestly very surprised and extremely touched by your efforts to make my evening so eventful and memorable! I appreciate all your efforts in getting me to do the extremely long bus ride to Sembawang and all the thought that y'all had put in. :) I hope y'all like the photos on Facebook yes? :) Thank you thank you~~ :)

Stay tuned for tomorrow's continuation of LITTLE MONSTER for more interesting (I certainly hope that these matters do interest someone...) stuff, yes? :) 

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

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broylim Birthday ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ PART 1 IS PLATOON

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

In three days, word shutter will officially be ONE YEARS OLD! Yeah~~ *throws confetti*

And to commemorate this special day (and to shamelessly commemorate my 22nd year on this planet we call Earth), I shall be blogging on my 22nd birthday celebration. There will be three parts to this collection (each part will be released every day until anniversary day arrives), unlike my 21st birthday, because you have to admit, being 22 years old is nothing special but at least it gives me content to blog about, yes? Plus, it's been awhile since I've actually blogged about my personal life on this personal blog - it's looking more like a CD review blog nowadays...

I've decided to call this year ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ because of what happened on the actual day of my birthday. For more details which I shall not go into, you can read my latest piece of the same title which I've blogged previously. If you get it, you will. If not, just treat it like a photographer/poet went insane.

And now, to the few readers out there (because I honestly think no one actually really reads my blog other than for the ONE DIRECTION album which garnered over 2,000 views and counting), let's begin with the party!!

Seems that my birthday is always tied to singing, no? Like last year, I've celebrated my birthday by singing 3 times in 7 days! Well, not that I mind because I love singing with awesome people but maybe next year, I shall try something different. Anyway, the first stretch of the celebration (sounds like a festival already!!) is with my IS platoon mates from army and the location is the 10 DOLLAR CLUB at Chinatown. Now, I won't be going into the details of this cheap singing location because I've already did so just click on the name to go to the link, yes?

I arrived even before my friends did because I took the day off after running till my back almost snapped on that faithful day - April 5, 2012. Sickening IPPT never fail to make me feel like some broken machine. I say, IPPT is the most inhumane thing that the government makes its male (sexist sexist) citizens go through but anyway...

This is the large room of the 10 Dollar Club. Considering that we had a gang of... *counts the number of faces in the group photo* 11 people, getting the smaller rooms was out of the question. The big room costs the same, in case you're wondering, and comes with a huge ass screen and a TV along with 2 wireless microphones. Feels almost like TOY MUSEUM already eh eh?

Shortly after snapping photos of the room specially to brag blog about it, my friends arrived straight from camp after booking out and we starting to sing out vocal cords hoarse. If you've been to the 10 Dollar Club or had actually been obedient enough to read through my review of this place (link above), you would have known that the 10 Dollar Club is not just cheap but also generous with their free flow drinks, like the warm honey lemon that most of us had that day to soothe our throats. Really delicious~ Plus it's free flow!! What could be better?

I'm not going to go crazy featuring every single shot that I took that day because I think I took well over 200 photos but I'm just going to use some to introduce the fabulous people who really made my day that day. Here's Aaron and Jun Sheng, best pals since Signal Institute. For y'all non-Singaporean lucky people out there, Signal Institute is a place in the army and it's not very interesting so let's move on...

Jia Wei, my legal buddy in my current unit. Also the one who often preaches that 人是自私的 (Every man is selfish). An important "life lesson" that I will use in my future endeavors so the rest of the world would probably know what a bitch I am *evil laughter*. Loving my neck and my jaw line in this photo!

The Client team!! Well I know that does not make much sense to those who are not in my platoon but my platoon is split into specialized teams. Yeap. That's as much as I can explain without being too technical. Here's the other April baby, Pei Da (guy in the middle) from my platoon who's also celebrating his birthday with the entire gang! His official birthday is on the 20th but I shall wish him...

HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY PEI DA!!

...before everyone else does because I'm that kiasu. Pei Da has always been the patient one in the platoon and often the 开心果 (Direct translation: "Pistachio nuts" but it also means "the one who brings much joy"). Sometimes I wonder how he can keep his calm so much and smile at everything. He also says and does the funniest things at times and I don't even know where to start elaborating. Person on the right is my new, and going-to-be-ex boss, of the client team, Ryan. Wonderful person to work with.

