Loooooong weekend

Well kinda :p Believe it or not, i haven't been working or schooling since monday till today. Right now i'm current down with a flu, feeling really really uncomfortable. Ok let's see... Monday and Tuesday was suppose to attend what i believe is just one 1 hour class of Life Skills at Yishun... figured out since next week onwards is the start of the 3 week school break for ITE and why the hell travel so far for just 1 lesson, I went to Borders (as usual) instead. Wednesday I had applied leave to accompany my mum to the hospital for her cateract operation, a half day thingy. She was like wobbly after the op. Today I was supposed to go back to the workshop, but the night before I began to have heat throat sensations and cloggy nose, plus i was sweating quite profusely, unable to sleep well throughout the night. Next morning it got worse so when to see the doc instead. It's great to take another day off, but sucks to be sick. :(

Laura came to talk to me online in MSN a couple days ago, she was gonna hold a farewell BBQ at her place this Friday which is tomorrow night. She's gonna be away for 2 years in Melbourne for further studies, leaving in about 2 weeks time. She had mentioned that she would really like to invite me over, but she had some mutal thingy with her current bf, she couldn't. I have nothing against that really... of course I would know how he'd feel if I were to appear. Besides, don't think it's a good idea to have BBQ when i'm still recovering.... one of these days gonna meet up with her for one last time before she leaves. It kinda reminds me of those times in the past while I was with her, how I'd feel if she were to leave for overseas studying. Well times have changed, everyone grown up. :) Lucky her, her bf is gonna study in Sydney, plus he's $$$ so making plans to visit her once every few weeks ain't a problem. So far he's been taking care of her well, doing a real good job of pampering... showering her with this and that and blahblahblah... still if one day he turns his attention to someone else, oooh he's gonna get it.

Talking about BBQ, just last week on Saturday I attended 2 BBQ sessions in the same evening. The first one i was invited by an online friend Vicki whom i err... never met before? I pulled Stef along for this, cos i know i'm not that good with unfamiliar people from the begining. Didn't eat much though, i was still kinda full from lunch earlier on. About an hour later I went to crash into another BBQ session, someone had asked me before I went for the first BBQ about it and... well since i figured out i won't be able to last long in the first BBQ, why not. So after staying for about an hour, mingling with some not so visually babe-attracting males (i think she invited anyone she could get hold of in her online list), i left to pick up my fren, with Stef in the boot :D, sent Stef home and on to the next BBQ.

So far I noticed, all BBQ sessions I have attended so far is always the same. Food aside of course, the one thing i particularly noticed which irritates me a little is the wait for the food to be done. Alright, I understand on a typical BBQ pit area, you only have this one little pit to cook your stuff. Everyone knows that chickens, sweet potatoes and corn take the longest time to cook, these go in first. Next would probably be the sausages ans crab meat and whatever little finger food thingy you have. Quite a bit of ppl are invited, so to keep them occupied while the food is being cooked, fried bee hoon or fried rice are ready on standby to be readily taken. Either can or packet drinks or booze in the cooler box full of ice at the side. Wow sounds organised huh? BBQ should go quite smoothly, one would think... but wait! all BBQ stuff finished....

15 minutes wait for chicken, 5 for sausages, 5 for this and that, 5 for dadadada...





This is the thing. You have to WAIT.

Ya while waiting you can do other things like chat, play cards, mingle, whatever... but what about the poor guy cooking? After his is soaked with oil (haha disgusting eh), shirt drenched in sweat, eyes nearly blinded by the smoke and hands nearly cooked while trying to free a burnt chicken piece stuck in the middle of the grill..

Nevermind.


If I were to host my very own BBQ, this is what I would have done:

DAY BEFORE: Make space in fridge. Make LOTSA space. Finish that 1/2 litre of milk in you have too. Any leftover, feed it to the cats at the void deck. Then go buy your food stuff. Come back and marinate your fresh meat. You don't want to eat bland chicken wings right? Buy ice substitutes too.

NEXT MORNING: Go buy your BBQ equipment. Dunno why people never though of this... BUY MINI BATTERY OPERATED FAN. Why use the paper plate to fan the pit like a gorilla when you can just stand there and let this little $2 gadget do the job for you. You can blow at yourself too. Also its a great help to bring an air circulator... those industry-looking fans. I'm not talk about those giant aircraft propellers that blows like typhoon, in the market there're smaller ones. have them at the pit blowing from behind. No smoke or heat in your face! If ya lucky no sweat too. PS: if your pit is at East Coast... err good luck)

AFTERNOON: Get a minvan, like my Caddy. Dump everything in the back and be on your way to the pit. Set up everything in place, food stuff last. Get some ppl to help too... throw them in the back as well.

EVENING: Now this the different part from all the boring rest.... COOK THE FOOD BEFORE ANY PPL ARRIVES, like 1 hour before the time you told them that it'll start. And cook as much as you can. "But the food will become cold by the time everyone arrives?" If you cooked almost everything, that leaves the pit empty right? warm it up yourself lah! Hawker centre also the same concept what. Some like to cook the stuff themselves or wanna try to so something funny, leave the rest to them. I would recommend to bring other ready food stuff OTHER than bee hoon and fried rice. I don't know, just bring anything other than those. For me, i'd bring BBQ mushrooms, mm! then add cheese... wah! Anyway this is just what i think i'd do for a BBQ session.

