Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Maple Party!

LOL the moment I logged into Maple, yangyang told everyone to gather inside FM. They held a birthday celebration for me inside Maple LOL. And we all changed into animals and took ss and stuff. Thanks people! And also I received plenty of SMSes this year from all sorts of unexpected people. Even my dearest cousin Eric sent a message from Hong Kong. I din even send one for him. So bad. But thanks to everyone! Although birthdays are meant to be happy, but to see me inching towards the big 3 seems a bit scary. AAHH!!

27-27

Oh... It's my 27th birthday on this 27th day of May 2008. Nothing much to comment. Just that everything could be way better. Let's hope one year from now I have more things to rejoice about. I remember reading about this book called "Life's A Game So Fix The Odds" on the newspapers quite some time ago. That was when I thought everything in my life was pretty shitty. Was looking for it but couldn't find it anywhere. Then I just forgot about it. But somehow the book caught my attention when I was browsing through the shelves at Times Bookshop last Saturday. So things do appear when you don't search for it eh? And vice versa. Anyway someone else was searching for the book, together with the bookshop assistant. In the end it's the customer who spotted me holding the book on my hands, and proceeded to grab one off the shelf too. I didn't purchase the book on that day. Today I went to Times Bookshop again and wanted to get some other books, but in the end settled on this book instead. So let's FIX THE ODDS!

Mummy asked Cindy to get a cake for me. Diao... Didn't think it was necessary. And Mummy and Cindy were so eager (greedy) and wanted to eat the cake right after dinner. Therefore they cut the cake up and made everyone else eat a slice of it. Now my stomach feels a bit weird. ZZZzzz...

So there we are. I'm officially polluting Earth for the 27th year this year. Damn... So old liao.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Eat Until Puke!

Hehe... these few days really eat until puke. Was back from dinner just now at Seafood Paradise at Defu Lane, the one cousin Wilson introduced us to eat at. I made reservations for the eight of us at 6pm. So we reached the place at 6pm, thanks to Sharon ferrying me and Uncle on her Nissan Latio. Later on, Yaokun, Siying, Peyyong, Peiyi arrived. We had to wait for Ah-ma until almost 6:45pm. Never mind cos today's her big day haha. She arrived with a bouquet of flowers in hands. And she also announced she's attached with a guy from her workplace. Hoho congratz to Ah-ma. We have an Ah-gong liao! Hahaha.

We ordered garlic prawns, baby kailan, some tofu with golden needle mushrooms, two creamy butter crabs and two pepper crabs. Eat until shiokz. We also got two plates of mantous to go with the creamy sauce of the creamy butter crab. Eat until super full.






We even had mango puree desserts or those yam paste desserts. Then they presented us our little cakes meant for celebrating Ah-ma's and my birthday. I was too full to eat it on the spot, so dabao-ed it home for supper ahahah. Shiokz dinner with MKG. CRABS ROCKS!


24th May 2008, Saturday

Woke up at 10+ to get ready for IPPT @ Tampines SAFRA. Yeah I'm all prepared to fail it and go for RT. Therefore I ate light breakfast and then cycled to SAFRA. After registration, I went to the sports hall where the static stations are held. Soon I saw my old AHS scoutmate, Zhesheng, entering the hall. What a coincidence. We then chatted while we finished up our four static stations. I passed all of them, as expected, whereas Zhesheng failed his chin-ups. Then we proceeded to the gym to take our 2.4km run on the treadmills. I thought I should just try my best to run, but seeing that I'm so freaking weak, and after running just 1.8km, with only one minute to go before my passing time is up, I pressed the "STOP" button on the treadmill and jumped off. Zhesheng had already given up on the fourth minute diao. So we did all the out-processing, and went to the cafeteria to rest and have some drinks. He recommended the laksa there, which costs $4.50. Looks irresistably delicious. Too bad Mummy had already bought curry mee for my lunch back home LOL. I actually found out that Zhesheng is working at DSTA. So after he finished his laksa, we then cycled back home.

Back home, I nua-ed and mapled throughout the whole afternoon and even took a short nap, cos I was REALLY exhausted. Even right now my muscles were aching all over. ZZzzz.. Then my whole family and I went to Swenson's @ Tampines Mall. It was to be another unpleasant dining experience at a supposedly reputable restaurant. Plenty of cock-ups. Super poor service. Mummy was complaining throughout the whole dinner. Hahaha. I really think Singapore's service industry needs some serious polishing. Compared to the service standards I experienced in Japan, oh man... Nothing to compare. So after dinner, we went for some grocery shopping at NTUC before we headed home.

And another night of GPQing with unXplained turned out kena shitty. The GPQ was buggy, and we had plenty of trouble trying to complete them. Sucky server. ZZzzz...

