Mood: A touch of the flu...
Currently listening to: Dream On - Depeche Mode

Right, not feeling too well at the moment so most of this blog post will be dedicated (quickly) to the various events in my daily life during the course of the last two weeks or so... well, as best as i can remember at any rate. From what i can garner, if you really want more details or another's perspective on what i've been doing you couldn't go wrong reading Leonard, JJ, Jackie or Serina's blogs for additional details...

Oh, and if you can, please, please, please help out with the Tsunami relief effort. JL's down there in Sri Lanka helping out every day and if you have any of the items that are urgently required on his list or just want to help out down there in Sri Lanka please be sure to contact him through the details on his blog, thanks... *crosses fingers*

If not, please try and help out regardless - for KL you can ask for details here as well and you can join the rest of us at the supply centre in Brickfields...

Right.

Let us begin and end this quickly.

Friday 24/12: Worked all day and had beers with my workmates and boss after work at a place near the KLSE. Meandered over to Hotel Mutiara for a Xmas eve party courtesy of Joa and met up with CH, Serina (& friends) and Gibran there. LOTS of free booze. Got stuck in traffic with CH afterwards for three hours on our way to mamak - it took us 30 goddamn minutes to clear the PARKING LOT. Resolved not to go anywhere near the city on New Year's Eve.

A depressing night, and not for the most obvious of reasons.

Saturday 25/12: My family Xmas party. Spent most of the day assisting in its preparation and thankfully (for the kids) i didn't have to play santa this year. Was as fun as a family Xmas gathering could be. Went to Coffee Bean with Albert, JJ, Paul and my cousin Stanley (resplendant in his Gengis Khan-ite santa hat, complete with flashing lights, and accompanied by the bitch in his life Coco. No, really).

Sunday 26/12 - Thursday 27/12: *argh* Ok it gets a bit foggy here but i do recall spending most of the week hanging out with all the old friends who came down for the Xmas holidays - namely Andrew, Aeric, and Lat. It was great seeing y'all again at the various mamak and lunch outings that occured throughout the week! Y'all come back now y'hear?

Erm... and wasn't there a Toastmasters meeting in there somewhere? Bleah. (Btw, congrats to Al and CH on joining the committee proper! Suckas! ;p)

Hrmmm... now that i think about it we did gather at Albert '42 inch plasma screen' Lim's new place to celebrate his housewarming and Chen Hoe's birthday...

Al (or should i say, his house?) got a pair of pillow covers which screamed 'LOVE MACHINE' while CH got a much sorely needed graphics card for his PC... ;p

Had a great time what with Aeric and Andrew showing up (haven't seen 'em in years!). Ah, the memories of the bunch of us sitting on the balcony making an OBSCENE amount of noise will stay with me for some time. ;)

Come to think of it, i still recall the conversation that night (AND the following night with Lat - all dutifully recorded by Aeric in his blog):

...Conversation pretty much improved/deteriorated the moment I arrived with donkey punching and rodeos being the recurring theme of the night.
As it turns out, Pat has some rather strange hobbies. By this, I am thinking of a particular example that was mentioned over a few mamak drinks. Something to do with hairstyling of a different nature. Video cameras were involved.

Some of the more memorable snippets of conversation I can remember ...

(While discussing everyone's current marital status)
Me: So Al has a girlfriend from the JPJ, Lat has a girlfriend who he won't talk about but is sure she exists, and Pat and Leonard are bedfellows.
Pat: What?! No!
Leo: We broke up last year.
(Pat in the background: Noooo!!)
Me: ... riiiiiiiiight. Moving swiftly along ...

(While discussing the ramifications of Pat running for president and the dirt that would be inevitably dug up)
Al: Hey Pat, you remember someone's nuts being shaved and you were videotaping it?
Pat: Oh yeah. That was funny.
Me: Pat the nut-shaver?? Has a funky ring to it.
Pat: I wasn't doing the shaving!
Al: And saying that you were video-taping it would be any better?
Me: Doesn't matter by now. After this, you will be known as 'Pat the nut-shaver'.
Pat: Noooo!

Apologies for any inaccuracies. Sneexe, you're right. It's really difficult to remember any of this with a decent degree of accuracy.

Conversation progressed in a warped manner with us contemplating what Malaysia would be like with Latiff as Agong (Everyone taller than me must have their legs cut off!) or Pat as Agong (Everyone SHORTER than me must have their legs cut off!), large rings with the word 'Donk' on it, the palace guards wearing helmets and unnecessary amounts of leather, and Leonard's obsession with the female form.

Ok, ok, granted this is the conversation that occured the follwing night but you get the idea... Man, that Donkey punching and Rodeo joke is still making the rounds! I'll... er... describe THAT some other time...

