Forbidden Love

Just one touch from your hand
Was all it took to make me falter
Forbidden love
Are we supposed to be together
Forbidden love
Forbidden love
Forbidden love
We seal the destiny forever
Forbidden love

Nothing forbidden really. But we have kept rather quiet about it all for a while, encouraging people to have their own guesses as to what was happening. Mainly it was so that we had time to foster things between us (oh it makes it sound as if telling people might have spoiled things or something, but that wasn't it).

So how did it happen?

None of that knight in shining armour in moments of distress. Not love at first sight (although we won't be far from wrong if a fair number of people who met The Chief that night had lust at first sight). But yes, there's the initial email out, responds, then whatwith emails being on GMail soon started the GTalk chats.

Of course, the first time we went out together, from a supposed date it turned into a dinner gathering - thus it accidently sent a sort of wrong message, making it sound as if we weren't interested. :P That, of course, was fixed later on.

Guess things took a more definite note when the Chief consented to fetch us for our birthday party.

Part of our program now includes: making the Chief's colleagues curiously jealous; occasional honest flattery; not appearing overly stupid; endanger both our sugar levels (not literally!); and still be Chinese illiterate so that we remain dependant.

Couldn't resist putting this up. Don't think it would make anyone hurl.

Let It Will Be

Don't it make you smile
Let it will be
Just let it be
Won't you let it be

We use to have this view that, when you start seeing someone, there's some definite line that tells just what category your relationship status is. Like, 'seeing someone' to 'dating' to 'couples' and such. Of course, we guess the pertinent bits that interest us would be, "So when did both of you confirmed couple?" And come to think of it, we'd never had to ask anyone before - we were always told about it after leering at them long enough.

Come to think of it, we needed someone to explain to us the difference between 'seeing someone' and 'dating'...seems like there's certain things you do that puts you in one category or the other, and we don't remember how it goes.

So how have things been for the Chief and us? Well, we're guilty of expecting that things would happen gradually (weeks? months? can't say) but of course things don't always happen as one would expect. That things have been developing well, no awkward moments, communications are good and that we're happy with how things are going, we're not complaining.

'It's complicated'? Nope.

Yes, there may have been bits that would cause Paul to rush to the toilet to throw up but no, it's not so overly sappy...

Yet.

After all, there are some things that may have sounded sappy before but it doesn't now. And there are some things that need to be said if and when possible, because they need to be said rather than kept silent and taken for granted.

So, is it going too fast? Well - so far things are going right (as we both feel), which would mean more than going too fast or too slow. And as long as things are right, we'll let things happen as we go along.

I Love New York

If you can't stand the heat
Then get off my street

Actually we don't love New York, because we've never been there before. We've only remembered Los Angeles, Chicago and Iowa (heck this was when we were 13 years old and what mattered most were toy stores, Disneyland, Universal Studios and Hollywood). Trust us to decide to go on the Confessions On A Dance Floor Project without paying attention to some of the track names in the first place (and there's another track title up ahead we have no idea how to tie in to whatever we shall post...).

Anways, the weekend was packed with another two birthday meals - Saturday with ex-coursemates at Tony Romas, and Sunday with the usual gang at this hidden place called Checkers.

Now if there's one thing we now need to learn, is our limits. Given that there were 6 people for lunch at Tony Romas, 5 dishes sounds just about right, doesn't it? Then again, that 4 of them are girls who aren't heavy into meat dishes were something we didn't really factor in when ordering - thus leading to lunch then being a rather heavy affair. Not to mention we missed BodyJam as well, which was a good thing - we probably would have died an embarassing death in class after such a meal.

How full were we all? Full enough that even the sight of four cupcakes seemed something difficult to finish (and honestly, with this particular group of friends for every subsequent birthday gatherings the birthday cake have been getting smaller and smaller). And in the end, only three-quarters of each cupcake were finished...

Then there was Sunday at this hidden shop called Checkers - with many porky porky dishes. We had the roast pork knuckle, Lemon (the Demon) and otousan had the LOTR (crazy lots of ribs that could be shared by three people) and the rest went for an assortment of pork chops or pork and sausages.

Now, it's not that we have a small appetite or that we can't eat a lot, but when we end up overindulging it's more than just a simple matter of loosening the belt or rubbing the stomach. We start burning up as the body metabolizes. And given how hot the weather can get, it's not really fun to start burning up.

Thankfully those 'hot flashes' doesn't last long.

Oh, and the guys gave us a wireless modem router for our birthday!

"Buying presents for a girl-, no, buying presents for anyone else is much easier than buying presents for you, Janvier!" scolds lad. Guilty, we admit.

So anyways most of today was spent fixing it up and trying to understand how to get it working. Fixing it up was no problem. There was that doubtful moment where we wonder if we were plugging the cable into a network card or TCP/IP card or goodness knows what. And there's the numerous attempts at getting it to connect with no success. Panas sahaja kita.