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Alas, Going As Planned

And so everything is concluded. After much persuasion from all the management, I didn't get swayed or psychoed into delaying my exit from The Company. Huh? You still don't know? I'm leaving my company for good. Just look from the view of a non-management staff from my company and you'll definitely agree with me that it's best to bid farewell. Hehe Taiwan here I come! Hopefully Kah Wai has done something to book for our Taiwan trip. Freaking tired now. Yesterday OT until 10+ and finished dinner at 11+. Tomorrow is the final SWAT. Feel like swatting flies instead. And there's the Champions League finals later in the morning. Gotta sleep soon to be able to wake up to catch this highly anticipated match between Manchester United and Chelsea. Who'll win? I'm a supporter of neither. Just give me a damn good match!

And I almost forgot that it's the 21st of May today! So here's the usual recommended song from NaFiMuYa's list.

Song No. 6: Sweet Lullaby
Artiste: Deep ForestAlbum: Deep Forest
Released: 1992

Fun Facts: It's back to the year 1992. I remember hearing this song on the airwaves all the time and even in TV commercials back then. This song is adapted from a traditional song from the Solomon Islands. Sort of sounds like some tribal chants, but to a very accoustically beautiful melody.

The lullaby is about a young child crying because his parents are not around. In response his older brother sings this song to comfort, as well as tell him the reality, with an appeal for his deceased parents to protect this child in the land of the living (local ancient belief is that the dead care for loved ones they left behind).

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Slack Weekend

Totally slacked off this weekend. Wahahah! It's a long weekend! Of course must slack!

Today is Vesak Day. Ok it's past midnight. So it's YESTERDAY. Maple had 12hrs of free 2x exp. Therefore all of us chiongsters 4xed all the way. Just finished GPQ. Yangyang got an SB (SoA Lvl 20). Shiokz man.

NaFiMuKa: 45->50
NaFiMuNa: 51->55

16th May 2008, Friday

After work, went to meet up the GIP guys at Hotpot Culture @ Marina Square. Alan organized this outing, in which Kim, Nana, Wenyao, Eng Tat, Rongxuan, Naizhu, Zhenhao, Hock Seng and me went. It's been quite a long time since our last gathering, which was during CNY at Wenyao's place. We found out that Naizhu and Hock Seng are already jobless! Wow the trend is a bit scary huh? Everyone around me are leaving their jobs. Wahaha!

The steamboat was nothing much really. We ate set meal only, not the buffet style. After dinner, we went to find places all around MS, but couldn't find any! All places were fullhouse. In the end, we managed to find very comfy seats at TCC @ Millenia Walk. Kinda slacked there all the way until the TCC closes at 11pm. Then Rongxuan drove a few of us to City Hall MRT where I met up with Peiyi and Siying to go back to Tampines for movie. We decided to watch "Accuracy of Death", also known as "Sweet Rain" in Japan, at 1130pm. Yaokun helped us to buy the tickets and therefore once we reached Tampines Mall we went straight into the theatres. The movie was quite interesting. It was the first time I've seen Takeshi Kaneshiro acting in a Japanese movie. The story was about him, a Grim Reaper, or Shinigami, going around judging his "clients", to determine whether the clients deserve to die or to live. The lead actress in the movie, called Konishi Manami, is kinda cute. And looks prettier and cuter the more I look at her. This is the kind of girl we need eh? Hmm...

Watched and listened to the song featured on the show. Quite a nice melody. And Konishi Manami is so sweet!

Haha forgot to mention. We then went to Simpang Bedok to have supper with Peyyong. He just finished work. It was almost 2am liao. So we sit there and had supper and talk cok until everyone seh...then I took cab back home. Waliewz midnight charge so ex.

17th May 2008, Saturday

Met up with Ron, Juncong, Sim, Kai Hock and Huiru at Plaza Singapura. We went for dinner at Ajitei. Just learnt that Huiru accepted her job at NCS. Hmm... Hope it's much better there than at her previous company. Juncong is busy flying around as an air steward. Shiokz job man. Getting much higher pay than us and gets to see the world. ZZzzz... Engineer life sucks. Sim is taking CCNA certification. Woots. Kai Hock is working his shoes off at his current company, but is pretty much enjoying spending lots on his very expensive hobby - photography. Ron is very happy at DSTA. I am NaFiMuYa.

We then went to Pool Junction to look for Edwin and Elise. They played for an hour or so before we joined them. Somehow we all thought the two of them might be together, but Edwin says "NO" very firmly. Ok loh. LOL. Huiru left halfway and then we all left after about an hour of pool. E & E didn't join us for our later activities and went home instead. Very fishy. LOL. The five of us bachelors (sob) then went to have Tow Huay nearby. The Rochor Tow Huay's queue was sooooo long that we decided to patronize the other tow huay shop just next to it. The queue is crazy! Got so nice meh? It's pretty much the same anyway. So we had our supper and then went to Cathay to look for nice shows to watch. However we ended up at E2Max playing on XBOX. It's quite fun actually. We grabbed four controllers and then played Gears of War, some tennis game, and some soccer game. It's the soccer game which really hyped up the night. The other two games were kinda...boring. So after the crazy night we went back. Nice outing. Haven't met up with the game for uber long.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Countdown to Friday the 13th

Starting from today.

