2007 Season Ender

Wow. Can you imagine that. 2007 is almost over!

Its gone turbo fast I reckon!

So many different things have happened. And I wish I could have captured all of them in this blog. That way I can look back and say 'hey, I did that didn't I? hmm that was fun'.

But I guess I didn't want to bore everyone with anecdotes on how my Final Fantasy characters were leveling up (which I think is a blog worthy achievement)

But for now, lemme do a recap on some of the things that was 2007.

January

2007 actually started a few weeks early for me. Around December 06, when my girlfriend told me that she'll be be working far far away from me. Well.. i dunno if its that far. 420 kilometres is closer than being inter-state or overseas. But its not close enough for bootie calls me to visit her at frequently.

So my year started off with an emotional roller coaster of not knowing what will happen between us. Everything had that bitter sweet taste. Happy she's moving on to the next chapter in her professional life and sad and worried of what was to happen to us.

Mr Strong and girlfriend - Margaret River

January was also the month I moved in with my brother. It was a temporary arrangement because bro was planning to rent out the house later this year. So I only did a partial move.

It was hard not knowing where home was.

It was a difficult month (especially when it was the month I started the 'no fast food diet').

February

So now there's 400km separating me and my girl.

And I guess guys, when left alone, end up playing around.

Long distance relationship

This is how my affair started.

With Sasha.

My shiny black Nintendo DS :P
Hehehe. I'm such a kid.

Sasha was suppose to keep me occupied for the long bus rides to Geraldton.

The look anyone would make if forced to watch VHS during bus rides

What my girlfriend didn't anticipate was for me to get so attached to Sasha.

When my girlfriend is not around, Sasha lies next to me when I sleep.

And I know Sasha loves me.

She says I have very good hands.

March

Beginning of the footy tipping season. Nice to know for the second year running, I got 1 point again for the first round of games.

March was a month spent mostly catching up with friends.

Looking back in my Inbox, I find a large chunk of emails debating on where to eat.

It's the month I first organised the Man Dinners TM.

The purpose was to save myself from my own cooking without the expense of fancy restaurants (which girls are akin to). Luckily for me, the man dinners turned out to be a good bonding sesh. We were exchanging stories about cars and massages with happy endings.

My sis and me after my bro's graduation. I still don't get what's so good about Oxford 130

April

My parents left for manila and Japan leaving the big house for me to take care of.

Party!! Right?!

Wrong.

It was pretty much cooking and cleaning and walking the dog everyday. It got creepy when I heard noises outside and the dog started barking. Maybe watching those horror movies was not a good idea after all.

My girl and the girls.

Upside was a few pizza nights where I got to pig out. And no one knew about it.

Ben & Ivy's engagement. I didn't have any pics of the newly engaged!

This month also saw a very messy night at Kim's birthday party. There was a moment when all the girls were synchronised vomiting in the toilet. Nice.

May

Went to Dunsborough and enjoyed time with my sister and family. Caught a salmon!

Yay! Up to now I'm still beaming happy with this catch.

My mom is still upset because I'm still keeping the bait in the freezer.
No way I'm throwing out the magic bait!

Lost in Kalbarri

June

My birthday month! Yay!

Had a great time going go-karting with friends. At first I was really worried because it was an early Saturday morning thing. But i think everyone had a good time.

The barbecue afterwards was a bit of a downer though. The grills didn't' get hot enough so the sausages and the chicken I spent hours removing the fat were 'simmered' rather than scorched.

Really happy with my presents too. The guitars are awesome. I have them in my room and jam on it when i find chords to songs that I like.

Right now I'm working on mastering the guitar bit in Justin's - Like I love you. Its only three chords, but the strumming is tricky for me.

Highlight would have to be the KFC and rice dinner on my birthday. It was a fitting end to the no-fast food diet.

July

Yay to Tiger airways! And yay to Singapore!!

It was the great Singapore sale! We ate so much! The free crabs were da bomb!

One of many drinks

Clubbing was a blast with Alvin and Joe. Haahah. Alvin was so wasted he was still drunk at dim sum the next day.

Other highlights were hotel made Lychee beer and DS In-flight entertainment.

August

Young grasshopper needs to work on his horse stance

I had a Kung-fu demonstration dinner. I seriously practiced this year, but I still messed it up on the day. Hopefully I can do better next year. I think my knee is giving out though.

This stuff didn't' do jack to my car

Also upgraded the sound insulation in my car. Took ages to do, but i did it! The result is hardly noticeable and probably not worth it. But I'm just happy that I did it myself.

September
Oh September.

The dreaded September.

Such a heavy birthday month.

It's the month of my mom's, my girlfriend's, girlfriend's mom and girlfriend's sister birthday.

I impulse-bought the present I got my girlfriend.

