contact

so... I was talking about applying for a job that's similiar to mine, and well, I got called in for an interview. Wednesday, and in the morning. I figure it's better to be in the morning since people are still working, and I rather that than to subject my colleagues to stay behind and load up the trucks, like what I do. We did 34 pallets of tvs, 400 tvs... took a big truck (and a trailer, called a "B-Double") to load it up, and well, we did, and we had to scan them all as well. It's always an effort, but it's required. Hopefully I don't need to do that in my new job, but it might be necessary. On other news, the person who crashed their car getting out of the carpark, they have to carpool with somebody else, till they get another car to drive. They are rich, so they should be able to afford it. Me, I have my heap of junk which might actually die without crashing, I feel that it's starting to lose a cylinder... loss of power and all that... rather shite car!! If I do get the new job, then I will definately consider getting another car. Definately.

Weekend

So... it's the weekend again. Nothing much to report, except that work's the same, and somebody crashed their car going out of work's carpark. They were in the wrong too. Easter show's started, and well, getting into work takes a while because of people trying to get to the show, at the same time. So I was late on Friday... also somebody saw a job online, and then asked why I wouldn't go for it. I checked it out, and well, it looks just like my ex-job. Or current job, if my colleague was away. Its also with another tech company, also in Homebush. So yeah... I might apply for it and see if I can get it. If not, then it's back to the daily grind... :P

Update

With time back on my side, it's time for an update.

Daylight savings ended. Now we've "gained" one hour of sleep. Clock has been wound back one hour.

Weather has suddenly gone cold. It happened on Saturday early morning, brrrr. Friday was really warm and all. But now, it feels like autumn. So now I think I'll be wearing long pants now.

Bro got married a week ago. He's a married man now. Don't think that really bothers me though, I'm still single and nothing's changing. Haven't really gotten pics of it either, because they are on the other bro's computer, and in RAW format. about 3 gigs worth. I don't have that space free on my two drives. Considering getting a 300 g drive very soon.

I ordered and got an Ipaq H5550 for $200. No Cradle. So I got a cradle for it. It works, and I've been playing with it for a while. To some, it's a tool, but for me, who doesn't have a handheld, it's a games machine. I could buy a Nintendo DS which has a touch screen, but the games would cost a bit. Also I was "offered" a PSP for the princely sum of $350. It includes some videos and a 1 gb memorystick. Tempting, but I don't think I will get one yet. I had an invite for an XBOX360 Guiness World Record thingy, but I didn't wanna go to that either, it costs $20. But apparently u get $150 worth of gear when you do go (after paying, of course). Still... I'm not a Microsoft fanboy. Maybe when Sony or Nintendo does a launch I might consider...

Today was a weird day. 3 people messaged me on MSN. AT THE SAME TIME, asking different things. I haven't talked to them for a while, and well, one was to say hi, and told me she spoke with a friend she didn't talk to for 4 years. They had an argument 4 years ago and suddenly they are gonna make up... Good for them. The other guy, he was asking me about what LCD screen I got, I had an 19" ever since I upgraded my comp and well, he was asking about refresh rates and stuff. Weird. The third one asked me about a girl that we used to chat to on irc's surburb. The fact I know this was that I used to live a few streets away from her (almost a km away though...) and thats why he asked me, because he knew we were in the same surburb. I actually also used to live a few streets away from her too, on the opposite side (think of a straight line) but that was because we moved from a small house to a big house, in the same surburb. The small house was probably 500 meters away from her, while the big house was a km away. But I never met her, and I don't think I will. All three who msned me are brisbanites. First one was there, but lived in melb a few years, then moved back. Second one, he lived there till a few years ago and then went off to shanghai. Third is still there. Stuck there till he decides to leave the place. Which is probably never.

The friend I chat to who isn't in Australia, she's off to TW for 3 weeks. Hope she has fun there, she probably will, but sometimes when I chat with her, she doesn't sound happy at all... thinks too much. She probably wouldn't know what's going on till her sis gets married, then something something. Because I wouldn't know what would happen, but it's still fun to chat with her.

I got a haircut today, I asked my mum to cut it short, and she thinks that 10cm is short... Next time I wouldn't save the money, I'll go to a barbers and then they can decide on a style. I think I have the same hairstyle for the past 20 years, that's for sure. (Except the years I lived by "myself" (with cousin's family) and in college. I got my uncle to cut my hair then...)

Work... same as usual. One ex-colleague, he worked with us for about a week in the warehouse, asked me on MSN if I was interested in doing call centre work at his company. Now, I could've gone into our callcentre, except I don't want to, because I don't like to hear people complain all the time. So why would I leave this job for that job, where I don't know anybody else there, and have to listen to people complain? I think if I'm ready for a change, I will go, but not yet... by the end of this year probably. I do need a holiday of sorts...

So, it's been another while since I updated...

I was offered a job by a guy who got retrenched. Well not from him, but somebody he met while out and about. I went and checked out the job, it was a very repetitive job, even more so than mine. And it was dealing with $$, which I didn't like to deal with already. So I had to politely decline the offer. I will have to call up the guy who got retrenched to thank him for that opportunity though.

Also another guy got sacked because of the person who backstabs everyone. She came in later than everyone, and guess what, she got promoted in less than 3 months. That's because she backstabbed the guy who got retrenched, and well, the guy who got fired was just next in her sights. She even warned my colleague in the warehouse because he sent something wrong once. Now then, if the company goes down, we know who was the cause of it. Stupid backstabbing biatch.

I did go and have a look at car auctions with our opposite door neighbour, however after that time I didn't go since (the saturday just gone) because I was too tired. But it's pretty cool just to check out cars for fun :P But what happened yesterday was pretty good... he came over and offered us his lounge suite, because he bought a new one, and couldn't afford to see the set go to waste. It's a leather set, so it's pure black, which my parents don't really like, but apart from that, it has no problems. Just a few years old, but still in good condition. They got a new set with recliners for $600, so thats why they had to let this one go. So now we got a leather lounge in our place. Comfy too :P So that means I had to relocate some of the speakers and such, because they were bigger. In fact, the long piece was too big to go through the door (our old one could, just barely) so we took the screen door off the window and it went through that instead. I got the speakers and so now I got a 4.1 solution. It's really a 2.1 + 2.0, but the subwoofer is for the front one. I have tried it on some AC3 movie, it does work with the surround option, but my motherboard actually supports 7.1 sound... so if I got a 5.1 sound set, I only need to use one set of speakers.

Work is a bit weird, sometimes we'll be busy, other times we'll be even busier. Sometimes we'll have nothing to do for a few hours. That sux. So then our supervisor is going under the knife, should be recovering by now, but he won't be in this week. And also, I won't be in this friday, or Saturday if we need to do OT. Which we wouldn't. So I lose 1 day's pay... but hey, it's my bro's wedding, if I don't go, I don't think he would come to mine? haha nah I just want to take a day off just to feel what it's like... NOT.

Daylight savings still is on. Then next week it'll be back to normal. That'll screw other people over for sure :D

not normal..

As from yesterday's post, my car is dying. Today, this is what happened...

