Sunday, November 25, 2007 -


(A close-up shot of a self-potrait I drew myself.....haha....pretty good likeness.....got my whole attitude down pat.....the whole picture is posted right at the back of this post......)
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It's that time of the year again.......time for my annual Birthday post......with the usual pictures, exclusive commentary, reflections for the year and where I thank a whole list of people.....haha...
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So I'm officially 23 Years old as of today........the youngest one among my Secondary school friends and the oldest One among my Poly mates......well at least for another couple of months anyway......
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How do I feel???..........OLD!!.........Older then I should.....haha...I almost feel shy reading comicbooks and fake comic Newspapers in public places nowadays........the key word being "Almost".......need another decade or so before "Almost" becomes "Definitely"........hahaha
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Anyway I celebrated my birthday with the Poly gang on saturday the 24th of November and on my actual Birthday on monday....I just had a simple dinner with my folks and handed back home to cut my cake and catch a movie together.......haha
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Well......here are some Photos from my actual Birthday......with me and my Folks.......after we had dinner together......nice,quiet,low-key affair just as I like it......
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Me and my Parents.......that cheese cake they got from Sweet Secrets is some tasty grub......haha...




I noticed I left my specs on the TV after realizing that I could'nt focus properly on the camera in front.........always glancing away from the centre like I'm doing some impersonation of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charle's love child......hahaha




AND.......Blowing out the candles.......after I did that I was back in my home clothes watching HBO....faster then a speeding bullet.......
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Next up are the photos of me and the gang took on the 24th of November........we went to Outback steakhouse and I know folks are too polite to tell me so.....but Damn did the restaurant I pick suck some serious hairy-ass donkey balls......haha....My bad......my sincerest apologies for my lack of culinary foresight.....haha........Outback? I should take the chefs out back in the alley and gun them down.....haha....
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My juniors and some of my army mates told me that the food there was supposed to be good.....I sincerely fear that they were comparing the food from the restaurant to SAF cookshouse food because your definition of good food changes after you've been eating SAF food for 2 years.....haha.......food from any damn place is considered good if we were to classify SAF food as normal food.......well anyway......everyone makes mistakes so I'm not going to blame them......because I'm sure they're not going to blame me as well when I phone in an anonymous bomb threat that will keep them confined in camp till after Christmas....for their delightful recommendation......hahaha
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So Anyway talk is cheap.........Here are some of the pictures taken of the gang and me on the 24th with a bonus director's commentary track by yours truly......
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First of all.....we'll start the picture parade with a tried and tested, old Favorite:
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Felix doing that thing he do.....haha.......The Blurry Effect perfectly complements Felix's expression and reinforces the dangers of drug abuse.......


Wenjun......


Huiling......



AND.....the both of them together in black...My all-time favorite color and the constant shade of color expression on my face.......haha



Two clowns clowning around.......as always



The two of us re-enacting the day when Felix forgot to send me his completed part from one of our projects...notice me giving him the evil eye...haha



Huiling and me....and Felix's decapitated hand giving me the mickey mouse years I always wanted..haha


Wenjun and me... when she's around me....I seem to always have the weight of the world on my shoulders..haha



And Gerald and Me...her expression leads me to believe that she's going to embarass many a indonesian waiter before the night is through...



Wenjun and Huiling after I told them that the theme for the Christmas presents this year is "Lockets and Sweets"......hahaha



The three girls together...yeah....Friends forever and all that jazz....hoho


Aand next up is rare photographic evidence that I do have more than one facial expression nowadays....



I can't figure whether this is my "Jolly" or "retarded" face........probably a bit of both..haha


My "Kiam Pah" face......



Me showing some teeth for once......the weird thing abt my teeth is that my front 4 teeth are unaturally straight.....all lined up in the same line with no even the slightest gap without the aid of Braces......my mum said they look more like dentures...



Blowing out the candles on my cake.......I forgot what Wish I made....all I know is that last year's wish did'nt come true....nor the last ,last year.....and the year before that,etc...haha



Me cutting the cake......it actually tasted pretty nice.......with the rum-soaked base and boysen-berries....but after eating my Huge share of the cake....I found out that There IS such a thing as too much of a good thing...



