And That Is Jazz

And over the weekend, we did five shows.

Previous choir performances that we took part in during our uni days were the traditional kind, where we walked in, lined up, sing, walk off. Oh, there was that plainsong canty bit we did where there was singing during our procession in and out of the churches where we performed too. This time, it's singing, moving, dancing and even a wee skit.

From Thursday night's performance we learned a few things.

There's showers in the dressing rooms.
Which is a very good thing. Our sweat glands have taken a turn for the worse, especially now that the weather has been getting warmer with no rain. That the moment we step out of our front door and make our way to the car our back's slick with sweat is not a good sign, whatmore prior to performance where we would have more rehearsals. Stepping out on stage only to look all sweaty from the start is a big no-no.

We don't scan the crowds.
Or rather, we can't. On the first night we had our contacts on and we still couldn't make out faces in the crowd. Plus after the first night our eyes were so dry we'd to do without the following nights. That would help when it comes to performing because we won't be distracted and made to laugh. Only one bit nearly broke us down was on our last performance, where just as we were beginning 'Yesterday', we heard a girl gave a moan of ecstasy. Almost cracked, we did.

It's bloody sweaty work.
For us. After each show, photo-taking is terrible as we seem to be the only one with a sweat-stained shirt showing in the photos. And we've to send our clothes to the laundry every single day. We rather envy those who could easily reuse their clothes for the following performance.

Mealtimes are haywire.
Because you'll have call time in at 5pm, rehearsals till 7ish, then you've gotta be ready by 8pm for performance, there's only a short span of time for us to mooch down our food. Otherwise dinner begins at 11pm onwards. The poor dim sum store that had to drag some 6 tables together to accomodate the lot of us never looked more harried.

Then there was our Saturday performances, where after the matinee show and director's notes, a lot of us rushed like mad starving people to stampede the nearby bahkutteh store for dinner. The car wasn't even parked when the rest of us actually flew out of the car and ordered while the driver parked. Midway through the meal the bill was called for, and once we were all done, the stampede left the store to head back to KLPac.

Once on stage, it's all good.
Just gotta get out there and then everything falls into place. Have fun, sing out, move about and try to please the crowd. And each show can only get better.

And it seems that we'll be staying on, to see how next year goes!

We're Breakin' It Down

Yesterday night we had a full dress run-through, and the director had our performance recorded so we could see just what we were doing and all. Must say that asides from showing us bits that need correcting, it was rather motivating for us to be able to see our choreography as well as the lighting etc!

Today's the big day!

Time to get the clothes all ready on hangars, break out the new pants and shoes we'd to buy for this production (and taking on the tack that, since we've to buy new clothes, we might as well get good clothes that we'll wear regularly rather than just for a one-shot use only), and release them butterflies from our stomach.

Checklist!

Clothes and shoes
Hangars
Tickets for those we'd bought for
Shower kit to bath after show
Contact lens
iXus
Minor medication for just-in-case measures

OK. Off we go!

One Day More

Right. After ten month spent in rehearsals, we've finally come to the bit where rehearsals are done at the venue, and KLPac is a very nice place indeed, we would have our own place look something like that if only the cost of such a renovation wouldn't bankrupt us.

There's been scores to memorize (thank goodness for Noteworthy, we've been able to make midis out of the scores to listen too), there'd been choreography to work on where our work shirt was drenched after the first try (and subsequently we never showed up straight after work any more), there'd been extra rehearsals, there'd been extra extra rehearsals (this, coupled with the Lord Of The Rings Symphony rehearsals, meant that we'd rehearsals 4 - 5 times a week), there'd been weeks of staying for rehearsals till near midnight.

We've also noticed a drop in our other social activities because of this. While this year we'd expect a shift of social time allocation, what we didn't factor in was that 'extra rehearsals' would become 'extra extra rehearsals'. So from 'YKLS on Monday nights' and 'LotRS on Saturday nights' soon became 'YKLS Sunday/Monday/Tuesday nights' and LotRS Friday/Saturday nights'. And we'd to sign a contract for singing for the LotR Symphony, which meant we'd to make sure to attend rehearsals.

So lets recap, we've missed quite a fair bit of DotA sessions, there's been only one or two boardgaming sessions this year, we'd missed (and still will be missing) out a fair few birthday parties. We're hoping too that the performance makes it all worth while (admittedly, we still enjoy our time in the choir).

So tomorrow begins the Young KL Singer's Breakin' It Down performance, and it still haven't sorta hit us yet that tomorrow's the big day. We guess some people would have already been going, "Ohmygawdohmygawd it's almost the day it's almost the day I haven't memorized my script I still haven't gotten the pitch correct I still move like I got two left feet!" but it's still yet to hit us that it's TOMORROW.

Maybe when the super trouper lights find us. Then will die on stage.

Amsterdam Adventures

Now on our way back from Barcelona we had to transit at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam (we took the KLM). On our flight there we barely had time to spare on our 1 hour transit as we were finding our way from one end to another, not to mention we'd to get past a immigration counter.

This turns out to be something we'll have to remember everytime we stop at Schiphol.

See, on our way back our flight plan was as follows:
1730 - Arrival at Schiphol.
2100 - Departure from Schiphol.

This means we had roughly 3 hours of spare time in Amsterdam. Yep, we purposely chose for this flight, as we had one purpose for such a long transit: try space cakes.

Not that it's our first time trying out cannabis - the last time we were in Amsterdam we smoked some Smelly Skunk. Just headed into the smoking cafe as recommended by otousan, was greeted, brought to a dark billboard lighted up by UV, and asked what we would like. Got ourselves a packet, and then proceeded to ask the barman how do we go about smoking it.

Barman gets a regular who's smoking to show us how. Regular opens up a normal cigarrette, mixes the Skunk in with the tobacco, rolls it up again with paper provided for this purpose and there we go!

Our first joint was rather good. We'd that buzz akin to getting high from smoking or drinking, nothing extreme. After that, we were pretty much on our own to roll our own joints and all. Thankfully the Regular was nice enough to leave us a couple of cigarettes to mix as well.

Project roll own joint - FAIL. We didn't get any of that buzz after that. And since we were leaving Amsterdam to head to Paris the following day, the rest of our Skunk went to waste (no, we didn't dare bring it out of Netherlands!).

Lessons learned: how to roll own joint (needs practise), don't buy loose Skunk but buy ready-made joints.

This time tho', we almost didn't end up going into Amsterdam. During our flight over, we asked our fellow passanger sitting next to us (who put us in mind of a cross between Steve Jobs and Noah Bennet aka The Man With The Horn-Rimmed Glasses) how long it would take to get to Amsterdam Centraal from Schiphol. Turns out that it took no more than 20 minutes. Still, once in Schiphol we started calculating how long it'll take to travel back and forth etc, we got rather discouraged and thought to just take things easy and stay put happily in Starbucks.

