Wedding dinner

Ww's friend from sec school invited us for their wedding dinner and it is really quite nice. The food was good and the world is small! Apparently someone at the same table is ww's pri school friend!

street soccer

Haven't played soccer on a basketball court for yoinks, and tonight i had the chance to do so. 5-a-side, more than 4 teams, and the action was fast and furious! Those deft touches and skillful flicks were more than apparent, inspired by Nike's motto "Joga bonito". What amazed me was the accuracy of the shots! The goal was the pair of posts that support the basketball backboard and rim, and measured no more than half a meter wide. Yet, these fellers were making thundering shots from all over the pitch court and blasting the ball into that little gap between the person guarding the goal and the posts. This is street soccer at its best, and i would like to think that i kept up, well, at least for a while.

Breaking and entering

We had a pair of free movie tickets from GV, which were expiring at the end of the month, so we headed to vivo city, planning to watch Pursuit of Happyness. Unfortunately, it was only available on gold class tickets and our normal ticket could not be upgraded as such, so we ended up watching the above movie.

The guy at the counter described it as a romantic comedy, and in hindsight it was, but only in a very loose sense of the word. I did chuckle and go "awwww" at times but these were rare moments and the rest of the time I was left with a perplexed frown (much like robin penn wright in the show (the swedish partner)).  Ww described it more a romantic drama than anything else.

I like movies in general. They entertain me by taking me on a journey as envisioned by the director and the producer, and I like simple point A to point B shows, to something with more of a twisty route. The point is, I get there. This movie is an unending stream of babbling (much like the two ladies beside us chatting it up throughout the show) that moves like a snail through a salt laden plate, with enough turns in the journey to stay vaguely interesting.  The one most intriguing character in the show was the prostitute, who was damn hilarious!!

My thoughts on the show ranged from "wah, damn slow plot" to "huh? What the?" to "that's nice architecture" to "that doesn't happen in real life!"

To rate this movie out of 5, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best, I would give it a rating of quantum mechanics. Ergo, undescribable, but you reckon it has some bearing on your life anyways. 

Good grief!

Another Ferrari Enzo bites the dust! Yikes! What's up with that? The second high profile write off of this magnificent car. The first one here. Sheesh. And to think that the car that we are getting is like more than 15 times less than one of those Enzos.

busy busy busy

Had a second appointment with the wedding gown designer on Friday night, and it looked great on paper. Colour had been added to the gown and we also went through a rough sketch of the evening gown. This guy is simply awesome. =)

Somehow the weekend flew by (a whirlwind session of lectures on Sat helped), and before i knew it, Monday hit me in the face again. Actually, what did hit me this morning was the rain. I woke up to a torrential downpour and the window was open. Not really an ideal way to start the day, but it'll have to do for a Monday.

In other motoring news, check out this rather insignificant piece of news! Facinating really. =))

Coe......

No, I'm not doing a ape impression, although the whole situation is causing a few split hairs.

We missed out on our coe again. We didn't top up, and the coe went up to 13,500 while our champion of a dealer bet the same amount as our first bid. So now we are asked to top up even more than previously offered. Am sick of being held ransom and the fact that I am getting nothing but the bare car with no freebies other than that found on the car. Grrrrr.

boxhead: more rooms

there's something strangely satisfying about playing this game. It requires flash 8 but i'm using flash 9 (and a mac) and this game keeps crashing. What i can play before it crashes just blows my mind away. This game totally rawks!!

Boxhead - More Rooms

That's a first....

Took a cab home today after dinner with ww, because I was too tired. We tried to filter out from Esplande and did so, only to have a yellow cab honk at us from behind. This driver then proceeded to overtake us in a most unsafe manner, cutting us off (had to jam e-brake). Seems pretty normal for driving in Singapore? But wait, there's more! After following the yellowcab in making a turn right, my driver was pissed and did his own unsafe overtake. A traffic light put a halt to further driving dramatics, but not to the antics. Now that we were in front, he said "so sorry ah, give me a moment" and he promptly hopped out to berate the yellowcab driver loudly, with gesticulations to boot, and in four (or more, I could have sworn there were some unfamiliar phrases in there) languages too!

He was quite apologetic and contrite after getting back into the driver's seat. A possible explanation, he theorised on the way home, was that ours was a diff company to said yellowcab's, or even because ours was a merc cab.

Is this the way of our future? Was there anything I could do? Are cab drivers from any one company more superior than another? The answer to all these is: who knows?!?!?

I'm just going to belt up now, reaching home soon. :)

Just to prove we're serious

Or just nuts, we went and bought the soundtrack just after watching the movie. :)

Music and lyrics

Just watched this show and it was surprisingly good! The music in it was quite catchy and the jokes seemed more funny by Hugh Grant's deadpan Brit accent. Go watch it!

Alex Fletcher: no one grows up in Florida — unless they're an orange...

The end

Following another amazing display by the caesar twins ( they had three performances tonight) it's now time to go home. Here ends the live blog from the Crystal Mirror.

Fourth course aka dessert

Royal viennese desserts selection, a selection of traditional Viennese specialities.

