party all night long

So last weekend was party after party after..nope, actually it was just those two. Cat's & Ann's 21st birthday parties were both on the same day, one after another.

Catherine's was a Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter high class tea party, located at One Tree Hill picnic grounds, a rather clever theme I thought. I was told to wear a touch of 'mad hatter'-ness or wacky, and my family helped my put together this strange costume with a bowler hat and giant gold ribbon as my bowtie. And then no one else dressed up =_= except tim and his polka dot shirt. Grr. Haha, but it was pretty fun.

Cat & Lauren put a lot of effort into setting everything up! It looked beauuutiful! The classy food was delish and the hot tea came in handy as it was quite cold up in the Dandenong ranges. We had a good time! Happy birthday tomorrow Cat!

And then it was on to Ann's birthday. Boy I was stressing out on this one, as I had a rather ambitious project to complete and it was all done rather last minute. I had recruited my brother to help me create a life size cut out of one of Ann's many Korean actor/singer idols, so I could present it to her as her boyfriend! It turned out very well thanks to my brother's high creative talent.

The party was held at Gertrude Hotel in Fitzroy, which was quite a nice venue. I'll be curious to know what the bill was, but it was well staffed and very neat. It was a very nice turn out and I enjoyed the night. Dave used his magical talents to make a fantastic performance with his guitar as usual. I wasn't very happy with my speech at all, but Kim Bum made up for it and saved my ass. Happy birthday Ann.

teoh,

belated wishes

So with all that's going on, I haven't had time to update a few birthday celebrations I've been attending.

First up, Jason Ling! Happy 21st birthday buddy. Even though you didn't have a birthday celebration, you still get a mention, cause you're that cool! Actually, cause you're such a close friend of mine, I do want to say something!

Thanks for your friendship since grade 7, it's been good times all the way. In fact, I cannot recall a time when we've been at odds with each other. That itself kinda tells what kind of friend you are: always supportive! We've shared many good memories together and you've also taught me many things on the way. The best thing about you is that you're the best kind of company anyone could want! It's no wonder you're really popular nowadays. All the best.

Secondly, Marco Kwok! Happy 21st birthday to you good sir. We all went to Langham hotel for lunch buffet, and I was very impressed. The service and presentation were all up to the price, so I was quite happy by the experience. Not somewhere I'll go often though!

Marco, you've been my longest friend to date now (you beat dave by a few months? or a year?)! Even back then you were smart, so I knew you were going to go to elite places in the future. Now look at you, Dr.Kwok! I think the most impressive thing about is how hard you work. Not just study wise though, but life in general. I think back to the quiet timid boy you were in year 7, to now the confident guy who unfortunately still stabs me in the back with sarcasm now and then, and I think of the effort you put in to change yourself for the better. I applaud you and to the result. Good on you. I also put up this terrible photo of you as revenge for all the times you've annoyed me. =]

Next is Willie's and Danny's 21st! Unfortunately I don't have a picture for either of their's, but they were good celebrations to catch up with their 'crew'. Danny's was near Crown Casino, and we had the honour of dining at Willie's family's little restaurant for his! Even though we are quite distant, I'm glad I went and refresh those old friendships. Some people should never be forgotten, and although there were times when it was rough, they were still my first group of friends in high school and included me. Cheers to our friendship! (even though they don't read here =])

And finally, last but not least, Sharon and Grace's birthday! I was quite swamped with work last week, so thankfully Amanda organised something for us to gather up and celebrate these two strong girls birthdays! They went to Zest at Glenny, and I joined later on. Each one I think has had struggles to deal with but has been given some much courage and strength to continue on. I admire both and glad we still all can keep in contact, even though these two girls are the most busiest of the group.

Happy birthday guys!

Whew. And there's more to come. Ann's, Amanda's and Cat's are all in April and quite close together. More fun ahead!

teoh,

twenty one - the man i am

As my twenty first milestone in my life has arrived, I would like to write a little something.

To be honest, the reason I was not keen on celebrating my 21st was because I felt like I did not have much to celebrate. I like to think 21st as a time to celebrate the person's life up to now, and I did not think there was much in mine.