In the midst of taking photos within the airport (and risk looking rather suaku), we happen to bump into a member of Team William - Bio Boy. Turns out Bio Boy was also on the same flight as us, so the two of us decided to hang out together until it was time. Seems that he, too, had the idea of making a quick stop to Amsterdam to take photos.

It could be that there was courage in numbers. Or having a partner in crime. Or also the fact that we passed by a luggage locker.

Because in the spur of the moment, we dumped our luggage in a locker and headed out to buy tickets to Amsterdam Centraal. Time was on our side as we a train was ready to leave when we boarded. And three stops later, we were in Amsterdam. Space cakes, here we come.

Lessons learned: don't forget to bring along passport and boarding ticket when leaving the airport while midtransit. Hell if we know how to get back in if we didn't.

The short of what we did in Amsterdam: walk through a couple of streets, take a few photographs, Bio Boy bought postcards, we bought a space cake, took pictures at landmarks we've yet to identify (we only know that they're near Madame Tussauds), ran back to Centraal in the rain.

The train back to Schiphol was at 2030. Which meant we would be cutting it real fine in making it back in time to catch our plane. Honestly, we really do wonder what would we have done if we had missed our flight.

It was hectic when we finally arrived back at Schiphol.

Imagine Schiphol's Departure and Lounges layout to look like a 'T'. Our departure gate was located on the left side of the horizontal line of the 'T' (Lounge 3). Our bags were in the right side of said horizontal line (Lounge 1). And we entered from the bottom of the vertical line of the 'T'.

Getting past an immigration counter where our passports were checked, turning into Lounge 1, past another immigration counter, finding the luggage locker, getting our bags and dump onto a trolley, out another immigration counter, into Lounge 3.

It was only then when we were heading towards our gate while in Lounge 3 that Bio Boy actually stopped to look at the announcement boards, and saw that our flight was delayed till 2200.

And no, that delay wasn't caused by us.

Paranomic Panoramic Ponderings

This is what happens when we have too many photos taken, too little time to rename them, and a lousy memory.

While having a digicam makes things much more convenient where all things now are just point and shoot and there's none of that worrying about having enough film or the horrors of exposed negatives, now even a simple trip can result in hundreds of photographs. Hmmm, the days where a trip would be recorded in one or two film rolls of 36 shots are hard to remember.

Anyway, to be honest it isn't as if we went trigger happy and took hundreds of photos a day. Like for our Barcelona trip, admittedly the first day saw -opens picture folder on Day 1, Ctrl-A, reads Properties- 184 photos, but it soon dwindled to about 20 photos a day after that. Even those taken in the half hour we had in Amsterdam numbered only 28.

Then again we were busy looking for space cakes in that short time we had there.

So. Plenty of photos, and rather short-term memory. Which is normally fine because in the first week upon returning and organizing the photos, we can remember enough details to rename them the way we like, which is:

yymmdd - Location - Description

Take, for example, this one. It goes 081003 - Amsterdam Centraal - View 06. Well if we were more hardworking we'll go look up the particular street (which we have no idea considering we randomly walked down alleys at that point) and instead of 'View 06' we'd call it 'Erotic Shop'. Screw it, we're getting a tad lazy after renaming loads of photos.

Goes to show why we sometimes blog about it too. That way if we can't remember the details from the pictures, the blog's there to help refresh the memory. Okay, so we'll have to blog about Amsterdam too.

We wonder, if we had a better memory would we have just left photos named 'img001', 'img002' etc?

Right - so now that we're done renaming all our Barcelona pics, we've also manage to stitch up some pics we took for panorama shots. Click on 'em to enlarge.

Grand Copthorne Waterfront, Sporeland. Very nice room setup. However, we've only ever slept on one-third of the entire bed. We dislike the fact that due to the heat and our copious sweating, we had to drape our laundry on the chairs, thus the room's aesthetics suffer.

Barcelona Marina views. We really. Really wonder how people can work with such magnificent views of the sea towards the south, and a view of the city to the north.

The quick drop-by into Amsterdam. It's been 5 years already. Sigh. No idea where's this called, just that we popped out of Amsterdam Centraal, crossed this bridge and decided to take a few photos first. Part of the IJ?

The bedroom in Resort Hotel. Nice cosy place. More interestingly, initially when we entered the room we shut the curtains so that we could take photos of the room. Then we found the room to be cosier with the lights on instead of bright daylight. So we left the curtains shut.

Roulette Dreamz

Just the other weekend the Chief and us went up to Genting for a quick weekend getaway. What was different this trip was that we stayed in Genting Resort Hotel instead of First World Hotel. The place was, of course, much better compared to First World - better view, better furnishing, better prices too (altho' not better in a good way, this one).

Both of us were taking slight notes on the room setup for ideas for when we have our own place next time. Of interest was the closet - instead of the usual built-in closet, their closet acted as a partition between the corridor and the bathroom, with sliding doors on both sides. This meant you could slide both doors open and get a view of whoever who is taking a shower in the glass shower booth. Or climb through and into the bathroom via the closet.

This made us wonder why they bothered putting a lock on the bathroom door in the first place. Don't know, but don't think we'll ever opt for that kinda closet. Keeping our clean fresh clothes in the same space as the porcelain throne isn't something that appeals to us.

This time our getaway included watching Dreamz. Interesting indeed but we don't think we'll remember much about the show save that it has acrobatics, dancing, magic acts, a white tiger, a white lion, a normal tiger, Princess Calafair, everyone in tights. There is almost no plot, there's no dialogue. In short we summarize the show as this - princess of mystical land wakes up, is surrounded by dancers, sings to Magician and Zookeeper, turns into White Lion. Er.

Still, since tickets were free, waste not.

Speaking of freebies, it turns out our hotel stay was also free.

What happened was that the two of us visited the International Room and sat ourselves down at a roulette table. Chief mainly chose the numbers, and we voiced out a couple of numbers for the Chief's discretion on whether to bet on those numbers or not. Yes - the Chief plays, we watch. We are poor, after all. Normally the Chief'll play small, betting a single RM10 chip on a number but betting on a few numbers a round.

However, on our first betting round, we asked for a bet on 23. Having the same number in mind, the Chief put two chips on that number instead of one (to our surprise). And the croupier flicked the ball onto the wheel, around it spins...and lands on 23. What we felt smug about was that no one else won that round, as no one else betted 23, or on odds, or on red etc. What we saw on the Chief's face (who turned to look at us) was a sorta WTF-what-just-happened-did-you-just-do-that kind of look. Roulette being a 35:1 payout, we won RM700 on our first bet.

