Just a few random things to say, maybe:

Swimming
I went swimming with my coworkers today at Bedok. I don’t remember when I last swam but I know it was at least 2 years ago back in the US. I know, I hardly exercise or move at all. =P It felt good to be in a swimming pool again, but sadly I can’t swim well. Well okay I can stay alive if thrown in the water for like a minute… and then I drown. LOL. Bad, bad stamina. On top of that I just don’t swim right. People swim effortlessly, I swim like I’m struggling to survive, except for backstroke. So yeah, you can imagine how hard it was for me to swim from one end to the other without getting into problems halfway through.

It was fun though, especially since I wasn’t alone and it was nice to ‘hang out’ with my coworkers like that, cos’ they’re practically friends to me. We probably swam for an hour and a half or so and then we went for dinner. Surprisingly I didn’t feel that hungry like I remember myself to be back in the days after swimming. And I wasn’t that tired after getting out of the water either. Instead of complaining about any of those, all I complained about was that I felt warm… and I still am now as I type this blog entry now that I’ve showered. Gotta keep the fan blowing at me. XD

Queer As Folk
Due to a small series of events I recently started re-watching Queer As Folk, introducing it to my close friend Huiling. As a yaoi fan herself she was interested, and I was excited to show her the series too, only, I didn’t have it. So I thought about how I could stream it online and stuff but you know how that’s pretty much impossible. And so I looked on eBay to see if anyone’s selling the whole series of 5 seasons total and it was like a 170 bucks. And so that’s a no-no, and then I went on to some torrent site to see if they have it torrent’ed and there it is!

I’m supposed to watch it together with Huiling but since I’ve been bored these days at night I started watching them on my own first... and then watch them again when Huiling comes over to watch. >_o; And there’s like what… 83 episodes total 45 mins each…? Crap… but oh well… I still want her to watch it… =P QAF’s a great show, and sometimes I feel sad it’s ended (back in 2005). T_T

Dark Sector
This game’s finally out, and I was so gonna buy it on play-asia.com when I noticed that they don’t have it yet. It’s not like I’m uber excited about the game whatsoever but I’ve been bored with DMC4 and I have no other games to play – I want something new.

And so I went on to Gamespot and IGN to check out the reviews and well… it’s not a 7.5/10, which isn’t bad. But I read the reviews and I noticed the common pattern, which says it’s bad in story but pretty good in gameplay. Sounds much like DMC4 doesn’t it? =/ But anyway, I watched some of the gameplay footage and it’s pretty much Gears of War slash Uncharted: Drake’s fortune with some sci-fi twist or something. I also heard that the single player mode is about 12 hours and you can’t bring forward the stuff you’ve gotten if you were to replay the game, much like God Hand. Hmm… I dunno what the chances are of me replaying that game in that case, sort of like how I’m not exactly in the mood for replaying Uncharted even though it’s an awesome, awesome game.

So now I’m wondering if I should really get the game, cos it’s not like with the PS2 where all my games are free. >_o; Sigh… I wish there was game rental here.

Yep, I know it's been yonks but... I just didn't have anything much to add. Been busy with updating Devil's Lair myself and I got lazy to even finish up on the text for "List of Video Game Hotties" entry. But I will eventually finish writing it... =)

So what happened yesterday was... it was a Jrock/Lolita event day! And of course I was there... wearing my new dress! It's definitely my best favorite of the three I have, the prettiest and the most expensive. XD I was there from about 2 - 6pm with my KOF girl friends, I think, and 4 of us wore full lolita dresses. =P So here's the photos galore! ^_^!

From left to right: Reeni, Chris, Me, Astrea (a girl I met from sgcafe.com), Huiling. And oh, you'll be seeing a lot of that cigarette I was holding... but mind you, I don't smoke. =P

The first two photos are the 'smoking' poses. I love the first one a lot. XD!! And yeah, the two guys in the back are friends. Well, to put it accurately I only really know the guy on the left with the blue jeans. He's a gentleman; he offered to carry my bag for me. He also burnt me a copy of KOFMIA, but that's out of the topic. XD!! The two girls on the left in the 4th pic were strangers. We just took pics with each other, that's what we do anyway. LOL.

