Volume 2 of Real Escape Game Singapore just ended. Considering this is posted on Mondays, yep, it has ended. Volume 2′s episode was “Escape from the Werewolf Village” and ran from Friday till Sunday at *scape warehouse.

Six people to a table and thus I’ve picked my own team of friends. In fact, I’ve enough people to make more than one team. I did tell you guys which day and slot I was going for in my monthly adventures post.

Meanwhile, you don’t have to bring six friends with you to play, you’ll just be added to other people who registered for the game so hey, teamwork!

OH interesting fact, a lot of my other friends exited the warehouse and either wailed in despair or were triumphant in their quest to escape in the time slot before mine. I totally knew it was going to be that good of a game for volume 2.

My table number! And… no. We didn’t escape in the end AGAIN. Without revealing anything of the games, I can say that it is challenging and you’ve to remember your wordplay and puzzles. Try playing Professor Layton games or something.

The sad bit was that we were SO CLOSE AGAIN that even the emcee commented about it. ARRRRGH. Great dialogue and storyline too.

No one seemed to find it boring, it was just that exciting with all the presentations by the emcee and the [CENSORED] and the [CENSORED]! You just have to try it for yourself.

Four teams made it out for our batch. Kakitaraisho of Here Be Geeks‘ group managed to escape. AGAIN. They did it for volume 1, they did it for volume 2 too. Third time’s a charm, we WILL escape like them next time.

And yes, there is a next time! Volume 3 is called The Crazy Last Will of Dr. Mad! DUH DUH DUH! In addition to that, an online version of the real escape game will be held later in the year.

It’s a solo quest thing where you’ll be competing with everyone else in the world who’s playing it.

Join us all in volume 3 to escape this mad doctor’s place! Check out the Real Escape Game Singapore’s facebook page here to keep updated on when the games will begin again…

Tis’ the night before Free Comic Book Day and everything was… Well, it wasn’t quiet. We watched The Avengers with GnB comic store since we’re members and it’s pretty fun when you’re in a theatre full of comic readers.

3d glasses available for sale at The Cathay! I’m just going hmm at the lack of Black Widow merchandise here, well no Hawkeye too so hmm. Maybe it’s just those with solo movies to their names first?

We watched The Avengers and yes, it was great! Oh and since we’re in Singapore, there’s only one scene after the credits. We do not have the second one so you can just leave the theatre after seeing one after credit scene.

The bonus bit if you’re a member of GnB and going for their movie nights is that you usually get a goodie bag and a chance to win some prizes like Hot Toys figurines.

I got the Batwoman comic, a Flashpoint Hal Jordan badge and… A HARDCOVER MOUSEGUARD AND OTHER STORIES BOOK. It’s one of the more exclusive and sought after free comics for FCBD.

The day itself! We started off with GnB because it was opening at 10am. This picture was… Well, the queue was there even before 10am. It moved quickly though!

Nicola Scott and Ardian Syaf doing signings. I got my books signed and that was quick too since we had queue just for that. 1 USD= 1 SGD sale was going on too so if you were there for just the free comics, it was a grab and go kind of thing!

Bonus points if you can tell who they are.

Here’s Wendy and Rudy at Planerds over at Somerset 313! The shop is going to have their six items for 60% sale until the 20th May. Well, it goes like two items – 20%, three etc etc until six items or more, 60%. It’s really that good of a bargain cause it’s their birthday sale.

Other places we went to was Kinokuniya and Paradigm Infinite. KINOKUNIYA “sold out” their free comics at 10am! Aaaah.

They were really nice about it too cause they were looking out for us but alas, GnB’s opening for THIS year was 10am too?! The staff managed to get us a pack anyway and the exclusive thing at Kinokuniya, unlike the other stores was that they DID get the special FCBD heroclix of Thor!

So wow, FCBD is really catching on in Singapore now unlike the previous few years. We’ll have to see how the programmes would be like in 2013.

Meanwhile, WHAT DID I GET? Click the thumbnails to see it bigger. First, I bought the layout pages and Dave Chua’s Gone Case 2 from Planerds at 60% off (I pooled in with my friends) so that was only $10.73! Woaaah.

