Heh… I’m not sure if I recall exactly what I went through in the past 48 hours… but I’ll try.

Saturday
0930 – Arrive at Atrium@Orchard (next to Plaza Singapura). Meet Vivien Tan, formerly of Showbuzz fame. Can’t get over how good she still looks.
1000 – Get shown the nearest toilets. Given a break to get breakfast, pee and whatnot.
1030 – After finishing a packet of Berry Juice from Carrefour, arrive back at the registration booth.
1100 – Supposed to begin, but are delayed due to some unforeseen circumstances.
1110 – Balloting for seats begin. I get seat number 1. Feel really good about getting number 1.
1120 – Marathon begins with about 10 minutes of Discovery: Health. Interestingly enough, it’s a program about a double amputee.
1130 – Discovery: Health continues with family stories – about IVF babies and stuff. Hardly bored.
1230 – Replay of England VS Portugal. Knowing the score beforehand as well as the exact time the goals came helps to keep me awake for the whole match. I call it the WWE syndrome.
1400 – E! Entertainment begins with a biography on Jenny McCarthy. Naturally, I hang around for the whole show. At the end of it, have new respect for Jenny.
1800- Another E! True Hollywood Story, this time on Heather Mills McCartney.
1830- Turn around, see my mother standing there and wave to her. It would be the last time I see anyone in my family for 24 hours.
1900- Don’t remember much here.
2300- The “judges” rotate. Don’t quite like the new set of judges. They’re all male.
2335- Judges show us “The Sum of All Fears”. This is the first of several times they bend the rules, not showing us programmes from the Digital Tier.
Sunday
0135- Girl next to me quits soon after the movie ended. I am amazed.
0245- The match between Sweden and Netherlands begins. Rooting for Netherlands until Davids gets substituted, then rooted for Sweden after that.
0337- Receive my first “yellow card”, a penalty for being caught sleeping for more than 5 seconds.
0355- Go for my one and only toilet break. The winner is judged on the least amount of breaks taken, so this is all part of the strategy.
0400- Amazed that WWE Smackdown! is still on. Catches a few minutes of it.
0600- We watch an episode of the Powerpuff Girls. I’m not sure this is legal.
0615- We watch a little bit of the New Adventures of Winne The Pooh. Now I know this is DEFINITELY not in the schedule.
0725- A Malay contestant, the last non-Chinese among the group, quits.
0730- One of the judges suggests that they change the channel to EastCity (Channel 56) to watch I Not Stupid.
0748- Receive my second “yellow card”, for the same reason as the first. Hey, they were showing commercials in CHINESE. I fell asleep when the commercial belt began to repeat.
0800- I Not Stupid begins. It’s a good show, but highly overrated. A good way to spend 2 hours without sleeping.
1000- I Not Stupid ends. Now I’m actually worried about falling asleep for the third time and getting disqualified.
1130- Yesterday’s judges return and we go back to watching the new channels.
1200- Mrs. Pollifax — Spy on MGM is a fun, 1970s adventure movie filled with chauvinistic, politically incorrect ideals. A fun watch for the next 2 hours.
1600- One of the people I’m “competing” with gets disqualified. This was horrible and stressed me out to no end.
1700- Where Eagles Dare was a decent movie, only if I could see anything. The combination of a rear screen projector, the midday sun and a black and white movie equates to me watching a black screen 90% of the time.
1830- The cameras are being set up and there’s an air of excitement around. But, we have to watch a Golf show on Discovery H&L first.
1900- This was the original ending time, but unfortunately, since we started late on Saturday morning, they’re going to prolong it for another 20 minutes.
1920- The end! Celebrations are muted among the ten remaining contestants because everyone’s so damn tired.
1924- Make a call home after realising that there’s no one I know around. Find out everyone’s still at home.
1945- The prizes are being distributed. There’s talk about a tiebreaker. Now I’m worried that I did not win first or second place. I’m regretting going for a toilet break at all.
1948- It’s down to three guys. I’m expecting my name to be called next for the “3rd prize” (which is the same as the 6 before it). Then the magic words: “break for 5 minutes” is mentioned by Vivien Tan and my heart leaps. It’s not me!
1949- I’ve won a 27″ LCD television at least! It’s a tie between first and second places at 3 minutes each!
1950- The tiebreaker is a game of Mastermind, utilising one of Digital Cable’s several in-built games. My opponent goes first.
1951- Receive a call from Andrew. Refuse to receive it immediately because I’m trying to figure out my opponent’s answer.
1953- Discover that my family has rushed down to see me win! I feel so amazingly blessed.
1955- It’s my turn. I have to solve the puzzle within 5 tries (my opponent’s ‘record’). If I solve it in less, I win. If I take 5 tries to solve, then I have to get 3 correct in the 4th try. It’s not easy, and the pressure’s building.
1957- It’s the 4th try and I get 3 correct! I also realise much later that I could have solved it by the 4th try, but I was too nervous to realise.
1958- I get it right on the 5th try! It’s still a tie!
2000- The challenge is now to get it in the least amount of time! As well as the least number of tries and all.
2010- My opponent solves it after slightly over 10 minutes. I feel relieved that I have that much time to beat.
2012- I do not get off to a good start. After three tries, I still have not ascertained any of the four colours, or their places. My brother is trying to help me out, but he’s also unable to ascertain anything. Could I have lost the Grand Prize just like that (a 2D/1N all-expenses paid trip to Bali – stay-in at the Ritz Carlton hotel and a spa package)?
2013- I make my 4th guess on my own. My brother’s shouting for me to wait a while longer, but my nerves are wracked. I do a quick check to ensure I didn’t make the same mistake I did in the first round, and then I take the final plunge.
2014- It was right. I had won the competition and the Grand Prize. My head was spinning. I barely knew to raise my arms in victory. Not even a shout escaped my lips.

