I wanted to make sure I got to work on time on Friday, so I spent Thursday night at the Hub because of the trucks protest. They took so long coming down State Highway 1 that they only got to town around 8.30am, so there wasn't any traffic at all. But once they got in...there was epic honking and blasting of horns. They certainly made their presence known in Central Wellington. I heard there was mayhem in Auckland as they blocked up the Southern Motorway and Queen St too.



We'd also learned that Team Puppyguts, led by some guys at work, had won the 48 Hour Film Festival. Congratulations to them! In celebration, the company got a treat.



I spent most of the day finishing up the Ignite Website..and sneaking in a few games of DotA. Sigh I'm so rusty. But the website itself is making good progress, and Ignite Youths 2.0 will definitely release on time :p

I just got back from watching the game at JJ Murphy's. What an epic game!



We had a good meal as well. They were unfortunately out of steaks, so I ordered some delicious lamb shanks. Still a little bit hungry, Sunni, Andrew and I decided to share a chocolate mud cake (We were looking at Raewyn enjoying hers and wanted one too). My first comment upon its arrival:

"...This tastes meaty...."

Yeah. Some one had confused chocolate sauce with barbeque sauce. Awesome.

It's less than a week to Easter, which means I get to fly back to Auckland to visit my youth group and my parents. It also means our current sprint for work is wrapping up, so I'd better finish all my work!

Today we had a flat barbeque, for no apparent reason whatsoever. But it's always good to have a flat barbeque. At least there wasn't any dancing this time. Rather, we played Mafia! Hooray. We had a twist on the game where we only two of the sheriff, doctor and sniper would be active, but it would be random and no one would know which one had been left out. So it makes it interesting when someone attempts to pass themselves off as something they aren't. Yeah, it was quite intense, but Jono kept making the wrong decisions and I think the Mafia got away with a lot more than they should have.

Oh yeah, as a followup to my last post, the three most common responses to the story have been:
3. Sleeping? And listening to your iPod? Let me note this down
2. So, the bridge you say? I think I'll go check it out some time
1. You said WHAT? You should have said "I'm taken, but here's my friend's number!"

Yesterday we had a flat barbeque. I suppose it's kind of a flat warming, since it's the first big party since the four of us moved in together. Despite the cold weather, the food and alcohol proved a big hit, and people were having a good time. So good in fact, that they started cranking out the Ceroc moves on the lounge floor. Yes. Quite.

At 10pm, we whizzed off to Te Papa to see the fireworks, as part of their 10th anniversary. Check the Gallery for the pictures I took.

Today I went back to the Streets for the morning service, with Andrew and Bjorn. I have to say, the morning service was a lot more welcoming and familiar than the night service, even if I didn't know any of the songs. It's a similar structure to KCC and we also had communion, which was good. Yeah, much better atmosphere in the morning...but it's still a little big and intimidating, haha.

After that, we met up with some others and had a barbeque/roast meat lunch. Roast duck, roast pork, barbeque pork and spicy chicken wings! :3



I also took the opportunity to try a honey milk tea, which was very average. Although it was better than the one from Cha (See my post a few days ago), it still doesn't compare to Momo's. Sigh.



Finally, I forgot to post this a few days ago, but here is the Wat Tan Hor I had from K.K. Malaysian Restaurant.

It was Jess's birthday two weeks ago, so what better to do than to celebrate with a barbeque at his flat? I didn't actually know it was his birthday (I think it's his 21st too) until Daniela brought a cake from Michel's saying "Happy Birthday" (And a delicious one it was too!).

Anyway, I have rediscovered that the Wii is really really fun, even though you don't know what you're doing half the time. And it's better than way, because when you do something right, it's incredibly rewarding and funny at the same time. We played WarioWare, Brain Academy, Wii Sports, Super Monkey Ball....and DRAGON BALL Z YEAH. Yeah, even though I kept getting sassed in Dragon Ball Z, the main objective is NOT actually to beat your opponent, but rather, to see how many times you can yell OVER 9000!!!!!! or KAMEHAMEHAMEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I think I won on those grounds. Damn right.

Tomorrow is the Christmas skit >_< I really need to revise my lines, but we have guests over at the moment and I don't want to look like a nincompoop just randomly yelling things like "Would you mind sharing your Christmas cheer with us???".