And subsequently, a few games later, we won another RM350.

The following day we decided to take a look at the video slots, especially since they'd just gotten in a new one called Star Wars Dark Side. Caught our attention it did, not because of geekery but rather because atop each machine was a huge Death Star. Animated scenes, spinning Death Stars that determine free games and multipliers, touch screen...the Chief made RM50 which we lost.

After a bit of calculating, it turns out that our entire stay was for free as we broke even. Now we must resist the temptation of spinning wheels and rolling reels.

Buenos Dias Blablabla

Janvier: Attendance check!
January: Hmmm?
Januar: What's this about?
Janvier: We seem to have a new feller who'd somehow joined us.
Yatyue: Really? How can? Who?
Janvier: Come on, out here, you.
Xavier: Hola.
January: Whoa! Where did you come from?
Xavier: But I have always been here, amigo.
January: No you've not!
Janvier: All right, details now.
Xavier: Xavier Soler, at your service. That is pronounced, 'Cha-vi-air So-lay'.
Janvar: Hmmm. Sounds like a fan of yours, Janvier Soldat.
Janvier: Just because the name sounds similar doesn't mean the same thing.
Lanuarius: So what seems to be the problem with Xavier?
Janus: Oh yes, it was Xavier who had us in a bit of a spot when we were in Barcelona.
Lanuarius: Oh, were there troubles in Barcelona? I do not seem to recall them.
Janvier: You were probably too busy admiring the architecture and reminiscing about Europe.
Januar: Oh you meant that bit of awkwardness.
Janus: Every single day.
Xavier: Que?
Janvier: There you go again.
Yatyue: Haiyo. Shy only sometimes.
January: It was actually quite fun.
Januar: Yeah. Awkward but interesting. Still, how did Xavier came about?
Enero: Actually, it's me. Eh heh.
Janvier: Now it clears up. Had your bit of fun in Barcelona, eh?
Enero: Well you weren't any better in Brussels and Paris, we remember.

In preparation for our Barcelona trip we had brought along our Time Out guide and we also downloaded an application from iTunes - lastminute.com's Spanish guide. Very handy, both of 'em.

Now asides from our Spanish colleagues, the locals were notably friendly too. Always a cheery "Hola!" as we went about. So naturally we "Hola!" back. Just like how we'd go "Hiya!" when in Glasgow. Back here it's anything from "Zhou san," to "Elo," to just a wave of the hand.

So one morning as we were entering the pickup van that takes us all to our office, we greets the driver. The driver greets us back, and launches a long spout of Spanish (or Catalan) that made no sense to our limited vocabulary, what more the rest of our colleagues who aren't Spanish. We only understood his 'hola' and 'traffico'.

The driver probably understood that we all "no entienda el español" when the whole van was rather quiet after his friendly banter. And probably some of us were nodding our heads slowly with that uncertain smile one normally has when in a situation like this. But the rest of the journey that morning was rather uneventful thankfully.

The other incident involved our cab to Barcelona Aeroport. As we didn't manage to cover all Barcelona we had the cabbie make a detour to the Arc de Triomf for us to take some photos before dropping us off at the aeroport airport.

Janvier: Er, primero, er L'arc de Triomf, y... (somehow thinks in French, because primier is first, and deuxieme is second, and was thinking how to put it in Spanish) ...dosieme (and fails splendidly, checking back the Spanish app it's segundo)... er Aeroport.
Cabbie: [Quickfire Spanish].
Janvier: Er, (gives up, thrusts camera into cabbie's face) photo! Photo!
Cabbie: Ah! Photo!

Thankfully from there it was easy for us. A quick "Uno momento!" while we scarpered to take photos, and then, "Terminal B" when asked where he should drop us off, and no more Spanish.

Yet somehow, we think we'd be far better off in Spain than we would in Hong Kong/China. At the least, we could read some of the words.

Choir Commercial!

We're starting to feel a tad terse upon seeing "23 DAYS LEFT" printed in YCA as we went for rehearsal on Monday. Amazing how it's already been past nine months since we first set foot in there. Anyways. We now bring you a special awareness program - the YKLS Breakin' It Down Performance.

First the poster. Surely some of you have seen it elsewhere already.

There's loads more pictures - the choir had a photoshoot session for promo purposes (the opportunity to camwhore and to have your face in the media, who wouldn't want?) - to be found in the following media:

On Astro channels:
- Animal Planet
- AXN
- Cinemax
- Discovery Travel & Living
- E!
- Hitz.TV
- Star Movies
- Star World

In magazines (October 2008 issues):
- KLUE
- Expatriate Lifestyle
- Time Out KL
- Vision KL
- KL lifestyle
- Talents

On websites:
- Kakiseni
- TimeOut KL
- KLUE
- KLPac
- VisionKL

On blogs:
- YKLS
- Joery-Joery
- The Tracy Writes

OK. So to make things clear - we're not shamelessly plugging our face for everyone to see ya. See closely and you'll find that we're not in the pictures. The reason simply because we were at 'Nic's wedding, which was more important.

What we are doing is shameless plugging the YKLS upcoming performance. 21 more days to go! Now here's the cut-paste script of what it's all about. Read!

Just what do the Young KL Singers have up its sleeves this year? This diversely funky group of singers is set to mesmerise the audience yet again, with a taste of jazz in true YKLS flavour. The audience will be taken through a time warp of evolution, exploring rhythm, improvisation and syncopation in the simplest yet very catchy forms.

The Young KL Singers (YKLS) will be collaborating with renowned television & stage performer, choreographer, coach of the Malaysian Idol fame, Michael Xavier Voon, as its director & choreographer; Tay Cher Siang, an American music graduate with numerous commendable works and performances under his belt – locally and abroad, as its jazz music advisor; young and upcoming arrangers in the local music scene, strongly backed by an enthusiastic team of spunky jazz musicians – to showcase the essence of what makes jazz, well, jazz!

The YKLS will demonstrate how jazz can bring contrasting rhythm patterns and improvisation to popular songs. Amazing songs like ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles, ‘Warna’ by Sheila Majid, ‘Maiden Voyage’ by Herbie Hancock and a myriad of other popular tunes will be jazzed up in perky, modern and surprising ways!

The concert’s winning formula lies in its upbeat, youthful, and carefree approach towards the sharing, education and performance of jazz in a choral arrangement. So come share in the fun and experience the magic that is jazz!

