Singapore Expat

Pilgrims are everywhere

2008-07-18T11:44:00.006+10:00

Pilgrims are everywhere!

For the past 2 weeks while walking through the city streets, my path is confronted by swarms of foreign speaking youth, proudly waving their country’s flags, singing, dancing and cheering through the streets.

Isn’t it a little too early just yet for the world cup? Since when does Melbourne even hold international soccer events let alone have frenzied young fans going berserk through the streets?

As you can see, I am not one for keeping up with current affairs and what’s going on in the immediate world at hand. I have enough activities and things going on in my daily life to create my own reality of the world I view myself in.

It wasn’t until I tuned on the news that it clicked, these kids were here for World Youth Day 2008 and the big papal honcho of the Christian world is here in person to bless the masses in person, through TV and believe it or not, through SMS for the more tech savvy amongst us plebs.

Quoted from 'The Age':

On Friday morning, the gaggles of tech savvy pilgrims were excited to receive the latest SMS from Pope Benedict XVI.
The pontiff has sent daily messages to World Youth Day pilgrims all this week, complete with modern abbreviations - referring to himself as "BXVI".
Friday morning's message read: "The spirit impels us 4ward 2wards others; the fire of his love makes us missionaries of Gods charity. See u tomorrow nite - BXVI."

I bet even the holy spirit couldn’t have that far a reach back in Babylonian days.

As I went came back from lunch yesterday, I was confounded by the sight of a group of teens surrounding a street light. Posters depicting Christian themes were pasted up on the pole and everyone was merrily holding hands, dancing and clapping around the pole with such fervour that it would put the Mormons to shame.

Meanwhile, up the street, a group of Hari Krishnas are making their daily noon walk through the centre of the city, beating their drums and singing about (God) Krishna. The paths of these 2 groups would inevitably cross and I secretly prayed for an ensuing fist fight between the 2 groups.

I’ve got my bets on the Hari Krishnas, they look like they’ll fight dirty.

The Witching Hour

2008-07-18T01:45:00.010+10:00

'2.37am'

reads the little blue screen as I squinted with one eye and brought my phone a little close to my face in the cold darkness of my room.

Fuck. I can't sleep.

Its been 5 nights in a row now that I've been awoken by my overactive mind racing with too many thoughts.
Like clockwork, I'll awaken somewhere around the 3am mark. The witching hour.

Work has started for me on Tuesday. New role, new project, new industry. This looks promising, it'll be a role that will benefit me. More on that later as things becomes more apparent. I'm somewhat relieved that at least there's one less aspect of my life to worry about as mentioned in a previous post.

No.
I know exactly what's keeping me awake tonight.

Miss Sam is making the permanent move from Sydney to Melbourne this weekend. I'm flying up on Saturday night and we'll be making the arduous 800km+ drive to Melbourne in her tiny white Daihatsu Charade.

The plan was in the works for the future and this was supposed to take a long time to fruition over a few more months. However, she was made redundant in her job a month ago and this threw a spanner in the works and accelerated the whole process before you can even say 'I can't breathe'!

Nothing will change. Or will it?

What happens when you take the 'distance' out of a 'long distance romance'? The yearning, longing and simmering lust that builds up to a frenzied climax in between visits; melt away into a lesser degree of normality as both parties exist within each other's life and space on a more frequent everyday basis.

I certainly don't know.

What I do know.... is that the tiny white, slim rectangular tablet of Stilnox I'm popping into my mouth, will blissfully kick-in in 10minutes and effectively knock me out for the count, giving me some desperately needed sleep and quieten down the voices in my head. Before the witching over is over.

Andy,
Zzz

The blue of Sydney

2008-07-08T18:13:00.002+10:00

Having a week's worth of time off owing to me from work, I escaped Melbourne for some R&R up in Sydney, with Miss Sam's lovely company.

I love the sea.

There is something special about the beaches in Sydney.

Driving down lush green hills, you suddenly see the tree line break and a deep blue colour captures your gaze in the distance.

The view clams me as we weave down the road and reach the bottom of the hill to see the vast expanse of ocean fighting to get to the shore.

Islets of rock jut out into the sea, forming a natural cove.

So... what next?

2008-07-08T01:00:00.004+10:00

I hate this feeling of not having any direction. It's been gnawing at the back of my mind even though I know I ought to be relaxed and happy, however, it is in my nature to be happiest when I'm focused or fixated with a goal in mind.

One weekend ago, the 18month project I've been working on in my short career at Accenture came to its official conclusion at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon. The role wasn't something that I wanted in the first place, but I bit the bullet and got the job done nonetheless. I'm glad to get it out of my system.

So what's been bugging me now is the uncertainty of my next role. The make or break deal. If I can't get into another generic role for another year, it just wouldn't help me the slightest. I need something that will give me specialised experience that I could market myself with in the future. So, fingers crossed for now.

And the washing powder goes in here!

2008-06-14T15:56:00.006+10:00

I think one of my house mates has been adding washing machine powder the incorrect way.

Came home slightly drunk last night and put a finished load into the dryer, only to have a whiff of stale sweaty socks waft through the laundry area. I almost dry retched and thought, what the hell? I just took a clean load out! Upon closer inspection, there was a big chunk of laundry powder in the fabric softener dispenser.

This has happened a few times before, so what better way to send the message across than for Andy to draw up an educational clip on our fridge whiteboard.

MUTO

2008-06-02T10:53:00.003+10:00

This takes graffiti and animation to a whole new dimension and level.

This artist- Blu is pure genius !!!

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Acne woes

2008-06-01T13:55:00.007+10:00

I've been sick. Thanks to my flatmates passing their filthy germs around the house the past month, I inevitably caught a whiff of it and had a sore throat / flu hybrid bug that put me down for a week. Poor Miss Sam was staying over the weekend before so she had to endure the better half of it observing me transform into a sick puppy.

Sick week was a productive week though, I took 3 days off work and indulged myself watching all the episodes of Underbelly. For something that was produced locally in Melbourne, it was surprisingly slick and well polished for a Australian TV Series!

Life's been pretty good of late. No more crazy hours at work ever since our project went live. Now I leave work at 6pm or earlier, take a longer lunch break (because I know I deserve it) and have time to fit in all my other essential activities during the week like gym, salsa and cooking dinner for the house.

On Thursday, I paid a visit to a Dermatologist. Last year, due to work stress, I had a bout of adult acne blow up on my chest of all places! It was ugly enough to warrant a visit to my GP to get prescribed a course of antibiotics which over the course of months, eventually cleared up any new instances of acne occurring. However, that initial outbreak has left a few nasty lumpy scars across my chest.

The Dermatologist injected the scars on my chest with an ampule of a corticosteroid to break up the scar tissue.

All I can say is: "Ouch! Motherf**king Ow Ow Ow !!!"

Imagine having a fine needle pushed under the skin of a scar, then a bubble of liquid injected in between the skin and scar tissue.

The dermatologist assured me that this will break up the scar tissue and gave me some Retin-A cream to apply every night until we have a follow up session in 6 weeks.

:o(

Sleepless in Sydney

2008-05-06T21:29:00.011+10:00

Sydney oh Sydney! What a beautiful city with its sprawling concrete skyline interspersed by the deep blue waters of the harbour. I had a wonderful time there over the Anzac day long weekend.

Admittedly, one of the main highlights of my Sydney visit was to see the lovely Miss Sam.
The first time we met, there were instant sparks between us and Miss Sam had visited Melbourne twice more since then.

Could this be the beginnning of something serious?

The Sydney aquarium was a really nice attraction.

The shark display captivated the masses as visitors walked through an underwater tube with these predatory kings of the sea swimming above your head.

I also had the opportunity to catch up with an ex colleague, Vik and his wife over dinner at the Chinta Ria restaurant on Darling Harbour, which just had some of the most authentic south east asian food other than asia itself.

Andy & Miss Sam messing around with our camera outside the QVB building in Sydney's central

The taronga zoo was absolutely amazing. Not so much in terms of the quality of the displays and variety of animals on show, this zoo if nothing else has breathtaking views of the city and the harbour.

Amnesty International - Signatures

2008-05-02T18:21:00.002+10:00

Sorry for the long lapse in between posts;
Andy has been away for a holiday in Sydney for the past week, more of that to come soon.

In the meanwhile, I stumbled upon this ad and its just way cool...

Ready Steady Salsa !

2008-04-26T18:58:00.003+10:00

Its something that everyone should do once in their lifetime.

Last Friday I celebrated the lead up to my 28th birthday by taking part in an amateur salsa competition.

Jasmine, my dance partner and I only got together a few weeks beforehand and jokingly said that we dance so well together that we ought to take part in the beginner's competition at the Copacabana club.

It was great fun, we didn't win anything or get into the final round but we had heaps of fun, considering that we only had a few months of lessons under our collective belts and 2 nights of practice before entering into the competition.

Enough said; here's the video - enjoy!

P.S.
Check out ninja dancer and his anorexic partner.... somebody please feed her a cheeseburger!

Dust ! Anybody? Dust !

2008-04-02T13:44:00.007+11:00

Bloody hell, I just been out in the city for a walk at lunchtime and was hit by gale force winds and clouds of dust particles getting into my eyes and mouth!

Had to come back and go to the bathroom to rinse the gritty bits out of my teeth as it felt like I was crunching on something that definitely didn't come from the curry I had for lunch earlier.

Weather report seems uncannily accurate for once: "Blowing Dust"

Hahahaha!!!!

-------
[Edit: 5.15pm]

I stand corrected, the weather only got worse today...
Headline news about Victoria's killer weather responsible for:

Woman killed by falling wall
200,000 homes, businesses lose power
All metro train lines severely affected

Yikes...

Ready, Steady.... Go-Live !

2008-03-30T15:34:00.004+11:00

Its finally over! The project I've been working so hard on the past year and busting my chops from sacrificing weekends at work and 12hour days during the week has finally come to an exhausting anti-climax this Monday afternoon, during the last day of the Easter holiday long weekend.

The national managers came together for a conference call and came out announcing to everyone that the "go-live" decision was made, meaning that as of Tuesday morning we will be able to start billing Queensland customers. This would no doubt make Origin the 2nd biggest utilities company in Australia's contestable electricity market, since the Queensland electricity market got deregulated.

I need to get my life back to normal again. I woke up late Saturday morning and for a brief moment was confronted with a sudden feeling of unease, as if I had to do something or be somewhere. Force of habit; I thought to myself as I made breakfast and pondered what to do with the rest of my free day. For once, I didn't have to check my emails or run into work.

It was just nice to sit around the house all afternoon, potter around, watch a movie or two, go grocery shopping and then cook a late lunch.

In a random act of spontaneity, I signed up for an amateur salsa dance competition, held in 3 week's time at the Copacabana.
Jasmine, my salsa dance buddy at Thursday's class has agreed to partner up with me and train for the event.

We've booked in Liz, our salsa instructor for a private lesson next Saturday afternoon. So bring it on, oh yeah !