The left and right most girl in the 4th pic were also strangers. Oh, and the super punk looking one with the white eyes in the middle too. She came by to take a photo of us all but we dragged her in for a picture as well. LOL. At first we just wanted to take a couple of pictures using our own cameras but in a few seconds the other photographers came and from a few photos it became a dozen or two. LOL. When I got bored of the usual pose, I brought out the cigarette to 'smoke' again, and the girl beside me (to my left) stared as me asking why I was posing like that. LMAO! It was hilarious, cos' she sounded and looked so amused at my 'bad girl' image. Hahahaha!

The first two are dedicated to the Gay Rose of Death (DMC4 reference). Of course, the color of the rose is wrong as it should be the default red one but that was Huiling's rose and it happened to be white. I only bought a red one later that night, so I was way too late for an authentic GRoD picture. Sad... T_T Oh, I also realized that I bloody forgot to wear the sunglasses I brought with me!! They'd look so badass, dammit!! T__T!! I don't like the look of my eyes, they look super bland without a frame around it, so if you haven't noticed I always look 'better' when I have my face turned to the side to give it an angle so that the shape of my eyes look different. ^^;

This time I finally remembered that I brought a fan with me as well. LOL. Man I seem to be forgetting everything. Alas the fan was blue... but it had black lace! And it was like what... $2.50? XD!!!

The girl with the black lolita dress and umbrella is Iris, also a KOF girl. She's so hard to grab a picture with, saying that she doesn't like taking pictures and stuff. She still plays KOF today and is a huge fan of Ninon... obviously. LOL. The two pics on the right are well... you'll know when you see them. One's photoshopped, I thought from that angle I actually looked close to Bad Girl from No More Heroes, whose image I borrowed by intention for this event and dress. I even did my hair the way hers look like! ^_^ Bad Girls' awesome, you gotta love her. XD!!

The first two pics on the left are of the KOF girl gang. From left to right: Iris, Reeni, me, Annie, Doreen, Huiling, Mabel. We were missing two more people - Chris and Vania, but I didn't know where Chris was at that time and Vania wasn't at the event. The 4th picture was taken in the baby's changing room... which we really shouldn't occupy since we weren't using it for its real purpose! >_o; We only took two shots (I'm missing the sharper shot cos' Mabel sent me the wrong one) and I said that we should leave ASAP but the moment we opened the door there was already a line outside. O_o;; There was no one before! >_<!! Man... so embarrassing when all the girls stepped out of there and there was no baby. >_O;;; Too naughty of us. ^^;

In the MRT train on the way from Vivo City to Bugis... XD. The one and only sitting shot.

And of course, with every event like this we always need neoprints! XD The 2nd row of neoprints were too small (the original) to be scanned and so I had to use my digicam to take a photo of it. It's really tough to get it to lie flat since it's always curved a bit and the lighting and angle gets screwed up. Anyway, man, I sure was tired at the end of the day. We hung out until around 11.30pm and then we went home, which was 3 hours earlier than our first lolita hang out back in December 2007. XD

Just wanna post a few neoprints me and the KOF girls took today. It's fun gathering together again and reminiscing the old King Of Fighters days... Also, I've not been writing more blog entries cos' of DMC4 - there's just no time. There's a lot to update for Devil's Lair and too much to write etc. It's sad though, to see what's become of the DMC series everytime it comes to an even number.

All right! I just finished Assassin’s Creed today (which I’ve been playing for about a week) and it’s time for a review. I finished Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune before that, but the reason why I’ve decided to write on Assassin’s Creed instead/first is for a reason you’ll find out later, if you ever manage to finish this entire entry, that is. But just to hint you a bit, think why I wrote a 4-page review for King Kong (the movie by Peter Jackson). And oh, be careful if you haven’t played the game. There may be spoilers on what happens gameplay-wise, though I won’t give away anything story-wise.