Concert dates & time:
30, 31 October & 1 November 2008 @ 8.30pm
1 November 2008 (charity matinee - seats subject to availability) @ 3.00pm
2 November 2008 @ 3.00pm

Venue:
The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac)
Jalan Stratchan, off Jalan Ipoh
Sentul Park
51100 Kuala Lumpur

Tickets:
RM45 (adults) & RM35 (children aged 12 years & below)

For ticketing enquiries, please contact the KLPac Box Office, tel: 03-4047 9000 or The Actors Studio @ Bangsar Shopping Centre, tel: 03-2094 9400

Or contact us.

Chained In Chapters

Well now it seems that we're now into Chapter Two of our chain story. This time we'll keep it short and sweet!

But first, the story that was so that it'll be easier to follow what went on....

CHAPTER ONE

It wasn't a dark and stormy night - that's really a clichéd beginning for a story.

For Julien, it was bright enough to see the faint outline of Philip's naked body. Philip was sleeping soundly on the silk satin bedsheet, but Julien just couldn't even get his eyes close on that full moon night. He was looking out the dusty windows, lightly holding the almost empty wine glass. Then, he caught a glimpse of a shadow... who was this stranger in the night?

Julien silently shut the window and kept in the shadows, to avoid being silhouetted in the moonlight. "Must get the job done quickly now," he thought while appreciating Philip's physique, "before he gets back." He downed the remains of the wine, then took out his garrotte.

Why do I always get the good-looking ones? he pondered as he got into bed, cradled Philip's head and slid the garrotte around Philip's neck.

Then Julien yanked and Philip jerked awake, only to have Julien flip him facedown on the bed and pressed his body down on his, his face smothered by the pillow and Julien still strangling him, when the bedroom door slammed open.

Julien retreat off of the bed leaving Philip's lifeless body. Swiftly he reached for his shirt, knocking the wine glass off the side table.

"What have you done?!!", a loud voice came from the door, "Not this one, not right here!!".

Julien stood by the bed quiet as a mice, with his head hanging low. The light from the door shine into the dark room, as if spotlighted onto Philip's body while a shadow grew longer reaching the face of Philip. But then it stopped. The creeping shadow halted, as if time stood still, and the approaching figures outside the door had frozen in place. Julien kept silent, his eyes and ears, vigilant, knowing that even the slightest of movements could trigger the shadows - the frozen figures that spoke of undesired calamity.

"For Hera’s sake, could you please keep that aside?! I strictly told you to refrain yourself from using the powerful one... Wait. He’s still in there. I can sense his energy. His fear. Even so, our beloved Phillip is far too devious to just play dead. Fine. Use it."

It was a man, and he was not alone.

One of the men produced a verrrry suspicious-looking phallic instrument about 8 inches long which he flicked on. Brilliant white light shone forth from it to illuminate the scene at the bed but Julien wasn't anywhere in sight.

"I really wish you didn't bring that obscene looking flash light of yours here. Couldn't you be a little more serious about work?"

"Oh, don't bother about me and keep concentrating on finding him."

"Just switch on light, dimwit!!"

Julien looked around him. Now he had to get a way out of the room, and it had to be quick before the guys found him. For the moment, jumping out from the windows was his only option.

After a minute of rummaging around, one of the guys managed to find the light switch....."I found it!" he says and flicked the switch but nothing happened. The light wouldn't turn on and both of them turned their attention to the faulty switch.

This was the diversion Julien has been waiting for. Swiftly, he sprinted fast and silently like a cat towards the opened window. It was freezing cold with winter winds but he had to get out of there.

"Stop right there if you still want to be in one piece."

Julien froze as his mind was turning quick about what to do next when the light suddenly came on.

"You idiot, told you to switch on the lights and you got the socket." The man had a gun in his hand, pointing straight at Julien. "So you think you can get away this time? I don't think so."

"You must know, bullets won't do me any harm," Julien replied calmly, while still thinking about a way to get out of this situation.

"Heh heh... I have the powerful one to help me this time. It's game over for you now."

"Is that so? Let's see how fast your bullets are," Julien replied and he dashed to the door with supersonic speed, knocked the second guy who is blocking at the door to the floor. The first guy fires his gun towards Julien continuously but all of them misses the target, and without any hesitant, Julien sped to the main door but his steps stopped there.

"Hi Julien."

"Freddie... Get out of my way."

"Awwww... Why the rush? How long we haven't seen each other? Don't you miss me?"

Julien was immediately stunned by that statement. Yes. Julien used to have a wonderful time with Freddie. Freddie, being a pilot, was required to fly around at least twice a month, for a period of two weeks each time. Whenever Freddie was in another country, he would definitely give Julien a call, started off saying, "Don't you miss me?"

"GET OUT OF MY WAY! I SAID!"

All of a sudden, the temperature of the room dropped drastically. 25… 22… 15… 5… 0… -10. Everything in the room became lifeless, frozen in a black thick sheet of ice. Julien's eyes were glowing in green and his lips curved into a sinister smile. "I told ya".

But even as he turned to make his getaway, Julien found himself tensing as he felt something cold and sinister slip between his ribs. Green eyes widened in silent astonishment as he slid lifelessly to the ground clutching at the slim dagger piercing his side, teardrops of scarlet dripping heedlessly to the ground.

"Tsk tsk... I knew you would betray me, Julien. I'm not the man you thought I was. Do you think I'd be such a foolish dupe? You're certainly not the first assassin who has tried. Ever since you first accidentally bumped into me, I've had your moves tracked. I know who you work for, Julien. And I decided to test your loyalty as Freddie as well."

That familiar voice was chillingly clear even as Julien's vision blurred with every moment that passed. "W-what? Phillip? But I killed..."

"Tried to kill me twice, didn't you?" Freddie's face changed like liquid metal metamorphosing into the face of the man he loved. Phillip?

As he lay dying, Julien watched his killer through blurred vision. First, it was Freddie, then now Phillip - but, but wasn't Phillip already dead on the bed, smothered under the pillow with the iron wire twisted so deeply that it cut into the flesh of his muscular neck? Unless this was all really a dream (and it would be a terrible ending for a story), then Phillip wouldn't really be standing before him now - would he?

But there was Phillip still - his muscular physique firm and clear, silhouetted in the glow of the full moon. Although Julien could hardly see now - the idea, the very aura of this twist of events was admittedly beyond his expectations. But then, he had never expected much anyway - it was always assignment after assignment of murder, from the very first day he was born. Julien was his name of course, but it was new - known only to the men the Fraternity's Loom of Destiny had ordered execution, and the members of the Fraternity themselves. But from where he once trained, there were no names. They were given numbers.

Suddenly there were rays of light and loud chants... that's the last thing he remembers before he passed out. The sweet smell of myrrh mixed with honey was the first thing that came to his mind as he regained consciousness. Julien couldn't move his body, an indescribable sense of heaviness surrounds his body.