=)

hotter and hotter

2008-03-17T22:44:00.003+11:00

Jesus Christ!

What the hell is wrong with the weather in Melbourne the last few days!???

Thur - Warmish
Fri - Hot
Sat - Pretty hot
Sun - Pretty Fucking Hot
Mon - Still Pretty Fucking Hot

Its 11pm and the mercury reads 34 degrees Celsius, even the plastic on my keyboard feels hot to touch, everything is melting, including my brain.

Walking outside during lunch, my skin feels like its peeling off in the sun and I could see little pet dogs combusting into balls of charred furry flames as owners walked the poor creatures in the searing heat.

Our air conditioning at the Bellagio decided to kill itself.
The unit probably knew a heatwave was about to strike last weekend and thought to itself "Die now you bastards, I shall start spitting out warm air while you sit around sweating in your underpants!"

Ok, end of rant.

I'm going to sit in front of my fan and sweat in my shorts...

:(

Stuff White People Like

2008-02-25T21:23:00.002+11:00

Oh my, this blog seriously had me laughing in stitches, only because it is so true.

In most situations, white people are very comforted by seeing their own kind. However, when they are eating at a new ethnic restaurant or traveling to a foreign nation, nothing spoils their fun more than seeing another white person.

Many white people will look into the window of an ethnic restaurant to see if there are other white people in there. It is determined to be an acceptable restaurant if the white people in there are accompanied by ethnic friends. But if there is a table occupied entirely by white people, it is deemed unacceptable.

Ameriquest

2008-02-23T00:16:00.002+11:00

Youtube fridays!

I'm tired and too lazy to post this evening, but this caught my attention as a couple of very cleverly done ads.

Australia Day Weekend - Redux

2008-02-05T08:24:00.003+11:00

Its rare that I get a quiet moment nowadays to write out my thoughts. Everything at work has been crashing down at once like a wobbly stack of cards built a little too high.
4 weeks before our project goes-live and honestly from my point of view I can see things going pear shaped. However, leadership are pretty good at showing powerpoint presentations to repackage the pear as an apple to the businesses.

Nonetheless, my whinging aside, life has been great of late. I did have an amazing Australia Day long weekend (yes, I know its been that long since I last posted).

My 72hrs of hedonistic pleasure started on Saturday evening where we packed ourselves picnic baskets loaded with food and bubbly, walked down the street to the Fitzroy gardens for a picnic in the park with the night's entertainment provided by 'The Soul Connection' a funk and soul band playing music from the 60s.
It was absolutely brilliant stuff, people old and young were running around barefoot on the grass and dancing in the twilight as the sunlight faded into the city skyline in the backdrop.

Sunday we celebrated Emily's 28th birthday during the afternoon at our apartment. Drinks and a BBQ were the order of the day and it stretched into the night when we all headed down to the Nightcat; a salsa club on Johnston street. A live latin band and couples showing off their slick dance moves on the floor.

A shot with Sam, Emily's cute friend from Sydney

After a rather interesting night out, the next day I went to the Alumbra on docklands. Miguel Migs and Julius Papp (Both whom I had the pleasure of catching in Singapore 2 weeks earlier) were playing, with live vocals by none other than Lisa Shaw!

The club is situated right in the middle of the pier and standing on the dance floor inside, I realised that the dance floor was made of glass and you can see the sea below your feet.

Me and Greg

Sam got persuaded heavily by me to come for the party, as no visit to Melbourne is complete without a party with class...

Enjoying the sunshine in the outdoor area

Marika dropped by late to the party, but in time for the main acts

The music was incredible, the crowd was great, this was one of those unexpected parties where everything was unplanned and you have one of the greatest nights of your life!

Dress Rehearsal 1

2008-01-19T20:27:00.000+11:00

This will be my affirmation of the day: (borrowed from the Hay House Calender)
I am the perfect age right now. I have been younger and I will be older. I will never be this age again, so I make the most of this time and enjoy myself to the fullest.

This may sound cheesy to some, but somehow I find this line a source of great inspiration.
We need to live in the present.

Last night I was out at a singles event with Emily. This event was organized by dating website rsvp.

We had heaps of fun talking to random strangers, making some new friends and getting the odd number here and there.
There's a strange phenomenon I noticed that I like to call social proofing.
If a guy enters a singles bar by himself and stands in a corner nursing his drink in his hand while checking out the women in there, he does get noticed by the women. By the time he drinks enough dutch courage to approach a girl to say hello, they'll be less responsive as the women would have already noticed creepy fella standing by himself checking them out.

On the flip side. I walked into the venue, arm in arm with Emily in tow, we stood at the bar, got a drink and then proceeded to dance a few moves on the empty dancefloor while everyone else in the room looked on. After leaving the floor, I walked up to a bunch of girls and opened the set; launching into a conversation effortlessly because we've already established a few facts:

1) We were the most fun people in the room having a good time
2) Social dynamics will draw others to hang around fun people because they want to have a good time too
3) I wasn't behaving in a predatory fashion checking out targets from a corner before making my move, I was just there to have fun irregardless.

So there you go, social dynamics!

----------------------

In case you're thinking what is a "dress rehearsal" (the title of this post).

Well, sadly I'm at work this fine rainy saturday evening and am typing out this post while nobody's looking over my shoulder.

9 weeks to go on the project and we're having a trial run over the weekend working 24/7 in shifts as we run all our programs to migrate the 800,000 electricity customer and billing details over from Queensland.

Exciting times indeed.... although I'd rather watch paint dry if given a choice

So I'm was on call today and had to go into the office from 3pm till 6pm.
I finished up and just only got home when I got called back again at 8pm because something didn't load properly and had to be fixed.
Lets hope it doesn't pan out into a long night.

Good news is, one of our managers; Sarah is in charge of ordering dinner tonight.
We're having Thai... Yum !

Harder Better Faster Stronger

2008-01-17T00:01:00.001+11:00

This is absolutely brilliant stuff !

Just wait till the lyrics start speeding up and realize how ingenious these girls are.

The end of a great holiday

2008-01-14T01:18:00.000+11:00

1.30am on a Monday morning / Sunday night (depending on how you're looking at it)

I am dreading having to face waking up for work in a few hours.
I had a fun Wednesday night at this club/bar - Thumper @ the Goodwood Park Hotel.
Kyo was teaching an hour of basic beginner's salsa and there was such a big turnout that I took the lead and led the men's side of the class in the basic moves while he led the ladies.

It was good fun and when the class ended, the social Latin night started with a live Latin band playing some seriously sexy music for everyone to dance to. These people on the floor were amazing! Doing some beautifully executed salsa moves left, right and all over the place. I took a chance with this cute girl, Eugenie but warned her that since I was a beginner, any mistakes made would only be her fault

Lina the air hostess from last week came by as well for a dance and we had an instant group of new friends made there. After the gig, the lot of us went down the road to Emerald Hill for some drinks at an outdoor wine/bar.

Following that we adjourned to Pure, the white side room of Ministry, Singapore. It was a one off party in the middle of the week with local DJs Has and Angela Flame. I've known Angela for a while now since she visited Melbourne in 2006 and it was the first time I've actually heard her play a gig. Damm, not only is she hot looking, she's an awesome techno DJ!

Had an overnight flight on Thursday and arrived in Melbourne bleary eyed and exhausted on Friday morning. Pat & Emily were my official welcoming home committee at the airport. I love my housemates! =)

The Cure and the Cause

2008-01-08T05:32:00.000+11:00

I spent Saturday night dancing away at Velvet Underground, the classy house sideroom of Zouk club. Miguel Migs and Julius Papp were at the helm of things, playing a delicious selection of deep house tunes. Happy times indeed, as I caught up with various groups of friends scattered all over the club.
I totally lost the plot when Julius Papp dropped the track "The Cure and the Cause" by Fish Go Deep.
My god!!! I really LOVE this track and it was the first time I heard it out in a club, and no better club than Velvet with its new sound system designed by Gary Stewart himself.

So, I cannot resist but to post up the video of this track to share with you all below....

Kyo was teaching Salsa at the Xenbar on Monday nights. I came along with the intention of getting some lessons and met the lovely bar owner, Emma who let me in for free!
It was a pretty slow night, so I had 2 hours of practice with another girl, followed by an additional hour of private lessons from Kyo to correct the minor flaws that I'll never be able to detect while taking group lessons.

I have much to learn about this dance, the weekly lessons I have been taking with Nic, Lisa and Kylie will never be enough to learn this dance effectively. I'm considering increasing that to twice weekly lessons now if time permits back in Melbourne. =)

2 more days to go in Singapore, I feel like there isn't enough time to do everything I'd like to accomplish here!

5am on the island that never sleeps

2008-01-05T08:01:00.000+11:00

I'm back home in Singapore!

Christmas 2007 was brilliant, with me spending the eve with my lovely housemates (a separate post coming up on that with photos)

Much has happened since then, I was trying hard to get home to Singapore for New Years on the 30th December and it was a last minute stroke of luck that I managed to get a seat on Singapore Airlines.

Prog girl came by early on Sunday morning to help me pack (it was more like supervising and then falling asleep on the bed than helping really....) and drove me to the airport.

8hours and many thousand miles later, I'm back in the tropical jungle heat of Singapore and going straight into the crowds and traffic to dinner with the family. It was mum's 60th birthday dinner which officially makes her a senior citizen complete with benefits like cheaper public transport and discount movies during the afternoon.

So far, I've been living the good life. Visiting the gym in the afternoons, eating the cheap and plentiful local food, and catching up with friends in the night.

New Year's eve was spent at Zouk with no other than French marathon DJ extraodinairre Laurent Garnier at the helm of things, bringing us on a 10hour journey of house, techno and everything in between.

Last night, I went to meet up with my buddy Kyo, who was teaching Salsa at the O-Bar. We ended up dancing a few rounds with 2 cute girls there and turned it into an instant mini double-date when we went out for a late dinner at 2am (Nobody seems to sleep in Singapore!). Turns out they were stewardesses with Singapore airlines who were in town for a few days.

So here I am, 5am on a Saturday morning and I just got back from another night out of hanging out with friends at Zouk and its time to get some shut eye to recharge for another big weekend in the Lion City that never sleeps!

800 miles from home

2007-12-20T22:57:00.000+11:00

I’m 800 miles away from home and sitting in a café at Brisbane airport’s domestic terminal.

View from my seat at the Virgin Blue terminal.

An interesting shot within a shot, I took these photos on my mobile and sent the pictures via Bluetooth to my laptop. Red Rooster chicken salad and a cup of tea for my afternoon snack.

Actually I’m starving as lunch was hours ago and I’m still feeling sore from a hard gym workout last night at what I fondly nickname “The Dungeon”. The Fitness First branch at 320 Adelaide St in the city has a great windowless weights room in its subterranean basement, filled with big heavy dumbbells and barbells. Blood and guts is the order of the day, and I love working out there whenever I get time away from the office.

