Unmerited Favour

I was called upon by my former RSM to assist him in the website he was in charge of. He spoke with my lieutenant, and I found myself within the confines of Sungei Gedong Camp this morning. Finishing what I was instructed to do before lunch, I had the rest of the day off. Praise the Lord.

As I walked out of the gates of Armour Headquarters, I saw a statue of a tank in the middle of the road, its cannon staring proudly into in the sky. Beneath its tracked feet glimmered four silver words, chiseled out of polished metal. They were:

ONCE ARMOUR

ALWAYS ARMOUR

The glorious declaration implied that those who joined the ranks of the Armour regiments would proudly be part of the Armour family forever.

Not me.

Not that I'm not proud of being in Armour, of course. To be politically correct, I had some good experiences there. But for me, it was Once Armour, Now Engineer. And I love the welfare culture of the Singapore Combat Engineers!

Nevertheless, today's experience triggered this blog post. (I felt like doing a blog post *winks*)

Recently I remembered that prior to my enlistment, I prayed hard that I would NOT be posted to Sungei Gedong, after hearing Yaozhong's dismaying experiences there. I prayed instead of being posted to Nee Soon Camp (rumored to be like 'heaven'), Seletar Camp or Khatib Camp, due to their close proximity to my home.

Well, you know the story. I received my enlistment letter, and the words 'Armour HQ' flashed mockingly at me.

But God has a way of answering prayers. 1 year after my enlistment, I crossed the gates of the famed Nee Soon Camp. Turns out that the rumors are true. Lucky you, Qiming. One and a half months after that, I was posted to Seletar Camp. God is good.

He has been good throughout my army life. I went through a few hardships, including the toughest moment of my life, but God was gracious. Those difficult moments were valued lessons, the 'rotan' of a loving father. It seems that His favour follows me, no matter which camp I am in, so much so that some around me become jealous, and even dislike me.

Still, I thank Him for His unmerited favour.

I believe that right now is a season of decisions. God wants to build self-control in me - Responsibility over Comfort. May His grace be sufficient for me.

"And those who are Christ’s
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."
Gal 5:24

Seek First

"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,

and all these things shall be added to you."

Freaky Fred

My bro Isaac was recently watching an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog titled Freaky Fred.

As I child, I always felt that it was bizarre and macabre, but now I love it!
I totally love the poem - the guy who wrote has great command of the English Language and has a real knack of crafting poems.
The voice actor of Fred is a genius.

The most hilarious part was when Fred shaved the pancakes into Courage's mouth LOL!

Okay enough ado, here's the video:

Courage the Cowardly Dog - Freaky Fred

Here's the lyrics of the poem. Some parts are hard to understand, I had to think hard or search definition for words. I added "*" and "^" for unfamiliar words or phrases which I interpreted :)

Hello new friend. My name is Fred.

The words you hear are in my head.

I say I said my name is Fred.

And I've been...

Very naughty.

The story I'm about to tell

I tell you I will tell it well

Is of my dear aunt Muriel

And just how I've been...

Naughty.

Voila, the farm. My aunt lives here.

With precious pup and husband dear.

My heart beat fast as I drew near.

I felt so nice...

and Naughty.

I thought just how excited they

Must be that I would come today.

They'd shout, "Come Fred! Huzzah! Hoo-ray!

Dear boy, you look so...

Naughty."

That's when my tired eyes beheld

A doggy dog! Like dog he smelled.

D-O-G is what he spelled.

And that's how I spell...

Naughty.

Alone was I, with tender Courage.

And all his fur, his furry furrage*.

Which, I say, did encourage

Me, to be quite...

Naughty.

It was a day I'll not forget;

The day I first met my pet.

Oh, what a lovely gift to get.

I'd never felt so...

Naughty.

My fuzzy friend is what he was.

This darling little ball of fuzz.

And, oh, such fuzz, such fuzz, it does

Demand that I be...

Naughty.

He looked at me, his fetching eyes,

And fetching fur did hypnotize,

I filled with joy, I filled with sighs;

And that was when I got...

Naughty.

His dripping hair, this droopy curl,

Unfurls sweet memories of a girl.

With tresses oh, they twist and twirl.

And tempt me to be...

Naughty.

Barbara, my love was named;

And her fair hair, a mane untamed;

Until one evening, I'm ashamed,

I got a little...

Naughty.

The look upon my young love's face

Was sweet as lace**!

But in this case, I realized she

Needed space***.

I never more was naughty.

Well... maybe not never.

Dear cur, your fur and fleece remind

Of nothing found in humankind.

But for one fellow, who did find

Me, to be in a certain mood.

Into my shop he walked one day,

With bush above, and beard bouquet.

"That's no toupee****," I prayed, "No way."

I could help but be...you know...

I'd never seen such hair before!

His bangs*****, they sang! His neck, it beckoned!

Eyebrows, armpits, all were reckoned!

Soon, I figured, what the heck!

And that's how I was...

Naughty.

But then my landlords^ did presume

To free me from that porcelain tomb^^,

And ferry to a private room^^^,

Your hero, ever doughty^^^^.

Goodbye, dear aunt. I'll miss your farm.

And Eustace's ebullient^^^^^ charm.

And farewell Courage; what's the harm,

If I was slightly...

Naughty.

With Love, Fred.