My Chocolate Birthday Plaque which I promptly consumed.....


Snap shots of the gang having their cake and eating it too...



First up is Felix......who ate surprisingly moderately during dinner and had problems finishing his steak....



Gerald.....who scrapped out all the cream from her cake and left a huge wad of cream on her plate that I think seriously turned off the indonesian waiter who collected her plate from eating any cream-based food for the near future....haha



Wenjun.....who spent much of her time convincing people to swallow sizzling hot pieces of steak and explosively-hot deep fried whole mushrooms......haha......she convinced to Felix to stuff the super hot Mushroom while she shot photos and videos of the whole process.....haha....and he did it....TWICE!!


Huiling...who ate a bigger piece of steak and left a much cleaner plate then Felix by the end of dinner.....


Me with my boat load of presents this year......which nearly completely obscured me from view.....I kinda reminded myself of Gwenyeth Paltrow's head in the Movie Seven......



The Collector's Edition Batman Monopoly which Wenjun and Huiling got me.....


I got a good laugh when Wenjun and Huiling asked me whether I really DID like the present because they could'nt tell from my expression......never underestimate how neutral I can still look even to people who have known me for years....hahaha...I doubt My expression would be any different if they had gift-wrapped Angelina Jolie, dipped her in honey and sat her at my feet.....hahahaha..... cos that's the happiest I can look....call it facial paralysis or poker face syndrome.....haha


Haha......If I had my hands on this board game when I was younger....I would never leave my house or allow my parents to leave the house!!haha....my dad would have needed to break the board in half if he wanted me to stop bugging him...haha


So anyway I told them that I did really like this unexpected gift but Wwenjun said "Like" was not enough....she wanted me to "love" it.....so I did....all night long...and now the playing board are stuck together by something that shall remain unspoken.....hahaha



The first present from Gerald and Felix.....which paved the way for the most challenging gift-unwrapping I have ever encountered in the past two decades.......haha




As Galactus is my witness, I swear there were like 10-12 layers I had to unwrap to reach the final present within......haha......its a cleverly designed package designed to drive its receiver mad...haha....I had to cut through all the layers with a steak knife and best of all.....after tearing through 5 layers of tape and brown paper, the 6th layer was Orange-ish paper so I thought I finally reached my end goal....but no such luck...after that orange-ish layer came off it was another 4 layers of brown paper and tape before I uncovered a message taunting me that I was not even halfway there!!....Haha....




This is another pic of me still trying to unravel it hahaha......wah lau.......It was mentally and physically exhausting and when I finally reached the present within......I was seeing stars......Literally!!




And this was what was inside.......a glass bottle of stars and a custome made Batman key-chain within the bottle....the problem with the keychain is that it kinds of give away my true identity behind my crime fighting alter-ego...haha




This is the black Adidas shirt from Felix and Gerald......its black and has a skull on it so I guess there's no excuse for me not to wear it....hahaha.....well I 'll wear it soon....its casual and seems pretty much like something I would wear to school



They also gave me a deck of Sin City cards which I saw at Bugis Junction....Its cool......there's different pin-ups and panels all drawn by Frank Miller there are enlarged or shrunk into playing card size......




Here's a sample of some of the cards......Frank Miller's black and white artwork is cool.....very iconic and stylized.....the art really pops out.......When I have the time....I'll try to arrange the cards in sequence of story just for the heck of it.....haha




Here's a picture of Hartigan and Marv from Sin City relaxing and playing a nice game of cards during their break time.......haha




This is the Jack Kirby Fourth world Omnibus Wenjun and Huiling gave me........its cool stuff.....it collects four different titles drawn by Jack Kirby in chronological order in terms of their date of publication and it contains some of the very first comics I have ever read from the 1970's.......I grew up on these comics...

Jack Kirby is the artist who co-created or created the entire Marvel Universe...he created and drew The Hulk, X-men, Fantastic Four, Captain america, Iron Man, The Silver Surfer, The avengers, The mighty Thor..........the only major character he did'nt create was Spider-man...anyway he did'nt make one cent from any of his creations since Marvel considered him a hired hand.....so in 1970 he moved to DC (Batman,Superman,etc) and created his Fourth world saga...