We finally gave up and decided to go shopping before Jam and YKLS.

Future Lovers

In the evidence of it's brilliance

It starts with our remembering this piece titled 'Friendship' that 'Nic wrote for our secondary school magazine before. To quote:

By puberty, however, the money nonsense has been done with. In its place though, an even more outrageous problem has come into play - the battle of the sexes...Long time childhood friendship account for nothing if their sex does not match. If someone tries to go against this universal rule, they will be branded...

After checking back the school magazine for that article, we spent a bit of time going through the rest of the magazine again...we still can't believe the stuff we wrote ourselves. Yikes. Then again, we don't think we'll be able to spew that kinda prose anymore.

Anyways. So happens that we went out with the Chief for dinner at Souled Out the other night (it has been ages since either of us dined there) and things were normal until the waiter passed us a leaflet of their upcoming promotion - Valentine's, to be specific. This before we even gone through the menu. Not to mention that the other side of the leaflet has their upcoming Yee Sang promotion.

Eh, excuse us? Can't it be a platonic dinner?

The staff probably have very good future sight then, because at present we still try to keep things low profile.

Sorry

Je suis désolée
Lo siento
Ik ben droevig
Sono spiacente
Perdóname

It's already been more than a couple of years now that we consider Friday nights to be our night out boozing with the guys. It could be supper (and beer or stronger drinks) at the Castle or at somebody's place, but generally everyone could make it.

It wasn't the start of our alcoholism we assure you, that started in the final year of uni, but it certainly did reinforce the habit. :P

Anyways, Friday nights have been something regular and it was even more consistant compared to the girl's meetup (which we're quite surprised). It was good for catching up with each other, griping about work, planning things, finding out everyone's HR Rating and ending up with that slighly tipsy feeling without overdoing it. And on the times where we all meant to overdo things, drains and such were nearby and we all didn't have to worry about getting cabs home.

Well not all Friday nights are alcoholic. But it's more of us getting together. Sorta like how our dad goes to his club for chapkut (gin rummy with mahjong tiles) with his mates every Saturday. You can see we give priority to our Friday night group.

Nowadays it's a wee bit more difficult as work gets in the way for some people. Only work? Not only work but work is excusable somewhat.

Relationships, on the other hand...well, cannot say anything about it although sometimes grumbling could be heard about them (especially if it happened once too often), hahaha. "So-and-so always ffk us!" and the likes although it's mostly in good humour. No comments from us, and that's a good thing too - because who knows when it's our turn to actually pull off such a stunt.

Well we might have to. There's gonna be occasions we'll have to spend quality time with the Chief now. Sorry ya in advance if we start throwing aeroplanes. :P

Get Together

Can we get together?

Well as Thaipusam meant a lovely public holiday for some all of us, FeR decided to have a dinner and gaming meetup on the eve. A great idea since we haven't met the coursemates for quite a while, and it would be nice to see them in an occasion other than somebody's wedding.

Games played that night was kept to Cranium and Taboo. You can tell just how long it has been since NJAPF played Cranium because she'd totally forgotten how to use the timer...thingy. Not to mention that the humming (because not everyone knew the songs) and sculptoring (because the clay dried up and crystallized!) categories had to be left out, but that still left plenty o' other categories for the girls to keep us entertained...

FeR: Karate Kid? Drunken Master?
JoFo: The Matrix la! That was Trinity!

And lots and lots of, "Who wants to be the puppet? You be the puppet?" for the Sideshow category. Mind you we weren't playing ok, and we keep thinking of 'fetfet' when we hear 'puppet'.

Team Gnilleps was another good one. NJAPF constantly had her eyes closed and needed 3 seconds before calling out the letter, HTeing needed constant hand movements and looked to the sky for help. And we learn it can be dangerous sitting beside SzM:

LMay: E!
SzM: *SLAP* Wrong-la!
Everyone: ...it's correct...

NJAPF, FeR, keep an eye out for Cranium Malaysian Edition? :P

After Cranium it was Taboo. We think this is a good game to keep somehow...the dynamics with different players is always different. There was that time where everyone tried to keep the game family-friendly but of course, playing with peers, you never, ever can manage somehow...

HTeing got us a good wtf moment: "If I have a dead body I wanted to get rid off, I...?" and does dragging motions (answer: Drag). HTeing needed to have her hands tied for Taboo. JoFo, on the other hand, believes in the Gradual Scale Answer:

JoFo: When you go to the orthopaedic...
Janvier: Muscle?
SzM: Sprain?
Janvier: Surgery!
JoFo: Ya! More high class a bit!