*furrage is not a real word, but it is a play on the word fur to mean something full of fur.
**lace is a delicate decorative fabric made from cotton, silk, etc., woven in an open web of different symmetrical patterns and figures
***needed space is a phrase to imply a break-up of a relationship
****toupee a small hairpiece to cover partial baldness
*****bangs means fringe (in the United States, Canada and the Philippines)
^landlords in this case refers to the staff of the "Home for Freaky Barbers"
^^porcelain tomb refers to the toilet
^^^private room refers to solitary confinement
^^^^doughty means brave
^^^^^ebullient means cheerful, full of energy

The Writer's Feel

One of the things about creative writing that really irks me is the constant need for inspiration, or what I would like to refer to "the feel". In fact, the feel is needed for almost everything creative: composing music... writing lyrics... designing games... doing a blog post about feels...

The second thing about creative writing that really irks me is that once you have inspiration, it disappears! At one moment, I feel that this makes good writing, at the next I don't feel like writing it. In camp, I had a sudden feel to do a post about an old song "Through It All" by Hillsong, and about how I watched Calvin singing it in his suave no. 1 uniform on his wedding day, and how I felt impacted by watching it even though I couldn't hear a thing, but I don't feel like doing it now. Oh wait, I think I just did.

I suppose that if I actually forced myself to do it, I may get the feel back. Or I may not.
And that's not very inspiring.

You might wonder, why in the world is this dude talking about feels and writing. (sounds kinda carnal talking about making decisions based on feeling)

The short answer is that this dude felt like it.

The longer explanation consists of 2 reasons, and the first of which would be that I've been reading The Salmon Of Doubt by Douglas Adams, and his comic writing style got to me. Yup, I stol- I mean employed some of his essence into this post, with a tinge of my own of course. I love most of the book, except the parts where he debates about God being an artificial entity of man's inclination and imagination. Oh well, I guess it's good to understand the atheist mindset. I would want to read his hit title The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

The Salmon Of Doubt

A humorous book that looks at life and things around us from an interesting perspective.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

I wanna read this!

The second reason (hold on, I just recalled my inspiration to write about 2010 being a year of change. Anyway...) is that I'm thinking of writing a story. I've always liked fantasy worlds, epic adventures, mighty champions and colossal battles. Add interactive entertainment in and you have a Game. Strange thought, that I'm into writing and the arts in recent years, as I always thought I was more of Maths and Science student - my grades bear witness of that. I'm a hybrid perhaps?

My first passion is still games though. It's just that I have had so many story ideas over the years that I never really penned down (or rather, typed out). Actually I did try to start to type out a few, but lacked the resolve to complete them. I now realize that discipline is more important than inspiration. Then, one might ask, why now?

I felt like it.

Owls :)

Just watched Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole with Weiren, Hexing, Jeremy, Joanne, Adeline and Qiming! Thanks to Hexing for treating me haha.

It's an enjoyable movie! Well it's good, not great. 3.5 Stars.

I really love the fluid graphics, beautiful landscapes, brilliant lighting, fantastic animation and rigging of the characters, etc.

Sleek graphics.

It's really awesome to see the owls in medieval-fantasy style helmets wielding shiny iron blades and talons as weapons. I also think it's really cool that the bats were equipped with blades on their wings, which they swing to slice their enemies.

Shiny Helmets and Talons.

Owl of Darkness.

Baddest looking Owl. Wicked.
Kinda reminds me of Arthas' helm.

The movie has nice fight scenes with slow-motion effects reminiscent of the 300, except that there is no blood and gore. Not enough fighting and action though.

They did a fair job for character building for the main characters, but not much depth. Initially it's kinda hard to tell who is who, they being owls and all, but it gets better as the movie goes along. I felt that they should have focussed more on Soren (main char.), his mentor, Gylfie (the little owl), Soren's brother, and perhaps the love interest of the main character. The owl's names are hard to remember.
Or I have STM.

Soren, main character.

Kludd, the evil brother.

Gylfie

Actually, there wasn't any romance. But there was this one female owl that kinda seem that she would be the main character's love interest, but the relationship didn't take flight (no pun intended). So it was like bleh. Was slightly disappointed, I mean.

But the point is that there were too many characters, and their personalities, backgrounds, feelings, relationships, whatever, were not very well built. However, it would not be fair to say that they did a bad job - it was still good, just not as good as it could be.

The movie storyline is rather standard:
- a young owl-dude dreams of being a hero
- he gets thrown into a difficulty
- he is rescued at the cost of someone's life
- he undergoes training
- trouble brews
- an epic clash of good and evil
- good guys encounter a crisis
- young owl-dude saves the day and becomes a hero
BUT the owl-dude didn't undergo any significant defeat/failure/struggle, nor gets any girl.. so bleh.
Moving on...

A bit of humour was also thrown into the story. I like the 2 owls who try to be imposing and use cool phrases like "look upon the Glorious Moon" and umm... I can't remember. And of course we have Twilight, our bard, who sings out comical lyrics. One of the owls told him "Just because it is sung, it doesn't mean that it is a song."
Lol, he's soo Hexing.

Twilight, the warrior poet.

One of the most awesomest thing about the movie is the THEME SONG!!!
It's so totally apt that the song about an Owl Movie is composed by Owl City!
It's called "To The Sky", and it's on my playlist woot!

Love Owl City!

If you're contemplating to watch this movie, I'd say its worth your $8 or $10.
Don't expect a Lord Of The Rings epic though.

Alright enough of my movie review-rant. Peace out.