7am: woke up. did the usual wake up routine, and then had breakfast. wrote an email to my supervisor saying I'll be late.
8am: "drove" the car to the mechanics. This means pushing the gas pedal and not going faster than 10km/h... Lucky it wasn't too busy on the roads just yet. Nobody there. asked the servo attendant. Usually opens at 8. wait in car.
8:15am: Mechanic Apprentice rocks up in his yellow combi. Asks me whats the problem, I tell him, he diagnoses it's a gone cylinder. However, tells me to wait till boss arrives.
8:45am: boss arrives, I tell him the same, he tells me the same, I'm running on 3 cylinders. I leave the keys and I go catch the train.
8:59am: I get a quote on the ticket by pressing the station and pressing 'day return'. $6. that's pretty expensive!
9:01am: I redid the procedure. $3.60. much better. I buy a ticket.
9:20am: train arrives, travelling
9:45am: train arrives to the station where I gotta change trains.
9:46am: I leave the train, go down the concourse, find the timetable, it says the connecting train leaves in 1 minute on platform 6, I run up platform 6, and the train has just gone.
9:50am: sat down and baked in the sun for about 16 minutes.
10:10am: the connecting train arrives. yay.
10:15am: arrives at the station close to work. I walk 15 mins through the park.
10:30am: arrive at work, meet everybody, and they all asked how my car was since I emailed. worked hard for 1.5 hours wrapping up pallets.
12:00: had lunch for an hour.
1:00pm: return to my normal duties.
4:30pm: all the couriers decide to rock up. So I put 12 pallets on B, 8 on C, and I don't know how many for TNT, but they actually remembered to pick up the trailer before 5pm!
5:15pm: finished with all the couriers for the day, and colleague bought a TV, so loaded him up as well. Also asked him if he can give me a ride home since we're on the same street (possibly not now since he's married... maybe he's moved).
5:30pm: finished off what I can, and then went with colleague home.
5:45pm: driving through the surburbs, we were suddenly surprised by smoke on the road. I thought it was a car at first, but when we looked, a house was on fire. There was thick billowing smoke coming out. We decided to drive onto the footpath, and asked if anything was helpable. Like if anybody needs help or something. some woman screams that her baby was in there or something, but it turned out to be a dog or cat. and then 5 mins later the fire brigade rocks up. We decided to leave then since it's not good being onlookers.
6:00pm: got home. Then walked to the mechanics, the car wasn't ready yet, he's done a service on it. I think it'll be expensive... >:( I'm really starting to focus on what I'm looking for in a car, when we do fix it or something.

Then the usual of bumming around in front of the computer for the rest of the evening after dinner and all that. So it was quite a bit of excitement really. I gotta go work at 7am though... so need to sleep. And then get a ride with my colleague till the car's fixed or something.

Ah I can't wait to get a "better" car.

Oh.

I had a bbq today, it was at 2pm. Needless to say, it happened at 3pm, because everybody was fasionably late. Lots of meat... not enough veges. Lots of bread too... The birthday boy got a little pressie from the couple that formed from camp. None of us really gave him a present, just our presence. He was playing handball with his brother, who's about 12 years younger. It's just really weird. Apparently he doesn't spend too much time with him, so he's doing that, on his birthday. What a great bro he is. Anyways, we bbq and managed to overcook... so that went into the bin. WHAT A WASTE!!! We had 'linner' for 3 hours, and then went for an hour's walk around the national park. Then the security guard kicked us out. There was a weir (google it if you don't know what it is) and basically these leb kids were using a row boat from the bottom and trying to move it to the top. We watched them, the main kid was rowing backwards, with the sharp end in front of him (and the flat end behind him). That's the way to give yourself more work than necessary, since it's creating the most drag. So it was pretty entertaining for a few good minutes. If they had fallen over, it would've been better, but unfortunately it didn't happen.

Now... I normally don't complain a lot about the car... wait, I do!. The car's dying. I had a horrible time trying to get home today. It was shuddering all the time, from 0-60km/h. Because the transmission is dying around 0-2000rpms. The gears aren't meshing... And the car's only got a secondhand engine, plus done 163,xxx kms. So I was in a real state of panic, I drove all the way to eastwood without realising that I had missed the turnoff. So I was driving around, hoping not to stall or anything, because if I did, it would've been bad. Thats why I am looking at cars in really desperate conditions now. Cos if I don't... I'm screwed. No car... means no job. Well, I could use public transport, but that means I'm screwed either way. *sigh*.

Mardi Gras (http://www.mardigras.org.au) is on tonight. I'm lucky I head away from the city after the bbq. It's always jammed packed. Thats how they like it.

ARGH what a shitty week

Work was work. and then it went to pieces. Literally. I didn't realise that the dumb f**ks from the courier company doesn't know how to handle our transport needs. AND I HAD TO CALL THEM UP... TWICE THIS WEEK. Thursday, I left around 6:45. Today, I left around 6:30. Lucky I kinda guessed that they'll screw us over, and they did. So I called up around 5... and both the couriers had somehow 'lost' our despatch details. So I kept on chasing it and chasing it, and finally at 5:30 they said that they'll send somebody over in half an hour. That was one courier. The other one came about 5 mins after the 'first' courier, and picked up the trailer and left. All together that took about 10 mins. Plus my locking up since I'm pretty much the only one left. So you can imagine that I'm pretty buggered. The two hours of OT doesn't really do it justice... -_-;

My bro is getting married on the 24th. That's a Friday. And I got asked if I want to go and witness the signing and blah blah. I said sure, since I'm a casual, I can just not work for a day. And then my mum was talking to my bro, and goes "oh you can go to work, no need to see the wedding". THEN WHY THE F**K DID YOU ASK ME? IF YOU DIDN'T WANT ME TO GO, DON'T NEED TO TELL ME! Far out, I'm severely pissed off today. Nothing's gone right... first Dick Smith, then my colleague thinking that he's helping me but actually doing something which he shouldn't... then the couriers, and now this. The only thing I can look forward to is probably tomorrow, a bbq for a friend's birthday. Needless to say... nothing's exciting in my life, I can tell you that. I am in serious consideration in finding a new job. I'm fed up with the entire situation. I got some $$ in the bank, maybe I can go travel, but I like being comfortable, so that would mean that travelling is probably got to be a tour or something. And that would be expensive...

Anyways, I'll just have to take it easy... or else I'll grow really old really fast.

Lucky... or not so Lucky

It's been a while since I blogged... not that I have much to update. Work is hectic as usual, but that hasn't prevented me leaving at 5pm for the last 3 days, due to my supervisor telling me to go if there's nothing (plus I only have 1/2 hour lunch...). Also I did get some OT in, which is ok. Nothing too flash. Anyways... I had an accident with a skid that nearly took the tip of my finger off. Basically, the guy said that the skid wasn't too heavy, and then when I put my finger under to pick it up, he moved it (because it was at an angle, and he didn't warn me he was moving it) and it trapped my 4th finger on my left hand. Very lucky that it was trapped for about 1/2 of a second or less cos it basically nearly crushed my finger and probably would've chopped it off if it shifted in the wrong direction. So I got a nice bloody finger for a while. It basically feels tender just behind the fingernail. The skin's split about 1 cm, and if I don't bandage it, it bleeds. It doesn't hurt now, even if I squeeze it. I guess it just got tenderised. But yeah, it was pretty scary when the skid shifted when I was trying to pick it up.

Anyways, about the word "bloody". It seems to be the Australian Tourist's new promotion, to ask tourists from other countries "Where the bloody hell are you?" and get them to come here.

Something tragic happened this morning. I wasn't caught up in it, but it was actually very close to where I work. I drive through Lidcombe to work everyday. There's an overpass, which is the M4 motorway. Apparently a woman got EJECTED out of her vehicle because of a crash, and well... she flew across the median strip and got hit by an oncoming truck. Died at the scene, and basically held up the M4 motorway for kilometers. I got to work pretty much at 8:45. Other people, stragglers, came in after 9... and most came in around 10-10:30 because they chose to go the M4. Of course, they don't lose any pay, but I think it's sad. They should lose pay because well, they aren't working. But that's just sad anyways.

There's a girl who I have no interst in at work, she sometimes just comes to annoy me because I process the orders. Anyways, somehow she was asking my colleague how was his holiday to HK, and he said it was ok, and I jokingly said that he was gonna get married soon, and she believed it for a second... then my supervisor said that I got a 'little woman' in queensland because I went up there for a HS reunion (all guys). Then, for some reason, the girl asks me this question. "Do you like guys or girls?". I was like WHAT THE F**K!!?! Naturally I don't like her, and never will. I wouldn't ever tell her who I liked. But I did tell my colleague who I liked. The thing is... I don't think she really has a liking for me, cos we're still treating each other like friends. But she showed me her webcam on MSN, and well, she's actually not bad at all. Though she does look a little fierce when she's concentrating, or has no 'expression'. She's got a diary on yahoo, and well, she says she likes these two guys (even got their names...) so... I'll just see if she's really interested in those guys, and if she is, I'll go find some other girl to lavish my attention upon. :P

Ahhhh Friday is coming up... I definately need the rest.

