Adam's Garden

The New Venture!

2011-04-13T18:00:00.003+08:00

So ive been in a relationship now for a bit over 2 years. During this time we (as in me and wendy) have both kept on maintaining our separate blogs, although I think we have both let our blogs slip into decline the last year or so. But along the way during these last 2 years, I realized we had done a lot of things or been to a lot of places, but never noted it down somewhere. Sure there would be the occasional photo or some memento of a place that we were at, but by and large we didn’t have a place to write about the memories we have.

And that was the inspiration for Drops of Contentment.

Life Principles

2011-03-29T01:21:00.000+08:00

3 months ago I wrote bout the one month bonus that company declared. Well, it's finally come to the time for annual review, and needless to say, the results are out.

No specific details; all I can say is..it's a very bittersweet feeling that I have right now. Bitter, because when I do the math and look at my peers, this is not a bonus that has cause for celebration. Yet Sweet, because when I think back to the beginning when I worried about whether we would receive anything at all, I realize my fears have proven unfounded.

"I shall be content" I think to myself. "I shall be happy" I repeat to myself. Yet..a tinge of longing always remains. I've learnt not to fight it now - there is no shame in being weak, only shame in being weak enough not to admit our weakness. Ive learnt to embrace all my flaws, like a ball and chain that slows me down as I run a race. I could give up, I could say it's not fair, since what chance is there to finish first in a race so biased and handicapped? But I soldier on, for my accomplishments are my own, and none can take it away from me.

I'm sorry Coz I know I sound like I'm talking in riddles. Unfortunately I can't be totally open with everyone on the web. I just need to pencil some thoughts..put to words to remind myself..Never give up, Never lose faith, Never forget God.

One Step Closer to the Maxis Om Nom Nom Race

2011-01-12T15:25:00.002+08:00

In all my years of blogging (6 years and counting!!), i have never written a post to join a competition. All that is about to change however, because I WANT TO JOIN THE MAXIS OM NOM NOM RACE AND I WILL DO ANYTHING TO JOIN IT!!!

.....maybe anything is too strong a word. It opens me up to a lot of undesirable requests. but you get the drift.. =P

I also want to participate in this competition with Wendy! you can find her link here:

http://splashes.blogspot.com/2011/01/one-step-closer-to-maxis-om-nom-nom.html

WHY do we want to join this OmNomNom race? For the simple reason that it sounds like so much fun! I'm sure all of us have watched The Amazing Race on TV before, and if we have, I'm sure we would have all wished at some point to be one of those people jetting all over the world, rushing from checkpoint to checkpoint, trying to win 1 million dollars. Unfortunately the OmNomNom Race isn't giving out a million bucks, and it's only confined to Malaysia. But hey, beggers can't be choosers, and actually what's so bad about driving at breakneck speed around Malaysia trying to sample the best food our glorious country has to offer, all sponsored by Maxis?? Sounds like a really good deal to me, don't you think? Oh and did I mention the grand prize is a A trip to Hong Kong with 5 Star Accommodation?!?! It's not a million bucks, but it's definitely close! =)))

Yes, in case it wasn't clear from my talk about food and that half-eaten burger picture on top, the Maxis Om Nom Nom Race is all about ~~running~~ driving across Malaysia to find 5 pre-determined locations and take on some food challenges! If that sounds too difficult, don't worry, because Maxis is also going to provide the participants with iPhone 4s, the Finder 301 app, and A Wireless Broadband Connection!! If you have never heard of the Finder 301 app, check out this link :

http://itunes.apple.com/my/app/maxis-finder301/id375530216?mt=8#

or if you never knew that Maxis offers broadband connections (which rock have you been under??), you can refer to this link :

http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/broadband/wireless_allplans.asp

In short, there is no need to worry about getting lost while participating in the race, because the tools that Maxis provides will help us drive right up to the doorstep of the next checkpoint!

So with the quick introductions out of the way, let me now get on to explaining why myself and Wendy should be allowed to take part in this competition.

1) We Love To Eat
We love to eat. Period. Doesn't matter whether its American, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese...you name it, we'll probably like it. Although we always like to complain about all the weight we've gained, deep down inside we know that sharing a good meal is what makes us happy..so we are definitely foodies at heart. =)

2) We Write Well!
Since the competition involves blogging about food on the go, I think it deserves a mention that both of us are good writers! Without blowing our own trumpets too much, I'd say we can stand toe to toe with other good bloggers our there. We love the English Language almost as much as we love food, and that's what makes us great food bloggers! We'll never describe something as just tasty / not tasty. Instead, we make sure we note down the aroma, the texture, the mixtures, the ingredients, and so many other descriptions that will make a reader feel like he can just taste it on the tip of his tongue. =D

3) We Love To Travel
we love to eat and we also love to write, but besides that, we also love to travel! Doesn't matter whether we travel domestically or overseas; as long as we're traveling together, we know we're going to have a blast. What more when FOOD is thrown into the mix, you know we're just going to be dying to be there!

I can think of a lot more, but I won't bore you anymore lah. What's more important is that we're chosen to join!! So Pretty Pleeease Nuffnang and Maxis, spare a place for Wendy and I! Oh and FYI, I want my t-shirt in size L please! =D

Bonus Is Out!

2010-12-17T18:33:00.000+08:00

The first bonus of my life. Nothing really performance based...this one was declared for whole company. Not much la..i dont even know how they calculated it. But yeaaa..Its a nice feeling to see bigger figures in the credit side of bank account compared to the usual same numbers every month.. :)

Time to have a bit of fun then. Ive already invested in 3 PS3 games. Lets hope they are worth it. hehehe.

New Era Of Blogging!!

2010-12-06T17:33:00.001+08:00

Hello there!!

I've had this blog for about 6 years now, and I have always blogged while sitting behind my pc / laptop. But today will be the first time that I post on u, dear bloggie, through my mobile phone!!! Amazing stuff I know..who ever thought I wud ever blog like this? Anyway..this post is just for testing purposes. I'll blog more from here as I go along :D

Anyway, a picture to complete this landmark post!

..ok nvm. It Keeps telling me upload failed zzz I'll come back n play with it another day.

August To December!!

2010-08-13T18:41:00.006+08:00

I start this post on a Friday evening, sitting here at work while waiting for the rain to stop. I'm the last one to leave the floor in my department, can you imagine? =P Definitely not gonna finish it now...but its fun to know when i started it..hehe

*Updated 9 December 2010*
.....and many months and moons later, ive finally come and finished this post!! For the SECOND time i might add!! Because last night i actually hashed out a loooong post on my new blogging app on the iphone but when i pressed publish it only posted the draft post and not the full post and then this morning when i came to work i tried to look at my masterpiece online and then i saw that it wasnt there and then when i checked my drafts in blogger there wasnt any extra draft and then when i checked my phone there wasnt anything there either...its like as if it never existed..!!!!!

hahaha ok that was a very long sentence. But yes, the app screwed me. But now im on fire, and i shall not rest till i finish this post AGAIN!!! zzzz.

if you are observant enough, you'll notice the word "iphone" up there somewhere. that's just one of my newly-acquired toys. =)) But before i get into that, i must talk about what this post was orginally meant to be about, which was Wendy's birthday! =DDDD

The first pic is taken from I-City in Shah Alam! No i didnt take that photo..i stole it off Google.. =P i didnt have a camera then so the next best thing is to just take a random pic off the web. Trust me when i say the place looks exactly like it does in the pic. In fact its even bigger than that, which lights in the shape of not just trees, but also animals too! It was really lucky that i discovered this place just before her birthday so i had somewhere to take her to..hehe. And for once im actually quite proud of Malaysia for coming up with something like this. Okay its not environmentally friendly and there is actually a lot of improvement that can be made, but i for one am happy that we actually have this kind of thing to see in our very own backyard.. =)

And the second pic is a very enlarged picture of the present that i got Wendy..hehe. After (and before) i got the PS3 for my own birthday, a lot of people asked me what i had gotten for her. I guess a lot of people were wondering whether the PS3 was justified or not...lol. Well this year i honestly had no idea what to get. Finally at the last minute i decided what-the-heck and dashed over to Thomas Sabo in Gardens to pick up a charm. I had actually looked up the website and had my eye on a diff. charm, but when i got there they told me it was out of stock. =(( So i had no choice but to look for a diff design...but lo and behold, as i was flipping through the booklet feeling very stressed, i saw this carriage thingie that suited my needs perfectly too. What does the carriage mean..? That's a secret.. =P

ok la..i think ive summarised the 2 main points of the blog..hehe. Im actually SO far behind on my blogging its not even funny anymore. I've missed out on Bangkok, the 28th of November..even my own birthday! Right now im just taking some time out because i really cant take staring at notes for my exam on Saturday. FX rates are killing me, and i have no time to read the other topic, which is Derivatives!! Sighh..why do i get the feeling like im gonna fail FX..or even worse..fail more than that?? =(((( Ive been sick on 2 diff occasions in the last 2 weeks, once for an unexplainable stomach virus and the other for a sudden vomiting in the middle of night with no prior indication of me being sick. I put it down to extreme exam stress. Sigh...i just want it all to be over la.. =(

That Nagging Feeling

2010-08-03T17:51:00.005+08:00

In life there are some things that will just nag you at the back of your mind. The older you get the more of these things accumulate. Its like dust in your room...or debts on your credit card..or fat on your gut. It just builds up slowly n slowly.

The thing is, whether its dust debts or just plain fat, its always easy to accumulate, but never easy to eliminate. Have you ever tried cleaning a dusty room? or paying off a mountain of debt? or losing a big gut? It's hard.

So when there are things that bug me, its not easy to let go. Just like a diet, you might be doing well all this while, and then along comes this awesome cheesecake, and all hell breaks loose.

Simply put, I dont like you. I dont trust you. Why dont you just go away and never bother me again?

The Bucket List

2010-04-23T11:12:00.002+08:00

So before I get into the main post, I should update everyone on my New Style Of Living! Thanks to a humble 13 dollar VGA cable that i bought, my 32 inch tv has now been transformed into a 32 inch monitor for my laptop! Suddenly my 17 inch laptop screen has doubled in size..lol. Best part is its actually pretty clear, although words can be a bit hard to read, but watching videos is just a charm. Maybe further updates will come when i get like..a PS3 or a new PC...=P

Right, so we're done with that, and now on to the main topic. The Bucket List. To the uninformed, it commonly refers to a list of things a person wants to do before they 'kick the bucket', or die, so to speak. I think everyone has a bucket list in one way or another, whether its clearly written down in point form or if its some vague dream kept secret in one's mind, im sure all of us have some goals we would like to achieve before we konk off.

Anyway, i dont really have a written bucket list per se, but every once inawhile ill see something or remember something and then think "oh yea i really gotta try that one day".

And as days go by, those things that "i really gotta try one day" just gets longer...and longer....until just like how the trash needs to be taken out when it gets too full, so a bucket list must be cleared off before it gets too long.

Recently I cleared 2 things off my bucket list! Not very big or major things, but just one of those things that ive wanted to do? Lets start with the first one.

Singing In Front Of A Live Audience!

Most of you already know by now that im not afraid to belt my lungs out in a karaoke room. But what all of you (except if you happen to work in OSK or are called Wendy Tan or Leow Pok Xian) dont know, is I have now also stepped out on a stage in front of roughly 800 people and gave it my all too!! And all that wouldnt have been possible without the occasion of OSK's annual dinner on March 12.

To quickly answer the questions which I know have popped up immediately after reading that last line - Yes, it was a competition, Yes I sang solo, No I did not win anything and I sang I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston..hahaha.

All my life I've performed in front of many a church crowd, since yearly Family Gathering performances are a must. That has included singing and acting. But to actually stand in front of a large crowd of unknown strangers and sing a song...I've always wanted to know what that's like. Would I be nervous? Would it all come naturally? Would I have a serious case of stage fright? All these questions..and who could answer them, except myself when i try it out for myself?

In the end, it really didnt turn out as bad as I expected. Before the dinner itself there was a round of auditions (or screening more like since no one got cut from auditions anyway), and Boy, that first time i stood up there with only 3 "judges" and a handful of others looking at me, my legs were literally shaking. and i mean Trembling with Capital T! No doubt about it, that day was bad. But subsequently i had to do it on another day, and that was ok. And by the real day, my feet were as sturdy as tree trunks. But though there was no nervousness, i still forgot the first line of the song, and needed the prompter to help. I guess that just shows i was actually nervous, even if i didnt feel it at all..haha

But did i give my best during the performance? I guess i did gain more confidence further into the song, but i was nowhere near to sounding like my usual self laa..and i put the blame squarely on a few beers that loud yam sengs that were held minutes before i went on stage. My voice just turned into this much deeper and croaky version of myself..-___-""

Thank you @wensl88 for being there though ~~oh shit i just typed her twitter name! wtf!~~ , although not in body, but still very close to my heart. Literally. Through a phone in my coat pocket. HAhahah..that really was a stroke of genius..lol

Anyway i was thinking of blogging bout the other thing too..which is the time i called up a radio station and heard my voice on air! But this post has dragged on for too long and its a month since i last blogged! Bad Bad Timekeeping..so i shall post this now. Till next time.. =)

It Has Arrived!!

2010-04-06T10:27:00.004+08:00

Finally...The Time Has Come..!!!!!

*cue Drum Roll*

I present to you, my new standard of living!!

....ok so thats not my room or my living room. i dont have the speakers, i dont have the couch, nor the lights, nor anything in that picture actually......

....except the TV. which i NOW HAVE!!!!!

Yes folks, i am now the proud owner of a 32in Sony Bravia Bx300 LCD Tv. It is sitting perched on my table in the corner of my room. Envy much? =D

It has been a long and hard decision making process to come to this purchase. I think it still hasnt sunk in that i have just footed out 1.6k of my own money for what is basically a very big screen..=S

When I think about it, I've hardly ever made any big purchases in my life. If there were, it was because it was a necessity, not so much because i wanted it. The last time I did buy something big was my phone, which cost 1.4k. But that was a real necessity coz my old phone was already 4 years old and falling to bits. Before that again was my ipod, which i dont even remember how much it cost now..i think about 200 aussie..? that was about 600 ringgit.

So yes, i have never actually indulged in anything that remotely expensive. So you can imagine the agonizing process of deciding to-buy-or-not-to-buy. To make matters worse, we all know there are 156325435 different kinds of LCD tvs in the market, some cheaper some not so cheap even at the same size, so it was really hard knowing what would be the right one to buy.

I could it was practically decided the day we saw the Sony Maybank Credit Card being launched. I dont know what made us so blur but we somehow thought 20% off extended warranty actually said 20% off all product prices...so I immediately jumped at it and said OK LA ITS SONY!

...Actually now that i think about it, we didnt make use of any of the credit card features. Extended warranty wasnt necessary coz the TV already came with it. Couldnt do a 24 month instalment plan which is a privilege to the card because the amount i wanted to use for instalment wasnt enough! But then we still got 10x treat points for the card..so i guess that is a plus....?

hehe but its not good enough having a big tv if theres nothing to watch on it! So far ive already been slightly conned - although the tv can take usb thumbdrives it can only play mpeg files, and that only displays as a quarter size of the full screen. whats the point of that?? Then i dont have a cable to connect laptop to the tv, and i didnt wanna fork out another 150 for HDMI cable. So until i figure that out, the only way to watch anything is to hook up a dvd player to it..=s

Btw, i already had to go through hell just to buy the damn tv! The night was all going according to plan..better than i had expected actually. We reached Gardens just before 830, and was already processing payment a few minutes later. Thats when the trouble started, when the request for 24 month instalment kept getting rejected, and the supervisor had to keep calling Maybank to find out why, and of course Maybank is super-uduper-inefficient and lazy so the line keeps getting tai-chi'ed around until finally the ~~ball of chi~~ just gets cut off. Thanks to all that, we were there until 930 until i couldnt take it anymore and just canceled the whole thing. Then we rushed off to the other outlet in MV where were instantly told our plan for 24 month instalment wasnt possible coz the amount wasnt enough. Now if only the people in Gardens had known that, we would have saved ourselves a lot of valuable time..zzzz

But anyway, its all good now, and im still looking for things to hook it up to. Sooooo, in view of my difficult plight, anyone want to contribute to my PS3 Fund / New PC Fund?? you can contact me to make any donations, or just leave a msg in my Cbox..=D

Numbskulls

2010-03-25T12:27:00.002+08:00

Supposed to be heading off to Ipoh today to watch a colleague give a presentation on Trusts tomorrow. Funny thing is i packed my bags n all without knowing whether i would really be going or not coz i hadnt asked boss yet, but i wasnt expecting any problems and yea she did give the green light so it looks like i wont have to be stuck in office tomorrow hehe.

I had something in mind to blog about yesterday but yesterday was a really depressing day for me and that lil thing that i wanted to blog about suddenly seemed so insignificant that i lost interest in it. i think thats why i blog less these days - those random and spontaneous moments just dont impact me so much anymore. The need to jot them down is even less. But oh well, at least this time im not letting it go. This is more of a rant, so for those of u who have ever so missed my wonderful rants, miss no more!!

First, the background story. FlyFm has been having this contest where they are looking for a PA for PhatFabes. Anyway long story short, they narrowed it down to the final 6, and were gonna give them tasks to do to see who was the more capable one. 1 guy amongst the 6 was this guy called Aaron, and he was basically a total jerk la. The kind of guy everyone loves to hate, but yet cant get rid of because he actually does get the job done, although rubbing everyone the wrong way in the process.

So then as usual besides all that they had the regular morning topic, and to coincide with this rare species of guy like Aaron, the topic was about the biggest jerks youve met in your life. ~~dont u dare say its me!~~

so to kickstart things off, PhatFabes told a story of the time he was working in the clubs, and his friends would come to hang out as well. And because back then they had no car, he would ask one of his colleagues to drop them off near a mamak along the way. They didnt ask him to do it that often, probably only once or twice. But after those couple of times, one day his colleague said to him, "eh bro, why are you always hanging out with your 5 cent friends la?". Basically implying they were cheapskates and poor i guess.

So ever since then Fabes didnt like that guy anymore, and he thought that guy was a real jerk. Agree? I did. so no problems there. Everyone should think the same way right?

Wrong.

As usual listeners will be invited to call up and share their stories. it was all going as per normal morning rush hour talk show goes. But then, along comes this caller who doesnt have a story to share, but wants to comment on Fabes's story.

"i actually think u are wrong to judge him so quickly, Fabes. The guy was just giving his frank and honest opinion. I see nothing wrong with that. i think u are the one at fault for not giving his opinion enough consideration....."

And that was his 2 cents worth. I think everyone at the studio was quite shocked..lol. I dunno what Fabes was thinking, but I'm quite sure its an unspoken rule of a DJ never to disagree or argue with your listeners, and so he just said "oh well i guess i never thought of it that way."

But in reality i cant imagine what he was thinking. I certainly couldnt believe there could exist such an idiot in this world. I tried to call in and shell back my own 2 cents, but no one picked up my call, so im venting out my frustrations here..just in case any of you jokers have the same kind of thought as him, let me proceed to overwrite your brain now..lol

FIRST AND FOREMOST, there is a FINE LINE between being frank and honest, and being another thing called tactfull. There is a reason why people we know can be labeled into different categories like acquaintances, friends, best friends, wives, brothers, sisters, etc. Its because the level of relationship we have with that person determines the way we can behave with him/her. you DONT talk to your boss the way you might talk to your siblings, you DONT talk to your mother the way you talk to your friends, and you DONT comment on your work colleagues' friends the way you might do to your best friend.

When you just get to know someone, that person is not going to be totally open with you. He's not going to tell you his best friend lives in Australia, he broke up with his girlfriend last week, or that hes earning a 5 digit salary (in fact most people will never say that, no matter how close you are). A new friend will give you his name, job (however vague), and rough area of living. Topics of conversation range from anywhere between traffic jams to the weather. These are all safe, general topics of conversation, and helps build up a little bit of friendly rapport. But then touch the wrong topic, or ask a sensitive question, and all that careful building could go down the drain.

That is why there is the saying "think before you speak" - because not everything you speak is going to be beneficial to you or the other person listening, EVEN IF IT IS THE TRUTH! This brings me to my next point - Even if it is the truth, it doesnt mean you can say it! That guy might have been right. Fabes' friends really might have been cheapskate, 5 cent friends. Does that mean he had the right to say it to his face? Most certainly not. Many things we think in our head just cannot be said out loud. Its surprising how many people dont realize this. Lots of people have the thinking "oh since this is the truth, i have the right to say it la!". Wrong. If something you want to say will give no benefit to you or to anyone else, dont say it. For example, so what if you know you are richer than another guy? Do you have the right to say 'hey i've got more money than you!' just because its true? i think not.

Ah. Think my rant is going to end here. ~~Hope that guy rots in hell.~~

Anyway, moving on to other topics. about a week into my new layout, and i dont really like it. Cant customize as much as i would like to, and the html is hard to figure out. Might do another change if i can bother. But in the mean time, FOLLOW MEE!! why isnt anyone following me? i KNOW all of you have google accounts, so no excuse. lol.

In The Dressing Room

2010-03-18T12:14:00.002+08:00

So, in case its the first time here for you, or its been so long since your last visit that you can't even remember what this place used to look like, my blog layout has changed!

It used to be black, now its white. It used to have a picture on top, now it doesn't. It used to have descriptions of every link, now it doesn't.

Just some of the little changes I thought I should tell you in case you have forgotten what it used to look like already =P.

Anyway, yes I've finally decided to revert back to a very un-original standard blogger template probably used by millions of others (*gasp* the horror!)as opposed to my beautiful, original, well-planned layout that I spent blood sweat and tears labouring over for the good part of many years.

....I think I'm regretting it already. =S

But No la, there are reasons why I wanted to change. First of all my own template was just getting too messed up with too many bugs and bad html coding. I ain't no html expert, and what I could do was done through trial and error. Consequently many trials resulted in many errors, and I was left with a poor baby of a blog layout, stitched and patched up many times coz I dropped the poor thing on its head so many times.. =S

Oh well. This heralds a new beginning I suppose? maybe one that includes more frequent posting..?? If Wayne Rooney is in range of overtaking Ronaldo's haul of 42 goals, then I'm not too far off from beating my last year's record of.....wait for it....7 posts!! hahahah

Another reason why I'm changing to white? ~~it matches my girlfriends blog~~ It's more work friendly. Opening up a black website means you're definitely not looking at one made for work. Do you see any bank sites with black backgrounds?? I think not. That's quite an interesting fact actually..wonder if anyone has researched it before..heh

So there you go, 2 reasons why I've finally plucked up the courage to turn my layout around. For all of my old loyal readers, if your blog is not in my links, it's probably because A) YOU HAVNT POSTED IN YONKS!! or B) I'm in the midst of putting it up!! so be patient.. =))

Exclusive Pics!!

2010-03-03T14:46:00.006+08:00

For a long time now I've said I can't be bothered to put any more pictures in my blog because whatever i have comes from facebook so i shouldnt have to waste my time posting photos that even more people have access to on facebook anyway. Because of that, you'll notice my blog has been bereft of pictures for awhile now.. (actually my blog has been bereft of any form of post or picture..hehe) But for the first time this year, I'm going to show u pictures that no one on facebook can see! As part of my commitment to improving the blogging service as well as quality that is provided to my loyal batch of readers, I am gonna post up some pictures of the view from the hotel me n mum stayed during our trip to Sg in Jan. This is in line with my continued persistence of keeping this blog alive and repaying the faith that all of You You and YOU have placed in me! =D

.....Wow that sounded so much like a standard corporate press release. I'm really getting good. =p

But back to the point. As I said earlier, in January Me n Mother went down to Singapore to attend a cousin's wedding. It was held at Swissotel The Stamford, a 5 star hotel in the heart of town. Thanks to the wedding we got discounted room rates, and coz mum said she only goes down once in a very blue moon, she decided to treat herself (and me!) to a stay at the hotel. We even got a free upgrade when we arrived! Which is why we ended up on the..52nd floor i think. The only word to describe the view was "Spectacular". Being not just high up, but nicely located just next to the ocean and Sg city gives a F***ing good view! Below are the pictures i captured...

This is me, standing on the balcony, looking to my Left. That little round circle in the distance is the ferris wheel that i sat on with the uni gang in December 08! Sure brings back memories now... =)

To the left, but not extreme left until u can see the ferris wheel, was this building, which is some cultural building..i think its singapore arts centre? or philharmonic centre? dunno la..obviously i couldnt read the words from 52nd floor =p. In the distance u can see the Resorts World Sentosa coming up! Today the casino is already open, and the theme park is going to be following suit soon? Well in Jan everything was still in the finishing stages, so thats what it looks like. =)

Moving on to a direct view of what was in front of me. Admit it, its a great view isnt it? Right in front and down below is a pitch of some sort, and behind that low orange building u can make out the river thats flowing into the sea. And behind That is basically what Singapore is so famous for - lots and lots of high rise buildings..lol. I must say it feels good to be higher or as high as many of those buildings.. =D

Here's one attempt at doing a panoramic shot with my HTC Touch 3G. Thanks to POK for teaching me how to do this all that time ago during that trip down Great Ocean Road, when blur pok didnt have his camera and so was forced to use my humble little Sony Ericcsson k750i..haha. I still miss that phones camera..even though it was only 2megapixels it could easily stand up to the average camera phone today.. =)

This is to the right of where i was. Nothing much to see really except buildings and buildings going off into the distance. The view in front and to the left looking out toward the sea was much more captivating. =)

Once again, another attempt at a panoramic shot. This was my first attempt i think, hence the bad quality. The dark colour doesn't mean it was going to rain. Rather, its my failure to properly align the 3 shots properly so that they overlap with minimum gaps. The more gap u have the more detached the picture will look. =)

A final 3 shots of the view, and now you should have a pretty damn good idea of what kinda view i got to wake up to for one fine morning.. =P

the dinner was held on the 71st floor, wayyyy up at the top. It was a small-ish wedding, only about 10 tables. But thats to be expected considering how much money it must have cost per table to do a dinner up there...=S The view was really spectacular though, and i can safely say no other wedding is gonna be able to "top" (top? as in higher than? geddit? geddit?? =D) this one!

After dinner and after making a surprise call to the girlfriend, I went back up to check out the bar, Equinox, which is also around the 70th floor if I remember correctly. By the time I got there it was past 12, and I guess because it was a Sunday night there was hardly anyone left there already. But still I got to check out the interior and all, and it is definitely a great place to just chill out, relax, and enjoy the view. I dont even think theres any cover charge to pay, although i dunno whats the price of drinks like. still, to pay for an experience up there is well worth it IMO =)

So that concludes the wedding in SG. There was nothing spectacular about the food. Dessert was good, and it had very nice presentation, but I didnt know how to adjust my phone camera light settings then so the pic didnt turn out good. Oh well.

Till next time....which may be soon....or a long time to come. =P

So, It's 2010

2010-01-15T15:59:00.005+08:00

So 2010, you're finally here eh? Well let me tell you..the guy before u has left a shitload of work for u clean up, and he wasnt doing a very good job either. But as with all newbies, let me tell u what 2009 was able to do for me while he was here........

The first 2 months of January and February was a wonderful time of relaxing and enjoyment, without a single serious care in this world. University life had just ended, and the new relationship with the girlfriend had just begun. Without anything else to think about except going out to get a job, it was easy to just sit back and enjoy the good life. Coupled with a trip to Bangkok and Phuket with the high school buddies it really was a time to remember. Unfortunately it was planned before Wendy was elevated to girlfriend status, or else it would have been perfect to bring her along on the trip too.. =)

When March came around, the girlfriend had begun her first job at Cerebos, and with relatives also gathering for a function in which i was sure to be asked what my future plans were, i decided the time was right to start doing something of my own. And start i did, beginning by walking into Alexis Kitchen + Bar one fine day to answer a walk-in advertisement for waiters. Without any prior work experience at all and no qualification in FnB, it took a bit of smooth talking to convince the manager that i would give my best and be committed for a long term. But convince him i did, and by the next few days i had become a part-time waiter at Alexis, learning the ropes of a service industry first-hand.

Waitering was one of those things that could be on my list of things-to-do-before-i-die if i actually had one. Me and Pok always talked about it since we were...16? 17? It would have been great if we had done it together, but in the end time couldnt wait any longer and at least i managed to cross off one of those to-do things on my imaginery list =P It was hard work, long hours at times, and crappy pay, but i really dont regret it because I've always felt happy serving people and being sociable. Some times i feel its a shame that our passions in life cant always translate into a comfortable, easy living for ourselves. Not everyone gets to pursue their dream job; not everyone can say their job gives them mental AND physical satisfaction together. More often than not its take one and leave the other. For those that have achieved both, Good for u! u are one of a rare few in this wide world.