"Don't move, I've put a healing charm on you... plus a binding spell."

"Who are you?.... where am I?...." asked Julien in weak voice, at the same time noticing that he is not having any clothes on...

"Foolish assassin, the Fraternity has betrayed you and left you for dead," intoned his captor who immediately wove another spell to break his mind. His mind reeling from the psychic attack, Julien scrambled to find his inner sanctuary, his center. "You are merely grasping at straws, assassin," taunted his captor as the chants intensified. "That voice... could it be?!" thought Julien as every muscle in his powerful body strained against the magical onslaught.

"Soon, my pet, you shall be the property of the Sorority..."

CHAPTER TWO

There stood Belinda, the Head Mama of the Sorority of Lesbianas, tall and proud. Her black, shiny hair flowed to her voluptuous breasts and a thin cashmere scantily covered her lean body.

Around her are the Sorority Sisters, who do her biddings with utmost loyalty. And they don't seem to like the presence of a man in their headquarters. But that might change soon, as Belinda has indicated that Julien to be inducted "to become one of them"... unless Julien comes up with an escape plan swiftly!

Julien, weakened under the spell, stared at the many breasts surrounding him. Soft, pale skin carressed by the silkiest of satins outlining every single detail of the women of the Sorority. His eyes trailed up their long, smooth legs all the way till satin barely covered their sex.

Julien felt a yearning, a fire burning in his groin. He wanted in.

Hola! Día Uno En Barcelona

You know, it sort of says something when, the moment we stepped out of the airport and took in cool European air of, what, less than 24 degrees, we go, "We're home!" We were immediately reminded of the first second (don't remember the first) time we stepped out of London Heathrow and took in that air.

Given that our first day in Barcelona happened to be on Sunday, and it being an European country where Sunday means shops are closed, the lot of us chose to take the sightseeing option of walking down Passeig de Gracia and taking in Gaudi's works first.

We've also been playing around a bit with our iTouch Maps. 'Course, the route they show are meant for driving.

Oh yes. The Metro so reminded us of the London Tube. Just as convenient, not as new and clean as Sporeland's MRT, altho' not as old and dark as the Tube. When we came out from the Passeig de Gracia metro station, it was cameras out and snapping at random buildings as we walked along Passeig de Gracia.

Not being able to identify all the buildings along Passeig de Gracia, we've called them by whatever brands we recognize on the buildings, like 'that Guess building' or 'that Lacoste building'.

To note were also the hexagonal tiles all along Passeig de Gracia. There were intricate patterns on them too.

The famous landmarks are pretty well known among tourists. As we reached Casa Batllo it was surrounded by people taking photos from all angles. Colourful walls, balconies that look like masks, we really wonder how it looked like inside. Sure, apartments, but if the design outside was one of a kind already we'd think the inside would be equally funky.

After Casa Batllo we headed for lunch - our first local meal. With the restaurant recommended by a colleague, the lot of us had trouble with the waitress until she asked us where were we from. Once she said she was from China, immediately our Sporeland colleague got along with her in Mandarin. Lunch consisted of tapas (bread and tomato, crab and seafood salad, preserved olives), four cheese pizza, and seafood paella.

Once full, it was onwards to La Pedrera. Also another apartment designed by Gaudi, this time a wavy design that reminded us of the sea.

From there it was the long trek to Sagrada Familia. Now if we were talking about walking in Sporeland, Bolehland or Bangkok for that kind of distance, with Metro stations near where we were and near our destination, we would have, without hesitation, jumped straight onto a train. But this was Europe in autumn!

Oh and we could also walk about taking more photos of random buildings on the way from Avda Diagonal till we reached Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia is really, really different from your regular cathedrals. Our first impression? Marine Cathedral from Sailormoon S. Asides from that it's rare we see the words Sanctus on the cathedral walls, a massive overload of sculptures or statues depicting different scenes, even a Christmas tree with doves! Just too bad the iXus' battery was flat by that time, else we might have taken more detailed (as far as possible) pictures.

The lot of us headed back to the hotel after getting souvenirs from Sagrada Familia. Reason being, since we checked in at 11am, our rooms weren't ready and so we left our luggage with the porter while we went sightseeing. So at 4pm we headed back to check out our rooms, and by 5ish we were ready to head out for more. Our colleagues, however, remarked, "Still got energy?" so we left them and went out by ourself.

We started by dropping by Placa Catalunya to see the fountains, before heading to Hard Rock Cafe to check out souvenirs for sis, the HRC Tee Collector.

From there we headed down La Rambla. There were a flea market of sorts going on as it was the weekend. The entire stretch of La Rambla also had these newstands called Hola! Typical newstands selling souvenirs, postcards and magazines...including naughty magazines. And naughty DVDs. Not that we got any, innocent angel that we are.

From La Rambla it was down to our final target, Maremagnum. A shopping mall that's open on Sunday (as stated by our guidebook), plus it's at Port Vell. More sightseeing.

Just before reaching Rambla de Mar and Port Vell we were greeted by the Monument de Colom. Christopher Columbus atop the monument pointing...somewhere. Surrounded by lions.

We aim to walk down La Rambla and Rambla de Mar, in fact, all of Barcelona with the Chief one day.

After walking around Maremagnum we left at 9ish for dinner around La Rambla.

Then it was back to the hotel before ending Day One!

Happy Birthday, Dear

And so, taking into account for time zone differences, we're a couple of days behind in writing this.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart.

This year has been great with you. Let's have many more to come ya? Lots of love.

We Are Going On A...Business Holiday

The difficult thing we find about packing when it comes to trips for work is that we have to pack more clothes.

...Ok so that's not really true. Given that we don't handle tropical climate well, it's no wonder if we go through two sets of clothes (or more) in a day. On a business trip at least one set of clothes would be work attire then. And to pack leather shoes instead of Crocs (so crap we don't have any sandals for easy wear).

Checklist!

Work attire for 4 days.
Casual wear for 6 days.
Shoes.
Ah hell, cram slippers into same shoebag.
Toiletries. Hmmm that shaving kit from our last trip could be put to use here.
FF bags for laundry.
FF Passport to visit the branch in Barcelona should opportunity rise.
Check if there is a FF branch in Barcelona.
Passport.
iPods.
iXUs.
NDS.
Chargers for L'amour, iPods, iXus and NDS.
Bloody heavy laptop with bloody heavy laptop bag that cause calluses.
Travel plans, e-tickets and other work-related documents to make bloody heavy laptop bag heavier.
Spare bag to be packed in luggage bag.
Time Out Barcelona guide book.
Wet wipes. Ironically we think this will be one trip where wet wipes aren't necessary.
Sunglasses. And glasses. Contact lens already in toiletry bag.
Check if rain falls mainly in the plains.

