Basket.

It's the season for spring-cleaning, which means the annual appearance of Mesozoic-era books around my house is due. And I haven't been disappointed. "Singapore's New Premier - Goh Chok Tong". Ok... I did not bother to read it to find out whether it mentions that his stewardship began a tad disastrously with the PAP losing an astonishing (remember, this is Singapore) FOUR seats in the 1991 General Election.

Honestly, we have so much junk around that my house is not fully explored. I am extremely sure that one of its miscellaneous nooks and crannies hides an unspeakable family secret, but since the selfsame corners also tend to hide such pleasantries of nature as the common house cockroach and this mysterious breed of giant ants, I am not keen on attempting to find out.

Spring-cleaning was also conducted in camp, which meant we somehow had to make spick-and-span a bunk which had not been so much as swept in more than three months. The cupboard tops were furry with dust, kind of cute after I managed to pick my jaw off the (filthy) floor. Guess what, laziness may pay off now, but you'll pay for it later too.

We somehow did it in two hours, which was quite a feat considering that we had six people to clean two 8-men bunks. Woolly dust kings haunt my dreams.

Aside from playing chambermaid, I caught three movies this week, including The Maid on VCD. It, of course, failed to scare me, what with the usual "Dark shadow flits across foreground/background", "protagonist alone in house: cure spooky music" or "shocking twist!" antics that had me alternately laughing and rolling my eyes. Except for the fact that it was a horror movie and horror movies are supposed to SCARE, which it singularly failed to do, I don't think it was all that bad. Not something I'll pay to watch, but not something that I would abhor even when I could watch it for free (case in point here being The Village, next to which a garden snail 100-metre dash would be the very pinnacle of heart-stopping action). I was surprised to find that most of it is in Hokkien and the Filippino actress who plays the maid, is, well, acts exactly like one. It was also fun to see Chen Shucheng play at being evil.

After that one we put in Tom Yum Goong, which has a storyline that sounds silly, but who watches movies like these for the storyline? I don't - I watch them to see the protagonist break the arms/legs/neck/spine/miscellaneous body parts of a hundred enemy henchmen in various creative manners at one sitting. I was not disappointed, and I'm surprised it's only NC-16 because it's easily one of the most violent movies I've ever seen. And believe me, I've seen a few. Maybe it needs some sex to take it to M-18.

Either way, the work week ended early and by the time I go back, 2006's first month will be down. I guess time flies, period.