Waitering lasted for 2 months from March to April. The highlights include helping out in a catering event at a very..VERY rich mans house, helping out in 2 events, namely the launch of a HP notebook and the 1 year anniversary of a magazine (shit i cant rmb the name of that damn mag!....wait..i think it was..August Man..? is there such a mag..? =s) which was cool esp coz i wasnt officially working for them anymore at the time. i am thankful for being given that opportunity. Its even something that goes down in my CV today..haha

On May 4th i began my first permanent job as a Bancassurance Sales Executive at Public Bank. Its important to highlight my ideas about jobs at this point in time - I had no idea what i wanted, i thought nearly all jobs were the same, i thought everyone started off equal. Boy was i wrong, but hey i didnt know that then. When i first took the job..i cant really remember what i was thinking. I think my rough idea was to hang on there for bout a year, have a good experience as i managed to have at Alexis, and earn good money while doing it. Everything was going fine in the first month of training..and in the first few weeks back at the branch i still maintained a pretty positive outlook. As i said my plan was never to stay for long, and i continued looking up jobs and going for interviews while working at the bank. But as days became weeks and weeks became months, the reality of the situation that i wasnt going to make it in that deadend job together with the sheer impossibility of finding a new job that interested me enough turned everything upside down.

And so the initial plan to stay at PB till i got a new job, which i was predicting should have taken bout 3-4 months, ended up dragging on through my whole 6 month probation. i DID get a job offer early on at PB, but it was for a marketing exec. position at an insurance company so i wasnt totally taken with it, and i decided to hold out for something more. Problem was nothing more came for 6 months, and only right at the last month of my time in PB did i get the current job offer at OSK where i am today. In fact that offer came so late that i was already contemplating 6 months in Johor to take part in an unemployed graduate training scheme...but thats another story.

The 6 months between May and October had been some of the hardest of my entire life. Being unprepared for the challenges faced by the average jobhunter together with dealing with relationship issues that i had never faced before all took its toll those few months. It took a lot of blood sweat and tears, and some scars will take a long time to heal. But today i say ive taken it as part n parcel of the life process and i was one of the unfortunate ones to be chosen to go through it. Does it make me a better person? Maybe. Was it an eye-opening experience? Sure was. The volumes that i learnt could probably fill a book, which was why i initially wanted to pen part of the whole experience down in my posts about the job hunt. Butttt as usual...laziness and procrastination kicked in and so here we are today lol.

So i quit my job at PB on...27 October i think? The last few weeks at the bank were good ones - i was finally starting a new job, i had online game to fill all those hours at the bank with, and boss was letting me stay on and collect salary for doing nothing. To be honest, my time at PB wasnt all bad. Career-wise it may have been a total dud, but i realize now i had much personal freedom during that time, and i like to think i took advantage of it to the fullest. I made a few friends...not a lot i admit, but a few that i should keep in touch with in future. I took time off whenever i wanted to go for interviews or just to run off early from work...and who knows when i'll get the chance to do things like that and get paid highly for it? Maybe never. =)

For the 3 weeks after that in between my old and new jobs i stayed at home everyday watching the workmen do renovation on my bathroom. It was a time of online gaming for all the daylight hours, and goin out to hve fun at night. It ALMOST felt like the few months after exams when i waas so so free and easy with no worries...Almost. In the back of my head something was nagging at me, some little itch in a region that couldnt be scratched, trying to tell me that i had to be doing something and not getting left behind by everyone else.

But in the blink of an eye, those 3 weeks were over, and my first day of work at OSK began! and on what other auspicious day should my first day of work be but on my birthday itself?? lol. I did have a celebration the weekend before work started, and thanks a lot to Wendy for organizing my not-so-surprise dinner...hehe. That deserves a post on its own, but unfortunately I've been wayyyy behind on my postings, and i dont think i can make up for that much lost time. But never fear...photos are always readily available from facebook, so memories are never forgotten while facebook still stands..haha.

And of course, how can i forget about November 28th? The one year mark from the day I drove out at 2am to pick up a girl who needed a ride home. We tried our very best to make the day as special as we could, and i dare say we made it a day to remember. A trip up KL Tower, a meal at jap buffet and a long drive home made the day worth remembering indeed.. =)

I wont continue with the other month+half of 2009. It was a bittersweet end, one that marked many milestones and new beginnings. 2010 has begun slightly differently this time, because it feels like im carrying forward some of the baggage from last year. It hasnt really been possible to begin this year on a clean slate, and so i roll into 2010 hoping that it will be uneventful unlike 2009. Its been one and a half months so far. Ten and a half more to go. =)

A Summary Thus Far

2009-10-14T13:23:00.002+08:00

I promised that I would write something after the whole ordeal was over. Well, for now it is at least. Didnt / Couldnt really believe it until i signed the offer letter yesterday, making everything official. So yes, I do have a new job now. OSK's operations associate program which is gonna be starting next month in November. What date in November? Why dont u clever little boys and girls take a guess? Guess wrong u die. =P

I wont deny i was really happy the day i got the offer. It felt a world was lifted off my shoulders..kinda. But for better or worse, i am always a realistic person and try to be as honest as i can with myself. And honestly, there are parts that i wish this job didnt come with. Bond is one thing of course..no one likes to be bonded, but i can accept that. I just wish OSK could be next to a monorail station at least! Up till now i still havnt figured out a mode of transport that will cost me less than 6 bucks a day (by public transport). It looks like parking alone in the area costs around 12 bucks a day. Factor in tolls and petrol and whatever else, and though i maintain my same pay cheque, theres def gonna be higher expenses with this job. =(

And last of all..maybe im just unhappy over still being in the banking sector. As dom put it : "its ironic how you always want to get out of banking and now youre back in it again", and i couldnt agree more. But as the wise old saying goes, beggars cannot be choosers, and I really am grateful and thankful to God for putting an end to months of distress and uncertainty which Literally felt like eternity. I AM looking forward to the whole thing, although i predict a very VERY steep learning curve owing to 0 real experience in any kind of office work. Just be prepared for many more rants to come..except maybe in a different vein. =/

But ANYWAY, my whole plan after finding my next job after PB was to give a whole summary of all the interviews i have been for ever since day 1 of looking for a job before and after PB. Lets not count all the emails and applications i have made on jobstreet; over the last 7-8 months i have clicked 'apply' on jobstreet roughly 60 times, and sent around 20-30 emails directly to companies about jobs. Here i just wanna talk about the interviews i actually went for, and through it all you will see how i started from a total Noob to jobhunting, slowly gaining experience along the way. I only hope i can help anyone i can, so that others wont have to go through the same painful learning experiences as i did. =)

By now my memory is kinda hazy, coz i nvr expected to make this post after so long since my very first interview. But ill try my best to rmb. This whole story is gonna take a few posts to complete anyway, such is the detail that i can provide..lol. I def cant rmb which interview came first in some instances, but ill try my best..hehe

*to be continued......................*

Just Kill Me Lah

2009-08-27T20:39:00.002+08:00

I am so drained.

Another rejection today. Boo hoo hoo.

No big deal you say? Try again? There'll be better ones coming along? Be patient / it takes time?

Whatever it is, ive heard it all before. You'd be surprised how quickly you can hear every consoling phrase after 3 months of continued rejection. I've already lost count of the number of times..there might be close to 20 by now...im not even sure anymore.

What is going on with me? Everything just isnt going my way the last few months. I havnt done well at work, ive failed at practically every real potential interview ive been for, and worst of all, i cant even go a few days without causing hurt to my loved ones. I can hardly tell you what ive been doing this last few weeks coz honestly i dont even want to remember it...all i can care about is just getting another day and another week over with, and screw everything else.

I dont even eat properly anymore. Me, the one who never turned down food or was unable to finish all good food on the table, suddenly cant finish my own portion of fish n chips or chicken chop. Its not all the time la..usually i can still plough through 2 bowls of rice and what not, but then there are times when theres just no appetite for food...and a few mouthfuls of whatever im eating later im full and dont wanna take in anymore.

Its probably the eating less and irregular times which is giving me gastric which is giving me crazy stomach aches. But whatever la. i dont care.

I even lose sleep!! I never thought I would have problems sleeping, let alone wake up before an alarm clock set at 715. Well guess what..its happened. no matter if i sleep at 12 or 1..by 5 or 6 i can be wide awake. Its not a good feeling either...I might feel rested then, but by the middle of the day its a struggle just to keep my eyes open. The worst was a week or two ago..but its not so bad now. But then again who knows..with the latest rejection itll prob come back again la. Ah but whatever. who cares about a little bit of lost sleep anyway.

This isnt a cry for help, coz who can help me apart from God at this point? Whos going to be able to tell me why all this is happening, and why is it not ending even though im putting all my effort into this? I want answers, but whos gonna give me the exact ones? Certainly not you, not me, not anyone on this great earth.

2 months ago I said i was going through the biggest test of my life. Well guess what? 2 months later, its not any better. In fact its worse. But then ive come to a realization. Things dont get me down so much anymore. Its like ive learned to cope slightly now...build an imaginary wall around my core emotions, so to speak. Thats not to say im totally unaffected..or else u would never see another emo post like this. But its not a happy kind of coping...more like all the pain and frustration and anger and worry and doubts and fears and confusion and sadness and tears and pity and all that other negative energy has taken so much from me that i dont feel it anymore. Its like..say you sat on your hand. At first there might be some pain, but then as the blood flow is stopped, what happens? It starts to lose feeling and become numb. Well that about sums it up right now la. The hand just gets more numb and numb..and either im gonna stand up and all the blood is gonna rush back to it with a huge case of pins n needles later or the whole damn thing will just drop off and die.

Screw it la. i dont want to waste my time getting all emo about this. If im doomed to have a majority of my life like this, so be it. Im sure there must be so many more people worse off than me anyway, so who am i to complain? im getting exactly what i deserve arent i...so why dont i just go sit in a corner and watch the world pass me by la.

2nd Attempt!

2009-08-11T10:59:00.002+08:00

I apologize for lack of updates. The number of posts I am making these days is kind of like the sales achievements at public bank - Way Below Expectations. hahahaha

Anyway...its come to a point where i really dont wanna blog anymore until a really significant change happens..otherwise im just going to be repeating the same old drab stories and ranting bout the same old things. Im tired of all that la. Repeating it over and over again doesnt help. Solve one problem and another immediately takes its place. Maybe when it all stops...IF it stops...ill let u know.

My girlfriend turned 21 on the weekend though! Certainly turned out to be a very memorable occasion although she kept insisting she didnt want a big party =P. I would normally go into much greater detail, but she said she doesnt want me to fill in the blanks of what happened that night, so I will spare her the details. Sorry guys..hehe.

All I'll say is...it was a good dinner at Summer Palace(?) and a good night at Opiumm @ Jaya One. I managed to find all the right presents..so even though my budget is busted this month, it was all worth it. =D

She's gone away to Ipoh for her next assignment already...and Im missing her all the time..=(

But enough of that. Im sure the rest of u dont wanna see all the mushy stuff here..hahaha. Just wanna update one other thing, and that is.............

MY TWITTER ACCOUNT GOT SUSPENDED!!!!

How? I sent a spam tweet. Who did it? I dunno. It wasnt me. I didnt log into twitter from a Friday and when i went back in on Monday it was already suspended..so ive lost all my hard-earned followers!! T.T

Nvm..I'll start again!! I now have another new twitter account...come follow me at

@adams2ndaccount !!!! =D

The Bitterness Of Defeat

2009-06-18T13:58:00.003+08:00

Time has moved on as it always has, one day at a time, with days turning into weeks and weeks turning into months. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, and yesterday becomes last week, and before u know it, months have flown by.

.......at least, thats what ive been told all the time.

Sigh dear blog, why does time seem to move so fast..and so slow at the same time? On one hand, the arrival of a weekend is met with joy as another day of rest comes again. But on the other, it is met with angst and disappointment because it means another week of no change, with nothing to look forward to. Just like stagnant water; it flows nowhere and it goes nowhere. No more comes in and no more goes out. How long must the water wait.. To feel the rush of flowing through a drainpipe, or to hear the sweet sound of a cup being filled?

Recent events have sort of put things into perspective for me. Do I wallow in self-pity? Am I even more impatient than I first thought? How do I handle rejection? All these questions have plagued me for so many weeks...it's as if they're determined to drag me into this quagmire of gloom and doom. It's been less than 2 months since I started..but why do I feel so trapped already? A nagging thought at the back of my mind tells me its because 2 weeks here at the branch has shown me what the next 5 months is going to be like, and it scares me. It scares me shitless.

But must it really be so? Or is that through my own doing? The odds are stacked so high against me; this I know. The chance of failure is so much higher than success; this I know too. This may not have been how I had envisaged it in my mind, But what can I do about it now?

I want an escape. I want change. But rationally speaking..a change to what? something better? what is better? Sometimes i think i know, and other times i feel like i know nothing. Do I not even understand myself ??

Then the other side says...do I want to leave this just like that? This was what I thought I saw myself doing. Not just doing it, but doing it better than everyone else. Now reality has thrown black paint all over the beautiful picture in my mind. But I still want to paint that picture that I saw for so long. I want to scrub off the black, and start from the drawings, till finally the painting is finished.

Of course, the risk is ever present. what if the paint, that is so very black, cannot be scrubbed? I only have 4 months. And if I fail, what then? I sell insurance, yet in this case, I have none. Ironic isn't it?

This is the time when faith is the strongest, is what I tell myself. I have been through hard times before and have emerged with no regrets, thank God. But...sigh..it always feels like the good times vanish as quickly as they came, while the hard times just drag on and on.....

I can safely say now - this is the biggest test of my life so far. Everything comes on so fast that it threatens to submerge me. But I will make it through. I always have. God has always been with me, every step of the way. =)

Tweet !

2009-06-05T17:52:00.001+08:00

You know..since i hardly have time to blog here anymore...

follow me on twitter la!!! hahahah

just go find me at @adamng...if u have twitter. if not go get one now. =D

of coz this doesnt mean im throwing away dear old bloggie...i just dont have the chance to update laa..aihh...='(

The Great IceCream Adventure!

2009-04-19T02:30:00.005+08:00

Aaaaaaaand guess whos back!!!! After taking a very luxurious break from blogging for bout 4 months ~~which i really couldnt afford actually!!~~, i am back again to satisfy your boredom at work, school, or play! In the last 4 months, i, surprise surprise!, have actually amassed things to blog about! Actually the only things i really want to blog about are my part time work and all the numerous interviews ive been for, just so that i will remember these things next time when i can hardly remember how it was like when i just started working heheheh.

BUT before that, i shall update you on what I did on Friday!! My good friend dom, for those of u who dont know, has this knack of finding interestings to join or try out la. For example it was thx to him that we all knew about the HSBC competition. This time though it was something less academic, and something more sinful - an icecream buffet! and not just ANY icecream, but Haagan-Daaz!!!!

This is a recent promotion at the Haagan-Daaz outlet in Soho, Solaris Mont Kiara. As the poster says, pay 40 bucks (not 33.90 coz its ++) and u get to stuff yourself with as much icecream as u can!! Dom was saying this was such a great deal and he was going to go all out and make his moneys worth and blablabla, but i was more sceptical. Anyway i decided to go in the end, so how did the two of us fare in the end!?!?!

Round 1 : Brimming With Confidence And Enthusiasm

We were told that we could order 3 scoops at a time, and so i started with Caramel, Chocolate Chip, and Very Berry Strawberry. It looked like this :

The first question everyone asks is "how big are the scoops??". Well i dont know how to describe it la. Basically its the regular size u would get for a banana split, coz they use the same bowl. Theres no con relating to the size of the scoop la, coz its eat-all-you-can anyway.

So anyways, there we both were, prepped and ready for a full-out assault on the ice-cream! and we didnt hold back, finishing our first 3 scoops in about 5 minutes. I personally enjoy very sweet icecream - the creamier and sweeter it is, the better! So pls realize that I rate the flavours based on MY preferences. What i like might not be what you like..hehe. In this case, i utterly l-o-v-e-d the Caramel! the richness and sweet taste of it means its hard to take big mouthfuls at a time, but ah, how heavenly it is! it made up for the disappointing choc. chip and v.b strawberry, which were quite sucky.

Round 2 : Taken A Few Hits But Still Ready For More

After the first round of eating mainly in silence, we realized this was going to get boring real fast without some kind of entertainment, especially since we realized we were gonna be there for quite a long time. Hence i ran out to buy newspapers and Galaxie...the first time ive bought that mag since last year i think. I came back, Dom was already starting his 2nd round of 3 scoops, and I went to get my next 3 that looked like... :

from top to bottom is : Chocolate, Green Tea, and Vanilla Pecan! In the background is dom reading the Galaxie mag, and on the side is a paper napkin with my ratings of all the flavours i tried. Ill get back to that later..hehe.

I honestly think this was the turning point in our icecream adventure. This was the round that nearly knocked us out....or to be more specific, the green tea nearly knocked us both out! Not to say it wasnt good..in fact the problem was that it was TOO GOOD! it was soooooo strong that by the time we finished that we could hardly taste anything else, and it sorta killed our apetite for any more icecream.

But of course we didnt just give up so easily!! We took a break, finished the newspapers, and went back for more!........

.....at least I went back for more la. Dom was still so burned out from the green tea that he had to rest a bit longer..hahahaha

So anyways, i came back with my 3rd round of 3 scoops, and it looked like this..! :

From left to right is : strawberry, strawbery cheesecake, and vanilla chocolate brownie. For those who still dont know, my fav flavour is strawberry...thats why u see so many strawberry flavours around here. =P

At this point, the icecream was really getting kinda sickening. you could say the icecream was coming up to my throat edi. Taking a break helped, and so did drinking plenty of water, but NOT ENOUGH. Theres just something about icecream that makes u say "thats enough!" after a certain amount. Ugh.

Round 4 : The Final Push!!

BUT!! i wasnt going to admit defeat just yet!! After all how could i go home and blog about this adventure if i only managed a paltry 9 scoops??? And so, after a much shorter break this time, i went back for the last 3 scoops!

This time i only went back for 1 new flavour....i think. ~~hehe this is what happens when u procrastinate blogging..u forget things =S~~ After the fiasco with the green tea, i wasnt gonna risk any new funky flavours. Besides by this time there was only the diff choc flavours left, and im really not a big choc ice cream fan. And so for my final 3 scoops i repeated Strawberry, which as u will see later was one of my fav flavours, and went for a safe Tiramisu and Macadamia Nut. Tira was disappointing...a slice of tira cake is so much better than that ice cream. M.Nut was ok laa..but i might be a bit bias - it was my 12th and last scoop edi..i dont think my taste buds and brain were communicating very well already. it might have gone someting like this :

Taste buds : Hmm...more food. time to send up to brain n see what it thinks.

Brain : Ahh..food! Hang on..wats this..? MORE ICECREAM?!?! WTFZOMG$#@!#$@%!!! isnt he sick of all this yet?!?!?! Im sooo sick of it!! and i better make sure he gets the message...*sends back reply to taste buds*

Taste buds : ok Brain is done..whats the verdict...? WHAT?? blander than plain porridge...?!?! there must be something wrong here..................

hahaha ok thats really lame. in my defense its been a long time since i last blogged...im recovering the lost touch :P

So after the dust had settled, I had conquered 12 scoops of icecream, and dom managed 8! the overall ranking of the flavours are : -

(out of 10)
Caramel - 8.5
Choc. Chip - 5
Very Berry Strawberry - 6
Mango Passion (this was doms) - 4 (yea it really sucked :P)
Green Tea - 7
Vanilla PEcan - 7
Chocolate - 8
Strawberry - 9
Strawberry Cheesecake - 8
Vanilla Chocolate Brownie - 8
Tiramisu - 7
Macadamia Nut - 8

I know i complained a lot about Green Tea, but i still had to give it a 7 because as a green tea flavour it IS good, just that it cant be eaten with other flavours coz they really dont go.

Aaaaaand so to wrap up this post, there'll be a final picture of something we both wished we had that day......

BANANAS!! hahaha those are 3 bananas that were at Grandmas house in Ipoh. dont think u can tell from the pic, but those were the 3 FATTEST bananas u have ever seen! they were so fat, 2 of them squashed out the middle one so much so that it had no space, and had to stand up like that. which is why it kinda looks like...........ahem.......whatever. =P

New Year, New Beginnings!

2009-01-06T23:45:00.003+08:00

So its out with 2008, and in with 2009!! 08 was a real rollercoaster of a year, but thxfully it ended on a high, and so we enter 2009 full of optimism and courage to face the year ahead!

.....at least thats what we, the donkey fresh grads will say la. In reality the economy looks so bad we might as well be looking for jobs as direct salesmen..lol

Anyyywayyyss, this year's NYE has to be the most outlandish celebration yet! Beginning with a barbecue with Wendy and her friends, it ended with a half-hour hike up Bukit Kiara, where 20+ of us (including dom, pok, eva, eewen and sean) walked alllll the way up tarmac roads and dirt trails to reach a little clearing that overlooked the whole Klang Valley! Our timing couldnt have been cut anymore fine, coz as we neared the clearing at the top we could already hear the *pop pop* sound of fireworks!! and so, mustering the last remaining drops of energy left in our tired legs, we forced ourselves up the hill where we were greeted with a fantastic sight of fireworks going off at 4-5 different places! All muscle pain, mosquito bites, and sweaty clothes were momentarily forgotten as everyone basked in our achievement of making it to the top in time! The view was indeed spectacular, and we have no one else but Joshua to thank for gettin all of us up ther..hehe

btw, Genting from afar looks like The Enterprise from Star Trek! the lights are shaped in a horseshoe-like curve in the sky, so the whole place looks like a giant spaceship..heheh. Its a shame we didnt get a whole 360 view of KL la ~~that might have included Puchong haha~~ but i think what we got to see was damn good already. =D

Sooo...new things in 2009? No. 1 is find a job lor! I kept thinking of pushing it off till after the Bangkok trip next month but i dont think thats possible la. What i want to apply for? No clue. Right now i just look at the company location and if i see Mid Valley Megamall, Plaza Sentral or Jalan Klang Lama then im immediately hooked hahahaah. It seems even grandma and uncle are bugging dad to bug me to get a job! Compared to me other cousins, i dono why theyre so eager for me to get out there in the world. I mean, fine la economy is bad and all, but is 1 month of lazing around so sinful meh?? And if my own father isnt complaining yet then whats the problem laa..haizz /wtf

In other news, the WaterGun Fight that im planning IS going to happen in a few weeks time! i dont care how pessimistic u guys sound about it! If i can get in touch with this supplier and i find some really good prices, then u all have no excuse la! If i dont...then too bad youre all just gonna have to pay retail!!! haahaha =D

Now the only real headache actually is a venue. I jsut realized ZhenHan is the only one that lives with a swimming pool downstairs lor. I would still LOVE to do it at Ah Poks house laaa after ALLL the planning we I did!!! But if he says no then what can i say riiight??? aihhhh..... (ah pok i hope u are reading this very sorrowful msg loud and clear hahaha)

One Long Holiday

2008-12-24T23:26:00.004+08:00

So...the last time i blogged, it was December 3rd. Results had just come out a few days ago (which i passed of course! otherwise none of u would see me still walking this earth..zz), aaaaaand....someone got elevated to a much more special position amongst everyone else..=D

But anyway, as much as i would love to leave that "Special Days" post there as a great memory, life still goes on, and theres plenty more to blog about!

Since Dec 3, i have been up to Ipoh (again!) to attend Sai Mun's wedding which included a wedding LUNCH at Syuen hotel...definitely something people dont see very often..lol. But it was all done to benefit the KL ppl that had to travel back home the same day, hence the break from traditional wedding dinner. It really wasnt that bad, just that it felt so weird dressing up for lunch..and during the meal it felt like we should be getting home to bed..haha

But although trips to Ipoh are kind of a drag to me, this one was very important, coz i had to seek some "loose change" from Grandma for my singapore trip!!! And boyyy did i get my loose change! All 300 sing dollars! It was definitely much more than what i had hoped for...in fact i wasnt even hoping to get anything. i DID have a plan to cover my own costs laaa just in case youre thinking my whole plan was to leech of parental figures. Honestly this surprised me too. But hey...my family just never ceases to surprise me la. After so many years i can nvr predict whats going to come next...zzzz

Aaaand sooo, went to ipoh on saturday, wedding on sunday morning and afternoon, and drove back after dinner. Monday afternoon it was finally time for Me, Andrew, Mel, Mich, and Wendy to hitch the bus down to Singapore! This long-awaited trip which was born in the high levels of Monash library finally worked out in the end, and i'm just as surprised as u are that it did! Normally all we do is talk and talk with no action, but even though once again we were plagued with last minute planning and school holiday crowds, we managed to agree on the dates and find a veeeery comfy bus to get us down to singapore!

For details on the whole Sg trip...i cant write it all here laa!! 3 days of sightseeing is just too much! Zhenhan covered a lot in his blog edi, and there are more than 200 photos on facebook for anyone curious enough to go and see. Basically, it kinda went like this....

Day 1 - 330 bus to singapore. reached at about..10 plus? waited for zh to come get us, then went for supper. end of day 1.
Day 2 - begin with free continental breakfast at the apartment (this continued every morning). Bum around in apartment till afternoon (this also continued every morning =P). Walk down to visitor tourist centre at the corner of Orchard and Cairnhill. Collect lots and lots of brochures. Decided on visiting zoo and night safari that day, but loitered along Orchard Road till we felt it was time to go, so off we went!
Day 3 - Sentosa Island day! A whole day of amazing rides and sights, including the Tiger Sky Tower, Images of Singapore (where we spent the longest time if u can believe it lol!), 4D Cineblast, TWO luge rides (coz one is never enough!! hahaha), and a 15 minute dash through Fort Sisolo which happened due to a lack of time management and a very very badly located public toilet!! Dinner ended up at Newtons circus, and when we finally got back to the apartment..it was story telling time..of How I Fell Off The Deep End. =D
Day 4 - Everyone was tired and broke after 2 days of fun, but me mel and wendy still made the trip to Katong to eat...what else..Katong laksa! Ok la it wasnt just for that..there was also a certain hobby shop i wanted to visit. That was day time. Night consisted of Singapore Flyer and dinner at Clarke Quay, finally ending with a good clubbing time at Zirca!
Day 5 - Time to say farewell and sayonara to a great holiday and wonderful host! Proper goodbyes didnt reaaaally get to be exchanged coz of bad time management (again!). But we all made it to the bus in one piece, and everyone got home safe.

So there u go, a quick run through of all 5 days of the trip! Def NO REGRETS whatsoever with taking this trip. in fact im sure everyone is bitten with the traveling bug and cant wait for the next excursion somewhere..hahaha..ahh well patience ppl..who knows what jan will bring. =P

okkkk laaa...i know nearly all of u have prob skipped past EVERYTHING ive just written, looking for some kind of picture!! well FINE, these are up on facebook anyway ~~i havnt had time to go get the not-uploadable pics =P~~ so im just plucking those of both of us and my fav group shots hehehe.

from l-r : Andrew, Me, Wendy, Mel, Michelle, and ZH!

THIS is the best picture of the whole trip!! no one can dispute it looks like some cover straight out of a drama series...now all we need is our own name for our drama..HAHAHA

Special Days

2008-12-03T01:38:00.000+08:00

In November, theres like...a multitude of people having their birthdays. from roughly the 2nd week of November all the way till the end its just non-stop birthdays...including mine of course, on the 16th. =P

But theres another date to add now.

and thats 28 November!

No its not someones birthday, but its still a special day, because its the day someone finally had the guts to say what he felt like saying for so long..=D

Some times we need to take risks in life..otherwise how would we ever achieve something more? Ive known that for so long...but its so hard to actually push for change. We always try to kid ourselves and say thers nothing wrong with the present. But i can tell u one other thing right now.

In the end, the result and the relief is all worth it.

=D

Happy (Belated) Birthday!

2008-11-21T13:08:00.009+08:00

Dear Bloggie, i have turned 21!! After recording down all my teenage crap for the last 4 years, youve finally joined me in that magical milestone age of 21. Has much changed?? I like to think not. Not in this blog at least. Partly becoz im so freakin lazy to change even the slightest detail on your layout...but also coz im too sentimental to all my hard work patching this html together that i dont want to change..heeh.

But anyways, this year i actually organized my own bday party! Never before in my life have i ever bothered setting a proper venue..inviting ppl..and planning the whole day. I've always preferred getting either the best buddies..or a few guys together and watch a movie or somethin. But, since this 21 is supposed to be an important age, i decided to do something bigger lo.

