My Birthday

Today is my Birthday... :)

I actually have no idea how I managed to get home last night. But I did wake up this morning in my own bed. And with no hangover. I guess I am one step closer to proving my theory, that the more you drink, the less effect alcohol will have on your body.

I feel so old. I am already dreading my next birthday. And my current one hasn't even passed yet.

We dropped by the Burswood Casino last night to meet up with a couple of friends before going to Dino's to celebrate. And I got my ID checked.

Yay !!

I have never been so happy getting my ID checked before. haha !!

I even thanked the security guard.

So ... I guess its still all good.. :)

Christmas Shopping

Last night was my last chance to go Christmas shopping. So no matter how bad my second hangover in two days (from the previous night) felt, I dragged myself out of the house to pay the city a visit.

Perth has changed heaps. I fly back about every 8 months or so, but I hardly ever get to see the city during daylight times - I usually come home at daylight. There were so many new shops and buildings. I was very amazed. It no longer felt like I was walking around in my home city. I was starting to feel like a tourist.

I had only two things on my mind when I hit the city. Christmas shopping and food. The octopus mayo Tamaki hand roll from Jaws did not disappoint me. It tasted as yummy as I last remembered it to be. But I was a bit let down when I noticed my favorite Hot Dog stand outside Myers was no longer anywhere to be seen.

My Christmas shopping expedition lasted about two hours or so. I'm one of those people who would just buy something if I like it. After two hours I had pressies for nearly everyone. Although I think I got more things for myself in the end.

Pete's Christmas present was probably the hardest one to find. Only had I then realised, I was only positive he was either a Medium or a Large in shirts and was either a size 32 - 34 for pants. Naturally, I had to call and wake him up to confirm the sizes. I had first seen this shirt I really liked for Pete, but they only had it in Large and Small sizes - He confirmed he was a Medium.

After about another 30 mins of non-productive shopping, I went back to buy the shirt.

It's not as if I couldn't be bothered to continue hunting around... but I honestly could not find anything else I liked.

Anyway, if it was really too big.. we could always take it back.. :)

1st night back..

Yay !! I'm back in Perth ! hahaha... :)

After so many years away, (working interstate), it is so nice to be back home !

The flight was horrible though. I was squashed in a window seat with two rather large guys, who I have no idea how they managed to get into their seats. Needless to say, I didn't even bother to try to make a trip to the toilets. Both of them were fast asleep (and snoring) as soon as they finished the food served.

Must remember to never get a window seat again...

The funniest thing occured in the airport though, I was approached by some lady who gave me her name card and asked me to give her a call the next day, as they were looking for new faces. I got a good laugh out of it though, I asked her how old did she think I was, she said 19-20, I told her I was 25 (*ahem... yes.. I know 26 very soon.. but still 25 now !). She said I had really nice complexion ... *sigh.. I know.. Its probably just another scam. But it still feels nice when another female tells you, you have a nice complexion.

The first night back did not disappoint me. I was playing fifteen-twenty and dice games until there was no more alcohol left in the esky.

Now I have a splitting headache. I really must be getting old. I never used to get hangovers before.

Must be the jet lag......

Were is the Panadol when I need it ?!!?

Home Time !

Ok.. my flight is in an hour.... :)

It's a domestic flight.. so 30 mins before the gate closes should be good enough.

I realised that if you go too early, you would just be stuck in the neverending line. But if you are running a bit late then you should be able to just go to the express counter tell them your flight is leaving in 30 mins and just check in.

Everything is packed.. (I hope). Not that I really need anything. 1/2 of my life belongings are still in Perth. I should be able to just pack my undies and laptop and just fly home.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Xmas and have a safe and Happy New Year !

Ok ... Must really get to airport now............. bye !

Barbie Torture

"The girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity and see the torture as a cool activity, in contrast to other forms of play with the doll," said Agnes Nairn, author of the report....The types of mutilation are varied and creative and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving."

Ah ha ! I am not alone !! hahaha.. !!

As a kid, I hated playing with Barbie. I didn't know why, but I just hated her. And it wasn't just because she had the perfect boobs and body. (I was too young to know about boobies then). I just simply didn't like playing with Barbie.

I was only ever given one Barbie doll when I was a child (a Christmas present from one of my aunties). To my mother's amazement, I had somehow managed to pull her legs off from her body and decapitated her head.

Needless to say, I never did receive another Barbie doll after that one.

"The types of mutilation are varied and creative and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving."

Gosh... microwaving.. I wonder what happens when you microwave Barbie..... ?!

Lessons

A lesson to all....