JoFo (giving SzM puppy-eye look, willing her to get on the same frequency): If I say, "You're fat!"?
Janvier: Insult!
SzM: Obese?
Janvier: Chubby?
JoFo: Nicer a bit la!

JoFo: When I get angry with you, you should be?
SzM: Scared?
Janvier: Intimidated?
JoFo: Nicer a bit la!
(SzM and Janvier gets scared and intimidated.)

Answers: Amputate, Plump, and Afraid.

Taboo is a good indicator of everybody's...performance, it seems. For the most of us, 'Cannot perform after 2.30am'. For one or two, 'Performs best after 3am.' For HTeing, 'Uses wrong column by 2.30am.' :P

In all, it's been a fun night out. Probably next time we might get to see how cutthroat Monopoly can get.

Hung Up

Every little thing that you say or do
I'm hung up
I'm hung up on you

"Boy-ar, the phone can play music right?"

"Yes, can."

Precisely the reason why sis and us chose to get a new phone too, asides from her previous phone starting to give some problems.

So mum started getting to know her phone, and of course we have to help with setting it up to her specifications. Of course, this wasn't without some...hiccups.

First it was the battery casing. When we first got the phone we'd let the nice lady at Nokia show us everything, and ended up with her fixing the battery in the phone and placing everything back into the box. Then we took the thing back home to wrap.

The day mum opened up her present it wasn't long before we were woken up.

"Boy, can you try and open the phone battery casing? Dad and I tried already cannot."

Well, turned out neither could we. In the end since none of us wanted to be responsible of wrecking a brand new phone that's still under warranty, the family decided to take it back to the shop after lunch.

In the end it was due to the family having...smooth thumbpads. No grip on the metallic casing. Thankfully it wasn't due to anything being broken or whatsoever.

After that the nice Nokia lady continued on to swap over the SIM cards and transferring the contacts from the old Nok6610i to the new Nok6300. Once that was settled we headed back home.

"Boy-ar, why does Uncle J's contact show up as Uncle J, Uncle J1, Uncle J2?"

Egads, forgot about that. Nokia Lady copied all phone contacts on the Nok6610i onto the SIM card before transferring to the new phone. Well then again there wasn't any other quick way - the Nok6610i doesn't have Bluetooth. So in the end we deleted all the contacts on the new phone and manually keyed them all in again.

And given how...neat we are, we'd tried to fill in the details of First Name, Last Name, Phone Number type (Mobile/Home/Office) etc instead of just putting everything under First Name and Number. Took us a while to finish that task. Then came the challenge.

"Boy, I want the pictures of the dogs from the old phone to use as wallpaper, can you transfer the pictures?"

OK. Somehow we couldn't get the PC to link up with the Nok6610i - probably due to us using a different data cable. Also there's no IR port, and no Bluetooth connection. Photos on the Nok6610i can't be sent via IR - only via MMS. And mum hasn't had her MMS settings set up yet.

Just so lucky for us we'd opted for Multi-SIM 1 Line hor? Guess who's gonna see a sudden spike in his MMS charges - uniquely sending MMSes to himself whatmore. This was until Maxis activated mum's MMS service and then it was sending the remaining pics straight to her phone.

Thankfully, the bits after that weren't so difficult anymore - the Nok6300 uses the same interface as our l'Amour, so any questions about how things work means we just use our phone as a reference before troubleshooting mum's. Especially now that she has to learn about the Music Player, updating the Music Library for her songs, and probably Bluetooth too.

Next time we get her a new phone (and we think it might be likely down the road) we're sooooo gonna make sure we do all this first before wrapping it up.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

Lanuarius: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Janvar: What kind of question is that?
January: He means 'who watches the watchers' or 'who guards the guardians', somewhere along those lines.
Janvier: Wiki'ed it. Look, says it's by a Roman poet named Juvenal!
Januar: We know him?
Janvier: Nope. That, I'm sure of.
Janvar: Why the sudden line anyways?
Janvier: Is this somehow related to us all, Lanuarius?
Lanuarius: Yes, look at it in our context for once.
Janvar: We look out for ourselves!
January: Quite true.
Janvier: Although admittedly we do end up being...skeptical. Or cynical.
Januar: Whaddaya mean?
Janvier: Er, I can't see a romantic scene without half of you behind me laughing your heads off or retching.
Janus: Bleargh.
Janvier: You spoil things for me sometimes. Can't you appreciate some gestures?
Janvar: I feel things like that to be a bit...cliched.
Yatyue: We all are different, but still same same.
January: Actually, we like that kind of mush. Gets us all mushy and fuzzy too.
Janvier: And we don't let ourselves get frightened too.
Januar: Weak.
Yatyue: Wei Januar you don't sot sot dei put us in dangerous situations can?
Janvier: We sometimes just don't loosen up enough.
Janus: Of course. We got to be aware of what we're doing, you know. How else do you think we got through all that alcohol and still drive home after clubbing? Each looking out in case the others couldn't.
Yatyue: Must keep face you know.
January: Who says we don't loosen up. How else did we end up in BodyJam, pray?
Janvier: Why can't we all agree on something?
Janvar: We'd advise caution. Watch your every movement.
Januar: Against what?
Lanuarius: Anyway our point here is to say this bit. Let us go with the flow for once? Do not think too much into what we want to do or have done except to just do it. After all, are we not happy?
Janvier: Thank you for that, Lanuarius.
Janvar: For all that we say we are and such, we're such a hypocrite.
Janvier: Shut up already.