BUT FIRST! what was i doing at the time i turned 21?? i thought long and hard about it..considered calling out friends to hve a few drinks together..but since i was already planning a party the next day i didnt see the point. So i chose the easiest option that has served me well over the years - Dom, Pok, and ZhenHan at DDP. Absolutely unoriginal yes, but who says everyone has to turn 21 doing something crazy right? =D

and as the clock struck 12, there were my 3 buddies digging into a plate of carrot cake. Lame as it sounds, it certainly was the best way to turn 21! Amongst all the nonsense chatting none of us even noticed it was already 12 until the first sms came in from....well you know who u are. =P

BUT lets just fast forward to the next day when the real party started! It was a real last minute thing ~~so whats new right? =S~~ becoz my last exam finished on Monday and my bday was on Sunday! so i hadnt booked any apartments yet..and by the time i started calling everywhere was fully booked. Then as i was nearing the verge of using my last resort (of which i shall not explain lol), trusty ah pok came through once again and found an okok place that was available! It wasnt my first choice, but hey, Bistari Condo turned out alright in the end i believe..=D

the other problem with renting a condo is getting all the people there! directions can be a real bitch, Especially when its in KL!! but thx goodness this was right next to PWTC and just off the highway, so there were no winding twists and turns =D in fact, no one got lost! defintely thx God for that, coz if anyone had got lost i wouldnt know how to direct them back anyway..ahhah

So if theres anything i have learnt from this..its that i really need to learn how to delegate better, and not try to take on everything myself. Granted this was my birthday and i wanted to do as much as possible by myself, but end of the day i just made myself too busy to actually entertain everyone that bothered to come. Ah well..sacrifices must be made sometimes i suppose. The only thing i prob regret is not eating much for dinner which made my tolerance wayyy lower than normal..which resulted in a much earlier end to the night than i had earlier expected. >.<

Im not gonna bother putting many pictures up here, coz i actually dont hve many, and what i hve is already up on facebook anywayyy..zzzzzz. Also, becoz this post has taken SO DAMN LONG (its already 29th November!!)...i am gonna cut it VERY short. Basically..theres nothing really important for me to say..except to thank everyone for turning up. For those that didnt...hey i know u did try to make the effort..=D

In that pic u see (from l-r) Wendy, Laura, Mel, SherYing, Joanne and Yin. i would thank each one of u individually, but that would take forever, so ill keep it down to the few that helped me make it through the whole party..heeh

To Wendy, thank u for....everything la! from the nutella cheesecake (which everyone loved..i told u so =p) to all the buckets, i would not have made it through my own bday without u there...lols

Others that i dont have pictures of...like ZhenHan for being one of the drivers and getting all the subang ppl there in one piece! also for getting the pizza and ice later with ah pok...u were a great help la..ehehe

Wai Git for the bottle of champagne! that prob contributed 20-30% of my drunkardness that night..lols. Also my own fault for guzzling half the bottle laa..but ah well i live and learn..hehe

Jun Hoang for tapauing the noodles! u wont see this la..but i didnt even pay u back for it!! turned out to be the only expense of my party that was not paid by me..so stupid..lols.

And finally...the obligatory ADP group picture!! Finally we have ALL reached the age of our ~~manhood~~ adulthood, and its about time we actually got off our fat asses and did something about ADP Sdn Bhd..hhahaha. I still wonder sometimes how we've made it through so many years, but then again no one questions miracles, they just accept it gratefully with open arms..lolz. Dom, the pasta was fine laa...just didnt have time to finish it thats all..hahaha..and next time remember..2 pots of sauce and 1 pot noodle, not the other way around!! haha

Ahh tahts it la! i cant stand dragging this post out any longer. this is defintely the longest draft i have ever kept and finished in the history of my blog!! I need to move on to so many other things already...so i gotta post this up now!! hehe...til next week..! (hopefully =P)

Someone Slap Me Please!

2008-10-19T00:37:00.002+08:00

i have exactly TWELVE days left to my first paper, and im sitting here typing out the second post of the month!!!

Someone slap me please. /wtf

Although i know i NEED to post laa..the latest routine has been one post a month ive noticed. Thats a terrible record to have. So i will try to break this record at the worst possible time, which is when my exams are just around the corner. So whats new right? hahaha

Aiyooo to say im stressed is a TOTAL understatement laa!! IB subjects are SO not my thing!! Today i can confidently memorize a whole chapter, but by tomorrow im not even sure what i studied today!!! wtf is this laaa!!! strengths...weaknesses...factors...steps...theories...all swimming in my head...all over the place but with no proper filing system in my brain. This is insane la..i need to slap myself again. *slap slap*

AND to make matters worse, i have NOT touched a SINGLE CHAPTER of company law yet!!! although i did go for nearly every lecture, i never prepared for any of the tutorials, and i have not opened the textbook for the whole semester. I was not like this last semester lor. With the exception of finance law, i actually bought and used every law textbook very thoroughly. Dammit la im in serious bad shape here..and its really getting me freaked out. Im only taking 3 subjects...but each one feels like such a huge potential to turn into a HUGE failure!!! ahhh stress stresssssssssssssssssss!!!!! =(

i was actually going to do a post about my braces wan. Yes..to those that still havnt seen me and dont know, i have inserted metal brackets on my teeth, and i am also permanently wearing an appliance in the top of my mouth. Basically i cant eat and talk normally anymore la. The eating part really doesnt bother me actually... ~~even though all of u try to tempt me with steak etc~~...what REALLY irks me is this freakin speech impediment that i have to deal with. Honestly...all my life there has only been ONE thing that ive been proud of, and thats my mouth. Im not good in much else, but i LIKE to think that with a little bit of practice i can out-talk the best of them. Sooooo..to have to go through something like this now....lets just say its a major test of self-esteem and confidence la...hehehe

On other happier matters, things seem to be going very well! I just need to get through exams, PASS THEM, and then....and then......and then i can look toward the future. =) actually i still dono what to do..my birthday comes before results..so do i wait for results first and lay my ghosts to rest ~~or confirm my worst fears and retake another semester~~, or do i just come out with it first? i really dont wanna wait all the way to december...but...i scared la if exams really dont do well then it screws up so many things la...haizzz......

Yea if u guys couldnt tell already...exams are really stressing me out la. Im gonna end here. Study hard but remember people, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!!! ~~no pun intended for mummy dearest hahaha~~

True Experiences

2008-10-04T02:13:00.003+08:00

Sometimes there are tv shows that just happen to have a really good quote, or some good advice. Other times we feel we just relate totally to the whole fictional situation on tv.

I just never thought that would happen with me and Gossip Girl..lol.

In episode 4 of season 1, when Dan is sharing stories with Blair at the stairwell, he tells her about his mother that left his family.

".....every time I go to see her, I tell myself this time I'm going to tell her how I think. I'm going to look her in the eye and say 'either come home, or leave for good'. So there I was, just the other day I was sitting across the table from her looking straight in her eyes, and I didn't say anything.

"Why not?"

"uhh..I dunno. but I wish I had. Because even if it didn't change anything, she'd know how I felt."

Sigh i couldnt have put it in any better words. How many times have i put myself into that exact situation? With me, a slightly different version of the above has happened with so many people...relatives...friends....(im being very general on purpose coz i dont wanna name names and get too specific.) The point is ive always had moments where i want to say something really important to me...but in the end i just choke and dont do it.

And for someone like me, who rarely feels the need to mince words, being unable to come out with the right words to say is always such a....weakness to me.

But then again, most of the time it doesnt bother me that much la. Sometimes...silence just happens to be golden, and i LIKE to think that somethings are better left unsaid. You know...let sleeping dogs lie, and shit like that.

BUT, when it comes to a certain someone, that is totally not the case. Just like Dan Humphrey, I've told myself time and again that THIS will be the day I tell her. Of course, its never happened, and year after year it just drags on; this unfulfilled wish to just say how i feel for once.

Its not like as if what i say would change anything..i know that now. Growing older does have some perks - it makes me more of a realist and less of a dreamer..lol. But just as Dan said, even if it doesnt change anything, i would still want to say it, just to let her know how i feel. Is that considered selfish? ive asked myself that question so many times. To me, i guess there comes a time when i have to do things for myself la..and not worry about others for a change.

So thats it then. I Have gotten over it already. I'm not the same kid that i used to be back then. Now the only thing left to do is tell her that. =)

P.S - shit man!! could Kate Hudson (below) look any hotter than that?? I wish i had the guts to do a colour like that....im already having enough trouble bringing myself to do red as it is...lol!

Twilight

2008-09-15T22:59:00.005+08:00

oh my poor blog..i have neglected u for nearly a month!! i have wanted to update for soooo longg..but i had to save my creative juices for the MOAA (Mother Of All Assignments) this week. but even though i just handed in 3000 word Int Mgt today, i will waste no time updating you dear blog!!!!

Note : this post was supposed to be completed last week? 2 weeks ago..? but ive only had time finish it now...hope it doesnt sound too confusing..=D

I really didnt want to say this just in case i jinx myself, especially when this semester subjects are sooo tough. But But!!! i cant hold it in!!! I might have just handed in the last assignment of my uni life!!! I know i should be feeling...something. But i cant...coz i really dont wanna look too far ahead...just in case something really DOES get screwed up and i dont graduate.......sighhh the pressure is just tooooo intense. =S

I SO wish this was like CPU days. the fear of failure was non-existent..the only worry was whether the final mark was gonna be an A or B. sighh why couldnt my uni life have been like that too....??

Some people say they feel nostalgic that this is the last sem in uni...but honestly i dont know what to feel. Im just trying to take this like any other normal semester. I didnt even realize i had done my last presentation..or my last assignment..until i actually finished it. Crazy huh? =/

But anyways, enough of that. the rest of this post is gonna be about what i really wanted to tell everyone about...2 weeks ago? lol

Because of some...troubled waters at home last week, i had the sudden urge to go out and buy something. While girls drown their sorrows shopping for clothes or shoes, i went hunting for a good book. Just something to immerse myself and forget about the shit that was going on at the time.

That was when i stumbled on THIS.

The latest and last book of the Twilight Saga, it completes the series that has taken the teen market by storm in the US. Unfortunately it hasnt reached the same epic proportions as Harry Potter of coz, which is why we never hear much about it. Even i admit not knowing anything about the series, just a little bout the author coz there were some interesting interviews with her. I had also heard of the first book, Twilight, coz it is going to be released as a movie in a few months time!! It caught my attention coz the studios actually decided to release this instead of Harry Potter, so obviously it must have some substance right....?

So as i was saying earlier, i was in a pretty pissy mood that day, so i wasnt going to just buy ONE book and read that first. Instead, i picked up all 4 in the whole series, and paid for the lot. i dont rmb the last time i actually spent so much money on story books...and i doubt it will happen again soon..haha

OH BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!! Twilight will undoubtedly rank up there with my list of fav books. The last few days have just been spent in a whirl between normal reality and the world of Bella and Edward, whenever there was time. Every night was a late night, reading as much as i could before i had to sleep when the time was already 3-4am and there was a class in the morning.

Im not going to bore u guys with all the details. All i wanna say is the sexual tension between B and E is just sooo frustrating! At times i just wish he would just rip her clothes off and get the whole thing over with even if it does end up killing her in the process..hahahaha. I admit some times the book can sound a bit draggy and repetitive, but thats becoz its supposed to be a teen girl book anyway. (i hope i didnt put any of u off by saying that..=P)

I could go on and on about this series forever. Example : i talked to Josie bout this series until it was like 2am here and 4am there..lol. Such is the power of Twilight. So PLS people, if u want a book to read before hitting the textbooks, read this! it aint much fun talking to myself about this all the time u know..=/

A Noodle Story...Wtf !

2008-08-28T20:35:00.002+08:00

its been a very long time i last blogged, nearly a month in fact.

Sorry la...workload been very heavy lately..hehe

Anyways, im very sien right now. So im goin to try somethin i wanted to do for a long time.

No im not talking about dope, cigarettes or sex. Wtf.

i want to try blogging in like..1 or 2 sentences like those blogs owned by cute girls and then add on a wtf after every other sentence because it seems like those blogs always seem to generate a lot of traffic so i also want to try and see whether it works for me wtf.

Of coz dont expect too much from me la. Its only my first time doin this sorta thing. Its not like im gonna turn into JK Rowling overnight wtf!

So anyways, yesterday (Thursday) The Neighbour took me and her friends to eat at this noodle shop in SS15...about 15min walk from Taylors college. What is so special about this noodle shop??

The noodles is refillable!!!!! Unlimited amount of times!! shiok or not??? =D

Or at least...thats what they told me la....wtf.

The last time Neighbour and her friends ate there was somethin like last year. That time the shop really gave unlimited bowls of noodles. For only around 5 bucks u can eat as many bowls of noodles as u want ! Sounds really good right? hehehehe

In fact, Neighbour's friend says he was able to eat 16 bowls of noodles last time. I also find it hard hard to believe. I think he can rival that Japanese hot dog eating guy already...wtf.

But den...when we went this time..Guess What??? Theres no more unlimited noodles!! Instead in its place is some crappy notice that say "Due to the rising cost of prices of noodles, kuey teow, soup, fishballs, meatballs, tauge, onions, veggies, prawns, chickens, tau foo, ~~dont forget petrol!! wtf~~ and a whole lot of other things, we have to limit customers to only ONE bowl of extra noodles."

Malou! i was expecting to go there and eat enough to last me till today wan lor! after seeing that i was damn 7 disappointed. But nvm la...the price never changed, the portion looked okay, and besides, everyone at least still gets one extra bowl of noodles right???

WRONG!!!

well not exactly wrong laa. I also cannot say we didnt get the 2nd bowl of noodles. We did...but we really kena con by them. Why? becoz the 2nd bowl was just PLAIN NOODLE!! dont even have one piece of tauge or veggie inside wan!! If your first bowl was curry mee then your 2nd bowl is really get one bowl of mee with curry soup lor!! I not shitting you.....when i saw the second bowl..i was damn tulaned. Its like as if we are from some squatter kampung that will treat a bowl of plain noodle like gold lidat. Wtf. /wtf

But of coz, i still finished mine la. No good to waste right?? The Neighbour finished her bowl also..after a bit of struggling..wtf. But her friend was lousy la. Couldnt eat any of the second bowl even though it was sitting in front of him.

So nvm lor. Just leave it there and throw it away later. But then, when the aunty came to collect the empty bowls, guess what he said!!

"aunty...zhe ge mian mei you ren chi guo" (translation : aunty, no one has eaten this noodle), which was kinda wrong actually, coz i had taken one spoonful from the bowl. wtf.

It was like he expected the aunty to take the bowl back and recycle it for the next customer lor! Walao i felt damn embarrassed. The aunty also..gave him a stare for a minute...that kind of "Ah Boy, You Got No Brains Is It?" look, and then proceeded to just throw the whole bowl of noodles into the bin too.

Thank goodness there is still some sanity in this world. wtf.

(ok i think ive had enough of all this wtf nonsense. End of the day my sentences still end up as long as normal la...haha. But hey something different once inawhile is good right? hehehe.)

(P.S - Monash Ball is tmr! =D)

Warning : Not For Prawn Haters!

2008-08-06T23:22:00.003+08:00

For a long time i have always tried to describe the good food i get to eat whenever im back in Ipoh. Most of the time i fail because...hey, in the words of a famous author, Explanation is not Awareness. Like i can explain for hours about how chocolate is sweet, is brown in colour, is made of milk and all sorts of other descriptions, but thats not gonna help u taste chocolate. So in the same way no one really understands when i describe food..which is quite understandable anyway.

Of coz its not like i have any samples for u guys to eat through your computer screen to understand better, but at least this time i have a few photos! and since A Picture speaks A Thousand Words ~~i know i know im using so many idioms today hahah~~, 4 photos should explain much more than a long essay ever could..hehehe

For this post i only have pics of prawns. Of all the things i go back to Ipoh to eat, the prawns are always first on the list, simply because that is where some of the biggest and cheapest fresh water prawns can be found! For those of u that dont know, big prawns can be found in many restaurants, but the difference is whether they are frozen or still alive before being cooked. Frozen prawns are much different because the meat always ends up mushier and basically not so....song hou laa...if u get what i mean..hahah

Sadly, big prawns have been disappearing even in Ipoh over the last few years. Blame it on global warming, overfishing, or whatever else, but the sad truth is that its way harder to find prawns of a similar size compared to 10 years ago? So it was all the more a big surprise when we saw the size of the prawns last Sunday.

A plate of steamed prawns. To save u the trouble of counting, theres 12 there. There were 9 of us at the table. Unfortunately for my mother and cousin, they are allergic to prawns, so they couldnt eat any, meaning actually only 7 ppl were sharing. Then apart from my cousin, i was the only young one at the table, hence im supposed to be eating as much as possible. ~~i dono bout u guys but thats always been my job at the dinner table all these years. No wonder i hve an uncontrollable waistline~~

I know they dont look so big in the picture. But Wait!! I have a scale that everyone will understand!!!!

Ahh yes the trusted chopstick! how can anyone dispute the length of a chopstick?!?! hahahah. As you can see, the head of the prawn is half the total size. And in that head is what some people (see: my dad and aunty) say contains the best part of a prawn, and thats the eggs, or prawn roe!! The yellow/red stuff leaking out from the head is meant to be slurped and sucked until every last drop is gone. At least thats what ive been taught to do..lol. Theres no denying that it is VERY HIGH in cholesterol, but in my family good food has always taken precedence over good health, so yea...the motto is eat first think later. =D

I plowed my way through 3 of those big prawns, and that was it. I was stuffed. Dont forget there was other food on the table, not just the prawns. There was still 2 more left on the plate, but no one could eat it. Ended up tapauing home.

But is that the end of it? OH NO ITS NOT!!! that was just the first round! after that came........................

the fried prawns!!! Just in case theres any doubt about the size of these, heres another scale.

So there u go. Next time i spread my fingers trying to indicate size, u know im not exaggerating at all...hahaha.

Some people (see: dad again) say steam prawns are better because it retains the original flavour of the prawn. But i like it fried coz of the sweet sauce. its down to personal preference i guess. =P

None of us could really eat any more prawns...but hey what could we do? waste them?? So there was nothing left to do but to eat eat and eat! I got through another 3 prawns, and that was it. it felt like my stomach was expanding with every breath. I kid u not, most people throw up from drinking too much. I nearly felt sick from eating too much...haha

So there you have it. One of the things i look forward to whenever its time to balik kampung. Maybe next time ill take some pics of Ipoh Sar Hor Fun that always becomes lunch the next day, but theres really nothing special bout the way it looks....just the way it tastes!!! One day la some of us are gonna have to make a food excursion to Ipoh. One day la...=D

An Overdue Tour!

2008-07-29T18:22:00.006+08:00

For the first time since my Dad bought his camera like...3 years ago, i took the memory card out and downloaded some photos into the laptop..haha. I was only looking for the HSBC competition photos which we took in Hong Kong (and which i have already put up in facebook), but i also found somethin else! Pictures that i had totally forgotten about...pictures of a really stupid looking me posing around Peninsula campus because Dad insisted i take a few photos for Mum to see back home. It was a hard decision to make... whether to put the photos up here, but in the end...i need material for my blog, and this is really as good as it gets..lol

So...just excuse dorky-looking me, and follow a short campus tour with the few pictures that i have with me..=D

lets start with the main entrance! If u look to where im looking, youll see the car park in the background! u cant see it in this picture, but a bit further to the left is the main road into the campus, with a mini roundabout. Peninsula doesnt have a really big car park...just about enough space for everyone i think. They also colour code their parking spaces according to the type of season pass u buy. So the more u pay, the closer u get to park. Makes u feel much better about paying 2 bucks per entry to park anywhere u want right? =P

Besides the car park, in the middle of the picture is a bus stop. Lets take a closer look.

Here is the bus stop for Peninsula Campus. Normal buses dont stop here. This bus stop is for the Monash bus service between campuses. This is where i would take the bus to Berwick every week ~~at least..the weeks i went to class~~ for International Marketing lecture. This is also the place where the ppl from Clayton get picked up and dropped off when they have to come to Pen for classes. No buses run from Caulfield to Pen, and the bus from Pen to Berwick comes only once every 2 hours, coz it takes 45 min to make a one way trip. Yes, i endured long lonely journeys for the sake of my education. Long, coz the trip was nearly an hour with nothin much to look at except green fields and the occasional cow, and lonely coz the bus was nearly always empty when i took it. Its obviously not meant to be a profit making business...hehehee

Coming into campus, behind me u see the Education building. In Pen, faculties arent segregated so much like in Msia. In fact most or at least half of the lectures are in that building, and the comp lab is also there. Its a colourful building with lots of paintings and drawings, coz the students there are supposed to learn about educating kids and other stuff i guess.

Far behind in the background in this pic u can see the signboard for the Business and Economics building. My eyes look nearly closed in this pic coz the sun was shining REALLY bright on that day, and my hair looks terrible coz the wind picked that time to be a b*tch. FYI, on a summer day the sun is so bright that it makes it almost impossible to look up in the sky. The one thing i regret not having in Aus was a pair of sunglasses. Not as a fashion statement, but as simple protection from the severe glare of the suns rays..>.<

Anyway theres nothing special bout the Bus&Eco building. I remember doing a post about the lecture theatre inside and taking a pic of it last year, so im not gonna go through that again. A bit further to my left is the library, which i dont have a picture of. That little bit of the building u see on the right side of the photo is the Sports Science building...or somethin like that. Cant rmb what its called. Its where they study Physiotherapy and stuff.

Next stop is the student services building! the ground floor handles any enquiries students have, and they provide certain services like posting letters and packages. On top of that is the Seahorse Tavern, the sort-of bar in uni. Its kinda sad really, coz theres not many people in the campus, although once inawhile there will be a few ppl having a drink in the afternoon. Most of the time clubs hold their events there, and i guess its a nice place to just chill and hang out la.

The more interesting part is one of the pillars behind me. On that pillar is mounted a speaker, and that speaker is used to play techno music at 8 in the morning. I know, coz we had to listen to it when we're goin for morning classes. I dunno whos great idea that was, or what the desired effect is supposed to be, but it always made me laugh inside thinking whos gonna want to listen to this stuff so early in the morning..=D

In the background is the bridge that connects the canteen to the other buildings on the other side like the Education building and Bus&Eco building. Not as fantastic as our spanking new glass bridge at Sunway of course, but still, a bridge nonetheless. =D

And finally, before u guys get totally sick of staring at my idiotic mugshot, im goin to show u the main sporting area on campus, and thats the hockey pitch! Although the primary purpose is for hockey games, it also doubles as the football pitch in the day time. At night nearby schools will use the pitch to train their hockey teams. Its amazing that while I'm huddled tight in my warm jacket on a cold winter night, there are girls out there in skirts chasing balls around. Then again...i think i also wouldnt mind playing tennis in winter for a change..haha

Which reminds me...theres also one tennis court on campus. But its pretty sad, and stuck in a remote corner. No pictures of that, obviously.

Further in the background u can see some houses with blue roofs. Those are the on-campus accommodation buildings. Yes Peninsula does not have a hostel. Instead there are those 3-4 houses which make up the "Student Village". It is totally not worth it to stay there coz the weekly rental is outrageous, and they force u to sign either one sem or one year contracts...i forgot which one.

There is one advantage though - I'll never forget my Int. Trade Law exam, when the guy in front of me forgot to bring his textbook into the exam hall. Most of us would have just sat down and cried, but what did he do? He asked the invigilators if he could go home and get it! And he could actually do it, because he was living on-campus, so since it was still on uni grounds and not too far away, they let him run back to get it. Amazing stuff right? /cool

So yea..Thats it la for this tour. This should be beneficial to a lot of people, coz even most ppl in Melb havnt seen Pen campus before..haha. Sue Lin, if i missed out anything, make sure u comment ya..haha

A Ticketing Problem

2008-07-22T17:02:00.002+08:00

Sometimes i feel like theres no time for anything and i worry i cant manage all the work ive got. Other times im just sitting around doin nothing at all...like now! Logic would say use the time now wisely and start the work so that there is less rush later on, but hey, who has ever listened to the best pieces of advice? ;)

Nothing interesting has happened lately, hence the lack of update. This is one of those times when the urge to blog is there, but a lack of blogging material presents a tough obstacle to overcome. I used to look at minor things and think of ways to blog about it to make it 10x more interesting...but i guess im losing that touch. Everything these days is too boring...too normal...or simply just too routine to blog about anymore.

But i COULD blog about my lost parking ticket!

I begin the story after another K session at pyramid. As usual, i left my car in uni while the others drove me there. Not so usual is Wendy driving me to Pyramid!! Normally ZH drives all of us, but there were 6 of us and he had to leave early, so it was left to either me or dear Wendy to drive there, and since shes never driven me anywhere before, it was time for a test run!! =D

I have NEVER seen anyone so nervous when there are other people in the car. I tried to be a good boy by keeping quiet and Mel was trying to be a good girl by bringing out her apples, but it didnt work. she was as nervous as the day of her driving exam i think...lol!

but im getting sidetracked. The story is supposed to begin when i got back to the carpark at uni at about 1030. Dug around in my pockets and looked into my wallet...but my parking ticket was nowhere to be found! I couldnt believe it...checked left pocket...right pocket..back pockets...all the wallet sleeves..but no sign of a ticket! So that was it la i thought.... first time in my life im gonna have to pay a lost ticket fine. Hooray. And so, resigned to the fact i was about to lose 20 bucks for nothin, i went to look for the security guards.

But imagine the look on my face when the guard said the people in charge of the parking gates had gone home for the night! The best part is i actually saw them leaving on their motorbikes from the carpark, but since i didnt know who they were i didnt stop them. So i was like..shit la...how now? Almost 11pm and no way to exit the carpark..How???

Thank God there happened to be a woman leaving uni too, and she offered to help me out. So i got her to drive out, press a new ticket for me, and then reverse out again. The trick worked, and i got myself a new parking ticket!! The funny part is the parking barrier didnt come back down, coz no car drove through after the lady pressed for the ticket! Im sure i gave the guard a hard time for the rest of the night, and im not sure what they must have done the next day...But hey what else was i supposed to do? Want to pay fine also cannot, so gotta take desperate measures lor..haha

Not that im complaining. This way i only paid an extra 2 bucks for parking. But i felt kinda bad for leaving the barrier up la. I actually thought it might come down if i drove out under the barrier, but i was only worried that it might come down on top of my car, so i just played it safe and left it up and left it to the guard to sort out the mess i left behind la..lolx

Goes without saying that next time ill def make sure my parking ticket is very securely with me...especially if im gonna be leaving the car there till late at night!!!

To end this post...Ive been trying to sort out the profile and links section, coz a lot of it is outdated, especially the links!! You guys prob wouldnt have noticed but ive deleted a few already. More importantly, im also supposed to add a few more in, but so ma fan la having to think of a description for each person. I know having it makes my links way more unique, but upkeeping it is such a chore...and it stops me from updating my links more frequently. So....should i keep the descriptions?? Give some feedback u guys...its much appreciated! =D

The Final Semester (Hopefully!)

2008-07-16T23:56:00.002+08:00

So. It has come to this. 2 and a half years of sleepless nights, last minute assignments, and admittedly a lot of trial and error has come to this - the final half a year in Monash that completes a bachelor degree in business.

Of course thats assuming i dont flunk anythin this sem...but im crossing my fingers!!

This sem i only have 3 subjects. I didnt blog about any of this before today because i only had 1 lecture on monday, and today i had the other 2 lectures, so now i know what its gonna be like for the next 13 weeks. And, unfortunately, it doesnt look very pretty.

To get myself back into study mode, im even gonna blog this in point form!! My reasoning is it should help me think of points for my normal essays too..haha

Point 1 - My Timetable Sucks!!
Even though i only have 3 subs this sem, i still dont have a nice schedule! for starters, ive got a 8AM class on MONDAY!! imagine how shitty that is. And then on Wednesday ive got 4 hours of lectures nonstop from 1-3 then 3-5. And dont even get me started about the one hour tute on Friday from 11-12!!! Siiighhh...i enjoyed last sem's timetable more!! even though there was also an 8am class, at least that was on a friday...and not a monday...boohoo.

Point 2 - My Teachers Suck
Ok la, maybe not teachers. Just A teacher. I really cant say a bad word about Ms. Shanthy, even though she so totally screwed up my finance law marks, shes a good lecturer. Last sem there was only 14 of us taking the subject, so lectures were small. Now in company law theres like 100+ of us, and its obvious that she handles big lectures very differently from the way she handles small ones. So yea...its good to see that she adapts her teaching style to different classes..which is very nice.

Then theres Ms. Adlina, the Int. Bus. Strategy lecturer. I took Int. Bus. with her in first year, so i knew what to expect la...but that hasnt made it any easier! I admit she speaks well and definitely has no problems with English, but then...sometimes she just loses me la. And its not like i dun understand her...coz like i said her english is fine. I guess theres just so many times i can hear words like joint venture..mergers..acquisitions...that they stop making sense anymore..haha

BUT there is also Dr. Tee Ding Ding! the infamous lecturer who wrote her doctorate thesis in Japanese and had a hate blog set up against her last year? In my honest opinion, she is a very nice teacher la. But I'm sure all of you have come across teachers that have very good intentions, but are just not going about it the right way? Dr. Tee is one of those kind. If she just had the presenting and lecturing skills of Ms. Shanthy or Ms. Adlina, she would be one of the best lecturers im sure. But unfortunately, her english proficiency can be kinda shaky at times. This is obvious because there are times i can actually see her struggling to try and remember the word to describe somethin...or its like shes trying to think of the English equivalent of a Jap word shes thinking of...hahaha

Point 3 - The People Suck!
haha ok la i dont mean that..i just wanted all the 3 points to sound similar. =P But this sem IS kinda sadder la..besides comp law which has practically all the Melb housemates in it, theres only Mich, Ben and Alex for IBS, and just Ben for Int. Mgt. Ben aint much good coz he skips most lectures. Or should i say hes skipped all so far, coz he didnt stay for the only Int. Mgt. class we've had so far..haha. And yes Mich i know Neysa is in IM too, but it doesnt really help coz shes got her own friends, and i dont think we're in the same tute either...which sucks coz now i gotta find new groupmates to do my presentation and assignment with..lol

The other amazing thing this sem is the amount of foreign students there are! All through my time in Monash Malaysia every class has been dominated by Malaysians, with a handful of foreigners here and there. But if this first Int. Mgt. class is anything to go by, i think the Indons alone outnumber the Msians! It was quite shocking to me really. I didnt know foreigners liked to study IB so much. Maybe they all pick the same majors so they can all take the same subs together as one BIG group..haha

K la thats it for this post. More rants shall follow as the semester progresses. And you know what? i think im finally using this blog for the right purpose. After all, the whole point all of us setting up blogs in the first place was to vent all our frustrations and rant away right?? Thats all i seem to be doin lately anyways..hahah

???

