Last weekend was the Armageddon Pulp Expo at Wellington's TSB Bank Arena. While I'm not a big fan of comics, sci-fi, anime and wrestling, Armageddon still has a decent gaming presence and I was there to catch Super Smash Bros Brawl and, of course, the best racing game ever, Speed Racer.

Bumped into Peter today. He just arrived to start work on Tuesday. He's probably reading this. I met John for Burgerfuel and the three of us went to HK BBQ for milk tea.

IT REOPENED HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So yeah, I went into town with John to grab a few things, such as Burgerfuel, a clothes rack, and a sympathy card. I wanted to get a haircut too, but I didn't find anywhere suitable.

Anyway, that night, we had a potluck dinner with the other two flats. Man, it dragged on for a whle *_* But the food was really good: I contributed some prawn-cuttlefish ball-onion and capsicum kebabs, we also had roast pork, roast chicken, roast vegetables, salad, garlic bread, chips and dips...and ice cream and fruit salad to finish.
In other news, I got to play on the keyboard \o/ and we also watched Dirty Dancing /o\

IT REOPENED HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So yeah, I was a bit late home last night because I went out with Jono, Sunita, Jane and Paul. We went to Calzone, this cafe on the corner of Courtenay Street and Cambridge Terrace and just hung out. I had a honey-roasted chicken fettucine. Then we migrated to HK BBQ across the road for some taro milk tea:



By the time I got home, it was midnight and I called my parents (timezones, you know) and spoke to them for an hour or so. I swear, everytime I call them, there is ALWAYS a mention of "this absolutely delicious thing we had the other day. It was so good. If only you were here." -.-

It was indeed a fantastic time catching up with friends and family as I travelled back to Auckland for Easter. I left for Wellington Airport at around 10.45am to catch the bus from Wellington Hospital at 11.15am. I arrived at the airport with about an hour to spare so I just lazed about and walked around. The flight left early and only took 45 minutes, so I was out of Auckland's domestic terminal by 2.15pm. Shereen picked me up and we headed to the Hunua Falls.

We didn't do much on Friday. It was basically unpacking, team and cabin allocations, team building exercises including a blind obstacle course, some brain teasers and a team chant. I was the leader of my team: the Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Raymond and Quan were our guest speakers.

Saturday was a rotation of four activities: kayaking, raft building, high ropes course and random games. I was stupid enough to wear my glasses while kayaking and as a result, they're sitting somewhere at the bottom of the crater lake where the waterfall spills into. Sigh. But anyway, I did have fun the rest of the day, despite the fact it was the second time I've lost my glasses in two months. We also had a guys' discussion and had some "manly" games. I can't believe how stubbornly competitive I am.

On Sunday we had a treasure hunt, a Burma trail, a barn dance, theatre sports and epic Mafia. My apologies to the committee for being so cynical during the Burma trail, haha. But yeah, it was a good night, I got to roleplay Phoenix Wright (to a certain extent) and of course, the other activities brought a smile to my face.

Yesterday we cleaned up the site and Debs and I left early to go to Burgerfuel for lunch (despite the 10% surcharge, it was so worth it), and then I dropped by home to see Dad and my sister.

So today I stumbled to work; tired from four days of fun, blind from no glasses and limping thanks to..um... certain manly games. It was a really nice surprise to see an Easter goodies box sitting on my desk: two Moro bars and two Cadbury Easter eggs. I shall add this to my collection.

Yeah, been busy. Kinda.

Firstly, I finished Apollo Justice, which was great, because it means I'm not staying up past 1am playing the cases. Final verdict: Mmm, good game, good story, but still not as epic as Phoenix Wright. The characters might take a while getting used to, but overall, not too bad. I'll get the fifth game when it comes out.

Secondly, Debs was down in Wellington last weekend with Denise for my birthday, which was really nice. We had some much-missed Burgerfuel for lunch. Yes, we drove all the way to Lower Hutt. It was so worth it. Check the gallery for some pictures.

