I think I discovered the cause behind my occasional rash outbreaks ever since I got back from KL.

1) I'm taking glucosamine supplement;
2) Glucosamine is derived from seafood i.e. crustaceans; and
3) I'm allergic to crustaceans

Its probably that...coupled with sensitive skin. At least the rashes aren't too bad. I get bumpy patches of skin and its mildly itchy. Kinda like being assaulted by a swarm of mosquitoes.

And I finally got an xray done for my knee too. Didn't turn up anything, as expected. So my options are to wait it out...and hope it heals o_O Or a cordizon injection (correct spelling?) This doc reckons I can continue doing sports and stuff... and stuff the glucosamine cuz it probably does jack shit o_O Very different advice from the other docs I've seen. Hmmmm. I'll probably resume doing kendo in February regardless. Or once I get transport of my own (which feels like never o_O).

closing note, 'case I don't blog later: HAPPY NEW YEARRRRR!!!

Monday was Boxing Day Sales day! Hmmm... that doesn't sound right o_O Anywayyy, heaps of ppl in the city. Especially Myers. And retail stores which say "50% off everything". One wonders where all these ppl come from. I spent about 1/2 hour waiting in line to pay for my stuff.

$300 worth of clothing!

Yeah...I spent a fair bit. I budgeted $200 for shopping. But Myers was selling the business shirts cheap (the top left corner of the pic), and they were pretty nice. Couldn't help myself. I wanted to get pillows too! Nice, expensive (not to mention discounted!) ones... but they were all wiped out by the time I got there, which was around 1-ish. Gotta learn to act quicker durings sales...hmmmrphh.

I felt a little touris-ty as well, so I snapped some shots in the city. For the benefit of non-sydneysiders ^_^

Sydney Town Hall. I watched my first fight night with Thos here

Queen Victoria Building. Shopping shopping!

Singing beer bottles ^_^

I spotted this too! Thats where I work! I thought it was pretty fascinating to see one of our cranes in the city :p

By now, everyone should have known about the tsunamis that hit the coastlines across southern Asia including our own Penang. I'm not a religious person, but I feel somewhat blessed that the relatives I have in Penang aren't affected by the waves (and that my mom wasn't visiting them). Malaysia wasn't hit too bad, compared to some other nations, so we'r pretty lucky in a way.

Enough rambling on... I'm not too good at conveying condolences to random world events, and I don't really give a rat's ass as long as it doesn't happen to anyone I know. I'm just thinking that we should all be thankful for what we have, that we are living well, that we can put food on our tables, and for siu yuk.

This is a change from my regular posts ain't it? :p

*edit*

just a quickie. In relation to the torrent site shutdowns:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/58231

today... errrr, yesterday to be more exact was boxing day. which means big sales!!! I went down to the city, prepared to blow my money on discounted goods. BUTTTT, all the shops were closed o_O the retail industry decided to postpone the boxing day sales to tomorrow, probably cuz today was a sunday. sheesshh. aussies are such lazy asses. so i'm gonna have to go down city again today. don't know if i will bother. sales = huge ass crowds, and i don't like crowd, unless its a bevy of beautiful females of course ^_^

today ain't all that bad... cuz Tekken 5 is finally out in Sydney!!!! It's bloody gorgeous. Love the graphics, love the effects, love the game! I met up with Andy after I found out the shops were closed and we spent the rest of the afternoon playing (and watching ppl play) Tekken. Thos joined us later, played abit and then we watched Blade:Trinity. Pretty cool. Andy was disappointed with the show... but I didn't mind it so much. I didn't have high expectations anyway, so its all good to me :)

We had dinner after that...and continued spending the rest of the night in the arcade :) I left at about 11.30.... Thos said he was staying till about 12ish. End of the day...end of my post.

xmas dinner pictures!!!

The food!

2 curries (chicken and err..pork?), chicken pieces, potato salad, cucumbers (blech!), minced turkey (Andy's sambal replacement o_O), eggs, peanuts, green rice...

1/2 a duck...

and what is a meal without SIU YUK!!

And b4 ppl start complaining that I just like taking pictures of food...

heres Thos & Ethan (Andy's friend)

'baka' of the decade, Thos's housemate: Sin Cie

and the Great Kiangs with Andy

The pictures were kinda disappointing, cuz pretty blur. But I took pics without flash la, so i guess lack of light can make your pics look blurry as well. Nothing much else for the rest of the night la. Except getting trashed in Tekken by Thos... and Vienneta!!! Didn't bother taking pics of that though. Hehehe. Everyone should know what Vienneta looks like :p

Pretty darn full at the end of the night...we practically polished off everything (except for the cucumbers :p)

The aftermath...

