I begin with a retraction for yesterday's entry: it was not in fact my dad's cellphone's miscall that woke me yesterday, but the distinctly annoying and unending sound of drilling from some other apartment in the neighborhood. Someone must be doing renovations again. The funny thing is, while I can ignore the sound of drilling at other times of the day --- and it's an apartment that's in an adjacent building, not my own, so it's really not that loud --- the moment it stirred me out of sleep yesterday morning, I just could not make it go away.

Today has been gray and rainy. Actually, it's been exquisitely gray and rainy in Singapore of late, which reminds me of the weather in Vancouver, except that in between the extended gray periods, the sun bursts out with great fury to remind us that this is the tropics, and that dispels any tenuous illusion of the Pacific Northwest. But I appreciate the rain. I don't even mind carrying an umbrella out with me --- and it's not just because I have a maroon umbrella now.

Today it threatened to rain all day and the clouds finally unleashed their version of fury at about 4 pm, when Terz and I were finishing up Willow. It stormed like crazy for a little while, then pattered off to an insistent rain, through which we drove to Charlie's for dinner, and eventually wound down to a drizzle while we were eating; it had stopped raining entirely by the time we left Charlie's for home. Nevertheless, the weather was cool enough for my friend Kay to be wearing a jacket. (Of course, if I had thrown on a jacket before we left, Terz would have given me an incredulous look and the heavens would have retorted by turning off the rain and turning it into a hot and humid tropical night.)

Watching Willow made me feel zesty (TM Keet) about roleplaying again. For one thing, I enjoy Willow on its own; I can see how it's not perfect, but I don't see why it's dissed so often, either, even when George Lucas' involvement is factored in. But watching some of the scenes of muck and mud and dirt hovels made me think about how much more I could do with roleplay if I just took the time to imagine things properly. However, I have resolved to go to work tomorrow, so I doubt I shall have time to indulge my newfound roleplay enthusiasm until the weekend, which is when the Americans would have recovered from their Thanksgiving feasts anyway.

Speaking of which, I saw a news clip yesterday of Dubya pardoning a turkey, which made me think of that episode of The West Wing when CJ gets to decide which turkey gets pardoned, and it made me smile --- even though it was a news clip about Dubya, which really shouldn't make anyone smile, especially he didn't look all that much smarter than the turkey the whole time.

Tonight was officially Carnivore Night at Charlie's --- well, it was for our table. Three of us had the mixed grill and Terz had a Porterhouse steak. Oh, and we had the requisite Charlie's chicken wings too. I feel a bit sick now. The thing about the Charlie's mixed grill is that it always disappoints me: some piece of meat won't be done as well as the others, plus the fried egg always tastes funny 'cause of the kind of oil they cook it in, and the meat sauce is frankly quite odd and I'd rather dunk my meat in chilli sauce --- but I keep ordering it anyway, despite past disappointments. Maybe it's because the mixed grill is only available on Wednesday nights. Maybe it's because Terz used to rave about it so much that some part of my brain believes it must be good. But I just keep ordering it, even though halfway through tonight's meal, I muttered to myself, "I should've had the fish'n'chips."

Charlie's was quiet but I blame it on the rain. (It's an outdoors/al fresco place, so there's no real point driving all the way there if it's raining, except for hardcore fans like us.) I'm trying not to think it might be the recession.