The past week has been a daze as I was up at 4.30am on Monday morning to catch a 7am flight. I’m up here again to work with the development team as they fix the defects from the last trial conversion. I’m also the only person currently tasked to work on the reconciliation aspect of the project, which accounts for every single record that we process and tracks that record from start to wherever it ends up. In essence, this is like auditing, except with data instead of cash flows. The business and external auditors will want proof that nothing falls through the cracks when we crunch, transform and spit out this tremendous amount of data.

I think I’m finally used to working as a consultant now. The short notice to fly interstate doesn’t even faze me this time around and I’ve rehearsed the packing of my luggage and toiletries like a marksman disassembles and reassembles his rifle with a map burned into his memory. I can be ready to leave for a week’s trip in under half an hour.

My toiletries bag is always filled with miniature versions of what I’d normally use, packed neatly and stored away in the little compartments. My electric toothbrush is charged and ready to be transferred to its clear blue plastic travel case, the battery good to last for a week.

My mobile has got the numbers of airport pick-up and transfer services in 2 different states which I use to avoid the nightmare that is queuing for a cab and dealing with smelly foreign drivers. Its always nice to have a guy in a suit holding your name on a piece of paper and offering a clean and comfy ride to your destination when you trudge off the plane.

I’ve also learnt the fine art of catching up on sleep during the interstate flights. I always bring a book to read while waiting to board the plane and when in the air, as it serves a dual purpose of feeding the brain and inducing sleep. There’s nothing better than falling asleep shortly after take off and waking up just when the plane touches the ground.

So here I am, the week before Christmas and I have never worked harder in my life before with all the overtime hours I’ve been putting in to make this project run. I’m hoping to go home to Singapore in time for New Years Eve, but all the flights are full at the moment and I’m stuck in limbo on a wait list.

Here’s hoping for the best anyway….

Stereosonic

2007-12-16T19:19:00.000+11:00

2 weeks ago I made a last minute decision (while still up working in Brisbane) to go for the Stereosonic festival at the melbourne showgrounds.

My friend had a spare industry ticket so I asked my trusty sidekick - prog girl to drive down during the week to Dan's workplace and front the money to help me buy a spare ticket as she and her friends were going too.

Prog-girl with her friends Kerry and Rita

It was a brilliant day spent in the sun with a venue that was big enough to accommodate the 15,000 strong crowd.

I'd say as with most outdoor raves and parties nowadays, there were still a large percentage of wankers, idiot kids and power muzzas; but not as much as what I experienced earlier this year at a string of events run by Future Entertainment.

The view from the grandstand overlooking the massive main outdoor arena. Notice the panels of 2 storey tall video columns showing trippy visuals.

Bumped into Liz, a party acquaintance I knew from some mutual friends

Big blow up gorilla casting its shadow over the crowd.

Some pretty cool 20yr old kids, Cameron and Spanky whom I struck up a random conversation with. They exclaimed that it was 'way cool' that even at my age I was rocking it hard at these events. Seeing that I'm only 27 and definitely have heaps more partying to do in my lifetime, I cracked up laughing so hard that my sides hurt.....

Mr Stacey Pullen from Detroit city, Michigan. One of the pioneer's of Techno in the early days!

A view of the sun slowy setting in the horizon and a cool breeze wafting into the grounds to replace the heat from the afternoon as people are still dancing

Stacey Pullen performed one of the best sets I've heard in recent times, considering the fact that he was playing outdoors in a pretty small stage in the corner.

Giant pie in the sky towering above the Hardware arena. I don't know why I took this shot but I felt compelled to because it was the best landmark there telling people to "meet me below the giant pie!"

Dinner at Ezard's

2007-12-16T18:43:00.000+11:00

Last night I had one of the most extravagant and expensive dinners in recent memory.
My friends and I have always been talking about dressing up, getting together and catching up over a fine dining experience somewhere.

So we did, and made a reservation (1.5 months in advance) for dinner at Ezard's

Ezards is located at 187 Flinders Lane, next to Adelphi Hotel.

View Larger Map

Run by owner, Teage Ezard, this establishment has already won accolades of awards the last 2 years for its innovative representation of Australian free-style cooking with strong influences from Asia.

I ordered a smoked duck salad for a starter, which came with pickled beetroot, pink grapefruit and topped with a hot and sour dressing.

For mains, I ordered the barramundi, served on a bed of roasted eggplants, tomato and lime salad and finished with a thai-style yellow curry dressing.

The service was impeccable, the wait staff always hovered nearby, with slick hair and suits, they were extremely attentive and knowledgeable about all the intricate aspects of the food and drink.

Everybody in our party was very impressed by the food.
I'll have to give it a 10/10 score, every dish was a sensational work of art, pleasing to the eye and bursting with flavour on the palate.

Equally impressive was the bill which came after rounds of coffee and dessert.
Thien took a peek, eyes widening as she gasped and quickly put the bill down. I picked up the book and took a look, never have I seen that many digits towards a dinner party of 6.

The wine alone cost $308..... (we had 2 bottles of merlot and 2 bottles of chardonnay)

The total bill was.... (drumroll please!)......
....
..

$1085 ++

ouch.

We walked out with our stomachs feeling very heavy after all that rich food, and our wallets feeling much lighter.

It was worth it though.

Dinner at Jodie & Dave's

2007-12-02T12:31:00.000+11:00

While we're on the topic of housemates, I caught up with my ex housemates Jodie and Dave over dinner the other week.
We lived in South Melbourne for about a year before the apartment got sold and we had to move out.

They recently had to move house again, but within the same property, just different floors and I offered my services and expertise in lifting the heavy stuff. So this was a thank you dinner at their new apartment.

Jodie in one of her more flattering poses

Dave, Jodie, myself and Dave's colleague, Des

Jodie showing us the cheesy side of her persona

Dave showing us the sexy side his persona

A sunday whinge

2007-12-02T11:39:00.000+11:00

Its yet another sunny and warm sunday afternoon, its nice to sleep in my own bed the past 2 nights.

Hard to believe a week went by in the blink of an eye. Well to be honest it wasn't really a blink; more like a slow stabbing eyesore of a week.

I didn't get any time to blog while away, Brisbane was a nightmare with crazy 12hour days in a cramped office overseeing a bunch of indian programmers writing the programs to extract and convert the data. It was particularly frustrating because everything was barely holding in at the seams, most of these muppets aren't very experienced programmers and when things aren't working, nobody raises their hand up until the last minute!
Coupled with the fact that there were only a limited number of PCs which I had to share and it was impossible to work with a laptop on my knees, it feels like a futile exercise to go up there, hold their hands and answer the painfully obvious questions all day long.

Enough work talk now, I've got other stuff to whinge about.

As mentioned last week, me and Pat decided to kick our new housemate Samantha out.

We found her through a flatmate finders website which we've all used to get where we are now. Through the site, I found Lisa a year ago and we found Pat a few months later.
We were the perfect happy household that felt like a family.
Then in October, Lisa moved out with her partner Dave and we lost a fantastic housemate and dear friend. We then advertised on the website and did the interview rounds with potential applicants. The top few which we wanted to offer the room to either declined or found someplace else and I was the one who convinced Pat that we should take Sam because she seemed funny and down to earth although a little loud.

Turns out my gut instinct was terribly off the mark as you don't really know someone until you live with them.
In the 3 weeks she lived here, Sam:

Sat out in the outdoor garden with her friends, got drunk and loud while chain-smoking
Yelled drunken hellos at neighbours walking by
Left a mess of empty wine bottles, glasses and filled ashtrays for us to clean up
Left the bathroom in an absolute mess of hair, makeup and wet puddles
Fried fish and made the whole house stink of fish for a week
Left the frying pan full of burnt crap stuck to it soaking for more than a day
Put a metal scourer to my non-stick frying pan to remove the burnt crap and successfully removed the Teflon as well
Broken glass on the floor
Dirt trails on the carpets
Wet laundry left to dry all over the laundry area
And finally earning us a warning letter from the body corporate and building manager because of numerous complaints against our unit from the residents in other blocks

So enough was enough, Pat called me while at work one day and suggested that we could get rid of her, to which I whole-heartily agreed and we ripped up the rental and bond agreement forms with her name on which we haven't handed in yet; sat her down and told her to start finding somewhere else to live as it wasn't going to work out.
2 weeks later she is gone, the house is nice and clean again and it feels great to come home now.

We ran the ad in the flatmates website again, interviewed some people and 2 days ago we accepted Emily, a soft spoken kindergarten teacher as our new flatmate!

Quick update over a sunny sunday

2007-11-25T16:18:00.000+11:00

So its a nice cool and sunny Sunday afternoon here in Melbourne...

Apologies to the dear readers of my blog if you have recently wondered about the 2 week lapse since the last entry. Quite a few things have happened since then and this coupled with the fact that my Internet was down last week thanks to Tel$tra screwing up something as simple as a name change on a phone bill from Lisa to mine.
When the name change on the bill was entered into their system and went through, my ADSL2+ connection blew up and decided to un-sync itself from the modem.

I have to run off to the airport in a while to catch a flight to Bris-Vegas tonight, as early Monday morning, our project is kicking off the second trial conversion to time how long it takes to migrate 800,000 customer details from Queensland. An exciting week lies ahead for me, comprised primary of of late nights and living out of a suitcase which I'm not too thrilled about. On the plus side, this time round I've got myself in a comfy looking 1 bedroom serviced apartment which should contain more creature comforts of home than a tiny hotel room.

In the last 3 weeks, Pat and myself have chosen a new flatemate to replace Lisa, and recently decided to get rid of her as it wasn't working out! More juicy details to follow, I have to start packing my bags now and will try writing while I'm up there.

Andy

What you won't see on TV

2007-11-08T23:13:00.000+11:00

I had a random though this morning while walking to work (I get random thoughts all the time but they're sometimes too absurd or naughty to mention in this blog)

Anyway, I was thinking: Why is it that every movie or TV show we see, 99% of the time, it always sends a positive message of hope, right over wrong, karma coming back to bite you, good triumphing over evil and all things pink, fluffy, sugary and nice.

The audience gets handed a cute puppy to cuddle with the take home message.

Now, if I were to write a script about a gloomy story which might very well happen in real life (and I bet my last dollar that it does), I highly doubt any film studio or TV network would endorse it.
We all know that we sit down in front of the telly to get ourselves in a happy state. That happy state is what keeps us wanting to come back for more and keeps the advertising dollars rolling in. Its one of the ultimate drug-free delivery systems of temporary happiness because our brains associate the good feelings from the screen to themselves.

What if we delivered gloom instead of happiness?

For example:

--Start --

Mr nice guy has a hot girlfriend who's absolutely to die for.
She's intelligent, pretty, makes him laugh and adores him.
He plays the part of the perfect gentleman, the perfect sensitive new age guy.
He's kind and sensitive, in touch with his emotions and pays 100percent attention to her every needs.
He eats organic, cooks beautiful meals for them both, recycles their garbage, drives a smart car, sips on skinny soy lattes during coffee breaks and takes up yoga and pilates to find peace with his inner self.