So it wasn't meant to be... the flirting was just flirting, it won't get anywhere. She just treats me as a friend, nothing more. Oh well time to find the next girl... :P

On other news, Christians are rather evil and manipulative... especially one of the girls from camp, who I've been chatting with recently. I have no interest in her, she has no interest in me (ain't that the sad truth) yet she wants me to go out with her. Well I told her that why do I want to go out with her, and her friends, in a more than friends manner, and then I realised that she wants to convert me to Christianity... I realise this only because I've been in the same situation before, in uni... when a group of friends told me to come to a "party" and then I went and it was a church session inside an auditorium... and they tried to convert me but I am a firm believer of Buddhism... so it was a no go zone for them next time around. Needless to say I'm weary of whatever they tried to invite me to. So I am weary of what this girl from camp invites me to.

My parents can be pretty evil (in a good way). They went on a tour around Sydney to see the temples. Left in the morning, and I was supposed to receieve a call from them and go pick them up at a train station. 5pm came and went, I was sitting there in the lounge waiting... waiting... watching tv... and more waiting... all the way to 5:30... then I said stuff it, went to my room and surfed because I didn't want to chat to people and suddenly leave. Then my parents came back around 6:15... -_- They didn't call, they were actually dropped off about 1km away from home and they walked... 30 mins or so. I was worried at that time, I had locked up the house and it was stuffy... and they were a little apologetic but still it was ok, since they were safe.

Crazy, I tell ya.

Feeling emotional... or something like that...

I feel like I'm beginning to deeply like somebody... previously I haven't really spoken to this person, but recently I've been chatting to this person at least once a day. Sometimes even at work, when I don't have any work. I don't know for sure if I really DO like this person, but there's the joking, and light flirting. Needless to say, if I ever meet them I will be able to make a better judgement. Hell, I don't even know if she really likes me or not, but if she flirts with me, it's probably a good thing? I'll probably see how far it goes... if nothing happens, then that was just fun... if something does happen, then its good... The only problem is that there's a 2 hour time difference... Ahh...

Work's been really dead. Today there wasn't anything really, it was all yesterday's orders. There was a mad rush to push them through, because it was EOM, but the first day back and it's DEAD. So we're gonna have a stocktake soon. That'll be easy, since we don't have that much stock. :P I'll be able to do most of it by myself because of the fact that my supervisor has kidney stones or gall stones or some stones, and need to get a scan. The other guys will be doing it in teams, and if we really don't have much to go out, it'll be smooth sailing. All the new stuff will be coming in next week. Yay. Everybody that comes into the warehouse goes 'where's the stock?!?' because it's EMPTY. Well, you guys did a great job of clearing out the stock, we're just waiting for new stuff to come in :P Then it's the cycle of clearing the stock. And that's the way it goes.

The weather's giving me the shits lately. Like cool and cloudy one day, and blistering hot the next. And it looks like it'll be blistering hot tomorrow. Damn... sweating like a pig, when we're not doing anything. What happens if we started working hard? Sweating like a... river... :P Lucky it seems to be dead in the orders, but... the warehouse gets hot no matter the situation :P

It's not really something special, but this year it was a different Australia day. I actually went out and had yumcha with friends! ...from the camp. Three friends, Thomas, Mark, and Cathy. Thomas bought a friend, Bensin (that's how he spells it). Mark bought two friends, Tommy and Sullivan (maybe from Monsters Inc?). Cate, James, Susan and Arthur didn't turn up. I did try to invite Mary, but she never got my message. MSN acts up, again. Anyways, all in all, the total amount for each person was $23, which is pretty average I guess. It is an expensive meal, and I wasn't really full, but yeah... I don't do it terribly often. After that, we checked out Market City's upstairs... wasn't much, except that there's alot of people. Mark also had some friends in the city, namely Chris, Forrest (Gump, Forrest Gump), and Elsa. They seem a nice bunch, Tommy is a doctor and will be going to Japan, and then Chris seems well knowledged in Japan, so they started chatting quite a bit. Meanwhile we're just sitting there sipping tea. Kinda weird situation. Then they headed out to Starbucks, and we spent around 10 mins there seeing if there's something that the collective group wanted to do (9 people), and the latter 3 wanted to go south 45mins drive away to a national park, the rest just wanted to go home...

Spent the rest of the day doing jack because I was so tired. I walked about 1-2km home because I realised I got off at the wrong stop, the train doesn't get to my station via the Lidcombe line, so instead of getting on a train to Birrong and then go to my station, I decided to leg it. Took about 15 mins of solid walking, and it was quite quiet along the street. Not too bad, but the flies really annoyed me.

Back to work, then the weekend. Maybe will go out again for the weekend, who knows...

Sporadic New Post!

Well... nothing much to report, except that I'm running on low gear. The weather is perfect for sleeping in, except I don't have the luxury. Maybe 5 mins. Unlike one of the casuals, he said something which I find perfectly reflects the idea... He woke up 7am... thought he could have 5 more mins... closed his eyes, next thing he knew, it was 8:40. Hm... if I did the same thing, I would've slept till 9:40, and didn't get to work till 10, at the earliest.

Never Assume...
I drive a bomb. It's a 1989 Mitsubishi Magna... So naturally, people think that they have the upper hand, and try to overtake me. *BZZZT* Wrong. This f**kwit decides to chase me about 1km away from work. Like going 80km/h down a 60km/h zone. So I increased my speed, and then had a race. For some reason, he decided it was his right to try and overtake me, at this speed. And then the lights were red, so he slowed down, I went across, he followed me a bit late, but still had the f**king nerve to come back and yell at me through the window. Well, he's a idiot for driving that fast, and trying to think that he can overtake me. Alot of times this has happened... I don't know why, but this car can definately accelerate if it has to. Sydney drivers are crazy, I am almost there.

Media, media, all over...
For the past 3 days we've been filling orders for Media. It's one of them "monthly" things, where they push out all the media they can. CDR, DVDR, and the like. (Lucky no Blueray or HD-DVD media yet). I guess me and my colleagues are sick of media, but its a job. Tomorrow, supposedly, there's more media coming in from overseas. Joy. I've been doing the pallet jobs myself while the other 2 blokes were doing media. Sure beats boredom.

It takes two...
to tease. I mean my colleague(s). If they don't respond back, like they are busy or something, then I can't tease them, because it's no fun. The colleague who sits behind me, he's always either busy, or surfing the net. Some colleagues I get to tease maybe once a week. Depends on how much they come down to the warehouse. So... , I get bored enough that I surf around looking at mobile fones and seeing which one is the best "bang" for my buck. I'm considering switching to a plan, because I am almost running out of credits. Now, that means 1) I get a new fone which might be better than the crap I got now... (even though it's a 3G fone that you can't get in Australia legally (i.e no legal support)) 2) I can call whoever I want, whenever I want. However, I don't have anybody to call and nobody calls me. So I will just make this last $x last on my prepaid. I've had this number for a long time, I guess I wanna change it for a better one.
the number ends on "44" and it's not a good number in chinese. :P http://www.stop.com.au is the site I am looking at, it has the Nokia 6111 (slider fone). Looks interesting... Otherwise I would get the Nokia 6101... http://www.stop.com.au/ms2/phonefinder/PhoneCompare.aspx?ID1=414&ID2=444

Crapertainment... or lack thereof...
Now, Simpsons is my staple diet. For some reason Bleach 64 and 65 isn't done by Lunar yet. Futurama has been expanded to 3 days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And Supernatural has taken off, or so Channel Ten would let you to believe. I spent an hour oogling at nearly naked chicks last nite, the "Victoria's Secret 10th year Fashion show". There were some good outfits there. But I don't even have a gf to buy some for... so it's all moot, really.
I got some episodes of Pimp My Ride... now, I wouldn't get a free pimping for the current car, because simply, it's not worth it. I rather get an engine which is less than 5 years old... then pimp the outside. Yeah. I have to say that the US version totally rolls over the UK version. The UK are conservative. Their 'pimping' wouldn't be on any of the same level as the US guys. Well that's my assement from watching some of the shows.

And there you have it boys and girls... another boring and pointless update to my life. Yay. :P

I'll **** them.

So, it's the start of a new week, and what does my colleague and ex-supervisor do? They take a sickie. So, there's absolutely nobody in the service section, so I was forced to go and be the service guy for the day. Pretty much the entire day I had people asking me to do this and do that... and I'm flat out trying to receive in RMA, and then picking and packing, and then shipping out spare parts and RMAs... it was all hectic. I even had to pick a part for somebody upstairs because their laptop's power supply died... sucked in... :P But she wasn't nice to me at all, kept on hitting me... -_-. Till I got her part. Next time I wouldn't even pick a part for her, she can go hit somebody else. But alls well because I took 1/2 hour lunch instead of a full hour, so I left at 5pm. Except that I didn't really leave at 5pm, but I can say that I did get home at 5:30. Which is a record... since I left around 5:15. There was something going on at homebush bay, some sports I guess but I didn't know what, all the parking areas are full of cars lining up to get in... Hopefully nothing will happen to the company (people usually park in our parking spaces in times of sporting events held at the stadium).