Joel Chua, also known as the slut amongst other things. Well, he may be a slut, or a vixen as some calls him, but he's extremely fun to be around because of his extremely (maybe too extreme) outgoing personality and non-stop nonsense. Shaun, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of this outrageous character and it's a surprise that they are actually caught on film together. Hahahahahaha...

Looks like Ryan is turning to the dark side... This is actually one of my favorite photos of the day~ I just realized that looking through the film, Joel appeared in many shots. I wonder if it has anything to do with his Pikachu shirt that I want so badly or because he's so photogenic and fun to photograph. Bet if he reads this, he will go around parading this fact but oh well...

"Exorcism of the Vixen" - I think this is the perfect title for this photo. You know, when there are so many people in a karaoke room and there are only 2 microphones, the ones who are not singing tend to do lots of funny funny stuff and here, my superior who we affectionately call Staff Jo, is exorcising the vixen in Joel for being too close to Ryan. And that's my tripod, by the way...

Surprise of the day - Amoz actually turned up for the celebration! He's normally quite elusive and rarely joins us for such events but this time round, he actually came and amazed the whole lot of us with his weird unique taste in old music and his ability to sing. But again, it's quite a known fact that he can sing because he sings randomly in camp anyway.

This photo shows 2 things - my big boss sitting on the right and the fact that she actually wasn't sitting next to Ryan. In fact, in the actual photo, there was an awkward space in between for some Capser the Friendly Ghost to sit in and so, I edited the photo to shift my ma'am over to the left. Not bad eh, my editing skills~ For the record, the edit is just to make the photo look better and no other intentions were intended, no matter how you think otherwise. :)

Someone took a photo of me singing and I believe I was singing "Born This Way" by Mother Monster, Lady Gaga. Ever since that song was released, it seems to make its way into my Must-sing-list every time I go to K. In fact, it's almost like a birthday song to me now because last year, I performed this song acoustically with my SAFTI mates and this year, I did it again but with the PV instead of acoustic instruments. Sigh~~ Miss those days in SAFTI...

Well Staff Jo had to leave early because he had some dinner to attend to but before that, he threw 2 big "bombs" at Pei Da and I - these envelopes which seemingly yearns to rob us of our weekends. In case y'all don't know, this organization loves us so much they don't even want to release us for our weekends at times so yes... Honestly, when I saw the title on the envelope, I was a little *sigh!!*

So, I opened the envelope to see what the "joining instructions" (which I stupidly didn't realize was wrong!! Who says joining instructions anyway!!) to see what nonsense the organization has to tell me but when I reached my hand to pick out the letter, it felt stiff and hard. And furthermore, it felt like it's been folded into a really tiny piece. The envelope wasn't small so I wasn't expecting the letter to be folded to a quarter of an A4 size so I started to get suspicious...

And I was right to be! The cheeky platoon used that envelope just to give Pei Da and me a horrible scare but what's inside the envelope is actually a card with all their well wishes! Honestly didn't see that one coming!! These are more than just plain cards...

They are actually BOARDING PASSES to Kuala Lumpur!! I was extremely stunned because few days prior to this celebration, they were telling me that our planned KL trip would cost almost 500 dollars and of course, I went berserk and started to bitch and bitch and bitch till no ends. In fact, I bitched so much that everyone got really sick of me bitching but I continued bitching. 500 freaking dollars to go to Malaysia for just 2 days?! I could use that money to go to Langkawi!!

Then when I realized that these cards are passes to KL, I was like "BITCHES Y'ALL!!" in my mind because they made the trip seem expensive just to get me to bitch non-stop! I hope they regretted that prank because boy did I bitch! But if they enjoyed that sick prank, then so be it. And yes, 500 dollars was a lie.