Amanda touched me when she mentioned about accomplishing a lot in my friends around me. It was really nice to know that I had made a positive difference in the people around me and made me feel a lot better about my 21st. Jason and Grace both reminded me of all the strong friendships I had in that room. And I was really surprised by the strongest speech coming from Tim, my past arch-nemesis haha, but really glad. After all, if I've turned my enemy into a really close friend, I can't have done much more. Those improv speeches really made my night. I was not kidding when I said they are half of my life.

Just as my friends mentioned my good character, I must credit a lot of my positive traits to my parents. I have both learnt and inherited my kindness from both of them; my generosity comes from my mother, who always gives to people and never expects much in return; my organising and social skills I must be grateful to my father.

I'd also like to say thanks to my brother and sister. Although my siblings are literally distances away, they have made the effort to come in and celebrate my 21st in their own way.

I really look forward to the my life ahead of me from the point of twenty one. Although I've been warned that it's all downhill, I hope I get to have a fun time rolling down it!

teoh,

my 21st birthday

21ST BIRTHDAY POST.

Boy, have I had a great few days of celebrating.

I would like to thank everyone for all their birthday wishes, and everyone that made an effort to make these past few days special for me. I have had a WONDERFUL time and everything worked out great.

PreBirthday - 26th

Played 3 hours of badminton with dave, xuan, amanda and a new friend michelle. Was exhausted afterwards, slept at 8PM. Xuan bought me a new racket, adding to the one my dad bought me in malaysia =]

Birthday Day 1 - 27th my actual birthday

Star wars book I ordered arrived - perfect. Went to buy sowing machine with dave at target, later watched tennis and played monopoly deal at tim's house. Also played scrabble. FLAXEN for 36 point win!
Small group of close friends came over, played some games, ngs' made me cupcakes, ann bought me a cake, we all sang songs and ate =] GIN.

Birthday Day 2 (also my brother's) - 28th

Went to work for supervisor training (did I mention I put myself up for promotion?) and ended up having cake all day. Everyone at work sang happy birthday for me, had a great time.

Had an even better time as more workmates gathered for dinner at airstream. Also got me cake and sang happy birthday (third time this week!).

Birthday Day 3 - 29th

Had dinner with all my closest friends at Rare Steakhouse, on Little Collins street. I figured I would go ahead and try the prime Angus steak ($48 for a 400g porterhouse) and man it was good. Had some nice BBQ sauce that is apparently also called monkey glands in South Africa? to go with it. Everyone sang happy birthday once more. Amanda, Jason and Grace said some improvised speeches for me, which was really nice. Love all my friends.

Birthday Day 4 - 30th

Dinner at Rockpool at Crown with dad and brother. Had steak yet again - unbelievably, it was better than Rare's (still pricey $58). So soft and tender, full of flavour. Had some nice side dishes, roast pumpkin and sweet potatoe with burnt butter and garlic yoghurt was my favourite. Some great desserts followed, macaroon with banana ice cream and balsamic vinegar ice-cream on a strawberry tart. YUM.

Now off to canberra tomorrow to have some fun with my friends. BOOYAH.

teoh,

slightly down

my poor fish rainbow isn't looking very good at the moment =[ I'm a bit sad. It's sorta just floating around at the bottom of the tank, moving only so slightly. 'He' (as I like to think of him) has had a good life though, I've managed to keep him and his 'partner' Flora for a good 7 or 8 years. I'm quite proud of taking good care of them. Hope he passes along as peacefully as possible.

I bought some new seaweed and cleaned out the tank for him, which brings me to my second topic. Pet's Paradise is a horrible place. Terrible service, the staff don't seem to care about your needs at all. Terrible product, more than half of my sea weed is already browning and dying. The lady should have checked for me. They have lost me as a customer, never going back to them again. Sad for such a large franchise that deals with such cute puppies.

GHD interview is nearing, slightly nervous. I'm scared that the cognitive test is going to reveal me for the true retard I am haha. Hope I've kept my problem solving skills from high school. I shall be spending most of tomorrow preparing.