Oh yes, I sense that some people are at Momo's right now. ¬.¬

So, today looked promising. It was cloudy, but there weren't any rain clouds in the sky. It was windy, but it wasn't a chilling wind. So with the weather holding out, the youth group went off to Orewa for our end-of-year party.

Unfortunately, the barbeques at Orewa require 50c to operate. Unfortunately, by 50c, I mean the old oversized 50c. So we didn't have one, obviously, so we decided to go to Wenderholm. Lucky for us, there was a spare barbeque, so we set ourselves up and started cooking food.

Food was great. There was so much meat. And there was salad and fruits and cake and *drool* and oh it was delicious. I helped to cook so I didn't overeat, and as a result, I was able to run around and go for a swim. The water was really nice. We were catching waves and stuff, but then it suddenly turned cold (I think it was a change in wind) and we headed back out onto dry land.

We continued to play a few games... beat vortex (Where you throw to someone, and they have to clap before they catch it. When you lose all your lives, you lie in the middle of the circle and everyone else gets to biff the vortex at you), and we also played EPIC TWISTER where we had a mat of 14 Twister dots. Yeah. It was epic. Epic, I tell you. It got to the stage where it was just me and Deanna, and Cinta, the spinner, had given up spinning and was just calling out random limbs and random colours.

Of course, since we're so close to Orewa, we couldn't resist going to Plantations for some ice cream. So we did! I had a double-scoop of gingerbread and cookies & cream on a waffle cone. <3

We were unpacking things at church, when some things happened, that should have never happened. It really soured what was an awesome day. I really don't know. I feel so helpless and depressed...even though I'm not involved. All I can do is support those who are affected. So, those of you who know what I'm talking about and are reading this...please, please don't carry all your burdens by yourself. We're like a family, and we're here to support each other in whatever way we can.

So I've had a real busy two days. On Friday I went out for dinner with my sister to this Japanese place called Moto on Paramount Drive (It connects Central Park and Lincoln Road) and we ate so much, and it was really good as well. We both had a bento box, except I had beef and she had chicken. The bento came with sashmi, sushi, teriyaki chicken skewers, tempura and some miso. We also shared 8 dumplings and a tofu salad. Of course, my sister couldn't finish some stuff so I had to finish it for her. I think the only thing left on the table were my two sushi, so we did a pretty good job.

After that we went walking around West City for present ideas. We came out empty handed. West City was about to close anyway, so yeah.

Then I went to pick Bobby up and we went to town for Linh's birthday thingy. Her Facebook invite thingy said 9pm, so we were a bit surprised that she was..um..not there when we arrived at 10pm. She was "running late"...haha. Poor Linh. We had a good time though. The music was a bit loud and it was hard to hear people talking, but it was good to catch up and meet new people. Half the time I didn't know the person's name, because you know, you introduce yourself over the loud music and then you spend the rest of the night trying to figure out what they said... and whether you got it right. Oh, we got her a drinks set where you add your favourite alcohol, freeze the mix, and then you have an instant cocktail. She also got this punching bag thingy that swears each time you hit it. O_o

Today, my CS friends went to Wenderholm for a picnic thingy. As usual, Amy organised a huge amount of food, so we were exceptionally well fed. We had fun cooking on the barbeques, and kicking soccer balls around, and lazing about, and catching waves in the water (It was cold, but wasn't unbearable, yet Ted came out shivering like he had hypothermia). Raymond kept washing things. Al and Ted "wrestled" on the grass. There was a turd in the urinal. No one ate the "kerosene sausages". We fail at capturing ducks. Pics and video of Al and Ted at Casey's blog.

In the evening, we had nothing to do, so we made a stop to Plantations in Orewa and had some ice cream before going to Al's house and play PS2 and Mafia. Ah Mafia. I haven't played Mafia in ages. And today I was reminded as to why I hate it so much. Everytime I'm mafia, the sheriff investigates me, then reveals himself and points the finger at me, so I die. Everytime I'm not mafia, the mafia kill me. So that leaves me with two places left - when I'm the doctor, I get to heal myself all the time; also, when I'm the sniper, I get to randomly kill someone. Han also introduced a "Joker" who has a one-per-game ability to either shoot, save or investigate someone. I guess it opens possibilities, but in the end, I suppose people just shoot for fun.

Eh. It was a good day. I'm tired. I'm on piano at church tomorrow so I have to get up early.