2008-07-14T21:06:00.002+08:00

Somethings been wrong for the last few days, but I cant put my finger on what.

ive been goin out, meeting different people, having a pretty packed schedule and stuff.

But somethings different la. Im just feeling so.....disinterested lately. Its like i cant bring myself to let go...have fun...do stupid things or crack lame jokes and just laugh at myself. When i try it feels like as if im forcing myself...and that feels even weirder. In the end all thats left is a much more quieter than normal me..lol.

maybe im just not over results yet.

what my teachers said today at the first day back to uni didnt help either. "I remember you! I can see the intelligence in you but i dont think you worked hard enough for the exams did you?"

That came from 2 teachers that said almost the same thing along those lines. At least Ms. Tax could say maybe i just messed up a major question, but Ms. Finance Law seemed pretty sure i didnt put enough effort for the finals....>.<

If the teachers last semester had told me that back then i would have totally agreed with them. But to hear it again this semester? It was kinda shocking. If i can go to Hong Kong 2 days before an exam and still score a distinction for that paper then theres no reason why i shouldnt have scored just as well for the others. Its even more ironic when i actually thought the other papers were easier. Maybe i need to think that every paper is a sure fail before i can score good marks??

But i need to figure this out la. If i feel i put in the work, but it doesnt reflect in the end result, then something is wrong somewhere. For now i can still keep that little glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe theres been a teeny weeny mistake and ill get a better grade. But until i get my review, i need to think of other reasons. Or do my own personal post-mortem, so to speak.

Then again, maybe im just afraid to face the real reason. Which is that i simply didnt work hard enough? :(

we shall see...we shall see. But until then i hope i can just get over this whole results thing and get back to my normal self....=S

P.S - it was great to see u Sern. Sorry if i wasnt being very sociable that day, and sorry for not buying u a present. Its another thing ill have to make up to u again..lol. (i seem to be making up for a lot of things lately..hah)

Fuck It

2008-07-10T23:54:00.002+08:00

Results are out.

Lets just say its far below what i was expecting.

Not that i failed anything. Definitely not gonna be repeating any of my papers that i did this sem. But....i dunno la. What i got was DEFINITELY NOT what i hoped to get. I did a little calculating...and to get the marks that i did...i would have scored things like 57...63...or 61 for final exam. Some of it is like only 3 marks away from a D!! or some, like the 57, is terrible, cause i DID NOT expect to score that kinda mark for final exam.

The wound cuts deeper when i find out other study buddies end up doin so much better and scoring amazingly well for their finals in the same subjects.

I'm not jealous of them, and im really happy for them that all our studying wasnt for nothin! But..why does it always go better for others and not for me..? =(

Last semester was a flop. When i expected to be repeating at least 2 subjects and at best only 1, i ended up pulling out 2 credits from the bag. That was, and still is, a miracle to me, and i swore i would not repeat that again.

Of coz this time i wasnt exactly expecting a fail, but i wasnt expecting a bunch of credits either. i will swear to anyone that i put in at least triple more work than i did last sem, but what do i get out of it? An increase of about 5 marks? Like seriously...how not to get demoralized by this kinda results la.

Sure u can tell me theres still next sem and i can work for that, but how to work when i dont see the results la? It always seems to take the same vicious cycle - assignments are always average of D or HD, but when it comes to final exams, everythin just kinda fizzles out, or i lose steam, and the end result is some mediocre grade.

Im tired of all this la. I seriously am. For people that ask me why i dont want to study post grad after this, this is the reason why la. I dont consider myself good at exams, and i seem to prove this point every semester. Let me start working first la. If i still cant perform, then fine. But if i do, then it goes to show la, this shit just aint for me. /wtf

Rant Part 2

2008-07-06T18:52:00.003+08:00

I am not kidding when i say i already started a post a loooong time before this....it just couldnt get finished. =S Its really difficult..coz some things i wanna put down here, but then theres other stuff i rather keep to myself. But then it gets so hard to filter everything out and write a post without revealing too much...that it ends up sounding disjointed and not making any sense anyways.

So yea, basically the other post got scrapped..and theres this instead.

Not that this post is gonna be any less crappier..haha.

Sometimes i feel holidays are a real double edged sword. On one hand it feels so good to have time off and not have any responsibilities or assignments to do, but then all those OTHER things i say i want to do after exams start moving to the forefront. Watch more movies...read more story books...meet up with old friends and friends i dont get to meet during semester...tidy up room/house...and a whole list of other to-do's just end up becoming the next stressful thought.

It doesnt help that wisdom keeps screaming in my ear : "Holidays will be over before u know it!! do something NOW and dont waste time!!!"

All that pressure to actually DO something can be even more stressful than doing something else like typing a 3000 word essay..zzzzz.

But its ok. I guess ive done as much as i could this holidays. Of course some things just dont work out - like the mini trip a few of us were supposed to go for didnt happen as usual...but couldnt have hoped for much in that anyway. And lets not even start with the ADP road trip that has been on the drawing board since 2005 (it sounds much longer ago when i use years i think haha). really dunno whats gonna happen to THAT trip, but im sure something will happen la...just a matter of when..heheeh.

'Course, im quite happy with some of the things i accomplished this hols. First, I met Sue Lin!! it doesnt sound like a big deal, but once again wisdom is poking me in the back of my mind, telling me that if i dont make an effort to meet up with ppl itll just drag on and on and itll be months and years before we finally see each other in person. I know theres always msn la...but i think theres still no substitute for face-to-face communication. Relationships are better maintained with contact in the real world...if u get what i mean..hehe

And since im on that note, lets not forget i met little niece, mummy dearest and ~~nephew~~ kenneth on Thursday! its always nice to meet the adopted family, since we basically only meet up every 6 months- 1 year anyway..lol. Its amazing the amount of gossip there is to catch up on every time. Im sure this time would have been no exception if it hadnt been for Kenneth and his disappearing act after 5 minutes at the table...hahahaha. Well it was kinda my fault too i suppose...wasnt really focused that day coz half my mind was worried whether my car would start later coz the batt was kinda flat..heheheh.

But one of the interesting pieces of news i picked up was about the latest blog war between Xiaxue and DawnYang! i dont check their blogs regularly, but this latest development sounded quite interesting, and after reading bout it i can guarantee its really fun reading!

i really dunno who started what. It sounds like XX had nothing better to do one day but to sit down and "set the record straight" about Dawn. And so after 1 failed lawsuit, 2-3 blog posts by each side, and 1000+ comments from readers, I'd say theres enough drama there to rival sodomy charges and blown up corpses.

(ok im kidding. Nothings more interesting than a guy accused of screwing another guy in a fancy condo trying to accuse someone else of having illicit affairs with a model and then hiring henchmen to blow her up with c4 after she wouldnt 'go away'. But thats a whole different story.)

But from what i can gather, XX really has nothing against Dawn, and she said that in her blog. She just cant stand the 'lies' Dawn has put out in her blog that mislead everybody. Im not gonna go through all the points..u can go to her blog and see for yourself.

But some of the things she said really confound me. XX claims Dawn does the thing she detests the most - blogging not to be heard, but for the sake of money. I dont deny Dawn does do a lot of advertorials, but while i was reading it, i was staring at all the little pixel ads in XX's blog too! And its not like she doesnt get freebies either - there was a time i stopped reading her blog coz every other post seemed to be promoting a new restaurant or gadget or hotel or whatever. If u need an example of pot calling kettle black, THERE IT IS! Seriously.....'making your voice heard' my ass la. Get a real job, take down all the ads, and blog about something a bit more substantial than your new chio nails and maybe ill bother listening to your voice. XX is a fun read, but i dont expect to increase my IQ from studying her blog. Uh-uh. /wtf

But fine. Nevermind about that. It can be overlooked. After all, XX also dedicated a whole post explaining why she sees nothing wrong with making money from blogging and how it wont change her blogging style or what she writes about and blablabla. Fine. We're entitled to different opinions right? Lets just move on to the next point.

XX then goes on to analyze a whole letter that Dawn sent to her regarding the incident. Theres like...9 points she picks out and rebuts in her post. Seemingly harmless things that Dawn said are turned around and refuted as lies, lies, and more lies to boost her (false) image. Whether its true or not is one thing la, but i am more interested in a different lesson - that anything a person says can be digested, dissected, analyzed, and rephrased so that there are suddenly 101 hidden meanings to what was said...which the person never knew existed!

This relates directly to my last post about how there are people who like to poke fun at other's grammar mistakes. That may just be petty things that apply to bloggers in general, but this is more serious and totally true in real life situations. A few simple words can cause a lot of laughter or pain depending on who says it, how its said, and who its said to. I cannot count the number of times ive opened my mouth at a family dinner, and later been told i said the wrong thing or should have said something different. And my family is not one that just lets words fly by. Oh Noo, my family has members that watch very closely what other people say, looking for that slip-up so that everyone can go "you see! because he said that it shows hes blablablabla..."

Of course last time all the stupid things i said are overlooked, because adults treat everything that comes out of a kids mouth as "cute" or "so funny". But we're all growing up, and the excuses for saying the wrong thing are running dry. This is why the saying that silence is golden is so true. Much less can go wrong when you keep your mouth shut. But anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with me will know i cant do that. So the next best thing is just to learn to say the right things at the right time, while also keeping one's sense of personality and individualism instead of trying to please the current so-and-so sitting in front of you with all the right words.

ACTUALLY lehhhh...i was gonna talk about a few more things wan. But i saved this yesterday...and today i check back on XX blog and shes taken down the incriminating posts! Sooo...too bad lo u guys. You'll just have to take my word for it..hahaha. BUT, the last point XX made was that Dawn's blog is very similar to someone elses website started a long time ago. She pointed out a few similarities, like same look, same style, same accessories, same uni (allegedly), and even the background of the site looks like one of Dawn's pic on the sidebar that looks nearly identical. She puts forward a strong case..but whether its true or not i dunno la. BUT i do have the site of the other girl! and i must say the site, if it was all done by her, is one heck of a website. I wish I, or even ADP, could put together a site like that..haha

you can check it out by just *clicking here*!

She has some really great songs on her site! makes me wish i knew where to find all these lesser known easy listening melodies for my own blog..hehe

Anyways thats it for this post la. Currently filling my time with the buddy program in Monash Orientation 2008. No easy feat mind u...ESPECIALLY when its managed by some people who probably cant plan a trip to the bathroom properly...or make a simple decision like whether to have chicken or fish. But ill stop here. Maybe that will be my next post after its over.

Rant N Rave

2008-06-14T02:07:00.003+08:00

Sooo...finally done with Finance Law and Corporate Governance!! Only thing between me and a well-deserved semester break is a trip to hong kong, employment law, and income tax!!! Sighh this has been such a looong month, im gonna be feel so weird when its finally over. Even now i feel kinda weird not stressing bout finance/CG, not thinking about directors duties and mortgages every 5 minutes, or discussing how to improve auditor independence and whistleblowing laws in malaysia. But hey its just a short reprieve...still got a sooo much left to do!!

Anyways, forget about that. thats not the point of this post. I dyed my hair again today, but thats also not the point of this post. I finally got to go RedBox after soo many weeks! And it was with meiyuan...samantha..and junhoang...of all people. NEVER would i have expected to end up having lunch in pyramid with them..much less screaming our lungs out in a little room. And trust me when i say scream i mean SCREAM! To my regular K buddies...if u think i sing a lot, then u have not seen this bunch!! Even I gave up when being faced with such formidable singing partners..hahahah. But hey, at least i still got to do Ayo. =P

But once again, im moving away from the topic. my blog, or lesson today is going to be about YOU AND YOUR BLOG AND WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH IT. I write this in the capacity of a person who has been blogging for 4 years (so says ah pok) with varied degrees of success. Granted this blog doesnt exactly generate constant high volumes of traffic, and has never gone through any "rough patches" or been attacked from unknown readers. But ive seen a lot of blogs come and go, and its interesting to note common themes.

What really provoked me to write this was a recent post by a friend talking about someone else who had copied a post written by another person and used it for herself without giving any credit. Since the amount of plagiarism seemed to be quite significant, i thought i would take a look myself.

So i went to both blogs, took a look at both posts, and compared it for myself. Read the "original" one first, then looked at the "carbon copy".

My verdict? The "copy" was really just a copy of the first paragraph. Everything after that was the writer's own words. Both people were obviously talking about the same topic, but they quoted absolutely different personal examples which made it quite different IMO. ~~omg i sound like im writing a law paper..zz~~

Of course im not saying that copying one paragraph out of ten is fine. In fact, i think a blog should be a personal account written genuinely by the author. Copying someone else's post is like taking a different diary and copying it into your own. (incidentally i still rmb this archie comic that used that as a joke..but thts another story.) If u cant think of anything to blog about, DONT BLOG! whats the point of putting out regular posts if its just repetitive nonsense? And if anyone wants to copy part of someone else’s blog, at least have the courtesy to give a bit of credit. A simple “thanks to X for providing some ideas for my latest post” never killed anyone. Hopefully people will learn to give credit where credit is due and not try to hog all the spotlight for a change.

But what I find most interesting is this : when A doesn’t like what B has written, what does A do? Obviously theres gonna be a lot of cursing and attempts of poking fun against the other blog, but poke fun at what? Surprisingly, what most people always look out for are GRAMMAR MISTAKES!! Now correct me if im wrong, but the last time I checked my blog is my personal space, and I can write how I damn well please. To those who know me well enough, you’ll know I hardly have a problem churning out perfect essays. But in this blog I throw all that out the window and continue with the broken manglish that I use everyday. Why? Because I think it sounds more like me, and wth lah, we’re Malaysians dammit! If we talk like one, then we should bloody well write like one too. Isn’t it more embarrassing to write perfect sentences but not know how to string 2 proper sentences together?

So to those that like to nitpick at people’s grammar and punctuation mistakes, I say give them a break lah! Who cares whether someone missed an apostrophe or a fullstop? I know u might want to get back at the other person, but cant u at least target something else..like bad photoshopped photos? Hideous makeup / fashion sense? God knows those are much more insulting and hurtful than searching for missing words and bad sentence structure. That just makes you seem childish and look like the English teacher that we’re all trying to forget..=P

I know some of u might disagree with me. If u do, and u think that I should dot all my i’s and cross all my t’s because u find it so impossible to read my blog if I don’t, then please do let me know. Don’t worry, I wont go digging for your own mistakes. I’ll just give you a good flaming for whatever its worth in this blog. =D

Thats it for now. I think i shall continue this topic when i remember more little things that annoy me about bloggers..haha

P. S - leaving for HK in about 6 hours. Coming back Tuesday, Employment Law on Wednesday. Hence not gonna be blogging at least till after that. Wish me a safe journey! =D

Randomness!

2008-06-03T14:17:00.005+08:00

I admit - its been ages since i last blogged. A little over a month i think. No point giving anymore apologies. I just have to admit i suck at this thing called blogging..lol. ~~although im still wayyy better than mummy dearest laa..she'll prob blog again the day she gets married..such is the monumental event it would take to get her started again..haha~~

But I digress. (what does that actually mean..?) Theres been plenty for me to talk about..just a lack of motivation to talk about it. But what the heck..why must i follow some unwritten rule of blogging frequently? why cant i just blog whenever i want to?? wats wrong with blogging once every 4 months??? Of course the catch is all of u would still have to read this blog..and thats where i think the problem lies..lolz

Anyways i already missed a few blog posts i wanted to do..no thanks to the crazy assignment week that just finished last month..and now exams are starting next week. I wanted to do my third food blog but it got canned partly coz of all that work..and partly coz i forgot to take a few pics that were important for the post..haha

Elcerdo - Nose to Tail Eating. A place down..uhh...Changkat Bukit Bintang...if my memory serves me right..hehe. What animal do we chinese eat from the nose to the tail?? Well theres fish..but thats not what im talking about. And dont be smart and tell me chicken or beef. Chickens dont have tails..And we certainly dont eat cow nose or cow tails!!

Im talking about the good ol Pig! That roasted suckling pig thats served on a plate lying stark eagle on a plate every chinese new year.

i THINK the place is more to German food. Parents were haggling over it...i dont remember what the conclusion was. But anyways its not a bad place to go for an occasion or a quiet meal. Only for meat eaters of course..=P

i lost the interest to blog bout this coz i forgot to take a pic of their little publicity stunt, which is to give diners a normal plate to cut the pork and then break the plate into a bucket..which is supposed to be something for good luck. Got so annoyed that i didnt take a pic..especially when the stupid bucket was almost next to me most of the night.

But its ok...im over it now. There will be other times. Other more memorable dinners to blog about. Just hve to be patient...=D

And guess what i bought recently? hehehe

i cant remember when was the last time i made an impulsive decision to buy somethin, but this was one of those times. Was just browsing through Rock Corner, which is already something i almost never do, and I saw this. Flip to the back...and i see that i know about 80% of the songs there? How could that not be worth buying?? FYI, ive always loved Whitney. Say what u want, but i like her more than other power singers like Celine Dion or Mariah Carey. If only her life hadnt got slightly derailed...she would prob hve more number ones than MC right now...=/

Moving on to other news...I HAVE SOLVED A MYSTERY!!!! that is the mystery of who cuts the grass in the cemetery!! whats that u say? u know the answer? youre saying its those grass cutters that cut grass everyone else?? BOY YOU ARE SO WRONG!!!

I PRESENT TO YOU, THE REAL LABOUR FORCE THAT KEEPS GRASS IN THE CEMETERY NICE AND SHORT :-

Cows. Yes, COWS are used to maintain grass in cemeteries!!! ~~ok i know it sounds a lot like worms, yes worms!!..but i couldnt help it..hahaha..sry ppl..inside joke..=p~~

Seriously its quite creepy ok...when u drive to the cemetery, get out of the car, and then suddenly this whole herd of cows is staring at you with that "wtf are u doin here and why are u botherin us look". And its worse when theres nothing between u and a herd of cows except for a row of tombstones...........Ok la to be honest most of them wont give a damn after awhile...but theres always the black sheep in every family....

.....or should i say black cow??? While all the other cows were moving on to "greener pastures" like so....

THAT fella on top was staring at us while we were putting our flowers okay!! I guess he couldnt wait for us to leave so he could start munching on our yummy orchids and birds of paradise. Someone said whats the point of leaving flowers here if the cows are gonna eat them, and i totally agree. Most prob our flowers become cow food soon after we leave anyway...so much for making the graves look nicer....hahaha

But hey, whos to argue with free labour right? I mean...whos gonna pay the cost of hiring a grass cutter?? The only ones staying there are dead people..and they dont have any money...hahhaha

So to end this post, allow me to present to you the effect of such free labour......

Yes. Cow Shit. Lots Of It. All. Over. The. Cemetery.

Till next time folks~! =D

Update to the Update!

2008-04-28T11:50:00.002+08:00

UPDATE !! :

remember how i said in the last post that i had collected ~~well not really me..dad did all the collecting~~ all the shell cars except for one?? Well...we finally got it! So nowww...i present to you, the complete series of V-Power Racing cars!

just in case youre wondering, the top set is the current series on sale. The one at the bottom are the cars from the first series that was sold last year. Dad collected a few sets when i was in Melb. Unfortunately he gave away a few, so all we have left is this one set. The yellow one is the Enzo Ferrari thats also part of the current series, but its only sold when ppl buy the Helix Oil or somethin like that. So there you go..the whole collector's series, COMPLETE!! if you would like to ogle at it, you are most welcome to drop by my house..haha

Watched The Forbidden Kingdom yesterday with parents in Signature. You might think that since the seats are 2 by 2, no one should be complaining..but you're wrong! Everyone knows the main problem with 2x2 seating is when theres 3 ppl, then one fella has to sit by himself. With my family that usually means one of the parents sits alone. Normally we'll just take 2 seats and then the next one immediately next to it, but this time, thanks to a lot of stupid reasons and excuses like dont want anyone in front la...or not facing the centre of the screen la etc...we ended up buying seat 6, 9 and 10, leaving 7 and 8 empty between us. Of coz that was only when we bought it la...by the time we went into the cinema there was this guy already there in seat 8 getting ready to enjoy his movie with blanket and food delivered from the cafe outside n all that.

All that was fine..even quite amusing to me seeing him getting so comfy in his chair. BUT THEN, 5 minutes into the movie, along comes this really fat guy. He crosses over Dad in seat 6, and plonks himself down in seat 7 next to the guy! I thought it was really funny that he had to share the seat with such a big guy, but then about 2 minutes later he jumps up, starts scolding the fella with somethin like "have some F***ing manners la...just take the whole F***ing chair man"...and then proceeds to take all his food and blanket down to the empty seats a bit further down. I dono what the fat guy did...but he must have messed up some of the food or taken up too much space. The funny part is...if we hadnt left the gap between us, Dad would have ended up in seat 8, and the fat guy would prob have taken 7. THAT would definitely have been funny..hahahah

and oh yes, i told some of u about how the cinema is so cold, and how the last time we were there we saw other people snuggling under blankets. Well this time we got smart and found out where to get it. For 5 bucks you get a smooth quilt thats supposed to be for one person, but is good enuf for 2 ppl anyway. No more shivering and rubbing hands during showtime!
And since we gotta pay for it, i can assure u its clean laaa. It even smells of Dobi soap. So yes, i certify it clean. hehehe.

Of course, how can i not talk about the Monash Street Carnival yesterday?? I swear i dont think ive driven so much around town in one day before. I was still awake at 2am preparing the game at ZhenHans house and only got home to sleep at 3. By about 10 i was up and driving to uni to get it ready. The whole carnival was supposed to start at 12, but as all of u can prob guess, hardly anyone was there in the afternoon. Worse part is although it didnt rain, it was Farking HOT the whole afternoon! So i had to stay till 2, then i drove home to pick mum and went to church. After church drove back again to uni to see how things were going. At 7 i had to drive back again to church because it so happened that yesterday there was the evangelical service, and i had already said i would be there. After the service i sent Mum home, picked dom up, and then went back to uni AGAIN to help pack up. From uni we landed ourselves in Old Town for Mcdonalds, and then to ZH house for very very late dinner. Finally got home at about 2. In total i think i drove about 100km or more just around town yesterday..ZzzzZzzzz

But anyways, i must say the Carnival itself was pretty good la. Besides the stupid opening time which should have been pushed later, there was a pretty good crowd throughout the evening, and i guess there were enough games and entertainment to go around. Im not gonna put any pictures here. Most of u would have already seen it on my facebook.. no thanks to Yin and Mich..lolz.

As usual, when im blogging it prob means that im procrastinating from doing work or studying. This time im procrastinating from doing my Employment Law assignment. Haizz..no mood to do la..even though its due next monday i gotta finish it soon coz i got another 2 more soon after that.
Wish me luck!?!?!

Long Overdue Post!

2008-04-14T19:35:00.004+08:00

Dear Bloggie,
I'm sorry i havnt been around for so long! i hope you havnt missed me too much!! let me give u a big kiss to make it all better... *Mwah Mwah*!

hahaha.

Anywayss...life has been moving along since the last time i blogged. Mid sem break has been left behind in the dust, and the real heavy stuff is starting from now! I promise u guys that i really wanted to blog, but ive just been so busy!! Uncle Sherman and family were here from England for the last 2 weeks, so whatever free time i had was spent with them. It was great fun...seeing as its been 2 years since i last saw the lil kids, Celine and Nadine. Theyve been coming back every year, but i missed them last year coz i was in Melb. So yes, it took a bit of getting used to each other again, but thankfully they're still young, so its easier to make friends again..haha

honestly i wonder whether i was like them when i was 11 and 13. I prob was....but damn its hard to believe..lol. Of coz, kids these days have so much more to play with. Like they have a Nintendo DS, and when they were here they got another one so they each have one. the best part is the DS has wifi..so it can connect to each other and the internet. Sigghh...the only thing we had that could connect to each other in our days was a Digimon!!! Talk about getting older eh? =/

I was actually gonna do a post about this months movies. I even found all the pictures, if u can believe it! Seriously, if you guys ever have writers block and cant think of anythin to blog for a few weeks, just do a movie update! cant go wrong there!! Like i was gonna call this month chinese movie month, coz of all the cina shows that have been in cinemas. Now im just gonna leave all that aside, coz to me movie posts are kinda boring, and i only do them when im really desperate..haha. The next one on the list is The Forbidden Kingdom, with Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Theres also one ang moh fella, which i find quite amusing. And the only way they manage to write the ang moh into the film is by creating some idiotic story about him reading a book in a bookstore and then getting transported into this fantasy world!! omgg how lame is that?? And OF COZ the ang moh cant get out of the world till he saves it or somethin. it sounds like the Cina version of Narnia for crying out loud!!

BUT i DO wanna watch Evolusi : KL Drift!!! cmon u guyss...how bad can it be laa??? and even if it is...support a bit laa the msian movie scene!!! No one has the right to complain about the industry if u dont at least TRY and support it ONCE in a BLUE MOON!!!!

Apart from visiting relatives and crappy movies, the other interesting little development is THIS :-

Anyone living in Msia will know what they are. Those who are not, then ill tell u that these are the 7 ferrari cars being sold at Shell stations when u pump 30 bucks worth of petrol. Mind u, they're not just toy cars ok! they actually have different engine sounds, which make them pretty worthwhile playing with..haha. And if u noticed...i said theres 7 cars..but theres only 6 in the picture. Thats because im still missing one!! Dad said all the petrol stations hes been to have sold out of that one, and i have to agree coz i cant find it myself either. So....if anyone has it and wants to trade for any of the others...let me know!! i have spares of the other cars..hehe

k la..thats enuf for a short update. Hope everyone reading this is doing well...and i hope more people read this!! haha

Funny Inspirational Pictures

2008-03-21T00:37:00.007+08:00

im down with the flu. class has started for 3 weeks. next week is "mid semester break" ~~even though its nowhere near the middle...~~. apart from being sick, everything is fine and dandy.

anyway enough with the formalities.

today i bring u a post about this FANTASTIC facebook group i found today. its all about photos that ppl have put captions under. Most are real, but there are a few that have been photoshopped. anyway im just going to show u guys a few of them. These are in no means all they have..theres like 600 over of such pictures. if u wanna see more...go see the group i recently joined..hehe

P.S - u can click on each picture to see it more clearly..=D

KL Hilton

2008-03-10T23:43:00.001+08:00

For once im gonna keep my promise! the last time i said i would put up the KL Hilton pictures when i got them from dom. Well i still havnt got it...but im just gonna put up what i have from my phone, and add in a few from MinJie's wedding at KL Hilton....2 weeks ago? or was it last week? omg feels so damn long ago..>.<

Im actually not sure what room we stayed in..although we guessed it was the Executive room. the front door is through the corridor on the left, so the first thing you see when you walk in is the table, chair, and bigbig tv! the bathroom is on the left, and the beds (2 single ones) are exactly where i was taking the shot.

the bathroom is separated from the bedroom by a long partition door. The funniest part is the partition is just made of frosted glass!! so if youre not careful and start stripping too close to the door...........everyone is gonna see the shadows...and a very clear naked side profile? hahaha. Luckily we noticed this early on..so all of us made sure we started stripping near the sink...not anywhere near the door..haha

the bathtub. (duhh~!!). Of the 4 of us staying there that night, i was the only one smart enough to take advantage of it..hahaha....Oh the joy of a nice warm bath at 3am in the morning! the only other time i can remember taking baths is when i was still back in England....where i would play with rubber duckies and sail boats until my fingers and toes got all wrinkled and the bubbles were all gone. Ahhh such memories...next time i must make sure i get myself one of these too..hehe.

and lets not forget the "star" of the night! Yes its the same bottle of Royal Salute that we were drinking on NY eve. The plan was to try and finish it that night, but once again we were wayyyy off the mark..haha. It certainly felt good though..drinking expensive whisky at one of the most expensive hotel rooms in town; it almost made us feel guilty that we were doing all this before we've even started working. "Almost". =D

behind the glass on the right is the ice bucket. Ice wasnt provided in the room, and we forgot to take some with us. So where did we get the ice from?

see that button with an orange ring around it? On top of the 2 button? That is the 'Magic' button! press that for any requests you might have at any time of the day or night! thanks to that handy little button we got our bucket of ice delivered to us at 2am in the morning, and extra towels for the extra people. Now thats what i call service! of course...you get what you pay for i suppose..hehe

Thats all the pics i have with me from that night. Basically the room was a very fancy place la..something which us young farts certainly were not used to...and really shouldnt have been experiencing till we're in our 20s or 30s..lolz.

NEXT, the wedding photos!

im putting these shots up just to make my post about KL Hilton complete, but honestly i dont think i took any nice shots this wedding...which was quite disappointing really, considering the prestige of the venue. But no matter....everyone knows i hate taking photos anyway..haha

the male on the left is Me, the female is Joanne, and the other male is YiChang. If only YC had moved one step to the left, then this would have been a perfect picture..!!! ah well..i guess it would have been a bit hard to stand further away without telling her what we were trying to do..lol.