So let’s jump into it. For a start, let’s talk about the game’s PROS / BEST points.

1) Graphics. A+
90% of everything that is graphical in this game is simply awesome (the 10% in which it lacks in is facial expressions in the so-called ‘cutscenes’). The city designs are beautiful and the cities themselves are huge and full of people and architecture. The textures look great, and there’s detail in everything, from walls to little objects and character costumes. Of course, you’ll notice that there’s a color scheme, most of it ranging between shades of white, grey, brown and red (for enemies and flags), but this shouldn’t be a complaint as practically all games have a color scheme. Even if you aren't an Assassin's Creed fan, the one thing you should at least agree with is the good graphics..

2) Realism A++
The first thing in this game that caught my attention and surprise as well as praise, is how realistic everything looks and feels. No, this isn’t about the graphics. This is about character/object movement and interaction. If you walk into a crowd, the main character Altair will move his body accordingly as if to squeeze in between the people. Pushing people aside as he walks results in the people turning their heads to look at you like they’re annoyed but aren’t really. When he climbs up a tower his hands and feet grab and land precisely on where they can realistically grab and land. If you jump and climb around in the city like a monkey they’ll look at you curiously or suspiciously, making remarks in response to your behavior and actions. Bumping into someone holding an object will cause them to drop it, and they’ll yell at you for being careless. All these things, and more, though small and trivial, contribute to the entire game’s sense of realism. It makes the city feel alive and that you’re not the only thing that matters in the game.

However, if you’ve played Assassin’s Creed and feel that the game isn’t realistic due to poor A.I. such as stealth killing a soldier and then immediately press X to blend when the next soldier comes to say “Who is responsible for this?!” and then you stealth kill him again from the back, my opinion is: That complaint should go under ‘battle gameplay’, not realism.

Aaaaaaand… that’s pretty much it for pros and best points. So now let’s talk about:

3) Gameplay B+
So okay, you’re an assassin in the middle of a giant city. Your goal is to assassinate a target in each ‘mission’ and you’re going to do that through investigations in the city through various ways. There’s:

1. Interrogate and punch victim until he spills info
2. Sit on a bench and eavesdrop on people
3. Pickpocket victim for written info in his letter or something of the sort
4. Gain info from informants who require you to complete their flag-collecting mini game or stealth kill some baddies

Along the way, you:

1. Run, climb, jump and fly all over the place
2. Climb up towers to uncover your map and locate points 1 2 3 4 above.
3. Save citizens if you feel like it
4. Get harassed by drunkards and bitch beggars
5. Stealth or head-on kill anyone you like
6. Hide between some monks to get past guards or save your ass
7. Collect absolutely useless hidden flags x999

And if you get into a battle, you:

1. Fight
2. Flee

If you choose to fight, you:

1. Mash [] with timing to do a sword combo
2. After a certain level, do counter attacks for instant kills
   (thumbs up for cool action sequences)
3. Do a few more things Altair can do but which you probably won’t cause, really, counter attack is all you ever need

If you choose to flee, you:

1. Run, climb and jump even more buildings until you find a hiding spot
2. Find a group of monks and hide amongst them

When you finally get enough info to locate the main entrée baddie, you:

1. Run, climb and jump over buildings to find him
2. Stealth or head-on kill him

Now, the first thing that I’ve been told by a friend about this game is that it’s going to get repetitive and boring real soon. I was inclined to believe otherwise, but I kept that in mind and simply gave it a lot of patience.

When I first played the game, I thought it was cool. After all this is the first time I’ve played a game as such and it was fresh and unique. I love walking amongst the crowd, jumping from building to building (everything is so smooth) and randomly stealth killing people (even though I didn’t do that until much later). But when you realize the above points I’ve mentioned are literally all that you’ll be doing in the game multiplied by 9 times for 9 missions, boredom is likely to get you. It did to me, even though I gave it 10x more patience than most people.