The Moomin and Adventure Time comic was from them too, they were giving the comics outside their store to anyone who passed by and to children for them to read!

The Angel comics were from Paradigm Infinite while ALL the others were from GnB. I didn’t take the Kinokuniya one since it was quite a limited stash and I had the comics in the pack given by them, so the rest got it anywho!

Also, my comics signed by Ardian Syaf and Nicola Scott! Huzzah!

What I also learned was that the book store people DO know us in a way. Duh duh duh duuuuuuuh. Till next year’s FCBD indeed!

May Adventures!

4 May – It’s May 4th or May the 4th be with you. Star Wars day!

5 May -  Free Comic Book Day! GnB comics will have two guests at their shop! Nicola Scott and Ardian Syaf. Besides that, free comics (duh)! Some titles are quite popular so get them as soon as you can. From past experiences, even if you’re not a member of the store, you’d get free comics but just lesser than members.

Also, the 1st 100 GnB MEMBERS to arrive on FCBD will get 1 Lucky Draw Ticket that will entitle them a chance to WIN an original art piece kindly donated by Nicola Scott !  Alternatively, if you’re going to Kinokuniya, you’d get 20% discount on comics at Kinokuniya and a limited set of free comic books with every purchase.

4-8 May – Traditional Wayang at Pulau Ubin! More details here. The details say that it has free rides to Pulau Ubin and to quote: This is NOT a special performance put up for the public, but a part of the way of life of the residents of Ubin. Here is a chance to take part in a dying tradition.

12 May – Escape from Werewolf Village! This time, it’s tougher than ever! Solve the puzzles and escape from the werewolf village at *scape! Tickets available at Gatecrash, Ticket Cube or SAM machines.

I suggest you go to ticket cube if you are going with a group to make sure that you’d be going to a slot with enough availability for everyone. ALSO, you can only play this ONCE.

19 May – Food Revolution Day! Yes, that Jamie Oliver’s food revolution. We have a Food Revolution Day in Singapore! It’ll be at the lawn of 31 Biopolis Way.

Just check out their facebook event link for more info. What is definite is that you’re probably going to learn how to cook food or eat it.

19 May – International Museum Day! Free entry to museums on this day. That means it includes:

• Asian Civilisations Museum
• Memories at Old Ford Factory
• National Museum of Singapore
• Peranakan Museum
• Reflections at Bukit Chandu
• Singapore Art Museum
• Singapore Philatelic Museum

26 May (to 27 May) – SPORE CON! Besides a convention for analogue gaming, this year we have more  special guests like Sonny Liew, Drewscape and much more. Plus okay, US! The Happy Smiley Writers Group! Come, come! It’ll be fun.

26 May – Pandemic! It’s actually brought in by the Singapore Arts Festival but if you haven’t got enough running around escaping from werewolves in the previous week… RUN AWAY FROM VAMPIRES FOR THIS EVENING! It’s at Old School at Mount Sofia and to get up there if you’re using public transport, well, there’s a stupid hill involved.

Everyone describes it as “the stupid hill”.  It says it’s an interactive installation with storyline. The website linked from the Singapore Arts Festival site to their “official” site seems odd though. I’d just stick to the details on SAF’s. Oh! And you have to be at least 16 and above for this.

That’s it for May! If you’ve an event that is exciting or something that is new or different, comment in this post and I’ll update!

Ok so there’s this yearly blog awards that’s happening right now and a lot of people on twitter and such have pretty much said that they don’t fit in any categories (including me).

It’s always the usual foodie/lifestyle/fashion whatever blogs. Surely there’s more blogs than that! If it were only that, I’d be totally bored. So I decided to do this.

No prizes since this would the first time trying this out. Unless by the middle of this whole experimental thing, people start to donate prizes and stuff.

We’ll see then. However, with all the listings, we’ll finally learn more blogs than the usual ones we see in the news/media/linked to us. So that would be pretty neat, wouldn’t it?