A lot of u like to call me a poser, and here i prove you right! Together with other like-minded posers, we create scenes that could be fit for a full-length advertisement..lolz.

i do believe i spoiled this picture. the only reason why im putting it up is coz the background happens to be the same view we had when we stayed at the hotel! We were looking down on the same road..so i knew the room we stayed in was about 13 floors above us..haha. The only difference was the floods down below on the wedding night...no thanks to the heavy rain that poured for an hour or so.

So yea....thats it. Unfortunately all other pics turned out pretty crap, and these are the only decent ones that i can show..=D lets hope these dinners dont go on forever...im getting so sick of hunting for new clothes every time a dinner comes around..>.<

Sometimes i look at this fella, and i wonder if ive failed him. Am i still like that person? Do i still smile as happily and innocently as that? Or does a hundred other thoughts and cares and worries come along with that smile? I look at the picture, and my own eyes smile back at me. But it pains me to know....that i probably wont take another picture like that again. Not because i cant shrink myself down to that size, but because those carefree days are gone...and the trials of life have begun.

How i wish i could go back to those days...=(

More Potholes?

2008-03-09T13:45:00.002+08:00

How can i start a post without talking about the elections??

the General Elections 2008 has definitely not turned out to be the romp for BN like it was in 2004. This time around, shocking defeats and upsets have been the order of the day. Im sure even the Opposition could not, even in their wildest dreams, imagined that they could collectively take over 5 states in the country. The most shocking result of course comes from Penang and Selangor, where the Opposition has effectively taken over the states. Penang might have been slightly foreseen, but SELANGOR?? who would expect the people living in the prime example of progress and development unanimously vote for a change? It just goes to show that something is severely flawed right now, and something needs to change.

But now that the votes have been counted, the all-important questions remains - how is this going to affect our country's progress? It is going to be interesting to watch and see, whether the newly-appointed Opposition state governments are able to get enough federal funding and support to continue existing projects, while also beginning their own change in the region.

Thus the joke now is that Selangor is going to have lots of potholes soon...coz theres not gonna be any money to fix it..hahaha. In fact most of KL fell to Opposition as well, but due to the fact that KL is governed directly under the Federal Government, we wont be in danger of increasing potholes..thank goodness..lolz.

So many other things have changed. Hannah Yeow, the pretty woman in the Subang seat won by quite a large majority. Lee Hwa Beng was pushed out of Kelana Jaya by none other than Loh Gwo Burne, the one most infamous for taping the Lingam video. Of all the results, this is the one im most unhappy about. Just because he shot some stupid video in secret he ends up elected as a MP..with a majority of no less than 16000??? With that being said, anyone that was involved with the Lingam tape won their seat. Gwo Burne and the lawyer Wee Choo Keong are some examples. Personally i think Lingam is what swayed many voters...the final straw in a long line of grouses against the present government.

And finally...how can anyone not be shocked by the loss of Shahrizat in Lembah Pantai?? the famous Women and Family Minister somehow or another managed to be defeated by Nurul Anwar, daughter of deposed-but-is-going-to-be-making-a-comeback-minister Anwar Ibrahim. A lot of talk has been surrounding this particular contest which im not going to talk about here. But it just goes to show, that people arent happy, and current MP's just arent delivering enough fast enough to keep voters marking X's on their ballot sheets.

An interesting point i felt was when the ntv7 news reporter asked one of the analysts whether voters would take into account that our GDP has gone up by 6% over the past year(s). As the analyst gave his answer...i could already give mine. Sure on a national level our economy looks to be growing and strengthening, but data and statistics are one thing, and what is felt by the common man on the street is another. Ask anyone on the street and the most pressing issues they'll tell u are the rising cost of petrol and other basic necessities, as well as public safety and security. Those who are rich get richer, and the poor remain poor. Hopefully this election has marked a new beginning for Malaysia, bringing in a new generation of Malaysians who are more vocal and not afraid to speak out, not just in the shadows but in the forefront where it matters.

Random Happenings

2008-03-03T19:23:00.002+08:00

Its another monday, and im sitting at home with nothing to do. Did i mention im sick? Started with a sore throat few days ago..and now its a full blown cold. Funny part is every time i tell someone im sick the reply is "eh? u too??". I swear there must have been some sick dude in lectures last week that passed on all his/her icky germs to us../wtf

In other news, class started last week. It was a new experience in another new campus, as someone kindly pointed out to me, that ive studied in 3 different campuses over 3 years of my degree. I must admit i never thought of it that way, but i did worry about having to adjust back to the size of normal classes here, instead of the usual 20-30 people that every class in Peninsula and Berwick had. But my worries were for naught - Finance law has 15 ppl, Msian Corp Gov has about 20 odd ppl, Comparative Workplace Relations has about 30-40, and income tax law prob is the biggest with maybe 50 at best? So yea...im still stuck with small classes. Which is what i like best anyway..i nvr like big lectures with hundred over ppl..feels so....stifling..haha

But then it still was a bit of a shock coming back to Monash on this side of the world. I dunno what i was expecting. I guess half of me just expected to jump back into the old routine; pick up from where i had left off, that kinda thing. But first day in uni quickly killed that illusion - So many new faces, and not as many same old faces as i would have liked. The days when i could walk into a lecture and immediately spot someone i know is gone i guess. I suppose i should be glad i even have any friends at all in my classes. Thank God that Jun Hoang has once again emerged in 3/4 of my classes! how ironic that in our final year we should share almost the same timetable just as we did in our first semester in uni. And another one is Andrew Yong!! How in the world we managed to end up in the same classes is beyond me..he would be the last person i expected to see in my law lectures..haha. But its all good...I can see these 2 ppl will be keeping me company throughout this sem..=D

Last Wednesday was the day of the Backstreet Boys concert!! to those people who say its "just" the BSB, i say you must have been stuck on island in the 90s. To pay 88 bucks to hear all of the greatest hits during my teen years sung LIVE was hardly an expense in my opinion. I guess many ppl werent so keen since it was held at the Sunway Lagoon Surf Beach, where the last Pussycat Dolls concert was held? I didnt go for that one..so i dono how many ppl there were. But for BSB there could only have been about 5-600 people, with plenty more room for another few hundred. Not that im complaining - less people meant easier passage to the front, even though we got there late. So im quite happy i managed to go, and now that i think about it, i should have just decided to go myself, even if i wasnt able to find anyone to go with me. After all, thats what i did for the Dinosaurs in Melb, and that was to see dinosaurs of all things!!! Remembering Old Sage Pok's words - "if you want to go then go lorrr". hahaha i think i should apply that more often..=P

i wouldnt mind talkin bout a few more things..like how my gym membership has been reactivated, and i didnt realize they stuck a dance studio right next to the main entrance with glass walls so that everyone walking past can see people making a fool of themselves! omgg now i know where to bring friends to go watch a free show..haha

this morning's tennis lesson was also the first time i met his assistant. He worried that he couldnt make it so he sent the assistant, but in the end he made it anyway. Turned out to be quite cool - like real pro having 2 coaches on court..lol. Plus i really think this guy can rally better...or maybe its just because i was feeling sick this morning and wasnt playing that well. Ah well...by the middle of this year i should be able to play properly with other ppl! Gotta keep working to that goal..hehe

To end this post, i really hope to push myself harder this year in anything i do..especially in uni. If its not to pull up my average in this final year, then at least to pass everything and make it out with my degree in the standard amount of time..=/ Sooo yeaa...i should start doing my tute work for tmr instead of continuing this post!! =D

Another year goes by...

2008-02-16T22:40:00.003+08:00

......and yet im still the same. Literally.

i mean...take a look!!

Honestly, i dont see anything different in my face. Except for the hair la of coz. the first one was taken just before i got it cut, which is why its so long. I think my face has grown rounder, but apart from that, im ~~sad~~ happy to say i look quite the same way, thank you very much!

somethings wrong with my 'c' key. i gotta press it hard for it to work. it used to be the d key..now its the c key. its making my typing more difficult. Grrrr....

In other random news, i have this personal benchmark of mine. If there are at least 3 songs from an album that are hits ~~or songs that i like~~, then i deem it worthy to buy. Last time that wasnt easy, since radio hits changed all the time, and most albums only had 1 or 2 hit songs. I remember when Gwen's Love.Angel.Music.Baby was still new, almost every track on that album was a hit, save for bout 2 or 3. i nearly forked out the 20-30 bucks to buy the ori cd..haha

But these days...quite a few people seem to have good albums! For starters, Kanye West's latest album Graduation is quite worth getting me thinks. i thought only Stronger was good..but now ive heard a few more like Flashing Lights and Good Life, it gets my vote for best RnB album..lol.

Another one is none other than Daughtry!!! Seriously, if Kelly Clarkson isnt careful or come out with a smash hit soon, Chris Daughtry is gonna overtake her as my favourite artist out of American Idol!! Kelly's Breakaway album passed my benchmark, But the album Daughtry gives me the feeling like its gonna go through the roof! So far Home, Over You, and Feels Like Tonight are hits, and who knows what else is gonna hit it big from that album?

And lets not forget bout everyone's favourite deranged celeb - Britney Spears! Put aside all the S*** thats happening in her life, and attach some squeaky clean girl - Mandy Moore for example - to her Blackout album, and youll see its actually pretty good! Gimme More surprised a lot of people im sure, and it hasnt stopped with other tracks like Pieces of Me....although we ALL know that chicken squawk is super annoying. Ah well..nothings perfect..=P

On the other hand, the whole world of teenagers seems to be goin crazy over a certain 15 year old girl who goes by the name of Miley Ray Cyrus. Unfortunately (or fortunately) i have never watched a single ep of Hannah Montana...so i honestly cant comment on her. But from what i read (and hear)...it doesnt look like theres gonna be much stopping her..even though so far ive only heard of her See You Again song..

And in other even more random news, im totally broke!! Yep..going out every day of the week tends to do that sometimes. ive spent half my months allowance in one week!! i justified it coz the week before was CNY so i didnt spend a cent, but now ive totally gone and wiped out the savings i could have had at the end of the month..haha

Yesterday (Sunday) ADP and Z went to SL's open house. Discovered that her house really is within walking distance of P's house..and summore we drove 2 cars there from P's house!! Can u say Wtf?!?!

But it was all good. In fact, turned out to be more fun than i expected (Sorry suelin..but i wasnt expecting much..haha). Thank goodness there was mahjong games to entertain me..otherwise i would have been throwing money away at the poker table too. Dunno la...just dont have that same feeling bout gambling anymore. Especially when its an impromptu game made up of a few friends and other fellas...i just cant get into that same mood as i used to in Crown. Then i used to take each card seriously...thinkin bout every decision i made. These days its like..aiya..whatever la..if i dont play then theres no entertainment right? haha....

So yea...i guess ill save my gambling for the casinos...or when im not gambling for recreational purposes..=D

Ok...thts the end of one long random post. I just needed to post somethin up before the cobwebs grow back..hehehe

P.S - I'm Number 1 on Google Search for Adam Ng!! Like..how cool is that? hahaha...tq little miss trouble for that interesting bit of info..=P

Reunion @ Bangsar Village II

2008-02-03T23:06:00.000+08:00

Before anyone says it - yes, i know im blogging very often right now. But thats because theres an exam on tuesday..and im trying my best to procrastinate from studying...even if it means doing another food post. lol.

So anyways, todays food blog is gonna be about the recently-opened Reunion chinese restaurant at Bangsar Village 2! I decided to blog about this one firstly coz its new, with a review written in The Star just a few days ago. The other reason is because this restaurant is opened by the same owner of the Delicious chain, so i was quite curious to see what kind of food they would do here, knowing the sort of menu Delicious has.

*before i go any further, let me just say the pictures i take are admittedly hopeless. Sorry laa..im only using my k750i to take pics, and trying to do it very discreetly at the dinner table too..lol*

As the review says, the interior decor looks nice, and it is quite unmistakable from the outside. As Dad said when we were walking in : "hoho..this looks like an expensive place." hahaha

from l-r : drinks menu, chinese new year special menu, and normal menu. =D

But actually lehh, on closer observation the decor is nothing major. Just some strategically placed things that create the ambiance. For example, the dining area is not created through walls or partitions, but with thin curtains. I'm not saying the design is tacky, just that its not elaborate, but still creates a nice dining atmosphere, which is of course a good thing.

This is their restaurant logo (Duhh~!!). It is everywhere. It is on their menus, it is on their placemats. it is even on the coasters which are placed in between every rice bowl that is served on a plate, and every plate and soup bowl. Lets also not forget about the teapot. You cannot hide from this logo. While u dine at Reunion, you are constantly reminded why u are there - to be reunited. LOL.

Sooo..lets start with the appetizers! This is Ginseng Chicken Soup. As u can see, there is a huge piece of meat there, and if u look closer u can see the ginseng roots on the left. Every bowl that comes out has a piece of meat about that big, which i think is just a gimmick to fill up the bowl and give ppl less soup. But then again, it was quite clear from the first taste that this was authentic soup. How to tell? The bitterness lor!! When the soup is so bitter it makes u shudder, then u know its good soup. =D

Errr...this one is...ah....chicken. in claypot. with some black sauce. and fungus...........................ok laa!! i forgot what its called. Sorry le...u cant expect me to remember ALL the names right? hahaha. this dish wasnt too bad, but it tasted a lot like plain soya sauce chicken. nothing so wonderful bout this.

Cod fish cooked with japanese sauce. ~~sorry for the blur pic.~~This was my favourite of the night. Although it was kinda dry without much sauce, the fish was fresh and tasted like teriyaki. Even the skin, which i normally dont eat, was sweet with the sauce, and i ate it too. Then again, for that kinda price, i would expect it to taste good!! That piece of fish cost....Rm60!!! Sooo yeaa...as u can see, its kinda on the pricey side..hehe

Waa Waa Choy!! I kid u not, that is exactly how u say it in cantonese. What im referring to is the veg of course...not the mushrooms. =P this dish was not up to my expectations. they used pretty old veggies, and the portion was quite small. The portion was so small that we could count - "oh theres 8 leaves here...so lets divide it equally now....." Yep..definitely not something i will go back for.

This is minced pork+ginger+spring onion+some other stuff that im not too sure about. Dad knew what he was ordering anyway...but when i took one mouthful of it...OooOoh soo salty!! But apparently its supposed to be like that...so what do i know? But dad said hes had better though...so yea...i guess this is nothing to shout about either.

At this point let me just say that all the photos were taken before the dishes were touched. In other words, thats exactly what it looked like coming out of the kitchen. My point is that the presentation sux too. For the amount of money it costs, i was expecting better presentation...maybe a bit more effort to make it look more appetizing. Instead it turns out looking like any food that comes out of a roadside restaurant. Blah.

So thats the end of this food post. The whole meal totaled up to just over 200 bucks. But the most expensive thing wasnt the fish, as everyone would expect. Nope, the most expensive thing was definitely

THE TEA!!!! each cup of tea costs Rm5. So for the 3 of us that was 15 bucks there. Add on each bowl of rice that costs Rm1.80, plus that little bit of tidbits that is always friggin expensive, it totals up to more than 20 bucks, which can get another dish edi. Ciibaiii ahh...we made sure we drank pots and pots of tea before we left. hahaha

So all in all, on Adam's Restaurant Scale of 1 to 5, ill give the food a 3.5. But then lehh...because of the prices that are wayyy over the top, my rating goes down to 2.5!! In comparison I'll give Yuzu, the jap place i did my last food review about, 3.5 in total, just short of a 4, simply coz of the price.

Anyways, im going back to Ipoh on Wed until next Mon, so i dono whether ill be able to blog till then. So Happy New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone!! =D

Of New Toys and Joyrides

2008-02-03T02:14:00.000+08:00

Before i begin, i have to say this.

youre right lil niece, i just COULD NOT resist blogging about it..LOL

i mean...i REALLY didnt want to laaa..but then again..how often do i do these kind of stupid things laa?? if i dont blog about this..then what else should i be blogging about?? hahaha

BUT, before i get to that, let me start with what i originally wanted to talk about - my new table and sound system!!!

there u see the L table that i bought, and the Armageddon speakers that i finally bought after mustering up enough strength to part with the 200 ringgit required to make the purchase. it wasnt easy i tell u...it was like..the 3rd time the guy at the store was seeing me there again...i think he was quite surprised when i suddenly said im taking one the 3rd time i visited the shop..lol

And yes Brother Han, track 9 will never sound the same again!! hahaha...but of course that also applies to all other tracks laa, like Gimme More...Sweetest Girl...basically i dont think i can ever listen to anything on my laptop speakers anymore..=D

Of course after getting new toys like these i kinda go overboard a bit, and so for the last few days theres kinda been nonstop boom-booming coming from my room..haha...mum says the neighbours are gonna complain soon especially when im still doin it at 2am in the morning, and i cant say i dont believe her - when im in the toilet i can still hear the bass vibrating the floor. Feels just like those ah beng cars that drive by with humongous amplifiers...and boy i can tell u the feeling is GoooOOooooOOOOooood...lolzz

Now all i need is a Nice, Comfy chair, and im all set!! =D ~~just dont ask me what im all set for.. =P~~

Right. Now for the part about lil niece.

Thursday was supposed to be the day out with the "family". Thursday was also the day the L table was delivered to my house. So at first i had a small headache..since mum was going out in the morning, and i was supposed to be meeting them for lunch, who was gonna stay home to wait for the delivery?? haha

But as always things will work out, and in the end the mother's appointment got canceled. Even better still was Robyn calling the day before and saying she couldnt make it for lunch. So even though i was scolding her with mock annoyance, i was actually quite happy since it let me wait for the table...hahaha. ~~the fact that she felt so guilty for postponing the outing made me feel so much better too..lol!!~~ So Sorry Mummy Dearest!!..i know u might actually find time to read this..=D

But Why oh Why did we have to go to 1u?? I am officially sick of that place, after finding out the hard way that preferred parking isnt for just anyone now. Even worse is the traffic jam that leads to 1u just gets worse with every passing day. i might still be able to tolerate looking for parking there, but when it takes me more than half an hour of crawling through jams even AFTER paying money for toll, i really dont see the point anymore. Next time we should just meet at somewhere where no one goes laa...how about Catholic High? hahahahah

Anyways, dinner at Delicious was good ~~and i shall not mention your 'face problem' at Chillis mummy dear..=P~~ and so was the company. Since it was the 31st, we thought of going to Baskin Robbins later, but the place was so packed we ended up at Mcd's in Uptown. Everything was going right...till Lil Niece insisted we had to go shop for dvds..specifically for a certain movie called P.S I Love You!! So okayy lorr..after all there was a shop just down the road, so we went there after dessert. Unfortunately they were sold out, so what else could we do? go home lorr.

That should be the end of the story right?

WRONG!!

Little Niece, being the ~~spoilt brat~~ persistent girl that she is, still wasnt happy that she didnt get her dvd. So since i was sending her home..i thought ok la..we stop by at Bangsar and see whether we can find it lor. But by 12am all the normal dvd shops are closed. Then i went and opened my big mouth.

"wanna go see if Hartamas can find or not?"

Actually thats not exactly what i said. i just mentioned that we could prob find it in Hartamas or Subang, but added that its so far away. Then lil niece, sensing weakness, immediately said hartamas isnt far at all!!! So since she said theres a shorter way, i drove only lor. After all driving past midnight is a breeze since there are no cars and the weather is cool. But then when we got there we couldnt see any shops open either!!

By this time both of us were quite mmm song edi, so came the last great idea.

"Let's go to SS2!!"

Long story short, i drove all the way there, made a circle round the ss2 area, didnt find anywhere that was open, and gave up. But we DID find roadside peddlers not selling dvds, but selling MAGAZINES!! Who the F*** sells magazines and not dvds at 12am in the morning laa?!?! /wtf

When i saw that i knew we werent gonna be able to find it edi. Even though i knew Asia Cafe definitely had ppl selling there, i resisted lil niece's nagging and the temptation of driving round most of the klang valley in one night, and just sent her home instead. Which is what this responsible uncle should have just done in the first place!! lolzz

So that was the whole joyride that took over half an hour and covered around 70-80km. Honestly lil niece, u say i do it coz i love you, i say you make me do it coz u just love spending time with your uncle..hahahaha

*oh btw, there are no pictures of the whole night's events, coz we didnt take any!! a small victory for me..conveniently forgetting to remind them about it..haha*

Heroes!!

2008-01-27T23:43:00.000+08:00

Before i get to the main post, heres an update to my last post..No TIme.

The costume party is over, and in the end we decided to go as construction workers!! The idea came to me in a totally random sort of way. The conversation went somethin like -

Dom : So what did u think of those swords in Toys R Us?
Me : Not so nice laa...not worth the money anyway. 5 bucks for some stupid styrofoam sword?? might as well get the fireman helmets instead.
Dom : Haiizz...fireman mehh...if thats the case might as well go as Postman Pat or somethin.
Me : yea lor...or Bob the Builder? Hahaha...hey, wait a minute...

and thats how the simplest of ideas was born. after lunch we went shopping for the equipment, which we thought would be quite expensive. But to our surprise safety helmets only cost 7 bucks, and we could have even bought rubber boots for 8 bucks a pair!! In the end we didnt have to spend a cent coz ah pok had 3 helmets sitting at home, and we decided not to wear boots. So total cost spent on costume? NOTHING!! everything was sourced from our homes! quite proud of ourselves i must say, although i agree if we had the neon vests it would have been really perfect..hehehe

if anyone wants to see pics, go see my facebook coz i dont have any with me now. it looks like the common method these days is to upload all to facebook and just tag other ppl in it instead of sending the same picture to everybody..haha

About the HSBC competition, turns out only the Vermiculture idea made it through, and my rec centre idea got canned. Ah well...was kinda bummed at first...but at least now i dont have to spend so much time on it..lolz

And ive bought the L table! after making a few calls to the other AM office branches, found the one in SS2 had a display unit of the one i wanted, and they could deliver by thursday. So yeaa...new table should be coming then! weeee..now i can finally buy the speakers..hehehehe

As for studying...forget it la. we ALL know how much progress ill make in that department..=D

And the reason for not making any progress? This time its coz of Heroes! Ive *finally* watched Heroes Season 1, thanks to Han who bothered to burn me a copy. i know i know most of u are gonna think ive been living under some kind of rock for not watching it earlier, but while i was in melb i already got hooked onto prison break, and i never like watching series that hasnt ended yet..coz then i gotta wait every week for a new ep..so sucky..haha. The only time ive bothered doin that is for House, Prison Break, and CALIFORNICATION!!! =D

Now, can anyone be kind enough and lend me season 2? hehehe...or is that season premiere at the movies over already?!?! i should go for it since i havnt seen it yet..haha

My overall opinion of the show? It's ok, has its cool parts, but i dont get why people get so hyped up over it. I will gladly admit that Season 1 of Prison Break is so much better than Season 1 of Heroes coz its more exciting with more edge-of-your-seat entertainment. While its cool watching them use their superpowers, at times the story just dragged on in circles...and i hate that.

Having said all that, i still stayed up the whole of saturday night and spent the rest of sunday afternoon watching the whole season. Like i always tell ppl...when i start watching a new show..i dont stop.. lolz.

And even though i think the whole story kinda drags on in season 1, there are parts that i quite like, starting with Cylar (or is it Sylar?). Although the guy playing the role isnt as scary as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell of Prison Break (who can send shivers up my spine), it was still very well played, and he successfully made me hate his guts, even though i know its all just a show. So kudos to the actor..although i dono any of their names..=D

Anyways..i think thats it for this post. I was gonna give a little bit of serious thought to some of the heroes storys...but that would make this post too long, and kinda drag it a bit off topic anyway. This is the week before summer school exam ~~and chinese new year~~, and i realize everyone thats taking it wants the time to study, which is why im trying not to call any of them this week. But thats just made me realize....apart from them...i havnt seen many of my other friends since ive come back. Lil niece's party fixed that up a little bit, but thats always a hi-bye sorta thing. i wish i could get off my butt and start making some calls to those ppl that have been ignored in my phone book for a LOOOONG time...but its always so hard to call those ppl i havnt seen for donkeys ages...u get what i mean..? =/

*as i typed out that paragraph Josie msged me online...another one i didnt get to meet while i was in melb. With her its even worse coz shes in indonesia now..so who knows whens the next time ill see her? Haizz...making me feel even worse...lols*

See?? its so much easier for me to blog when i dont put up any pictures. Pictures just slows down the blogging process i tell you. Honestly, pictures are such a waste of time. Why dont ppl just go look at everyones facebook or friendster or multiply or flixster or any one of those other 865323418 internet applications that lets ppl store photos?? then blogs could be more about words instead of 100x1000 of photos all the time..=D

Sorry..im just having a rant..haha

No TIme!!

2008-01-24T00:11:00.000+08:00

Costume party in about 9 hours. The costume im gonna wear? No idea yet. =S

Results of HSBC competition out tomorrow. Are we gonna make it through? Gun Jiong!!

Intro to E-Business exam on the 5th!! Total study hours? prob about 6. Yep, im screwed.

Speaking in church on the 17th. Havnt written a word yet. Need to discuss with Jian Yi bout it too...since we're doing discussion together.

And in between that, theres Chinese New Year! so thats a whole week of 0 productivity, and a whole lot of weight gaining. =D

And to top it all off, Dad says to get the L table from AM group..which is supposed to only reach next week. So if i only buy next week, it could take a few days to come, and if it doesnt come before CNY, that means i gotta wait till AFTER CNY, which is another 2 weeks at least!!! Siiighhh....how long more do i have to exist on my bed? Sleep on the bed....Chat on the bed...surf the net on the bed...study on the bed...i know my bed is new laa...but at the rate im goin its prob gonna be sinking in soon..haha

So yea, plenty of things to think about. But still got time to watch movies! =D Watched Gabriel yesterday, and it isnt that bad laa...although a little bit of knowledge on biblical angels and demons would spark a bit more interest...otherwise i'd say buy dvd n watch. =)

The Right Time

2008-01-08T23:21:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, all a person waits for is the right time.

The right time to begin something, or to end it. Sometimes, the idea may be great, but if the timing isnt right, what's the point?

Trouble is, who knows exactly when the right time is? How many times have we regretted waiting that extra 6 months, or NOT waiting that extra 6 months, and then consoled ourselves with the thought of "ah well...i was right...but it just wasn't the right time."

Which brings us back to the question of "when is it the right time?". The simplest answer is Who Knows? most of the time we just have to trust our gut instincts and what we believe in, and stay the course straight and true.

But then there are also times when we just have to realize that it just isnt going to work out, and its time to give up and move on.

Which is what im ~~finally~~ starting to tell myself.

Why? i guess im just following my own feelings. I feel its time for a change...time to start something new. A time to begin a new phase in life. A time to open my eyes wider and my mind broader to learn new things in this life.

People think my Melb trip was no big deal...just a small dot in the road map of life. After all, what can happen in 9 months right? I beg to differ. Melb was not a waste, it was not something that will be forgotten. I admit i didnt think going over there for 9 months was going to change me, or anything for that matter. But then again, thats what i thought before i went for NS, and in the end i came out with a whole new perspective. I should have known, and i should have learnt, but i didnt, and now the 2nd time around i feel i shouldnt forget anymore.

Everyones life is different. I realize that now. Not that i didnt know that before, just that now i see it even clearer. Our paths in life may not cross forever, nor may we stay separated forever. But one thing i have learnt is, in life there are variables, and there are constants. The sooner we figure out what the constants are, the better life we will have. Now i give more thanks to God for what i have (and dont have), because i see this world isnt equal to us all, but God has given each of us our own measure of ability, and i am thankful for what i have.

The time has also come for me to realize my priorities. Priorities have always been something important, but again, the time wasnt right for me to value the importance. Now after Melb i realize where my priorities in life lie, and what direction i must take in life. It is one thing to talk with words, but displaying with actions is a totally different kettle of fish. This, perhaps the most important lesson i have learnt from Melb, will hopefully stick with me for many years to come, reminding me just what kind of decisions i have made...the year i was 20.

I can even remember that trip to Hainan with Grandma, Aunt, and other relatives. The mother and father werent there coz......im not even sure why they werent there..lol. But anyway i was mainly looked after by the Aunt. At the time...i was only about 15...i was asked a serious question, which should be due to be answered in the coming years. But....the timing then wasnt right, and i doubt the question is even remembered, except by me. If it had happened now, who knows? But once again, timing is everything, and if the timing isnt right, everything else can go to jackshit.

And finally, after wondering about it all these months, after so many ups and downs, i think the right time has come, the time to stop waiting and move on.

I once dedicated the song Gallery to u, but maybe i was wrong. Now maybe i should borrow a line from another song for myself :

Well I never saw it coming, I should have started running a long, long time ago!

Correct guess to the song title and artist gets free teh ais. =D (dont cheat by googling..haha)

I guess thats it for now. 2007 was bittersweet. Ironic, how i finally understand the meaning of the word. Ah well....maybe this year ill hope to understand the meaning of High Distinction!!! LOLXX!!!

Its 2008. Woopie.