There are many optional things to do in the game, but unfortunately all of them are the same thing over and over. It’s either more investigations, saving more citizens or collecting even more flags to hit yourself in the head with. However, get this, the only thing required to proceed into the game per mission is 3 completed investigations, and there’re always 6 available. Saving the citizens etc are entirely optional and rewards you with nothing but perhaps some shred of self satisfaction especially for the obsessive-compulsive.

In the beginning I felt compelled to do everything, even as far as to wonder around the city for hours looking for flags. Oh god. How I’ve wasted my youth. But like I said, I gave this game extra, EXTRA patience cause I wanted to believe that it’s awesome, which it is, until half way through the game when I finally got bored. By Mission 4, I’ve lost all motivation to do anything that’s optional. After that I’d just rush through the city for the 3 easiest investigations (eavesdrop/pickpocket) and go straight for the boss. [Start of SPOILERS] And that I have to repeat 5 times before I get to the last boss, only to find out he isn’t.

After that, the whole game just plunged way, way down. By Mission 9, the whole city knows you and every single soldier is after your ass. Okay, that’s good, cause finally you’re experiencing something new and things could get hard since you’re likely not used to facing 20 enemies at once (oh yeah I so counted).

So I bit my tongue and finally killed that damn 9th baddie, or not, thinking I’m done with the game and all the bloody repeated fighting, and that I could see the ending which hopefully makes sense at all cause as far as I understood, the story was a big ‘WTH’.

And just when I was about to celebrate my victory they threw me into a battle of I dunno how many continuous waves of enemies where I have to fight all of them head-on! By then I’ve condemned the game’s battle system.

Long story short, I tolerated another 1+ hour of battle or so and reached the ending. [End of SPOILERS] YES!!! The ending!! Now I can rest this game forever and simply enjoy my hot and sexy Altair……… ……… only to:

4) Story
Three words – WAT THE FUCK???

Conclusion: As good as it lasted, Assassin’s Creed will never see daylight again in my PS3.

== The End ==

PS: Actually I’ve a few more small complaints but I figured they’re not worth mentioning.

I meant to post this on the 9th of January (OMG!) but I got so lazy I procrasinated for well... 2 weeks. Anyway, the topic for today is none other than - My List of Video Game Hotties. I will only list those who are actually good looking enough (by my standards and preferences) to be worth mentioning. =) (Notice the number of 30+ yr old men that I love... XD!)

Dante - Devil May Cry 4 Appearance of a: 30+ yr old man Dante has got 6 different looks altogether but DMC4 Dante has got to be the hottest of them all. DMC4's the 2nd oldest lookning of them all, and he just has got the perfect features of a playful man. Maybe it's the stubble, maybe it's the fluffy hair, he's hot anyway! XD The only thing not hot about him is his outfit. He should lose the triple belts (stop getting nomura-ized!) and the cowboy boots.

Vergil - Devil May Cry 3 Appearance of a: 23+ yr old man Simply put, Vergil is ranked as #1 for best-looking male character under my Animangame page. He shares the exact same face as DMC3 Dante but the hairstyle and facial expression do make a difference, just so you know. LOL. It's hard to explain exactly why I think he's so hot cos' in one glance he looks like he has very typical pretty features but still, he just is hawt. o_o...

Raiden - Metal Gear Solid 4 (TGS '06 ver.) Appearance of a: 30+ yr pretty man Raiden has 2 different looks (MGS2 vs MGS4) but only specifically MGS4's 2006 version makes it on this list. With that version, not only does he make it on this list, he's by no doubt the top 3 hottest, ever. What I love most about him is his eyes and nose. The eyes may look typical but they look very sexily gothic thanks to the dark patches, and his nose - man, it's unique considering how thin it is. Actually, his lips look hot too! Only, his jaw is mechanical so his bottom lip probably doesn't feel right. LOL. Lastly, he's got that pretty boy silver hair. LOL!