For now, here are the deadlines:

Categories submission: 27 April – 11 May

Nomination of blogs: 18 May – 8 June

Voting of blogs: 22 June – 22 July

Alright, now I need YOUR help! I have planned down some categories but I know I might be missing out some, click on read more to see and also COMMENT with your suggestions!

The categories will then be finalized for the nomination of blogs on 18 May.

Categories

• Heritage/History
• Academic – (subcategories: Study tips/student life/teacher life/etc)
• Non-profit
• Animal (blogs written by animals eg. Duke Orange)
• Sports – (subcategories: urban biking/fitness/running/etc)
• Science – (subcategories: environmental/ nature/ research/etc)
• Arts – (subcategories: DIY Crafts/ Culture/ Writing/ Illustration/ Photography/ etc)
• Pop Culture (subcategories: Comics or Manga/ Movies/ Reviews/ Books/ Games/ Utter Overall Geek/ Subcultures/ Cosplay)
• You Did What? (blogs where the writer undergoes something unbelievable or not the usual eg. for good or for worse like quitting a high flying job to travel the world or cooking a recipe a day from some antique book etc)
• Chapalang (it doesn’t fit the usual blog awards but you think it should win something for some reason)

What do you think of the categories above? Yes/No? What else should be there? Some subcategories might be merged into the main category during nomination if there’s “not enough” in that particular specialty.

Oh and of course, there’ll be a prettier banner and stuff by nomination time. COMMENT BELOW!

Look what HBO Asia sent me for their Game of Thrones promo! No, not the cat. The etched leather chest there! It’s rather big.

Oooooh, for me! On the other side is HBO’s logo in gold.

And here’s the top of the box! You can see the different houses’ mascots fighting each other.

And here we open the box to reveal… A miniature iron throne, a season 1 DVD of Game of Thrones and oh what’s this?

A missive! Let’s unroll and read this message to me.

Game of Thrones is back for their second season on HBO! Saturdays at 9pm for Singapore or 8pm if you’re in Thailand or Jakarta. Or if you want to read it, just click on the picture for the larger version, as usual.

Thanks Angela and Karen of HBO! This is really neat! The marketing team for HBO Asia channel promotions are really cool with what the come up with to send to people.

Ps. If you want a dragonscale bracelet like what I wore, you can get it at Bunny & Carat. I thought it fitting to wear while opening this.

So Joelyn and I signed up for the NIKE BFF run at Sentosa. The race village was going to be at the Wavehouse! Around 5200 ladies signed up for the race and it was that kind of day that rained, stopped for a moment and started to rain again. Nike was pretty good since they messaged our phones to tell us about the weather and to see if the race was going to be on.

It was.

The whole village is like a village of pink, black and yellow with white accents. Everywhere were just ladies. The only guys there were those who were in the crew helping out or were the photographers. Mind you, it’s a wet walk towards the village for when we reached beach station, it had been raining and everyone was hanging about wondering if it’ll go on or not.

Good thing the race was not going to be on the sand but instead on the pavement!

Before we begin the race, you need to make sure your Dtag is on your shoe. It’ll take your time and I have no idea how how the machine works but eh, it senses when we pass through the starting and finishing line to keep our time!

And here’s a pictorial guide to fasten your Dtag. Separate it from the instructions, loop it around your laces. Check if you’ve placed it where the bit says Dtag side up and then peel the tape and paste it together. The clip will secure it to make sure it doesn’t unravel and then you’re done!

The emcees, I didn’t catch their names but they were mighty entertaining. If you twittered and used instagram with the hastag #goddessbff and other hashtags, you’d see your picture on the big screen on stage.

Soon it was time to get ready for the race. That’s everyone there waiting to get into the main area to run. DJ Two Face were there mixing up jams. Beyonce’s Who Run the World was the theme of the day anywho.

We had to wait quite a while because the staff were clearing obstacles in the run area.

The obstacles were peacocks.

Darn you peacocks.

I got a picture of it during the run, they usually hang around the cafe area too.

While waiting for the peacocks to shoo off, we did a wave!

Yeah ok, enough waving. Bonus points if you can spot the camera mounted on the helicopter! It looked like a freaking transformer and I wantsss it.