While everything has been tetris-ed into the luggage, somehow because it's work-related we feel that there's something missing or essential that we're forgetting. Fingers crossed!

PaperCraft - Chief's Birthday Cards

Now we'd spent the week in Sporeland making the Chief's birthday cards (which was why we could leave our NDS in the Chief's care), and while we had the idea in mind to make such cards weeks before, it took some time for us to prepare the materials.

First, a trip to Papier to pick up some basic things. Picked up some cardstock, a bit of decorative cards, alphabet stickers, album pockets to keep the cards in. Then back home to scavange for our craft scissors, ribbons and a mini photo for size reference. After seeing what we lack, it was to that paper shop at The Gardens to pick up glue, a wooden letter (darn them to have no stock of letters for a full first name), and felt paper.

Then we'd picked up some craft magazines from them cheap magazine shops in Amcorp (RM9.90 per mag, old editions of course) to get some ideas for layout and designs. The Chief probably thought that we were going through some creative phase akin to our ambigram phase.

Then it was choosing photos to print out. We'd basically chose nine assorted photos, group pics of Team Layton, of our Camland Trip, of our Bangkok trip, and a few of the Chief. Arranged it so that it's all wallet-size to fit onto an A4-size paper (oh you know, just select 9 photos, right-click and select 'Print', you'll get what we mean). Had it printed at a photo shop then cut out.

Then we'd run about to lad, Esteban, Puddy, otousan and Germ getting them to write their wellwishes on small pieces of cards.

With the bare basics, we packed it all in our luggage so that we could work on it in Sporeland. Only, once we'd unpacked at the hotel and looked through our inventory, we realized we forgot to bring a few essentials. Blade. Ruler. Normal scissors. Glue stick (we'd only brought glue paste). Scotch tape.

So we asked at the hotel front desk for scissors, ruler and scotch tape. Somehow we'd thought room service would send some up later, but instead we had the fellow attending to us rummage about the drawers of the front desk looking for the requested stationery, also with a reminder that we had to return it back to the front desk and not leave it for room service to take it back. Very pa pai folks. Good thing when we checked out we did bring down their things too, because they had a note stuck to our account requesting them back. Yeesh.

Oh, we also bought photo corners from Borders at Wheelock. Very useful things. We'll need to check Borders The Curve one day to see if it's available here.

Given that we've set up a worktable in our hotel room, it was time to start working on the cards. Truth be told, we'd no idea about the layout. So we took them cards that already have wellwishes on them, and worked our layout based on the cards' shapes. Struggled slightly with space, but somehow we managed.

Pasting card to the cardstock wasn't easy with glue paste. We had to spread glue along the edge using our finger.

With one card down, we then started on the second card. We wanted to make use of the piece of felt that we bought, and somehow decided to make a sort of plant motif. A slight mistake on this was making the photo frames leaf-shaped, as we then had very little space for wellwishing. Still, the basic layout was done.

Only, it felt as if it lacked something - namely decorative text, those letters that you stick on to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY and the likes. That's where we were lucky to stumble onto this shop in Wheelock Place.

What caught our interest was that they had a rummage basket where alphabet stickers that were damaged were sold cheap. We picked up two large alphabet stickers of different fonts for SGD8, with only a few letters probably not as sticky as they used to be. Still perfect for our needs.

And the results...aren't gonna be posted up here, unfortunately. Anonymity required.

With the cards done, it was time to bring them back and have them sent out to be signed by everyone before the party.

And so that's the first two cards. We plan to make more of whatever occasions for the Chief in the future. Hmmm. This also mean that we know what to get next as a present - a craft album!

Chief Celebrations 2008

"What a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive" -Sir Walter Scott

So we've been lying to the Chief lately. Just a few white lies. After all, what the Chief doesn't know would not hurt, right?

Well it started off when we received an email from YKLS regarding a jazz performance by Finn Peters at Alexis Ampang. That got us hatching a plan that we, um, rather the Chief didn't know about. What better alibi or premise then to say that we were keen on attending the performance as we heard it was rather good? Given that it was also at Alexis (and the Chief loves their tiramisu) we thought buy the story.

Of course, it turns out that we couldn't keep it as simple as we hoped. Things got messy and we soon needed to lie a tad bit more. But we must be rather good at keeping a straight face because the Chief never suspected anything.

Until, of course, Saturday night itself when we arrived at Alexis Ampang. The both of us walked into Alexis only to be greeted by a long table of friends and a birthday cake.

See, come the end of this month it's the Chief's birthday, and we won't be around to celebrate it as we'll be in Barcelona for some work thingy. The Chief was not happy the way things have been turning out really for this month. So we decided not only to celebrate early, but to make it a surprise too.

So with emails sent out, an initial reservation for ten set, the theme thought out (bowties, not necessarily formal etc), a Tiramisu Torte (with brandy!) ordered from FBB, the birthday card collected by Junior for everyone to sign, the stage was set. We started with dinner at a deserted Shanghai 10 in Sungei Wang (the food was still good) before making our way to Alexis. Unfortunately, we forgot to factor in traffic and we ended up 45 minutes late. Sorry ya guys!

After drinks (Salisbury Cabernet Shiraz 2006), cake, presents and listening to the performance, it was off to Marketplace as the Chief has never been there before. More drinks, a quick tour, hellos and then we headed home.

Results? A slightly stunned Chief that didn't show too much expression in being surprised, but yes the Chief was definitely very happy.

Oh well. The more lies bit? We told the Chief that tonight mum was gonna be hosting dinner for her friends, and we needed to go collect a turkey from Porto Romano. And we wanted the Chief to help us to carry the turkey, deposit it back home and then we could both go off for dinner.

Oh, and that we'd need to dress up as well because Porto Romano wouldn't let us in for any reasons if we didn't dress nice, even if it was just to collect a cooked turkey.

As the both of us entered we were greeted by another table of friends and two empty seats.

The results of more emails, reservations for six at Porto Romano, a theme to dress in blue and 'guys wear scarves and girls wear ties', lad helping us to buy the birthday present and get the birthday card signed by everyone, and a stop to Baskin Robbins for an ice-cream cake 45 minutes before the Chief was due to arrive to pick us up.

The Chief, seeing the table, thought that it was a coincidence and headed for the kitchen. We'd to forcibly push the Chief into a seat. After dinner, birthday song and presents, the group of us headed to lad's place to play a bit of Guitar Hero and House Of The Dead on the Wii.