Otacon - Metal Gear Solid 4 Appearance of a: 40+ yr old man Otacon made it to this list only when I paused to think who else is worthy from the MGS series. I surprised myself when I decided list him, but he would be a unique addition since he's the oldest on the list. Otacon has a very kind and gentle look, but for some reason he also gives me the impression of either a bachelor, a divorced man, or simply gay. LOL. I'm guessing it's his weak and fragile outlook. >_>;

Albert Wesker - Resident Evil Appearance of a: 30 yr old man Wesker is what many people call the a "Nazi" (apparently?) - fair skinned + blond hair + pretty eyes + good build/height. He looks slightly different in each game he appears, and I think he looks best in some of the pre-rendered RE: Umbrella Chronicles pictures and RE0. The other unique thing about him is his voice which is done by Richard Waugh. It is what makes Wesker, Wesker. Although not #1 on my hottest men list, he is who I call my husband (lao gong), and whose last name I've decided to take on unofficially. ^_^

Hunk - Resident Evil (from RE3 illustration) Appearance of a: 32+ yr old man Hunk is the only guy on this list who is what I call a man's man. He wears a gas mas practically all the time and you get to see him unmasked only 3 times ever, and since he looks different in each of those times, I consider for his looks to be the best one of the three according to my opinion, which is the RE3 illustration. His codename isn't for just for show - he is a hunk. Full of dominance, he has a very rough but fatherly look to him as well. While some of you may think he looks too man and too 'old', I think he simply has the charms, a lot of charm. =D

Rude - FF7 Advent Children Appearance of a: 26+ yr old man Rude is an interesting one. I didn't really like him until many years after I've known him, when I saw this picture of him on the left in FF7: Advent Children. It's not his matrix look, it's not his botak-head (bald), but I'm thinking it's a lot because his cheekbones, nose, and goatie. LOL. His eyes are mostly hidden behind his sunglasses which has ever been off once, which you can see by mouse-over'ing the pic. You may think it makes him look less cool but I think he's cute like that. XD

Date Masamune - Sengoku Basara 2 Appearance of a: 25+ yr old man Date is on this list only if we look at his alternate costume where he takes off his helmet. He has a different hairstyle as well like he looks in the picture, hence looking a lot better than his original design which looks like he has broom-quality hair. LOL. His eye patch also makes him look sexy for some reason, along with the bare neck and collar. XD Also, he's got a great voice done by Nakai Kazuya.

Yoshitsune - Genji: Dawn of the Samurai Appearance of a: 18+ yr old pretty boy I don't fancy pretty boys much, like those by Nomura Tetsuya, but Yoshitsune from the first Genji game is the only boy pretty enough in a unique way for me to put him on this list. Although the long hair is a little overdone considering most of his head has short hair, he has this less typical pretty boy look that is not influenced by Nomura's generic pretty boy design. He also has a very beautiful armor and fights gracefully with a pair of dual blades.

Balthier - Final Fantasy XII Appearance of a: 22+ yr old pretty man When it comes to Balthier, I don't know if the first thing you'd look at is his face or his ass. LOL. I love the design of his look, he looks different, especially from the rest of the Final Fantasymales. I love his eyes especially, the way they sink deep into his sockets and producing interesting shadows over his face. He is also one with great hair, hot voice, fantastic costume, and a huge sexy ass. XD

Dan Smith - Killer7 Appearance of a: 25+ yr old man Coming soon...

Giorgio Bruno - Time Crisis 4 Appearance of a: 27+ yr old pretty man Coming soon...

Altair Ibn La-Ahad - Assassin's Creed Appearance of a: 25+ yr old man Coming soon...

Aizen Sousuke - Bleach Appearance of a: 27+ yr old man Coming soon...

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques - Bleach Appearance of a: 20+ yr old boy Coming soon...