Still, feeling guilty that I didn't get her the best present. Although technically, i already got her a present in Singapore. But that just sounds like I'm just convincing myself here.

Hopefully something nicer next year.

High School Reunion. These guys are now in a band.

October

October was filled with lots of random stuff.

Metros - the only RnB club in Perth... seriously..

Jeff came to visit and we partied like the good old days. Although there was a special twist on one of the nights! Jeff and I were both promoted to be Alvin's best men. Good stuff!

I think best men duties include drinking and taking lap dances on behalf of the groom. Happy days!! hehehehe.

Speaking of weddings, my cousin Berts got married! I really enjoyed the ceremony. Nice and simple.

This month also saw me cook my first ever Japanese curry. It was so good! Tasted like the ones served in cheap Japanese restaurants. Yummy trans-fat. :P

I also tried boxercising with Ajay on Thursday nights. It's good fun, I'd continue it if I could, but all the jogging and jumping was really messing up my knees.

November
One word.

SexyBack.
(or is that two words?)

Justin Justin! Justin! (have babies with me)!

Yay! There was a whole weekend when radio stations played nothing but Justin. The concert was awesome and I had a great time even though nauseated by something I ate and all the screaming I was doing.

Our love was deep

Me and Somnang took part in singing during Leelis's wedding. I think Somnang was drunk. I, on the other hand, was inspired by Justin! Hopefully we didn't take away too much thunder from the newly weds.

The month was finished off with the Movember Pub crawl. Our group went from pub to pub harassing the locals with our fake moustaches. The aim of the crawl was to visit at least six pubs. We stopped after three. Nobody wanted to buy rounds at the more expensive pubs!

December

December has just been a big blur of Christmas dinners and lunches. It seems like all I've been doing is eat all of this month.

Sooo good, yet sooo bad

I'm glad I got my shopping all sorted out nice and early this year (unlike my brother who was still shopping Christmas eve) That way things didn't get too hectic (except during the wrapping)

I'm really thankful for all my presents. I love it all. :)

Also thankful to the person who invented air conditioning! Damn its been hot! 44C!!! My car recorded 47C on Boxing day!

Well thats about all of it. A brief glance of the year thats been.

What's in store for 2008? :P

We'll find out soon enough. :)

Happy New year everyone.
God bless.

Much Ado About Christmas

3Willings:

1) Pocky
2)Calvin Harris - The Girls
3) Peking Duck at Four Season

So its not a Christmas tree anymore.

Its a holiday tree.

Right.

Then I heard a story about Santas being told not to say "Ho Ho Ho" because it offends some women.

Which women?!

Them ho's kickin` it in da crib blinging out their grillz n ridin in them lo-lo's?

Someone's crib in Connoly. Look at 'em blings.

Then a few nights ago I found out that you're not allowed to say "Merry Christmas" anymore.

Only "Happy Holidays"

This because someone "apparently" took offense to being greeted "Merry Christmas" while doing their shopping. So the store person was sued.

After some research I found that this story was in fact an urban legend. The original story tells of a woman suing a city for having Christmas displays in their supposedly multicultural town hall.

Gotta love how stories change :)

But still, politically correctness nowadays is just absurd.

How about we just not have gift giving, carols and snow and Santa Claus and fruit cakes and cards and ham and eggnog and Britney Spears and Emos and HD-DVD and Australian Idol and Playboy magazine and tomatoes and goats and $400 shoes and vegetarians and politicians and beautiful people and smelly socks and ugly dogs because I'm sure its going to offend someone eventually.

Some people just take it too far.

They should just all make gingerbread men (not people), chillax and enjoy the festive season.

Gingerbread men made with love and lots of very unhealthy ingredients

:)

Merry Christmas everyone.

Swingers Club

3Willings
1) Muffins
2) Need for Speed Original Soundtracks
3) Moroccan Chicken

I've never been a fan of golf.

I haven't played it at all, so I can't bag it too much. It just seems so slow and poshy.

Plus it requires too much walking.

Now I appreciate that it takes tremendous amount of skill to get that dimpled white ball in a hole hundreds of yards away. Plus you have to do it in as few shots as possible. Still, it just doesn't look fun.

Not fun like Happy Gilmore anyway.

I just like to launch that ball and see how far it goes. Thats my kind of golfing! :P

My brother was given a set of golf clubs for his birthday and was keen to get me 'swinging' with him (that sounds almost wrong).

Sadly, you actually have to play a few holes of golf to ride these babies

So we got ourselves a bucket of balls each at a nearby golf range and spent an afternoon admiring how far we could get yellow golf balls flying.

And flying we sent them! Hehehehe.

