Then it was hours of waiting before I felt something pulling my rod. Exciting, I stood up and reeled the line back but whatever was hooked to my line was pulling away from me. After a few minutes of out and in with the target, it finally showed itself jumping out of the water in an attempt to break free. Then it was over — it was worn out by the struggle — so we left it swimming in the water tied by a line. It was a kim bass.

My prized catch of the day — a kim sea (oops, thanks Eugene) bass.

Now everybody was excited by the fact there was actually bigger fishes out there, so we got back to our positions and continued our waiting session.

Then Eugene’s patience paid off when his rod bent over under the weight of something relatively heavy.

Eugene’s target is hooked — see how his rod was bending under the weight.

Close-up of Eugene’s target — it’s a stingray.

Me helping Eugene with the lifting of his stingray.

Eugene smiling happily with his prized catch in hand. The thing that’s coming out of the ray’s eyes is actually the long grass’s end.

Me joining in the excitement, smiling happily with Eugene’s ray.

From this point on, the rest of the catches — puffer fishes, gugu fishes (by miss Sylvia), etc. — were relatively small and were all released back into the water.

I wonder if Noel was there to fish or to take pictures of fishes — can’t stop messing with his DSLR.

I had enough of the sun and so surrendered under the shelter of my umbrella (see right). The circular frame is Noel testing his Polaroid filter.

We left the place at around 5pm as the tide was lowering. Till the next time. :-)

And I don’t know
This could break my heart or save me
Nothing’s real
Until you let go completely
So here I go with all my thoughts I’ve been saving
So here I go with all my fears weighing on me

Three months and I’m still sober
Picked all my weeds but kept the flowers
But I know it’s never really over

And I don’t know
I could crash and burn but maybe
At the end of this road I might catch a glimpse of me
So I won’t worry about my timing, I want to get it right
No comparing, second guessing, no not this time

Three months and I’m still breathing
Been a long road since those hands I left my tears in but I know
It’s never really over, no

Wake up

Three months and I’m still standing here
Three months and I’m getting better yeah
Three months and I still am

Three months and it’s still harder now
Three months I’ve been living here without you now
Three months yeah, three months

Three months and I’m still breathing
Three months and I still remember it
Three months and I wake up

Three months and I’m still sober
Picked all my weeds but kept the flowers

2 weeks: the amount of time it takes to learn HTML 5 and to transform the Photoshop design into HTML/CSS codes while working out all the quirks that happened in various browsers, including formatting some of the 462 old posts to make sure all of the HTML in them are conforming so they will not screw up in XML serialization.

10 seconds: the amount of time it takes to decide it is not worth the trouble supporting even the latest IE.

2 months: the amount of time it takes to fix up the raw codes with WordPress back-end, and then adding on all the plugins that I am using.

1 day: the amount of time it takes to upload the files, and test live.

A good ol’ 6 months of efforts — hope you like it as much as I enjoyed working on it.

It’s late and I need to sleep so I guess I’ll leave the technical stuffs to the next post, if there is any. Nights.

the thing about love
is i never saw it coming
it kind of crept up
and took me by surprise
and now there’s a voice inside my heart
its got me wondering
is it true..? I wanna hear it one more time
move in a little closer
take it to a whisper
just a little louder…
Say it Again for me
cause i love the way it feels
when you are telling me that i’m
the only one who blows your mind
say it again for me
it’s like the whole world
stops to listen
when you tell me you’re in love…
say it again

the thing about you
is you know just how to get me
you talk about us
like there’s not end in sight
the thing about me
is that i really wanna let you
open that door
and walk into my life
move in a little closer
take it to a whisper
just a little louder..
Say it Again for me
cause i love the way it feels
when you are telling me that i’m
the only one who blows your mind
say it again for me
it’s like the whole world
stops to listen
when you tell me you’re in love..
and it feels like
it’s the first time
that anybody’s ever brought
the sun without the rain
never in my whole life
have i heard words
as beautiful as when you say my name..

That said, it didn’t catch me by surprise when I discovered that MediaCorp decided to screw up the ending of an otherwise-great-story again, and again.