One day while our good chump was busy in his pilates class , his girlfriend runs into a bad boy who charms and seduces her with words and touch.
He was different, he was exciting and had a dark streak.
He walked through this world without apology and took what he wanted whenever he felt like it.
He's essentially a modern day caveman brimming with too much testosterone.
Hot girl falls for the bad guy over the good chump.

Good chump tries to face off with the competition but gets gets beaten up.
His pet puppy and kitten gets stuffed into a bag by bad guy and thrown into the river while bad guy plus new girl point and laugh at good chump while he bawls his eyes out.

Movie cuts to the sex scene right about now where bad guy does all sorts of nasty, kinky things to the girl while she enjoys every moment of it without feeling guilty or sinful.
Frustrated chump sits at home crying for his loss of girl, puppy and kitten and wonder why bad things happen to him.

-- The End --

Was there a point to all this?
Well, not exactly. I did say it was a random thought.

However, this is REAL life and that could happen though. (A little less exaggerated perhaps)

Michael Clayton

2007-10-28T00:20:00.000+10:00

I just came back from the movies with Steph & Simon and we saw a film that is better than good.
In fact, it just about restored my faith in major release cinema. It is written for adults, it is mature, understated, intelligent and tautly suspenseful. A tale of morality which far outshines everything else in this genre.

George Clooney plays Michael Clayton, a lawyer in a firm who has a niche area of expertise, he is the specialist who comes in to cleanup in a manner of speak. He is like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, the 'cleaner' who comes in do the dirty work and make problems in law disappear.

Clayton cleans up client's messes, handling anything from hit-and-runs, to damaging stories in the press.

A major agrochemical client, U North, is in the verge of a settlement when its top litigator Arthur Edens has an apparent breakdown and tries to sabotage the entire case. Clayton is sent for damage control and what ensues is the most exhilarating 2hrs in the cinema for me as the complex story unfolds.

I won't reveal too much, only to give it my nod of approval and a 10/10 score.

On another food related review, we had dinner at an awesome Korean restaurant in the city before the movie.
It is the Oriental Spoon on 254 LaTrobe St, Melbourne.

View Larger Map

We had sizzling hotplates of Beef, Squid, and Seafood Bulgogi; Hot and Spicy soup; Korean Chicken Ginseng Soup; and all these were accompanied with heaps of lovely side dishes, kimchi and rice. For around $23 per head for 5 of us, it was good food at a fantastic value.

Next time though, I'll be more adventurous and get everyone to order the DIY barbecue sets where I saw people cook mountains of meat and vegetables on a massive hotplate to be shared around the table.

Recovery BBQ at Fawkner Park

2007-10-24T22:06:00.000+10:00

Sunday - This delayed entry is part 2 of my big weekend

So after only catching a few fleeting hours of restless sleep after Jimmy van M, I got woken up by my friend Marika asking me to come along for a impromptu BBQ at Fawkner Park with some of her friends.

I mumbled a half arsed reply before falling back to bed for an hour and then decided that it was a sunny 29degree day outside one of the few warmer days this Spring. So I got up, called her to come pick me up and grabbed some food and beer out of the fridge.

Fawkner Park is a lovely place situated in the South Melbourne area where I used to live. My ex-flatmates Jodie and Dave moved not too far off from here but at this point I was pretty scattered and uncertain of which part of the park their apartment overlooked.

View Larger Map

Ruby, the most adorable shih tzu - cavalier king mix puppy!

I was seriously considering stealing this dog because she was just too lovable

Claudette showing us a few tricks her dog picked up at training school

A welcome sight of dead meat sizzling on the public area electric BBQs

Nothing like a tasty steak to hit the spot

We were pretty well prepared for a last minute event, you gotta love girls when they get together to organize something

Marika enjoying the modern invention of wine from a box

A game of cricket going on in the oval near our benches

Despite surviving on 3hours of sleep, I thought this was a perfectly beautiful warm day out in spring and a nice way of winding down in the sun with food, drink and company after a big night out

Jimmy van M !

2007-10-23T22:50:00.000+10:00

I've finally recovered enough over yet another massive weekend of clubbing at a Sunny party.

This time, it was none other than the American Progressive House extraordinaire - Jimmy van M!

His rise to fame came from his endless work behind the scenes in the American dance music scene. He was the official warm up DJ for Sasha and Digweed when they toured America and a resident at Twilo from 1996 - 2000.

I've always wanted to catch Jimmy play ever since I first got exposed to his music when he did the second Bedrock album on Digweed's label. Its a long 6 year wait before I did!

My friends from New Zealand; Sarah and Dave who were at my house earlier this evening for a BBQ before we headed out clubbing.

Jimmy van M taking over the decks from my friend Dean Millson who had the warm up set honours.

Van M hard at work

This slogan says it all

Sarah and Me tearing down some serious booty on the dance floor.

On hindsight, I only realised after the first hour of dancing that wearing my long sleeve dress shirt while fashionably spot on in most other social scenarios, clubbing wear it was not.
I was the proverbial frog getting heated up in a slowly boiling pot by the 2nd hour of the night and was sweating buckets under my sleeves by 3am in the morning.
(mental note to self for future reference: do not wear dressy clothes if intention is to dance non-stop for 7hrs)

Random girl in a pretty dress

Erin and Irene, the latter whom which I haven't seen for ages!

Overall, the best part of my night was actually the final set from 3.30am - 5.30am. It was a versus set between Sydney's Kaybee and Melbourne's Ozzie LA.

Words can hardly describe what I witnessed aurally that morning, I can only say that it simply was one of the best tribal house and progressive sets I've heard two great DJ's play back to back this year. By then the club was a seedy sort of environment with barely 20 people on the dance floor, the lights were all dimmed, the speakers were booming and the first slivers of dawn were starting to creep in through the windows of the venue.

That dark and sweaty afterhours moment to me was the ultimate nirvana of clubbing.

I can't get no sleep......

2007-10-15T23:09:00.000+10:00

Ok, I thought I'll detract from my regular posts to leave you with a very rare video from 1993.

This is one of the early house music classics from Masters at Work, with the lovely vocals of La India; who IMO has one of the most beautiful voices in the world.

House music and La India were a match made in heaven.

Enjoy!

Saying goodbye to a great housemate

2007-10-14T21:03:00.001+10:00

Yesterday marked the end of a great era of shared accommodation; Lisa, one of the best housemates I've ever lived with moved out of our lovely ground floor, 3-bedroom apartment located in the lush, green suburb of East Melbourne. So for the next 2 weeks, its just me and Pat left living here before the new housemate moves in.

I've lived with Lisa for almost a year now, it was around November last year I was making the rounds looking for sharehouses offering a room. This was the last home on my list that I was going to check out. From the moment I walked in the door, Lisa and me just hit it off from the get go and got along like "peas and carrots" (to quote a scene from Forrest Gump).

You see, in my 4.5 odd years of living abroad in Melbourne shared accommodation, I have enough horror stories of bad housemates to hold a candle to the book - "He died with a felafel in his hand".

A list of my bad housemate experiences:
accidentally blew the kitchen up from a pot of burning oil forgotten on the stove;
refuse to clean the house;
refuse to wash any dishes;
move the only TV into their room;
refuse to buy any living room furniture, so we only had one couch in an empty living room;
moving out of the country while we still had 3 months on our lease;
trying to rip me off for money;
crack the shits at me for hugging a cushion;
crack the shits at me for snacking on the couch;
pretend that I'm not there and ignore me;
leave the gas stove on while passed out drunk;
throw up on carpets;
throw up on balcony;
throw up in bathroom;
throw up in garbage bag;
bring weird men home;
finding weird man in our shower taking a bath;

So compared to my previous nightmares, I think that Lisa is simply one of the nicest individuals I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. We have never ever had a single argument in our household and I've been so lucky to live in a warm and family-like environment.

Lisa is moving in with her partner, David; whom we all reckoned is such a fantastic guy that we couldn't help but love him to bits too.

On one hand, I'm really happy for her that she's moving on to the next big step in her life, while the other part of me is left with a pretty empty feeling that comes along with losing someone dear to your heart.

***Deepest sigh***
I think I'm starting to become kinda depressed of late, with my heart getting broken recently and losing a great flatmate shortly after. No wonder I just can't seem to hold my thoughts together the past 2 weeks.

Enough blogging for now, I'm going to turn in for an early Sunday night and sleep this empty feeling away...

Andy

In the blink of an eye

2007-10-04T22:29:00.000+10:00

Picture this: two strangers huddled together, feverishly exchanging undercuts and jabs. At the sound of the bell, each disengages.

No, I'm not talking about boxing, and the punches landed aren't of the physical kind. I'm describing speed dating, the latest fad to seduce singles in search of love.

Created by a Los Angeles rabbi as a method for marriage-minded men and women to swiftly evaluate potential partners, speed dating has swiftly spread throughout the free world.

There goes one more item I can check off my mental list of things & experiences to try out before I die.

At the behest of my girlfriends Nicki and Lisa, the 3 of us recently-heartbroken singles attended a speed dating event organized by Blink Dating at the Lustre Lounge last night.
The handsome price of $59 will give you the possibility of meeting that special someone 15 times over, in 4 minute intervals.

We arrived early, the bar was dark and back lit in a deep crimson red. Sara, the ever so cheerful and robust host greeted the 3 of us as we walked in promenade style, arm in arm. Drink cards and Match cards were distributed out like stacks of lotto scratchies from your local newsagent, along with sticky tags with our first names scrawled across with black magic marker.

Observing the pockets of people standing around the venue, I could clearly see some single men standing around awkwardly holding a drink, the women came in groups of 2 or more and stood around giggling amongst themselves.

The rules were clearly explained to us:
You get 4 minutes to talk to each person.
Each person has a number next to their name tag, the women sit at the table which matches their tag number.
The women remain seated in their seats while the men walk up to each table in an ascending order.
You get a sheet of paper to take personal notes and a scorecard to mark a Yes/No response on whether you'd like to see the person again.

I found the experience rather exhausting and at the same time an interesting social experiment as I got to talk to a sample out of the population of women out there.

First impressions rarely count from past experiences in life. However, in this meat market setting with only 4 minutes to let your charm shine through, the rules of the playing field have been re-written to be all about making an impression - fast! If you ever get the chance, have a browse through Malcom Gladwell's - Blink; which explains what goes on in our heads the first 2 seconds of looking at someone.

Out of the 15 women, 5 of them went straight to the "No" category in my scorecard within the first minute of meeting them due to poor grooming, bad breath and excruciatingly boring conversation amongst some of the reasons I mentally gave myself.
Another 4 eventually found their way into my "No" pile while the 6 "Yes" I ticked were interesting people that I wouldn't mind meeting again.

After the event, Lisa and Nicki told me about their experiences with the other men. 2 of them just were plain creepy, a bunch of the others were lacking any decent social or conversational skills while the rest seemed to be decent blokes.