I wonder if it's a good or bad thing. Hmm...

It should be good I guess.

No, it should be better.

Yeah, definitely better than now.

Let's see...

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Hey Where're the Votes!?

Looks like you guys are very lazy (for those who haven't voted). Just click on a little button can liao mah. So bad leh you all... LOL

Song No. 5:
7 Seconds
Artiste: Youssou N'Dour & Neneh Cherry

Album: The Guide (Wommat) (Youssou N'Dour) and Man (Neneh Cherry)
Released: 1994

Fun Facts: This song probably gave me a very lasting impression because it's in some language which I don't understand! Of course, it's the very gothic background music and the soulful vocals from Youssou N'Dour that makes this song so unique and lovely. I love the solo parts from Youssou N'Dour, even though I don't understand a word. This song is unique also in the sense that Youssou N'Dour is Senegalese, while Neneh Cherry is Swedish, and the song is sung in English and French. Beautifully arranged, I would say. Also one of my favourites and highest played song in my playlist.

Can't embed the song again cos it's disabled. But DO watch/listen to this wonderful song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbBSDE-Dywo

Update: Wigan 0 Man Utd 2 (79th Min), Chelsea 1 Bolton 0 (79th Min) Ok Man U wins the EPL. Full-stop.

Watching Wigan vs Man Utd

The day is almost over, and I've not uploaded my latest post. The score is already 1-0 to Man Utd. Cristiano Ronaldo had scored a penalty kick at the 32nd minute. It's his 31st goal for the season. Awesome lad. The commentator said that if he gets 32 goals, he'll equal the record for the highest number of goals in a season, from someone in the 1959-1960 season. Gosh he scored that many goals? Looks like Man U is gonna win their 10th premier league championship after all. Poor Chelsea.

Today is Mother's Day. Mummy and Father went for some 1-day tour around Singapore with their friends. Hmm... Father's IC number kena 4-D's first prize! Too bad he didn't buy... After they came back from the trip, we went to have dinner at Pizza Hut at Bedok. We had the Mother's Day Special, whereby there are 2 pizzas, with some appetizers, drinks and soup and some free gifts for the mother.

The waiters and waitresses at that outlet were all students working part-time. And it seems once again they gave me a very bad impression of students who work part-time at restaurants. Firstly they are very unprofessional, and they can't handle a lot of things properly. One of the girls accidentally knocked into a table full of dishes and leftovers from the customers who had left the table. This made some food or oil or whatever spill onto the floor. Then one of the guy waiters went to mop up the mess, without doing a good job. He did place those yellow signs on the floor to caution anyone to be careful of the wet floor. However soon after that one of the other waitresses who was in a rush slipped and almost fell flat on the floor. Luckily she managed to maintain her balance, but I think she might have hurt herself. Later on, she wasn't so lucky. It's the same girl again. This time she was holding a tray of soup and drinks and she smashed all of them on the floor. She herself broke her fall with her hands, but I think she might have got some cuts. I didn't see any blood though. What a bad dining experience. Pity the poor girl though. But you can tell that they are probably just secondary school students. So young and ignorant. The floor is pretty slippery already without any "lubricants", yet the girl, perhaps trying to rush, was walking so fast that it's not unexpected that something like that would happen just now. Then talking about service, our soup and appetizers arrived, without any cutlery! We had to remind them to get our fork and spoons for us. Bad bad experience. As if what I encountered just two days ago was not bad enough.

9th May 2008, Friday

After work, I went straight to VivoCity to meet up the Blk 22 people. We were initially planning to have dinner at Marche, but it seemed that there wouldn't be space to accommodate 20 people. Therefore we went to look around for some other place. They decided to go for Hog's Breath Cafe. I remembered my company held an event over there, and the finger food sucked big time. I was quite reluctant to go there for dinner again, but it seems that we have no other better choices. Therefore we went to the restaurant asking for 12 seats, since the rest have not arrived. However we had to be split up into 2 tables. Therefore the few of us who arrived went in to get our tables. I ordered a Tex Mex Combo, which is a set of steak and some other stuff. It was rather tasteless. Wasn't worth the $26 I paid for. ZZZzzz... Anyway the waiters and waitresses were apparently students working part-time. Probably around the same age as those I encountered today at Pizza Hut. They really gave very bad customer service. Not only did they not fill our glasses promptly, they also didn't know their stuff. When we asked what dish it was when one of them served our dish, she looked stunned and went to ask her supervisor instead. Ok perhaps you can't blame them for their ignorance, since they are only part-timers. But it is definitely the restaurant managers to blame for hiring them without giving them proper training. Then when Adrian and his girlfriend arrived and joined our table, Kelvin wanted to tekan the staff a bit and asked one of the more senior staff to clean up our table, fill up our glasses and take Adrian's orders, in a very stern tone. The senior staff quickly cleared our table of our dishes, then forgot about the rest of Kelvin's orders. Kelvin said he wanted to @#$%^&* him already. Anyway we finished up our dinner at last, then wanted to know whether the restaurant accepts any credit cards which give discounts. Jiajun asked one of the girls the question, and the girl merely shooked her head, then took the card away from Jiajun and walked off. We were all like O_O ... We learnt from Zhongming that their table paid with OCBC card which gave some discounts. Therefore JJ went to check with the staff again to ask for confirmation. In the end we got the discount. ZZZzzz... Don't ever tell me to go back to that restaurant again man.

