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Nemesis of Gigglesville

29 May

It’s inevitable for every storyline that has happy giggling citizens living harmoniously and superheroes maintaining peace to have a nemesis who does nothing but wreck havoc and create fear. Hence, Gigglesville has EB to content with. EB as in Evil Buster.

So who is EB? He’s obviously an evil one with a name as such and he brings glum to the citizens, taking away their giggles and happiness.

Now all I need is to create the whole township! Carving has never been this fun!

Don’t be fooled by the color!
Pink can be evil.

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Defenders of Earth

26 May

I got so engrossed in this carving activity, I spawned off another batch of carvings, this time a line of superheroes and call them ‘Defenders of Earth’! These fellas are kinda like Avengers, a group of super beings that protect Earth from evil and what nots.

And unlike the citizens who only has serial numbers, these superheroes have names because they are well, superheroes and for practical reasons. Imagine rattling off a series of number to announce their arrival? Not very hip.

We have SuperOwl and his sidekick, SuperOink and they report to Lord Bubba. Together in their ‘O’Mobile, they traverse Gigglesville, Earth and the universe to maintain laughter and happiness.
Superheroes

Honestly, it’s quite fun to carve and build the story along…

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Citizens of Gigglesville

23 May

Lately I resurrected the carving hobby because I ran out of canvases to paint. Although I enjoy painting, in truth, I find the sweeping motion of the palette knife across a two feet canvas to be quite an arduous task. And I paint only once a week. It looks like the tennis elbow right arm is never recovering anytime soon and taking a long time to get well. Sigh…

But carving is okay. The arm doesn’t move that much and the balsa wood is not that hard to tackle.

The last batch of creatures created was back in July last year and recently, I labelled them ‘Citizens of Gigglesville’ and painted them all up. I must say proudly these creations of mine, all about an inch tall or thereabouts are rather cute little critters that bring a smile or giggle to whoever looks at them, hence aptly named citizens of this imaginary township.

Each and every character has a serial number instead of a name. With this, I see an interesting story developing.
Citizens-1

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This is Pablo!

2 May

It wasn’t planned but we were at the pet shop after dinner last night and every creature at the store were oh-so-cute! M2 was ooh-ing and aah-ing at the baby rabbits, colored prawns, crabs, toads and stingrays while I was equally mesmerized by the hamsters and chinchilla.

I saw the two aquariums filled with crayfishes and debated why not again. Having pet water sure isn’t that engaging. Although I contemplated the African Patriot crabs (their expressions were hilarious and appealing), we had to be practical. Our little aquarium is not big enough to have the water and ‘land’ separation for the crab. So a crayfish it shall be.

Meet Pablo Sanchez Rodriguez, a rather intriguing name for our new red crayfish. Maybe with a macho and longer name, Pablo will have a better and longer life that our previous crayfishes.

  

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Of SuperPig and SuperOwl

27 Apr

Lately I have this urge to create – draw, paint, carve or anything, just something to do to keep busy. There’s so much creative energy in me waiting to be unleashed. Must be the result of too much rest due to the tennis elbow.

Last week my golf buddies treated me to an early birthday lunch at Naughty Nuri’s and the restaurant gifted me with a souvenir, a wood carving of a piggy superhero. In fact, we were such good guests, the staff gave every one of us a figurine each! How nice.

This morning I looked at SuperPig with fond memories of last week’s good time with the ladies and made me wonder if I can carve the same. Hmm…

My last foray into carving owls stalled because the activity made the dining area messy. But with all this energy, maybe I should give this carving business another go. Perhaps a replica of the Naughty Nuri mascot or an owl with a cape? SuperOwl? Who knows?

There should be some spare balsa wood lying around and since I have to rest from golf, I will attempt this on top of the paintings, which are still ongoing with two canvases in queue.

  

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The Ride, Part 2

20 Apr

The lady motorbike rider I wrote about recently reminded me of my encounter with this mode of transportation dinosaur years ago. It was during an interim period and I was working while waiting to go off to college. I was an artist for a publishing house that produced educational books for children.

In the mornings, Dad would send me to work as my office was close by his office. Days when I finished early I would go home with Dad. But there were nights that I had to work late and I didn’t want Dad to wait nor did I want to take the bus home. Luckily, I had a co-worker who lived in the same town and I would go home with him. On his motorbike.

So there I was on a couple of occasions, sitting at the back of his motorbike, clinging on to my dear life as he hurtled along the highway in the night to send me home.

It was downright scary whether it was the first time or second time because being hit by the wind on the face constantly was foreign and rather terrifying. Then there was that firm death grip on the bar behind my seat throughout the ride to ensure I remain on the bike. And the awkwardness to stay balanced, tilting along and not against when he tilted the bike to turn…

Quite an experience. After those couple of rides, never again I rode on a motorbike.

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Why Do We Exercise?

18 Apr

It was a big debate last night during gym on why do we exercise? This came about because my tennis elbow has not progressed in recovery and I should be resting instead.

I downgraded from the 4kg weight (the one I call my Birkin bag) to a two pounder and even then, I could not do a lot of the usual routines. Yes, it’s bad. Remember I couldn’t even lift a head of cabbage from the grocery store? And over the weekend, I was having a pint, it was so hard to lift up the mug. It’s almost funny when told to use a straw for my ice cold beer!

Hubby suggested that we should be like the cavemen of yonder years – just eat, sleep, hunt and not exercise (or exert) unnecessarily to preserve energy. He pointed out that these people possibly may have led lives with less sports injury, no tennis elbows or sprained wrists. Interesting theory but not scientifically substantiated. There could be injuries from hunting…

Nice try to escape exercising except that we don’t live in caves and physically hunt these days, hubby dear. We live in a nice big house and we have bills to pay. And we have to physically drive to work, use our brains and work – the modern version of ‘hunting’ to stay alive.

Modern people exercise to counterbalance the demanding lifestyles. Two issues come to mind: to destress from work pressure and to burn off the over-consumed food. Do cavemen have these worries? While they may not have bills, mortgages and credit cards to manage, there’s no golf, no alcohol… no friends… shudder.

Given such a scenario, I’d rather exercise to counterbalance my lifestyle, injuries inclusive.

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The Ride, Part 1

17 Apr

It was a typical weekend evening routine. We were headed to our favorite mall for dinner when I spotted the motorbike rider along the highway. I managed to snapped a picture of her.

The lady rider was actually sitting cross-legged on her scooter! How does one do that? Then again, isn’t it dangerous? It’s not a country-side road, it’s the highway with lots of vehicles. It may be the weekend with less traffic but still, it’s a busy highway. Goodness!!!

It was amazing that she could balance and ride along safely.

Look closely at the legs!

 

 

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Setback

13 Apr

You know you’ve got it bad when you’re at the grocery store and can’t even pick up a head of cabbage! And it’s not even like it’s the biggest one on the shelf. Uh oh.

I injured myself again last weekend during my Saturday golf game. I suspect it’s from the week prior when I played in a monthly medal game and the pain suddenly flared up.

This time it’s a tennis elbow problem and not so much my old injury on the left wrist recurring. Funny it’s called tennis elbow when the injury is actually from golf. Regardless, the right elbow needs to be rested and no golf for at least two weeks or more. Super sigh.

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