I Totally didn't do anything on the weekend. Absolutely nothing. I did change the rego sticker, because it was due in a couple of days. Same day as my friend's birthday, they had a "party" on the weekend... but I know she'll be having a nice day on her birthday :D. Yeah, apart from that, cleared a few things off my HDDs... now got a nice little space... around 30gb free. This was from having 4gb free across 370gbs. Still... HDDs are getting a little cheaper... and it's nice to keep stuff on the HDD for quick access... but I'm always getting stuff (anime) that it just chews through my HDD. I do still have 6 more SATA ports... having bought a top-notch mobo with 8 SATAs... Might start using them eventually... But I felt very very lazy.

Got some chinese horoscopes about 2006. Seems like I'll still be getting "tao hua" till June. After June, it'll be hard to get a girl. So.... what's the chance of me getting a girl before June? Hopefully good. :P

You know what's worse about my job... even if I'm sick, my colleague and ex-supervisor wouldn't lend a hand, they're f**king pricks when it comes to that. I can be expected to help them when one of them is away, but noooooooo, when one of us (on the new goods) is away, they don't give a flying f***. That's the sort of attitude that won't see them last long, if some people had their way :P

HAPPY NEW YEAR Y'ALL!

And it's the start of a brand new spankin' year. Seriously, I have great expectations for this year. NOT. Right now the weather is probably around 35 degrees. 2 hours ago, it was probably around 39 degrees. 5 hours ago, it was 42. You can get the idea. The max today was 43 in sydney, don't really wanna know where, but we sure felt it, when we 'woke' up this morning.

Judy, our host, hasn't slept well because she's been out for 3 days and had around 8 hours sleep for the 3 days. This morning, she didn't sleep at all. She managed to catch about 3 hours shut-eye this morning, but still... That's not really fair for her because I was chatting with her till 5am, and then another friend kept on going till around 8am... by then we only had 8 people left. 2 people locked themselves in Judy's bedroom. So she couldn't really sleep either. But yeah, the heatwave made us all stay in her apartment for a long time. We originally had a bbq to attend, but since it was 42 degrees, we decided to aim for somewhere better. Airconditioned comfort. So we brainstormed where to go. Airport, Hospital, somebody's place with aircon, Cinema, and finally Karaoke. So we went karaoke, but I didn't sing. I never sing when I'm at karaoke... just don't feel like singing... I didn't sing at camp either, thats why they didn't like me... but yeah... I don't know why I get dragged to karaoke. It's not my type of activity.

So, the day before. Saturday 31st, there was a plan to go to Judy's and celebrate NYE there. Other people said they would either go, or go watch the fireworks. I couldn't be stuffed going to the city and mingling with the massive throng of crowds there. But obviously some people did. And I'm not happy about that, because they did say they were gonna go to Judys. But anyways, nobody really started drinking because they were running out of alcohol. So they did the next best (or worse?) thing. They started mixing.

Mixing? Is that bad you say? I should think so, even they were disgusted with some of the concoctions they mixed. The ingredients were....

Beer.
Pepsi.
Coke.
Lemonade.

Not bad enough yet?

Soymilk.
Vinegar.
Chili Oil.
Soy Sauce.
and Coffee. Instant grind.

Beer is the main part, then they got crazy with the ingredients.

The game was the same as the xmas party. You either do the dare, or you drink. They tried to make the dare as 'dangerous' as the drink. French kissing, etc etc. Which made me very bad because I managed to drink the mixed evilness 5 times. I drank them for some girls because they wouldn't touch the drink. I even had one go out of my nose because I was laughing. After washing my face, I could still smell soy sauce in my nose... now that's gross.

But I believe that fate is very strong that nite. Or at least Yuen Fen. Basically one of the gals like a guy, and has told the girls so, and they told him, but he's been keeping it as an option. However, both the guy and girl got the cards, and the dare was to French kiss for 1 minute. Now, both they didn't wanna do it, but you can tell they wanted to, but not with 10 people watching. So they drank the wine. Except that both doesn't have a good alcohol rating. So half a glass of wine, and they were pretty much gone for a good 2-3 hours. They officially became a couple in the group's eyes. Sleeping next to each other, holding hands. Cute :) When they were still out, we were waiting for Midnight. Except that Judy's clock is fast, and then we managed to miss the countdown. So we toasted the New Year, and yeah, nobody really wanted to play after. Some people went out to get more wine, but they didn't come back till 2am. They basically left before 11 and went to watch the fireworks and came back because they decided they wanted to. At least they came, unlike some people.

I have an iron stomach. I'll live. But if there's another heatwave, I rather stay home and not go out with a bunch of crazy people. I need to hang out with a different group.

Anyways, Cheers to 2006, and hopefully everybody will have fun and a good year. I will try my best to make 2006 a year to remember, since 2005 was pretty good since camp.

Xmas, 2005

It's like the best Xmas ever.

2 Parties, a week after another.

First the company party, now, a party held by friends. Both had its own way of fun. The Company party was fun because it was entertaining. The friends party is fun because its full of friends. And strangers, but the friends make it fun. Anyways, here's how it happened.

One of the girls from the singles camp invited all the guys (except me I think) to her party. It costs $100, and well, no girls will be there. So, naturally, when the guys asked the girls from camp if they were going, they didn't know, and got pissed off. So Mary said that she'll make the party for the camp people. It'll be better because it's $30, and you can buy a pressie to swap with people. The $100 party was at the American Club (or so I heard), but the $30 party was at the W Hotel. Basically there's many groups of people from the camp, each type is different. One of the groups is the Cate group, they have their own people from either before or made really quick during the camp. Mainly girls, but now they have a few guys in there as well. I'm not in their group, I'm not elite enough. Anyways, they organised it within a week, which is pretty good of them.

So, December 23, I've been working the whole week. The end of the week, and I managed to come to work everyday before 8am (8am on wed, 8am on thurs, and 7am on fri). Normally we finish at 5:30, but since it's the last working day before xmas, it's the tradition to leave before time and enjoy the rest of the day. So most left around 2pm. I had to stay behind and leave around 3:30pm. However, I was given a dozen of beer by my supervisor as a present, but the beer in fact came from one of our courier companies. It's still good, because I didn't really give him a present... maybe next year, if I still haven't left yet.

I got home and changed, and then got stuck answering a guy's question on msn... I don't know why, he always msgs me asking questions. He's either shy or strange, I guess it's that he's shy to talk to girls online. Me, I'm not shy talking to both sexes online, but when in real life... hah it's a different story. That's probably because I only got brothers, and no sisters. Anyways, I left home around 5:30... the train pulled out of the station just as I got there, and I had to wait another 20 mins for a train. The train got to the city around 6:45. I got out, and I had a copy of the map, I STILL managed to get lost 4 times. Turned the wrong street, and then walked up the wrong street, backtracked, and managed to cross a bridge which wasn't on the map, because it was so darned old... but I still managed to rock up to the place at 7:30. Only David was there... we were there for a few mins because we didn't know where it was... Turns out it was at the back in a place with white curtains. We saw others who also went to the camp, and we followed them in. The gang who organised it was already there. So thats when the party 'started'.

Most people were fasionably late. That's to be accepted, especially when it's a Friday. Some even came around 9pm... But it was good to catch up on the people who you didn't see for a few weeks. Everybody was given something to put on their heads, cute stuff like that, and only finger food was served. Needless to say, I wasn't really full by the end of it, but still... I wasn't expecting to be.

Everybody just talked and had fun, which was good. There weren't any games, which was good as well. Everybody who talked to me or knew me better than "total stranger status" wondered why I wasn't talking as much, and well... I DID start work at 7am. Most of them didn't work on that friday. Lucky bums. So I tried to make it a good evening. Presents were drawn, and I had the pleasure of drawing from one of the gang. It was a set of shot glasses. Thanks Judy, they are pretty nice. (I don't think I would show anybody from camp this blog because I might say something afterwards...).

