X'mas... on actual day

It was a few years back that we started the tradition of having steamboat for X'mas celebration, usually @ Joshua's place. We made an exception this year by having the typical X'mas food - Turkey, honey baked ham and log-cake. We also had hotdogs, bacon wrapped with 'golden needle' mushroom and Josh and Lydia's salad to complete the X'mas dinner. In fact, it was so sumptuous that we had way too much leftovers... Think its enough to save a state of people in the starving nations of Africa.

Josh brought his 3-in-1 game tables and turned the place into a make-shift community centre. It was great fun though... all of us playing undersized table-tennis and pool, and entertaining Kai at the same time. I can almost picture us like some retired elderly hanging out at an elderly corner under the HBD void deck.

I finally got a Christmas tree this year. Not exactly a good time to spend that money, but we got it anyway. I always wanted to have my owned X'mas tree, and I finally got it now at age 32. ..and I'm sure Joyce wanted it too.

Jason went to Chang Mai, so couldn't make it this year. But we had Raymond, who joined us briefly, and George, as the newest member around. Jennifer had actively joined us since she resumed her single-hood and really seem to enjoy herself. Chris came really late and he was dead tired after he ate and slept on the couch for the rest of the time. It was nice to have Leonard pop by, it was always so difficult to get him for X'mas for the past 20 years I knew him. ... and of course, we all missed the presence of Jackson. We knew he will never miss this session if he's still around.

X'mas Lunch - 20th Dec

Joyce's gang of buddies came over our place for an early x'mas celebration on the 20th of Dec, which happened to be a Hari Raya holiday. It was nice though the general activities and food weren't very in tuned to the Christmas mood.. bit like Chinese New Year considering we had it in the afternoon and had food like curry chicken, popiah, bee hoon... and to top it all up, they played mahjong. But I must admit the feast is quite satisfying, both in terms of variety and quality. The atmosphere really kicked in when the group decided to have the gift exchange, of cos, with the help of my trusty X'mas compilation music in the background which I manage to salvage from my stack of CD collection. Thanks to Joyce for arranging with Catherine to help me shop for a present for the session, though I think Joyce was rather disappointed that I didn't get it myself, but I was just too held up at work before to go shop for something. Well, I'm glad it went well, after all, its the only gift-exchange for this year. Oh, I got an extra large yellow calculator! Really cool...

I noticed its a really a nice thing to have the company of kids around for X'mas, certainly brightens up the mood. Maybe because I'm getting older and enjoy seeing the young happy faces, or maybe its the aftermath of my deprived experience in X'mas celebration when I was their age.

Joyce made Tiramisu for the 1st time. The overall feedback was good from everyone, and I thought it was pretty good too. Its nice to see her take interest in something close to 'cooking'... I knew she had been collecting some recipes and this dessert is a a very good start. Well Done!

November Rain

Been a fantastic month since I left the comfort zone into the world of 'minding my own business'... literally. A lot had happen on the Nov month... apart from doing the work and dealing with the clients, we had been looking for a new office space, planning for it, getting furniture, DIY and reno the office at the lowest cost possible.... I could have written it all in different blogs on different dates.. but the work is just so up my throat. I hv been going home practically past midnight everyday... i hardly hv any time to sleep, let alone blogging.

In short, we moved in the new place at Jln Besar and official started there on Sunday, 2 Dec. According to Naa's mum, its a good day to start, and according to my mum, its best to start on after 11am. So we did - went in, send some emails and put up the signboard... wala!.. its official. We even gave each other Ang Bao.. everything proper except the ribbon cutting... haha.

5 Dec was the worst day to date since everything.. we got into some trouble with the lease agreement - Well, technically, it wasn't a legal agreement. Apparently, the guy, Clarence, who rented the place to us wasn't the real landlord. He was actually the original tenant, but he got into some financial problems...So he sublet to us and moved out, which he wasn't suppose to. The landlord pop by that day and busted the whole thing. Our negligence was that Naa and I were too excited abt taking up the place and didn't notice that the agreement has no signature of the actual landlord. ...Lucky thing was that the landlord is an understanding person, and was willing to gather all the parties involved the next day to attempt to resolve the matter - before she solve it via legal means. It was a nerve-wrecking evening to wait till the next day...it almost like a criminal waiting for a next day sentencing. What made it worst was Jason came over and got our toilet door locked up from the inside, and we don't have the key!... and we end the evening by going to a Eddy's mum wake. What a day!