Would I return for an event like this again? Probably not.
This probably could work for really busy individuals or people who just need to short circuit their routine of hanging out with the same social circle and be forced to meet to different people.

However, I personally feel that this takes the thrill out of the chase, the game, the pickup. Whatever you may want to call it, the art of seduction has been around for centuries and for a good reason - it works.

Perhaps I'm just an old fashioned guy in modern world...

One that got away

2007-09-26T21:06:00.000+10:00

Melancholy and the infinite sadness.

No matter how many times I've been through this before , heartbreak will always feel as painful now as the first time your heart got broken.

She was the epitome of a nurturing, kind and giving feminine essence. She was simple, honest and uncomplicated. She wasn't afraid to call me on my shit. She was old school and rolled her own cigarettes. She swore a blue streak when pissed off. She made me laugh. She loved the same music as I. She was much older.

She was the sort who had to give all her heart and soul to someone to want to be with them. Anything less, she considered a lie to herself and couldn't bring herself to do it.

Alas, I wasn't that someone, even though sparks flew and moments of intimacy were shared, it was not to be.

Sunday night, I left her place with my heart broken and she gave me a kiss along with the longest hug and didn't want to let go... we just stood there for a brief eternity; god I loved the smell of her hair...

Then we parted.

I smiled and said everything was going to be alright and turned to walk away.
Deep inside, we knew something has changed and we'll probably never be the same as before.

Lee Burridge

2007-09-10T22:34:00.001+10:00

I have a confession to make: I'm totally in awe of Lee Burridge at the moment.

Anyone who's been in the club scene for as long as I have would have had their fair share of disappointing nights and know never to really expect much for anything. Especially when its in a tiny venue like Ffour.

However, just once in a while it is the rare gems that sneak right up behind you unexpectedly like a thief in the night, suddenly surrounding you in a sensual and intoxicating melting pot of tech-house and techno that leaves you sweaty, gasping, pleasured and still craving for another hit.

The most memorable gig I had with Lee had to be back in 2001, Zouk club, Singapore where he played back to back with Craig Richards as the indominatable tech house duo known as Tyrant. That left a really high benchmark which subsequent solo gigs by Lee would never again quite seem to cut it.

Incidentally, Saturday also happened to fall on the birthday of Prog-Girl.
If any of you have been paying any attention, you'll recognize that Prog-Girl popped out of the darkness of Sunny into my photos and my world during the Anthony Pappa gig in July.

How did the nickname come about? Well I haven't exactly figured that one out either, but somewhere between saying hello and hitting it off like peas and carrots; realising we both love progressive house, she must have entered her number into my phone under that alias, and so it stuck.

A major milestone that I managed to achieve that night was polling and getting more people to join my initiative of starting the "We hate Phil K" club. Vicky (pictured above) and Prog-Girl are the newest members to join Di and myself. No doubt this initiative will grow rapidly once people out there realise that Phil K seriously kills the vibe on any dance floor as attested in my last visit to Sunny.

It was a fair sized crowd who lapped up everything Burridge was throwing out at them

The sweet spot of sound at Ffour that night for me was standing right about here, near the front and next to the speaker column to be able to feel the bass kicking your heart around in your chest

Burridge hard at work

Both of us clearly having a great time

and with that, I'll leave you with a parting shot of the night.....

Pictures from Falls Creek

2007-09-09T20:34:00.000+10:00

Its been a pretty full on week since the weekend that just past.

We left for Falls Creek at 4.30am on Friday morning to make the 5hr drive up.
It was almost 10am when we got there amidst pretty bad weather of strong wind and rain which meant the ski lifts were closed for most of Friday.

The accommodation was ok, with the 2 couples getting the better end of the deal with their own rooms equipped with queen sized beds.
Greg, Marika and myself had the honour of sharing the dorm room with double-decker, single sized bunk beds; I probably haven't slept in such uncomfortable conditions since I was in the army, not that we really got much sleep anyway with the excitement of a weekend away together and way too many Jägermeister and red bull shots during the first night

Irregardless, it was a tough challenge to learn how to snowboard. Nothing could possibly feel more unnatural being strapped into a board and having to use your body, knees and ankles to set the direction you want to head in. First lesson we learnt was that whatever your body feels it should do, ignore it! Its like learning to walk all over again.

I had a smooth start on the first try and forgot to secure the snowboard strap to my leg before I got the bindings on which resulted in a deadly runaway projectile snowboard zipping down the mountain and almost taking out a group of skiers before crashing into the village.

The view from the balcony of our apartment

Bad weather conditions of rain, wind and hail on the first day meant the ski lifts were shut. So we walked around the resort instead

The village center up in the snow

Getting ready to hit my first beginner run

Somehow did survive the run with the exception of some spectacular falls that sprayed snow everywhere

Group shot of the entire team

Me and Marika getting ready to hit a blue run on our third day of boarding

Just managing to skid to a halt for a quick photo before zipping off again

Pat who's a very experienced snowboarder cruising along taking a video of us

I survived the weekend of snowboarding to arrive back in Melbourne around 10.30pm on Sunday night, then I had to get out of bed the Monday morning at 5am to make a 7.05am flight to Brisbane for work! I swear to god, it felt damn bloody good to get back home on Tuesday night and sleep in my own bed for the first time in days.

Chasers War on Everything vs APEC !

2007-09-07T19:25:00.000+10:00

This is the most fucking hilarious prank I've ever seen!!!!

247 million dollars spent this week at the APEC summit at Sydney, and the pranksters from the Chaser's War On Everything managed to get within metres of the hotel that George Bush was staying at.
They hired fake limos with tinted windows, had the Canadian flag flying from the cars and one of them dressed up as Osama Bin Laden in the back seat! All the while having fake security guards in suits running outside the car with fake IDs.

The amazing thing was they got through 2 checkpoints before realising they were going too far with the prank and decided to make a U-Turn back which was where they got caught.

See the complete news report. Shows you the outcome of 247million dollars well spent for security and hosting this crock of shit.

The clip at the bottom was their weekly program this week warming up to the APEC summit jokes

Countdown to the snow

2007-08-28T23:17:00.000+10:00

So here I am, finally crawling out of the clutches of the dreaded flu bug that's been plaguing me the last week.

I have this theory: On average, I fall really sick about twice a year.

So counting this and the time back in January when Steph and Simon came to Singapore to visit and infected me with some pommie superbug from their England trip, I reckon I have reached my annual quota of great illnesses. If we assume that the past is a good predictor of the future, I'll be bullet-proof for the remainder of 2007!

Its almost midnight and I'm still slightly drunk. Was out earlier this evening for an informal catch up between my manager and the few of us Accenture folk working on this project. This was also a sneaky attempt by said manager running us through our annual performance objectives; what better way to do that than over dinner and drinks. I boldly suggested the european bier cafe across the road from our new office building on the posh end of Collins St and it was brilliant to break my 2 month abstinence from alcholol on Erdinger Weißbier Dunkel and Hoegaarden!!

2 more work days to go, I head up to Falls Creek this Friday for a 3 day weekend to have a go at snowboarding!

Sickie weekend

2007-08-19T23:53:00.000+10:00

I've been feeling kinda sick this weekend, it must have been all those late nights and long days while travelling up to Brissy. Saturday was good enough to head out for a late 1pm breakfast at the South Melb markets with Steph and Simon.
I somehow made it to the gym for a good workout later in the afternoon before it started going downhill Saturday night and now I'm nursing a sore throat and body aches. =(

No matter, best way to get over any sickness is to distract yourself doing something else: So I spent all Sunday tinkering around on my PC.

Remember a couple of weeks back I was writing about experimenting with non-window$ based operating systems?
I finally did get down to giving Ubuntu a shot and almost drove myself to the edge of madness in the process.
Long story short: It is working now, and yes it was really fucking difficult to set up my wireless Internet connection on this damm thing (because yours truly had to use the top of the line WPA2 encryption). Not to mention sound, video and everything else.
I could almost pick up drinking again because of the stress involved in this.

.... but that's all sorted out now.... thankfully!

Here's some screenshots of how it looks. For normal web surfing, listening to music, chatting on messenger and stuff, it runs sweet and is stable as a rock. Not to mention it has a pretty slick interface.

Pretty much the default theme with a cool wallpaper in the background. Everything that I could do in WindowsXP, I can do here too now.

I'm running a music player called Amarok here, you can see the house channel from Digitally Imported running in the background and it even remembers and keeps a list of track titles and the times they were streamed.

Getting answers

2007-08-16T22:22:00.000+10:00

Its been a hectic week for me.

Monday and Tuesday was burning it hard with 10-11 hr days at the office to finish my functional designs so that the developers up in Brisbane can start their technical work.

I made another trip up to Brisbane on Wednesday morning, it was pretty tough trying to stay awake after catching the 7am flight. Apparently it was a public holiday in Brisbane but we got the developers working through it.
This time round I was a one man road show coming up here, armed with only my laptop and trusty Analogue PDA (Notepad and pen) =)

It was good to finally meet development team face to face, since we've only spoken on the phone and through the email the past couple of weeks.
These are the guys who are going to be writing the data migration software based on the rules and designs I came up with from all the work done in the last 2 months. This is outsourcing at its best, seeing that they're migrated over from our various offices in India for the duration of this project.

The good:
The Indian team were great fun to hang out and work with.
Walking by myself up to the company we bought over to sit down with one of their programmers and getting all my important questions answered.
Room service food was yummy.
Fitness First on Adelaide St has a nice basement weights area which is a sweaty 4 wall dungeon filled with heavy weights.

The bad:
Getting hooked up at the Grand Chancellor hotel (again).
It ain't grand. In fact, it looks like it was built in the 70s.
Think porn movie set when you look at the raunchy red leopard print bedspread which matches the drab red carpets.
Situated on top of the tallest and steepest hill overlooking the city, you'd think it was an Everest expedition trying to walk up here.

At least the service was good, I helped myself to a cup of peppermint tea last night.
When I got back to the room this evening, sure enough the cups were cleaned etc, but the maid left a mug out next to the kettle with a peppermint teabag on top. Its little thoughtful gestures like this that really make my day! =)

Off to bed now.... So tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.
I can't wait to fly back to Melbourne tomorrow evening!

So it was an acronym after all

2007-08-10T10:44:00.000+10:00

A brilliant thing happened this morning; I got to the office building only to find everyone locked out from our floors. Apparently there was a burst water pipe on the 32nd floor and water was seeping into the floors below which posed an electrical hazard.

I waited around the lobby and talked shit with some colleagues while building management allowed small groups of us to use the goods lift under supervision of a safety warden to go to our floors to collect any valuables. The 27th floor where I worked looked fine except for the desks near the windows where water was raining down from the ceiling boards. Too bad I didn't bring my camera today to take some snaps.

I retrieved my laptop and am now working remotely from a couch facing the window with an awesome view from the Accenture offices below. Its amazing what you can do with wireless networking and remote access passes. =)

Remember back in this post I was bitching about the stupid names that IT people give their systems? Apparently FROG did stand for something: Feedback Register for Organisational Growth. Yep, of course it sounds perfectly logical......
The funny thing was that nobody on our project knew what it stood for the last 7 months.

