Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.


So here we are, at the very last few moments of a rather event-filled 2008 and counting down to a brand new 2009! How time flies, I mean, wasn't it just yesterday when we were counting down to a brand new millenium? In a blink of an eye, a decade has almost come and gone. Well I've had a very decent year so far, but I'm really looking forward to 2009. A brand new year, a brand new start, a brand new life, and once again a time to start reflecting on the past year and think about how the new year would be an even better year ahead.

God has been very good to me this year, achieved a lot of things and I couldn't have done it without His strength! A look back at key events this year which has certainly seen more ups than downs..

• Jay Chou concert at the beginning of the year, all thanks to an unknown Facebook stranger who sold his tickets for the sold-out concert, if not I'll be wailing at home cos I would never ever miss a Jay Chou concert, it's my second one already!
• KL trip with the guys while crashing at my Dad's apartment
• Army unit celebrating their 7th anniversary and I appointed at the event chairman, definitely a huge load on my shoulders but it was more fun than work in the end!
• Thereafter it was ROD in June! Finally the end of National Service!
• Batam trip with the tourism peeps
• Cell Group retreat chalet
• Official graduation from the University of South Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Media Management
• 2-day Singfest 2008, where I will always have memories of only Rick Astley singing his mambo songs!
• Internship at Singapore Grand Prix, an eye-opening experience into the world of Formula One was witnessing the first live night race and Fernando Alonso being crowned the inaugural race winner
• Yet another Batam trip with the church peeps
• Of course, most people would say the highlight of the year was my coveted driving license which I attained on my first attempt
• My 22nd birthday celebrations at Hard Rock Cafe/Cafe Del Mar/Zouk/Singapore Flyer/Settlers Cafe during the whole week
• Kylie Minogue's concert, which was a very memorable day in my life because I have already lived long enough to see my 3 all-time favourite stars live in concert - Madonna, Kylie and Jay
• A big break at the Flesh Imp Fashion Show where I did solely for the Zouk Card, which never ever came, but made many friends along the way and I'm very glad for that
• Family road trip to KL/Ipoh
• Christmas party with the Simpang Gang, where the photos are still with Sarah and by then time she sends me, I'll be old and greying already
• A 16-year wait for the very first ever SHSS Volleyball gathering from the first batch (who are already married with kids) till the current batch, and a toast to the best volleyball coach in the world who have undoubtedly achieved much more gold than Sir Alex Ferguson!
• A final trip of the year yesterday to JB with the church peeps
• And the end of a soccer season with All Saints Church soccer team and NUFC-SG soccer team

Alright I must have missed out some other stuff and I'm sure I'll be stoned very badly for this, but apologies first then, I'm really writing this in a rush. And of course, experienced many disappointments and setbacks along the way, but let's not go into details on this very happy New Year's Eve if not the list would be so long that it makes Australia seem like a short movie.

Anyway, thanks to one and all for making everything happen, I sure hope that 2009 will be a better year for all!

YUUUM....SENG!

OPERATION SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
CHARLENE'S 23RD
SEAH STREET DELI / LOT STOCK BARREL

First up was a fantastic lunch of burgers, burgers and more burgers.









Love the restaurant as it has a very retro jukebox and it's absolutely free! Managed to play a birthday song for the birthday girl but what a pity, as usual in Singapore we have to live up to stupid policies like not allowing outside food and drinks - and that includes birthday cakes.

Headed over to the next door Newcastle bar for cake cutting instead.

The most delicious mango cake ever !





Charlene's present was always the easiest to choose, no brainer really. Anything to do with spongebob and the gay starfish will do the trick, hence the title of today's operation.

So I opted for a giant gay starfish!



See? Even Alan Shearer approves!





The other gifts from the other guys!













Actually, some people also found out that buying Christmas presents for yours truely wouldn't be too difficult as well!



Check this out. Bailey's chocolate, High School Musical edible calender and a very vintage Madonna album!

Wahahaha!

So I've been to the moon and back, and it's certainly turning out to be a rocking post-Christmas time after returning from Malaysia. There was the house party with my mates, the rare volleyball team reunion, a long-awaited night of mahjong and Charlene's birthday celebrations. I need my precious sleep and heading over to Gramophone today to rent more DVDs ain't helping!