It’s a pretty sweet rig.

Also a dangerous one if you don’t even know how to control it cause that’s worth thousands of dollars.

Ok man, let’s run. It’s just 5 kilometres! Technically around 2.5 kilometres cause the road double backs to the race village. The crew were great and there were first aiders near the race area in case you needed help. The water point crew were encouraging too, heh.

I liked how they had large bins nearby the path when you finished with your cup since you could just toss it in.

Of course, we must all take pictures. At various points, people took pictures with the signs. Near the 750 metre mark was when the rain started up again though.

Huzzah! We completed the race and we received 100 plus, a bottle of water if you wanted it, a completion prize and a coupon for food! Meanwhile, The Ukulele Girls were performing on stage.

The queue might look long but it was pretty fast! Hand over your coupon to the dudes once they gave you the cutlery and you’d get a box with fries and a hotdog. Jo and I didn’t stick around for the manicures, massages, performances and other activities there with the prize presentation. It was raining quite a lot and we wanted to get back to Vivo to meet Avarielle.

It was nice that there was a free shuttle bus from the beach station to Vivocity so huzzah for that!

So what did I get for completing the race? It’s a funky mirror, not sure if you can see it but it does say 5k on it on the main piece besides the casing. Yay! Most useful token of completion of a race, eveeeer.

They handed out posters too and well, it’s a calendar of sorts, heh. I lost mine so Jo took a picture to show me what it was.

In conclusion, the Nike BFF race at Sentosa was pretty cool! Even with the rain, it was all organized well with all the staff and crew knowing what to do. So that’s it for taking part in a race this year, MISSION COMPLETE.

Let’s start off with a few submission calls with deadlines in decending order…

We have The Ayam Curtain which is a an anthology of very short fiction! Short (HA HA) details are that it has to be:

• speculative fiction in English
• either 100-150 words or 500 words to 1000 words (there are two categories)
• written by Singaporeans or residents of Singapore (not necessarily PRs)
• Deadline is 31 May 2012

For more details, check out their page here.

Fish Eats Lion has similar requirements but with larger word counts. Short details:

• Singaporean Speculative Fiction (aka protagonist is Singaporean/living in Singapore/ themes inspired by life in Singapore)
• 2,000 to 5,000 words
• Deadline is 30 April 2012

More details about Fish Eats Lion can be found here.

For both, you won’t get much moolahs but you will get copies of the book if you’re included in it or discounts to purchase more since these two is well, it’s funded by the people who are organizing it. We just want more people to know that we can write speculative fiction.

Also, is it me or are the requirements for the new short stories a bit familliar now? Hmm…

Loving Singapore, Our Home

It’s a contest by the National Heritage Board and the National Library. More info on the contest is here. The deadline is 15 April 2012. There are a few categories so you’ll to check the website since there are different word counts in each category. Winner takes all gets National Day Parade tickets and moolah.

Have a look see! You need to submit on the website itself too.

Requirements is that you need to use the item featured by the NHB in your story.

What did we have last weekend? We had an Anti-Stupid Saturday. You could have your own Anti-Stupid Saturday. It involves anti-stupidity such as hanging out at Hanis cafe at the library (I like their corned beef sandwich), having a walk (when was the last time you had a walk that was just a walk?) and eating tau huay at Selegie’s Rochor Beancurd second floor as the rain pattered against the windows.

The rain is optional since you won’t know the weather for your Anti-Stupid Saturday.

However, have a day where you can just sit, take stock of yourself and chill.

Next Saturday features two of us from the crew in the Nike 5k BFF run. Good grief.

So we did go to the Uke Madness jam thing by Ukulele Movement at CHIJMES on Saturday evening! It was a pretty relaxing and fun. Plus, the weather was being rather nice. It had rained earlier on in the day so it was good that it brightened up by then.

And here are the people to guide us! There were music sheets with tabs printed out for people to read. The chords were simple enough for everyone to play anyway.