Yes. We're happy with things. And we shan't spoil it.

^_^

Twenty-Seven, We're In Heaven

While we did expect some sort of gathering to happen with our birthday as an excuse, we left it as that really. And it wasn't until we heard (from some little bird that flew down to tell us) that there are some 400+ GMails from the bloggers regarding the planning of our birthday and still nothing finalized yet, where we realised a couple of things: that there's a whole lotta trouble for little ol' us; and we've not told the bloggers regarding our availability or nonavailability. Imagine if they'd chosen a venue, date, time and confirmed attendance only to find that we'll be celebrating with the family - there might be another 200+ GMails. Kudos to Sam for pulling it off splendidly.

We're rather overwhelmed. Well we think the waiters and such were also slightly overwhelmed, but in a wahliao this group of people ar kinda way.

So once again, heartfelt thanks to those who could make it to celebrate with us - Tough Teacher, Sam, Ban, Shep, Alex, JL, Paul, Adrien, Jason, QR, Apollo, Will.I.Am, SK, JOEry & joeRY, MJB and Sleepylookin' Scout.

A quick word of thanks to all for the thoughtful prezzies we've received first. Not to mention it might be a first time we actually just decided to rip the wrapping instead of nicely picking it apart till we give up and delicately tear it (well come to think of it, it's a rather odd thing to take all that trouble because we end up binning the wrappers in the end...).

BIG TANKIU TO:
Sam & Ban wooed us with the Kylie X. Hmmm will check for karaokeables!
JOEry & joeRY gave us more small boys to sing for us in The Choirboys. Yey will pass you a copy on Monday.
Alex & JL is giving presents in installments, starting with a Wii Nunchuk. Hmmm why do they say installments, will we expect more? :P
The Tough Teacher gave us The Everything Puzzles For Commuters Book, to keep us busy busy busy. :D
Adrien & Jason, one an alco and the other a flogger, joined forces to get us recipes on cocktails in the Ultimate Bar Book. Yes, it's yet another bible for us.
Xavier & Daemon showered us with a big kiss! A 7oz Solid Milk Chocolate Hershey's Kiss! Chocolate orgasm besar nanti.
Ru sent all the way from UK a Cotton Traders navy t-shirt and the book The Thief. And it made it safely without complications, a blessing!
William, Derek & SK packed an Aussino comforter set for us - and many uses have already been suggested regarding it's usage. :D
Just as we let out a breath of relief, we received QR & Apollo's prez to find what we first read as a Fundie. Good thing we blinked before we reacted, and reread the thing. Fundue rupanya. Awesome.

One thing about speeches is that we tend to be impromptu about 'em and so we can't remember already what's been uttered. Still, it's been a great start. Welcome to 2008, y'all. There's lots more great times together to come.

-bows-

Not to mention it was rather a good thing we didn't drive. The lightheadedness would have meant we might have had a high chance of getting into an accident. :P

Mobile Matters

"Hey. Just wanna tell you to put all indulgent spending on hold for these 2 weeks, just in case."

We had a good laugh when lad sent us that text message.

Now we know we've said countless times that mobile phones we buy ought to last 2 years at the least before we start looking at new ones. But as it is, we can't stand but itch to buy a new phone already - and yet another Nokia as it is.

We're looking at a couple of models at the moment, and sis and us are really having a debate between them. Sis says the Nok6300 is more suitable, we favour the Nok6120 Classic more functionally up-to-date. The Nok6267, initially introduced to the fight by the saleslady in Nokia, appealed in terms of friendliness of functionality but was blown out of the water when both sis and us teamed up against it's...aesthetic qualities (sorry ya Magus).

So we happened to walk into the store yesterday, to have a look at both models for comparison.

Sis proclaims the ease-of-use of the Nok6300. Even her friend's mum, who belongs in the category of a 'light mobile user' (read: just to make calls and maybe text people) found it easy to use. Plus it's cheaper.

We found the keypad a tad too small. Screenwise is fine. But there's no video calling!

We thinks the Nok6120 is about the same size-wise, and for a bit more you have video calls and a slightly bigger keypad. Then we find out that the operating system is S60 and not S40, which is a bit more complicated.

Shit. So difficult to choose.

