How apt that Troy opens the day we perform The Odyssey at the SYF central judging. Cast and crew deserve no less than a treat from the Drama Club, so we’ll go north where we are more able to get a block booking. I just hope they won’t be too tired to join us for an evening of popcorn, coke and Greek mythology. All Odd-balls, please join us, ok?

One more rehearsal to go before we finish the journey we started last year. How does everyone feel, I wonder? I feel proud, anticipatory and I know that we’ve got a good show on our hands. We have everything to be proud of. It’s not easy to compress a classical epic into the “short half hour of monsters, storms, romance and treachery” but that was the challenge we set for ourselves and that’s exactly what we’ve done. So let’s go in knock everyone’s socks off and leave with a sense of accomplishment and achievement. And then we’ll go see how Hollywood does it on a bigger budget with Troy, the prequel to our Odyssey. I’ll take my 1% inspiration any way I can!

Had lunch again at Jalan Riang. The drinks uncle knows our “usual” drinks, not that he’s 100% correct all the time, but he makes good guesses, and the economic rice is definitely a draw factor. Went early today and it’s so nice to see the trays of dishes almost untouched for once. Discovered that he has a tray of sotong that must be very popular because I’ve never seen it before today. I’m not a big fan of sotong, though, so it makes no difference to me, I’m not likely to order it anyway.

Took a rain check on June’s homemade (can you get it anywhere else?) corned beef rice to go bowling at SAFRA last night, so tonight we had it for dinner. I used to think Libby’s corned beef was the best we could get, but June said it tasted too much of cow so she tried a substitute instead. Her choice was a good one: S&W, which seems to fly off the supermarket shelves leaving poor old Libby’s behind.

Good stuff, corned beef rice. Simple to prepare. Just mix up a can of corned beef with steamed rice while it’s still in the rice cooker and let it steam a little longer to make the mixture nice and hot. Also thrown in to steam are some baby corn (fresh, preferably, but canned will do) and broccoli. A note about broccoli: please don’t ever overcook it! The closer it is to raw the better. Raw broccoli is perfection, but many people don’t like it raw. Too “green,” they say. Serve corned beef rice with a liberal sprinkling of pepper and some fresh, sliced chilli padi. Q.E.D.