So, because that gang already decided to go to Judy's place afterwards, they already had the cars filled. I was left to go with Mary and Thomas to Judy's place. We managed to get off the wrong place, but STILL got there before everybody else. They came a good 10 mins later, and we met Canny outside Judy's place in the carpark of KFC. She just got there as well. She couldn't go to the party because she works the night shift. After that we all got into Judy's place, and more and more people came, but nobody really drunk anything... it was Friday night afterall, not a night of fun. We watched "Dreamcatcher" and then that was about it... the rest was either talking or just mucking around. The night ended around 3am. And only a handful stayed behind at Judy's place.

The morning was even worse, I guess I should've sorta just left at that time, but I didn't... I wanted to see what they would do. Most people left, there were only a few of the gang left, and they started cooking dinner way before dinnertime (after lunch). After that, people came back for dinner. And then after that, for drinks and games.

I won't go into the details of the games, except that most guys suffered humiliation. Especially Thomas, because he wouldn't drink since he had to go home. So he was basically a drag queen for 3 times. All in a row. The other notable dare was that some of the guys had to french each other. Now that's gross. But the girls LOVED it. Guess no guy and no girl wanted to really french just yet... but there's signs of couples forming soon. Maybe before NYE!

I was unwittingly a light bulb that evening. I only had 2.5 shots of vodka, and since it was my first time with strong alchohol, I was dizzy, and couldn't stay up... So I went to crash in the spare bedroom. James, he loves to drink, he had maybe 7-10 shots of vodka, but he was semi-wasted, way more than me. That was ok when he was sleeping next to me. But then, Cate comes in and then they started kissing and shit. I was like OMG they don't mind some guy pretending to sleep besides them? I kept on trying to fall asleep but with them making sounds besides me (no they didn't go all the way) it was very awkard for me just to get up and leave. They would definately know for sure. So when it was 8:30am, I just got up my stuff and left. Elmer walks in and finds them on top of each other (Cate on top of James) and just kicked Cate because they had satisified looks on their faces. I can't blame them because they sure had a fun night. Thats when I decided that I can't stay in that place any longer, and called my parents to come pick me up, because it's been 2 days since I've left home. And that's the end of that.

After that, I had a chat with friends on msn, and they figured that they (James and Cate) were having something already. And we postulated that theres a few couples in the making... around 5 or so. It's already been 5 weeks since the camp, and with them hanging out every weekend, of course something's bound to happen. I didn't hang out with them enough, so nothing's happened. And their circle is bound to get smaller and smaller. Till it's a couples circle. And then I'll be looking for another circle to join. But who cares, they are still friends, and if they want people to have fun with, I can have fun with them, but if James ever crashes in a bedroom... Hell I'm getting out of there. No way I wanna become a lightbulb.

These past 2 days has been pretty relaxing. However, I helped moved our wooden fence stack and also gave away 4 of the xmas pressie beers from my supervisor to the guys who removed them, from the council. And also topped the car up with oil, it was running low. Then tomorrow (Wed) I'll be back to work, from 8am to 4pm. Yay. Work. Yay...

Hmm when will I like a girl enough to ask them first? I don't know yet. Everybody sorta been asking me that question... especially about people from camp. I'm too picky for my own good. It's not about standards, it's about the consequences... I know the consequences of making a wrong choice...

The Company Xmas party

Saturday... I had arranged with my brother to go meet his friends for xmas lunch... so I woke up early and tried to figure out what I'll be doing. 8am, then surfed the net for a while... then breakfast, then left the house with my video player and camera (which didn't get used). Then I caught the train to the city, $4.80 return. There, I was supposed to meet my bro at town hall, but he didn't arrive till much later. By that time, the train was coming, so I rushed to buy a ticket to milson's point. Just made it too. Anyways, we made our way to the friend's place... didn't know anybody there, but it was a nice lunch... And we ended up failing to karoke (because nobody really wanted to) but we played "Scattergories". Its to think of the answer to the questions based on the first letter (roll of the dice). Our team came last because people didn't like our answers. Like nobody there knew who Armand Asante was. And they didn't like Honey Hazlenut... Anyways, left there around 4:30 because my bro and his SO has to go to another thing, and so I walked back to the station, and got to Town Hall. And from there, it only took me about an hour to walk to Star City casino, and then another 15 mins to walk to the place, Dolton House.

Dolton House is in fact a pier. The second last pier opposite star city. The last pier is a park. With some nice art. I was there around 6, one hour early. So I walked around the park, it took 10 mins. Then I sat down and listen to music and watched Simpsons. Around 6:30 I started walking over back to the entrance of Dolton House. The entrance is in fact stairs, since the dining areas are all on the top. Already one couple was there, Ernest and his wife. Then Tim and his friend came, and then I saw my colleague. This is what happened. He came Right to Left (along the road.) He saw that there was Dolton House, and so he semi-stopped (in the middle of the road). Then he drove up and turned around, and then drove back across Left to Right, and stopped short of the Car Park ($10 for the evening). He then turned the car around and drove Right to Left again, this time I actually pointed to the car park, but he didn't see me. he went past again, then Left to Right, stopping before the car park, and then DID ANOTHER RIGHT TO LEFT! This time I was beyond belief, he's already gone by twice. Then he turned around and went Left to Right, and finally went into the carpark. That wasn't the end of it. I was still waiting. He comes out, and then I got a fone call. IT WAS HIM! The conversation was as follows :-
Him: "Man where are you?"
Me *looking directly at him*: "Right in front of you man"
Him *looks up*: "F**king hell". *Hangs up*

He didn't recognise me because I was wearing a pair of black pants and a shirt.
Talk about being a good friend. I recognised him and his gf when he first drove past... -_-

Anyways, we went up, we were still 15 mins early. So there were 7 people there... Then more and more people arrived. Then more and more. So, 7pm, there were around 30. Finger food was served, it wasn't too bad. Some seafood, some not seafood. 8pm, we could go in. 12 tables, each hosting 10 people. Max 120 people... one table was only 4, so totally around 114.

Entree was either calamari (not rings) or some sort of bird wing. I had the calamari, it was nice.
Then the main course was offered. Either chicken on soft yellow rice, or beef steak, well done. Of course I chose the chicken. Then they had the prize draw. my colleague got one of the prizes, a pack of 6 latest CDs (something they had bought before, but played to get the music). Another one also got a CD pack... more about her later. She seems to get prizes every xmas party... Then it was a LCD monitor, a notebook, a 32" LCD TV, and the grand prize, a Projector. Daniel got that... lucky bastard... But he got the wrong side of the books with the lady who drew the prize... basically called her old... but she begrudgingly gave him the prize anyways.

Still during the dinner, other events unfolded... Apparently my supervisor betted one of the waiters that he couldn't sing a bit of opera. $50... but he did. Then one of the girls Allison bet another waiter that he couldn't sing a song in French, and he did... $100. Then it turned out to be a heated argument about french vs italian, and then another waiter stepped in, spanish style. Turned out they were the "Three Waiters", who can sing classical opera style. They had big voices, and well they can pretend to be french and italian but they are indeed aussies. The one who pretended to be French, in order to prove that he has passion over the italian, kissed the hand of the girl who won the CDs before my colleague. For a full minute. Heh that's pretty funny. I guess we'll ask her if she got that guy's number or something :D

So after that performance, we finished our main course. Then it was dessert. Two choices... 1) Ice cream on top of a pudding. 2) Fairy Floss on top of toffee apple on top of almond icecream. 2) was what I got, and it definately tasted better than number 1) (so I think... :P) Then the magic show started.

What a great magician! He's fairly low-class (rude) but he's pretty funny. Did some tricks that I've not seen before, but some that I have... and some I can figure out. But some were pretty good... Most of it was slight of hand, plus the confidence that most people were drunk... So, after that show finished, everybody was cheering... he's that good... Then it was the end of the night... it finished around 11... some people left... then I got a ride with my colleague and his gf... to central. I just missed the train, so waited 20 mins, and thus got home around 1.

My bro Don was home from India by then, and thus ended the day. Needless to say, it was a fun evening out. And I drank 4 glasses of alcohol... 2 reds, 1 white, and 1 champagne. I was thirsty this morning... :P

'tis the season for cherries...