Well, Malaysia was pretty boring this time around. Maybe it's because I've been there way too many times so I actually know what's in every mall and this trip I told myself to only get the 'needs' and not the 'wants', glad to say I achieved what I set out for. Only problem was the vast abundance of great food everywhere and so I'm back on my massive weight-loss program again. A pity that my hotel didn't have a pool because I brought all my swimming gear there, so yeah, at least the intention was there! (Bad excuse!)

As I had too much time on my side, managed to catch FOUR movies over there, and why not? It's so much cheaper as compared to Singapore. The only movie that was fully booked every single day was IP MAN, and people, please do not ask me whether I've watched it. I wouldn't watch it even if it's free or even if you plonk Madonna and Kylie beside me in the cinema. I'm not gonna waste 90 minutes of my life watching kungfu fighting. It's plain senseless.









Please, please, please heed my advice and do not watch the first two shows even if you have, I don't know, Brad Pitt by your side. It's bad!

And please, please, please heed my advice and watch the other 2 shows, CAPE NO.7 and AUSTRALIA !

I don't think Cape is still showing but if you have to go over to Malaysia just to watch (will do so on Tuesday!) then yes it's worth the long trip across the causeway! I've never seen a Chinese musical or something even close to that, but this is just breathtaking and I'm not surprised - Taiwan's biggest film ever. Fan Yi Chen's voice is so magical that it was like watching a concert and towards the end of the show I was even hoping for an encore like a typical concert and fortunately it came! And if anyone knows where to find the soundtrack, please let me know! I've been hunting it down ever since but it's nowhere in sight!

Australia, the movie, was as good as the country itself - simple, yet enchanting and there's always that alluring feeling when you have a stellar cast like Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman teamed up with Baz Lurhman. It's 3 freaking hours but it could have gone on for another 300 million hours and I wouldn't mind at all man. This is the Titanic of this millenium. Jack and Rose, please go and drown yourself in the Singapore River now.


So 72 hours to a new year, well I definitely can't wait! New year, new chapter in my life.

FAHRENHEIT FANTASY TOUR
19 DEC 2008
SINGAPORE INDOOR STADIUM





Obviously, I didn't buy these tickets. Please, I wouldn't even fork out a single cent for a band I haven't even heard before. Who in the world calls themselves Fahrenheit? Isn't the Taiwanese world already saturated with these cannot-sing-cannot-dance-good-looking teenage guys?











My aunt managed to get me the best seats in the house, 6th row from the front, seated among screaming teenage girls who knew every single line to every song.















Final verdict? As Simon Cowell would say, you can't sing, you can't dance, so what do you expect me to say? Seriously, their voices were just plain horrible. You could hear it through the ballads. My my, I hope none of those guys ever sing that as a wedding proposal, I could just cringe. The dancing was equally trash. Nothing was synchronised and obviously this is a band which can't sing and dance at the same time.

To make things worse, they did 3 covers which were so bad that even William Hung would have fared better. I don't know why a Taiwanese band would attempt to cover 2 Motown songs, My Girl and Uptown Girl when they clearly can't pronouce half of the song - and - the king of all kings blunders - they covered a Zhou Jie Lun song which was miles off the original and that really got me livid. Come on guys! Don't ruin a legend like that!

As expected, I didn't stay till the end. Thankfully.

Squeezed in 2 more movies this week.



Yes I'm gonna be biased again, I don't care how touching stories about animals are, I just don't like it. So this is a clear verdict for me. (Although the hamster was kinda cute in the pre-trailer when he sang the few High School Musical songs. LOL)

waggly-tail-o-meter: 1/5



Ok, any Jim Carrey movie will definitely be worth watching, period. I laughed till I almost cried! Seriously, too, somehow you just find yourself asking the same question - will you able to live a life where you say Yes! to everything? Go watch this one for some light-hearted humour.

yes-no-maybe-o-meter: 4/5


Malaysia tomorrow!
20-26 Dec 08

Merry Christmas to everyone then!

Lesson number 1 for guys who club: Never ever wear a soccer jersey.

