Before I digress (I was supposed to comment on the non-events of the past half-week) further, my leave over the Christmas period has been confirmed – flight details and all – so I should be back from 25 Dec 05 to 2 Jan 06 barring any weather complications, aeroplane malfunction and/or just about any conceivable unforeseen (oops, oxymoron, but you know what I mean) circumstances you can think of. So, people I want to meet up with (you know who you are), you had better keep the days between those days free! =P

This past week, or few weeks for that matter, has been particular disturbing for me: I’ve not been doing any work. No, not office work, but work to rejuvenate my atrophic brain. The studying (if it had really even started in the first place) has come to a standstill. Instead, I’ve been playing “Super TextTwist” and “Pinball” (the one that comes with the Microsoft OS). The first craze was started because of my predilection for word games and my obsession with reaching 1,000,000 points in the untimed mode. When that was reached with the help of Wee Liam and – to a significantly lesser extent – Sam, I started thinking about reaching the 10,000,000 mark. (Upon introspection, I realized this is a mirror image my attitude towards money or life in general: I don’t stay satisfied for long. I think I might have to do something about that later in life.) Then, I realized there was no hurry in reaching the 10,000,000 mark since I reached 1,000,000 in half a week and I still have about three months more in Brunei, which resulted in the cessation of my “Super TextTwist” binge. For all those who are interested, I stopped at 1.4 something million.

What was to succeed “Super TextTwist” was “Pinball”. That was entirely instigated by Wee Liam. The seeds of obsession were cast when we’re kept waiting in the function room for the “Safety Talk” to begin. Bored, I started playing with the “Pinball” on the laptop which was to be used for the presentation. Then, Wee Liam came next to me, and started giving me tips on how to score easy points in “Pinball”. (Apparently, he played quite a bit of “Pinball” back in his old camp, which just goes to show just how well army personnel manage their time.) I was intrigued but had yet to reach the obsession stage. After the “Safety Talk” ended, I returned to the office to try out some of the tricks (actually it’s just one now that I think about it) which Wee Liam imparted to me on the office computer. As no one had played “Pinball” on the computer since it was last formatted, it was easy peasy for me to have my name plastered all over the high scores list. (Yes, I admit I’m an egomaniac.) Once I did that with reasonably decent scores (1,000,000 and above. Sheesh…I think I have million-philia or something.), I stopped. Alas, it was not meant to be. Wee Liam just had to set the highest score in the game later on. Being the egomaniac that I’ve claimed to be, I obviously could not taking it lying down, and went on to set a higher score to eclipse his, but I wasn’t appeased. I wanted to wipe out his name entirely from the honour roll of “Pinball” (good grief! Talk about inane ambitions.). That was easier said than done, because, the difficulty of the game notwithstanding, Wee Liam was also trying to set even higher scores. With my goal unrealized, there was no way I would stop playing “Pinball”, and that’s when the obsession began.

I seriously need to stop playing these idiotic games and get back on track with my studying. Help me!

On a healthier note, I played basketball after like eons of little physical activity, and my friends just had to play 5-on-5. It was terribly exhausting considering my stamina (or the lack of it), but fun, in the masochistic way I guess. Nevertheless, It was good to know that my shooting touch hasn’t abandoned me the way my endurance did.