"Prefer bigger keypad lah, so it's easier for mum to press the keys."
"The 6300 is simpler what."
"True also. Didn't know the 6120 is S60 wor. Don't think mum will ever get used to that."
"Don't get clamshell."
"Really? Mum doesn't like clamshell kah?"
"Clamshell not nice."
"Oh. Ok."

So yes. A bit of indulgent spending on our part and mum's getting a new mobile for her birthday. Heh.

Schadenfreude

NICKY:
Oh, Schadenfreude, huh?
What's that, some kinda Nazi word?

GARY COLEMAN:
Yup! It's German for "happiness at the misfortune of others!"

So yes well there are times where we can be notably evil - especially at the expense of other people. But it's without spite! You go through life's little comedies without malice - it's funnier that way. That's how we can laugh at ourselves when we pokai so fairly recently.

Anyways. It so happened to be one of those rare occasions where we arrive home in time to eat together with the parents (take note people this is one of the shortcomings/advantages of going cardio classes at the gym, you tend to eat dinner late). Of course we tend to become rather tacit during dinner but somehow there was something to save the day.

American Idol auditions.

One of the few common interests the entire family has. Although we must admit that the last time we really sat down for American Idol must have been...er, if it was for the auditions, we think it was for Season 2, and for top 8/semi-finals/later episodes, Season 5. We never watched the finals or saw the results before for any season. We have stopped worshipping the telly for tv series or reality shows for a long time.

But since the auditions were showing, dinner went by quickly and everyone was soon in front having their jollies at the mercy of the terrible delusional poor singers (and sometimes Simon). This was the auditions in Texas and we must say we never really saw an authentic Southern feller fit the stereotype before. Has the drawl and looks and sealed the deal when during the interview he started chewing on a toothpick. Thought they don't exist no more. And there was a lovely looking lassie who did amazing impersonations.

Still. American Idol auditions is aaalllll about the...other people who didn't make it. And to see how they just didn't make it. Makes your day feel a bit better. Ok, we lie. It makes your day feel hell lots better.

Of course, it also happened that it was the only show the family has sat together to watch in a long time. :P Dad watches golf. Mum follows football. Both watch the Chinese Network that drives sis and us away. We still have our Dilbert DVD to finish watching.

Make it a record. Tonight also happens to be the first time we ever watched Grey's Anatomy. So now we know. And actually we might be interested in it too, but only if we are too free.

Back to the telly now that everyone's done with Astro. Time to wave the Wiimote.

In The Name Of The King!

A line never heard in the span of the entire movie.

The only reason we heard about this movie was because we saw the trailer once. We think when we were watching Rendition. It looked to have everything a classic fantasy should have (judging from a trailer, mind), good guys vs bad guys who look like orcs, tree-huggers swinging from vines who could be elves, lush unspoilt landscapes of grasslands, forests and mountains...ok, we were really thinking of some Peter Jackson LOTR wannabe but hey, it looked promising. And it's based on the game Dungeon Siege.

Trailers always do, don't they?

Then we found out that Uwe Boll was director, and we cringed. Well most of what we ever heard about him was from other people bashing his ability to screw up movies based on video games or the likes. Well, video game movies never really could live up to expectations, and we've seen a fair share of our favourite games crumble box-office-wise since we were young: Super Mario Bros ("It's a Bob-omb!!!"), Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat (don't talk to us about Mortal Kombat: Annihilation...our poor Mileena), Alone In The Dark.

Among the abovementioned, Uwe Boll only directed and produced Alone In The Dark, but even then we were sorely disappointed. Fell asleep watching the show halfway and never was interested enough to finish watching it too. It was Alone In The Dark! It's supposed to be a horror/thriller! Nevermind. On with the show.

Well, maybe like how Tough Teacher puts it, because our expectations dropped so low, the show didn't turn out as bad as we thought it would. Also maybe since we have no idea how the game goes there really was no set level of expectation. The storyline's pretty much straightforward, a farmer named Farmer goes on to great adventures and triumphs over evil in the end. The storyline could have been made richer if the show was stretched out more, but at slightly over 2 hours, it was ok lah.

OK the post got so bloody long we decided to just cut the following rants to just quick lines.

We've never watched Jason Statham act before so we're wondering if his acting here is the same as in Transporter? John Rhys-Davies reminds us a bit of his role as the Atreides mentat...and now we miss Gimli. Matthew Lillard (whom we only remember as Shaggy in Scooby-Doo) must have really enjoyed his role. No stand out performance really.

While the show is so-so, we wondered why the colours were...what's that word? Desaturated? It had that dull, slightly-brown feel to it that reminded us a lot of when we used to watch movies on RTM2 on Thursdays or Fridays during their Dunhill Double features. Was it on purpose to make the film look old? What's wrong with sharp and clear colours? Will it make the krugs look fake? Oh oh oh if the desaturated colours didn't make the show look old, adding Burt Reynolds in certainly did! We always think of Win, Lose or Draw when it comes to Burt Reynolds.