Its called the Fourthworld because he wrote, drew and edited 4 monthly titles on his own featuring different characters but were all interlinked into one big saga.......he did 4 books a month.....artists nowadays can barely draw a book a month and be on time......anyway i loved this series since I was a kid after reading some reprints here and there.....


But all 4 of the titles were cancelled in the mid-70's due to poor sales and Jack Kirby produced a total of 55 issues and never got a chance to finish the big saga where the main character(featured on the cover) would face his father in one final prophesized battle.....and ever since I found out I've tried since I was 12 years old to draw my own version of the conclusion of the saga...I used to fold A4 paper in half and do my own mini-comics on it but I gave up and the closest I got was when I was in Sec 3 till sec 4 and I drew abot 35 pages to the 50 page conclusion I wanted to do.......I have all the art.....the last 10 pages were done in pencil only though and I think I've shown it to Wenjun,Huiling,Felix and Gerald....alas I never did finish it due to my O'levels and that was 8 years ago.....

Anyway here's a picture of the Omnibus with a drawing I did in 1999 featuring the main Character Orion...

I've already started reading this hardcover.....should be done in a couple of days......hahaha.....they even printed it on the old newsprint paper that old comics are printed on rather then glossy paper for a more authentic feel...Kewl....




Next its the Batman Black and White statue designed by the top artist in the industry.....Jim Lee....Its my fifth statue from this particular line of statues......hahaha....come Chinese New Year, I'll add my sixth one when the Frank Miller B&W statue comes out.....hoho.......this is the shot of the statue box with the piece of artwork the statue is based on..



Here's a Close-Up of the statue.......



Another close up.....at an angle similar to the artwork on the box.....




And.......Here's my entire collection of Cold-cast Batman Black and white statues......all of them are based on the artwork and designs of my All-time Favorite Batman artists.....Brian Bolland, Mike Mignola, Alex Ross, Steve Rude and now......Jim Lee.........I got the Steve Rude BW statue from Wenjun and Huiling last year.....the one with the cool swishing Cape........anyway the Jim Lee one is pretty solid.....Batman Crouching with his cape flaring outwards......haha.....I think they look quite impressive lined up together........the same character intrepreted in so many different art styles......



And even MORE Bat-Goodness next....hahahaha.....




The Collector's edition Batman Monopoly from Wenjun and Huiling...haha.....based on the artwork of the most popular Bat-artist for the past decade....Jim Lee.......I once contemplated buying this board game or the Sin City one myself when I saw it in Bugis Junction back when the Government still paid my wages......haha....but I figured who was I gonna get to play it with me?


But I DID get to play the game this time.....hahaha.......the group spent Almost 4 hrs playing Batman monopoly at a cafe in Cineleisure......though sad to say that despite being the one who used the pewter Batman figurine in the game.........I lost the game....BAD!!Haha.......while everybody was buying property......I was going to jail for the 4th or 5th time.....haha....by the time I got out.....I was paying everybody cash for practically every time I threw the dice....haha.....I did managed to buy a batmobile and Penguin Ice Lounge at the end......and eearned a tidy sum of less then 200 bucks in total from the others through fines......while personally shelling out a good 300-400 bucks every time I made a complete round on the board....hahaha,.....and to top it off this Batman served more Jail time then the joker,two-face and catwoman put together!!!haha

There should be some damn rule stating that the player in possession of the Batman figure has immunity and cannot lose the game....since technically The whole game is named after him!!hahaha........Its not Bat Signal Monopoly or Catwoman Monopoly or Joker's freaking chattering teeth monopoly......Its the Godamn batman monopoly!!hahaha....

