Tua pek's 33rd birthday

After putting off our little barbie due to the unavailability of our favourite Pit #76, we finally got down to it on 22 Sept. It was a bloody hot day but praise God for the fine weather He blessed us with closer to the evening - no sun, no rain and LOTS of wind.

We started off the evening at about 5.30, me starting the fire and getting my fingers singed to a nice pinkish colour in the process, Penny putting up the hammock we bought from Ho Chi Minh ages ago (much to Velouria's delight, she spent most of the evening lounging there). My mum prepared all the food as usual, with chix wings, pork chops, satay, kebabs, sotong, crabs and even whole scallops still in their shells. The whole merry troupe (my bro's friends - Jason, Sharon and Masuka-chan, and then my bro and abang Elfie) arrived at about 6pm so we started the session quite early.

Penny wasn't feeling very well so she spent most of the time lying on the straw mat, enjoiyng the live worship music from Pit #75. She even had to give her favourite crabs a miss and only downed a few roasted shitake. Apart from that, she was burning sparklers with Vel.

Towards the end, we lit the birthday 'bun' that my mum made for my bro. Birthday cakes are so passe and we didn't have enough time to order a agar-agar cake for him (our original intention was to get him one in the form of Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants since he bears such an uncanny resemblance to the silly starfish). Only one section of the bun had filling in it, so the rest was used to make garlic bread since my mum had forgotten to buy bread after preparing the spread (getting old).

We were all quite stuffed as the night wore on. I decided to call it quits after downing my fourth can of Pepsi Twist. It's been quite a while since I had so much carbonated beverage in me. We cleared up and decided to call it a night.

JT's hilarious Emmy Award winning music video

Heard so much hoopla about this that I just had to check it out. This is the Emmy winning skit that Justin Timberlake did with Andy Samberg on Saturday Night Live. A crazy gift idea with a hilarious MTV to boot. Reminiscent of those cheesy early 90s boyband videos (think Colour Me Bad), you will dig this if you loved the Pop Goes My Heart MTV from the movie Music and Lyrics. My favourite part of this video is where they give you instructions on how to make your own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dmVU08zVpA

Unemployment phase: end

It's the last day of my unemployment phase. Penny is in ORD mode, so she skips work and we decide to spend some time with Velouria. We started our day with our favourite retro coffeeshop in Lengkok Bahru to have our favourite fishball noodles.

We topped that with kaya toast on bun bread (which Velouria finished almost half of it) and washed everything down with kopi-o and teh-c. The place is hot, cramp and smelly (right next to a rubbish dump, no less), but we still love it.

Our only hope is that it stays this way and is spared the 'transformation' into a swanky foodcourt that plagues the HDB heartlands nowadays. They are just too clean and bright and somehow the pristine condition of such foodcourts seem to affect the flavour of the food.

The next stop we planned was Qianhu, but we were diverted by a phone call to Orchard where Mike and Ellis are currently putting up. So we popped by, chit chat for a while, although most of my time was spent lending my expertise to Ian to help him solve his Need For Speed: Most Wanted on his PSP. We had lunch despite having eaten earlier and, being the pigs that we are, topped that with fish crackers, potato chips, butter cake and a donut.

We headed off to Qianhu after that with Ian in tow. We grabbed some fish (small ones) from the tanks with Velouria just terrorising them mostly with all that swishing of her net in the water. Finally, happy with our catch, we proceeded to the koi pond and bought some feed for the kids. They had fun watching the greedy fish respond to every little manouvere they executed.

We picked Justin and Natalie on the way home for them to all chill out at our place. I left them with my PS2 and proceeded to take a nap before my tuition. After I returned home, they were still at it! By then they were cracking themselves up watching Homer run around in his briefs and running pedestrians over in The Simpsons' Hit and Run. Amazing stamina, these kids. Vel fell from the bed and hit the floor with a loud thud which I could hear even from the living room with the bedroom door closed. It obviously left her with a huge buah duku on her forehead. A hard lesson for her to learn after ignoring all my 'no jumping on the bed' warnings.

Mike came to pick Ian up, Justin and Natalie made their way home too. Zapped of all our energy after so much activity, we just crashed into our beds. What a day.

Goodbye holiday, hello corporate world

As much as I enjoy the comfort and satisfaction that household chores bring me, it is time for me to bid adieu to my life as a professional bummer. Come Monday 10 Sep I will begin the next chapter of my life as Assistant Marketing Manager at Yeo Hiap Seng, an endeavour I approach with trepidation and uncertainty, having the knowledge that I'll be working for a market leader in the industry.

I thank God for the much needed rest that He has blessed me with. Now with that same heart I ask Him to bless me in my course of work and also to keep me sane amidst the insanity of the consumer goods industry (they don't call it 'fast moving consumer goods' for naught). I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that my journey here will not be as short lived as the last.