All in all, this show is best viewed on cheap Wednesday movies or for DVD Night with Domino's Pizza. There's plenty of eyecandy to go around. And we think it'll be better than Dragon Wars, to give an example. :P

Gales Of Gossip

Well this post is actually very much an inside joke thing.

Trust enough to know that gossip is gossip (and don't we all love gossip?) and how you choose to react to it differs depending on the situation. In our case, we've actually let whatever gossip go about without saying anything (think "No Comment") to anyone who asked...yet. We just give 'em the innocently-perplexed look that says, "Don't think we follow you..."

Enter Diamond King to throw in extra spice. This is what happens when you give people free reign to add to the gossip. But once again, we aren't gonna say anything except that he owes us BIG TIME once this blows over. Still, since the bits of gossip where we're involved seems harmless enough, why deny people their bit of fun?

Curse Ten Times

Awesome. Didn't we say we like minigames? We do! Small stuff online that help keep the brain chugging so that the brain has something to do. There's the sudoku. Also Popcap. There's spam. There's that time we were hit badly by STD. There's free rice. Coloured rooms (oh we remember the first time we came across this game, it was via askmen and walkthroughs were scarce).

This one's very smart. You know how in games the idea is not to lose a life? Go to great lengths to avoid hitting an enemy and all that. For this game we didn't understand the term 'Coorperate by oneself?' until we played the game.

Cursor*10. And the website's called catgames some more, how cute.

So there you are. Get the mouse cursor to the stairs to get to the next stage. Each time you 'die' you start from level one again, but your previous moves are shown as 'ghost cursors' and what they did will affect your current life! Awesome.

Hmmm maybe next day we'll finish the game - today had to go get lost finding a petrol station in Putrajaya before our car starved once more.

Project Housekeeping I

It's reached that point where we've already cramped our room way past acceptable limits (that is, mum has started threatening to throw away stuff whenever she cleans the house) - so if we want to buy new books or CDs or such we'll have to clear up some of our current stuff.

So we start with our CDs.

Some time ago we'd transferred our CDs from their jewel casings to a...whatchacallit, a CD album? Purposely bought the 24-CD capacity ones too, not too big and not too small. Of course, the last time we did that was...3 years ago. We'd picked up more CDs since then.

'Course, with our car radio on the funk (and being a tape deck player for that matter), and us listening to our music through the iPod, CDs we own tend to feel very sad and unwanted. There you are, created to be played, you bide your time on the shelves of music stores, one day we walk in and choose you and you're excited! We bring you home, we slip you out of your casing...then we rip off the tracks into mp3 format, sync 'em onto our iPods and we then proceed to forget all about you. Don't think we don't hear you all weeping silently feeling unwanted.

Goodness. We'd just anthropomorphized CDs. Can this get any more wrong?

Anyways. Now we know, we just know that we've a fair stack of CDs to clear up. So why is it that when we go a-huntin' for them, we can't find them? All right...Futuresex/Lovesounds is with lad...how about It Won't Be Soon Before Long? And where's the Spice Girls Greatest Hits CD?

Right. We'll better check who has what. It can't be that mum has started trashing our CDs already (although we know she's been rearranging them whenever she cleans the house sigh).

So begins the CD Housekeeping. All CD covers goes into a nice brown Strikt CD box, nicely arranged into three categories: Pop, Soundtracks, and Miscellaneous.

Right. Now. Just how are we gonna organize the CDs? We've two albums - one for pop and such, the other for the whole mix of soundtracks and classicals. That's the easy bit. Here's a taste of the hard bits.

Will we arrange them alphabetically?
Or arrange them according to preference - favourites taking front pages while least listened take backseat, a la Nanny Ogg and her whole slew of family photos?
What happens when we go buy more CDs? We'll have to rearrange the CD arrangements again!

As it is currently, Pop'n'Such is alphabetized, while Soundtracks'n'Classicals is according to preferences. And we're gonna get a couple more albums.

Next housekeeping project should probably be the bedroom corner.

Let Them Eat Rice

Shouldn't come as anything new that a favourite category of games for us would be mini-games. Tetris tops the list as it's short and quick, then there's all other sorts, from those found on Popcap or Shockwave or Yahoo! or MSN games (not all appeal to us though) to Gameboy/DS minigames.

The appeal we find lies in that these games don't require time and dedication, just a quick pick-up-put-down approach to it with the replayability (if it matters) being in beating your personal high score. Or just because of that good ol' "One More Turn" Syndrome.

