BBQ @ Jason's in-laws place

This was last week... Yup, yet another successful gathering organised by Jason & Merissa. This time was a BBQ Merissa's parents' place... They were house-sitting and conveniently use the place for the event. I reckon it's Jason's idea - not his place and still have a maid to do the prep and clean ups... typical of him...haha..

I was there late cos I was at SGH visiting my godma - who's doing fine. Anyway, I was still able to catch everyone when I reached. The response for this round was good... mostly managed to turn up. Too bad for Jianyuan & Elisa who had to attend a wedding dinner, and Leo & Grace who went over to Beijing. Anyway, Leonard & Grace were never really committed to join the group... not a big lost... haa.... Was suprised to see one unusual member - Eugene Seah... Haven't seen him since, hmmm... the days in Singapore Poly...?? I think so... That's like 15 years ago?! Though I'd heard some news about him over the past few years - he's doing well with his family biz, staying the same EC as Leo & Grace at The Eden, and have biz dealings with Christopher and Kwan Wei. There was a bit of awkwardness when we acknowledged each other... and I didn't really have much to chat with him... That typical 'lost-of-words' manner of mine surfaced once again... plus my DEFAULT unfriendly look wasn't helping the situation. Maybe we haven't really warmed up after all those years... Well, don't get me wrong - he's a nice person, I must say, just that we're weren't really THAT close since the beginning, though we were classmates, band-mates, poly-mates and he's staying so close to Leonard. Anyway, he got to leave early, so I guess we'll have to leave the catching up till god knows when again.

Thanks to Chris that we get some pictures to keep on this gathering... I guess as we grow older, we tend to appreciate the time spent with our good old friends even more. .. and it will always put a smile in all of us whenever we look back at these moments. A BIG THANK YOU to the organisers, J&M, and Chris as the camera-man.

Pickerton Syndrome

Adapted from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "The Pinkerton Syndrome is a derogatory Singaporean term describing the tendency of some local Asians who tend to consider Caucasians superior, usually having a bias towards favouring Caucasians over locals."

How true... an official term for that explains the legendary hokkien phrase 'Ang-Moh-Dua-Kee"... and Singaporeans own it! Its specifically labelled as a 'Singaporean term'.

Now you know why:-
- Your ang moh boss is doing so little at work, knows NOTHING, but getting EVERYTHING paid for, not to mention his/her huge pay cheque.
- ang moh gets always gets to be part of the management.
- ang moh wearing singlet and berms can get better service than u in shirt and pants when shopping in boutique or restaurants
- when ang moh speaks, they always gets to finish their sentences and always gets to interrupt anyone they likes.
- (some) locals will instantaneously switch to an 'out-to-impress-accent' when speaking to ang moh,
- no matter how fat/ugly/disgusting/short/hairless/smelly/etc. an ang moh guy is, some SPGs will still want to be with him.

Why?... it's just how we're brought up to be in this little island.

Life is already tough just trying to please your own country men...

Support your local heroes!

New Year, New Year...

I've been too lazy to fill in my blog since the new year started. Well, part of it is pure laziness and part of it was also due to work. I know haven't reflected back on the past year, but the fact is, I hated the year 2007. All I want to say is - I'm glad 2007 is over.

2008 has so far been good to me.. and I'm looking forward to a even better start after this long CNY break... which I'll be back to work tomorrow. Ha... we shifted our seats in office on CNY eve...which according to reliable 'fengshui' sources... I'm supposedly facing the god of happiness while Naa faces the god of fortune. Let see how things goes from here!

29 Dec

It's Jackson's Birthday.

Only difference is that he's not physically here to celebrate with us this year...and the years to come. It has been 8 months now since he left us for the pearly gates, but we've definitely not forgotten about his big day.

The day started early, with us gathering at Balestier for Bak Kut Teh. Quite a handful turned up, or should I say the usual bunch - Josh, Jason, Edmund, Raymond, Lim CK, Jenn, and of course, Joyce and myself. After breakfast, we visited him at his 'penthouse unit' at St. Michael's Church, where Chris Lim was already waiting when we reached.

Deep inside, I can really feel that everyone misses him a lot.. though we were mostly still joking and laughing away on the outside. I was joking about how Ah Buee dislikes pork, and our pungent smell from our pre-visit breakfast will capture his notice on our arrival... Well, one thing for sure, we all know he'll want us to stay as what we were before - fun and some what notorious...

The visit was brief... we went on separate ways after that while a few of us went to get the stuff for steamboat at my place in the evening. This steamboat thingy is our tradition that happens annually around X'mas period, usually at Josh's place. It started because the bunch of us just simply refuse to give in to expensive and commercialized X'mas meals...haha.

The crowd was just nice for the steamboat session... It was nice to have Bernardine (Ah Buee's girlfriend) to join us... I'm thinking.. maybe it's ah buee's will, cos Chris coincidentally bump into her when he visited him at the church in late afternoon, and invited her over. But we weren't so lucky in the 4D we bought that day(ah buee's 'unit no.'), obivously he didn't supported the idea.

Josh bought a cake to celebrate his birthday, with the word 'Happy 32 Jack'...We all cut the cake together, since he's not here. Ah Buee always buys us cakes for our birthdays before... its only right for us to get it for him now. Just hope that he didn't mind its not from Prego.

Happy Birthday, my friend!

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.