Oh, and please ignore the tidbit about me and the video camera/shaver/pubic hair. Lies i tell you, all lies! (NOT A WORD ABE!!!)

So where was i? Oh yeah, the night didn't end there - i had to drive and escort Andrew to his mother's office in Pantai Hospital so that he could sleep. All i'll say is, Malaysian hospitals at night are seriously disturbing and seriously easy to break into (kidney anyone?). Stayed there a while and played Down In Flames with Andrew and my brother.

For the curious, its a card game about WW2 air combat. (just go to the site link for more info)

For the record - it is AWESOME!

Played it again on Wednesday with Leonard, Al, Andrew and Lat and... well... suffice to say we were all hooked... ;)

Must. Buy.

Shit... where was i... so sleepy...

Right, about the only other event aside from the mamak for the remainder of the week was my being coerced by Serina into going salsa dancing at QBA in the Westin Hotel on Thursday night. Erm... long story short, mucho salsa and no dancing on my part (*phew*) despite her strenuous efforts. Oh, and i managed to avoid bumping into Leaonard, Gibran and Gavin... (yes!!!)

Er... and thats all i remember happening. Yes. *whistles*

Moving along, spent New Year's Eve at a friend of Joa's houseparty in Damansara Heights with almost everyone BUT Joa in attendance. Plenty of illegal fireworks, drinking, lifting of 10kg bags of rice, the picking up of drunken brothers and... and... wait a minute...

Vat eez dis?

An email from JJ? Nein! A GUEST BLOG from JJ outlining the events on New Year's Eve!

Ah, how kind fate is... (that, and i should really think of a better title for this)

My New Year's Night With Pat

by Loong JJ

Greetings from Johor Bahru!

To give Pat a break, it is the New Guy aka The Main Event, The Highlight of Delight, to entertain you Patsanitaholics! Since I was up in KL for Christmas and New Year with the gang, here are the highlights:

During Christmas time, we got to check out Al's new apartment- his place was da bomb! Its the perfect bachelor pad, makes my original Miami house of Luv look like a shanty! The highlight is definitely the entertainment system, especially the plasma flat screen TV. On boxing day, we got a group of friends together to celebrate the housewarming and Chen Hoe's Bday at the same time. We got Al a pillowcase set that says "Love Machine" when its placed side by side. Drinking my South American rum, playing the X-box and catching up with the guys wrapped up a good, relaxing weekend.

On New Year's Eve, me, Pat and Al had no idea what we were going to do since all the major New Pear parties were cancelled. We decided to get a quick dinner at a burger king drive-through to avoid the heavy traffic and horrible parking had we eaten at a restaurant. After picking up the food, we drove to a quiet street near Al's crib and ate in the car. At the same time, we got this phone call from Gibran.

Gib: Yo Pat! I am picking you up for the party!

Pat: Dude, I am not in the house.

Gib: Where u at?

Pat: In a car.

Gib: U driving?

Pat: No, I am with Jay Jee and Al parked at a street.

Gib: Doing what?

Pat: Eating

Gib:Uh....Oh, I arrived at the party already. Bye!

I assure you guys, we seriously did nothing wrong except eat fast food! And the white stuff on my car is mayo!

We dropped off Al at his crib since he decided to head out to the Buddist Temple early for the Tsunami relief volunteer work so Pat and myself went to a house party for the countdown. Upon arrival and caught up with the guys like Julian and Leonard, we decided to drink our vodka neat, a couple of our friends thought we were nuts."Why not mix?" they asked. I got the impression they were freaked out of us alcoholics or something! We had some firecrackers going up in the sky, but a couple went horizontal instead and hit the house walls. After the countdown.......no New Year kiss.......we left early to join Al, Floyd and Alvin for some volunteer work. We arrived at the Temple just after 1 in the morning and got some work done. Carrying boxes of food was alright, but the rice bags were killers. We also saw a psycho woman crying and screaming on the floor while some kid threw some water at her. Don't ask how that happened because I have no clue. Finished at 3 in the morning, it was interesting to see the volunteers clap away as the last container closed for shipment. While we didn't put much into it, we did contribute our time so please do the same.

Thats it for now, I gotta go Downtown to Chinatown!

Until then,

New Guy

Thanks for the guest post Mr... ah... 'Highlight of Delight', my tired, aching (and occasionally malformed) body thanks you and your amazing sense of timing! :)

Right, i'm just gonna end this quickly by saying that for the most part the last few days were spent doing various odds and ends, helping my ma with her stuff, or just hanging around Al's place.

There.

The slate is once again clean for regular updates.