Thats it for Christmas in Sydney :p The rest of you guys have a good one. Merry Christmas & have a great NY again.

the typical seasonal post...

MERRRY CHRISTMAS to everyone!!!

and also Happy Birthday to Jason! if he ever sees this :p

I skipped work today to sleep in. I should have gone actually, its pretty darn hot today. For some reason its looks pretty smoggy today. Trapping all the heat in. Ughh...well, it IS supposed to be summer over here.

It'll be dinner at Tho's place tonight. I'm buying siu yuk, and Andy is cooking nasi lemak. And when I say nasi lemak, it means he is just cooking the rice o_O He asked Thos to go buy curry chicken. Wtf man... what a lazy bastard. The whole point was to COOK at Tho's place. Sheeeshhhh. Oh well... at least this way the food will turn out to be edible. And I did have bad experience with Andy's curry b4.... so probably for the better :p

leave it to me to find another bittorrent site to download stuff from ^_^

http://www.demonoid.com

seems alright ahh.. not as nice as suprnova, but decent enough I think. You have to register and get an account though, but thats no biggie.

christmas holidayyys.... oh yeahhhh. half day tomorrow!! woop woop!! no idea what I'm going to do though. Prob go down city or something.

oh kw! gimme the bittorent site. leave it as a comment ^_^ i still listen to jrock/jpop mahh..sort of. just damn malas to dload. the last few times that I dloaded music was either trance, house or jazz stuff. either that or anime music :)

i don't know what to blog about. work has been absolutely boring. mainly cuz theres nothing much for me to do. i'll get in to work...be busy for 1-2 hours and then spend the rest of the day swatting flies. well... its sorta useful. I get to look for jobs online (when I'm supposed to be doing work) and check out car & scooter ads.

oooo! and I feel like buying a scooter now! hehehe. especially since I'll be moving in with Jeremy. Loads more convenient. But they'r so bloody expensive. Can get a bloody 250cc road bike for the same price liao. Hmmmm.. how how??

what else can I say? I wanna know who else reads my blog!! 'fess up!! leave a comment or something laaa. i'm really curious weiii. if u'r someone I don't know, leave a tag! if u'r a chun chick, leave your number! or if u'r someone i know...errr donate me some money? :p

hmmm... blogs really do take up a lot of time. I've just spent the past hour resizing photos and reorganizing those i've uploaded. and then after that have to update the links in the post so that they actually appear. aihs. I think I should set up my own server and blogsite. Can customize to whatever I want... and make it hell easier to upload pics and stuff. Make use of my computing knowledge :p

just a few random stuff in this post. Firstly. Part 2 of my office pics! Scanning
from left to right while standing at main gate (well..sorta)

The car lot for the factory workers...

The factory & 2 offshore crane platforms...

The rest of the factory...

The office...

And a Supra!

Thats it for now... next will be pictures of the office itself! heheh... but i've been lazy to snap shots there :p

Ermmm... nothing much went on this weekend. I had my RCG on Saturday, so thats 6 hours blown. Had dinner with Thos... pizza n pasta la.. simple stuff. not that nice too...so didn't bother with pictures :p Crashed at his place after that and we bought dessert from Coles! Vienneta and....

Checkered ice cream cake!!

I think ppl are supposed to cut it into pieces...and keep some for later. But we just ate the whole thing :p At least we didn't finish the Vienneta too...

And today... all you can eat yumcha in the afternoon! And a rather boring rest of the day. How bored ?

'Jenga with coins' bored :p

A little lazy to write a decent post, but here's a good quote

"There are three kinds of people in the world: dicks, pussies, and assholes. Pussies don’t like dicks because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes. Assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is they fuck too much or fuck when it isn’t appropriate. And it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves, because pussies are a inch and half away from assholes. I don’t know much about this crazy crazy world, but I do know this. If you don’t let us fuck this asshole we’re going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit."

- Team America -

i'm still playing NFS :p but taking a break to blog right now ^_^ jez quick updates. I did my bar course yesterday. didn't really learn much i guess. I kinda know most of the stuff already. especially those relating to the alcohol itself (is that good or bad?? :p) Its sorta like a crash course in bartending... teach you the basics, introduce some of the equipment and thats about it. i guess its good enough though

after that... went house viewing with Jeremy & Andy. In case I haven't mentioned... we'r gonna become housemates! A little conflict initially...cuz both of them wanted the master bedroom. Andy wanted his own bathroom...and Thos wanted the extra space for his stuff. Anyhow...the issue was resolved and Andy conceded the room to Thos and his junk. The whole house is really gonna be filled with Tho's junk. I really didn't realise just how much crap he has until we started thinking about moving. Gonna have a wonderful time packing up n moving

Enough bout that for now... I just wanna post some pics and play more NFS :p We went to a great Thai place for dinner. Andy's introed.