After dinner we wanted to look for a place to sit down and talk cock. We searched high and low. In the end me, Shenggui, Patrick and Yok Hian, the first search party, found many seats at Starbucks. Now, this outlet seems to be one of TWO Starbucks outlets in VivoCity. I called Charles, who was with the rest nua-ing at some chairs, to join us. In the end they found themselves at the OTHER Starbucks outlet. Eventually they gave up their search for us and went straight to Harry's Bar at HarbourFront. So the four of us, who already bought our drinks at Starbucks, brought our drinks over to Harry's Bar to join them. They got a very large sitting area for all of us. And we nua-ed the night away. Seems like this will be the last time Zhongming's batch will meet us as NTU undergrads. Time really flies soooo fast. Everyone is graduating and entering the next phase in life, neverending work.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Do What You Must

Plenty of things to do and to be done. Coming up is SWAT for my very own application. What a boring phase in an SDLC. But too bad, what's gotta be done gotta be done. And also, gave the signal. It's time to do the action!

Just back from dinner with ex-colleague Kah Wai, Kong Cheow and also Wing Kin and Yew Hwee. We ate at Pasta de Waraku @ Marina Square. I didn't know there existed a Pasta de Waraku at Marina Square, but only ate at the other Waraku restaurant. I FINALLY got to eat at this restaurant. It's been several attempts to eat at this popular restaurant, but I NEVER get to eat there. Everytime the queues were like neverending. However we got a table pretty quickly. Must be because it's a weekday and this Waraku is pretty new. I ordered a Bolognese Spaghetti with Gratin set @ $16.80. Very worth it. DON'T ever order just the pasta alone. Kong Cheow was the only one who ordered the pasta alone and we were freaked out by the difference in just an additional $4. We get extra gratin, which was baked cheese and prawns with pasta. Tastes pretty good. We also get a small cup of corn soup, as well as a small bowl of salad. Definitely worth buying the set meal instead. I also ordered an Iced Cocoa @ $3.80. Not too bad too. We all shared a very interesting Bacon & Kimchee Pizza @ $12.80. It's not very filling cos it's just a thin crust with a bit of cheese and bacon and kimchi. But it's rather unique though. Not your everyday Pizza Hut type of pizza. Overall I think the price is justifiable for its presentation and taste. The Japanese always never fail to come up with good-looking and good-tasting food.

We chatted over dinner, until about 10pm, before we left for home. This outing was suggested by Kah Wai, probably because this time he is REALLY going to Germany. For the last two dinner outings, his news of his going to Germany was to become just fables. Let's hope this time round he really touches German soil for good. Wahaha!

Anyway here's a very cute video for those Patapon fans out there. Yat: You should retry this game. Got me hooked for quite a long time ahahha. PATA-PATA-PATA-PON, PON-PON-PATA-PON!

Thursday, May 01, 2008

It's Not Labour Day!

Definitely not! It's a freaking hot day again. The weather has been scorching since last week. And today had to paint my room's ceiling, and also part of Cindy's room's wall. Today was free 2x exp for MapleSEA, therefore I chionged from 2-4pm before sweating myself out painting the ceiling. It was a very strenuous task, cos you have to go against gravity and lift the stick to reach the roller onto the ceiling, and exert more strength to allow the paint to fully cover the ceiling. All the work and weather really made it seem like an oven in my room. ZZZzzz...

But anyway it's the 1st of May today. So here's the next song recommendation:

Song No. 4: Come Undone
Artiste: Duran Duran
Album: Duran Duran
Released: 29th March 1993

Fun facts: The band Duran Duran reminds us of the durian fruit doesn't it? Never mind about the band name. This song gives a rather trancy feeling. Maybe that explains why I like trance music when trance was popularized in the late 90s. This song is covered by several bands, including Bachelor Girl. Hmm I wonder how they sound like. Definitely originals are the best.