Of course only two of every five actually got far. Most of the times they curved right and hit the trees. Some flew up a hundred metres only to land ten metres in front :S

My brother had the Michael Jackson thing going on with the one hand glove

Back in the Philippines, I grew up thinking golf was a sport reserved for the filthy rich. Only the snobby rich folks could afford a club membership. But where we went, we had old ladies and bricklayers and teenagers and all sorts of people playing golf and enjoying the range.

Maybe because its not an exclusive club that's why we didn't find any hot and sexy snobby looking golfing babes people. But it definitely changed my perception of the sport. Its for everyone!

I was concentrating so much.. I could have been laying golf balls

Still, I don't think I could ever get myself to actually play a game of golf.
I'm sticking with the driving range.. or golf with the Wii.

Food Pics

Been taking mug shots of food guilty of making me fat lately :P

Ha-Lu Japanese Restaurant

Raw is goood!

McDonalds

Hey - its McHappy Day! I was eating this for the children!! I'm always thinking of the children..

The new chicken wrap snack is pretty good value. Its below the psychological $2 price tag.... so if u buy 5...

Austin's Kopi-Tiam

Austin's is a partnership between chinese and malay cooking. Its a different type of chinese (not like the Northbridge 'billy' chinese)

Utopia - MyareeMission: Try every single one of these cakes :P

Dead bird

3Willings
1) Kid Nation - THIS SHOW ROCKS!!!
2) Dirt Cheap CDs in Carillion Arcade
3) Ohnamiya Japanese Takeaway

Two years has passed and I can finally move out of Dodo! Yeay!!

Dodo WAS good in that they provided an unlimited account - so we could download to our hearts content. But now their plans charge a premium if you go over the quota. So it was time to give them the boot.

I signed up with a new ISP and asked them to churn my account.

Not trusting the happy people at Dodo, I called them up to make sure they won't charge me the next month. I was forwarded to a call centre in Manila. I knew the guy on the other end was pinoy because his American accent sounded like mine (only mine was A LOT LESS ANNOYING).

"What can I do for you ser?"
"Yes, I'd like to cancel my account.."
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.. okaaay.. let me get your account details pirst.."
"Okay"
"Just hold on a moment.. our computer is a bit slow"
"Yup"
"Sir.. just a little bit longer the screen is still loading"
"umm.. yup.."
"Just a little bit longer sir.. I hope you don't mind waiting a bit more"
"umm... (is this guy going to even allow me to wait?!! I haven't had a chance to wait yet!)"

Half an hour later they finally told me that the account has been closed and I won't be billed the next month.

*phew*

It took ages because they were telling me that I was contracted for 3 years?! (huh?) and they wanted to charge me $400 cancellation fee? (HUH?!) What da pluck?

I dunno if it was a scam or they were just dis-organised. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Anyways I'm now chugging along with a newer, faster service provider. Everything's been pretty smooth. No more contracts, no more funny bird business.

Drawn Out

3Willings:
1) Escape from Monkey Island
2) Hong Kong BBQ - Francis St, Northbridge
3) Paul van Dyk - In Between

Saw this cute article on the internet.

The story is, guy sees girl of his dreams in the New York subway. He tries to contact her with a rather unconventional way of doodling her and putting it up on that website.

Kinda like a real life version of that Daniel Powter - Bad Day music video. Kinda. :)

I'm guessing he must have gotten lots of prank phone calls.

Maybe from girls that look like this. Hehehe.

But yeah, nice story and I'm happy for the guy for having found the girl.
Hope it works out for them.

When I was cleaning up my room last week I re-discovered my art stuff. My sketch pad, pencils, gum tape together with a bottle of brushes, my water-paiting palettes and paint tubes all dried up and dusty.

Its depressing that I haven't done something creative of lately.

The last art-related thing I made was a cartoon eggplant fridge magnet. my purple creation

And I recently found out that the magnet has fallen off and the eyes have diffused so the eggplant looks like it has glaucoma!! :(

I guess if i'm to make something I gotta make sure it stands the test of time.

Even today, my mom still has the very first 'love card' that my dad made for her.

Yeah - I know, im shocked too!

Not because it's terribly romantic, but because I discovered my dad's drawing skills is sooo bad!
My two year old nephew could draw better!! :P hehehe.

Maybe they didn't have cute cartoons back in them days. Only stick figures.. and two colours of crayons.

But yeah, I want to go back to doodling.
Real drawing or painting or something.

The only doodling I've done lately is on my Nintendo DS.

A game called Drawn to Life lets you draw your own hero. I haven't played much of it, but
its quite amusing seeing my pumpkin head creation with octopus legs walking
around fighting bad guys.

I guess that can be my new year's resolution. Paint or draw something that I can frame.

Choosing the topic is the hard part.
Maybe I can find something from my travels.

Like girls in the subway.
Or not.