All in all, this weekend we managed to pull off two surprise birthday parties for our Chief. Oh, and next year we think we shall look for venues where there's ample lighting. Both places that we chose this year had nice candlelit ambience but made for horrible photo-taking. And now, the thanks to the following peeps:

Paul, Alexander & Jin, Sam & Lance, Adrien, Lifebook, Earl Gray Tea & Daemon, William, Apollo and SK - Thanks for making it for the party and waiting for us while we struggled through the traffic!

Jason - Muchos gracias for having to drop by to collect the card as well as getting the cake!

FBB - Loved the tiramisu. Could smell the brandy as the Chief was cutting the cake!

Lemon, Esteban, Juangtis - Mierci beaucoup for making it for the dinner!

lad - Thanks ya for all the trouble of running about getting the presents and signatures!

It's because of you guys the Chief is very happy.

Sporeland Sweat-Out

Yet another trip to Sporeland and it didn't disappoint - we've soaked all our clothes just by being out in the open for over a couple of minutes.

Of course, to be fair, it isn't really just Sporeland that we find hot. Bangkok had us sweating buckets too, and if we'd to travel in KL as how we have to in Sporeland and Bangkok (public transport and walking to destinations), we're sure to be griping all the way.

This Sporeland trip being not for leisure, we've decided to keep activities simple - we're staying at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront, located goodness knows away from familiar grounds that is Orchard Road. Still, that we've our laptop, our music scores to learn up, a book, our project, and work (the primary reason why we're in Sporeland the first place), it should be more than enough to keep us busy the entire week.

So let's see, what we've been up to since touchdown on Monday.

Checking in the hotel and checking the hotel. How we wish that there was a bathtub so that we could just immerse in a tub of warm water to wash of the day. But no go. And the room felt a tad empty with no Chief. Zouk was just behind the hotel, but obviously the place would be rather quiet during the weekdays.

Stepping out of the hotel with our bag 'o gym togs and stuff for the sis, we asked the bellboy for the nearest MRT. Bellboy goes, "Outram Park, 10 minutes walk." We should have just hopped into a cab at that point, but somehow we'd foolishly decided to brave the walk. That the sky was deceptively overcast with a cool breeze also contributed to our folly - within 3 minutes we were drenched in sweat.

Visited two Fitness First branches. Make that three, if we count the brief stop into Fitness First Paragon to pick up the timetable for all branches. In fact, we would have just stayed in Paragon if they had BodyJam at a suitable time slot - given that we'd to meet sis before 9pm, choices were limited.

In fact, we've managed to visit two new branches - FF Cathay and FF One Raffles Quay. Initially when we headed to FF Cathay we thought of joining Combat, but by the time we found the place they were already doing track 6 so we took a quick shower before heading off.

Bumped into Ms Long Leaping at One Raffles Quay when we entered the lift to head to FF. Yes, it's a lousy name we've thought up here but it's been a long week.

One Raffles Quay was slightly more interesting - asides from supplying towels they even asked if we needed gym togs! So we don't actually even need to bring gym tees or shorts! Instructor Naila's quite energetic and easy to follow, and with choices of old tracks we were happily satisfied. Oh and the lockers here are similar to the ones at FF Bukit Tinggi - electronic ones where you lock/open using the membership card.

Met up with the sis. Only a while. To pass her stuff and see the wog they had. Then the both of us left for different agendas - hers to meet some agent and ours to head for BodyJam. See this visit no time to meet for dinner too.

Eaten well. Akashi Restaurant at Orchard. Hai Tien lou at Pan Pacific. Jumbo at the Quay. Tiger beer, warm sake, Heineken, Yering Shiraz Viognier, more Tiger beer...

Swam at the hotel pool. Unlike the infinity pool at The Gurney, it's a smaller pool with a view of construction wherever you look. Also the only people there were the angmohs who were there to tan and take a quick dip.

Cave in and subscribed to the hotel broadband. Because there isn't any Starbucks or Wireless@SG spot nearby! Our emails and blogfeeds are piling up!

Coming back home on Friday!

Gas Food Poisoning

Woke up yesterday morning and was soon bent over in a foetal position with a few theories running through our head:

1) Gastric attack.
Egads the PAIN. Only, the pain is not at stomach level but somewhere in the intestines. Yet we haven't started feeling like letting loose hell from the bowels.

2) Food poisoning.
Only at the time nothing felt like coming out urgently.

3) The mamak left a piece of blade in our roti kosong banjir.
Because that was how our stomach felt like. And now the blade was cutting up our insides as it made its slow progress to our bowels.

Course, the first course of action was to get going to the porcelain throne and see if anything was gonna come out. There were results but pain still persisted. Hence there goes theory one, since there were results, and also theory three, since there was no blood.

That left us with number two...no pun intended.

So there was the purging, the pain, the trip to the clinic once we felt better (and secure enough to visit the clinic without needing to stop by any Janvier-approved toilets), the sleeping on the couch while waiting our turn, the getting of medicine and the more-important medical chit and receipt, the getting home to gulp in meds and sleep...the usual routine one would take for these occasions.

Once home, medicated, showered and back into bed to rest from the morning's ordeal, we logged on Facebook via our iTouch and left the following status:
"Janvier...gas food poisoning."

Trust the iTouch's predictive keyboard to dramatize our situation at the expense of grammar.

Still, one thing we did notice was that we've gone from being in our third trimester to our usual svelt self once more as a result of the food poisoning. Something good after all, although we don't think we'll treat it as a regular solution to putting on weight.

Concentrico Va-Va-Voom

So last Sunday the Chief took us to Mont Kiara for a little look-see about the Vogue tower of the Verve Suites. Turns out the Chief received a preview invite from Direct Access and so we went there to take a look (and get freebies).

Was the Chief finally into getting a place to stay?

Would the Closed Door concept soon not matter?

Well, didn't happen that Sunday. But no matter.

The location is pretty. And quiet.

The concept model was pretty.

The concept rooms were pretty. Both of us liked the single-bedroom design of Centro Jazz and the two-bedroom Metro Bliss. Rooms come fully furnished, and the in-built shelves were done in a way that made the, um, 430 sq ft single bedroom units look more spacious. Nevertheless still very pretty rooms.

Interesting thing that the Chief noticed was that in all rooms, asides from the front door, there were no locks or latches. While there may be a swing door to the bedroom, or sliding door to the bath, drawers and such, there's simply no way to lock them. Very Open Door concept - you can't live with strangers here.

Interesting. You don't have to fool around with the motorized blinds to view into the bathroom to watch someone enjoying the sunken tub. You can just walk into the bathroom and join in.