Badass Greek Burgers

2007-08-06T22:54:00.000+10:00

Mention a hamburger and we'd normally associate it with the revolting dog crap served at fast food joints like McDonald's or Hungry Jacks (Burger King equivalent for those of you outside of Oz). Thanks to Morgan Spurlock's journey in the incredible documentary Super Size Me, I have since sworn never to eat another burger from the golden arches again. Even if I were trapped on a desert island and the last item of sustenance available was a happy meal, I'd rather eat sand.

However, there is nothing more satisfying than creating your own burger from scratch.
Here's a hunky & sexy creation of mine I did this evening in under an hour: Hamburger with a Greek styled influence.

Ingredients:
1kg very lean minced beef (I get mine exclusively from South Melbourne Meats; Shop 32, South Melbourne markets as they only use the leanest cuts of beef and grind it fresh at the store)
150g sliced black olives
2 red chillies, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
200g Greek Feta cheese
Handful of chopped parsley
Freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Combine all the above in a VERY large bowl until well mixed and shape them into 4-6 patties depending on how big you want your burgers to be.

Me? I made 4 patties from the above and yes I like my burgers to be of ridiculously large proportions. =)

Slap these babies on the grill and cook to desired done'ness

While the burgers are cooking, I rustled up some greens on the side by slicing some cool and crunchy continental cucumbers and sweet vine ripened tomatoes. A quick toss with some leftover Feta and Olives, add a splash of Extra Virgin and a dash of salt and pepper.

and voila!

Nothing beats the simplicity and elegance of a home cooked meal. Bon Appetit!

Boring boring boring

2007-08-05T04:05:00.000+10:00

Cheese and Wine session at Katie and Chops' place was fun earlier this evening.

After knowing them for more than a year, we finally meet up outside of a clubbing environment!

I met Katie in the weirdest of ways a year and a half back when I was standing at the door of the Seven nightclub in South Melbourne for a 9hr Stacey Pullen gig. Katie was the unfortunate one standing in between the club doors and was nice enough to hold them open for people walking in and out while still in the queue herself. I complimented her on that and the rest is history as we just didn't really stop yakking since then.

I love these random friendships that just happen out of statistically improbable odds. =)

So I did end up popping my head into Sunny.
For a very brief 2 hrs.
In that time I was wandering around in the dark, I bumped into my mad wog gym buddy, Milan and his crew. Was good to catch up with these massive blokes and his brother, Dragon.

I also bumped into Ben, an old friend I used to roll out to parties with and haven't seen in almost a year now.

However, as predicted, the music was boring as bat shit all thanks to Phil K.

Anthony Pappa did have some good moments up his sleeve but apart from that, it was all the weird break beat broken record broken rhythm minimal tech click zip zap wank fest sound served with a side order of boredom.

The vibe from the crowd was kinda off too tonight, definitely no love was felt when a fight broke out between 2 group of drunk retards on the floor around 3am.

I've been to enough bad nights to know when one is not really gonna improve and knew it was time to cut your losses and make a tactical retreat home.

Said my goodbyes to a few people and in 25mins here I am sitting at home, showered and changed, listening to nice grooves in the background of my room thanks to Ricardo Torres whom I reckon plays pretty awesome house.

Visit his site to download some great mixes.

http://ricardotorres.net/mixes/mixes.html

Dance music for adults. =)

Good night.

Jungle Night !

2007-08-04T00:18:00.001+10:00

Bring it on!

The fantastic crew at Sunny has yet once again outdone themselves!
2 weeks ago we had 5hrs of Anthony Pappa, this time they've got him back for another round playing back to back with Phil K!

Andy is very very tempted to go and misbehave badly again come Saturday night...... with or without usual group of clubbing friends (they're just soft-cocks and haven't recovered enough from the last outing)

Admittedly, I seriously hate Phil K's DJ'ing style, as he tends to get too experimental with the sound and at times it seems like he's playing just to himself. Seriously, why bother clubbing when the music seriously isn't that fun to listen to and wannabe dance music aficionado posers are just having a chin stroke about how eceletic-minimal-space-negative space-white sound-black noise and all the bullshit in between to describe weird music that sounds like breaking glass and electric clicks? Sounds like a wank fest to me.

Screw that, dance music to me is all about the emotions that get invoked just by the combination of baselines, rhythms and layers of complementary sound. You know you're listening to a good tune when in the absence of any external chemical assistance, you're brain is already rewarding you with good feelings just from that tune alone.

If the Victorian government has ever done something right, it is passing the new legislation on 1 July 2007 that bans smoking inside all indoor venues. Victoria now joins the list of countries with smoking bans.
Hurrah!
No more coming home after clubbing at 7am in the morning smelling like cancer.
No more getting burnt on the dance floor because some fuck wit was waving a ciggie around.

Now back to the dilemma at hand. To misbehave on Sat night or not to misbehave? I'll be catching up with Katie and Chops for a cheese & wine session at their house in the evening. Will play it by ear and see where the night takes me after that. =)

My Cracked Tooth

2007-08-01T08:30:00.000+10:00

I've had 2 cracked crowns replaced today.

I broke my 2 front teeth way back in 1992 while my bike ploughed head first into an open storm drain, launching me head first into the concrete pavement. (when your a kid, speed and safety is not a factor in your mind until you first feel real pain) I pulled myself up from the pavement and opened my mouth to see bits of broken teeth falling like white Chiclets from my mouth along with a fountain of blood. Not a pretty sight.

I had them crowned a couple of years back and the dentist did a fantastic job manufacturing the teeth out of ceramic and got the shading just perfect. However, with wear and tear all things eventually break down.

What started as a hairline fracture eventually spread and became a crack the size of the grand canyon across one tooth!

Think I'm exaggerating? Have a look at this: This shot was taken before I ran off to work this morning. (I just discovered the cool macro function in my digital camera and am loving these close ups)

You can see that apart from the grand canyon on the right, a faint but visible San Andrea's fault has started to zig-zag across the bottom half of the tooth on the left.

The damage to the wallet? A whopping $3300! Of which I claimed $800 back from my private health insurance plan. Fuck. $2500 is going to make my credit card and wallet feel the pain long after the problem is gone. Double Fuck!

Well, the fun part at the dentist today was getting a massive injection into each tooth (yes, i'm a sick bastard sometimes).
Loved that feeling when my nose and the front of my face went numb and I was on the brink of la la land before he started filling the broken crown down and taking a mould for a replacement.

I've got a temporary crown in place until the dental labs manufacture the crowns in 3 weeks time. It hurts like hell now and I look hideous with this bugs bunny like crap stuck on my front teeth!

Grrrr...... Andy isn't very happy!

I love the MIFF

2007-07-29T19:59:00.001+10:00

The MIFF stands for the Melbourne International Film Festival just in case any of the filthy minded amongst you started snickering at the abbreviation.

So it begins, 19 days of films from the 4 corners of the world. So many great films and so little time and even less cash to afford to see all that I want to see!

I had my grand kick off at the festival on Saturday with a tasty documentary: The War Tapes

Edited down from over a thousand hours of footage, this film follows 3 US National Guard soldiers doing their tour of Iraq from an amazing first person perspective, showing us viewers a side of the war that we don't get to see after passing through the media censors.

More from a soldiers point of view, this film explores the soldier's mentality and tracks them before, during and after the war and how the sights and terrors they seen would somehow irreparably affect some of them for the rest of their lives.

Andy rates this: 4/5

The second offering I saw on Sunday was a tasty piece from Israel: Jellyfish

This film weaves a web over 4 different characters through Tel Aviv who are touched by loneliness. Its six degrees of separation which doesn't exactly make much sense until halfway through the show where the simplicity and brilliance of the story flows through. Its a whimsical exploration of existential angst

We need more films like these that explores and celebrates the nuances of life, giving you a warm fuzzy feeling leaving the theatre.

Andy rates this: 5/5

Tech. Consulting Workshop

2007-07-27T19:53:00.000+10:00

Monday was a bit of a struggle getting out of bed, after all the shenanigans over the big weekend.

Thank god I had a 2 day workshop at the Hilton to break up the monotony.

This was a networking event for all the Technology Consulting practitioners in Accenture's SEAAK (SE Asia, Australia, Korea) region. A huge part of the costs are borne by companies like HP, Sun, IBM and the other big boys of the software/hardware industry as it was opportunity for vendors to showcase the latest and greatest in what they can do for today's businesses. Essentially we are the people that will be using these products to fuel our client engagements and improve the way businesses are run.

Did I say networking? Yes, the integral part of all business events cannot be complete without business cards being tossed around like bits of colourful confetti and names exchanged as fast as they are forgotten. Ahhh..... its like going to a computer fair, except a million times better because instead of getting nothing but shitty pamphlets you actually get cool freebies thrown at you and the vendors shout you lunch/dinner/endless drinks.

An example of cool technology being developed were: The Next Generation Data Centers for companies, that strive to be as close to carbon neutral as possible. (Data Centers require massive amounts of air conditioning; these new ones run faster, smarter, with less power and less air conditioning)

I got home that night at 2am, very drunk, carrying a brand new Dell926 All-In-One printer in a box and a massive bag full of promotional materials.

These are perks of the job I REALLY like ! =)

Anthony Pappa is da Man !

2007-07-24T00:47:00.000+10:00

Awesome !

That's all the mental capacity I have left now to describe how Anthony Pappa's set was on Saturday night. The music was deep and the beats were phat. Prog house like you never heard before since 1999. 5hrs+ of aural ecstasy which at some peaks felt like your ears were having sex with your brain and the music from the speakers were providing the ambiance.

I remembered that it was dark and sweaty

I remembered talking to heaps of strange people

I remembered finding long lost friends I haven't seen in a while

I remembered making a new friend

I remembered Pappa dropping the Saints & Sinners track - Pushin Too Hard

I remembered making more new friends

and that's all I can remember....... from that awesome night.

FreeBSD vs Ubuntu

2007-07-19T22:12:00.000+10:00

I have had it with the Windows operating system! Microsoft's overpriced OS with its slow and chunky interface, choppy response time and instability can kiss itself goodbye from my desktop very soon!

When Windows2000 came out, I thought it was great (compared to how shit Win95, Win98 and WinME was). Finally a 32bit (almost) operating system which was much more stable than its predecessors. Then Windows XP came along which was essentially Windows2000 with a few modifications under the hood. It ran great too, but not quite. Programs get installed and crap gets left all over your registry and hard drive.

Therefore: I'm going to trial out 2 different operating systems to run my PC on this weekend.

FreeBSD, which is a Unix like system descended from AT&T Unix.

Ubuntu, a Linux like system based on the Debian GNU/Linux but with a stronger focus on usability.