2008-01-03T00:31:00.000+08:00

Alright this is definitely the longest time ive taken to do a new years post. In fact this isnt even the original one..i was going to do a detailed version of what i did on new years eve, but half my post didnt get saved as i was typing...and im too lazy to type it all out again. So now im just gonna do a brief and summarised version ~~as brief as i can make it la..which is usually not very brief anyway..=P~~

The whole plan was to just get to poks place in time for countdown. The plan was going perfectly...until we had to go pump petrol thanks to that stupid sms that said petrol price was going up by 40 cents. Thanks to that we spent close to an hour sitting at the petrol station pumping 3 cars full of petrol. We were quite worried we wouldnt make it back in time..but thankfully everything ended nicely, and we ended up celebrating new year...the traditional ADP style - by doing things that no one else will ever think of doing. hahaha

The highlight of the night was the alcohol i brought to the party.

I've actually blogged about this once in that post about my grandma moving house. that was the post where i put up pics of the old tv...the jade rock...the chicken coop..and others. But i also put up a few pics of all the alcohol my grandma was throwing away, and i specifically put up a picture of the chivas bottle, coz at that time it was the drink that i knew the best..haha.

At this point i blame POK for not taking a better look at the pictures i posted then...otherwise he would have seen that it wasnt just any ordinary Chivas 21, but a Royal Salute 21. For those uninformed ~~which included me up till a few days ago~~, the Royal Salute range happens to be the premium range of Chivas whisky. There was actually an article about Royal Salute in The Star on Sunday, but that was about Royal Salute 38 (or 32..cant rmb)....although RS 21 did get mentioned too as it marks the 21 gun salute to Her Majesty The Queen...hehe. Oh and did i mention it comes in diff colours? Theres 3-4 different colours comprising of blue, red, brown, and green...i think. Very Pwetty when theres a whole set i must say. =D

Of course none of us knew that at the time i pulled it out...save for one. Old Man Pok!! His eyes, which are normally so small they cant be seen, probably expanded to the size of Mich's eyes at the sight of the bottle...hahahaha. Of course the rest of us just sat there staring at the bottle like it was no big deal...but after a brief lesson, we too were well aware of what treasure we held in our hands. But of course that didnt stop us from drinking it...although none of them actually dared to drink much anyway...such party poopers la. ahaha

Pok, being pok, wanted me to take it home, since it was so expensive and blablabla. But honestly la...im sure the bottle is given much more respect at your place..compared to at mine. where the other bottles are just dumped like so :

So yes pok i think its much better u keep it for yourself...just make sure theres some left come the 18th of Jan. lolz.

And that marks the beginning of 2008!! Hope all of u have a great year ahead! =D

I Cant Get No Satisfaction

2007-12-29T19:29:00.000+08:00

Before anyone says it, Yes i do realize i have more or less abandoned this blog. What can i say? my life has more or less gone back to a slow routine....Wed and Fri go to uni for summer school, spend the rest of the day hanging out with friends, and on other days just mainly sit at home doing glorious buggerall. How is that bloggable material, u tell me leh????? /wtf

Before i start with the main post, i should mention something else first for the record books. Mich drove my car! That doesnt seem like its a big deal, and i didnt think so either. But now that i think about it, i dont think dom or pok has driven my car before. I do have a vague recollection of Han driving my car from the autopay station at Sunway hospital aaaaaaaaaall the way to the exit barrier....but apart from that, i cant remember anyone else driving it besides mum n dad. So mich...even though u only drove that short distance to Pyramid, u still received a great honour ok..haha

Anyway, moving on...

The title of this post is taken from the song title by The Rolling Stones. It reflects my utter dissatisfaction with the fm tuners i have bought recently for my ipod. Note that im not complaining about my ipod...i think its the best buy ive ever made since i got my new phone. (i thought this laptop was a great buy until i found out i couldnt change the integrated graphics card and so im stuck without a pixel shader which basically stops me from playing any of the latest games. Sigh..)

In melb the ipod was my saviour on those hour-long train trips to the city, and those half hour walks to uni. I have not regretted a single cent ive spent on it, even though at the time i was pissed i couldnt get the red one, but now im happy coz if i had got the red one it would only have been 4gb, but coz i got the black one i now have a 8gb nano. Engraved of course..musnt forget to mention that. =P

But now im back home, i dont do much walking or travelling by public transport anymore. Half my life is once again spent in the enclosure of cars. And since cars all have radios ~~except for doms car~~ where does that leave my ipod? After learning my lessons from my old mp3 player ~~which died a very quick death after i stopped taking the train home from college..it didnt emerge from my schoolbag for months after that~~ i knew i had to find a way to keep using it, otherwise it was just gonna be a waste. So since i spend so much time in the car, why dont i try to play my ipod through the radio? at least, that was the grand plan......

Thus began the great hunt for an fm tuner for my ipod. Before i came back to Msia i told myself i needed to buy 2 things - an fm tuner and a set of speakers for the laptop. I honestly was only budgeting 100 bucks for the tuner but i was giving about 3-400 to the speakers, so u can guess my shock when i came back and saw fm tuners costing at least 200 bucks. But thankfully good speakers can be found from under 200 bucks, so that helped to offset my budget..haha

So after shopping around, I found Belkin's TuneFM from Digital Mall in PJ. The guy warned me it might not be so good, but the price was cheaper than others, so i thought ill try. The next day i took it to ipoh and back, and it was quite a disaster. Nothing like what i was expecting, and all that hope about it working on the highways where radio signals are weaker all went down the drain. It basically didnt work well, and that was that.

Then yesterday i went back to change it to Kensington's Liquid FM. After paying an extra 70 bucks i was hoping my worries would be gone, but now i found that its not much better than the old one!! The worst part is...while the Belkin tuner could tune each number from say 88.1 to 88.2, this Kensington tuner can only go from 88.1 to 88.3 to 88.5!! Grrrr that totally rendered my 89.0 useless and i had to start searching for a new frequency again. Was NOT happy at all. =(

Right now im kinda resigned to the fact that technology just isnt good enough for what i want, or strict laws overseas means they cant produce any tuners that transmit stronger signals. If anyone can find me one of those (which are supposed to be kinda illegal now in the US..=D) Please Please get one for me!! heeh

So...that sums up my utter annoyance with this stupid fm tuner idea. I admit i didnt do enough research before i went to buy...but even now i know that the only way to get totally clear sound is to change the whole stereo so there is a headphone jack for the ipod.

Right.......maybe when im 25 la..aha

Yuzu @ Gardens, Mid Valley

2007-12-10T15:02:00.000+08:00

i dont normally do food posts. in fact i dont think ive done one before...but this time i managed to take all the pics!! so for the first time u guys will get to see a food review from me. =D

As everyone knows, the Gardens in MV has just opened, and many of the fnb restaurants are still not open yet. But yesterday me and the parents managed to find one jap place called Yuzu, located next to Isetan on the 3rd floor. The menu is pretty extensive, and it actually takes awhile to go through the whole thing, but theres lots of pictures and the descriptions are good, so its easy reading.

now that i think about it...i dont think i took enough pics..coz i din take any photos of the interior and layout! oh well...ill learn from mistakes..hehe

Anyways..lets just get down to the food!!

Lets start with the appetizers!

Whats jap food without salmon sashimi? 5 pieces of salmon served on a huge bowl of shaved ice. RM30 for that dish. i know its a crazy amount...but put one piece into your mouth..and youll ~~see~~ taste why its worth so much. =)
Soft shell crab. RM16. im quite a fan of soft shell crabs, but i dono why this one had a lil ginger taste to it which i didnt like. Overall i have to say amongst all the other dishes this is the one that didnt impress the most. I would save my money and not go for this next time.

erm..this is California Maki i think. theres actually 4 pieces..but 2 got grabbed before i could take the pic. Note to self : learn to work faster next time..lolz. Dont remember the price..so cant really say whether it was worth the money. But again, theres nothing to complain about this dish, each piece is at least 2 mouthfuls, and the presentation certainly is something unique. 3.5 stars out of 5. =)

Now for the main courses! Thats mums Udon. dont ask me what was in it...i think it had somethin to do with seafood la..haha. Im not a udon fan..but mum always likes to have a bowl of it when we go for jap..so yea..thank my mum for letting u guys see a pic of of their noodles..hehe

Wagyu diced beef!! i ordered this one. OoooOooohh honestly..ive never tried beef like this before. each piece is just so..succulent..juicy...with a hint of fat...its just heavenly..ahah. the price? RM55 for that bowl. yea i know, crazy aint it? lol..and it doesnt even come with rice or anythin..that u gotta add on yourself..hehehe

Aaaaaanndddd finally...the moment we 've all been waiting for!

THIS, my fellow friends, is Kobe Beef. The beef everyone knows about, the beef that comes from cows fed with alcohol? haha. It didnt really look that wonderful...but put one piece in your mouth and Boom..it just...melts. hahaha....I was actually too shy to order this, but my dad, being dad, ~~and since hes the one paying for the meal~~ ordered it for himself!! So i did end up getting the chance to try kobe beef finally for the first time in my life..lolz. And the cost? a princely sum of RM88. Ooooh yes it takes a lot of control to fork out that much money for somethin like that, but the experience is most definitely worth it. =D

No dessert, but the tea was good too. All in all it was a very good meal, considering the price we had to pay for it..lolz. Im sure ive scared most of u off with the prices im quoting, but they also have set meals, and the prices for those isnt really that much different from eating somewhere like Chillis or TGIF. So really i would recommend going just to try it out once. =D

Oh and in other news, this is for those of u that has one of thephones from the Nokia L'armour collection :

it peels off!!!! HHAAHAHAH.

aint that got all of u guys freaked out? lolzz

Foosball Rewards!

2007-12-04T04:25:00.000+08:00

Ok i know my next post is supposed to be about grandmas dinner, and i do have a few pics to post about it, but this has gotta come first!!

(note : this happened on monday..but its only being posted up on friday...today. i know i know im really behind on blogging..very sry to the Loyal Readers..lolz)

Today was the first event of the foosball classics championship at Asia Cafe. It was a Draw-Your-Partner event, which means everyone gets a random partner to play with. Me and Han just went for the fun of it...half hoping we would be too late so we wouldnt be able to join and embarress ourselves...haha. unfortunately we Did make it in time...the first 2 to register in fact! (these things never start on time..=S)

Now there wouldnt be much else to post about, if i hadnt been drawn with Michael Tan, the fooser ranked No. 2 in Malaysia!! when i heard i was drawn with him..i was like...diu lorr..im so gonna make a fool out of myself now...lolz

and make a fool of myself i did! the first game i was so nervous...couldnt do anything properly. gave the ball away so many times...mikey tan was just looking at me with a slight look of pity on his face...man it was sad. Then he had to to keep giving me advice on how to block...where to put my rods..all sorts of things. Talk about baptism of fire after not playing properly for the last 9 months..haha

but as the games progressed and we played more and more, i just got more confident and lost the nerves i guess. I even scored a few goals from the back! It was of course a great experience, and a very good lesson that im sure has helped me improve a lot. No regrets at all. =D

In the end we got 2nd place. In the final game dear mr mikey tan could hardly score a goal while the other team was getting every ball in and i couldnt do much about it. So yea....but hey 2nd place is good enuf...with 150 prize money! split 2 ways....thats 75 for each of us. Dont ask me to buy u guys drinks though....its already been spent on ZH and Evan who were also there that night. So sorry to u other guys..but youre too late..lol

The Final Week!

2007-11-18T21:47:00.000+08:00

FIRST OF ALL, YES IM BACK IN MALAYSIA!

to all of you that wished me happy bday whether on the internet or to my aussie number..thanks lots! i actually havnt seen any msgs on my aussie number coz i changed my sim card once i reached msia and havnt checked for msgs since then..hehe

im just gonna make this a quick post...coz the post is already late enuf as is...and im still not in the mood to do much blogging anyway. but this is still gonna be a LONG post..so u have been warned. =P

So in short, exams ended on the 9th, mum came on the 10th. We flew to Sydney on the 12th, stayed for one night and went back to melbourne on the 13th.

THE FIRST thing we did after checking into the hotel was go see the opera house and harbour bridge.

Mum in front of one of the "shells"

honestly when we first saw the opera house..it was quite an anti climax. When we first looked at it all we could think of was "har....is that it ah? so small wan.." lolz Seriously, after looking at the opera house on tv...in pictures.. and all that, when u finally get to see it in real life theres just that small feeling of..."er..ok..thats it..now wat?"

but after awhile it doesnt look that bad...and i can begin to appreciate the beauty of the architecture. the view is also spectacular...just as most of australia looks so clean and green..=D

For dinner we went up the Sydney Tower. i have to thank ms. Shuen for telling me about the sydney tower..which gave me the idea to have dinner up there..hehe. The view was very good of course..since all cities in Aus are so spread out, it looks like the lights just go on and on for miles.

an example of the view from the tower. Reflection coz its taken through the glass. =S

Being up on the tower brought my life through another bend. As mum reminded me....when i was 10 my birthday was on KL tower...now when im 20 im up on Sydney tower. Wonder where ill be when im 30? hopefully ill be up another tower having dinner..haha

a display outside a departmental store. theres a few displays...each one a part to a whole story...about 6 displays in total..=)

the next day we went to sydney fish market for lunch. I wanted to go there since han had gone on and on and on about it...so i had to go and see it for myself lor.

thats half a lobster, some squid, and a stick of prawns. all half eaten of coz..=P The food was ok..but its not like it was SOOO cheap that it was worth stuffing our mouths full. Thats all i ate there..and what u see in the picture already cost 35 bucks..hehe.

pelicans patrolling the waters next to where we sat..hoping to pick up some scraps. the other birds had no chance with these guys around..lol

After lunch we headed to Star City Casino! i thought i could touch some cards there..but turns out they dont even have any poker tables. So all we ended up doing was spending one buck on a slot machine..which my mother somehow managed to turn into 15 bucks..hahaha

After that we just strolled around the rest of darling harbour..and that was it. Sydney does have a lot of things to see..but when talking about the most important cannot-miss things, theres only the opera house and harbour bridge really. museums and all that are interesting, but not so important that they cant be missed. So yea..im quite satisfied with what we covered in Sydney.

Double decker trains in Sydney! not only are there 2 floors..the seats can be pushed forwards or backwards so that it can be facing the direction the train is moving! no more having to choose the right seat for those choosy ppl that must sit facing the forward direction..hahaha. This is actually the older kind of carriages..i didnt get to take a pic of the new ones. This pic was taken after dinner at the Tower on the way back to the hotel...one of the last trains for the night..which explains why the train is empty..=s

So on the 13th we flew back to Melbourne, picked up the rental car, and at that point changed our minds and decided to head west to the Great Ocean Road instead of heading back east to the city. So we drove too Geelong and spent the night there before driving the ocean road. It sounds much easier than it was...because there was literally nowhere to stay in Geelong that night! I had to call up about 5 different places before we finally found a vacancy at a motel. And that was the last room too. Thank God for that. =D

The next morning was really funny, coz we only got ready to go at 1030. The owner of the motel was a man from mainland China, and when he heard that we were planning to drive the Ocean Road, he started giving us ideas on where to stop and what to see. But when i told him we were just rushing to see the 12 apostles and then going back to frankston in the same day....i think i nearly gave him a heartattack..lolz. He was like...Nooo..NooOooo!! u cannot! it will take u 4 hours to drive there..and another 8 hours to drive back! lolzz...but in the end everything turned out fine. Took us 2 hours to get to Apollo Bay for lunch, and another hour plus to reach the apostles. After stopping for a few min there, we made it to Queenscliff in time to catch the 6 o clock ferry across to Sorrento. So all in all everything went perfectly to plan..hehehe

Of course i had to do a bit of speeding la...the Great Ocean Road is definitely one of the coolest roads to drive..with bends and u turns all over the place..its great! the speed limit is around 30-50 at most places...but taking the turns at 60-70 just adds to the thrill..hehe. After the apostles it was even better still...coz we were just heading north along small country roads with no other cars......FLY!!! hahaha...ooh boy it was really great fun. =D

The next few days was a mad rush of packing up everything else in Gails house...and tying up all the loose ends like closing bank account and stuff. We even had to make another night time drive looking for a place to stay on our last night in Melbourne..coz there was just no vacancy anywhere! we started from Frankston..and couldnt find a single place to stay till we reached Comfort Inn at Mentone!! for those of u that dont know...thats like 5-6 suburbs away from frankston..>.<

Anyways as all of u can see i made it back to KL in one piece, and the first thing i had to do was cut my hair~!!! Parents certainly werent gonna let me keep that big bush of hair..not like i wanted it anyway...and not like i wanted to go back to Ipoh for grandmas bday looking like that..hahaha

Which will bring me to my next post..Grandmas bday...in a few days..hehehe

Facebook Rawks! : Post No. 003

2007-11-04T15:38:00.000+08:00

i know most of u guys reading this already have facebook...if u dont yet, GO GET ONE!!! facebook is my fav program, not just coz theres an infinite number of games to play with friends, but also coz of all the different features facebook has. One of them is the groups that ppl can join, which can be about anything and everything u can think of. I never bothered much with the groups till i found this one!!

Malaysia is NOT in Singapore you retards

the group itself is very fun...it laments one of the main gripes ive always had about ignorant foreigners - they never know where malaysia is!!!

but i didnt see anything so really special..until i saw THIS!

30 reasons Malaysia is better than Singapore

1. Malaysia has royal families who get benefits.

2. Malaysians have the "roti" men to bring us bread.

3. Malaysian drivers are infinitely more x-treme than any other country's drivers (especially Singaporean drivers)

4. Malaysian drivers are allowed to U-turn anywhere, even when there is a "No U-turn" sign.

5. Malaysia has about 10,000 times more daredevil motorcyclists than The Entire World.

6. Food is cheaper and nicer in Malaysia.

7. Malaysia has the "old newspaper" guys.

8. Malaysia has the "tilam lama" guys.

9. Roti canai is nicer in Malaysia than in Singapore and other places.

10. Malaysian cencorship rules ensure healthy uncorrupt youth.

11. Trying to get a taxi is infinitely more exciting in Malaysia because of their unpredictability.

12. Malaysians are nicer than Singaporeans.

13. Malaysia is made up of two land masses, while Singapore has only one.

14. Malaysia is bigger than Singapore.

15. Malaysia has "Akademi Fantasia".

16. In Malaysia, the Parkson store is permanently in "The Grand Sale" mode.

17. "Rendang" is easy to find in Malaysia.

18. "Rendang" cheap in Malaysia.

19. Malaysian taxi drivers have a 1 in 3 chance of having very interesting and/or provocative views on life.

20. Malaysian weather is the best in the world.

21. The Malaysian "Ringgit" is totally original, not like Singapore's dollar.

22. Malaysian mamak give you good food for good price! (without any of that "hygene-guarentee" nonsense)

23. Malaysia airlines is very nice.

24. Malaysia has a car named after a mousedeer (its a small car!).

25. Driving in general is more exciting in Malaysia because of the unpredictable appearances of motorcyclists.

26. Malaysia has three of the tallest towers in the world.

27. Singapore buys water from Malaysia.

28. Pak Lah is cooler than Lee Kuan Yew.

29. If you count the colour frequency of the Malaysian flags in order backwards, it spells BEST IN THE WORLD.

30. I live in Malaysia.

those in bold are my favourite ones! the whole thing really cracked me up...but it didnt end there! comments from visitors has kept the whole thing going until now! if u wanna see the whole thing..check it out at http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2212730725&topic=2311

incidentally, i have also created my own facebook group. So if any of u havnt joined yet, well, WHAT IN THIS GREAT BLUE EARTH ARE U WAITING FOR?????

hehehe..till next time!

Reaping Rewards : File No. 002

2007-10-27T15:55:00.000+08:00

well whats there to say? exams are coming in less than 2 weeks, and my time here in aussie is over in less than a month. Meanwhile, ive still got no plans for the holidays, so everything is still up in the air. Of course, it goes without saying that studying is being done at a bare minimal, just enough to make me feel good about myself and shrug off some of the guilt for another day. Incidentally this is also the first weekend ive spent at home for....months! normally every weekend is spent at Caulfield...hence the inability to blog throughout the weekend..hehe

Anyways..this post is gonna be about the rewards of poker!

of course..we all know when u gamble with money, u win..well...money.

but this is what ive won through FREE poker!

thats right! not having to pay a cent, and in the process get to play poker, AND win freebies! now how good is that? =D

Now, me and zhenhan combined have actually managed to win quite a bit from free poker..but hey, this is MY blog, so its gonna be about MY winnings. he can go talk about his own winnings on HIS blog.

.......except of course for that dinner he won for the both of us at Tower Hotel which i had to blog about..since i had my own part in it too../wtf

But anyway..this is gonna be about the caps ive won throughout the year!

None of u would know this..but i came to aussie with only ONE cap, the blue Puma cap, and NONE of you can know what a saviour it has been with all this damn aussie wind every day. honestly..i never touched the pot of wax this whole semester thanks to that cap..haha

But as anyone would know, wearing the same cap gets SOO boring. So ive always wanted another one..unfortunately caps in Melbourne are way too expensive...no pasar malams to find 10 dollar caps around here.

Then, one fine day at Kittens club, i saw THIS cap!

oooooh yesss...i lusted after that cap for almost 4 months! problem was it was never given out, not even to the winners. i offered to buy it so many times...but even though the manager said he would sell it to me, he wasnt that keen on it. Finally one day he said if i won that week he would give it to me, so i tried my best..but made a few mistakes and didnt win it. Fortunately that was the same week Sue Lin made it to second place! So i dunno whether it was coz he was impressed with my coaching her to second...or my persistent nagging every week at him...or whether just because i busted him out that week, but he gave me the cap for free! so that was definitely a happy week. =D

Then just last thursday i made it to 3rd place, and won myself another cap!

Smirnoff cap! Finally..just in case some people complain i got the first cap through no effort of my own, heres something that i won by myself! Ah yes..a proud moment it was.

So now i have acquired 2 new caps, and both by not spending a single cent! how cool is that eh? =D

Of course theres also the apron that i won..and the 10 dollar meal voucher at dandenong hotel..but thats boring and not worth more than a mention anyway. (and dont any of u dare make any jokes relating to aprons and cooking..>.<)

I should also mention my first and last time joining a 7 card stud tournament, where i managed to rake in 2 pots for a whole 3 hours, and ended up losing in about 70th place out of 96. I know the 2 loyal friends that followed me there will say it was a total waste of time..but hey i knew i wasnt gonna make it without a heck load of luck, and i would have rather lost early than waste another 5-6 hours just to lose short of making the money. THAT would be a total waste of time. hehehe

Anyways...thats the update for now! Wishing u guys all the best for exams. Sleep right, Eat right, and Guess right! hahaah

Procrastination Post : File No. 001

2007-10-22T21:16:00.000+08:00

i was gonna do some boring post about how im wasting time and not studying, but then i just stumbled upon this!!

DUMDLEDORE IS GAY!!!

i cant link the video..it was one of those short videos on yahoo. it seems she said it after a young fan asked her whether dumbledore finds true love...to which she replied he was smitten with a rival during the battle between good and evil.

LOL.

this piece of news deserve a post by itself.

once again,

LOL!!!

October's Post!

2007-10-02T19:13:00.000+08:00

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!

whats the difference between those 4 animals?

answer :
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the sheep doesnt have wings!!!

ahahha...ok..that was kinda lame i know. And i know the wings arent that noticeable on the dragon. ~~yes its a dragon..not a dinosaur!!~~ I didnt get to take any side shots..hehe

all those shots came from the Royal Melbourne Show! its the yearly carnival thats half fun-fair and half exhibition, with everything from animal shows to pig racing to live animal births!! that is also of coz where i won the fuzzy orange thing up there. it stayed with me for all of 4 days, before it was passed on to a new owner, namely ms. hui shan, as a late birthday present. im quite happy...as im sure she will give it much more attention than me..hahaha..who says girls presents have to be expensive? =P

cow show..in case u havnt guessed already..=P

me, zhenhan, mel and chuisan went to the show on the sunday during mid term holiday. Besides that, my one week holiday was spent like this :

handed in 2 assignments just before holiday started on same day. one in peninsula..and other other one had to take the bus all way to friggin berwick to hand in..which incidentally i will have to do again this friday. Sighh..why must retaking subjects be so hard..??
on sunday i played the charity poker tournament i was talking about in the last post. i didnt get anywhere after playing both rounds..but sue lin made it past the first round the first try! i was genuinely very happy for her..as it just fueled her addiction to poker..muahahah
monday was spent at zhen hans place watching anime. it was one of the most pointless days ive spent at his place. lol

and then came Tuesday. Ah that fateful Tuesday. All was well throughout the day when me and han went for lunch with lil niece..and had our first taste of Wall's Golden Gaytime icecream, 4 chances to have a gay time with friends! (i kid u not..that is exactly what the box says. 4 chances because theres 4 sticks of icecream..lol)

After that came.....THE TRAGEDY.

ok la..im not going to go into details..its painful to even repeat it..lolz. Basically one thing lead to another and an innocent routine trip to the foosball grounds resulted in a trip to Canberra 2 days later with mel and zh! Now hows THAT for spontaneous planning? hahaha

took train and bus there..3 hours of the former and 5 of the latter. The train was nice because there was plenty of room and there was a food section...but the bus was also nice coz the seats could recline, and generally more relaxed than the train.

Unfortunately..theres no photos of the trip here. As always, all the pics are with the one in possession of the camera, and my k750i wasnt up to the task this time. So...too bad for u guys...cant show any pics of Parliament House...and other stuff like that.

But dont worry. If you guys dont manage to set foot in Canberra for the rest of your lives, i guarantee u its hardly a tragedy. Basically not going to Canberra is like not going to Putrajaya - u just have to know its there, know everything about it, and thats about it..hehehe.

So....Canberra lasted from Thursday to Saturday, with sat night spent at uncles place, watching rugby till i fell asleep, and Sunday was all about the Royal Melbourne Show, and that was my whole week of holidays...Gone. 4 nights spent on a couch, 1 in my own bed, 2 on the floor, and 1 on a la-z-boy..hahaha

Right now its Tuesday, October 16th, and its been about..2 weeks since the holidays? ~~yes i know, this is a very long post-in-progress~~ Havnt done much since then..except for rush assignments, rush to classes, rush to poker games..the usual thing. The most recent is last weekend, when i watched the latest Resident Evil, and Rush Hour 3. Also traveled to Dandenong to play pub poker there. Boy that was an adventure alright.

People always say how Msia is so unsafe la...how Australia is so much safer la..Australia dont have rapists and snatch thieves and all that sort. Well i always think...bullocks to that. People who say that probably live in the nicer places in Melbourne...Shall i call them zone 1 places? try heading down to the end of the train lines to zone 2 areas..and see whether u feel safe or not..lol

Honestly, i used to think Frankston was bad, coz of all the drunkards that wont leave anyone alone, and the occasional racist bunch that will call all us asians to go home. But that was until i went to Dandenong..and boy am i happy im in frankston now..hahaha...Over there the street kids, punk kids, africans, indians, and all other sorts of people are loitering around. Any one of them could be in the mood for a bit of fun and guess what? you're the flavour of the day. Right then, it really sucks to be you..=P

As for the movies...all i can say is, take advantage of student prices, or better yet, just watch both on dvd. Any of u that has watched Resident Evil will know...its all about a world filled with zombies, and we all know zombies dont make for very good entertainment value, since they dont talk, move slow, look ugly, and cant do anything spectacular. Yes i know theres Milla Jovovich, but whats the point of that when half the time shes covered in dust?

and Rush Hour 3...dont get me started. I've said it once and ill say it again - i wish jackie chan would just go back to Hong Kong and make kung fu movies where he belongs. Otherwise..i just hope this is the last of the Rush Hour series. Its seriously getting so cliched and lame that itll soon become an insult. But hey who am i to judge...u guys might just enjoy the same old lame jokes. =D

Alright thats my post for the month so far. For those that think this blog is dying...i know it looks like it, but trust me it isnt. i just havnt had time because of assignments and Facebook(!!!). Especially as it gets closer to exam season..we all know what that means!! (more blogs updated regularly as a means to procrastinate studying..muahahahha)

Resuscitate!

2007-09-18T20:30:00.000+08:00

Oh dear...its been so long since i last blogged.

Its been so long since ive last blogged, that im not sure i know how to blog anymore.

Its been so long since ive last blogged, that i had reenter my username and password when i usually auto log in.

Its been so long since ive last blogged, that ive got 3 draft posts before this post, which will never get finished, and join the long list of rejects.

Its been so long since ive last blogged, that no one is even bothering to leave comments in my blog anymore!!

and Finally....!!

Its been so long since ive last blogged, that its not even funny anymore!!!!!!!!!

hahahahah im sure some of u were really expecting the last one...=P

ah well jokes aside, it really HAS been ages since i last blogged. With everything from faulty connections and moody bluetooth software all playing a part, its no wonder i havnt found time for this. There certainly has been plenty happening though, and ill just put in the most recent stuff.

Today i watched Stardust with ZH!! That show has to be one of the best fantasy shows ive seen yet..and thats saying a lot, after seeing everything from Chronicles of Narnia to LOTR to Eragon and even Pan's Labyrinth, Stardust is really worth its weight in....well....stardust. =P An big star cast certainly helps, with Sienna Miller, Robert De Niro, and Michelle Pfeiffer all playing a part. I would pay money just to watch any one of them playing the role alone. Getting them all together like this is a bonus.