The usage of the rooftops made the Verve Suites very pretty. Each tower has access to all the rooftop places, and there were already 4 swimming pools (normal, heated, kiddie and exercise pool) amongst other facilites set up - theatherette, mini jacuzzi tubs, al-fresco dining setup...

Too bad the rooftop preview was only model scale-size.

We were practically drooling the entire tour. Prettiness called to be acknowledged.

Something else we couldn't help doing was thinking how long the bookings must be for the rooftop amenities. It could be that the theatherette would be booked all the way till the middle of next year.

So we had some fun looking around the rooms and such. Then came the next interesting bit: looking at the prices. And hooo-wee! We're wondering if RM450k would justify the nice furniture and small size of a single bedroom unit, and we're definitely too poor to look at the RM990k two bedroom unit. Not to mention that the better-located rooms were all sold out anyways. Turns out that the letter Chief received was two months late.

Chief says to wait for the next tower next year before we come back next year for another look-see.

Till then we're gonna plan for Showroom Days where we'll go visiting developers and viewing places. :P

Browsing For Choice

Starts of with our sis mentioning that she's trying out Chrome today as we were finally back online as normal, and we just filed that little fact under without giving it much thought. After all, sis and us were discussing our different browser usage not too long ago - sis sticks to IE7 and FF3 (which we keep thinking Fitness First at first) while we use all three browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

We've always used IE. Bugger the fact that it can be buggy, it crashes or hangs. Since IE comes with Windows it's of course the first choice for browsing. We don't mind IE really, and IE7 makes things much neater being with tabs and all (finally jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else). Only in our experience, IE7's the only browser ever to crash on us (especially, especially during a download/email drafting/upload).

Firefox was good, being customizable and not problematic. Only why is there a need to have a Downloads Box appear separately?

Then Apple had Safari for Windows - and seeing how we were using the iPod Touch then, we thought to give it a try as well (since we would be syncing our bookmarks with Safari too). Safari initially while aesthetically pleasing, lacked in a few areas. From the lack of being able to play Flash plugins (no embedded YouTube while reading blogs!) to where it's currently at now - we're currently using Safari as our primary browser, regardless of the fact that it too pops up with a Downloads Box and that their Bookmarks isn't quickly accessible.

Then again, we are slowly being brainwashed into buying things Apple. :P

When Juangtis too happened to put her personal message as 'Chromed', we admittedly got curious as to what Chrome was all about. So we searched.

Turns out Google's out with their own web browser! Cool.

So we're giving it a try as well. Sis says it's fast. What we're interested in (so far) is the fact that if a tab crashes, only that tab is affected and not the entire window. Will Google Chrome do for web browsing what GMail did for email?

Otherwise, so far we'll just stick to Safari for general browsing and IE7 for blogging (because we like the html format) and for work.

Deprived And Overdone

So when a poor guy has been deprived of his usual gym cardio schedule due to more commitments (at the moment) and rather than take the prudent measure of suspending his membership, what can he do

Overdo it when he does get the chance to go for class, that's what.

With the choice of either Combatting with FCI at Axis or going for Line Dance Funk with Bernard at The Curve, we opted for Combat, well, because since we've been away for quite a while (3 weeks or more?) and since we've to now choose our classes, we might as well head for something familiar. And yes well it was also nearer. Leaving the office at 6.50pm for either class that started at 7.30pm, it does help us decide where to go.

We've long avoided the Axis branch for a couple of reasons: 1) the idea of driving down even that small stretch of the Federal Highway from Amcorp to Menara Axis gives us the shudders; 2) the studio's lack of proper ventilation can very well suffocate us in a packed Combat class. Been there, done that. But things worked for us this time because there was no traffic and the class isn't as packed as we thought.

FCI almost blinded us with his orange top. And got us puzzled when he asked about a certain sexual position (that still seems impossible to us).

So. Yes. Well. Dahlah we more than three weeks never go for class, jumping straight into the first three tracks all gung-ho we know we'll well pay the price later on. Then there's the shouty bits of course. The restrain from shouting came from the fact that by track 5 we were very out of breath...our poor old heart. Amazing that nearly 4 years of cardio classes and our stamina still hasn't improved.

Then he puts on Black Parade. There goes tomorrow's choir practise. No high notes for us.

Not only we've overdone the intensity level and the shouting, we also drank too much. There were moments when we felt like throwing up. But we needed our 100 Plus after class!

To help ease our muscles, we took some time off in the sauna. Now if ever you wanted a good hot sauna, the closet room sized sauna in Menara Axis should do the trick. In there, one ladle of water does the trick what would take 5 scoopfuls in the other gym saunas. We sorta had the impression we came out like a boiled lobster.

Waiting to use the shower, we heard Nut receive a compliment about his bum. We guess RPM does do wonders heh.

Then back home for a filling dinner before calling it a day. Must say that the cardio today did us much good - them sessions that normally have us falling asleep straight after dinner normally do.

Merdeka Marathon Makan & Movie

Otherwise known as the MerdekaMoodyMondayMovieMadness. Given that till now we've not been online as usual, we haven't been keeping up properly with our emails - we've only skimmed the contents as thus haven't really followed much of what everyone's been planning.

We'd skimmed so much that even when the gang has been planning some meetup thingy with an alliterative title that's five words long, all that registered was that there was an alliterative title. Details of the event didn't stick. Thus when 'Vin called us to ask what we were bringing, we were admittedly still rather blur about the whole thing.

Luckily it turned out to be a potluck event, and when 'Vin ticked off the names and food being brought, no drinks were mentioned. So we quickly offered to bring drinks. Bought Sarsaparilla cordial (honestly, what's the difference between Sarsaparilla and Root Beer cordial?), F&N Orange, F&N Ice Cream Soda and Kickapoo.

The food layout was VERY generous (somehow we find potlucks tend to be, heh) as 'Vin cooked one and a half bags of nuggets, Esteban brought to bowls of pasta (made with half a bag of garlic - lad said they took an hour to chop it all up), Canadian 2-for-1 pizzas, 30 currypuffs from Paandi, baked bacon rolls, salad and ice-cream.

And to wash it off, we made ice-cream soda floats topped with sarsaparilla cordial. Sweet.

Initially we started off with lunch followed by Hellboy II, which we found much better compared to the first movie as there's more eyecandy this time. Still, like the first movie, not that memorable.

After Hellboy II it was back to the food for Round 2.

Then we all decided to make it a movie marathon and put on Kung Fu Panda, in English. That it was starting to rain heavily helped make the decision to stay much easier too.

Then Round 3 with the ice-cream floats.

We'd left soon enough while the others started warming up the PS2 - the weekend saw us up late and we were soon crashing. Still - we'd a spanking good time celebrating this year's Merdeka!