1. Do not lose your boyfriend's house key

2. Do not lose your boyfriend's new house key

3. Do not lose your boyfriend's new house key on the day of the move

We had only just came out of the real estate agent's place an hour ago and already I had lost his keys. The envelope the keys were in was not sealed - so its not entirely my fault.

Luckily, for us, the agent did give us another set of keys.

Yesterday temperatures hit 33oC and on a hot summer day like this one, the last thing you would want to be doing, would to be moving homes. The new place was on the top floor of a 3 level apartment. Pete had failed to mention to the removalists one very important detail - there were no lifts in the apartment.

So to stop them grumbling, I told Pete maybe we should help out with the moving. We actually ended up doing most of the moving from the bottom of the apartment to the unit. Only the beds were left to the removalists.

Three flights of stairs.

I gave up after the first hour and just sat down opening boxes.

It didn't help that the apartment he rented was a split level apartment - another flight of stairs.

Total of four flights of stairs. 33oC heat. No keys.

Needless to say, he wasn't exactly in the happiest of moods.

Gamers

This article I read kind of made me reflect on a few things.

One thing in particular would the thing I used to do the most, and the one thing that I am seriously missing at the moment - Online Gaming.

In most relationships the guy is the full time gamer and the girlfriend suffers (or is usually pissed off) because not enough time is spent together in the relationship.

But in my relationship - I am the gamer.

Although, I have to admit, I have cut down on alot, in terms of the time in hours I spend playing games. I no longer play two online games. I just play World of Warcraft (WoW).

I decided to give up on LineageII and gave my account to my friend's girlfriend (whom he somehow managed to convince to play). No idea how he did it, but boy would I like to be his girlfriend for one day - on second thoughts .. maybe not.

Out of a possible of 75 levels in a player's character life, my mystic priest character had reached level 70. Which made it kind of difficult to let go - it was actually becoming like my 'mini me'.

LineageII is rather a full time game. I had my own group of gaming friends (who happen to be my friends in real life) and a group of online friends (who now exist on my msn list). I also was pretty high up in my own Guild which one of my close friends started. To this day, I believe he is still stuck on LineageII, I'm not sure because I haven't seen him for about 6 months now.

But it was still extremely hard to give up.

Before I stopped playing, I would spend atleast 4 hrs after I got home from work playing LineageII. I also managed to stop going to nightclubs and drinking sessions and stay at home to play LineageII instead. Which all turned out quite well for my wallet and liver. But I was slowly becoming a gaming freak. It was only when my close friends started not to ask me out for dinner parties and other outings (because I was fast becoming a habitual no-show) that I realised I had a problem. I was addicted to my online game.

And now that I am in a full time relationship, gaming has become a bit of a luxury. I only get to play on the weekends and sometimes not even then. If I'm lucky, then I'll be able to sneak a couple of hours in after I get home from work.

This morning I woke up at 6am. Somehow my body clock thought it was 7am. With just a moment of hesitance (thinking... should I go back to sleep?!) I sat up, grab my mouse and keyboard and logged onto Warcraft.

Only to realise all the realms were offline due to server maintenance ..... dammit !

GGrrr.... and No... I didn't manage to go back to sleep. :(

Australian

I've been sick for the past two days (the heat in the apartment finally got the better of me), as I turned on the T.V. for some news updates, I saw the most disgraceful images ever.

About 5000 people had gathered around The Shire (Cronulla) and were bashing anyone up who were of Middle Eastern appearance. Not only did they attack anyone of a Middle Eastern appearance, they also pelted Police and Ambulance officers with bottles. Many were draped in the Australian flag and chanting Waltzing Matilda - as taunts to drive the "Lebanese" people out. It was a sad case of what Alcohol can do to fuel hatred.

But this only made me feel so much more sicker.

It had just been about the most Un-Australian thing I have just about ever seen.

The media are racist themselves. Labelling the 5000 crowd "Australians who were attacking anyone Middle Eastern men". That is just so wrong. The 5000 crowd were not "Australians" they were 'White Anglo-Saxon Australians' attacking any 'Middle Eastern Appearance Australians'. I so hate to have to be politically correct - but in this case its justified.

This was the day Australians attacked Australians.

I am born in Australia, I consider myself every bit Australian. My parents are from Hong Kong - a place which for me, is just a holiday destination.

This is my home.

I probably get most annoyed when someone comes to ask me 'So where are you from?' ... my usual reply :

"I'm Australian... but if you are referring to my Ethnic Asian background, my parents were originally from Hong Kong."

Australia is a multicultural country. We pride ourselves from being different. Do not forget that every white Anglo-Saxon Australian is a descendent of an immigrant also.

I am, You are, We are Australians.

