I feel like a piece of badly made shit.

Boots.

I like them.

I used to be a sneaker guy, Converse and Nike were my favourite brands.

Until this year when I came across this brand called Caterpillar (Cat) at a store called "Famous Brands" located at Capitol Centre. If you're Singaporean I'm sure you've seen it before. Yes, that was when I became somewhat fixated on boots.

They had quite a few very nice steel-toe boots there, tough things that protect your feet from getting pulverised when you accidentally drop heavy shit on them. Of course they're mainly work boots but that didn't prevent them from looking fucking awesome.

In the end, however, I chose a pair of Cat sneakers, which I heavily regretted a few weeks after. Sure they looked great, but they were also very uncomfortable. The shoes were too narrow for my rather broad feet, I could see the outline of my foot bulging against the side of the shoe, fucking blisters and shit, and while it was made of good quality leather, they didn't feel very tough at all. Granted, I might have laced it up a little too tight (my fault) but I wasn't entirely happy with my purchase.

I wore them to Taiwan with my friends and walked around in them, and they were really killing my feet, which were killing me. And then I chanced upon a very small, inconspicuous footwear store in Ximending, close to the hotel we were living in. By then it we were nearing the end of our holiday so naturally I didn't have much money left. They had nothing but boots everywhere, so I decided to take a closer look.

They Taiwanese are a very friendly bunch. They were also very hardworking. I explained to them that I was from overseas and that I didn't have a lot of money left to spend. It's ok, you can use your credit card, they said. I didn't have one. There were two pair of Caterpillars there that really caught my eye, they cost around 3500 and 5500NT (one SGD is roughly 20NT). I was down to only a few thousand, so I decided to leave, only to return a short while later, this time with full intention to purchase. I chose the 3500NT pair, not only because it was cheaper, but also because it was sturdier and didn't compromise in style. The other pair was a lot more attractive but I wasn't feeling very rich at the time.

And man were they comfortable as hell. They take sometime getting used to, especially if you've been wearing sneakers all your life, but afterwards, you know it's worth it.

Recently (in Singapore now) I was out looking for clothes when I happened upon another footwear store (think it was Royal Sporting House) selling Cats. I went in to take a look, but didn't see anything remotely close to the ones I was wearing, or even to the ones I saw in Taiwan. In fact most of them looked pretty darn ugly. Yeah, glad I got my Cats at Taiwan. Also saw a few pairs of Timberlands on the same day which looked really good. Now I know where to go when I need a new pair.

T-SHIRT HUNTING

FUCKING GREAT SUCCESS.

Managerial Accounting test today at Temasek Polytechnic. Man I miss the Tampines campus. TASentosa is such a fucking pain in the ass to get to.

The test... wasn't so hard, considering the amount of effort I put into studying the goddamn notes. What's so cool about the test is the setter already prepared all the fucking tables for us to fill in the blanks! And I expecting to draw table after fucking table for fucking profit and loss statements and whatnot. Thanks TP for making students' lives easier.

The test was only one hour, which meant more time for me to generally fuck around. Caught bus 518 outside TP, got off outside Far East Plaza. I originally wanted to go to Raffles City Shopping Centre to check out the Timberland flagship store but I remember their website mentioning a store in Ngee Ann City's Takashimaya departmental store, so that's where I went.

While they mainly focus on outdoor gear, jackets, boots and the like they've got a nice collection of t-shirts there, mostly Earthkeepers t-shirts. So the Earthkeepers is a line of very sexy boots and other outdoor gear by Timberland which are largely made up of recycled materials like PET (the stuff plastic bottles are made of) as well as Green Rubber (recycled rubber, duh). Also like the name suggest Earthkeeping is all about being environmentally responsible and shit like that. I'm not exactly the best "Earthkeeper" around but I bought one of their t-shirts anyway for $35 (originally $49.90). Now I know where to get a nice pair of boots when I need one too (the Caterpillar boots I've seen in Singapore are all pretty darn ugly.) Watch the ad here

Life as an Earthkeeper must be tough. Risking your life for a water bottle? Fuck yeah!

Of course I'm not gonna head home after purchasing just one t-shirt, so I decided to take a walk around Orchard. After a quick lunch at McDonald's. Had their new Double Samurai burger, which was actually pretty fucking good and fucking messy because of all the fucking teriyaki sauce. I liked it alot more than that other McBistro, which is sort of like a regular McChicken with cheese and BBQ sauce. Big deal.

Walked down to Paragon since there was nothing left for me at Ngee Ann City and Wisma Atria. There was a Miss Sixty/Energie outlet there, went in the check it out. The jeans are fucking awesome, and the price very attractive because of the discounts, but the biggest size they had (34) was to small for me (35). Too bad, because I once tried on a pair of size 34 Diesel jeans and they fit me perfectly. Oh well better luck next time.