I was gonna write an entry on New Year's Day but as you know, I'm too lazy. Regardless, Happy Belated New Year. ^_^ Anyone made any New Year's resolution and such? I kinda did, but I highly doubt that I'll be able to keep to it. LOL. Oh, I had hoped that it's New Year's WISH rather than resolution. I mean, dude, who the hell bothers to do
resolutions?? >_o;;

Well okay, my "resolution" is to save money. But as you already know, there's no way I can keep to that!! So okay, let's see, I've bought my 3rd lolita dress, but there's still the PS3 along with DMC4 + MGS4, Wii (still pending), external hard drive and possibly the entire drum mania set and etc. Do I look like someone who has the chance to save at this time? NO. =_= That's why it would have been so awesome if the tradition had been "New Year's Wish". I suppose that was left for Christmas... but well, that sucks. >_>;

Anyway, since I'm bored and I feel like writing something, let's talk about er... some of the differences in my lifestyle between the US and Singapore? It's gonna get boring, I'm warning you.

1. Travel/transport

US: Although the US’s a much bigger place and to go anywhere you need a car, I am fortunate enough to have my sister. XD If not, there was always the bus, which is less convenient but it’s free anyway for university students. In other words, I spend zero dollars on travel.
SG: Although Singapore’s an invisible dot on the planet, everywhere I go I need to take the bus, MRT (train) or taxi, and none of that is free (d’oh? LOL). Taxi in Singapore is A LOT cheaper than in the US but unless I’m in a rush or I really need to, I make it a habit never to take the taxi. Even then, the BUS and train does eventually cost you some bit, especially if you ride it everyday for work or school. My estimated expense on travel per month since I started working is $80-100. o_o…

2. Walking

US: Other than around campus, I hardly ever walk. OMG. @_@! As I mentioned above, in the US, to go anywhere we need a car, but a car sends us straight from the pick up point to the destination without any real walking in between. I also got a bike soon after I got there, and since then I’ve been biking to campus even though it’s only 2 blocks away. Some of you may think that biking is like exercise and hence it’s better but no it’s not! I bike very casually so it’s actually even more relaxing than walking, and since it gets me to my destination faster I actually spend less time on ‘manual traveling’. And you know what you do once you get to your destination. You sit! And then you come back home after school/work and you sit again! (That was really my life in the US cos’ I don’t go anywhere) @_@!! So that’s where all my fat came from! XD!!
SG: Just by the first week I came back to Singapore, I’ve walked as much as a year in the US. >_O!! It’s inevitable. Unless you own your own car and drive everywhere you go, there’s bound to be walking involved during ‘traveling’ in Singapore. I’ve also been a lot more out-going (in a sense) and would hang out with my friends at least once a week, hence increasing the amount of walking along with human interaction. XD! This is a good thing, I thought, and I was hoping that from all the walking I might lose some weight… but alas, it’s not working. In fact, I’ve gotten even fatter. Why? See next.

3. Food

US:  When I still lived with my sister (the first 3 years in the US), my sister would sometimes cook. Otherwise, we’d eat out together. And back then, I had not much money. I couldn’t bear to spend what little money I had on food since that was when I first thought that food in the US was expensive considering that dinner’s 10 bucks while it’s 3 bucks in Singapore. After my sister moved out and I got a roommate, no one cooks anymore and so I always had to buy food outside to settle my meals. But I was still poor and I can’t cook, so I’d always buy a dinner serving and split it into 2 for lunch and dinner. XD And after I started working, I got even lazier and lazier to the point that sometimes I only ate once a day, especially during weekends. Becos’ of that I’m often always starving, hence my Skype screen name – starving-cat. LOL. Oh, what food I miss most from Eugene would include Maple Garden’s duck fried rice + beef short ribs, and Great Wall’s great wall chicken. Oh, Olive Garden too. T_T
SG: I’ve never looked forward to my meals as much as since I came back to Singapore. Lunch and dinner is like my happy time, everyday. Even though I often eat the same dishes over and over, I still find it a pleasure, cos’ food here in Singapore is just soooo good!!!! XD!!! AND, they’re cheap! Of cos’, you can only find cheap in hawker centers and food courts but that’s exactly what’s delicious! I looove eating duck/chicken rice, nasi lemak, ban mian, chao kuay teow, seafood anything, etc! Singapore is a food paradise and that’s definitely not helping me ‘lose weight’. >_o;;