Symptoms

Question for the girls:

• Have you every wondered why you needlessly, viciously lash out at loved ones, friends or co-workers ?
• Do you blow minor events into monumental proportions ?
• Do you shut out the world and dwell on past hurts ?
• Do your jeans mysteriously shrink two sizes once a month ?

If you answer 'Yes' to all of the above .... (and you are female) .. then you might be suffering from PMS or PMDD. If you're female and reading this .. you would probably be thinking .."yeah .. I know it already". Guys... pay attention to the above symptoms and the info below.

So here are some facts for the guys:

Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) refers to the variation of physical and mood symptoms that appear during the last one or two weeks of the menstrual cycle and disappear by the end of a full flow of menses.

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) is the term used to describe a specific set of mood symptoms that are also present the week before menses and remit a few days after the start of menses and also interfere with social or role functioning.

How common is PMS?

Up to 80% of women have cyclic symptoms associated with their menses but only about 3-5% have symptoms so severe that it interferes with work, school, usual activities or relationships. The average onset is 26 years of age with symptoms often becoming worse over time. Other mental health problems and diagnoses are often associated with PMS and PMDD, especially major and minor depression.

Its a common condition. We all know it exists. It only lasts for a week or more. So just put up with it. Do not even attempt to try to pick a fight with us during this time. It can only turn ugly.

And when I have trouble putting on my jeans (which still fitted perfectly 2 days ago) .. "uh oh, someone has to go to the gym".. is definitely not the answer I want to hear.

So just remember that it's not entirely my fault that I nag at you when you make a stupid mistake. You know what time of the month it is. Don't do anything stupid to piss me off. Be thoughtful and sensitive. Otherwise, just make yourself scarce.

And 'No' you do not know what it feels like. So don't even try to sound like an expert. If you really wanted to know, I might be obliged to take a knife and stick it up your butt and make it bleed for 7 days. And until I do that, only then would you be coming close to understanding.

Just remember that you promised me immunity during this period of time.

Important Facts

Some important facts :

• If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it...I probably should stop yelling at him now).
• If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (omg... Gotta tell pete this... doubt it would stop anything though).
• The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. (O.M.F.G. !!)
• A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (In my next life - if I'm male, I want to be a pig too).
• A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy....but I'm still not over the pig).
• Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Do not try this at home...... maybe at work).
• The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. ("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!" ... humm.. pig or praying mantis ? ... Pig).
• The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes... lucky pig... can you imagine ??).
• The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty at the bottom of the pond ?).
• Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity).
• Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know).
• The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Hmmmmmm........).
• Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference ?)
• Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (OK, so that would be a good thing....)
• A cat's urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out ?)
• An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that).
• Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that too).
• Polar bears are left-handed. (If they switch, they'll live a lot longer).
• Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (huh ? What about that pig ?!?)

Selfish

To my absolute horror, I woke up this morning to find my beautiful pearlscale goldfishes all bashed and tattered. Their pearls were all missing. Their fins were torn and their bodies bruised. And if they were having trouble swimming before because of their 'round' body shape, they were having more trouble now. I was half minded to just put them out of their misery.

But not until I find the culprit.

Overnight my boyfriend's male Golden Severum was chasing the females around the tank, and so the females were getting pretty stressed out. Therefore, he thought it would be best to move his female severums to my little goldfish tank. The severums although still young are atleast 12 cm long. What idiot would put two mildly agressive fish into a small tank with three little pearlscale goldfishes ?! I would think only an idiot who is selfish enough to think only of the well-being of his own fish and not anyone elses.

There is no way a pearlscale can out-swim a golden severum.

Not only did he do this. But he did it behind my back. I definitely would of objected if he asked me before putting his fish in. (most probably why he didn't bother asking).

It wasn't until I woke up in the morning that he said to me... "Dear, I put Goldie into your tank... But...". I promptly shot out of bed and ran outside to my fish tank. And watched in dismay at the damage inflicted on my pearlscales.

If you wanted to separate your fish... THEN PUT THE DAMN THING IN A BUCKET !!!

I was so ANGRY....

I wanted to put a skewer through his golden severums and string them up and see how they like it.

But I couldn't. How can you blame a fish ?! Especially when their owner is an idiotic selfish bastard...

Its a Girl !

Mrs Ang (one of my close friends in Sydney) is proud to announce the arrival of their 8.4 lb baby daughter !!!

Yeah !!! got baby for me to play tonight.. muahahaa... :P

8.4 lb... I really want to see how big that is. Especially since I was over 10 lb when I was born. Yes, I was over 10 pounds. I had the proud status of being the biggest little baby girl in that hospital during that period of time.

Can't wait till I get to see the baby.... :)

Caffeine The Way To Go

"COFFEE and tea may reduce the risk of serious liver damage in people who drink alcohol too much, are overweight, or have too much iron in the blood, researchers reported today..."