I had won.

Apparently I’m one of 30 contestants for the Digital Cable Marathon this weekend outside Plaza Singapura. All we have to do is watch cable nonstop for 40 hours or so to survive and win prizes worth thousands.

So if you’re free, come down and cheer me on!

Of all the dreams I’ve ever had, this must rank as one of the craziest.

1. The whole dream began with my sister SMSing me “Why are you crying”.
2. I wasn’t, my eyes were tearing because they were sore.
3. Suddenly, I was back in camp with the Commandos, yet not at Hendon Camp.
4. I knew this because the place looked like my parish, complete with several parishoners too.
5. We were being invaded by red army ants, but apparently this happened every year so they were more than prepared for it.
6. It also happened to be my birthday, which, as you all know, doesn’t happen till September 19th.
7. And apparently a lot of people had well-wishes for me. I needed a website to store them all.
8. Aesop was there, too.
9. He had a funky story to tell.
10. Too bad I can’t remember exactly what the story was about.

And then I told myself I’ve gotta wake up and blog this, before I forget it all. This is what comes of having Café Cartel’s Cabrona Pasta for dinner and McDonald’s Chicken Fillet Value Meal for supper.

I truly enjoy playing God. Here’s a little game I found called MicroLife!

If you enjoyed the game, vote for it here under Games. Vote once only, please.

Apparently, the above-mentioned competition has awarded quite a few above-average games. Here’s last year’s winner – Chasm. A true proponent of the glorious genre that was heralded by Myst.

Being Chinese in ethnicity and Singaporean by nationality, I identify with all ethnic Chinese, Japanese, Koreans who were born or grew up away from the country of their forebearers. Thus, my emotions varied as I read today’s papers.

In sports, Takuma Sato becomes the first Japanese to make it to an F1 podium in over a decade, a truly respectable feat considering the recent dominance of Ferrari. After seeing Sato in action at the Nuerburgring race in Germany and seeing him drop out of the race after gunning for second place, to finally read about his accomplishments in today’s papers is virtual carthasis. There’s an overwhelming sense of pride to see a non-Caucasian man on the podium.

In entertainment, however, William Hung continues to disgust me with his absolutely insulting rising star. Today’s Life! section has a little bit about how Hung will co-star in a recently announced Hong Kong comedy. This news, of course, is riding on the back of the brouhaha about Hung’s appearance at a local charity event later in the year. What has William Hung done to deserve all this financial investment into his infamy? It is bad enough that he has made an absolute fool of himself on the international stage, but to use that as the platform for drawing foolish “fans” in, is downright pathetic. Is it not bad enough that his gosh-awful album is actually generating sales in Singapore that we have to fly him in, pay him a (most likely exorbitant) sum to perform alongside local comedic talent in what is being promoted as a charity concert?

Have we become so desperate that we rely on a talentless hack to draw money for charity in Singapore?

To his credit, of course, the blame cannot rest solely on him. His father and agent is undoubtedly responsible for milking every last cent from his son’s infamy. Likewise, everyone who has contributed to the Hung phenomenon, including local music shops who brought in his album in the thousands, and those who bought them is responsible for making a mockery of talent and good taste.

… but if you enjoyed the original Monkey Island series (and by that I mean the first 2 installments) then this game will be right up your alley.

A Case of The Crabs – A Nick Bounty Mini-Mystery

Enjoy. I know I did.