Well...the good news is, we got it all resolve the next day and we're here to stay! I'll spare the details...

Anyway, I'll take some pic of the place and post them up soon.

Last day @ Creative

Friday 26/10 was my last day @ Creative, but today is the official date to 6yrs 5mths since I started working there. It was on the last day that I really felt I'll be missing the place. Well, ...the gang, not the work. I was going around trying to feel and touch everything... and trying to capture images in my mind... it felt like I was almost unwilling to give it all up.

Started the day with my usual breakfast w/ Tejo. Khim couldn't make it on time but Linda, Janie and Nick was there. Tey was sick but he made it to the canteen to say goodbye, I can tell he's one of the saddest to see me leave. Just a few days back, he was mubbling something about eating lunches alone in the future. He's a great guy, even though some people may seek to differ. Like I always say, you just have to appreciate him from a different perspective.

Didn't do much for the rest of the morning... I can only remember I loaded the Chupa Chups into the authentic Chupa Chups metal tin in prep for the afternoon 'say-goodbye' rounds. Oh... Su called up for last minute lunch appt., which he eventually couldn't make it due to some meeting. Ended up eating at Nordic centre with Ken, Siek and Daniel... Well, probably for the better.

Made my rounds after lunch... I must say it was almost as tiring as going around tables during my wedding dinner. All that rushing from station to station, lots of photo snapping... etc.. Chupa Chup was a good choice as a token of farewell - handy and definitely enough to go around. Thanks to Jason, got the idea from him. Janie made a bad choice with his Mamee and chips, which were bulky to handle and never seem to be enough for everyone. He ended up loaning some of my Chupa Chups as back up supply....haha. Come to think of it, I think Sally, Janie and I made quite a loud exit... literally. With all that loud talking and laughing, gatecrashing into meetings, intermitent camera flashing, and the big badgages of candies, chocolates and snacks supplies... It's like:"who the hell cares, man."

LC summoned 3 of us back to her office at around 5pm. She gave a short thank you speech and presented us with a gift each... I got a stuffed bear. Hmm... what can I say, but it does look expensive. Anyway, I was sort of reminded by her not to 'pull' designers out of Creative... haha, I'll try my best.

Went back to the ID room for the last time at the end of the day... Finally sent out the video clip which i did as a tribute to myself, together with the farewell email... not much reaction from the people around, ...thought I'll see some runny eyes... haha, evil...

The end of the day photo session in the ID room was both fun and funny... It really makes my day with all that laughing and joking. ... Will miss Kar Choon's poses...haha. As planned, we left the office for dinner in a group... at least I didn't walk out lonely.

Dinner was great... never really goes wrong where there's oysters. It was all fun and laughter as we eat. Towards the end, the guys surprised me an Apple's wireless Mighty Mouse...must be Tejo's idea. I didn't say much for the encored speech, for fear that I might get too emotional... Yup, that's me. Many do not know, I may look stone cold on the outside, but I can get miserably weepy if I get overly-sentimental.

The after-dinner program was a small group of us drinking at Dempsey. Nice place to settle as we talked through the night... it was almost like we didn't want the day to end. Too bad Gigi couldn't join us as we all know she's wanted to, but due to uncontrollable circumstances, she couldn't make the call.

Well... so long, guys. Thank U for everything. Life has to go on... Anyway, we can always gather elsewhere to catch up. Who knows... if I can succeed (and I will..), some of us will definitely be working together again.

KPE Radio

The freaking KPE Radio is getting on my nerves!!!!... and its going to be on-going for the whole damn week! Bloody Class 95 morning express DJs just kept on repeating the information and the songs (Songs written for KPE) over and over again. Now the tunes are all stuck in my mind like the persistant aussie summer flies. Spare me! My journey to work is about 35min on average and I got to listen to this crap! Once or twice is fine... but at the rate they're going, I think it's ridiculous. No! I'm not opting to change channels cos the rest ain't better in any ways.

