Rest in peace Michael

I woke up to news today of Michael Jackson's death.

For a while I sat in bed blankly staring at the wall.

I'm shocked and saddened. Someone who's influenced me and so many fans with his good will and music is now gone.

Throughout my growing years, his songs were the soundtrack of so many little chapters.

The earliest I can remember was when I was eight. Before I went to sleep, I would listen to his cassette using my moms portable radio with orange headphones. Smooth criminal. I would play this song over and over again (I didn't know who Annie was or what the song was really about. I must have just really enjoyed the melody and rhythm of it all. Plus the alternative was the Phil Collins tape).

My first year in Australia was marked with MJ's song Black or White. My cousins and I even did a dance routine to it.

Fan highlight would be going to the HIStory concert.

What a show that was. It was everything I'd expect from a king.

And then some.

Even with all the weirdness that happened later in his life, there is no denying how great a humanitarian and performer he was.

Thank you for all that you have given us.

20 Under $20 - Ninniku Jip

Welcome to another 20 Under $20 post!

Today's restaurant of choice is Ninniku Jip on Albany Highway, Victoria Park.

To be frank, the name "Ninniku Jip" is quite hard to say, let alone remember.

I remember getting on the phone with my brother trying to get him to look up the address.

"Whats it called?"

"Err... Jikki... Yup? Nukki Jip? Ninni Kup? Hmmmmm... .."

Ninniku Jip is a modern cafe-restaurant which offer a wide selection of Korean and Japanese food.

And when I say wide, I mean really WIDE!! So wide that Chicken Schnitzel and garlic bread are also in the menu!

Ninniku Jip uses chairs from a previous restaurant (I think its Red Rock Noodle Bar)

I ordered the Garlic Chicken Bulgogi and Anh ordered the Chilli Chicken Bulgogi (both $10.80). We picked from the lunch menu because they were the only meals under $20.

Spot the difference?

The dishes looked awfully similar and tasted similar too.

But then again, with any chicken or dolphin dishes - they all taste the same!

So the food was okay, but Anh and I agreed it's not something to come back for.

Value-wise $10.80 was alright, but we found most of the items in the menu (which probably tasted better) breaking the 20-buck limit.

So with that, Anh and I gave Ninniku Jip, no-thumbs for taste and no-thumbs for value.

Confessions

I was keeping a secret.

The last weekend saw the truth out.

And with that, I may have hurt and upset my girl.

It wasn't suppose to turn out this way.

But then again I'm not surprised.
I was consciously hiding something from her and I would be upset too if she was hiding something from me.

But I assured her this was all innocent.

And she had nothing to worry about....

except maybe me turning to a diet coke man.


****

Now before you let your imagination drive you to some steamy back seat affair with a Eurasian model... (which sounds pretty good actually :P) I want to sidetrack to my muffin.

My muffin top to be precise.

Early this year, holidays, stress, eating out and the amount of inactive computer work I've been getting myself into has allowed me to grow nice curvy love handles.

When wearing jeans (which all seemed to have magically shrunk), skin would spill over to form the muffin top I've been ashamedly fearing.

I wouldn't say I've gotten fat.

But it would seem that I've let myself go when I'm too embarrassed to use the Wii fit because I'm now in the yellow 'obese' zone (even though I'm just heavy boned).

When my girlfriend and I went to a dinner party back in April, the topic of conversation was the exercise regime everyone was doing.

Oh goody.

I felt very left out because the only exercise I did was standing up to go to the loo when playing Left 4 Dead.

And even that was chore.

I preferred the bottle method.

But what was really embarrassing was seeing my girlfriend work so hard to keep herself fit. She really pushes herself and puts in that extra effort on top of her busy schedule. Where I just enjoy the spoils her work and get myself lardier.

I couldn't do that to her.

So when the stuff for my house finally finished, I got back to scheduled exercising!

Yes! By gosh it feels good to be back exercising. Our work gym lets me do cardio and lift weights during this cold winter season.

But rather than tell my girlfriend I've been working out, I figured it would be a lot funnier if I surprised her with something like this:

Will: Hi Anh. Thirsty? Would you like a drink?
Anh: yeah sure!

Will: How about grabbing something from THIS six pack!

*lift up shirt and show ultra rock hard washboard abs* Oh yeah!

Anh: *blush* Oh my! Now I'm really thirsty!!

That can SO totally work!

Or maybe we go out walking at night;

Will: Hey it's really dark around here...
Anh: It is... but you'd protect me right?!
Will: Of course baby! Me and these guns will look after you

*pull sleeve, flex arms and expose huge biceps* Oh yeah!!

Anh: *blush* Oh my! Shoot me now! Bang! Bang!!

Sadly I'm still a long way from six packs and killer guns. It's only been around seven weeks. And my gym attendance has been rather sporadic.

Nethertheless, my arms have gotten a bit bigger so much that the shirts my girlfriend arranged for my birthday were too tight.

This confused her because she thought she knew my size really well. She thought she knew everything about me.

So it was a bit of a shock when I told her I was doing this 'for Sparta'.

Mobile blogging

Really digging mobile internet now :)
So much that im writing this post on my phone during my lunch break.

There was a time not so long ago when i hated mobile internet. WAP was so slow, really expensive, not fast, chuggy and non- mobile pages looked fubar.
Did i mention it being slow?

Thanks to 3G phones and the awesomely awesome Opera mini Browser, i now haz useful mobile intrawebz!!!111

Im using the non-contracted $10/300Mb plan from Virgin which is more than enough for checking email, myfacester, blogs and NSFW pages several times a day :)


3Willings
1) My new man bag. I love the smell of fresh leather :)
2) Usher - Get my swagger back
3) Grand Theft Auto 4 - Nikko ftw!!!

Pictures by Birthday

I think I've contacted a really bad strain of Swine Flu.  

The type that makes you pig out a lot  :P

Courtesy of all these mini birthday celebrations I've been having. 

I have to say many thanks to my family and friends.  I'm not used to being spoiled so much.  But everyone's been really great.  

I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about how really lucky I am for having such wonderful people around me.

****

I greeted my birthday watching Koreans!  I really should sleep early.  Just one more episode... 

I actually ironed my work clothes!

My eggplant and keyboard at work

I brought a box of Granny's giant muffins to work!!  So much better than the usual Cheesecake Shop stuff that everyone brings or the muffins from this place. And can get them cheap cheap from their factory!  

I actually did work on my birthday! Scary stuff.

If you don't like Honey Chicken @ Chilliz, there's something seriously wrong with you.

Peter gave me a Persimmon for my birthday. Hopefully it gives me luck :P

Pub #1 - Bobby Dazzlers.  The girls left us and went to the Guess Sale.  Typical!

Pub #2 - Moon and Sixpence.  Tania and Mikeal dropped by. Shame someone farted whilst I was talking to them. That and the alcohol made conversations very difficult.

Pub #3 - Belgian.  Wooaw! Nice!

Pub #4 - Carnegie's. We didn't stop to drink here coz the guards were being picky with our shoes. 

Pub # 5 - Dirty Nelly.  There's only so much Guinness I could take!

Pub break - Takas! We discovered you can order Jap mayo for 50cents!! Oh yeah!  

Pub # 6 - Tiger Lils.  Packed!  All was alright until the drink below...

After these shots (Chatruz?! and Marilyn Manson), I lost sense of taking photos. 

Or why I'm a Spartan.

Legs went numb 20 minutes later.

+Hang over.