Where's the food!!? I'm not happy!

Ma haii!! Patience abit laaa!

La lee la...

1st dish! Red duck curry

No. 2, beef salad!

and lastly...sweet & sour snapper!

Oh wait...Thos decided to be greedy and had a sticky rice with Thai Custard!

Verdict?? DAMN BLOODY GOOD!!! Definitely going there again la... the curry was awesome. Especially since it had fatty duck skin (right up there with siu yuk!) and lychee (i love lychee too!). I don't remember how to speel the name of the restaurant. Doy Tao? Doy Tai ? Something like that la basically. And the whole meal was just $15 each! $20 for Thos laa...since me & Andy didn't greed on dessert.

2 pieces of news.

I watched Team America at the cinema. Very stupid... but hilarious in some bits. Probably not worth the movie ticket

I'm now addicted to Need for Speed Underground 2, so thats it for tonights blogging :p

work today was boring as usual. it was raining off and on the whole day. and its not pussy rain too. it pours like mad for about 5 minutes...stops... and then starts all over again. there was even hail! so exciting! hehehe. the ppl at work were kinda stressed out cuz of their cars. its all out in the open. At least thats one good thing about me not having a car :p

i'm doing my RSA tomorrow! and my bartending course the next day. so fun! looking forward to the course ^_^ well... not the RSA la... thats gonna be like a L-plate driving lecture. But have to do it...stupid NSW regulations.

hope it goes well!

Saturday recap. I mucked around at home for most of the day... and met up with Andy in the city around mid afternoon. He was a little late... so I just sat outside Starbucks and took some pictures :)

am I bored, or what?

vroom vroom!!

Anyway... couldn't mooch any free coffee cuz Tho's housemate already left work. Seriously... being out in the city really is pretty expensive. I just had some nuggets from McDs... and a mocha from SB, and thats already $10 down the hatch. Could have gotten a whole chunk of siu yuk with that :) Enough to last for 3-4 meals. Hehehehe. I should stop measuring food expenses in terms of siu yuk :p

Hung around at SB till about 6.30ish then its off to the highlight of my week. Sushi Tengoku!!! Best unagi I've tasted in Aussie so far!! And probably KL too... Tengoku was only me & Thos. Andy had to meet up with some Chinaboy for dinner. His dad's friends son, so Andy has to play nice ^_^

Enough talk. Pictures pictures!!

This dish was free! Courtesy of the chef for Thos :) I can't remember it's name, some kind of white fish. But its good!

Sashimi!!! Supposed to be sushi... but Thos ordered wrongly. Fool! Also bloody delicious!

Salmon fry! It's salmon and its oily. 'nuff said ^_^

Chicken teriyaki. Kinda normal...but still tastes good

And the ultimate!!!! UNAGIIIIII... totally orgasmic

The bill totalled $60... we tipped $10, so the meal was $35 each. Pretty ex i suppose, but its a great meal! Aih...now I feel like going again nex week :p K k... must stop staring at the picture of the unagi... starting to get hungry again, and I just had finished dinner 10 minutes ago

Since i'm gonna resign from Favco on the 12th Jan ... I figured I'd take a couple of pictures for souveneirs. First up... my trip to Favco every morning

I catch the 7.02am train to Liverpool. Well... at least I try to :p I'm usually 1/2 - 1 hour late. Soemtimes cuz the trains get fucked... but its usually cuz i'm watching anime or eating in the morning ^_^

After a 40 minute train ride, I arrive at Liverpool Station. I stare at my bus stop sign (nice number!) until the bus arrives 20 minutes later. The bus comes at 30-45 minute intervals, so its a pain in the butt.

Bus comes. 15 minute drive and drops me off at this road. Looks like a normal area with lots of traffic n stuff... but

Its mostly farmland all around :p Usually theres some cows & horses about. But don't know where they are. I did arrive at work at about 10am though :p

I walk down the road in the previous pic for about 7 minutes and reach the intersecting road. Still don't see where I work huh? I gotta walk up here for another 10 minutes till I reach the office. Past the horizon o_O You can actually see a small crane sticking out, but the pic is too small.