It's Official ! A study of nearly 10,000 people has showed that those who drank more than two cups of coffee or tea per day developed chronic liver disease at half the rate to those who drank less than one cup each day.

On average now, I drink atleast 3 cups of coffee a day. I don't actually think I can survive on less than 2 a day. I would just fall asleep on my keyboard - or worse, fall asleep and freeze to death in the Data Center ! It's 6.30pm now and I've already had 3 today.

So if this is true, does it mean that if I continue my coffee addiction, I can drink (alcohol) as much as I like still ?!

Or am I just dreaming ?

You Were The One

You were the one who asked me to give you just one chance
You were the one who had me at first glance
You were the one who called me every night to say sweet dreams
You were the one who taught me how to make love

You were the one who made me cry
You were the one that made me say goodbye
You were the one who gave me your ring
You were the one who I considered as my soul mate
You were the one who taught me not to hate

You were the one that said you will always love me beyond any doubt
You were the one I thought I could not live without
You were the one who could always figure me out
You were the one who taught me about red wine and champagne
You were the one I said I will never see again

You were the one I wanted to grow old with
You were the one who made it seem like it was all a myth
You were the one who I could not face without a tear
Now you are the one who asked me to attend your wedding next year.

Last Prayer

(Gerberas placed on the steps of Martin Place, Sydney today).

The Lord is my Shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death;
I will fear no evil; For thou art with me.

- The 23rd Psalm -

Minute of Silence

No one is forced to take drugs. Everyone has a choice. No one puts a gun to your head and forces you to take drugs. So when Singapore says that Van must die because he could have killed a lot of people with the amount of Heroin he was carrying into Australia, Van is not the one who is standing next to them forcing them to take it. He commited no murder, He is simply another carrier. And although I agree on what he did is wrong. I definitely do not think he deserves Death.

Sadly, when there is a demand there is a supply. Even with Van caught 3 years ago and put on death row - did this do anything to deter the Bali 9 ? Van's Death Sentence did nothing to discourage them.

For all the 25% of Australians who voted to have Van executed - you all better hope that none of your friends and family members makes the same stupid mistake as Van did. Or even get caught with a mere 15g of Heroin - because the Death Penalty for Drug trafficking in Singapore is Mandatory.

Van has shown remorse from the beginning, he has helped with Officials, he regrets what he has done. But still the Death sentence stands. At 25 years of age, this is just a total waste of life. Does anyone actually think he would do this again if let out of prison ?!

The death penalty is barbaric. You cannot rehabilitate someone who is dead. What happened to 6th commandment - Thou Shall Not Kill ? We are human beings - This is no different to Murder.

His poor mother, now finally allowed to hold his hands on the final day, is still unable to even give him the final embrace to hug and feel the warmth of her son for the last time.

She has been sentenced to eternal grief.

My heart goes out to Van, his mother, brother, family and friends.

At 9am today, I will observe my minute of silence and pray for you.

Bandwidth War

Yeah !!! It's the 1st of the month ! ...... YES ! Finally ! No more 56k modem speed !!

My Internet connection at home had been slowed to 56k for the past 10 days now.

10 agonising days. No Warcraft for 10 days already...

A couple of days ago, I deliberately stayed back to checked up on what my housemates were downloading on to their PCs that managed to hog up all the bandwidth allocation by mid-month.

I found out that one had BitTorrent running, downloading all the current episodes of this Taiwanese talk show.

The other had LimeWire, and was downloading what looked like Japanese porno clips.

All of this downloading was still happening when our Internet had been capped to 56k.

What should I say to make them a bit more considerate of the other person in the household that uses and pays for the Internet connection ?

Better still, how do you approach someone and tell them to stop downloading porno ?!

In my last job, as a Systems Administrator, I found out that this guy in Finance was downloading porn, but I wasn't sure how to deal with it. It took a lot of determination to not go and report it to his manager or my manager, as I knew he would definitely lose his job. In the end, I went and had a short chat to him and mention the name of the website that showed up on my ISA logs and he knew he was caught. I told him, if it never turned up in my logs again, I wouldn't do anything about it. Sure enough, the downloading stopped and he apologised to me for his actions and the whole affair was never mentioned again.

But this is a entirely different matter. It is happening in my own home, not my workplace. I don't have jurisdiction over him. And there is no 'manager' there to fire his butt.

This whole bandwidth issue is really starting to piss me off. Short of actually going to both of my housemates' rooms and disconnecting their cables, is there anything else I can do ?

Is there any tools out there that I can download to limit the amount of bandwidth a program is sucking ?!

Anyone know some discreet ones.. Or something I can put on their PCs that they wont notice ?

Any ideas ?!