I am sick of cherries. Some people might think that cherries are the bee's knees, but to me, they aren't the best. But still I would have one or two, just to give the impression that I still like cherries. Why? Because of the trip... to cherry land.

Saturday 10th of December... Was still in a sleep state when I heard music... ah crap it was my phone... who would call me up at this ungodly hour? Of course, the person who invited me. She was worried that I wouldn't be waking up on time... but never fear, she underestimated me... I always has two sources of alarm... one's my watch, the other's my alarm clock. They don't ring at the same time, of course, just to keep things interesting (kinda like a snooze function...) Anyways, I got up, dressed in jeans, and even though some thought it was gonna be hot, I still wore jeans... then had brekkie, after what my dad kept on saying... to pick the good ones, blah blah... then I drove to strathfield station. I had to find a parking space which wasn't timed... So it was quite far from the station. Turns out that there were more than one group going to Young to pick cherries... because at 7am sharp a bus pulled away with only 10 people on board... I got called about 10 past to find out I was on the wrong side of the station.. there was a xmas tree on the other side and met the crew... two michelles, one jean, one chao, then more people came... one jenny, one mihiro, one jiro (some name), and some other people... and then the bus came at half past 7... they were late from the city. When we got on the bus, it was about 3/5ths full, we had filled up to 4/5ths... then it was a 15 mins trip to liverpool to pick up the remaining 10 people... the bus was full with 52 people...

Once full, we were out to the countryside... via hume highway... 5 hours with 2 pitstops.... drove past the intersection to yass... the pitstops were for food and breaks... food was hungry jacks, and it's fun to see people rush to order food and scoff it down... when they could eat on the bus...

Once at Young, it was to a farm called Wombat farm... plenty of flies... some guy even swallowed one... but yeah, we had 2.5 hours to pick, and well, I picked the big ones so I had quality... 3 kgs... other people went crazy and picked around 8-20 kg... but at $6 its considered cheap... also I had a stomach ache in the middle, so lost some time there... but we were glad to get out of that place... the flies were EVERYWHERE... anyways... to cut the story short, the bus trip back was also uneventful... except for the guy who went out to take a leak... and half the bus took pics... I think he's not gonna live it down... it was a company outing for my friend's (who invited me) company... and they are very mysterious about it too...

After arriving back in sydney, it was around 9... then we had dinner (me, two michelles, one jean, and michelle's bf, johnny) at a korean restraunt... 10pm finish and I drove them back because they were on the way... so got home around 11... and that was a day I won't try to repeat in a long while...

So, cherries... I'm sick of it but I'm really not gonna say anymore about it...

week in review

So, there was a bbq last saturday. I offered to bring mochi, and they said ok. Then the day just before, they told me to bring steak. So I was kinda conned into bringing steak. Anyways, that aside, I got told to change my glasses... so I kinda only had one day to do it, and that was saturday. Basically, the bbq was at 2pm, and so I woke up early at 8am (on a saturday... wah... that's early :P) and then got to the shopping centre to check out the optometrists. There were two, but since I've dealt with OPSM for most of my glasses wearing life (which is pretty much since grade 7) I decide to go check them out. Turns out the frames are rather expensive... easily passing $200. I chose the cheapest frame there, for $160 or so... STILL TOO EXPENSIVE! I thought the lenses would be like $80 max, but turns out after the consultation (on sunday) it turns out the lenses cost $209 for the cheapest polycarbonate! The hi density ones costs EVEN MORE! CRAP! That's over my budget already... so I had to pay a deposit and they will call me back in a week... Then I will look different... and hopefully be more attractive... :P

So, I bought $40 worth of steaks. 8 pieces of pork, 6 of beef, and 4 of lamb. Turns out I did most of the bbqing as well. I turned up at 2pm sharp, found a place to park, and immediately got called over to cate's car who just pulled up and helped her with her bbq foodstuffs. Then once settled inside, we planned our attack... to cook food now or later? and other trivial stuff like that.. I got delegated to help make some fingerfood, which is quite easy since it's just copying a master biscuit. Cheese, then salmon, then onion, then caviar, and a different caviar, and finally a piece of green vege(basil? or some herb) It's nice seafoody biscuit. Then the next one was a mixed cherry + tomato + cucumber garnished kinda biscuit. The last one was a fruit one, it had fruit cheese, then blueberry, then sliced strawberries, then halved grape, then cream on top... all nice finger foods. Then basically, more people and more people rocked up, and everybody started eating and chatting... one of the girls had to leave for a wedding, so we started cooking at 4, she had some food, then left... I became the unofficial chef for most of the day, cooking all sorts of stuff... steaks, korean bbq meat, prawns, octopii, and sausages. People had their fill. Well if they didn't, they didn't complain to me... But the food was satisfying enough. So the other events were: cards, chatting, mahjong. I had played cards and chatted, but didn't play mahjong. What else was there... Thomas was the unfortunate soul of the bbq. He basically got dragged into some activity, and well, it was licking cream off his arm. Had the guy won, the girl had to lick off his arm. But the girl won, so the guy had to lick it off Thomas's arm. That wasn't the end of it... the girl had to lick cream off the finger. But the guy had to lick it off Thomas's EAR. So he was a victim. Also, at the camp, he made a bet with a girl called Mary. If mary can throw a small piece of rubbish about 2 meters into a bin, Thomas will jump into the pool. What he didn't count on was Mary scrunching up the rubbish into a tight ball and threw it in like a rock. And he didn't jump into the pool at the camp, so Mary was calling him chickenshit for a whole week. Till he decide to jump into the pool once mary came back from the wedding. So to get mary off his back... hahaha I think there might be something going on there, will see if anything does happen between anybody who went to the camp for sure.

So work was kinda weird... I get dropped into the service role for the morning and then back to shipping goods in the afternoon. And there's like work on and off, which makes people wonder what's going on in the sales department. Tomorrow I'll get sent back into the shipping department. Yay.

There's talk of a xmas party organised by the camp people... so I'll have to see how that one will turn out... ever since the camp, I think I've spent more per week than I'd spend in 6 months. But it's all good, meeting new people is always a good thing, in my case.

Ahhh I'm so tired nowdays... sleep is not coming to me easily, I get woken up sometimes 4am for no reason. Maybe it's too warm or something. Working in the warehouse when it's humid isn't good, especially when I walk into the offices and it's nice and cool... and coming back out, I almost caught a cold. Lucky I didn't. I just had the sniffles for about 10 mins but after that I was fine.

Also another fact I found interesting was that I've never really properly drunk alcohol before camp. The highest alcohol % I had was 4.5%, which was a vodka cruiser. Beer was only 3% or something... Then at the camp, when we snuck out and I had scotch, that was pretty high. But nothing as high as what I had on saturday. I had baileys (12% a/c) before they bought out the big guns, an alcohol called "Mou tai" from China... it's supposedly the best spirit they got, for dignitries and such. It's 45%! That's pretty high. It burnt my throat as it went down, but it's nice and sweet before it burns. I will have to say that with these new friends, I'll have to build up my alcohol tolerance. Not that I will drink too much though... so I should be ok :P

In my spare time, I've been playing Need for Speed Most Wanted. While most people think it's 'so-so', I didn't really feel that way. They probably don't get the point of chasing and shit, but hey, I enjoy it quite a bit... it takes all your skill to dodge the cars...and crashing into cars and not dying, that's simply the best. I shall play it to completion I hope... :P