One thing ive noticed though...what is it with usually-serious actors taking up all sorts of weird roles lately??? I thought John Travolta playing a mother in Hairspray was bad enough (havnt seen it yet..just the trailers)...but in Stardust we see Robert De Niro playing a cross-dressing ship captain!! he even wears a skirt and dances around to classical music!!! oh my gosh..what is this world coming to...lolz

So thats my movie reviews for the month. Ah yes, also watched Bourne Ultimatum, which turned out to be quite entertaining, although it gave me a headache coz the camera was so badly directed.

Apart from movies, ive also crossed off another one on the things-to-do-in-melbourne list, which is watch a footy game!! Ended up not just watching one..but two! Starting with Richmond v St Kilda, which was a small match because it was the last game of the season for both teams and they were already out of the playoffs. After that we watched Collingwood v Sydney Swans, which was the quarterfinal game. That was really the first time ive been to such a big sports match, and I can say that i was one of 64645 people in the stadium!! without me there would be only 64644!!! hahaha

Thats a panoramic photo of the whole stadium. I know the middle looks out of place..thts coz i didnt get the second shot in the right position. for those of u who know what im talking about...its hard to get it just right when theres no landmark and everything is just green!! hehehe

And thats my Collingwood scarf~! silly mel was too shy to buy one by herself, and ended up kicking herself for not buying it at DFO earlier where she could have saved 6 bucks. hahaha

So far ive had lots of fun at footy games..but maybe thts because the team i supported on both occasions ended up winning!! its always fun to win isnt it? =D

Apart from all that...life hasnt changed much really. lately all ive been doing is watch anime and play poker and facebook. Ive booked my flight home though!! exams end on the 9th..and mum is coming over on the 10th. And then we're gonna fly back on *** ****....hehehehe...to those who dont know...just wait to see me in person la..=P

hmm...thts it for now. i will TRY to blog more...i promise! after all..its also in my interest to keep this blog alive..hehe

Ah yes, tomorrow is the charity poker tournament at Crown!! paid 30 bucks for the ticket...really hope i get somewhere! first place is an all-expense paid trip to the Asia Pacific Poker Tour...oh man...wouldnt that be a dream..? haihhhh.....

TIll next post..!!!

Number 7!!

2007-08-12T21:11:00.000+08:00

Ok...one thing i forgot to put on the Blogger on Demand was a deadline. I should have said somethin like..ill post it up after 2 weeks of voting or somethin like that. But then...theres already about 9 votes..and thts like almost all my readers??? And so i think..by a landslide majority..im gonna have to blog about number 7..lolz

Before i start, i must say that i only put in number 7 as a joke, and i really didnt mean for anyone to vote for it!! i voted for it myself only to encourage u guys to vote for SOMETHING ELSE, not for the same thing!!! truth be told i really have no inkling what im gonna talk about, coz of all the 8 choices up there, i planned for all except this one..hahaha

But....as all politicians must say after every election...the people have spoken!! and this is your result. just dont regret it..=P

Life, Love, and all that other emo bullshit.

Life.....

Its now the month of August, and we've crossed the halfway mark through the year. For me, any hope of this being a quiet year where i disappear for 9 months to study overseas and then reappear back home is virtually gone. So much has happened in such a short period of time i can hardly remember all of it. All its done is remind me that there really is no place like home. But im getting ahead of myself.....

Its funny what hindsight can teach us at times. Sometimes its even hard to imagine or remember the reason why we do certain things or have certain opinions. Recently ive been trying hard to remember why i wanted to come here so much..now that im actually here its kinda hard for me to remember what could i have possibly thought was so wonderful in this place..lolz

I guess...i just wanted to get away from it all? I wanted to take a break from driving the same roads all the time..playing foosball everyday..hanging out in the same shopping malls..basically getting out of that same old routine thats been my life. Unlike some ppl, i had no intention whatsoever of staying here for the long term(and i still dont!! thx God!! haha) Plus i thought this was only gonna be for 9 months..not even a year...how bad can it be right? Oh boy have i been wrong..lol

In a very much simplified version, its just been one crisis after another. Before even leaving the country I had to deal with problems with applications; but getting myself here didnt set myself free, oh not at all. Of course there was all the usual things i suppose all first timers must go through when preparing to live in a foreign country, but then there were the other incidents like Grandma's fall, which so nearly caused me to take a flight home it wasnt even funny anymore. Then there was also the moving to Ethel's for 3 weeks that i had to deal with, and following that came the holiday period, which again so nearly brought me on a flight back home, which didnt materialize only because of my exam dates that ended too late. The 2 weeks holiday was a blast, no doubt about it, buuuuuuuuuttt we all know the climax so far - that N grade that just refuses to disappear no matter how much energy i channel, focusing on it, willing it to go away. And as if that wasnt enough, theres still the WH grade for psychology that STILL hasnt been updated, even though it was supposed to be done about...oh, a month ago? 2 emails to the contact provided and its a "yes adam thank you for your patience, we're trying to do it as soon as possible." Meanwhile im getting early warning letters from Monash telling me i could be facing hearings and committees due to "poor results", when in fact my results are far from the criteria of "poor" they put down in that letter. I swear, when i saw that N and WH on the results screen, that has really been the closest ive come to just packing up and going home. The only reason why i didnt is because i cant change my course structure to fit back home....

Ah.

If that paragraph above hasnt bored u enough yet, theres plenty more where it came from. But im nice, and i wont go into the nitty gritty detail.

Basically, thts been my life so far? There are other..more subtle changes of course, that are very much hard to explain here. For example, ive had to stop listening to all the radio hits i was so used to on good old Hitz.fm, and instead branched out into totally different groups like ATB..Jamiroquai..Moloko...Sneaky Sound System even. That is of course thanks in part to Ms. Foo for her ever so extensive and colourful playlist..lol (btw..if anyone is looking for new songs, UFO, I love it, Pictures - all by Sneaky Sound System, and Destination Calabria by Alex Gaudino seem to be the latest songs around here..=P)

Having a small change in taste in music might not seem like a big deal to most of you, but to me the music i listen to are like indications of.....of.......oh forget it. haha

So there u go. My life this year in a nutshell. Another 3 months to go before im back home. Can u blame me for looking forward to it? /wtf

LoVeEEeeEee....????

hohoho!! This must be the part that all of u hve been looking for!! im sure there are some of u that prob skipped all the ~~unimportant~~ stuff up there and headed straight for this section like bees to honey. Seriously though...for a guy that has never had a proper girlfriend, u guys really pay a lot of attention to my relationships. Why?? its like everyones waiting for me to pull a girlfriend out of a hat or somethin..lolz

Ive had people give me all sorts of reasons to go get a girlfriend, but the best one so far came just last night(Friday) from Zhen Hans housemate from China, Yao. To her, i should get a girlfriend because....then i wouldnt have to spend so much time with Zhenhan!! LOL

Actually..that reason kinda makes sense..hahaha...but then again, im no closer to finding a girlfriend than i was 6 months ago, 2 years ago, or 10 years ago. So for all u hopefuls out there, u can forget it. Lil niece, youre not getting an aunt anytime soon..hahahah

Of course..a certain someone did turn 20 about last week. And as usual i just made the once-a-year birthday call. That was like..the first verbal contact since...the first month or so when i arrived in Aus, when she called me in the middle of the night sobbing her eyes out. But that was then, and plenty of things change since then. As anyone in a long distance relationship can tell u straight out, its wonderful when theres 2-3 months to spend together and grow closer and closer, but then theres the other 10 months apart which just forces people to drift apart again. So if its already like that in relationships, imagine what its like in long distance friendships. After awhile everyone grows into their own routine, and its hard to fit someone else who isnt there to be part of it.

Sometimes i even wonder how long we can stay as close friends. This year i didnt go back home when she did, and shes prob not gonna be goin back at the end of the year. In future, she might not even go back at all because of certain circumstances. So..who knows whats gonna happen in a few years time..??

Ok im starting to sound less and less like myself. Since when do i ever think about the next few years..let alone next few days..right???? But then..when it comes to things like this..its the future that counts..right? =)

So in conclusion? Only time will tell what happens in future. But as i keep telling all of YOU, nothing is happening at this moment..not unless the storks drop a girl in my lap one day...or a girl suddenly jumps out of my computer screen...or i end up having to stay in a female boarding house....ahhhh i really should stop watching anime..=P

Right. I was gonna put another section headed as "Other Emo Bullshit". But then..i think this post already quite long hor?? No pictures summore..i know some of u wont even read this far la. So i think its enuf la..save the emo bullshit for another day..hahahaha

(P.S - this post is written over a span of..a week?? So yes the timeframe is all wrong, and it would prob sound a bit disjointed, because it IS! =P)

(P.P.S - if this post still doesnt satisfy all u nosy parkers out there, u might as well ask me any other questions right now. dont be shy ya...after all, im never this open. So while this opportunity is here u better grab it while u can!! nyeknyeknyek.)

Blogger On Demand~!

2007-07-31T13:47:00.000+08:00

Ive restarted this post about 3 times already.

Lots of interesting things to talk about, no interest to talk about them though.

So what im gonna do is this. Ill just list out a few topics...let me know the one that interests u the most..and ill blog about that. Or if u want u can rank them in the order u prefer instead.

Savvy?

Wonderful!

If there are no votes at all, then too bad, just wait till the next mundane post. =P

I shall call this...~~Channel V~~ Blogger On Demand. =D

So...here we go..!

1. Zhen hans 20th bday 2 weeks ago, and the surprise dinner we had for him.

2. The sighting of Shannon Elizabeth at Crown Casino.

3. Part 2 of My Life down here in Frankston and all that crap.

4. A slice of my two week holiday, together with some photos, which i havnt put up yet.

5. Goin on the hunt for places to play pub poker, including in the city and places in Frankston.

6. Stepping into a gentlemen's club for the first time. Which relates to number 5.

7. Life, Love, and all that other emo bullshit from me.

8. The incredible tram story at 11pm

There we go! 8 choices, take your pick. Ill start the ball rolling by voting number 7!! If no one else bothers to say anything, then number 7 itll be!! haha

Oh btw, if theres anything else u want me to talk about that i didnt put up there, do let me know! ill be happy to entertain any personal requests..hehehe

Ah and finally...all those stories are different in length. Some might take some time to tell...others are very short n sweet. So depending whats chosen...i might combine a few at one go..=P

End Of An Era

2007-07-24T10:58:00.000+08:00

As of about 12.30am today, I officially joined the legions of other people that have crossed the line and finished the race. Yes dear readers, I am now one of many many millions of children that now know the final fate of Harry Potter and friends.

At this point, I'm assuming that almost all of u would have finished the book, and if u havnt it means u dont take much interest in the book, and so u wont mind me spoiling it a bit for u. Dont worry im not going to name names and all that, Just a general opinion to the whole climax and conclusion to the series.

The FIRST thing i have to mention, is the irony of all those so-called spoilers on the internet - those thousands of people that claimed to know who died and who didnt die before the book was released. They couldnt have been further off the mark, although when i was reaching the last few pages i couldnt believe it either. I was half wondering whether there was a mistake, that my book was missing a few pages or something..coz the real outcome was nothing like all the predicted outcomes..haha

That being said, i must say that i am overall disappointed with the way this book has ended. i felt the last book ended like a charm, with Dumbledore flying out the window and Snape revealing himself as the baddie, oooh yes that must have tugged on a few heartstrings. but this time.......dunno la, it was like there was no feel anymore. The first person was killed too early in the book, and subsequently every other death was treated like "oh ok, too bad for him, but what now?". Not to mention most of the people that died hardly got mentioned at all in this book, until suddenly appearing from nowhere and getting themselves slaughtered. Hows that for injustice? lolz

I dont know what else to say, because i dont wanna give away too much to those who havnt read it. But basically..when all is said and done, credit has to be given to Rowling for being able to think up such an alternative world all within her imagination. People like Tolkien certainly did the same, although Harry's world is one of the few that seems so Real, so Believable, that sometimes u just wanna run through the pillar between platform 9 and 10 to see whether there really is another one on the other side..=P

BUT

For all the praise i give Harry Potter, i still feel hes slightly overrated. All these years that Harry mania gripped the world with all the movies and stuff, i always wondered why another story never made it, even when it is so much better than Harry Potter. I am of course talking about the trilogy by Phillip Pullman, called His Dark Materials. This is not the first time ive mentioned it in this blog, and it certainly wont be the last..hahaha

THIS is the story that left me in wonderland after days and weeks of finishing the books, THIS is the story that got me wishing so much i could be in it, and THIS is the only story to date that has actually made me cry at the end, because the ending was THAT tragic and sad. I know most of u wont believe it, but hey its my feelings ok?? lolz

So when i finally saw the trailer of The Golden Compass at the movies, u wouldnt believe how happy i was. Heres a story that ive never felt was given enough credit, and now finally its hitting the big screen!! and to top it all off, even Nicole Kidman is in it, playing Mrs. Coulter, which i feel she is just about perfect for the role. Of course theres also others like Daniel Craig..but i nvr really liked him anyway..haha

Since i know for sure most of u are all wondering what to do now that Harry has ended, this is the time to go out and read these books!!! Take my advice on this, and i guarantee when everyone else is just starting to go get the book when the movie comes out, u would have already finished the whole story...hehehe

btw, that thing at the bottom is just something i grabbed from the movie website. Play around with it why dont u? =D

Damn N Grade

2007-07-18T21:22:00.000+08:00

It's one of those times. Almost a month since I've last blogged. I bet all of u are sorely missing new sentence structures in my blog arent u? =D

The problem is....where do i start? My last 2 weeks of rollercoaster holidays that ended in a blink of an eye?

Skiing for the first time?

Being driven along the Great Ocean Road mainly to see some gigantic rocks along the shore named 12 apostles for reasons that i still dont know?

Losing 50 bucks to Zhen Han just because of one second of impatience on my part? (Im nvr gonna forget that man..lol)

Or how about....

Failing a subject for the first time?

Yes...i guess i should start with that first, and get it out of the way. I dunno why...i guess i feel this is the best way to tell everyone, instead of having to repeat myself again and again. Of course there are those that already know, like the 2 jokers that were with me that fateful night i checked my results, or the few in Frankston that had to know simply because it affected my decisions this semester.

Apart from that...i havnt told that many other people. i dont know why. I guess for the first time in years...im feeling...embarrassed....???

Embarrassed because...ive nvr failed a subject in uni yet...and for this particular subject everyone else either got through it / got a good grade? After all, does anyone know anyone else that failed International Marketing?? Somehow i dont think so....=/

Before i continue, let me just say im no stranger to failing, or at least being close to failing. Im always walking so close to that thin line of pass and fail that it really doesnt affect me so much anymore. My biggest joke so far is that in the first 2 semesters i managed 1 Credit, 1 HD, and 6 Passes. HD for what? not even a business subject...but Sociology!! And of course, its all thanks to that HD that im sitting here in Australia anyway. if not for that i wouldnt have achieved that minimum credit average of 60 to apply for the intercampus exchange program.

Oh and the average that i got at the time of applying? 60.1

So yes, im no stranger to walking the tightrope...stradding the line...crossing the borderline..or whatever terms your parents use when u just scrape a pass in exams.

Oh and btw, as if failing wasnt enough, i even managed to get a WH!! whats WH u ask? it means Withheld. Why withheld? because i didnt attend enough tutorials for my psychology class, and because of that i have to do an extra assessment before they will show me my grade.

So on top of finding out i failed somethin, i also have to write out another essay, even before uni starts. Imagine how i felt when i found out...zzzz

Yes i know talking about results is a sensitive topic. Some people dont like to talk about it, some people just act like as if nothing happened at all, while there also other people that JUST CANT WAIT to find out what i got, what u got, and what the guy next door got. but i just had to get it out of the way before i start the monster of a blog-story, which is my 2 week holiday. I just feel im not putting enough importance on my lousy results if i blog about fun before i even make note of the shit marks i got last sem..=/

So thats it for this short little post. Dont worry, the holiday post is in the works as im typing this, and it will be up just as soon as i let this sit on the top for awhile..=)

Harder To Breath

2007-06-25T15:34:00.000+08:00

is that the name of the Maroon 5 song? I forgot. which is quite unusual, since i normally have a good head with songs.

But yea, thats pretty much how im feeling right now. Just finished marketing law, my LAST paper of this semester finally over!!! I'm so glad i bothered to go study with Shin Yi and Ashley yesterday, because almost all the past year questions we discussed came out in the exam, almost exactly word for word!! Thanks to them i got a headstart on it..coz if i studied by myself i would nvr have gone through all the past year papers..>.<""

But did that mean i was free again to pursue my life-long dream?? (become a loafer..professional one of course..and earn money doing it)

Nope. Of course Not!! Immediately after exams, i had to give a certain unknown person a call about an empty room on Clarendon street. Yep...i might be moving soon...again. I wonder if anyone has moved so many times in less than a year before..haha

thats all im gonna say about moving for now. Until i get any more concrete info..then ill let u guys know.

And thats basically how the last 2 months have gone by for me. A lot of If's and But's. A lot of plans, a lot of ideas. And of course, the more things there are to consider, the more problems there are. Oh I think ive had my share of troubles for this half of the year..if not for the whole year..haha

I was going to list out all the things i have to do, and the people i have to meet, but now i think thats a bit too much info. The mood for sharing came and went. Sorry guys.

What i CAN say is that ive actually been having sleepless nights lately. The kind where u toss around in bed at 3-4am trying to sleep, but just not feeling any sleep coming? I would love to say its because of exam stress, and to an extent its true. Sometimes i would be sleeping..and wake up..only to see the clock showing 4am. Now....for those of u that dont know, i. sleep. like. a. log. Im notorious for sleeping late and waking up late too, and i do not wake up halfway through sleep, not even to go to the toilet. It never happens to me.

So to start having these problems now? its just....sad.

Like i said earlier, i can blame part of it on exam stress. i can honestly say ive nvr been so stressed about exams before in my life!! If u guys that only know me this sem think im laidback..u hve no idea what i was like last time. This is already me at the most hardworking-good-boy point in my life so far. hahaha

I'm rambling..i know. Its just that theres a few things i would love to get off my chest here, but due to the public nature of this blog, it might not be very clever to do so. Yesyes ive heard all the standard arguments and disclaimers.."this is my blog and i can write whatever i want so if u choose to read it dont bitch about it" and all that. What do i think? thats all bullshit is what i think. Yes this is my blog, but who do i write it for? "Oh i keep a blog for my personal life." hah. More bullshit. If a person wanted a private record of their life go start a diary for goodness sake. I write this blog as little memories for myself, but primarily for YOU, the reader, to have a little insight into what im thinking and how im doing. if i thought something i say would offend u, then i wont say it here. And if i do, knowing youre reading this, then its done on purpose, with lots of malicious intent towards u. u have been warned. =P

Ahh my mood seems to be getting more ~~fowl~~ foul the more i write. Even the jokes..if u can even call them "jokes"..are getting lamer and lamer. Im gonna stop here, just in case i really DO say something i end up regretting...or make a joke that doesnt get at least a smile from one reader....heheheh

Current mood : Kinda sad, Disappointed, Thoughtful, Relieved, Mentally Exhausted

Number 23

2007-06-17T12:28:00.000+08:00

Has anyone seen that movie?? Number 23? Its the one starring Jim Carrey...as a guy that starts reading this book called Number 23, and starts to realize that the story is scaringly similar to his own life. The story is all about how the number 23 seems to appear all over the place, from dates to license plates and all that sorta thing. Its quite a great movie, especially if anyone is up for a thrill. However i dont recommend watching it at night...alone. Heres why...

At the end of the movie when everything is supposed to be over, Jim Carrey looks at the wall clock, and its showing 2.15pm, where the hour hand is at 2 and the minute hand is at 3!! so that was the final creepy element of the show..lol

So after becoming slightly paranoid after the movie, i looked at the clock, and guess what the time was!

2.15am! 23!!!

ok so i was getting a bit freaked out. Then i looked at the date. 17 June.

17-6!! 17+6 is 23!!!!

Ooooh mannn...trust me when its the middle of the night and creepy things like these are happening, its no fun man..hahah

After that i just tried to go to sleep...but then i just couldnt resist doin stupid things like calculating my name just to see whether there was any 23 in it..hahaha

Luckily i couldnt think of anymore 23's...if i did i think id really be goin crazy..lol

But if u think its all a coincidence...try it yourself..:P

Like at the time of writing this...my blog has had 4874 visitors.

4+8+7+4=?

23!!!!!!!!!!

Don't Panic! He's OK!

2007-06-11T21:32:00.000+08:00

Right i know its been a long while since i last updated. A bit more than 3 weeks i suppose. Well i cant really help it when i dont hve internet at home can i. Yep..for 3 weeks i had to move to another homestay coz Gail went on holiday to London. Moving was fine, what i didnt expect was getting charged 55 bucks to move my internet connection from Gail's place to Ethel's place, and then another 55 bucks to change back again. After i heard that...i was definite i wasnt gonna give Telstra any more money then i have to, so i lived 3 weeks with no internet.

The result? im now a tv junkie. everyday from around 6pm it was tv aaalll the way till 11 or 12...depending on whether i bothered to watch Big Brother UpLate...hahaha

i can even tell u all the tv times now. At 6pm theres Simpsons on Channel Ten, then 630 its Neighbours on Ten, then 7 its Big Brother, and then at 830 all the series starts on channels 7, 9 and 10. Wed is the day of the week for me, with House and Prison Break on the same day. Oh and dont forget all the daily gameshows!! Aussie gameshows are great...with stuff like Temptation...1 vs 100..or the rich list.......

Ok. I guess ive proved my point....=P

Well ive actually got a few pics to put up...like how i CLEANED the microwave and stove for the Burns Street housemates. Wait till u see the before and after pics...u guys will be so proud of me..lol Unfortunately i dont hve them now...so ill hve to get them another day and post them up.

Thats the room i stayed in for 3 weeks. Kinda small i know...my room in gails house is much bigger. But for the short term its ok. And because Ethel has her own tv in her room, i always have the living room all to myself, which was definitely a great thing. =D

THAT is a bottle of Pumped, a bottle of flavoured water just like those found back home. BUT this isnt just ANY bottle of Pumped. Its the bottle thats been with me since i first landed here! Yup, that bottle has been my water bottle for the past 4 months, being used not just in school, but at home too! I was actually planning on using it all the way till the end of the year...but after the 3 week stay i thought it was getting a lil unhygienic...so ive said goodbye to my trusty bottle. Ill miss it......=(

Its funny really, coz in school last time i was always losing my water bottles, and i hated carrying one around. Ah well, living in another country can do things to u sometimes...lol

In other news, exams are coming soon. ~~Duhhh~!!!~~ Unlike SOME ppl ~~stupid arse pig!!!~~ we actually have a short period of time, usually 2-3 hours, that we use to determine our fate. What type of fate we have normally depends on how many pages of writing we manage to submit in the end. I know this all sounds pretty normal to u guys, but SOME ppl only know about portfolios and models, so i must educate them about the business way of life. im sure u understand. haha

Psychology is on Friday, Trade Finance on next Monday, International Marketing on next Wednesday, and Marketing law on the following Monday.

There u go. my whole life now depends on one week. Bloody good ay? /wtf

Dont have anything else to say for now. Except that ive now got a 12gb internet quota to finish by next monday, so im trying to think of as many things to dl as possible. If anyone has any ideas, do let me know! and i would prefer movies instead of series thanks...simply coz its easier to dl one movie than lots of episodes.. ;)

P.S - it seems a lot of ppl like 4 in the morning by Gwen Stefani? Am i the only one that notices the starting few seconds sounds very similar to the start of I wanna love you by Akon? Just a random fact. ;)

Miscalculations and Relocating

2007-05-17T11:42:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to u from the laptop, desk, chair, room, house, ~~bed~~ of Ms. Foo Hui Shan! thanks to the rain thats been coming down outside for most the morning, we've been stuck here and as a result have missed one psychology lecture and our tutorial. Cant say that ms. foo isnt happy about that though...after expending considerable amounts of energy to get her out of bed she just got back in it again. But its ok..im used to it now. This semester has just been one vicious cycle..lol

yep that mountain under the sheets is her. If u look closely u can see the head sticking out. Oooh shes soooo gonna KILL me for this. SUE LIN!! DONT U DARE BREATH A WORD ABOUT THIS OK??? hahahah

yes its been a long time since i last blogged. International Marketing ate up a big chunk of my life last week. I swear this has gotta be one of the hardest subjects in the whole business course. All in favour say aye?!?

Of course work hasnt been the only thing thats been keeping me occupied. What did u think? that i would let something as trivial as a 30% major assignment that could hold the key to my passing or failing the subject stop me from blogging??? hell no!! lolz

The other reason is because i exceeded my internet quota this month. /bummed And before u say it, NO its not because im dling too much porn. /wtf After the mistake i made last month where i wasted about 3 or 4gb, i made sure i would use it all up this time. Unfortunately i underestimated my usage and now im stuck. And now because of that my connection has to chug along at speeds of 56k modem until this Saturday. Thats not so bad...i can actually live with that. The only thing that worries me is i got a psychology essay due on tuesday..and without a good connection i really got no mood to do it...haizz

i was gonna blog about my ferry trip i took from Sorrento to Queenscliff, but because the photos are in my laptop and my connection is too slow right now to upload them, theyll have to wait. Normally i would say ill put them up next post, but due to similar past experiences i think its safe to say ill never do it..lolz

So what else..? Ah Yes!! tomorrow im moving to a new place!! Gail is going England for a holiday on Saturday, and shes gonna be gone for the next 3 weeks. So now ive gotta move to another lady's house for the next 3 weeks. Ethel is another lady that lives on her own...a few years older than Gail. No pets though. BUT!! Gail's plans for Oscar capsized at the last minute, so now she has no choice but to leave the mutt with me, and surprisingly Ethel was quite ok with it, and of course im quite happy too. It means ill have the dog to bully all to myself for the next 3 weeks! How cool is that? hahaha

So yea..yesterday spent the afternoon packing clothes and stuff. Ive come to realise that even though its only 3 weeks, im just about taking everything i have over. Not because i dont know how to pack, but because Gail is coming back 5 days before my exams start!! My first paper is psychology on the 15th of june...and shes only coming back on the 10th. That means..like it or not..studying is gonna have to start at Ethels. Which consequently means i gotta take ALL my notes over too!! Siigghh doesnt it just suck when everything happens at once..? >.<""

Aihh its been quite a depressing few weeks for me. Having been stuck at home all the time even during weekends because i have assignments due the next week has virtually shredded any threads of a social life that i have over here. But its funny though...I never realized i was that depressed until i finally handed in IM on tuesday and went to watch Spiderman 3 with the Burns Street housemates. Carolyn, Sue Lin and Hui Shan.

After just getting out for a bit of entertainment...suddenly feels like a huge cloud lifted over my head. Not to mention the hyperness i was feeling afterwards. Ms. Thong can attest to that..she was the one i bugged when i got home later..hehehe

Those who know me well will know i hardly get depressed or sad. But over here i feel like im trapped like a rat in a box..running around with nowhere to go. After being used to city life, with a shopping mall just down the road, i guess this takes some adjusting. But on the other hand, NS wasnt even quite as boring as this, and that time i was in the middle of the jungle. That was probably because there were people around all the time, so its hard to get bored when theres always someone doing another stupid stunt or antic.

Ok im stopping this post here. Final words? SPIDERMAN IS GOOD!! dont care what all u other numbskulls out there say. 'nuff said. muahahaha

Wine Tasting...*hic

2007-05-04T13:05:00.000+08:00

This week has not been very kind to me. In fact its been bullying me quite badly!! So far...

I lost Gails umbrella because i left it in the bank and it wasnt there anymore when i went back to look....and i thought banks were supposed to be safe.
I totally destroyed my microwave popcorn because i wasnt watching it while it was in the microwave. As a result the microwave is permanently stained..and theres this burnt smell coming from the microwave. No prizes for guessing what happened to the popcorn.
I got drenched for the second time while going home after class. This time while cycling. (yes ive started cycling). Its no fun being soaked to the bone while peddling home i can tell u that.
I got screwed by Monash for supposedly not paying my overdue fees....when its already been paid..and when im not supposed to pay fees over here anyway!

So as u can see, this hasnt exactly been the greatest week of my life. AND to top it all off, i had to spend about 2 hours of my life training a simulated RAT to push a button that releases food into its food dispenser so that through the course of training the RAT will progress from being a complete imbecile to becoming this genius that suddenly realizes that every time it pushes this lever, theres this sound, and food drops out when theres that sound! Just how "amazing" is that??

oh btw, the rat has a name. Sniffy. So dont mess with Sniffy. It has an insatiable appetite. Literally. If it didnt we wouldnt have been able to train it so quickly. You have been warned.

Actually....ive got quite a lot of things to blog about. So im just gonna keep typing and typing, and whenever u get fed up of reading mindless ramble, just look through the pictures and read whatever captions i put up. I dont mind..really.

So where was i..? Ah...the wine wasting...i mean tasting!! Last Sunday Gail, Natalie and me went to a few vineyards down south for a bit of wine tasting. The original plan was to take the ferry across to Sorrento, but because the weather wasnt good Gail decided not to do it. I didnt really care where we went anyway..so we just piled into the car and left.

