St. Patrick's Day/St. Patrick's Day Parade (New York)/Quilting Day/Submarine Day/Irish Week Festival (Washington)
2007-03-17 @ 11:53 p.m.

Hung out with the two Eugenes today. (Incidentally, while we were at The Cathay, I happened to see Eugene from my cell. It's kind of amusing, in some odd way that probably most of you wouldn't find funny. Tough!) I was at MPH in the late afternoon, buying books. There's a 20% discount for popular fiction right now, but only at the Raffles City store. I started out wanting to buy four Haruki Murakami novels, but ended up with four books by Junichirô Tanizaki. (Randomly, I find that Japanese names sound very elegant.) Just as well, since the total amount I spent was lesser as a result. Tanizaki sounds like a sexier read anyway, so maybe I'll move on to Murakami at a later date. Anyway, we caught The Lives Of Others at The Picturehouse. I sent a ridiculous amount of SMSes trying to get the three of us to agree on a movie to watch. What happened was this: Initially, only Eugene and I were watching a movie together, so we picked Music And Lyrics. Then Thong replied to my SMS, saying that he was free. So he thought that was a stupid show, and he really only wanted to watch The Lives Of Others. When I got to The Cathay, that was sold out for the next two screenings, so I walked to Plaza Singapura to see what was showing there. Walked back to The Cathay, and suggested we catch 300 in digital format, but he'd already seen that (and didn't really like it). Since Thong has very particular taste in movies, nothing else interested him at The Cathay or Plaza Singapura. So Eugene and I were going to see 300. Lo and behold, as I was queueing for the tickets, I noticed that The Lives Of Others was no longer sold out for the next show, but just filling fast. System glitch? Bad lighting causing me to confuse orange and red lettering? Whichever the case, I immediately called Thong and told him and that's how we all wound up watching a German movie. That said, it was a really good movie. It was, as I described it to Eugene later, hopeful. I can't think of a better word because really, that's what it was. Nazi official helping a dissident author to cover up his incriminating behaviour. The only sad bit was how the author's girlfriend committed suicide out of guilt, which was completely unnecessary because the Nazi guy had already removed the evidence damning the author. Also found out a bit too much about one of colleagues. This was from chatting with Eugene while waiting for Thong. Honestly, the things that some people do! It's not that I'm prudish, but surely decorum has its place in social intercourse?