After that... I forgot to take pictures of the office & factory :p I was kinda late...so didn't really wanna waste anymore time ^_^ And then it rained in the afternoon...so couldn't take pics then too. Oh well... I'll be there for another 2-3 weeks. No worries

okay. I just finished watching Casshern and its a really dumb movie. Granted that I like the effects, CG and anime-styled fighting but a lot of things are left unexplained and even the ones the did explain didn't tie together. I'm not the kind of person who analyses every petty detail of a movie...but sometimes 2 much is 2 much.

Adding to that, you got these jokers on the net putting up reviews that says "It's great!!" "Superb!!" "Watched it twenty times!!" blah blah blah.... shows how shallow some people can be. But then again... I continued watching the movie because I liked the effects and the actress was pretty :) Enough bitching about it la... I guess I'm still feeling a little irritable now. Don't know why.

Just a little more about the movie though. If you haven't clicked on the link and checked it out, its one of those movies fully done in CG (e.g. Sky Captain & something something). Theres actually a few of them out now. One of them is a french flick, Immortel (Ad Vitem) and another one is Sin City (2005). Theres another japanese anime inspired movie that I wouldn't mind watching even if its crappy (hot chick! hehehe) called Devilman.

Fun fun fun!! Oh. I've put in my resignation for the 12th January 2005. Wish me luck in finding a job by then!

went down city to have dinner with Andy today. i usually don't go down on weekdays, but he really wanted to go over a business idea with me. he was just 'enlightened' by Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad bok and got really psyched by an idea that he thought of. All a result of his computer breaking down and having nothing else to do at home (sounds kinda like me...)

But neway, we had a pub dinner at Scruffy Murphy's, chatted and discussed his idea. Gave him some tips...and we'll just see how it goes from now on la.

Neway... I have a feeling that Sydney trains are really filthy. I seem to be getting a rash every now and then from riding the trains. my hand is all reddish and slightly swollen now. It had those "mosquit bite"-like lumps all over as well. yuckk!! glad its gone... shoulda taken a picture though. show the doctor the next time I visit. I think i should an allergy test.... just in case i developed new allergies to some foods.

i've really got to stop watching movies while having my breakfast in the morning. can't bear to leave home for work once I start. Turned up to work at about 11 cuz of that :p I wasn't watching anime for once too. heheh. Downloaded a korean flick called 'My tutor friend'. Not too bad la. Quite entertaining. The girl wasn't exactly pretty...but cute in her own way.

Thats all for this post. Got stuff that I need to do... namely.....job search!! Such a pain. Ugh! Its kinda depressing to know that my value as an IT graduate reduces with each passing day in my current occupation. Well...being a bartender would be worse. but at least i'll be earning more AND having fun with alcohol :)

I've been cooking pretty decent food lately. well... so far its been omelettes, steaks and chicken fillets. I even cooked veggies for myself! Not a bad change for someone whos been subsisting on meat, spam and noodles for the past year.

I do have the tendency to make my food unhealthy though... I got all the herbs and seasoning for making a nice steak, but in the end couldn't help it but put cheese as a topping ^_^ steak and cheese!!! yummmyyyy. I even cooked my veggies with cheese just now :p I didn't put a lot laaa... just a few handfuls :)

Newayyyy... i'm sorta looking forward to the mornings now. Cuz I get to cook myself a nice omelette. I shall make a mushroom & cheese omelette tomorrow! Ooooooo...can't wait! heheheh

You'd probably notice i got nothing significant to blog about :p Oh... quick question. What's the first thing that crosses your mind when you see:

http://www.tradersexpo.com.au/

porn site right?? Righhhht??? Don't deny it. I know thats what you first thought of!! No need to act innocent! Hehehe.

U'r wrong though... It's actually the website for a trader (sharemarket...not sex :p) exhibition that the Australian Stock Exchange held... nice choice for a URL, don'cha think? ^_^

Me n Thos decided to go jungle trekking yesterday! Went up north to a pretty isolated area called Hornsby Heights. Pretty good weather... so its a nice trek. Pictures!!

