we're back in hardware mode.

Last week was a nice slow relaxed week. A nice change of pace.

Picked up an extra project for fun, and although it was not worth any marks, I quite enjoyed doing it; mainly cause it involved presenting. Had to do a presentation on Shang Hai Expo 2010, which is quite interesting by itself, and choose a structure to focus on. My friend Henry Lim does some pretty fantastic things with Office and made an awesome powerpoint that made my job really easy. We got invited to present again at a seminar at the end of the semester.

Got to floorwalk newbies at work, man that was more tiring than I expected. They aren't exceptionally good, and I had such high hopes for them, but it's only their first week on the phones, so hopefully they pick it up.
On another topic at the workplace, something big is going down, I can feel it. We've had supervisors leave and shuffle around, and they've been asking shift leaders what they think they can improve and such...something is definitely happening. Stay tuned for more news.

the fantastic adventures of crown continue, although nothing quite spectacular happened. Ann, Erica and me just did the usually catch up, drink (reached five in the Fibonacci rule)  and I played a little bit of blackjack. The flame towers at crown have been cut back to being disappointing. No big flares anymore =[ we're thinking of going somewhere else next time. cya later crown.

Resistance - Muse, is a song that strangely touches me. The chorus depict, to me, the rush of rebellious love, wanting to be with someone despite good reasons not to, having self-doubt creep in, then resolving to erase the whole thing...and then wondering that it could've been right.

saw Iron Man 2 on friday with the uni boys. it was an okay movie, the usual hyped up sequel, but it had some really awesome moments as per usual. Man I love the whole idea of Iron Man. I actually hate the big boss fights at the end, they're really mediocre for me. The best part is the whole process of making Iron Man, being a super engineer. So awesome. The music is pretty dramatic too, listening to some of it now to motivate me to do my own work.

and a nice shout out to QBE Travel Insurance. Got my second cheque back today for a full refund of my replacement passport. Thinking back, QBE was actually very helpful and so easy to deal with. The only thing I can fault them is the waiting period can take awhile, and with no communication, it's a bit hard to know if your claim is actually being processed or not.

qantas on the other hand, can go stuff themselves and their *insert angry frustrate word here* helpdesks. Even I'm more helpful during a crabby mood.

need to have a productive week this week.

teoh,

edit: time for a new layout soon I think.

expanding my interests

my mainstream music stuff is slowly expanding out.

jay sean - war, lights out, fire
jason harwell - somewhere the sun, pray
muse - resistance, undisclosed desires
adam lambert - whataya want from me
living end - white noise
chris brown - forever
mika - happy ending
red hot shili peppers (found it in my harddrive) - snow hey oh, dani california
train - hey soul sister
taylor swift (lol) - you belong to me, love story
akon - beautiful
afterhouse - halfway gone

is something what my playlist is looking like at the moment =]

teoh,

life bending

So I got Avatar: the last airbender from my friend Long at uni...it was actually the series I was most reluctant to take from him; turns out, I don't want to watch anything else he gave me but~!

It's surprisingly on par with things like Naruto (the good episodes) and has hooked me to watch all 3 seasons. It's got a decent story, has my favorite themes like powers of elements, destiny to save the world in the form of a long quest and some nice characters. Disappointingly it's a Nickelodeon cartoon, so the animations are nothing flashy, but maybe it was simple to make that the action in it is not too bad and pretty constant too! So that was my whole weekend gone.

I was quite stressed and frustrated this week, but it really felt like as soon as friday afternoon came, it all disappeared and everything was put into perspective again. So this weekend was not bad, though I didn't get much sleep due to 6am starts. Hopefully that will stop soon.

My taste in music has changed this year. Since I've played less games than usual, I haven't come across any nice soundtracks, and the movie ones this year have been meh (though I'm seeing Hans Zimmerman in everything!?). And I've had more clubbing experiences (mostly in NZ) than I've had my whole life. So I really enjoy listening to the radio now, and I've started to make a playlist of...mainstream songs? I'm a big fan of strings in these songs; favourites at the moment are Train - Hey Soul Sister, Jay Sean - Do You Remember and Closer by whoever.

Mum's leaving tomorrow =[. Need to get work hours down asap so I can cope with home stuff, work stuff and uni stuff.

teoh,

the korean phase.

I've resisted this post for awhile, but I think it must come out.

So I don't know when exactly this whole korean phase started..I know it probably started from timothy, but he's not by far the worst at the moment (more to that later (you know who I'm talking about)). Anyway, I got exposed to it first up in Queensland, on our lazy day we were just showing each other youtube clips; one of them was SNSD genie.

And now, to my shame, I have become a fan. Even as I write this, I have dedicated my first GB of internet usage downloading away cute dances, and pretty faces. (I just saw Yuri moonwalk :O)

Let me just justify myself here a bit. I haven't gotten into korean music. Nor am I a perve! I only like SNSD because the girls are pretty. They aren't slutty (although they show off their legs a lot, BUT I know plenty of girls who would say, if I had them so would I!). And somehow I find myself hitting replay on youtube and catching myself shuffling towards the kitchen in a terrible replica of their dance moves.

For the record, this is all jason's fault. But, if I ever get as sad as him (as seen on his blog and facebook):
please shoot me.

teoh,

sydney trip

update time! just got back from sydney trip with my good friend marco.

first of all, sydney airport/tiger airways conspired together to delay us aaaaall the way through our trip. We had like 3 delays all up. First departure, was delayed like half an hour to board, and then was held up in the air in holding pattern for another half an hour before we landed. We were almost late to the concert!


Anyhow, the concert was awesome! In terms of content and variety, it was way better than the years before. They had a few games and anime I've never heard of, and some of them I sorta zoned out on, but there were some that were impressive. Some new arrangements of old favourites (ala laputa, shadow of colossus, metal gear solid encore) were simply AWESOME and renewed those songs in my mind. Gonna go dig some of them up asap.

Three things that disappointed me/us. The Sydney Entertainment Center was quite large inside, so I think they had to electronically amplify the orchestra...and it didn't sound as great as I wanted it to be. Sometimes it didn't sound live at all. Second, bloody camera men kept walking in and out. GO AWAY. And third, we only got three signatures per poster at the signings after cause they were running late =[ I usually get everyone's at every concert.. ><


This was our 'cell' that we lived in that night. The fat bald man at the reception said only three things. 'Paper', 'Room 105', 'Checking out?'. No hello, how are you, nothing. That's what you get from a backpacker's hotel. Apparently we had some noisy drunk girls next door too, but I'm a heavy sleeper :D

Sunday morning was a really nice sunny day, albeit windy. We visited Hyde Park and Royal Botanical Gardens on the way to the bridge and opera house. We looked around the city after that and I've come to this conclusion: sydney city is just like melbourne's except it's dirter, rougher and the people are less friendlier. Even McDonalds, the staff sucked, no greetings or anything, bathroom was filthy, smelt like vomit...bah. Not a fan of sydney to be honest now.
Anyway, that'll do for now. The pictures will make this post slightly long. Thanks for coming along marco, it was a good experience! I sense an exciting new update coming soon =]

teoh,