Had fun at tim's 21st yesterday, happy birthday tim. Hope you enjoy your new camera. Also hope I didn't base you too much in my speech. I actually did have some nice words in there, but I forgot to mention them up there. Whoops. You're a pretty fun guy, glad to have you as my friend. Looop buddy!

also, I've changed to Google Chrome. opera was doing something funny and I couldn't get it to stop. Plus I've been slightly frustrated with opera in that it doesn't support a few things that I use. I've discovered the Chrome has supported mouse gestures and shortcuts, so I'm all happy with it now =] I'm going to miss Speed Dial though.

teoh,

Meat & Wine Co Review

It is my dad's birthday on Tuesday, so we decided to go out to celebrate at a fancy place in the city.

Meat & Wine Co is located on Southbank, just near MacDonalds, on Queensbridge street. It is famous for it's wide combination of meat and wine. It features a restaurant with two levels, and a lounge bar which sometimes holds special events.

The Restaurant

I've actually been in this area a few times from crown, and was surprise to find it was not a fancy dress place. No one wore anything more fancy than my own outfit that you can see in the pictures, so it's a very casual restaurant. The restaurant itself is very nice, the bar is quite comfortable, dining tables are spacey enough. The restaurant actually extends out onto the footpath, but you wouldn't be able to tell thanks to tight plastic walls and heaters.
Make no mistake though, the prices are not casual. As you would expect from a meathouse, the prices range from entrée dishes for fifteen dollars to steak and chips for as much as fifty dollars. Sides extra four dollars. Not a place for the tight budget.

Service

The night started off terribly. My brother told them his name and the time he booked, and they could not find it. The lady then proceeded to tell my brother that it was booked for 6PM, not 730PM and quote "you must've misunderstood me". She then rudely gave us a look of 'you are so inconvenient' and told us to wait in the bar while she sorted something out. No apology. No when she'll come up and tell us. Just shoved us aside. I was ready to let loose some Teoh rage at her.

Thankfully, that was the end of bad service. 10 - 15 minutes later, we got a table, where we were served with one of the friendliest waitress I've met. She took care of us like a waitress should, inquiring if we were celebrating and arranged a birthday scoop of ice cream for my dad (then again this could've been a trap: see below). All waiters and waitresses were very polite, with sir's and lady's. Food came at a respectable duration of around 20 minutes.

The service at the table was very satisfactory. Front service, look out.

FoodThe prices drove my expectations quite high, and I can say that they were met in some regards. I had a rib platter ($50), containing beef, lamb and pork ribs and chips. It was huge. 1kg of meat. I managed to get t hrough most of it and it was delicious. The sauce was nice, and the meat was really tender; very easy to eat off the bone. However, it was a bit disappointing that salads were not included in my meal. I felt a bit sick after a while just devouring a whole plate of meat and fried potato chips.

My brother's steak was delicious, the meat was so tender and he got 600g of it. It also cost fifty dollars. I had a nice chunk of it and enjoyed tearing through it like an animal (I used my fingers cause they were already dirty from the ribs). Overall, I think my family was pleased with the food delivered.

The dessert was an apple and rhubarb crumble, which was satisfactory but not outstanding.

Verdict

I would like to re-experience this place again, maybe next year. There's no doubt it is expensive, but the food and nice table service makes up for it. However, the trap I mentioned before: the ice scoop that my dad got for his birthday surprise? They charged us for it, $3. That's just wrong in principle.

I will probably never take my high school friends, as they are both pov and not used to eating that western food. But my workmates might enjoy it. 21st possiblitiy? Only with a few people.

Recommend for steak enthusiasts and those who can afford a nice night out.

teoh,

night out with the guys

so me and my two uni mates Henry (left) and Long (right) went out around the city on saturday night. Our other friend Wil was sick and also at work and missed out on a fun night. The idea was just to go around to a few pubs and just hang out. Me, being a city noob, was also interested in exploring the city a bit more. Here's a google map of our route, both for anyone interested, and myself to remember:

we met up at (A) melbourne central, and headed out to (B) stalactites, a greek souvlaki restaurant. I had a steak, which was cooked very well (very close to medium-rare as you can get), so overall a nice place. Typical melbourne city restaurant price though ~22 bucks for the meal.

we had slurpies straight after, which turned out to be a horrible idea haha. Headed over to (C) Red Hummingbird, which has a really nice open roof space. I could see a small 21st function there easily. Then off to melbourne central, to some bar I can't recall...had a nice open view of the state library. A quick drop by maccas for some chicken nuggets, and then to a bar called (D) Softbelly. Had some cool retro gametables, and a nice atmosphere. I was surprised to see a fair few asians hanging out at pubs, just drinking socially. Had some Lord of the Fries (well they did, I passed) after as well. I want to try their onion rings next time I go in.