Considering that 99% of the time, I use my PC for basic stuff like surfing the net, downloading stuff and watching movies, its reliability, up time and robustness that is of the paramount importance to me. I can't be bothered doing all that fluffy stuff like customizing screen savers, wallpapers and all that nonsense. I am a pragmatic PC user, I need it to work fast and efficient, period!

Ginza Teppan Yaki

2007-07-17T23:09:00.000+10:00

On Saturday night, we went out to help Marika celebrate her birthday in style at the Ginza Teppan Yaki restaurant in Melbourne's Chinatown district.

I can help but feel that the whole setup was westernized to cater for the white clientele to the point of being cheesy, but nonetheless good entertainment when you're pissed drunk. The hostesses wore bright garishly coloured kimonos pottering around serving cocktails circa 1980's with little umbrellas in them. These girls were definitely non-Japanese (more like cantonese). The chefs entertained with high flying theatrics like throwing your food in the air and making you catch it in your mouth or in a bowl.

A quick search on Wiki reveals Teppan Yaki as originating in Japan in 1945 as a way of cooking Western Influenced food on a hot plate, which only really became popular with the foreigners and taking off in New York city.
No wonder it never got really popular with the Japanese, I mean if I was a Yakuza mobster and had a chef throw egg at my face, somebody will be losing the end of a finger on the Teppan by the end of the night!

Well enough of the ramblings and on to the photos and Videos !

Mmmm... Big juicy chunks of meat! Who cares if its artery clogging!

Big bad ass prawns

An egg roll goes flying throuhg the air!

The whole team.

Martinez !

2007-07-09T23:11:00.001+10:00

Wow! Is all I can say right now, I had an unexpectedly awesome Saturday night when I went out to my favourite underground dance music party - Sunny

The guest DJ was completely unknown to me, save for the fact that he's named Martinez and he's from Sweden.

The venue was dark, the sound system was booming and the crowd was up for it. In fact, it was so dark in there when I walked in around midnight it took a while before my eyes adjusted to the lighting (or lack thereof) and I could walk the spiral staircase downstairs to the dance floor of The Colonial.

The music was a thrilling mix of tech house, progressive and just really deep bass lines, which I just cannot get enough of these days.

We definitely need more non-commercial club gigs like these.

I already bought tickets for a Day Party featuring Anthoy Pappa on the 21st July, run by the Sunny and Darkbeat boys.
So if anyone is in Melbourne that weekend, bring it on !

Advanced Economic Models

2007-07-06T08:22:00.000+10:00

Explained with Cows

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the
milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters
of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a
debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows
back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a
Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells
the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report
says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one
cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

THE ANDERSEN MODEL
You have two cows.
You shred them.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you
want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market
it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and
milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your
country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a
Democracy....

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate

A SINGAPORE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
One was caught chewing gum.
Cows are now banned from Singapore

Blog improvements v1

2007-07-05T22:49:00.000+10:00

I've been messing around with some blog technology that is pretty funky and new to me tonight.

I've made some improvements to the site:

Anybody can now post comments
Each post has the option to be sent as an email
Links now have a small preview window that show you in advance what you're gonna look at
You can click on the right hand column to subscribe as an RSS feed or an email

D.O.M.S

2007-07-04T21:16:00.000+10:00

Ow!

My arms, chest and legs feel sore and tenderised all of today. Its like a very pissed off Mike Tyson just used my muscles as a practice punching bag and he really meant business.
The condition is better known as DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) in athletic circles. A pain or discomfort commonly felt 24-72hrs after exercise, caused by tiny tears in the muscle fibre due to eccentric contraction or intense training levels.

This was the result of a brutal gym session I had yesterday with my mad wog gym buddy, Milan.

Milan is a massive, hairy, 6ft brute who from first impressions, you really don't want to be around when he's pissed off because he seriously looks like the sort who can hurt you bad with one hand and rip your balls out with other. He has a brother named Dragon, who looks twice as nasty but got banned from our gym due to some disagreement with the gym manager.

Once I got to know Milan however, we just clicked instantly and he turned out to be one heck of a down to earth type guy who just says it like it is with no bullshit in between. He's also extremely good with the ladies and always dishes out gold nuggets of advice in that area.

It was in between sets of smashing 100kg on the bench press that I asked him of a problem in that area that was plaguing me the last couple of weeks. What do you do when you get a girl who's dropping big hints like bombs left right and center that she's keen to get it on, but you really aren't interested in her at all.

"Why the hell not? A root is a root!" He growled as he throws on more weight and motions to me that it's my turn under the bar.

"Well, I'm just really not attracted, she's really not my type and I can't see it going anywhere." I replied with a puff as I unracked the bar from the supports.

"Look mate, the way I see it, you think too much. You over-analyze everything and try to wait for Ms. Perfect to come along and until that day comes you are just missing out on potentially good experiences that come with life and living in the moment " Milan replied

Trembling from the weight, I exhaled hard and pushed up for my final rep, racked the bar and turned around to look at him quizzically.

"She might also be lookin for Mr Right but even if she doesn't find him, you be damm sure she'll have some fun along the way. That's how life is, quit ya thinking and go out there, meet new people, have some fun, get some good shags with some bad shags and you'll come out a wiser man. " He continued talking as he proceeded to head off to the next exercise.

I stood there and pondered for a moment as I looked at this modern day caveman trudge away. He could have a good point there......

What do you think?

The Lives of Others

2007-07-01T13:06:00.000+10:00

First up before I launch into a review of the movie I saw last night, I have something to bitch about.

Why the hell do movie theatres bother with putting the first row of seats so close to the big screen?

The monetary returns from the poor bastards sitting in the front row won't adequately cover the impending class action law suit filed by patrons in the front suffering from broken necks and cock-eyed'ness after sitting in an agonising position for 2 hours.

Allow me to demonstrate: Exhibit A - the layout of last night's theatre

The art house theatre was free seating so first come best served. We really shouldn't have stopped for choc-top ice cream cones at the foyer, those time crucial moments could have been strategically used to secure better seats.
Steph and me were practically squirming in our seats trying to sit lower and crane our necks up with the screen 2 metres away with a vertical height of 3 metres. After the film I momentarily lost circulation to the peripherals and the right side of my body.

On another note, The Lives of Others was a sublime film. Written by relatively new screenwriter Florian Henkel von Donnersmarc, its weaves a multi layered tapestry over the greys and yellows of the GDR (German Democratic Republic). Set in1984, 5 years before the fall of the Berlin wall, the film centres upon Dreyman, the pre-eminent playwright of East Germany. Under suspicion of pro West German activity, the Stasi (Secret Police) listened in to his every move and word in the apartment he shares with his live-in girlfriend. Its almost scary to see how efficient the Stasi were in tapping his entire house with wires and setting up a control center to monitor and record everything that goes on in the house.

Although it starts off painting a sterile and bleak picture, this film plants the seeds at the beginning which grow and bear strange and wondrous fruit with each character developing in rich and unexpected twists. The film treats the viewer with the right amount of intelligence, and it really passes through your brain first before it hits your heart.

High Cholesterol

2007-06-30T16:57:00.000+10:00

"You have high cholesterol levels", My doctor said to me across his examination room table, as I popped by for a quick lunch time appointment yesterday.

"How's the diet looking? You might want to reduce your intake of foods containing saturated fats."

"That's impossible!" I replied
"I can't even remember the last time I stepped into MacDonald's"

Every 6-8 months or so, I have a comprehensive gamut of blood work done at the Doctor's office to monitor how things are going inside. When I say comprehensive, I really mean comprehensive: Full blood examination, Thyroid Function, Liver Function, Sex Hormone levels, Electrolyte levels and of course Cholesterol levels.
I bulk-bill all this and Medicare covers a good portion of the lab test costs. It never hurts to take charge of your health and actively use the health system to your advantage. So this time round, everything was spot on, except for one small test.

Total Cholesterol = HDL + LDL
My levels were = HDL (1.8) [range 0.9 - 2.0] + LDL (4.1) [range 2.0 - 3.4]

Apparently its my levels of LDL (the bad) cholesterol that is high. This is the one that we want to reduce. My HDL (the good) levels are fine.

I quickly recounted everything I put into my mouth the last couple of days and yet couldn't think of anything to explain the test results.
I don't eat snacks; if it comes in a processed package or brightly colored box at the supermarket, I don't buy it.
I shop only in the first and last aisle in the supermarket and skip the middle bits (most supermarkets have the fresh produce and milk in outside aisles, the middle aisles contain the processed. packaged. dried, canned and sugar-loaded stuff)

I have a caveman theory towards diets. Its simple.

Basically we've only come 40,000 years in evolutionary terms from nomadic cavemen. Which means that our DNA hasn't changed much at all from then.

So think: If you were a caveman all those years ago, what would you be eating? KFC, Packets of Doritos and boxes of Kirspy Kreme doughnuts?

Or meat, whole grains, vegetables and if you're really lucky, the occasional Woolly Mammoth? Our bodies are designed to eat a simple hunter gatherer diet, only with industrialization in the last century, have we unlimited access to rich and high processed foods. Our human bodies just cannot cope with all that highly processed food, however good it makes us feel. Its not surprising that the average waistlines of the average modern caveman has expanded accordingly.

The only other explanation the doc could think of is genetic factors, most my family members have been dancing an on and off waltz with cholesterol levels.

Or, this result could just have been a false positive.

Stay tuned in 6 weeks time for another test update.

You spin me right round baby right round

2007-06-28T20:16:00.000+10:00

My head is spinning. My brain hurts from information overload at work. Ouch ouch ouch !

You know you're in trouble when you're cracking your brain to understand some really difficult techie stuff at work, then you leave work and go to the gym, eat dinner, go home to bed and start dreaming about solving all those complex issues at work.
Dammit! No wonder I come to work and feel like I've never left. Even my seat feels warm, probably cos my out of body experience dream self was just sitting there not long ago.

On the positive side, I'm amazed at how much memory retention there is considering 3 weeks ago, I was scratching my head like an ape with no idea what I'm looking at. Now this massive jigsaw puzzle is actually making sense and the pieces are falling into place.
Perhaps the dreams about work is my moist human brain's way of organizing and remembering the stuff that's presented to it.

The idea that people need sleep to consolidate memories has waxed and waned in popularity since psychologists John Jenkins and Karl Dallenbach first proposed that sleep benefits memory more than 80 years ago. In the last 10 years, evidence from memory studies in humans and rats, as well as research on the cellular and molecular workings of the brain, have provided increasing evidence for the link.

Moral of the story? If you can't solve a difficult problem, try sleeping on it.

Woodstock

2007-06-24T01:18:00.000+10:00

My god, I ate one of the most crusty, savoury and mouthwatering pizzas ever this evening!

Went out with friends to Woodstock in North Fitzroy. This small eatery is as authentic Italian as you can possibly get, with checkered tablecloths, old posters in Italian adoring the walls and the well worn terrazzo floors. If you look closely at the picture on the left, you can even see a real vintage mini Italian car parked on display next to the back wall of the cafe.