I'm sooooo looking forward to having my own desk to work on, having expensive lunches with media owners and having tons of free samples. And of course, drinks at discounted prices...

Dessert of the week: Lizard Cake

Woke up early on Sunday morning to prepare for church. I needed the oven to toast some bread so I proceeded to remove the plastic container which my mum-in-law had used to prepare some kueh earlier.

And horror of horrors, there were not one but TWO lizards inside. My mum-in-law had, with her typical auntie mentality, left the cover slightly ajar for fear of the kueh turning mouldy. How she deduced such a thoery still baffles me. The lizards were so nicely positioned that anyone looking in would have thought that they were placed there on purpose as decorative ornaments, like those silly little Spidermans, Pikachus, Doraemons and what nots so commonly found on cakes nowadays.

Anyway, I figured that Lizard 1 had gone into the container out of hunger/curiosity/just for the sheer fun of it. Lizard 2 in turn got stuck trying to rescue his friend from the evil clutches of the gooey kueh.

I imagined the conversation would have gone something like this:

L1: Mmm... Kueh... Let's go get us some...

L2: No, wait...

L1: Alamak! Why so sticky one?! Can't... move... my... legs... L1, heeelp!

L2: Don't worry, I'll get you.... Oh, crap! Now I'm stuck too...

L1 & L2: Heeeeelp!

Of course, my mum-in-law freaked out upon discovering the presence of the lizards violating her beloved kueh and threw away the whole chunk. Me, I just sniggered with delight at the sight of her squirming.

Marketing guru says... #3

There are good ads and there are bad ads. The good ones will make you laugh, cry and leave a lasting impression in your head. The bad ones, obviously, will make you go 'Aiyoh? What on earth was that about?!'.

Examples of the former: the new McDonald's 'Serving you great moments, anytime, anywhere' campaign. I think they ripped the 'KFC moments' campaign but that's another story for another day. The emo TVC shows different people engaged in different activities throughout the day, all involving McD products and some in a McD restaurant. Tugs at my heartstrings and makes me wanna cry. Brings back memories of the McD in World Trade Centre (the old one facing the sea, the site where the Cruise Centre sits presently) where I used to hang out with my buddies after 'house practise', when the Cheesburger was still $1.20 and a small soft drink cost only $0.90. But the real reason why I wanna cry is because I recall an occassion where we ran after the bus to go back to school and dropped my soft drink. Half my lunch gone in a whiff. Major bummer.

Examples of the latter: 987FM's 'Live life dangerously' campaign. Or 'on the edge' or whatever. See, it's so bad I can't even recall the tagline. The cringe-worthy TVC has this guy walking down the street with a boombox on his shoulder and almost gets the antenna entangled onto some power lines hanging overhead. Then the tagline comes out. Maybe I'm just dense or maybe I'm not the target audience (i.e. the 'cool' and 'funky' crowd), but I totally don't get that at all.

Then there are others in between. They are neither good nor bad, but rather just make you scratch your head. Examples would include the Axe Oil bus ad. Makes me wonder who approved that creative. It never fails to give me a headache whenever I see it. But perhaps that's the whole idea, to link the bus ad to headaches. On that note I would say that ad works.

Another exmaple would be the Sheng Siong TVC. The 'All About You' tagline reminds of an old Hokkien evergrenn Long Si Wee Tio Li. Translated it mean 'it's all for you' or 'it's all because of you'. It's one of those heart-wrenching songs about unrequited love (but then again most Hokkien oldies are) that is always a hot favourite among senior citizen recreation clubs on karaoke nights. Given the target market of Sheng Siong, I would say this one works as well. Though the cheesy acting on the TVC makes my hair stand.

*MORAL OF THE STORY: if you got something to say, make sure you say it right so that people will remember it! Ask anyone about the old Ribena TVC, they'll tell you 'My mother said it's good for me'.

3.47% ain't so bad

Just as I was whining about my slim chance of getting a new flat, I found out my 4676 queue number wasn't so bad after all. Was having a chat with my friend Clif about this whole hoopla, who also submitted his application. It went something like this:

Clif: So you receive your HDB number yet?

Me: Yah. Damn jia lat, got 4676 leh. I think this time round also xiong duo ji shao one (literally translated from Mandarin it means 'breast much, squeeze little', a crude way of depicting yourself stuck in a situation where the odds are stacked greatly against you).

Clif: Eh? Buay pai leh! I got 10,000 plus leh.

Me: WTF??

I don't know what scared me more. That he got a '10,000 plus' queue number out of 10,200 despite submitting his application earlier than mine. Or his nonchalance about the whole thing suggesting his epathy towards our so-called systematic government.