Having the car from tomorrow onwards, all the way till the end of Sunday! Yay... but then my bro told me the air con is not getting cold. I was afraid that the A/C compressor is gonna blow... i mean fail. A few hundred for a replacement, yikes. For now think I'll just go for the cheap quick fix, top up the air con gas and erm..... we'll see how. Plus its been weeks or rather MONTHS since it had a car wash. Gawd....

Alright needa go get some rest... this flu thingy is really getting to me. Sigh.

Back!

Finally made the effort to go to the blogger website and START putting in an entry again. So many times I wanted to add an entry, but I kept giving myself excuses this and that, wonder what's wrong with me. Once again I'm losing my touch I guess. Anyway, I'm gonna try to recap the past weeks events and pen whatever I can remember...

Day before my birthday. The PC Show was going on at Suntec, was suppose to go with Cai to the show, end up he was only able go in the morning then work in the afternoon. I had work in the morning. Later in the afternoon, I met up with a seller of a MP3 player he put up on auction. A couple days earlier I had made up my mind to get a bigger capacity player, 128MB is really not enough. Went on to Yahoo Auctions and came across this compact 512MB player going at a relatively cheap price, got my attention and bidded for it. It was good when i tested it, it was like new, everything in the box was included and intact... until when i tried the radio function. Muffy. Absolutely muffy. Nope its not the earphones or its jack. It could pick up the signals, but the sound was just so muffy. Fuck. Well... at least the MP3 songs sound alright, I told myself. Sigh.

After that I went to PC Show. Most ppl would go to the Show with the intention to buy something. I didn't, I just wanted to check out what's new and hot there. And I threw myself into one of the worst crowd I've ever been. Comparable to CNY and Chinatown and NYE countdowns. 20mins to get from one end of the hall to the other inside. Oh ya I was saying, I was just there to check out what's around... and I ended up getting myself ANOTHER MP3 player... a MP4 player to be exact.





FiPod, I called it(FakeiPod). Similiar in size, 1GB, has FM radio in it and plays video. Wow. Sounds pretty cool eh? Even the iPod Nano itself doesn't have such cool functions. And it's significantly cheaper too. Yes, you can say that I bought it on impulse... I'd like to say it as a birthday present to myself. It really works, plays MP3s, radio is clear, really plays video. No, it doesn't have that circle touch pad thingy, every button pressed produces this loud "tak" sound. Then slowly I begin to the wonders of china-made products... note to self and to all: NEVER buy China electronics. Seriously.

That night out for a late night movie with a friend, watched Slithers. Quite a horrible show actually, but strangely amusing to watch... not to mention kinda gross too. Supposedly to be a horror-cum-comedy movie... typical horror alien invasion plot, out-of-place music and features cast never heard before. Not even one. I like lame stuff, but this is a different kind of lame... the kind that made me feel not worth to watch.



Birthday day itself. As usual, nothing special, no big celebration, gatherings or blahblahblah. Did recieve a number of birthday wishes through SMS. A couple of people actually wanted to meet up with me today... including one who wanted to go suntanning heh... but end up I chose to go shopping with her again today. Met Stef in the evening, but barely 5 mins into it, she had some family emergency. However later she managed to get hold of her dad's BMW and took me for a short ride, had drinks at Coffee Bean before sending me back before midnight. I had a good time that day. :)

Had some big serving of fries at the Cafe at Marriot.

Following that I had classes at the start of the new week. Skipped them. :D Just felt like it somehow... went to Borders to read stuff, a little window shopping in the area before heading home. At my workplace, lotsa changes going on. One of the guys is resigning, then our service manager is tendering his as well. One is gone on vacation to Hong Kong, my senior tech is going to Koh Samui with the Mini Club as support.... which leaves us with really little manpower. A new guy came to help with the part dept and discussion is going on regarding who from the other workshops is coming to here and who's gonna be the new service manager. At the moment, the Mini workshop seems to be the busiest among the others in the Trans Eurokars group, a reason why others are not so willing to come here to work. As for me, I still got much more to learn, yet to bring down an engine myself...

Last Friday went to watch The Omen with... heh yeah same her. Quite an alright suspend film. Had some moments where we both covered our eyes and asked each other what happened lol. Over the weekend sucumbed to a slight fever. This was a time were everyone was falling sick... but thanks to the power of garlic i had discovered and read about recently, I'm recovering fast. Really... taking garlic raw works. Wouldn't recommend taking it just like that... i was crinching my face and slaming my head into my bed after trying to munch down a fresh raw clove. Now I've learnt to chop it onto smaller chunks and mixing it with food. The juice bite is still there, but at least I don't have to jump around my room madly after every spoonful.

The $$$ issue is really getting into me. Late last month I was preped up to go for salsa classes, which in the end was cancelled. Now there's an opening this Saturday, but I couldn't afford it now. Someone's willing to buy this 512MB MP3 player this weekend, but still it ain't enough. Was thinking of selling some stuff to get the $$$, but obviously as you can see, those are desperate thoughts. I always tell myself I have to do this i have to do this... and I always end up not doing it at all. Hmm...

These days having a bad tummy. Wonder whay did I eat? Uh... uh... man I gotta go. *rushes to toilet*