4. Internet speed

US: It’s prolly because of the fact that a lot web servers are based in the US, and the fact that the US is wired up better than most other places, the internet speed (especially with standard cable) is fast. For download rates, I typically get 400+kbs. When luck comes around I could get up to 600kbs, and when it doesn’t I get 100-200kbs. For upload rates, I typically get 45kbs. That was the standard back there and then, and naturally, I got used to such speeds until I came back to Singapore. Mind you, I’m not complaining too much cos’ Singapore’s still a lot better than, say, Indonesia.
SG: Here, the fastest I could ever get for download rates is 127kbs. =_=;; Well of course I’m on DSL and not cable anymore but still that’s as fast as I can get. My fastest here is the US’s slowest. That’s… gotta take some getting used to. As for upload rates, I typically get 25kbs. I don’t complain as much about the download rates but I do complain about the upload rate considering how often I upload videos for my Devil’s Lair site. Having such a slow upload rate would mean wasting more of my time >_>. But again, like I said, at least it’s not as bad as in Indonesia, so I’m not going to fuss about it too much. I’m blessed enough already.

5. Pricings

Like I’ve mentioned many times before, other than food and perhaps certain clothes, almost everything else here in Singapore is more expensive, especially electronics and games. Here are some of the things I’ve bought/plan to get that were a lot more expensive than in the US:

1) Nail art
I did this for the cosplay event last year December, to go with my black waloli. I hate having long nails but since it’s been 3 years since I last did it, I figured I could give it another try. Back in the US what I got was the extension nails using gel. It’s the better kind cos’ it’s really strong and durable, and I got a base color and an air brush-painted pattern for $43 or so. In Singapore, that very same thing would have cost $100+, and the pattern is not even by air brush. So, all I got was the full stick-on extension nails (which fall off very easily) with a base color, and that alone cost $60. It looked nice, but it wasn’t nicer than the US one, and the fact that it’s way more expensive and less durable now made me swear I’ll never do it again. Then again, because it was stick-on it was so much easier to remove as well because by the 5th day I couldn’t stand how inconvenient the nails were making things. With the gel type, I’d have required to soak my fingers in acetone for an hour, which is boring and bad for the nails anyway.

2) Shoe wear
This prolly won’t be accurate, but I’m still gonna talk about it anyway. I just bought a pair of running shoes yesterday… in my attempt to force myself to go running for exercise. Whatever. So me and Irene went to Queensway Center to shop for shoes, and there sure were a hell lot of shoe stores there, but none of them were below $60. Well, maybe there were 2-4 of them but they were obviously bad. Also, I would have gone for a brand-less one but alas they only carry the big names like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, New Balance, etc. In the end I got a pair for $88 while Irene got hers for $74 at another store. I complain about how expensive a mere pair of running shoes are, but then I didn’t know how much the same thing would cost in the US and so I did some little bit of researching at nike.com today and actually found a number of shoes at USD35-50. A USD50 one would be SGD72 but a USD35 one would have been $50. Then again, I wasn’t comparing the prices of the exact model that I have becos’ the model number wasn’t written on the shoe, but still, I wasn’t looking to spend anything above $50 for a pair of shoes. =/ Sigh…

3) Games / Consoles
This one’s inevitable, but still, expensive means expensive. In the US, brand new games are typically USD50, except for a few exceptions. In SGD, that’d be SGD72-ish. And here in Singapore, they sell them at SG80-ish. So after conversion, it really isn’t too much of a difference from USD50, BUT! People don’t earn 1.45x more in Singapore, you know? And, I don’t think I need to repeat the whole Wii ordeal again, or do I? ^^; Well, at least the PS3 price in Singapore is still considerably decent.