I learnt a very valuable lesson this week in that people may not want the same things as you and no matter how hard you try, you will never understand why they make their decision. I lost a friend this week and it hurt. It hurt so bad that I had someone close to me that didn't want to be there. Someone who I thought wanted to be friends, someone whom I trusted, would confide in and value opinions from. Obviously this was a grave mistake on my part to believe in these things when it was probably just ignorance to reality.

Bah... I don't see how it could have gone more wrong. Life sucks right now...

This has to be the only country where the dominant (read: almost monopoly) telecommunications company can charge you a fee for paying your bill by credit card. This mirrors the charge by the dominant airline in Australia who was the first to do this. All this in terms of a "user pays" scheme of things. Thats all fine and well, but you can go in and pay your bill with cash at a post office and not get charged the fee. Where's the "user pays" part of that, because I know for a fact that it costs them waaaayyy more to process the bill in person, handle the cash and credit it to the right place. Bah!

I was bored on Sunday and thought I would watch Shrek 2 (again). I started looking at the "Far Far Away" scenes and started counting all the "brands" that were used in the movie. Must say I was impressed by the creative twists to make the modern brands into something that would suit the medieval themes. So, here's the list that I can remember (if I was truly bored I would have written them down :P): Farbucks, Burger Prince, Versarchery, FFAPS (ala US Postal Service), *something* Fifth Avenue, Old Navery (I think, couldn't read it properly), Lethal Arrow 4, Tower of London Records and a few others I can't remember. Ok, so that was a testament to the quality of Australian TV on weekends when 2 of the 5 free channels are showing Olympics. Channel 31 doesn't count as a channel... :P

Went to catch up with Fel last night cos she came back from NZ last week. Glad she had a good time (even though the weather semi-sucked as it is winter) We went for crepes again (do we ever go anywhere else?) and this time they weren't crunchy :P Although, they did ask us to move because they wanted to seat 16 people where we were sitting, geez.. We probably had decided to leave by then, but how rude is that! Sheesh :D

So its another weekend full of stuff going on. Been out and about already, a few things checked off the to do list, but still some others. Then there is one last effort of trying (on my part) to maintain a friendship but who knows how that is going to turn out. I just want to know where I stand.

Received a birthday card today, from one Ms Lim Su Ann. :P She dedicated half the card to picking on me about my old age... sheesh :D and she wrote her name in brackets after she signed it. Su Ann dear, I only know one person that is named pinkpau. Oh, and you know the birthday surprise I would like (and didn't get this year), that would be the biggest bestest present ever. If you could arrange that, it would be great ;) muwhahaha. Love you heaps :)

Finally, its halfway through the week. Just over even :P Its been depressing that there is fine weather outside my window, yet I am stuck indoors :( Tomorrow will be different though, the first of two farewell lunches for a colleague who is going on maternity leave. She's so popular that she also had a morning tea this morning and another one on Friday. We're going to be eating out a lot :D

Things on the personal front have been happening. I'm not sure how I am meant to respond or feel when someone tells me that "I kinda feel weird" about our friendship. I know that it will take some time to figure things out. I'm there for them whatever it is that they need. Hopefully this will all work out. ;)

I've had requests for gossip... so... I must meet my gossip obligations ;)

Linah was dressed to go out to some punk/heavy metal thing afterwards, so we all thought innoc^H^H^H, uhh... young Chui would be scared of her. This was compounded by the fact that Chui was really quiet... apparently she was pre-occupied with study concerns :P Chui told me she actually wants a collar thingy and a lip ring... just that her parents probably (hahhahahaha) wouldn't approve of it (either thing). There's some goss for ya :P Will tried (and probably succeeded) in embarrassing us by singing happy birthday out LOUD in the cafe O_o

Ok, some photos (who was it that said a flash was not necessary obviously didn't know I couldn't push photoshop to make something out of nothing :P)