Plenty of trees...

rocks...

and crocs! :)

heheheh... enough of that la. We actually just went over to Fatty's place. His is 2nd last day in Sydney. Moving up to Bundaberg next Monday liao. Spose to be here for another 2 weeks at least...but schedule pushed forward. So as of Monday... Nicholas will be living in the land of Bundaberg rum, with nothing to do but frolic and prance around the sugar plantations, drink rum.... and ermmm.... did I mention the sugar plantations? :)

The pics I put up earlier were actually part of Fatty's backyard... huge ass compound. Filled with various flora & fauna, poisonous insects, snakes and assorted creepy crawlies. Oh....and probably lots of bird droppings and dog poo as well. His mom keeps heck a lot of birds... and they have a swarm of german shepards as well. Good thing those pets got shipped off to Bundy already ^_^

me & Fatty

We had an early dinner somewhere in Hornsby. Nice grill place called Blu. The food was pretty decent... as per Tho's expression

I had Grilled Octopus...entree size ^_^

I like fountains!!

Fatty was there as well... but his pics didn't turn out, so didn't bother posting them. We had gelati after that as well... so theres my diet going out the window :p I crashed at Tho's place later that night. Hogging his PS2 :) We ordered a large pizza for supper as well...so errr... thats it for my dieting laa.

uneventful day. was spose to have dinner with thos & andy... but i got lazy when i reached home. it looked like it was gonna rain really heavily too... strong winds n stuff. but turns out nothing happen. sheeesh. so instead of dinner in the city, i had a chunk of .....

siu yuk!!!!!! $4.20 worth :)

and i was spose to be dieting too! I had healthy meals the whole day until dinnner :p I made omelette for brekkie... then had yoghurt for mid morning snack. a tin of tuna for lunch, and then another cup of yoghurt mid afternoon. quite healthy hor?? :) but i was pretty hungry by the time i clocked off... so i guess a tin of tuna ain't enuf for lunch

i did get some free stuff at work today!! working in purchasing has its perks :)

I got a bottle of wine. A diary. 2 cups (the nescafe one is really big! can't really tell from the photo), and a stubbie holder. Not bad :)

Ok... apart from that. Nothing much else to blog. My boss did show me some pretty funny beer commercials. I poked around on the net and found a direct link.

Why men do ballet: http://www.thedierks.com/allowe/video/Isenbeck,BalletClass.wmv

Voodoo beer: http://www.thedierks.com/allowe/video/Brahma,PowerOfBeer.wmv

I got the links off http://www.allowe.com/Humor/video.htm . Theres a whole bunch of them there...so have a look if u'r free. and have broadband. Theres another Isenbeck beer thats pretty funny...but kinda disturbing ;p I lost the link...but try googling "Isenbeck commercial soap". Should turn up something ^_^

I'm back in Sydney!!!! i'm back in sydney?? NNOOoooooOOooooo.... Kla. It ain't that bad. But I could have stayed in Singapore for 1 extra day. My flight was actually this morning, not yesterday like I was informed. Should have checked my ticket... instead of relying on what I was told. Ah well. I would have been pretty bored during the day anyway, so I guess its not such a big loss.

The highlight of my trip was being able to meet up with Jacq. Totally didn't expect I would be seeing her until maybe 2006 or something. So that was really nice. And she took a MC for the day too, not because I was down in Singapore....but cuz she had a medical checkup that day. Oh well... at least I could still spend half the afternoon and night with her. If only I was 2 weeks earlier huh?? ;) Might have been a more exciting trip :)

I didn't really get up to much else. Slept till late morning cuz I arrived at the hotel close to 4am. Jacq needed to have lunch with her new bf so I mucked around until about 3 in the afternoon by myself. oh!! I watched Incredibles!!! First ever movie that I watched by myself :p Not as depressing as I figured it to be (watching a movie alone...not Incredibles :p) But I suppose its more acceptable since I don't exactly know ppl in Singapore. Plus I really wanted to watch it and gawd knows when it will be out here in Aussie. And its cheap too!! $6.50 singaporean compared to AU$15.30 for a movie.

Ok... just some photos for now. I originally wanted to do a backtrack post like what Fatts does... but I can't be bothered at the mo'. I just woke up and I'm hungry. Oh! And in case you haven't noticed, I'm ditching work today :)

I stayed in Strand Hotel@Bencoolen Street. Don't stay here.

Hotel 81 next door is cheaper AND better ermm... equipped?

They are both budget hotels, but at least 81 provides free tea/coffee/cup noodles ^_^

Me, Jacq & her puny chihuahua

Jacq & her not so puny German Shephards. Disgustingly friendly.

Totally hopeless as guard dogs

Jacq's huge huge Singaporean mansion ^_^

Kla... thats overkill, but I reckon its VERY big for a Singaporean home.

Actually...its big even for a Malaysian home. Rich brat!! :p

Hainanese chicken rice for dinner!!! Yummmy!!

@ Changi airpot. I'm a sucker for water features :)