And then of course, ended up at (E) galactic circus to show off some DDR skills lol. After that, was feeling pretty dead and sick. Then we ran for the (F) Flinders station for an 11:05pm train. Got there at 10:59, and then hung around for a minute talking about nothing, and then realised it was a 11:00pm train. GG, missed it. Ended up buying the Age and read for half an hour until the next one came.

GOOD FUN.

On another note, have finally obtained a copy of Mass Effect 2. Always respected Bioware's games, and Mass Effect 1 was damn good. About 2 hours into the game, and I'm already hooked with it. They've made some nice improvements (which I won't bother to list, since no one really cares :D), but most importantly they've reduced the amount of that far off distant motion blur. I think the remains of it might be cause my graphic card isn't up to scratch =[

Speaking of which, trying to bring my 'old' laptop out of retirement for uni. Will not install VLC or anything entertainment wise besides MusicBee (music player). Trying to put windows 7 on it, but it's putting up a fight at the moment..damn you vista.

next: new phone thoughts? ipad thoughts.

teoh,

'night out.

happy 21st amanda and sharon. it was a good night out. still tired, so will do this in dot points.

fun to catch up with quite a few people. jali is still strange and funny. sam is such a mother (sat behind me so she could keep an eye on my speedometer). tim is so fashionable. saw hong dance haha.

speeches went alright. some nice improv and some not so nice improve haha. dave smashed them all with a great singing voice and talented guitar playing. awesome.

missed out on cake. >.<>

venue was nice: Moroccan Lounge. I liked the nice big sofa/bed thing, though more softness required.

and finally. after a year. talked to grace.

feel it all wash away. thanks dave for the extra 10 minutes. I know it must've killed you.

teoh.

where are the golden bananas?

I'm capped at home, so blogging at work is now the only option.

I've actually taken to hermiting due to gaming, which is good considering being capped means I'm reduced to offline things anyway. Along with Dragon Age Origins and Trine, I've also started up Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, which is actually pretty fun.
FPS war games have improved since the last one I've played (which was ages ago). This is more 'realistic' (as far as you can stretch that word in virtual games), involving more modern special operation forces and such. Pretty fun, I'm looking forward when someone cracks Modern Warfare 2 for me =] I suppose I'll do a proper game review soon, but for now, this will be a general update.

Last night was Li's and Jame's 20th birthday, at the Golden Monkey. Despite being designated driver for the night, it was a good time. Saw John Chen again, love that guy, spent a night with ann, finally saw hong randomly!, and of course the birthday boy lithium. It was, as was put by someone in my car, a mediocre night, but I found it quite enjoyable. Bartender Daniel was quite friendly, as most bartenders are, and mixed quite a few drinks for ann. I must say, it's expensive trying to get ann drunk, and I didn't even succeed.

Notes for future parties/21st: The venue was quite nice, just typical dim-lighting, decent level of music noise (no DJ, just overhead) and drinks were expensive as usual. Hong missed the dance floor, which is a fair point and might be a deal breaker for some. The whole place was booked out, and it tended to break people into their groups instead of mixing. Wouldn't consider it for mine.

It was also exciting/stressful to drive into the city, since it was the first time. Driving in was nice, no stress, ann was a good co-pilot. However, driving back out was annoying for three points: city looks the same every road I take, the roads are too hardcore (see below), and matt didn't shut up about alternate routes! =P I drove home with 3 drunks in the back, matt, guo and hong.

what I mean by hardcore roads is that there were no guidelines or shown on the road, probably due to the tram lines. but still, I miss my noob white lines =[ and even the round abouts are huge. Reminds me of the magic roundabouts we got taught in engineering (google magic roundabout swindon).

btw, hong has over 40 readers on her blog =_= I'm pretty sure I only have like 3. Takes off the pressure of blogging though =D

the following posts will be a review of my new keyboard/mouse and some games =]

teoh,