These passes are actually fake ones that Jia Wei painstakingly made by hand and they look pretty genuine, no? In fact, if they didn't tell me that these passes were fake, I would have brought them to the airport to get laughed at by the staff. But yes, they are really paying for the flight to KL for Pei Da and myself. Touched to the max!! I will never ever forget this horrible prank and this wonderful present~

A fabulous group photo with the platoon!! Thank you IS platoon for making my 22nd birthday so much fun and for that terrible scare (please don't do that again!) of going to KL for 500 dollars and of course, for the wonderful company! That basically marks the end of the singing session. We sang from 2:30pm all the way till 7:00pm, till our voices became really sexy but if you think that the day is over, you can't be more wrong... READ ON!!

Singing has always been a tiring affair because you use so much strength in your abdomen and that makes lots of us hungry. We left the 10 Dollar Club when we were done and headed over to bustling Bugis for dinner along this road filled with lots of restaurants. While heading to the carpark to Amoz's car, we saw these huge Chow Chow dogs and one of it was resting in this pram like some oversized infant. Really adorable!!

We arrived at the eatery which I have no clue what it's called and started ordering food around this miserably small table. We were sitting literally shoulder to shoulder because they ran out of large tables and the ones taking up those tables are really taking their own sweet time to consume their dinner. Well, can't really blame them for enjoying the food but I'm entitled to bitch, yes?

This is probably the first time ever in my blogging life that I've actually combined photos into a single shot to save memory and to save myself from actually having to caption every single photo. The food that we ordered were very Thai-inspired and knowing that it would be spicy, lots of us ordered drinks like lime or barley. Their barley was pretty good!!

We had this green curry that looks more greenish after post-processing that was quite nice but sadly, by the time it arrived, I finished most of my rice to accompany the curry. The chicken in it was so-so though but at least the sauce was great. The potato leaves were not bad as well but I prefer crunchier veggies.

Here, we have a hotpot tofu with vegetables, mango salad, frogs' legs and cereal squids. The mango salad was quite tasty but it lacked cashew nuts! I thought all mango salads should come with cashew nuts?! I love the sauce of the frogs' legs but after imagining those green creatures, the meat was a little hard to swallow. The cereal squids were probably the best dish of the day because it was so flavorful and well cooked - not rubbery at all! Favorite of the day!!

As we all know, Thai food is horribly spicy and I think I damaged my tastebuds. I think the reason why I was so full even though I think I ate the least of all that evening was because I was gulping down water and ice to extinguish the wildfire in my mouth. Thankfully, Ryan brought us to this really good ice-cream parlor just opposite the area we had our dinner - Tom's Palette.

At Tom's Palette, they serve homemade ice-cream featuring really funky flavors at a really reasonable price! Here's the signboard with the pricing if you're interested. I would recommend the medium cup because the small one is a little pathetic but if you're watching your diet, then it's probably worth it. But honestly, for just 80 cents more, you get a lot more creamy goodness as compared to the small cup.

When I meant funky flavors, I wasn't kidding. Who heard of a salted egg ice-cream before? What about lime and wasabi? How about chocolate sorbet? These flavors were so unique that a lot of my friends got them. The salted egg ice cream was quite unique - savory but yet still fits as a dessert. But for me, I stuck to the classic sweets of the chocolate sorbet (which was as creamy as any ice-cream~) and one of my favorites - rum and raisins. But if you want to experience new and funny flavors, be sure to visit them. The staff will be glad to give you samples.

For their opening hours and promotions, visit their website at:

http://www.tomspalette.com.sg/

To end the post, here are the pleased customers of Tom's Palette (including myself but I can't be in the photo obviously because I'm taking this shot). Do head down to try it out if you happen to go around Bugis because I think it's really worth it. Will definitely bring my other friends there next time!!

This marks the first part of my ~22nd: LITTLE MONSTER~ celebration! Can't believe I've actually managed to discipline myself to sit in front of my laptop to do a full length blog post that's about my life for a change. 

Be sure to come back tomorrow to catch the second part of LITTLE MONSTER where I've got a pleasant surprise from my best friend, Alvin, and for more (hopefully) stunning photos. :D

Thanks for reading!! *waves to that few people who actually reads*

LITTLE MONSTER | PART 1 IS PLATOON | PART 2 ZHADAY | PART 3 プレゼント

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