Not enough sheets but the people who led us told us what chords were what. You just needed to know the basic fingerings for the chords. I didn’t know that Coldplay’s Viva La Vida was just three chords! It’s G, D and Em if I remember right. In any case, if you searched for chords, you can find it at your own octave to sing.

There were a group of older ladies called the Wesley Group and they also led and performed some songs for us like Oye Como Va and Pearly Shell. So the strumming for that is pretty fun.

Anyway have a video of the first song! Well, you know how the song goes, it’s Hey Soul Sister. One of the top songs played on the ukulele besides I’m Yours. You can see it’s people of all ages and ukuleles!

And of course the song that most ukulele players will know. Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

It’s that time of year again where you ESCAPE THE WEREWOLF VILLAGE! We went to the first one and it was FUN and awesome in puzzle solving and code breaking. Here’s a teaser:

Check the facebook of Real Escape Game Singapore to get more info. Meanwhile, if you guys want to know which session my crew and others would be going for, it’ll be the 12 May, 7.30pm slot! Tickets run out quick cause really, it is that fun.

MEANWHILE, another challenge!

The maritime museum at Sentosa is having a challenge! Deadline is 31 March! The challenge itself is on 22 April. More info and to sign up is on their website here. You can only have four people in a group though!

AND a free event for you guys this week, from Ukulele Movement’s newsletter:

Ukulele Jam Under The Stars

31 Mar (Sat) 6:30pm – 7:30pm @ Chijmes Lawn

Join us for an outdoor ukulele jam at Chijmes Lawn. Strum along to chart hits, evergreen tunes, and some pop numbers. We welcome percussion and other instruments too. Suitable for all ages and all levels. Bring your own mats and instruments. Limited loan sets available. Free admission.

Yeah! I might be going there but UNGH. On the same day is…

Heyday’s East Coast Park push race from 10am till 5pm! It’s longboard competitions and fingerboards too. I just want a looksee. If you want to enter though, check their website here. I’m not a longboarder but it’ll be cool to see how their longboard dance competition segment would be like!

Oh yeaaaaaaaah. It’s that time of year where things are getting more exciting.

This is all you need to know about buying a ukulele in Singapore! Ok, not really all but just enough for you before you buy one! If you’ve read previous posts or adventures, you know I play the ukulele and stuff and since a lot of people have asked me about it. This is what you should know before buying a ukulele!

• A ukulele is not a guitar

This might sound stupid but yes. Before you buy that ukulele, you need to know it’s not a guitar. It comes with four strings. The tuning is GCEA. The first string when you strum downwards will sound high then it goes low, higher and highest once more. Yes, it is supposed to sound that way. If you want it to sound “guitarish” or more mellow, you can change your G string to a low G string. It’s actually called that, ask for a ukulele low G string.

• Strings are not fishing wires

Unlike toys, the strings aren’t fishing wires. Some people do not see the difference but there is and it’ll sound weird or that you’ve been ripped off if it’s not proper strings.

In any case, if you think you have sucky strings, buy Aquila nylgut strings. I use those and they sound great! There’s black fluro carbon ones too and they sound mellower and more chill. You might think of using guitar strings (I saw a person doing that at a certain music store and I was appalled) on your ukulele… Just don’t. There’s no point in getting a ukulele then.

• Beware of imitations

Ok. There are imitation ukuleles for some reason. I’m going to spend more time in telling you this before you purchase your ukulele. Now, if you saw my first picture, the first is a TGM ukulele costing around $38, the second is a white Mahalo around $18 and the third is a $335 jazz cutaway Eleuke (electric ukulele). Remember that first.

This one here is an $89 Makala ukulele (available at Ukulele Movement)

Now here’s the story.

Apparently music shops are stocking up on imitation ukuleles. Now, I’m one who goes woooo on cheaptastic ukuleles, I have a range of them anyway. My TGM ukulele is considered a cheap good one because it didn’t go out of tune that fast and while the wood is some cheap wood and when I bought it, the glue was still pretty fresh and strong, it was worth the money for it.

It was an original SIMPLE design. I eventually changed the strings so it ended up being the price of like a good range Makala like the $89 that I stated above here.