Given the abundance of minigames about, there are some word games that catch our attention for a good long while. There's Text Twist (which is good practise for Boggle), Typer Shark (which is rather good for speeding up your typing), Bogglific and Scrabulous (where nowadays our games doesn't seem to be those casual 'play-the-first-word-you-can-make' but rather a lot of thinking is now needed) on Facebook, and now...Free Rice.

While we first came across this on Facebook, the application wasn't as comprehensive as that on Free Rice's actual webpage. Interest for this only returned when we saw RoB playing this at Mages. He was somewhere on level 42 when we started watching, and egads we barely could work out some of the words!

So. Free Rice. Choose the correct definition of a word, and donate some 20 grains of rice each time. To keep it simple, we tell people that the rice will be donated by the UN (you can always read up the actual process, it's on the site itself).

Why Care Less

joeRY: so tonight is our first rehearsal for 2008
joeRY: i want u to join the choir
joeRY: come
Janvier: wat
Janvier: wat time?!?
joeRY: slap
Janvier: monday is jam and combat?
Janvier: so, what time?
joeRY: NO
joeRY: 8pm till 10pm
joeRY: i think u can pass as a baritone
Janvier: hokay hokay
Janvier: we does jam first
Janvier: then drop by
joeRY: really
joeRY: u wanna join choir ?
joeRY: ya tuhan ku
Janvier: if malu sampai mati, we'll pass the following times
joeRY: yay
Janvier: kakakaa
joeRY: cis
Janvier: must warn you our throat dah rosak
Janvier: long time no practise plus years of shouting in combat doesn't do wonders tau

So. Salesman joeRY came out of nowhere yesterday on MSN and gave us his salesman talk, and since we memang interested slightly so we thought no harm lah. Plus the place was nearby. If joeRY wanted us to join for somewhere that takes over 5 minutes to reach then we'll just stick to Jam and Combat, thank you very much.

As it is since the YKLS meeting starts at 8pm we could skip Combat (Tuesday also got mah) just so we could see what the YKLS was about. Turns out that with members coming and going every year, at least we're not the only new face there. However, we seemed to be the only one who didn't bother with auditions.

Auditions ok!? It's as if one cannot simply sign up - must pass check point first, haha. Even we're not exempted. Maybe when they require voices that sounds like ducks or frogs then we should join.

So the meeting went well, the only thing is that the director decided to try out a 'buddy system' by having each newcomer grouped with some old members. We've been so used to being antisocial in our past choir clubs that it spends our battery slightly faster lah. And to be sure, asides from joeRY and JOEry and Hil and the group we were buddied up with, the rest probably we shall forget names already by next week.

So anyways most of yesterday turned out to be ice-breaking with only a bit of vocal practise and introduction to the pieces they will be performing. Good to know that 3 years of BodyCombat have not ruined our throats permanently whatwith all that "KIA!" shouting.

Oh, and a quick test puts us in Tenor One (we memang know we're not meant for baritone, we used to be tenor all this time)! Tenor One! Wonder how long before our voice will crack then.

Shit. Seems like we are joining YKLS. :S

Karaoke Dreamin'

It so happens that there were plans to pay a visit to Red Box Plus today, for the 11am - 3pm slot where there's the buffet lunch thrown in for RM25++. As far as we knew, karaoke in the morning and dinner was the plan. In between? We were sure something would come up to help pass the time.

However, given that for the last two weeks in December we have not been stepping into the gym and BodyJam yesterday was the first class of the year, we were expecting to be a bit koyaked today. True enough, we showed up at Red Box Plus at 1.30pm.

Well that we had a late night movie, supper and bedded down fairly late didn't help really...even when we had a shocking wake-up call at 10.30am to be informed that a friend got into an accident, after finding out that he was fine we succumbed to sleep again and taichi'ed all further karaoke-related phone calls or messages to the organizer.

When we arrived, we took the simple approach by singing whatever songs came up rather than rack our brains for specific songs to sing - resulting in almost all the songs played from the time we walked into the room till our last song were songs by female artists. There was Kylie, Madonna, Fergie, Nicole Kidman (with Robbie Williams, they did Something Stupid), Mariah and Whitney, Brandy and Monica, ABBA...Hmmm. We can do backup singing for people - it's easier than repitching the song so that we can sing without having to jump from the higher octave to the lower octave for the chorus.

We think what was most freaky about the entire karaoke bit was when Kylie's songs from her Fever album were playing. A bunch of us were dancing to the music, and mind you we've never danced together before so there's no planned choreography, but everyone did the same actions. Whoa.

Under Ouran's Curse

Of late, starting from the Christmas carols meetup, we seemed to have been cursed by something akin to that that affects the Ouran High School Host Club. Of course, in the Host Club's case, this is usually caused by some monkey, appearing out of nowhere, throwing a banana skin onto the ground that will cause a member to slip and fall.

In our case, no monkeys or bananas were involved.