The pizzaiola (pizza chef) there clearly knows his stuff. The open kitchen is simple, the ingredients are fresh and used sparingly. All you can see when you walk into this cosy place is the brick and stone oven with a crackling red wood-fire inside and the pizzaiola making each plate sized pizza by hand.

I had a pizza with porcini mushrooms and paper thin slices of porscuitto spread on top. The guys tried other variations of pizza while Steph and Thien had the beautifully made lasagne which was cooked by Nonna (grandma) in the back kitchen. This is what I really needed, a cosy dinner with close friends in the midst of winter.

After dinner, I decided to have a stay in, so curled up at home and dug into a book I'm currently reading:
If You Had Controlling Parents by Dan Neuhearth Ph.D.

Gaps in my brain at work

2007-06-20T22:56:00.000+10:00

If you haven't already noticed, I'm sorry about the week and a half gap between the Queen's long weekend posts. I didn't have access to the Internet or the photos in the following days.

Work happened and I was flown up to Brisbane to attend a Project kickoff meeting (4 months after the project started. Which raises the question..... why now?! DUH !!!) and sit through 3 more days of brain numbing data mapping sessions with the IT dept of the company we're taking over.

Being optimistic, I'd say I understand around 60% of what's going on at work now. The pragmatic side of me however would kick that figure down to a more realistic 25%.
Dammit ! *&^*&$^
I can't help but feel that the flow of knowledge in this project is really more like a drip to be accurate.

Why the hell do IT projects love to use funky naming conventions to their systems which mean absolutely nothing?
Let me give you an example: The data migration project will perform an extract, transform and load from FACOM, FROG and PEACE into our target CISOV and MOE systems.
Seriously, what the hell is a FROG system? Does it run on worms and flying insects?
After some investigative work on my part, I found out that PEACE is a billing system. I suppose it would give the consumer a warm flower power kind of fuzzy feeling knowing that their electric bill comes from PEACE.

You know what I really think? This is what happens when you put generation X kids who grew up in the 70s in charge of developing your computer systems. Remember as a kid you used to watch those cool TV series like M.A.S.K (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) fighting the evil of VENOM (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem)?

Does anyone see the similarities here?

If it boils down to me having to lock up the senior contractors in a room with nothing to play with except crappy Lego and MASK figurines until they give up hoarding the information and tell me what I need to know, so be it!

Queen's birthday long weekend - Part 2

2007-06-20T22:27:00.001+10:00

The afterparty after Hernan ended up at Adam and Thien's new apartment in West Melbourne till 7am.

Getting there was the problem. Have you ever been in a situation where you are stumbling in the cold at 4.30am and can't quite seem to see the street signs because your vision and brain decide to fail you at those crucial moments walking out from a big party? Yup, yours truly was walking around like a lost dog until Thien and Marika drove out on a rescue mission to pick me up far from the street corners I told them on the phone (FYI: Spencer and Kings are parallel streets, I told them I was standing where they met)

Somehow I got home and managed to pull together a few hours of fragmented sleep, before heading out that night to see trance Dutchman extraordinaire: Armin van Buuren play an extended 6 hour set! The theme is a White Party, so everyone put on your best white shirt and pants !

Luke and Amanda dressed up as the Ice King and Princess

A pretty interesting angle of the bridge that links Richmond to the Melbourne Park/Vodaphone Arena. If you ask me, it really looks like the view from the bridge of an Imperial Destroyer in Star Wars.

A long queue for the cloak room inside the Vodaphone arena

The view from the upper rows of the indoor stadium

Hands in the air, reach for the lasers !

A sea of white people (depending on how you look at it)

Guess who I bumped into while taking a breather on some seats upstairs; my dear friend Sarah whom I haven't seen in almost a year! We used to roll together to countless parties and gigs way back in 2003.

I love how these chance encounters happen in big parties. =)

Pretty cool video of 2 acrobats doing their thing above the DJ booth I caught with my camera

Queen's birthday long weekend - Part 1

2007-06-11T17:57:00.000+10:00

I just had a rather massive weekend.

First up on Saturday night; it was none other than Hernan Cattaneo playing at Sunny. The South American delivered an utterly delicious set of house and progressive sounds for almost 5hrs! I always love it when the crew at Sunny throw a party. They never use any form of mass advertistment like flyers or posters , its all super secret and hush hush; spread through word of mouth and through their website the who, when and where the next party will be at.

This means no rowdy drunk people to share your dancefloor with, a clued up crowd who are purely there for the music and to see the DJ. This is what clubbing should be about!

A picture tells a thousand words so I'll let the following speak for themselves

A dark and sweaty room with a booming sound system.

Me, Katie and Chops

Janna, a regular to Sunny I always seem to find on the dancefloor everytime I'm there!

Hernan at the helm of things

Thien and Marika spreading the love

Ozzie LA, my absolute favourite DJ at Sunny, who always manages to craft an thoughtfully deep and twisted prog/tribal set. Consistency is the key here!

Katie attempting to do a tap dance with 2 redbull cans stuck to her shoes!

Hernan Cattaneo, Katie's floating head and me.

Brisbane Day 1 + 2

2007-06-05T22:56:00.000+10:00

Up in Sunny Brisbane now.....

Day 1
Brisbane is nice! I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised despite all the 2nd hand accounts from friends telling me how boring it is over here and the food is poor with nothing going on in the city. On the contrary, I found quite a few nice restaurants for food and drink and the usual gamut of small shops and stores. I’m staying at the lovely southbank area (bigger than Melbourne’s southbank) where it’s a bit of a tourist strip with the fancy restaurants, cafes and even an artificial beach right alongside the river.

Monday went by in a blur. Straight from the airport into the office and we sat in a meeting the whole afternoon with a manager and a contractor and I could hardly understand anything they were talking about as they knew the systems we were working on much better than I did.

By night, I had dinner at a nice steakhouse along southbank before getting on the CityCat for a scenic ride up the river to Brett’s Wharf and back. River transports like these are a fantastic idea! The catamaran was sleek, quiet and fast as it nipped from pier to pier dropping off office workers, students and city folk to their homes along the river.

I stood at the bow of the boat and just gazed into the Brisbane skyline, mesmerized by the city lights.

Day 2
The 2nd day in Brisbane was crazy, I sat through yet another gruelling long workshop session which could have been conducted in German for all I cared as it sure sounded like they were talking in another language I didn't understand. True to my guns however, I diligently took notes and put on my 'I'm on top of everything' face while ignoring the sinking feeling in my stomach. (Note to self: sinking feeling in stomach might also be due to crap coffee from downstairs)

It was a welcome relief when our manager pulled us out from the meeting early and back into the office for another long meeting with him instead. (definitely better than the meeting in german earlier)

That evening, our small team from melbourne went out for dinner by the riverside. It was nice to have the tab picked up by the company and since it started raining when we were through the meal, we had not much choice but to order dessert and more wine! =)

I'll try and upload some photos if I get the time later tonight or tomorrow...

Back in Melbourne, and leaving again !

2007-06-02T19:09:00.000+10:00

I'm still tired.

I spent most of Wednesday hurtling through the air in a tin can with wings, flying from Singapore to transit in Kuala Lumpur for 2hrs, before taking off again to Melbourne.

I hate flying Malaysian airlines. No offence to the Malaysians out there, but comparing Malaysian airlines to Singapore airlines is like comparing economy to business class. Its the small details that count, like attitude of flight staff and quality of meals. I always frown at the supposed dinner that comes with the longer flights: what looks like a small baguette with some kind of stuffing, on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in cellophane. Yuck. Only bonus points I'll give are the episodes of Firefly and Extras on their in-flight menu.

Total flight + transit time = 12.5hrs. You can add another 1.5 hrs to that with Australian customs' warm and friendly methods of screening, x-raying, prodding, poking and sniffing every bag for possible traces of organic produce and illicit materials that might harm their precious farming eco-system. Somehow that episode of the Simpsons where Bart introduces the cane toad to Australia comes to mind as a pretty funny poke at the irony involved. Read more here

Thur 9am.
I really miss the coffee here in Melbourne. Nowhere else I've tried can compare or come close. Malaysia and Singapore was littered with dozens of Starbucks which make the most disgusting coffee I've ever tasted (but my gripe with bad coffee deserves a separate post later on). I got my usual skinny cappuccino with no sugar from Spiga downstairs, was even glad to see the regular blonde barista make my coffee.

Walking into the office and I hardly gotten into the chocolate sprinkled crema on the top of my coffee cup when Vik greets me and asked how the trip was, how the unpacking was going along. Great news, he said. Don't bother unpacking because you're gonna be flying up to Brisbane next week to help the functional team do data mapping at the Charlotte St office.

Huh? What?! I did a double take and pondered on this for a minute. Then I looked out of the window to see the freezing winter wind lashing out at people bundled in layers running across the street before a smile appeared on my face at the prospect of a few days up in sunny brissy weather. A further phone conference later that afternoon with our guys up there confirmed the finer details: I'll be flying up there on Monday morning with another contractor and returning on Thursday.

Did I mention that I like my job and company at the moment? Well I do.

Almost finished unpacking......... almost there...........

Resolutions

2007-05-27T06:28:00.000+10:00

4.30am, Singapore (post Zouk)

So here I am, stepping into the realm of the blogging world finally.
I did make a resolution eons ago to make an effort to try to improving my creative writing skills but procrastination reared its evil head time and time again.

One can however argue that as with all new technologies, it takes time for it to be improved and mature. So I'm reassuring myself that its with remarkable 20-20 hindsight that I was procrastinating to give the blogging technology time to develop and mature to what it is today. Thanks goes to Tammy for pushing me over the edge at dinner last night by confirming that she would bother to read my ramblings which reassured me somewhat that I won't be the equivalent of a crazy drunk in the online street corner talking to himself.

The past 2 weeks have been exhausting, I was in Kuala Lumpur attending Accenture's Core Analyst school program where we all learnt the necessary skills to talk the talk, walk the walk and deliver value to clients as an Accenture analyst. Its incredible to learn that the company has its own methodology and model for practically everything under the sun with pretty graphics and diagrams to support. I won't be surprised if I needed to make a oven roast and they already had a methodology in place to deliver to you the ISO9000 best practices for roasting a bird in the oven.

Seriously though, it was a fantastic networking opportunity to get to know all the other analysts from the Asia pacific offices. In our group we had: Japanese, Indians, China'rians, Koreans, Singaporeans, Australians. Great fun was had by all, in spite of the gruelling 10hr days in class and working in teams with obvious language barriers in place. The Japanese were great fun, clicking away on their digital pocket-sized English to Japanese translators in class and getting pissed funny drunk when you go drinking with em.

I'll post up some photos from the past 2 weeks when I get back to Melbourne and organize my stuff. (and of course figure out how to upload photos in blogger)

Meanwhile, my bed beckons me and I'm going to recharge my batteries for the few days I have left in Singapore to tackle the Great Singapore Sale and play catch up with friends

Gd'nite!
..... Andy