Last night I dreamt of Takuya Kimura. He was in a car and he so handsome…OMG! How I wish I can dream of him more often! Anyway, it was such a silly dream.

I was involved in some charity administration that required me to tally the cash received. The cash were all in red packets. I got greedy and pocketed one packet secretly. After which I ran to the toilet to count the cash. $150. Er…vaguely familiar hor? Anyway, I threw away the red packet and kept the money, thinking I would not be caught. But the cash didn’t tally up and when I returned, I was bodily searched! The committee members found the missing $150 in my pocket. I was very embarrassed and apologised profusely. I pleaded with them tearfully. No, I didn’t plead with them not to report me to the police. I pleaded with them not to tell Takuya Kimura who was around because I didn’t want him to have a bad impression of me!

The Chinese say you tend to dream of what you think in the day. In my case, it seemed more like I dreamt of what I’ve blogged in the past two days.

With half an hour of stolen time from Gavin last evening, I took off to the Fruit Machine Room to play. I like this. Just slot and press. No brainer gambling. And I actually hit the jackpot! Easy money! The hardest part was walking away and keeping the winnings. But, I managed to remind myself not to be greedy. So I walked away $150 richer.

Having time pressures work in my favour sometimes. At least in this case, I didn’t have all the time in the world to gamble away my money.

These days I only visit the movie theatre when I absolutely must watch the movie on a big screen. So this year I only saw Howl’s Moving Castle. I’ve heard that Be With You is good but it didn’t give me a compelling reason to watch it at the theatre. Mainly because the male lead was not Takuya Kimura! Anyway, I’ve just bought the DVD and I must try to watch it when I have the time. For now, I’ll just be contented with the synopsis.

Widower Takumi (Shidou Nakamura) lives a quiet life with his six-year-old son Yuji (Akashi Takei) after the loss of wife and mother Mio (Yuko Takeuchi). Yuji unfailingly remembers her promise to him: “I’ll be with you again in a year’s time, when the rains come.” On the first anniversary of her passing, Takumi and Yuji are taking a walk in the woods when they come across a woman sheltering from a monsoon downpour. She bears an uncanny resemblance to Mio, but has no recollection of who she is or what she is doing there. Family life resumes from where they left off, while Takumi and Mio’s memories of their first encounter in high school come flooding back. However, their new life together is interrupted by the discovery of Mio’s old diary, which reveals the secrets of her past and how they must say goodbye once more in six weeks time…

Anyway, it seems that the two leads actually fell in love and Yuko is now pregnant with Shidou’s baby! Whoo-hoo! Some lightning fast screen romance!

Someone I barely know at work told me he has about two weeks to decide on a marriage partner. The partner in question is a twenty-something Vietnamese girl whom he has just met this week through a matchmaking agency.

Now I hardly know this guy. He is the IT guy who configured my new notebook. But after conversing with him, it really surprised me that a chap like him needed matchmaking. While Mr IT is not attractive and is definitely no charmer, he’s an average joe who also isn’t repulsive.

- He is not ugly. Not pimpled, not balding and doesn’t have a lorry langa face.
- He is 33, not that old.
- He is not nerdy.
- He has proportionate physical attributes.
- He speaks good English.
- He is well-educated with good knowledge in IT.
- He has a proper job.
- He seems to be of a sound mind.

I can’t comment much on his personality as I scarcely know him. However, through our brief interaction, he comes across as slighty loud and obnoxious. But then again, I’ve met far louder and more obnoxious men than him who still managed to snare themselves local brides.

Overall, I suppose his appeal can be increased with some dressing up and repackaging. It also seems that the Vietnamese girl chose him out of a few other Singapore men. So that goes to show that this guy’s got some redeeming qualities. Well, maybe he can do better with some help in the form of matchmaking, but surely he can still be matchmade with local girls?

Indeed Mr IT has tried SDU but to no avail. “No local girls will like me,” he said. He mentioned something about the local girls being difficult to please, blah blah. The standard stereotyping shite. So why Vietnamese girls I asked him. “More submissive” was his spontaneous answer. Aha! So Mr IT is also Mr Chauvinist. ‘’Local girls very difficult to manage lah,” he said. MANAGE??? Yesh, he actually used that word and laughed it off when I rolled my eyes at him.

Then it became clear to me. This guy has no balls to take on our local girls. He clearly has a big ego and is not interested in having a wife with a mind of her own. Perhaps he might have had some failed relationships with local girls in the past. So he’s now choosing the easier way out to buy himself a bride who is submissive, deferential, and looks good too. Never mind he needs to make a hasty decision in two weeks’ time to marry a stranger. Never mind there’s no love or chemistry. Never mind he would have to be $7000 poorer by that decision. I suppose all that matters is that the Vietnamese bride-to-be can stroke his ego the right way and make him happy?

So what really is about men who complained that our Singapore girls are too materialistic and calculative? I’m sure the stories about those who need to be desperately married but have no takers are true. But that’s only half of the picture. On the other hand, there are men like Mr IT, who are just intimidated by our self-assured local girls. All they want are pretty, subservient, docile women who will please them and hopefully also worship them. Perhaps these men want to consider a cross between a barbie doll who can copulate and a doormat?

Of course Mr IT can make his choices anyway he likes. It’s after all his life. But men like him should just stop lambasting our local girls for setting their standards too high and not get real about their own expectations.

I am a skin deep person and this is my latest hand cream collection:

Gardeners Hand Therapy from Crabtree & Evelyn…

To my current gamut of hand creams.

Gavin calls them happy cream because sometimes when he’s fussy, I rub some on his hands and tell him the cream will make him happy.