First time, it was due to polished tiles at KLCC and non-grip leather shoes.

Second time, it was on the day before New Year's Eve as we had a Starcraft boardgame session at wolfx's place. Marble floors and those cheap socks that bowling alleys sell turns out to be a combination for disaster: at one point while walking to the toilet, while both feet were on the ground, we actually slid forward as if on a conveyor belt before our feet took off away from the body. Those socks will have to go.

This time, it was just after BodyJam (the first GX class of 2008!) as we were going to refill our cup with 100 Plus. As we stepped up to the drinks dispenser we also stepped in a small puddle and once again we're on our backs, this time with a ding on our left elbow. Just as well this was after class and not during class.

It's not as if we don't know how to fall properly - we'd friends who, after a while in either aikido or ninjitsu, told us that there's actually a technique to fall properly and demonstrated for us. It's just that there didn't seem to have been any time to do so (in cases one and three).

Three times in three weeks. At least in all cases there's something to laugh about - and nothing bruised but the ego (which doesn't mind much because it's getting attention instead).

Dinner Discussions

We guess it was just as well that 2008 started off with a 'bang' - one that made headlines for the last couple of days. Written in big enough letters in newspapers, and shouted loud enough on telly, and some of it might just pierce our politico-apathic head.

Which was good.

Not good for the fellow caught with his pants down (or goodness knows where his pants went). Good for us, because then we know what's going on.

Because around the dinner table with colleagues and guests, one of the easiest icebreaking topics is normally the news. So if it was some other humdrum news we would have been very much lost at sea wondering wtf is happening who is that they're talking about what shit is this argh where's the newspaper?

Well thankfully this was the bangin' news of 2008 so we knew what was going on and the likes. Just made enough idle chat to keep ourselves in the loop, like wondering were there one or two girls, weren't there free dvds given out, really kah got four cameras, is it still online?

Oh, must remember, the term 'personal friend' now must be used extra carefully. Lust, Caution indeed.

Maybe it's because they don't happen to be friends we know well enough, we don't speak openly (egads, the conversation we're having with Adrien and the Young Seraphim, it's so not us!). Of course, among friends the conversations run in different topics in the first place. Yes yes we know we should read the news dammit.

Guess it's best we keep our drinks nearby. That way we can always keep our mouths busy in a socially polite way without actually partaking in conversation we have no frickin' idea what, except for the bits where we just laugh or smile or nod in agreement.

A Happy New Year!

It was a pleasant surprise to have had a certain power maniac host a New Year's Eve party, invite inclusive of food, transport, entertainment and accomodation for the night. Who were we to refuse? However, the party was supposed to be a potluck party, and with everyone bringing something we couldn't just go empty-handed.

Just so happens that New Year's Eve is a 31st - Baskin Robbins, here we come. In fact, we ended up buying a half-gallon consisting of Jamoca Almond Fudge, Butter Pecan and Chocolate Chip (we'll say it again here, we didn't choose Rum 'N Raisin because R&R will totally mask the other flavours) for the party, and a quart of Twinberry Cheesecake and Caramel Turtle for ourselves.

And we'd to pick up a dozen JCo donuts from the Doctor to bring back to the condo as well.

Now there we were, dozen donuts in one hand and two tubs of ice-cream in another, walking about The Curve. Wonder how many people turned green with envy, or how many suddenly felt fat just looking at the goodies we were carrying.

That reminds us, power maniac is still holding our quart hostage, and the half-gallon is only half finished.

The Eve Party went quite well with much food to finish, a wee bit of wine and plenty of sparklies, an intro to Mad Gab, charades, mafia, the countdown. And throughout the entire thing, plenty of voyueristic peeking at poolside activities from the balcony at the naughty naughty happenings below.

The night ended with DVDs before bedding down at...6am.

And getting up again at 9.30am. Then again, surprisingly (nearly) everyone was up by 10.30am. The energy that can only be found during the holidays - amazing thing, isn't it?

Good thing too that we managed to remain lively for the day, because the party was far from over - from a New Year Countdown it became a ... pool potluck party mishmash anything and everything including a birthday party thingy. Very casual. Yet, calling it a pool party only saw a handful of people actually getting into the pool, while some others were sick or didn't know how to swim (could have just lazed in the jacuzzi pool tho') or whatnot.

Oh oh oh and we made a new friend. Smirnoff Green Apple Twist. A silent killer like Absolut Vanilla, but oh so much nicer.

With Ezra being our only transport and with Ezra's friends coming in at all hours (even after the pool was closed) we were worried that we wouldn't be going home till past midnight, but thankfully we managed to thumb a ride back with another friend who'd to leave too - after all we had to work today you know. Was totally kaput when we got home.

Worra way to welcome 2008.

And it's about 5 weeks to Chinese New Year!