I'm beginning to think there must be a lot of built-in ERP gantries there which wasn't announced. So...LTA must be hyping up the whole thing to get enough crowd using it so they can eventually activate the money zappers. Why else are they financing all these promotion campaign for a piece of road? Mediacorp Radio must be getting a fat cheque to take on this deal for a whole week.

Been to the website to see if there's a feedback column, but in vain. I must say the site does look pretty good. How far are they going to hard sell a new road?

Punggol Oktober Fest

Yup... organised me own Oktober fest at home yesterday. Part of my cost cutting effort to resist going to the bigger one organised via SISTIC. Also to cheer up my 'sis', Jenn,.. she seem to have been thru' quite a rough week, but didn't get chance to hear more from her.

Generally had a good time with the group. Well, almost the whole group. It has been hard getting some people to come over. Kind of sad that Chris didn't even bother to reply/come to my invite and Jason casually dropped my event last minute. Just read from Jason's blog about his exotic night drinking with other friends and ah nehs. So much for friendship. Petty? You may think... but it's not the 1st or 2nd time. Think I'm playing back up too often. Now I'm starting to miss Jackson more.

Anyway, I still have good old buddy Josh, Jenn, Vince and his gal Gigi for the night (not forgeting my wify). Lots of Booze, Wii games, some supposely creepy show that Josh insisted to watch and a Jay Chou movie (Courtesy of Jenn). I must say I really enjoy watching the guys play Wii... brings the kid out of them. Haven't been laughing that much for quite a while. Too bad I forgot to charge up my cam and couldn't snap some pics for upload.

'Black' day..

Damn those French ruggers... ! I woke up at 3am till 5am to helplessly watch my favourite All Blacks crash out of the Rugby World Cup at quarter-finals stage... another 4 damn years to wait till the next round! Ahhhhhhhhgh...!!

The French are as undeserving as the English... it's juz sooooooo frustrating...!!! Think I'll boycott watching the rest of the RWC..

...felt better though after watching the afternoon F1 race... K. Raikkonen won it over the two McClaren cry babies.. well, actually I'm only against F. Alonso, juz too bad L. Hamilton is in the same team...haha, so I'm bias against both.

Operation Fishball, 05 Oct 2007

I always imagine having steamboat in the office since we moved in the current office space 2 years ago. The idea juz struck me since I first saw our 1.5m round meeting tables, finished in that coffeeshop table-look-a-like type of laminate.

Ha... finally fulfilled that plan last friday... we kept the idea within our team and extended the invitation only to a few others, bascially keeping the headcount low as we didn't want to cause too much of a hoo-ha. Anyway, a big group would be harder to manage and it wouldn't be as fun some how.

It didn't take too long for the planning - juz a quick brainstorming session of the list of stuffs we needed and we're clear to go. We got the ingredients from Giant after a quick lunch at IMM that day. Everything was kept simple and quick, and we managed to kick off the big feast around 6:30pm.






Lots of thanks to Linda (and Mum) for supplying the hot pot, Janie for the laddles and 'nets',... and the rest for the help and joy brought to the ocassion. Of cos, including my contribution for the disposible chopsticks and bowls, plus my special Tom Yam paste and my mum's homemade chilli.

The Big Decision

6 and a half years of working for Sim Wong Hoo and I finally made the big decision to quit!

Those around me will know, it juz sound so crazy to give it up at this point - a comfortable pay, a leading position for my section with no one ahead of me that might hinder my promotion opportunities, supportive bosses, things going so well with building my team, better positive attitude from the marketing team, ...etc. ...plus the fact that I have a house, car and tons of monthly bills to pay for...and a wife I have to take care of.

Well... I juz couldn't resist taking on that dream of mine to build my own business. Some already telling me that I'm not doing my maths right, giving up all that I have now. The cruel fact that I'll be getting a big pay cut for this move is not helping to back my decision up.

All I can say now is - There's never a good time to decide on any change, I only knew I had to leave that comfort zone and go rough it out a bit. I do acknowledge the fear for failure, but most importantly, I actually BELIEVE I can do it. Whether it's ego or juz pure optimism, that's the life I choose, so give me the support I need or leave me alone...

Now, it's time to control my spending and say goodbye to that extravagant lifefstyle of mine...haha.