Photos: Linah; EG Monkey Magic crepes; Me and Eileen
    

The Cafe: good food, bad bad bad service :P; Linah (again) and the elusive Chui
  

Backing up from Birthday Celebrations was a meetup of RBJers for dinner on Saturday night. Had a good night eating (which seemed to be the theme of my weekend). Thanks to Linah, Will, Chui and Eileen for coming along :)

Hmm, so yes, it was my birthday yesterday. Had a very very long day. Started out getting in early to the office and then going out to breakfast around 8am (usually just got on the train by then). Worked pretty much the whole day, had fish and chips for lunch (social club thing) and a few beers after work! :)

Dinner was at Cargo Docklands (not going back there again :P) and after breaking Caroline's car out of the carpark (long, not so "shared to the public" story) :P Tedy's for cake :) Many thanks for Tedy's hospitality on short notice. Here are some pics...

First pic, L-R: Chris, Vanessa, Alex, Caroline and I, Second pic, the same except Nick is on the left with the brown jacket :P Bottom pic is the famous Tedy of Berkeley and Melbourne Uni fame
    

    



Edit: Added descriptions as apparently no-one knows who these people are ;)

Posted 10:24pm, 12 August 2004 Published... whenever they get their act together and provide internet access again :P
So this was Telstra's (the people that own the phone line and infrastructure) idea of an early birthday present, the whole national ADSL network has gone down and left the nation back on dial up. I think its actually a good way for them to make money through local calls :D Apparently there was some problem with an upgrade and something has gone wrong with the links from the local phone exchange back to the nerve centre thingy (technical term there!). To roll back would take up to a day, geez... its only been like 23 hours since the thing went down (1am last night)... there's no way I'm going back to dial up for an extended amount of time... just have to check my email somewhere else. I'm assuming a lot of internet cafes probably use ADSL as well?

Some days, the week seems to go really fast. This week is not one of them. I walked into work today and it felt like it was Thursday, knowing full well that it was *only* Tuesday. What makes the day go faster is the fact that we have a lively conversation going on email. All these plans, gossip and other bits using (abusing) the network bandwith just so that we can "chat." Oh well, another week is floating by slowly but surely. I figure today that I'm going to be out for dinner two nights this week as well as a lunch (sort of anyways) followed by two lunches next week and one night out. Lots of unproductive afternoons methinks :D I'm finally seeing (hopefully with some clarity) about a few things in my life. I just hope that I don't have beer goggles on (:O) or am just blind O_o

Yes, I'm bored on a Saturday night which can only lead to one thing, quizes and personality tests :P


I test drove the Mazda 3 today... oooh.. nice car, tiptronic transmission too :D Too bad the price tag is like $30k for everything O_o To top it off my current car is worth only $6k apparently :( Thats before negotiations though, so I'm sure I will be able to get a bit more than that. We'll see if I can afford to get it, not that I am really in a hurry to burn cash on a new car ;)

Unusually loud conversation overheard tonight on the train (guy was on the phone, non-asian :P). The guy had started to join to army (or something like that) and was telling his friend that they asked him "what is your pain threshold?"... His answer was that he couldn't answer because "it is the most objective thing in the world." O_o I was shocked... is this the type of person we want in our army, those that say the opposite to what they mean :D I guess its easy to confuse objective with subjective :P

Oh no, William Hung is doing Hong Kong. That guy is an embarassment to Chinese. Yes, I know he has guts doing what he is doing and now he is just reaping the rewards. But yet, GO AWAY... arrrghh... How can anyone be even remotely close to being like that naturally? Its gone on and on and on.. enough is enough... everytime I see him let alone that "She Bangs" crap he sings, I feel a shiver down my spine... brrrrr.. Ok, rant over :D

Technical problems plagued work this morning. Bah :( Got quite a bit to do now and picking up a few things here and there to work on. All is good. I wish that every part of my life was like that. *sighy*

So ends another weekend. Back at work and another weekly cycle begins. Got quite a bit of work to do and things keep coming up that make the "goal" of finishing it just that little bit further away. Gotta love the moving target problem... :P Things weren't so good on the weekend, but they seem to be getting better, hopefully it continues bit by bit. Progress is better than standing still.