Because the animosity between the fans of the different clubs is so great, you just don't know what you can get yourself into. So yesterday I left my house in a jiffy so I couldn't bother to dress up like I always do and ended up wearing my jersey for fun sake. MAN. It was like as if I'm spreading a virus or what? Halfway through the crowded dancefloor and someone pelted a whole chunk of ice at me. Fortunately it hit the right side of my head and not the left, where it could easily took my cornea out. And trust me - it was painful, so much that even those around me were stunned to the max but couldn't really see who committed the act with so much going around.

Another loser came up to me and screamed "DUDE YOU'RE WEARING THE WRONG JERSEY!" Like what's wrong with you people man. It's not as if I'm at Chijmes and disturbing your Manchester derby match or your East London derby match.

Bleah. I just woke up and I'm going back to sleep.

Had free tickets for TWILIGHT tonight. Think I haven't watched movies for quite some time already, but there's hardly any blockbusters out this month.



Haven't heard of this series before so wasn't really anticipating this, and I really can't understand why everyone is gushing about this movie. To start off, both the leads are just plain ugly. Come on, Hollywood has zillions of actors and this Edward guy is probably the worst of the lot. The girl? I don't even wanna go there.

The movie itself was pretty average and didn't enjoy it fully. Some parts were just so slow, I could nap in between. I'm actually kinda into this vampire thingy when I watch Supernatural so I had expectations about vampire movies, and this one just doesn't live up to it. Vampires are blood-thirsty and nasty creatures; you just don't make them tone down and take away all the blood and gore, then it's quite pointless already. It's nowhere even near what Supernatural has to offer.

blood donation-o-meter: 2/5


Watching Discovery Channel now and it's really fascinating, please watch Inside every Tuesday night. It's about life in prison and the documentary follows everything that happens inside this California prison, and this episode is about examining the inmates' tattoos to decipher its meaning. Like seriously, isn't that exactly like Prison Break? I can't believe people actually watch television programmes and fabricate all these weird ideas about inmates breaking out using tattoos! Hello, not everyone is Scofield!

ZOUKOUT 2008
13-14 DEC 2008
SILOSO BEACH, SENTOSA



After so many years, finally went for my first evert Zoukout. Yeah I have no idea what happened in previous years, something always cropped up, but well there's always a first time for everything!

I even attended this and skipped my uncle's wedding, but mainly because I didn't even know of his wedding date until only yesterday, and I certainly wasn't gonna throw my $50 ticket down the drain. So I guess no ang pow for me during CNY. LOL.

The ZoukOut cars, which were paraded outside Zouk on Wednesday needlessly and caused a massive human jam. What for, what for? ZoukOut is not a car show what.







Reached at 9pm after having dinner with the whole of Singapore at Vivocity and caught up with the flesh imp guys.








There was an invasion by this group of white aliens, and I seriously don't know what company they were from and what product they were marketing. Some kind of advertising huh?



NO GOLD BURIED HERE.

Again, Singapore is famous for creating signs that are so freaking obvious.







Right in front for Andrew Chow's hiphop set!

Sadly, it was the most disappointing set of the night, totally trash music.



There's even a Wii station, and speaking about Wii, think I'm seriously gonna get one for myself. Save the trouble of finding tennis kakis!



Very strangely, also found a booth to play guitar hero. How on earth can you hear anything with 6 deejays blasting their music all across the beach?



Left around 5am, and with 20,000 party-goers, you can imagine the cab queue, but thankfully found one driver who was changing shift at Tampines so we skipped the queue and hopped on. Whew! I cannot imagine taking a train home when I'm totally shagged out at 5am.

And Zouk, please impose a no-smoking ban at the next ZoukOut, thank you very much. 20,000 people and at least half were smoking. It was like being stuck head-first in a chimney man.

Check out the damage in one night:

ZoukOut ticket: $51
Dinner: $10
Drinks: $20
T-shirt: $12
Cab fare: $12

Total: $105

Alright, time to snack on kittens for the rest of the month and do my Christmas shopping at Daiso.



What a fool
That I should ever believe
Love, truth and honesty
All the time
Just keep on hurting me