Adventure in the wet

This is gonna be a long entry. However, it will document what has happened from Friday till Sunday, of the weekend
just gone by.
It was the day of Friday. Everything was fine and dandy. Work was fairly easy, it was a near end of month week,
and I managed to get everything finished before 4:30. So I said to my supervisor I will go early, he agreed and
said I can leave when it was quiet. So, it was quiet at 4:45 and I left. Nothing bad happened on the way home, I
got my stuff and then dropped my bro off at the station. It was weird that I was fighting traffic on the opposite
way from work though... people must leave work early on a Friday I guess. I stop-started for about 30 mins then a
good run, then stop-started the rest of the way. Arriving at 6:30, there were plenty of cars in the carpark at
Naamaroo, but I managed to find one space to park. And so the fun begins.
Dinner was a lunchbox. There were two flavours, one was 'ru ro' (baised pork), the other was 'pai gu' (pork steak).
Immediately when we got there, I almost had a bond with several guys there. They were in the same boat as me,
being told to come here and no questions asked. So they were as 'what the f*** am I doing here' attitude as me.
One of them was Jimmy, and the other was Tom. They are both very funny... Like 'funny c**t' funny. We basically
just hung out through the rest of the camp. After the dinner, we got told to sit down and they told us what cabin
we got to live in for the duration. I was in cabin 4, with Jimmy. We were separated from Tom. Still, that doesn't
prevent us being smartasses in the camp The cabin was basically 4 sets of 4 bunk beds, 16 beds in total. Our room
contained 9 people max, the other would only have 12 people max, but with the people that didn't turn up I think
they probably also had 9 people as well. After that, we got back to the hall, and played the 'lets get to know each
other with 1 minute each time' game. Essentially, it's speed dating, except there's 21 (supposedly) guys and gals
and the time is much shorter. It became a shouting match because everybody was trying to chat with everybody, and
then swapping to the next person. So that was pretty fun but hectic. And repetitive as well, since you repeat what
you say essentially 20 times. But sometimes the girls didn't seem to be interested, and well, that's disheartening,
but hey that's life. I wasn't interested in most of them either, but I tried my best to make some friends. After
that, we played another game called 'Guess what'... It involves you writing your name on one piece of paper,
location on another, and an action on the last piece. This can have either weird or strange consequences. I was
REALLY out of it. I got second last, and it was singing. I don't sing. So I got forced to do a pole dance, except
I didn't want to pole dance. So I really made it a bad impression. But remember, I didn't really want to be there
in the first place. So I think I put the nail in my coffin. The next event was another guessing game, except this
time there were only 10 guys chosen. 5 guys in a row, all masked by Batman, but blinded. Looked really cool,
because there's different colors for each guy. Then there's 5 girls, who are gonna massage the guys, and the aim is
to massage the guy you're assigned. And the guy has to guess who massaged them the best. The first 5 had 3 guys
guessing right. Then I got chosen to go into the second group. Now, I had not known which girl was which at this
stage, so it was difficult already. Then the massage begins. Now, 3 girls were actually nice to me. One ticked
me. One was ABSOLUTELY EVIL to me. This girl basically slapped me hard. Like *smacked* hard. Also I got punched.
Almost as if the girl was out to get me. I nearly died of shock because I was being smacked so hard. Then she got
swapped so I was spared. None of us got it right though... and there wasn't another round after that -_-". I asked
around to see if they remember who slapped me, and NOBODY can remember! Geez... talk about a bad start huh. We then
got separated into groups for next day's activities. I was in group 3. We had 4 girls and 3 guys, since one of the
guys had to leave... So for supper, we had to think about what we're doing tomorrow, which was saturday. We had to
think of a group name, and a catchcry. Well... the second nail was in place, we couldn't think of anything cool.
So we chose "JJ". Why? because we happened to have both of the guys (excluding me) named Jerry. Hows that for
planning, or lack of? The girls couldn't think of something interesting either. So it was pretty bad. We were
doomed to fail. Of course, winning isn't everything. It's just some movie tickets. That you can go with your
group. I didn't need to go watch movies with people, since well, it's not something that you would do in a group
situation, with people you hardly know. It would be better in, say, a dinner or party situation. But that's the
prize. Anyways the catchcry was rather lame as well. Compared to the other groups, they really put a lot of effort
into theirs.
Anyways, our camp coordinators were called Caroline and Michelle. I don't know if they are actually sisters, but
they act like it. Also there were another sister group in the camp, but I didn't realise that till later. Caroline
hates me from the start, because I didn't put 100% into participating. I can't blame her tho, she's already
engaged, and she wants everybody to have fun. I tend to not have fun in these kind of situations... By that time
(midnight) it was raining, and we went back to our cabins. Except nobody wants to sleep. So there was a big game
of cards. Of course, some guys were already tired, so they tried their best to sleep, and succeeded in one case.
They played some games that I didn't know, then it got bigger, even some girls joined in. One of them got my
attention... but I was too tired to join in the fun. One of the games was "Snap", which each player gets a stack of
cards, and if the number in sequence was the same as the card put down, you had to slap the card, and the last
player gets the cards. The one who has to most card loses. The girl who got my attention was very funny, she kept
slapping even though she lost. The girls didn't like getting slapped that many times and their hands were red to
show to the guys... hehe expecting sympathy of course :) I was on the top bunk just looking down, because I
actually worked really hard during the day and have no energy. I think they finished around 2am. Then they left
and we tried to go sleep. Except two guys in the next cell (each 4 bunk beds = one cell, each cabin has 4 cells)
decided to talk about female anatomy and facial features for the next hour or so. We (me and Jimmy) didn't get to
sleep because we were trying hard not to laugh... those guys (James and Jerry) are also funny. So, after they shut
up, we slept. Till 4 hours later when we were woken up.
Saturday. 7:30. Damn it's raining and humid. AND COLD. And the lack of sleep isn't helping. So we got up, and
used the amenities, and then had breakfast. The free time after breakfast was used to think of what we were gonna
do for the catchcry. Ours was just to scream it out. But even that's lame. So we had the games straight after.
The games is the process to get scores to get the prize, which is a movie ticket. That doesn't interest me at all.
That means I actually have to find time to use it. And then to get to the cinema. And then watch the movie. When
all I have to do is... um... look it it from a different alternative.
The thing about this camp was that the girls are a bit perverted. They want people to pole dance. "Tiao gung wu".
And the first event was to see which group can pole dance the best. Except that there's no pole. The guys (and
girls) are poles, and they swap and dance. Again, our group was the lamest, because we had the least people. One
group, who had James, was the best. James basically did a flip and had Stephen spin him around (while he's upside
down) so he actually looks like he's spinning down the pole. Except the funniest thing happened. His pants
actually pulled down (rather, he slid out of them), and then his underwear too. The girls literally screamed
because they can see his a$$. Hahaha I think everybody laughed. They got full marks. Then the catchcry came, and
well... it was bad as well. Ours I mean. We got that out of the way... and then played some games.
There were 6 games originally. One game got cancelled because it was deemed too dangerous. Holding a spoon in your
mouth isn't good, OH&S wise. So there were 5 games. 1) Pick up rubber bands with a toothpick. 2) Step on other
people's balloons. 3) Three-legged race 4) Mime-Guess and 5) Blow ping pong balls. 1) was easy, just try to
manipulate the toothpick to pick up the rubber bands. 5) was to blow ping ping balls on a bed of flour (nasty) and
try to land it to the next bowl. To get points. 4) was to guess what the person is miming. The best one was our
group, Jerry can really mime. He got spiderman down pat. Of course, the guessers were good as well. 3) is self-
explainatory. 2) was the event where I hurt my leg. I have been hobbling along for 2 days now, my foot still
hurts. Of course, I don't whine too much, but it does hurt when I walk, and I walk alot in the warehouse. Needless
to say, each competitor has a balloon next to their foot, and the aim is to pop the opposing team's balloons. We
won, by 3. One team was so good that they survived with 6 balloons. So it was a fun but rather suicidal game. We
were jumping around and stomping, it was that crazy. Thats why I hurt my foot because we stomped so much and so
hard. But it was fun. Our team, after the score tally, came equal last. Then it was Lunch time. Then we had a
presentation about posture and etiquette. Pretty interesting stuff. Then it was a short discussion about why we
were getting married later and if we were for/against having a de facto relationship/having sex before marriage kind
of thing. Most of it was boring, but you can see who thought what. Some were straight laced, others were casual.
It's interesting. Then after that, we had dinner. I'm telling you, there's like 5 meals a day here. Too much food
and it's fattening. After dinner, we had 1.5 hours to get dressed for the main event. Dancing. Taught by some
parents who goes dancing. The difference between guys and girls are... Guys can take 10 mins shower, and 10 mins
dressing up. And is ready. So we literally were waiting for 20 mins before 7:30 before we went and showered and
changed. But the girls... well they literally took 1.7 hours. Shower, and then dressing up/makeup. All the guys
were down there practicing the first dance for 10 mins before the girls rocked up. Then we danced for 1.5 hours,
had 3 kinds of dance, and then it was supper. Except it was so boring that we all left the centre and went to the
city. Except the straight laced people. They stayed behind and played cards, or went to bed early. Jimmy however
had to work on Sunday (like wtf man, why work on Sunday??? crazy mofo). So didn't catch him later. I was with the
group that went into the city to drink and dance. I had my first hard drink. Scotch and coke. It burns your
throat but after a while you'll get used to it. And I don't get drunk as well, which is weird. First I don't get
awake with coffee, but tired (and some of the guys has the same effect at the camp, I'm so relieved that I'm not the
only one) and now I don't really get drunk unless I drink a lot of hard liquor. Except that's what happens to our
family. My grandfather apparently can finish a bottle of the stuff and not feel anything. That's either strong or
weird. Anyways, after that, about an hour later, we came out and I was nearly deaf. Couldn't hear a thing. After
that we went to Wolloomoloo (sp?) and everybody except a few had hotdogs and pies. I wasn't hungry and one of the
guys actually slept in the car because he was tired after dancing. But the time was 2:30am, there were around 50-60
people around this place, called "Harry de Wheels". There were also seagulls awake at this place, because they can
eat the scraps and not sleep. Or maybe they can sleep during the day. Being nocturnal. NOT. After spending half
and hour, we went back and got to sleep. For 4 hours. This time, it was raining and I got woken up by the rain.
Sunday morning. 7:30 am. Lunch finishes at 9:30. I got up nearly an hour after waking up. And had a quick brush of the teeth and wash of the face and I was the 4th guy in the dining hall/kitchen. 1 guy already had 1 plate of breakfast, 2 girls just starting. "Where's everybody"? "Sleeping" was the answer. I got a plate of food and sat down. Then one of the 2 girls gave me a present. I was surprised to say the least. Because of the games, we had to buy a present for the opposite sex. This was a thank you present, because you're supposed to look out for your guarded 'name' on the paper when we first arrived. I think I talked to her once at the intro, but didn't get to talk to her much later. But she obviously knew who I was... so I thanked her and rushed back to my room and got her present, because she wasn't staying after breakfast. After that, about 9:20am, the girls all came in. Then the guys. In the end, it was 9:40 and then we were supposed to have another presentation about 'life' in the hall. 10 mins already gone by, and he didn't have so much pressure to tell everything he knew. But it was an interesting talk again. It's about how to make your world a more interesting place. I got asked who (girlwise) I liked in this camp, and I said nobody. I think I got more people to not like me... which is ok I guess. Tom though I was pretty evil there too... Which is funny because I thought I liked some girl... but they weren't that interested in me. So after that, we had to pack our stuff out of the cabins and into our vehicles. And then we had lunch. Originally it was to be a bbq, but then it was raining, so they bought some food which they cooked at home (they = parents, and the women's association who arranged the camp) and we had a chat and ate. Then it was time to go. My bro actually got dropped off by his gf, because they live close, and since I was that tired, I let my bro drive. So I got home around 1 and then unpacked, and surfed the net etc. Then crashed out for a nap, waking up around 8:30 and taking an hour to eat dinner because I was telling my parents generally about the camp. Overall the camp was pretty good, but I think they could've organised it a bit better. Somewhere remote would've been funny because we wouldn't be able to sneak out and party. But that means you'll be spending more time with people that you might not be interested in. But the main purpose of this camp was for them (the same definition as above) to find bfs for their daughters. I think maybe not this year. Better luck next year. Meanwhile, I was thinking about this girl who got my attention, but I didn't get hers. Even the girl at work knows her and how she is a christian and stuff. She's defiantely not in my list to chase after now :P The more I hear of her, the more it seems like there's more things I don't like... like my bro knows her sister, and that their mum wants a doctor to be her bf/hubby. Well being a doc to chase a girl seems like something stupid to me. But then I'm not gonna chase her so it's alright... She might be a nun or something in the future...
Monday. Back to normal. Or not. It seems like one of the casuals is heading back to HK for a holiday, and I will get put into his position, which was my old position, more than 10 months ago. John will be put into my position, and Bruce will stay in the same position. Therefore, it will be hell when it gets busy. But apparently it won't be too busy, so it's alright.
And it's raining hard now. 12:12 and I'm still awake. Damn I'm so stupid to start this marathon blog so late. Oh well. Till next time...