Well ok......even though I lost.....it was still kind of fun....there'sreally nothing quite like 5 individuals above 21 years old playing a Batman-related game in a very public place.....so thanks for indulging me in the game...hahaha......the last time I convinced others in indulge in a Batman related activity I had to bribe my cousins with the promise of free drawings...haha


And I'll be damned if the artwork featured on the box doesn't look familliar.......hhmmm......the problem is that there has been hundreds of artists who have drawn thousands of Batman drawings for the past 6 decades........it'll take like some Bat Historian to identify a single image out of the thousands......
Oh well I'll give it a try........if my memory serves me correctly........I think this image was taken from the 3rd panel of the 17th page of the 614th issue of Batman........just a random guess.....


Why.......YES IT IS!!! ........A Lucky guess??!!....or just too much comic-reading??!?....haha...anyway.....The art from the Monolpoly packaging was actually a single panel in Batman#614 blown up to like 20 times the size............ featuring a pissed off Batman preparing to lay the smack down on Joker......said issue is of course comfortably tucked away in my filing cabinets...... though I do own the story in both Hardcover and tpb form too......haha



The Monopoly Board itself.......that particular image of Batman running is actually a blown-up version of one of the Batman covers drawn by Jim Lee...and despite there being 700 over issues of Batman published over the past 60 years......let me try to guesswhich issue that drawing was printed from.....its really tough.....hoho.....hmmmm.....Batman#615???



Why YES IT IS Again!!!.....OOoooo I'm good.....hahaha....and whatta do you know?! I do own that issue!!!Hahahha.....here's a shot of the cover courtesy of the private Collection of Barry Tan.....


Here's an interesting fact that is kinda neat and useless..........hahaha...both the statue and the Batman Monopoly were inspired by the artwork of Jim Lee, who's this Korean millionaire that's one of the comic industry's top artists....anyway he has only drawn 12 issues of the regular Batman comic and all the artwork featured in both gifts were taken from those issues....


The interesting thing is the first time the whole of TB31 discovered that I had a Batman fetish was when my laptop was chosen to be used for a class presentation and I had the Cover of an issue of Batman set as my wallpaper which was projected like 20 times the size in front of the whole class......which resulted in much snickering and awkward silence on my part....haha....anyway the cover was drawn by the same Jim Lee and that first issue of his came out on the very same month I started my first term in poly.......hahaha......more then 5 years later...things come full circle...bet you did'nt know that bit of trivia...haha.....and Yes....its true I do chart my years and months according to the publication of various Batman issues....


Well.....Next up are actually my favorite things to receive during birthdays.......the birthday cards.....haha...I love getting them and its always fun to read whatever comments are written......I probably have kept every single card made out to me for the past 15 years in my drawer......I like glancing through all of them once awhile......reading the comments and stuff......




So......this is the card from Gerald and Felix........written and colored by Gerald......cos if I know Felix and I DO know Felix......he can't do such fancy lettering nor coloring.....haha....and the little message there foreshadows the most difficult gift-unwrapping session I have ever gone through........since....well.....EVER!!




This triple gate-fold card is from Wenjun and Huiling.......detailing the "Do's" and "Don'ts" of Birthdays which I can confidently say I did'nt follow at all.....haha




Their Hand written birthday messages......"Bestest, Bestest Friend" and "Many best wishes".........hoho......awwww nice bit of lying there by the dynamic duo......hahaha.....


And lastly..........Here's the full picture I drew........Nobody that I know can draw or are even interested in drawing.....so I usually draw cards and pictures and give them to friends but usually I don't receive much drawings from anyone.......so every year I try to draw myself a picture for my own birthday on my own birthday to make myself happy.......they're usually very rough drawings........for my personal pleasure...


The previous one I drew last year was when I was working in camp from 11pm of 25th November all the way to my birthday on the next day at 7am......and for this eight hours I drew every DC and Marvel Character I liked on an A4 piece of paper....almost 30-35 characters all very roughly drawn....with this two large candles and 2 small candles in the background.............(which one of my super-gay Pass office colleagues told me looked like four A4 sized schlongs....diao.....)....anyway Its still displayed on the Bulletin board of Pass office now I think....haha...