Let me tell you what would be a great ending (that’s in my opinion):

Before Jin Long disappears for 5 years (only now it is not 5 years or the baby will show), he knocks up Lin Fei during a night as she is having fun (high on drugs and the likes) in the pub, and Jin Long joins her in the drinking while accompanying her. Being dead drunk, they commit the deed. You may think Jin Long is not the kind of person to be doing such stuffs, but with a little seducing and being really drunk, we can’t rule out this possibility.

He does not have to account to Rou Gu Mei for what has happened because he was only friends with her then.

After realising that Rou Gu Mei has good feelings for him, Jin Long starts treating her well and that’s when the relationship between him and her begins. As we can see here — totally no conflicts with that one-night he had with Lin Fei.

As the story unfolds, Rou Gu Mei is murdered by Kaijie because of the conflicts between him and Jin Long. At this point of time, Lin Fei is already pregnant with Jin Long’s child but Kaijie was kept in the dark (I believe we can work out the timeline to compensate for the 9 months of pregnancy showing up). He does not even know she’s pregnant at all and Lin Fei’s nauseousness is a test of whether Kaijie will kill Lin Fei for her money as usual.

That said, Kaijie still carried on trying to kill Lin Fei for her money but stopped when she turned sober against him. And this time Lin Fei had no reasons to commit suicide because she had something to live for — her baby, or Jin Long’s baby.

When Jin Long returned and appeared in Lin Fei’s car in the finale, the truth is finally told to Jin Long and all the bashing would only be acting and no actual hitting of stomach is being done because Lin Fei would not want to hurt Long’s baby. Feeling confused, Lin Fei assures Jin Long that this is the best thing that ever happened to her and he needs not be responsible for the baby.

Because of the car ride, and being a pregnant woman, Lin Fei feels unwell all of a sudden and is ushered in to the hospital by Jin Long, as he continues in his pursue of revenge for Rou Gu Mei. And then the melodrama in the little hut takes place as per the current finale, with Kaida cutting his own wrist with the broken porcelain bowl.

What remains the same: Jin Long walking away, suiciding for his love in the sea and Kaijie subsequently robbed and murdered.

And this is where the most important change takes place: Lin Fei at the seaside with her child as the ending suggests. Only this time, the child is Jin Long’s whom she has always liked and cared for, and not of the evil Kaijie whom she loathes. This way, the ending will definitely be more surreal, even at the risk of being too cliche.

But I have no qualms about that.

He is dumb(or if you insist, retarded, be my guestI insist) — clearly he knows there is no second way about it and yet he delays the conclusion waiting for a change of season. Over the years, albeit not wanting to hurt her, he had done so many a time in the past in order for her to give in, with the best result yielding a statement that wanted him to regret for the rest of his life for such misdeed. And that was the last straw — if wanting to be who he wants to be (and it does not hurt anyone, mind you) warrants such threat, that friendship has nothing more worth maintaining. And he knows it. For the first time in his life he realises that she was not the person he thought he knew. Now he fears her, the past closeness was no longer there.

Everything is history.

Sometimes he thinks to himself, for the amount of deeds he had done for her, he does not deserve the misery he has to go through. No, he deserves better — at least a life prior to even learning about her existence. Yet he could not turn back time and he does not know what to do though he has an idea that he hesitates executing — silent treatment is not his cup of tea. Never!, he once decided that method is bullshit and only used by wimps.

But today he is that wimp. He will not be the puppet who is subjected to her whims and wails. He will not confront her nor tell her anything. He will just go with the wind and pretend the entire episode is a dream nightmare. This charade will have to go on forever and not to be exposed. Too frequently he changed his mind and things took on a drastic fall and he is not going to risk it again. Not a chance, he tells himself.

That night he thinks deep. Justifiable? Does it really have to end this way? After a while he finally decides to proceed, for someone who would not care enough about his feelings does not deserve to be his friend anyway, for as much as wanting him to regret for the rest of his life is totally uncalled for, for she already has whatever she deserves, there is no guilty conscience — nothing will guilt him now.

Nada.

Zilch.

He is selfish. But only rightly so. God bless he’s right.