Hot Saturday

It's hot today. After a couple of days that were cool, it's been hot. Lately I've been playing Need For Speed:Most Wanted demo, and it plays fine, because my computer is cool. But then when I played it today, it rebooted my machine. It simply put my comp's temperature (inside the box) to above 60 degrees. The average temperature in there on a normal day is around 37 or so, but when I played NFSMW, it got around 60 and basically the computer just couldn't handle it, and rebooted. I need better cooling I guess.... but I turned up the fan in the computer, still that couldn't take away the heat? Strange. So I won't play the game during the hotness of the day I guess.

This is the weekend before I will be going to a camp. Needless to say, it's gonna be a weird experience. Will they expect me to be able to understand all the chinese/taiwanese spoken? Or to speak chinese/taiwanese? I have no idea. I can speak mandarin and listen to taiwanese... but both aren't good at all. And the camp is for volunteering... ah... I wonder what will happen to me.

Last week Saturday, my bro got engaged to his long time gf... I think they were going out for less than a year but got told they were going out for more than 3? Is my memory really that bad? I remembered there was another girl in that bro's life, and that wasn't more than 4 years ago. Or has time really gone by quickly? Anyways, the ceremony was that we got there at an auspicious time, showed them the pressies (that my bro and his fiance bought together, of course) and then had a tea drinking ceremony (can't drink all of the tea...), then they put rings on each other's fingers, and then the opposite parents (my mum to her, her dad to him) gave them pressies as well. Matching watches and etc. Then after that, we went to a restraunt. Just before the end of eating, we left without saying a word. It was pretty weird... We just stood up and left. It's meant to say that we're now officially together as a big family, and thus no need to say goodbye or anything like that. Of course, the guests (around 20 odd people) also got told of this before the day, so they were pretty quiet when we left... rather cold I must say, but then again, this 'big' engagement is rather weird. Most people get engaged without pomp and ceremony, and have a big wedding, but chinese have a big engagement and they can have a small wedding, if they want. Or a big banquet/traditional chinese wedding. I don't know what they'll do tho. It's just weird that they want to have a big ceremony.

Work has been very quiet lately. It seems to have died off this month. Next week is still not EOM, but the week after is. Now EOM actually ends on the ACTUAL date of the month. Not the weekend. So it shouldn't impact my camp in anyway. I told my supervisor already. He can't force me to come... and I can't come anyways, with the camp going over the weekend. However I got to tease my colleague because he's been giving rides home to a girl that has managed to crash her car, trashing her radiator and perhaps the engine or something. He's gotten sick of it, but I haven't... This week he's given 3 rides, however he didn't give a ride on Friday arvo. I'm dissappointed. However, I believe that I'm such a nice friend >:D He told me to give her a ride, but with her living the opposite way away from work, no frigging way. Petrol prices aren't cheap. And I have the camp to look forward to... even my colleague thinks I should take one to the xmas party. Hm... would that be too soon? I don't know, it seems like I'm going ahead of myself too much. From nothing to something... it takes time.

Musically, I've been listening to Jay Chou's "November's Chopin"... it's quite alright to me. I also like Younha's "Go! Younha" album. Other than that, the English market isn't quite as interesting to me.

Anime, Bleach is still going good. I also watched some others, like Animal Yokocho, Karin, Lamune (which actually supposed to be "Lemonade") and Ginban Kaliedescope. A healthy mixure of the weird and funny.

J-Drama, well, since Densha Otoko has finished, I decided to take on a new one which is also starred by the actress who played "Hermes". This time, she plays an older sister who's like an airhead, but enjoys life, to a younger bro who's cynical and doesn't know why she's there to piss him off. It's pretty funny to see the "serious" Hermes play a funny girl. Will be watching this one till it finishes, of course. Also, in DO, there's the evil girl who I called "evil sl*t" because she is evil and well, "eats" with anybody who's in a position of power. However, she also acted in a movie I watched sometime this year, called "Swing Girls", the story about a jazz band made up of nobodies. I got that movie out and watched it again, and saw her as a not so evil music teacher. However, she still has the weird evil smile. Guess she can't change that... But at least she didn't "ROAR" in Swing Girls.. Phew.

Ah one more week... then who knows what will happen??? HMMMM...