So This is the full picture I drew myself this year.............I think its suits me well.......I was born in the year of the Rat so I drew a grumpy, hairy,disgruntled Rat giving the finger Salute to anybody that's unlucky enough to get in his way.....haha


It really captures my good side I think....it's a symbolic drawing of me in one of my better moods....hahaha....me being my usual cheerful self.....haha



Anyway that's about all the pictures for this birthday-themed post........Another year past, Another Birthday, another year older...haha...I think everybody gets less enthusiastic about their birthdays with each passing year........I was an early bloomer......I stop being enthusiastic about pretty much anything since I hit puberty....haha


Ok maybe let's not be so extreme and say that everyone becomes totally unenthusiastic about Birthdays as they get older......people just become enthusiastic about different aspects of their birthday as the years go by....


Back when I was a kid.......it was all about the presents........my Birthday was the one day in the year my mum would take me to the neighborhood toy Store "Jo Xin" (Not Toy'r R Us mind you!!) in Jurong West and buy me anything I wanted.......


I would get excited right at the beginning of november and spend hrs going through that same bloody Kenner Toys catalogue while lying on my parents' bed.......though that store did'nt carry 80% of anything in that catalgue.......hahaha......but even though I had free reign.....I made some pretty bad choices......haha.....my Dad would offer to get me some gameboy or Computer game consoles which were pricey back then.....and I would tell them that I just want a $8.90 Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle figure: the Foot Soldier and a $10.90 Cobra commander from g.I Joe with talking back pack.......and I would be so damn happy with those......hahaha.....I thought I made a helluva good deal....haha


I remember My Brother wanted a 16 bit Sega game console with 4 games for his birthday in October and when it came to my turn a month later...I told my dad I just wanted a Spider-man: Maximum Carnage game catridge so i could play my game on his console.......I ended up getting that Game catridge of the game which was pirated and had to request for my dad to buy me a red-colored Sega attachment so that I could play my fake game on the game console........I had to slot the red attachment on the catridge slot and then attached my game on top of it before I could play because it was pirated.......hahaha......and I was so happy abt it...hahah....dumb kid...


Now of course we look forward to different things......when you're a kid...you would love inviting everybody and having a big birthday party.....when you get older you just want a small,nice gathering.........I think the thing I look forward to now is having some nice company and the actual gathering itself.......the gifts are mostly secondary......though of course its an added bonus that I do derive a lot of pleasure from... and i'm not being Facetious when I say that, I do mean it.


Its the crux of the whole event for me personally........no point having kick-ass gifts if the actual company sucks like or you're not with people that you actually like being with...like if you have a big party and your mum or dad's colleagues or friends who you don't know are invited bearing nice expensive gifts......which did happen a long time ago I think but I did'nt mind it back then.....


Yeah........this is a little known fact but this gatherings and special events are what made things easier when I was in the Army........I remember the week of Christmas 2006.......I was in my full uniform,helmet and bag under the block we stayed at, drenched completely in sweat in 2.30 am in the morning.....another turn-out cum torture session from My superiors........and I was running around buildings, doing crunches, pumping, emptying my waterbottle and refilling them repeatedly and when my officer had us remain in push up position with my face 1 1/2 inch from the carpark floor.......and I told myself, in a few more days I'll be out in the company of friends and having fun bitching and chatting.......all this shit would be over and it'll be all worth it......just bear with it till the end of the week.......and I did........and every subsequent week, when I was turned out night after night and wondering how did I ever get so lucky........I just think about my weekends or gatherings and I would psyche myself up........kept me positive throughout my trainee days......


SO to conclude my yearly Birthday post........I would to thank Wenjun, Gerald, Huiling and Felix for my Birthday celebration and all the Birthday presents.........they were lovely......and of course for effort put in the entire event itself.........not just this year but for the past 4 years.......not counting our first year( since many people claim I was making myself more invisible then Jessica Alba in Fantastic four back then...haha).....but anyway I complained and bugged my way to getting a birthday celebration out of all of you by year two and as they say the rest is history....haha


So.......THANK YOU ALL!!!!


Yup....the closest I can come to emoting is by expanding and bolding my fonts.......its still more expressive then my facial expressions though...haha


So thus endeth another year and post........6 mins before my birthday is officially over to boot....haha.....well.....Good nite one and all.

4:15 AM