Feeling slightly disappointed I decided to head on down to the Heeren Shops, since I was already so close to it. Couldn't find a store directory so I just took the escalators all the way up to the fourth floor. Walked past a rather small, dingy store, the kind you normally wouldn't give a shit about, except for the fact that there was a motherfucking awesome Hannya mask t-shirt hanging right by the entrance. I fucking went inside.

The badass Hannya t-shirt

The place is called "Coalition Store". The store owner (I found out he was the owner after some internet digging), really friendly dude. He could tell I was interested in the t-shirts with the really cool oriental designs and sort of introduced me to their latest collection, "Royal Blood".

There was one with a disembodied samurai head with mask and all which I really liked. Go the large, a little tight but fortunately it's discharged printed (which means to apply a design by printing on a colour destroying agent on dark coloured fabric) on pre-shrunk cotton so it'll probably shrink at most 1 to 2%, and I can live with that. Here's a picture

Cost me $39.90, which I think is rather reasonable. Design is intricate and kickass. Unfortunately for me my mother doesn't appreciate disembodied samurai heads and disapproves. Unfortunately for her I like stuff like this, and in any case i'm the one wearing it so I really don't give a shit.
The dude then told me that if I purchase a t-shirt from that particular collection I can get another t-shirt from an older collection for $20, originally $35.90, which is a very good deal. And of course I accepted. Here's a picture of the one that I chose.


It's based on a Japanese Kabuki called "Renjishi", based on "shishi", or stone lions, which are considered guardians in Ancient China. Unfortunately the store didn't have a large for the light blue version so I had to make do with black. They also have some very amazingly intricate hand painted caps, all Asian themed. I don't wear caps so I didn't get any hohoho. Picture

A fucking crazy pair of hands painted that.

After some digging I found out a few things. The label is Singaporean and founded in 2005, called "Culture Coalition". The owner of the Coalition Store and designer of Culture Coalition is called Ignatius, who conceptualises the designs that is then executed by artists around Asia. Asian culture is the main theme of the label. They also have a website, which kinda sucks, and needs some updating, but you can easily find them on Facebook here. Coalition Store also has it's own Facebook fanpage here. Well now I know where to go for t-shirts.

Things

Things that piss me off in the morning:

• Sitting next to fat some Malay mother listening to stupid Nelly Furtado singing about eating men while acting cute with her child (made me feel sick) and elbowing me every few seconds.
• Standing next to some idiots listening to trashy Kesha's "song" about "feeling like P. Diddy". How does one feel like when one feels like P. Diddy in the morning? Hmm.
• Stupid girls that dress like cheap whores trying to look sexy (it makes me want to cry because they probably think they look good when in fact they look skanky).
• Crazy religious people.
• People rushing for seats on the train like they're in some fucking marathon.
• All the fucking people on the train.
• Walking through Vivocity every fucking day to get to the Sentosa Express.
• Getting on the Sentosa Express every fucking day to get to Sentosa.
• Getting to Sentosa.
• Getting to Tourism Academy @ Sentosa.
• Stupid tourists at Sentosa.

Things that make me happy, not always in the morning

• Internet.
• New jeans.
• New t-shirts.
• Hot foreign redhead in hip-hugging bell-bottom jeans.
  
• Stupid girls that dress like cheap whores desperately trying to look sexy (because it gives me something to look at).
• Commissioned (webcomic)
  
• Cyanide & Happiness (another webcomic)
• Girls with Slingshots (yet another webcomic)
• Good food.
• Not many things make me happy actually.

T-shirt hunting later.

Scheiss kopf

is literally German for shit head.

Fuck lol.

Well, my new t-shirt didn't shrink as much as I expected. In fact it feels like it didn't shrink at all!

Fuck it, next time I go there i'm getting medium.

Hello.

Went t-shirt hunting after school yesterday, went down to the Harley Davidson motorclothes store at Ngee Ann City and got myself one of their t-shirts, pretty neat, although the one thing that irks me is the sizing. Their large is just a little too big for me, which normally wouldn't be a problem, but the t-shirt is so damn long it completely covers my ass and really makes me look horrible in general. Long t-shirts are definitely no good for short guys. So I tried medium, which was a really nice, snug fit, exactly what I was looking for BUT I was worried about possible shrinking since all 100% cotton t-shirts shrink in the wash and so bought 1 size up.

But then, that t-shirt ain't cheap, so it probably won't shrink much, right? I even emailed Harley Singapore to ask them how much it's gonna shrink and was told that it probably won't be noticeable, and that maybe I should get a smaller size if i want a snug fit.

So I went down there again intending to change my L for M and the guy there was like, "You sure? It's gonna shrink y'know." He suggested that I keep the L, told me the shrinkage will be rather significant and i'll probably end up with a t-shirt a little bigger than the M. Since he was clearly not just a regular employee (probably one of the Harley Singapore managers) I decided to follow his suggestion. Now my t-shirt is waiting to be washed and I pray (to Invisible Pink Unicorns) that it shrinks down a size, no more and no less.