Let's see... I got an umbrella hat, a "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" shirt, some comfy house slippers for winter and a screen protector for my phone. Apart from the umbrella hat, all very useful presents. ¬_¬

Since then, it's just been work, work, work. Yesterday we got cake and cookies. Today, I almost fell asleep in a meeting, I was so tired. I'm glad it's the weekend \o/

Hmm yes, I haven't blogged in a while. I've been quite busy, and lazy at the same time (How I've achieved that, I don't know).

Let's see. Since I last blogged *checks* last Friday, I've had a nice farewell from the youth at Western Springs, complete with Burgerfuel and Chocolate Scrabble; I went out for dinner with my CompSci friends and play Guitar Hero; I had a good last crack at the piano at church on Sunday; I've LAN'd enough for the next couple of weeks; I helped Mat move into his new flat with five med school students; I went to play Poker with Jono, Nat, Richard, Andrew and Mat; I had dinner with my family at the Viaduct for Dad's birthday.....and I have..uhm..begun packing. Yes. Packing.

I've seriously put packing off for so long. Bleh. I should be alright though. I still have practically all of Tuesday, and the big things need to be packed into the van on Tuesday anyway. I also need to pack for Parachute which is in...uhm..6 hours.

Oh yes, I got a damned Vodafone. Ask me for my number, I'm not giving it out over my blog. However, you can check my Profile page for my Credit Card number :O!

I've been really busy lately, and in the back of my mind I know I'm running out of time to pack and I'm running out of time to catch up with friends too.

Anyway, quick summary of what I've been doing: Tuesday and Thursday I spent making costumes for Philly's 21st. I'll reveal them later as a surprise. All I can say is that they're AWESOME.

Debs came back from Singapore :3 Car battery went flat (again) at the airport. Had Burgerfuel two days in a row. Went to Cafe Latte with her since Trinh was working there, then Momo's after.

Ummm yeah, tomorrow I'm supposed to keep free, so in my spare time I'll probably be writing a list of things to bring down. Then it's Philly's party so yay \o/

With the weather a bit shaky, we decided not to head out to the east coast beaches as originally planned. Rather, we went to Mission Bay and just hung around. We were a bit delayed by Alice, because she was at home having difficulties trying to contain these two little kittens.



So cute. Sooooo cute. They were curling up in De's handbag and snoozing. They kept mrowring (in an adorably cute high-pitched mrowr). Soo cute. For more cuteness, see the Gallery.

Anyway, it got quite dark around 2pm so we headed back to church to play some Cranium. Following that we had Burgerfuel (I had the Hawaiian special burger) and skit practice for the Christmas skit.

And finally, to top the night off, we went to Momo's where I had a Taro Milkshake with Mango Pudding.

Ahh, what a night. I'm very satisfied.

We had a good LAN. There were nine computers at the peak time (Thursday night), with a few more people than that. It was more of a gathering, we didn't play that much DotA as one would expect. Rather, we went to Momo's, we went for a run, we cooked our own brunch...yeah it was pretty great. We even played some Mario Party DS (Yes! I know how it works now. Only one person needs Mario Party. All others use Download Play.)

Okay, so yeah, Momo's was great. I had a Papaya Milk Tea with Mango Pudding (One of Debs' favourites). We had stuffed ourselves sick with KFC for dinner, so we decided not to have any sticks.

As for the actual LAN, we had ups and downs. Networking was a breeze this time, so everyone was connected within a few minutes. DotA was great at times, and bad at times. Haha. Thomas thought he could be sneaky and stop screenwatchers by closing the laptop. So, he did. And the laptop hibernated. And he dropped from the game.

We had music practice immediately after the LAN, and by the time we finished it was around 9pm, and we hadn't had dinner so we went to Burgerfuel. I had a Three Degree Burn, and spud fries. I swear I've never demolished a burger that fast before. I was seriously hungry. But it was awesomely delicious, so it was all good.

Tomorrow, we're heading to a beach in Orewa as our end-of-year youth group activity. I hope it's good weather. I haven't checked. Also, shout out to ANDREW LONG: Happy Birthday! Hope you, Steven and Uncle Paul have a good flight to Malaysia. Eat lots and stay healthy. Don't get fat!