Third course

French supreme quail stuffed with duck fois gras, set on mango-kraut strudel served with creamed purple potatoes and tomato marmalade on spinach flan. The quail was so good!

Second course

After some amazing entertainment, especially from Tom the bubble guy (watch this space for a link to his video) we have the second course. Seared loupe de mer, on a bed of riesling seafood risotto served with lobster cappuccino.

First course

A truffled trilogy of scallops. Scallop and summer truffles carpaccio served with celeriac julienne, scallop bisque and pan-fried scallops. Nice. Yum!

Crystal mirror

Ww and i are attending dinner at the Crystal Mirror now and i must say it is quite fancy. We did pay a bit more for a circle seat and found that moving two metres towards the center stage costs about 30 bucks per metre! Lol The picture shown is that of the tent which apparently did not use any nails. Cool stuff! Updates may follow dependent on zeenie's state of inebriation. Current drinks at hand: classic belini and mariandl.

credit card conundrums

Even though i dun often approve of living on credit, i have a few credit cards for the sheer convinience (and for the Singaporean in me, the discounts!!) and i have always paid my credit cards on time. I do so not just because i don't want to owe the companies money (in principle) but also because of the hefty penalties that you can incur. Did you know that for some cards, if you don't settle your bill on time, not only that sum can be charged interest, but also any other purchases you make on that card (that they have yet to bill you for) as well. Kinda like the insurance business actually. LOL

Now, people are fighting back!! Currently the fight is on in NZ, where people actually received refunds once from credit card companies (or banks) because of some inaccuracies in calculating the conversion rate of purchases made overseas.

Viva la consumer!! =) hahahaha

In other news, this particular thread on the Suzuki club Singapore forum is quite amazing in the sheer bloody barefacedness of some, and said company even advertised on the same forum!

Car capers

I have been informed by my dealer that due to the increasing demand and culling of supply of COE from May, COE prices are likely to go up. We have already missed out on one COE bidding so far, so two more to go, failing that we get our deposit back. Abit saddened about this, was really looking forward to getting our first car. Of course, we could consider their offer for us to top up with money, so that we can definitely get our COE, but is it worth it? We are still pondering this one, but it seems like a bum deal to buy a car based on one price and have to top up with various stuff after (yes, i knew that cars are expensive but that doesn't i can't gripe about it. LOL)

On another discussion topic, i notice that there seems to be differing views on breaking in the engine of a car. There is the soft break in (or run in) which is as prescribed in the owner's manual and there is the hard break in as precribed here. Any comments on this are welcome as well.

Wedding and friends

Am attending a wedding of a colleague now, and just met a sec school classmate! He's here because my colleague is his poly classmate! How cool is that, i guess our island is really small. :)

Sun dessert

Dinner at Sun dining concluded with goma peanut tofu. Yum!

Friday!

It is a friday, work is slow, i am bored, so i thought i'd blog a bit. :)
This is the view from my office and i thought it was kinda cool that the reflection of the room mascots could be seen in the window. Not sure if they bring luck, but they do bring humour into the room. I like nothing better than to launch the pink pig into a trajectory and say 'oh look, a flying pig!' especially when people sprout (what seems like to me)(i'm seldom wrong) hogwash. The other fluffy one has been a source of debate as we can't decide whether it's a dog or a mouse, and the jury is still out on that one.
Ok, my thumbs are tired now so i shall end off by wishing everyone a happy weekend. We (ww and i) have a busy weekend ahead!

Funny post about dancing in Singapore

This post summed up how i felt when i last visited Zouk with an overseas friend, and he managed to make it a wider social commentary on life in Singapore! Impressive.

Building evac!

Our building and the one next door was just evacuated after a tremor was felt due to an earthquake in our sand-abundent neighbouring country.

Update: I have no idea how to flip the picture on the correct side, so i won't even try. After a second tremor and subsequent evacuation occured, our boss told us to evacuate the building and work from home.

Sailing!

Sailing the keel boat
Originally uploaded by zeenie.

WW and I went sailing today in a keel boat with j&j and it was fun! It was an interesting all round as it was our first time in a keel boat, it actually has a little cabin! So for the first time, we went sailing with all our barang barang like spare clothes, phone and camera because the boat is supposed to be really hard to capsize. =)

The weather was really really good for sailing with quite a strong wind, although the wind also brought intermitten showers, but we managed dodge the heavier looking clouds (which was an interesting excercise in itself!). We packed lunch and had it onboard after we had the main sail up and going. A little note about that, while we were setting up the main sail, we didn't notice that our boat had drifted into a restricted zone and set off some alarm. When we heard the alarm, we thought it was for somebody else! LOL Dun think these life jackets are bulletproof!

I really have to overcome this fear of capsizing and this general wariness of the sea if we are to take up sailing again. Maybe i should take a course......

Jeanie!

Jeanie at home
Originally uploaded by zeenie.

It has been some time since i last posted a picture of jeanie, so after getting a new phone (the W850i with a 2 megapixel camera) i took this photo of her immediately after i came home.

She's such a treasure, just look at that happy face. She makes home that much more homey and brings such a ray of sunshine in everybody's lives. =))