Anywho, now music stores are bringing in MAKANA. No. It’s not a typo. The design and stickers and all look like a Makala but the wood is of lower quality and the strings too…

But get this.

A Makana costs $89.

A Makala (original) costs $89 AND it comes with a padded gigbag.

If people want to bring in imitations, I’m like “Ok, whatever maybe it’s cheaper” but no. It’s the same price (and even more expensive for some) than the originals and you don’t get a proper gigbag along with it?!

There’s no point in buying the imitations. It’s not even just Makanas now, there are designs that copy other proper brands like Anueanue. Heck, now TGM sells more expensive ukuleles which are imitation designs. They’ve stopped with their simple ones, I guess cause everyone wants a ukulele now.

So beware of imitations since they’re rampant.

• Overpriced branded ukuleles

I can appreciate expensive ukuleles since I know what the craftmanship or sound is like but there are some ukuleles that are too expensive and I can’t see what’s the point of it. For example, there are ukuleles from obscure brands costing $700 and I’m like “What is this junk?”.

A fact, without naming any names Fender. A good guitar company can make very awesome guitars but they won’t ever match the skill of an established ukulele company. Sure, their ukuleles will sound ok but the price is more expensive than what it should be. In short, you’re just paying for the brand name.

• Super cheap ukuleles

My $18 Mahalo goes out of tune REALLY REALLY fast. You get what you pay for. (FYI, I bought that one cause I wanted to draw on it. I haven’t done it yet still.)

If you just want something to decorate your room or an instrument that you know your kid or someone will not play that often before they lose interest, buy a cheaptastic one.

If you really want to play something good without being frustrated at the notes going out of tune after strumming a few times, don’t buy it. Unless you’re really lucky, the cheap ones aren’t worth it in the long run.

• The ukulele you should be buying

It may be just a ukulele but you should just do a little check on the brand name if you’re going to music stores that aren’t specialized in ukuleles in the first place. (They just stocked up due to the trend.)

Alright, to pick a ukulele to buy would be going to proper ones like Ukulele Movement! I’m not sponsored by them, it’s just that they’re the only one that brings in a lot of models and brands that aren’t rip offs.

There’s also Maestro at *Scape or Davis Guitar at Peninsula Plaza basement. They bring in the proper cheap ukuleles though, not imitations.

Note: Those two shops only bring in the basics, novelty types but not higher grade ukuleles.

So yes, the safest bet is to buy your ukulele at Ukulele Movement if you’re in Singapore and have no idea what a good uke is. The staff are good and will help you if you tell them your budget!

If you want to pick yourself here are stuff to consider:

Soprano, Concert, Tenor or Baritone

Soprano is the usual small one you see on TV or what people play on. Concert just has more frets and better for those with big fingers. Tenor can be tuned like the baritone and the baritone is tuned to DGBE which sounds most to a guitar since it’s lower. Try strumming a soprano and concert and see which feels better for you.

Cuteness of a ukulele

Seriously. The cuteness. Or at least the look and feel of it. There have been so many times that a friend buys a cheaptastic ukulele only to want a better one which sounds and looks much better. Just go for it man. Buy the one that you actually would like. You might want to justify saying, “I’ll get that one once I’m good with this one”. No, no. Just go with the one you want. Save up your monies for it.

Location of where you’re playing it

Will you ever play it with a band, a concert or some outdoor place to show off? If yes, you should consider getting an electric acoustic ukulele or a pure electric ukulele.

Yes, those exists. I have one. Put distortion pedals and plug it to an amp and it can sound like this:

Eleuke + Pod Studio GX! by sarahcoldheart

Meanwhile, a normal acoustic one is fun to have around since you don’t need an amp. It will cost cheaper than ones you can plug in. Or well, you can always put a microphone near your ukulele anyway.

Price

Of course, you must have your budget. If you do buy good ones, you can resell them if you want to upgrade! You can’t do that with the cheap ones.

Yep, so that’s that! There’s accessories and books and stuff but eh, you can learn how to play the ukulele from youtube too! For more advanced techniques, you should get a book or buy a DVD though since they’ll be more than just basics.