First stop was Marinda Park. Dont have any pictures of that place...but an amazing coincidence happened! When we parked the car and were walking to the house, another car parked nearby. I looked inside...and i thought i saw someone familiar. There were 4 chinese girls in there, and i thought i recognized one of them. Turns out i was right!! One of them was a good friend of none other than dear Ms. Chiu Hui Shuen, Christina, who stays in Melbourne. It was amazing because i dont know her, and she certainly has no idea i exist (well maybe now she does =P). The only reason i recognized her was because of the pictures Shuen puts on her blog. Even more amazing is among all the many different vineyards in the area, we would walk into the same one at the same time. Just how small is this world eh?

After Marinda Park we headed off to Main Ridge Estate, but before that we stopped at Red Hill for some cheese. Yes u read right. Cheese.

Can you see the cheese at the top? The one that has a bit of blue colour inside it? The one on the right of it is the one circled on top of the list. After that just go clockwise, and each piece is the next one circled on the list. It also goes from the mildest cheese to the strongest, so the first one is the mildest, while the one with the blue colour in it is the strongest. Mountain Goat cheese lehh...dont playplay!

(Those are biscuits in the middle...in case you didnt know)

Im not a big fan of cheese, so i thought was more than enough. By the 4th or 5th on the list it was really getting too strong for me. But Gail thought it was very disappointing. Oh well in this case she would know better, but as for me, this is enough for my cheese experience..hehe

After that we headed to the Main Ridge Estate, which was just next door to the cheese place.

The scenery from the place was just beautiful. Acres upon acres of land. I particularly like the picture on top...gives the impression that a road just goes on and on and on and on and on and...............

The scenery was nice, but the people at the place definitely werent. They only gave us 3 different types of wine to try, and each of us had to pay 2 bucks for it, when other places do it for free. If that wasnt bad enough, this old hag that was serving us was the most unfriendly person ever. She basically just told us what it was, poured out one teeny weeny sip for us, and that was it. No explanation about what is what, or no help with tasting the differences..which is what wine tasting is supposed to be all about anyway. BUT! the worst part was the fake smile on her face. The way her lips curled up one end in a slight smile..but the eyes with that same deadpan expression. Jeez...just because their wines win some awards...they think nothing else matters. Ish..pisses me off sometimes.

The last place we went to was Montalto. That was the best out of the 3, with the best wine range, and a restaurant together it. The people were also helpful and nice, so thanks to that i bought one bottle from them. Non-alcoholic though. Hey what did u expect? im a good boy..hahaha

So that was the end of my wine and cheese tasting experience. It was fun...although i really wouldnt bother doing it so often. Free alcohol is good...but driving all over the place just for a few mouthfuls? nahhhh

Movies

Everyone always says how watching movies in Aussie is expensive and how its soooo not worth it compared to malaysia. Yes i do realize the price of tickets is no contest. 9 aussie dollars is nowhere near RM9. But i think its allllll worth it!! Becauseeeeee :

1) The seats are SO much bigger. Its not cramped and umcomfortable like back home. Goes without saying that the leg space is great too. I suppose its also because the people here are generally taller...but whatever the reason, its just great to actually watch a movie in comfort...without worrying about holding hands with the fat guy on the right or playing footsie with the tall guy on the left.

2) Less people watch movies here. Ok thats not really true. In the city the cinema is quite packed. But down here in Frankston? There isnt even any seat number because there are so few people!! I watched Shooter and Sunshine on wednesday, and there was only 6 people for Shooter, and there was NO ONE inside during Sunshine!! yea u read that right. I was the only one in the whole cinema. How cool is that? lol

That opening on the left is the entrance to the cinemas. Notice theres no one standing there to collect tickets? Thats proof that its actually possible to just walk straight in without anyone caring. In fact, after watching one movie i could just walk out from one hall and walk into another one...and i dont think anyone would notice. Definitely dont have to worry about seating..coz theres always space and its free seating anyway..hahaha

Ok i would go on about Prison Break and How I Met Your Mother and how lil niece has single-handedly got me addicted to both. I dont regret it though..especially with How I Met Your Mother. If anyone is looking for a good sitcom to watch, get this!! I'd say its as good as friends...if not better. So watch today. =D

Right gotta stop here. Its taken me one week to type out this post...and already today more has happened to blog about!! So u guys better read this one quick okay..so i can put the next one up asap..haha

Trust

2007-04-28T18:36:00.000+08:00

Trust. the single word that so clearly defines a relationship between two or more people.

Do you trust me? the question implies letting go of some sort of responsibility, or choice, and leaving it in the hands of another, from the trustee to the trusted. Many times the question cannot be answered so quickly, nor is the answer ever certain. For which human being ever wants to put their choices in the hands of another?

Of course, the assumption is that the matter of trust always involves two people, two different bodies with two different minds and souls. And because we cannot read each others minds, nor can we see into another's soul, a verbal assurance must be given, that we are all on the same side.

Dont worry, im not here to blabber on about how my parents dont trust me, or how my friends dont trust me, or how my (imaginary) girlfriend doesnt trust me. Im going to talk about another type of trust, a trust that only involves one person, the person himself or herself. How many of you ever find yourself asking this question.

Do I trust myself?

The question sounds like it involves two people, yet there is only one. For many the question at hand is easy. "Of course I can trust myself, I make my own decisions, why shouldnt I trust the decisions that i make by myself?" Ah yes that is true, but do I trust myself to make the Right decision?

Trusting myself is different from trusting others, because I can see into my thoughts, I know my own feelings. There is the saying "No one knows me better than myself", and I feel that is true. If a person is compared to a jigsaw, and all his thoughts and emotions are like the pieces in it, then who holds all the pieces, except the person himself? Yet even with all the pieces it is not an easy puzzle to solve, because the picture isnt clear, the colours all blend into each other, and the pieces dont always fit so nicely. In fact, arent we always learning new things about ourselves? If thats the case, then even we dont have the perfect picture of ourselves. We might think we do, but when we're faced with a problem, along comes this hole in the jigsaw, and suddenly we dont have the pieces that go in. Thats when we dont know what to do, and thats when we realize we dont actually know ourselves as well as we first thought we did.

I dont know about you, but ive found its always hard for me to trust myself. For example, when I say ill start studying tomorrow, i cant trust myself. When I say ill stop after just one more piece of chocolate, i cant trust myself. When i say ill blog a new post next week, i cant trust myself to do it. But its not always about the future me. I cant trust the work that i did last night, I always have to go through it again, just in case I missed something, even though I can clearly remember already checking it the night before. I dont trust the things I remember or studied a few weeks or months ago, because I always think ive got it wrong. Because of that, if I want something done, I have to do it NOW, because the person I am now, is the only one I can trust to do the things i want done.

Does anyone have this peculiar habit of talking to themself? Not just thinking to yourself, but talking out loud. Like having a conversation. hey its not as creepy as it sounds..lolz. Personally i notice its more common with only childs, compared to those with siblings. For me, growing up as an only kid, there wasnt many people to talk to..not even a hamster or a goldfish. So the only one left was..myself of course. =P Today its sort of developed into this kind of split personality, where i can ask myself a question, answer the question myself, and think whether its the right answer. I just think it helps me clear my head..to imagine that theres two of me, and not just one, so that when i have a problem i can ask myself, and i can debate it amongst myself, and finally reach an agreement.

I know its confusing..i have more trouble explaining it in writing than in words. Those of u who know me, will know im always better at talking than anything else..=P

Anyway..ill end this post here. Enough deep thoughts for one night..my head is starting to ache already. Just to sum it all up..

I am my own best friend..and i have to trust myself. Because if i dont, then who else can i trust?

;)

Rugby League!

2007-04-21T22:17:00.000+08:00

Yes i am procrastinating again. Marketing law is due on Monday. But before u pass judgement...its almost done okay!!! 1610 words out of 2500 completed so far...and ive only got one more part left to talk about!! so dunn say im not doing my homework okay...hmph. >.>

I think almost everyone has heard me rant about how boring Melbourne is. Im not changing my opinion...the city itself might have enough to keep me happy, but down in Frankston its a totally diff story altogether. In fact, i can safely say that i will probably experience more aussie culture than most ppl here after one year of stay in this part of the world.

Take today for instance. Last post i mentioned a guy called Gary at Gails bday dinner. Today he took me and Natalie to watch the Melbourne Storm against the Penrith Panthers from Sydney. Lost? i understand...im talking about the national rugby league...lolzz

Thats the penrith panthers warming up. Couldnt catch the Storms coz they were on the other side of the pitch.

Im sure everyone has heard of the Rod Laver Arena (see: Australian Open), and the Vodafone arena too. Thats the one i went to watch the dinosaurs in. But not many people know of the Olympic Park Stadium, even though its only opposite Rod Laver and Vodafone. Its home to the Melbourne Storm, and im not sure what else goes on there. A new stadium is supposed to be built next door as their new home, which is gonna be shared with some Melbourne soccer team, which in the words of Gary is like watching 2nd or 3rd division english football..lolz. But soccer here is getting popular after their ~~absolutely lucky~~ good run in the world cup. =P

If theres one thing ive learnt about aussies, its that they WURVEEE their sports. imagine on a normal weekend theyll be 2-3 AFL (australian football) games on, together with rugby, plus who knows what other events are on at the time. Its common to see a whole mob of people all dressed up for a game walking down the road. Everyone HAS to own something of the team they support..whether its a jersey, flag, cap, scarf, or any other merchandise imaginable. I think of all the 9909 people that watched the game today..probably only me and Natalie dint carry any Storm stuff. Cannot le like this! Next time must buy liao..lol

Aussies also love to swear. And they dont give face to opponents. Its so funny when the away team comes out onto the pitch, and theres not even polite clapping, just big boos!! What happened to being good sports? haha...Somemore when the away team scores a try (getting the ball to the other side) no one cheers, but when the home team does it, theres fireworks, cheerleaders, inflatable mascots....everything!!! the biasness in support is just crazy..haha

BUT, the player to get the most flak from people in the stands is not any of the players, but the REFEREE!! the poor guy was seriously cursed the whole game man. Of course even i agree he made some stupid decisions la..but still!! They dont even call him 'ref'..they call his real name!!

"Clark youre a F***ing wanker!!"

"Come on Clark!! Run with your f***ing eyes!!"

Im not gonna go through the whole list. Im sure u catch my drift. And im sure u understand Clark is the referee...hahaha...im sure he heard most of the jeers..must be hard to have to listen to it every week..lol

Notice the change in the skies? It was raining when we got there..but it stopped just before kick off which was at 530. After about half hour it had turned from day time to night. Dark clouds were rolling in too. Good thing it didnt rain on us though..=)

In the end, the Storms won 30-20. It was unnecessarily close only because the ref helped out the away team quite a bit. I would hate to think what would happen if Storm lost...prob a mini riot or something..haha. But this makes it their 6th win a row..so it looks like theyre a pretty good team overall.

A lot of people seem to be blogging about their dogs lately. THAT is Oscar. Full name Prince Oscar the Pampered Brat. Hes the resident ~~rubbish bin~~ dog in this house. He is absolutely THE MOST non aggressive dog on the face of this earth. Whether u pick him up, step on his tail, or grab his legs, he will not bark, and he will not bite!!! And trust me..i have tried all manner of torture on this little furry creature. The only time ive managed to get response out of him is when i almost dunk him into the kitchen sink, or when i act like putting him into the oven. He doesnt even care when i put him over the stove!! Seriously if anyone is scared of dogs (Steven!! thats u!!) this is one fella that no one should be afraid of..lol

Of course hes not all a saint. He doesnt really listen to commands..unless theres food in front of him. Oooh yes hes a smart dog alright. Plus he just loves to yap at neighbours and their dogs. And his bark is the kind that really pierces through u...ugh. Thankfully im getting more used to it now and can predict when its coming..hehe

Oh yes, thats Natalie in the first picture..dint expect it to turn out that dark..ill try and get a clearer one next time. She'll be around till about May, then shes gonna be off to Darwin and Sydney, and in August she'll be goin to New Zealand. Its fun to have her around, one reason is coz she knows everything about Neighbours, so she tells me all about who is with who and what was the story behind this and that...anyone that watches drama series will know how important it is to have someone like that..=P

And i know my hair looks like a friggin mushroom. I just woke up in that pic..but yea my hair is getting gawdawfully long anyway. im gonna cut it soon!! i promise!!! (and NO little niece im not letting your friend cut for me..>.>)

k la enuf for this post edi. its 2.45am and i wanna finish off my assignment tmr. Till next time folks..=D

P.S - let me know what font colour is the best for u guys to read. Im getting kinda bored with this blue. Is white best? Comments are welcome

Just Another Day

2007-04-15T19:12:00.000+08:00

Just another day. Or week. Or month...depending on when was the last time i bothered to sit here and type a post. Dont have anything much to talk about, just some nonsensical ramblings. But then again, some of u love me so much that youll read any crap i dish out for u, just as long as its fresh..right? lol ok that was a bad joke. Im not kennysia. I dont have ~~billions~~ thousands of ppl reading my blog everyday. I should be doin my best to hang on to my loyal readers!! What am i thinking??

Anyway. The past week of easter holidays past by as another typical adams-kind-of-week. Basically the plan was to just sit at home, hibernate in my room, and emerge when the dinner bell is rung at 6pm. (Yes we eat very early around here. Sometimes even at 530. I know i know thats a crazy time to eat dinner...but its also good...because then we're all finished by 6.30 so I can watch Neighbours from 6.30 to 7 and then The Biggest Loser from 7 to 7.30..hahaha)

But as with all other adams-kind-of-week, it nvr ends up how i plan it. Instead of the planned hibernation, i ended up spending one night at lil nieces place, and one night at zhen hans place. Watched TMNT(finally!!) which i give bout 7/10, and had korean for dinner.

Dont ask me what the name of the place is. I have no idea. I just follow where lil niece walked. lol

After dinner, got to try out KokoBlack, where we even bumped into teen. My opinion? Max Brenner is better. But thats just me anyway. Seriously Melb is so small...its not hard bumping into people. People might think kl is small, which is true, but melb city is even smaller, and the common places where ppl go are even smaller.

After all that, me, mel, zhenhan and szeyen went back to mels place, where the REAL fun started. A few other visitors dropped in..cant rmb all of them now. But anyway, as the night wore on and lil niece started to get restless...she brought out her bag of tricks.

"tricks" meaning nail polish, and her very extensive make up kit.

I was the first to suffer under the nail polish. I got pink nails on my left hand! It looked so bad i demanded for blue on the right. In fact the pink looked so bad i washed it off immediately..I still the blue on though..its sort of a personal test for me..haha

BUT!!! The star of the night definitely was ZhenHan!!! After my nails, he VOLUNTEERED to be the victim for little nieces makeup kit. Frankly, i have no idea what got into his head...and i dont think i will ever understand what he was thinkin about that night. It probably was becoz of the gin in the ribena...dont u think so lil niece? LOL

Lil niece hard at work.....

Lil niece looking absolutely chuffed someone actually volunteered for this. Look at that cheeky grin. Sends shivers down my spine. hahahahahaha

If u want to see the final result, go see her own blog. I dont hve the photo with me..im scared if i keep it in my com my hard drive will vomit blood and die..hahahaha

Generosity Results In Profit

Most of u might have seen this as my msn nick lately. It came about after Gail's birthday dinner last Saturday. There was about 10 of us, and we went to the chinese restaurant down the road. The only family there was her sister and brother in law, while the rest were all friends. There was even a guy she hadnt met before, but was a friend of a friend who came along as well. So it wasnt a real family dinner or anythin like that.

I sat with Natalie, the girl thats staying here as well. John, Gails bro in law sat next to her, and Gary, the guy Gail had nvr met before, sat next to me. Most of the conversation throughout the night was just with the 3 of them. And boy was it a really whacky night. It certainly didnt help that i had nail polish on, so im sure they all thought i was a downright weirdo..lolzz

If theres one thing ive learnt about aussies now, its that they wont respect u until they think of u as one of them. They might be nice to u and all, but deep down i can assure u they just think of us as another darn asian flooding the country. Sad but true. Anyway, as we were finishing dinner, i went and paid for the bill. I had already planned on doin it, and it wasnt a last minute decision or anything. But when the others found out........lets just say the reaction was priceless...LOL

So then there was this great rush to pay me back the money. I didnt mind, coz i knew it was gonna happen, since no way would they let a kid like me pay for their meals of course. My whole point was just to make an impression with them, and in that sense i certainly succeeded. From being just-this-kid-who-is-staying-with-Gail, i turned into the wonderful-and-generous-adam-with-a-big-heart etcetcetc. So it was definitely a good move, which paid off dividends in full.

The funny part was when they gave me all the money they collected after splitting the bill. the Total was bout 177.50. The other guests gave me 170 with some loose change, Natalie also wanted to give me about 13 or 14, and when we got home Gail wanted to give me 20. So really, If i had taken everything, i would have ended up with about 205!!! which would mean i earn a profit of almost 30 bucks..hahahaah

Of course i didnt take Gails 20 la..coz i wanted to buy her dinner at least. And i refused to take Natalies money either..coz shes backpacking through Aussie and also heading to NZ later on in the year, so shes on a tight budget. So YES i did pay for something, and i didnt make a profit out of this...which i know is what u guys are thinking..=P

A Dedication

2007-04-04T10:33:00.000+08:00

Michelle complained last night that i dont blog as often as her (3 times a week..at least). Somehow i feel im justified in taking longer periods to blog, but thats ok. Then she also demanded a post dedicated to her too. Well, since i think shes the most frequent visitor to this humble blog, i feel i should accede to her demands....just this once. =p

Anyway, nothin much has happened over the past week, so ill just skip past the moderately-interesting-but-not-able-to-hold-your-attention things and go straight to the weekend, which was when i went to watch Walking With Dinosaurs..=D

i had to go ALONE, simply because no one else wanted to go. im not blaming anyone, just that its sometimes hard to find ppl with same interests. I wasnt even planning to go anymore at one point, but thanks to Procrastinating Pok, i was once again motivated to pay AUD57.45 to go watch dinosaurs..haha

I guess im still kicking myself for rethinking whether i should have gone. If i had made up my mind earlier and just done the booking, i might hve got a better seat. Not that my seat was that bad lar..just that it could have been better..hehe

Looking across the right side of the bridge on Batman Avenue. (yes its called batman..seriously.)

Across the left side of the bridge leading to all the arenas. Those are all the train tracks that lead into the city. melbourne train system is quite simple really..every line goes into the city, makes one circle and comes back out again. Definitely much simpler than the London Underground...ugh lets not even go there..lol

And of course for those who know me well enough, u know i love trains (Read: Thomas the Tank). I promise one day im gonna have my own model train set just like this..hehe

So i followed the yellow brick road till i landed myself at the arena, got my ticket and went in. Bought the program (15 bucks!!) so theres somethin to rmb the show..and also for all u guys back home. (awwww aint i sweet? cmon say it...im a nice guy..haha) The show started 15 min late. My seat was at the end of the row, which i guess was a good thing, coz then i wasnt sandwiched in between 2 kids or 2 big size daddys or somethin. =p

Yes i did take pictures, but i wasnt really hopeful of the quality. Obviously because the whole place was pretty dark, and secondly i only have my camera phone with me. But actually now when i look at them on the comp they turned out pretty ok to me. Once again, another gold star for Sony Ericsson k750i 2megapixel camera. =D

Stegosaurus!! A harmless plant-eating ~~cow~~ herbivore, Its tail had nasty spikes, which helped to defend itself. No ones really sure what the fans on top were for. Initially the general opinion was that its extra armour. But now theres another theory that says it was used to control temperature. Hmmm..i know i know...u guys are all like....whatever...right? =D

Brachiosaurus!!! They advertised the biggest dinosaur to be taller than 11meters, and they certainly werent exaggerating. If it stood at the end of the stage and stuck its neck out, it would reach till about the first few rows of the BACK section, which is like more than half of the seating area. Of course it dint do that la..all the kids would freak out for sure. But..... i wish it did...haha.

Big adult and small child. Not sure if u can see the other dinosaur at the back. The small one supposedly got lost from the herd and was about to become dinner until the big one came and chased the bad dinosaur away. Yay. hahaha

Of course, Brachiosaurus was another vegetable-eating ~~giraffe~~ herbivore. Actually how one or two would have defended themselves against predators, i have no idea. In a pack i can understand la, but several together? What they gonna do? Trip them over with their necks? lol

And finally, what would any dinosaur show be like without the star attraction, the main reason why more than half the people are actually interested in dinosaurs in the first place, the Tyranosaurus Rex?!?! I dont need to explain bout this dino. The only thing puny about this fella is.........its hands. Its really quite strange how it only had such tiny arms, with 2 or 3 fingers i think. It seems it was used to balance itself after bending down to eat. Who knows.

There were many other dinos lar of coz, but either i dint manage to take the picture, Or i did, but the lighting wasnt good enough and the pic wasnt clear enough. But nvm lar, i already showed u guys the 2 main highlights of the show anyway..haha

On the way to the arena and on the way back, had to go pass Rod Laver. Home to the Australian Open (although they dug it all up to host the swimming championship at the time). So why not throw in a pic just for fun..hehe

In the end the show was pretty good, and it certainly was an experience worth remembering. It just kind of gives that sort of feeling that this is just the beginning of new technology, because when we were kids this kind of show would definitely not have been possible, or if it was it would have cost a great deal more. But at the same time its plain to see theres a lot more room for improvement, and im sure by the time we grow up and have kids there will be models that can actually move fluidly and independently too. THAT would be something worth watching. =D

Sounds like the end of the post right? WRONG! This post is a dedication okay!! u think im just gonna end it with so little in it? Plus its for Michelle!!! All the more its gotta be double long..haha ~~chewah...can imagine Mich's eyes growing double big too right now..lol~~

After 2 weeks of intense waiting, It finally arrived!!! Damn stupid..the website says shipping within 24 hours, but this came WAY PAST that time. To make matters worse, no one was at home for bout half an hour the day it was supposed to be delivered, and they just HAD to come during that time. So of course there was no one to collect, and of course they had to take it back and make me reschedule for another delivery date. That was ok with me, but that day was a friday, and the soonest they could come again was TUESDAY!! Simply because of the idiotic reason that they needed to wait 48 BUSINESS HOURS before they could deliver it again. What kind of policy is that?? NEVERMIND, im patient, so ill wait.

But the BEST PART was when i tried to specify a time. The conversation was:

Me : can i give u a rough time for when they can come? coz i wont be at home in the morning.
Woman (definitely old from her voice): No im sorry. u cant do that.
Me : well then could u give me a estimate of what time they will come?
Woman: Nope cant do that either.
Me thinking : So u expect me to sit around the whole day for 5 min of your time?? bastards.
Woman: Can i have your phone number please.
Me : 0411383982 (yes its really my number..for those of u who dont have it yet..haha)
Woman: Right, thank you.
Me : So is it ok if they call me before they come?
Woman: No sorry we cant do that either.

WALAOEH then they take my phone number for what??? I cant believe this is the kind of service in aussie. When i told my homestay lady she just looked at me like it was a normal thing, and said "isnt it the same in malaysia too?"

NO! well at least for my laptop, they actually bothered to call me 2 days in advance and give me an estimate of what time they would deliver, which is of course very sensible instead of just having THE CUSTOMER hanging in limbo for days waiting for the delivery man. Sigh this country seriously doesnt agree with me...and the more i stay here the more i think wats the big deal about this place anyway...apart from the indisputable fact that they are wayyyy more environmentally friendly..lol

Oh wait. Ive rambled for so long and i havnt even said what they delivered have i? haha...I basically waited 2 weeks for this:-

It looked so pretty in the box i didnt wanna open it. But of course i have now la. Notice the engraving? Its done for free, and i thought it was an added bonus to having it delivered, instead of going to an apple shop to buy, coz theres no apple shop near my place.

I actually wanted the red one, I saw it available on the US and Singapore online apple stores, but NOT IN AUSSIE!!! aarrrggghh what is wrong with this country?? because of that i got so pissed off instead of just getting a blue 4gb one i made myself content with a black 8gb one. Ah..i have reached equilibrium again..=D

My rating so far? Sound quality is great no doubt, but i hatehatehatehatehatex10000 the way people are forced to use itunes to transfer songs. It just complicates things, and messes the way i arrange songs. And i should tell u, when it comes to song playlists and arrangements, i demand perfection.

So if anyone knows another way of transferring besides itunes, do let me know!! ill be happy to learn. =D

Ok la i better stop here, or else i can even go on about the movie 300 i watched today. In summary, ok plot, pretty good acting, but in the end nothin very memorable about it. I dono why dom is so hyped up bout the movie. Do explain it to me next time i talk to you.

Chocolate oh Chocolate...

2007-03-25T18:39:00.000+08:00

I had quite a few pics to put up. However due to my utter incompetence (caused by having less than 10 hours sleep in the last 48 hours) i deleted ALL my pics from my phone. I know i know..i dono what i was thinking. I think i didnt unplug it properly from zhenhans laptop when i was at his place over the weekend...SIGH...even worse part is i used the songs for my alarm and ringtone. But i forgot bout it this morning..and when the alarm rang i was wondering what funny noise is that...then i suddenly remembered it was using the default alarm tone coz my normal song (Sean Paul - Give it up to me) was gone!! haiyo how annoying is that.

Last weekend was....fun...for a lack of a more adequate word at the moment. Friday night went to casino with zhenhan and mel teh..dint know that guy suddenly so hooked on poker..can win money summore!! hahaha...now i rmb lar..sabbath day..no wonder i dint win anythin la...punishment...lol.. It was raining pretty bad when we left at bout 3am..and the taxi was trying to speed all the way.

Crazy aussie taxi driver + Infinite number of Melbourne traffic lights = Crazy Start n Stop x 100

i swear i was quite worried his tyres were gonna slip coz i could feel the back tyres slipping everytime he accelerated..and he always waited till the last min to break at traffic lights..even when he saw it was red from a mile away!! i tell u these aussies are worse drivers than us msians..haha

But enough of that night. Saturday was lunch with none other than lil niece herself!! and her mother too...so technically..that would be my...sister..? errrrrr...lets not go there...hahaha

hmm lil niece..i think we overdid it a bit..mel teh was quite shocked the way we were behaving i think...noticing she dint say anythin for almost half an hour..ahha..i guess more self control next time? lol...and ok lar..now i really owe u lunch..so YOU call ME when u want to claim it okay..=D just make sure it doesnt leave me starving for the next month ok......shit im beginning to regret this already..haha

That was the highlight of saturday. the rest of the day wasnt all rosy believe me...but im not gonna talk about it. Anyway me n han went back up to the city again on sunday...supposed to try and watch TMNT...ended up just foosing instead..hahah..hey foos aint that bad here le u guys..1 buck a game only..and the table is quite new le...=P

Ok i confess. That wasnt the only thing we did on sunday. we tried somethin else.

I see Michelle is showing off all the yummy food shes been having..hey mich..envy u lar..getting to eat good food hor? haha

But nvm lar..i also get my fair share of good food..hehehe

in that pic u see a strawberry dip with chocolate, a pizza made with chocolate, kellogs cornflakes, melted marshmellows, and honey crunch, and a cup of ice blended chocolate and peanut butter crunch.

Now tell me NOW what is the common word that appears in those 3 items?

YEpyep..chocolate!! we finally found Max Brenners (thx lil niece for telling us where..we would nvr have found it without u telling us..haha) and decided to eat there. We needed to have lunch..so the pizza was worth a shot..it turned out pretty good actually. We realized its actually quite perfect too, coz it can be eaten cold, so if theres any as leftovers, just take it from the fridge and eat. No need to heat up in the microwave. In fact itll prob taste better cold..haha

Funny part happened when we determinedly set out to finish all of it, but in the end we were left with 1 slice of pizza, and more than 3 quarters of the drink left. Couldnt finish it...han isnt really a milk choc person, and i REALLY couldnt take in anymore..it was too much..even for me..lol

But just as we were despairing as to how we were gonna finish it, our saviour came in the form of Su Lin!! she saw us outside and joined us. Big mistake. She was wearing her braces and retainer..but we persuaded her to take it out and indulge..hahaha...find me a girl that can resist chocolate and ill find u a perfect world. =D Walao but once she started she really cleaned up everything on the table. Not that we were complaining. We were just so happy someone managed to finish everything and not waste our money..haha

Ok i realize ive been quite bad to u guys. i havnt put any pics of my room! Well i will put some up soon...but......................not this post. =P

Instead i show u a picture of my lecture theatre!!

what u see is the only lecture theatre in the business and economics building. thats where i have my trade finance and marketing law lectures.

Trade finance lecture = no fun, coz too many ppl, boring teacher.
Marketing law lecture = fun, coz of funny teacher, and only 15 ppl, so got LOTS of space to stretch legs..haha

Psycho lecture is held in another block...thats the biggest lecture theatre on campus i think..its about the size of one and a half LT7's, also shaped in a semi-circle. That class only fills up less than half of the lecture theatre though, so theres enuf space for everyone. Int marketing is done in the lecture theatre in the education block. that one is about the size of LT2...but slightly smaller.

tutes are done in classrooms (duh~!!), and theres really no point of trying to take pics of that.

in fact the only reason i managed to take that pic is coz i spend 4 hours straight in that place on monday mornings..2 lectures in a row. So when trade finance finishes early and everyone is gone i have the whole place to myself....and thats what i get up to..lol

ok lar ive crapped enuf this post. I hoped its satisfied your cravings for amateur literacy..hehehe