F1RST P0ST. Happy new year to all (three) of you.

Arrived safely in (grey, cold, windy) Wellington after a cruisy 9 hour drive in glorious sunshine. We stopped in Cambridge for lunch, Taupo for ice cream and Bulls for dinner, but unfortunately the famous kebab place wasn't open so we had to settle for deep fried disgustingness. Oh well.

Unfortunately for me, my computer seems to have died so I'm borrowing Jono's laptop for the time being. Hopefully someone awesome at work can look at it tomorrow.

Still have some bits to clean before people start arriving to view the flat.

I hope my computer gets fixed soon :(

So after a wonderful 8 hour drive with Bryce (and Vaughan, for half the trip), I finally have my car in Wellington. The weather was sunny with a bit of cloud as we made our way down State Highway 1. At one stage, a bird flew right in front of the car and it HIT the bonnet and bounced off my windscreen >_> Survival of the fittest, eh?

This week has also been quite busy in my social calendar. James, one of our game designers, left for Canadialand today, but I caught up with him at Monsoon Poon on Monday for all-you-can-eat Firecracker Chicken (YUM!) and the Blood Drive launch party yesterday.

Blood Drive?

Blood Drive is the action-packed zombie killing game with "motorized death steeds of steel" (according to Activision's marketing team). Having been on the iPhone team for the past year, I didn't actually contribute to the game at all, but despite its idiosyncracies and the fact I don't really play driving games, I think the game looks nice and there's no doubt that the team worked incredibly hard on it. Last night was for them to celebrate its completion and to have a good time.

It was an optional-costume party, so it was entertaining to see the many zombie and zombie-hunter costumes around. I myself went as a zombie tourist (a tourist who takes pictures of zombies, not an undead tourist). Pictures in the gallery!

Today, it was Andrew's birthday so he shouted us a lunch at Leuven. Surprisingly, no one ordered mussels, but instead our meals ranged from steak and lamb rump to the fish of the day and some gigantic lamb pie in a bowl that actually looked quite impressive.

This weekend, there's Guy Fawke's on Friday, badminton and a barbeque at Charles' on Saturday, music on Sunday and all-round relaxing!

Despite its notoriety for having terrible weather whenever there is a long weekend, Auckland produced some outstanding warmth and sun over Labour Weekend this year, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time up there - especially with my new car!

After work on Friday night, Juliann and I headed to Cha for dinner (apparently it's tradition, or something) and then to the airport for our flights. I was picked up at the other end of the plane ride by Cinta and Alice, and we were joined by Reuben, Matt and Sam at where else, but Momo's for a good old Taro Milkshake with Mango Pudding. Somehow, I got recruited for the Light Party flier drop on Saturday morning, so the next day, it was up and early to KCC for a few hours to run around Kelston and deliver fliers to the letterboxes.

I met my sister and her husband for lunch at Moto on Paramount Drive before chilling out at her place for a little while. They had been spraying some anti-mould stuff on the walls so they had to keep the poor cat locked up inside, so he was rather agitated. We guessed that he was suspecting to be taken to the vet or be given a flea shot (since he was locked inside), so he was understandably more antisocial than normal, but after a while, he settled down. Mrowr!

That night, I turned up (semi-uninvited) to Heong's housewarming where they were understandably surprised at my unannounced arrival. We spent some time getting the silly charcoal barbeque to work but it was worth it once it was going. He's got a nice quiet place overlooking west Auckland, with a bit of land and a deck at the back of the house, and even a self-contained sleepout for an extra tenant! And potentially a slingshot to shoot stuff and/or people at Fahad's old house.

Sunday was church as usual, and then lunch at (disgustingly good) Wendy's. I spent the remainder of the afternoon at Matt's house playing on the PS3 and dozing off, as I usually do on Sunday afternoons, and when the time came around, Matt, Sam, Steven and I bundled into my car and we went back to Paramount Drive for some Vietnamese at Pho Bien. Not fully satisfied, we drove to Parnell for some absolutely delicious Chocolate Boutique where we shared a Share Indulgence and a Chocolate Fondue. The night was still young, so we visited our old haunts, Yifans and Cue City before heading back home... via Momo's.

On Monday, I met up with the remnants of my schoolmates - namely, Mat and Graeme - for brunch in Mt. Eden and ice cream at Ollies, and since Graeme and I hadn't been to Mat's flat on the shore, we followed his SUV over the bridge, maintaining a safe distance to prevent my car being overwhelmed with gas fumes and smoke. We played some table tennis for a while, and even got some awesome rallies going (but they were shortlived because Mat kept stuffing them up) and I would have loved to continue but I had to drop Graeme back home.

I had a simple meal with dad before heading to the airport and arrived back in cold, overcast Wellington.

Sigh.

Oh well, at least it's a short week this week, and also, I'll be up in Auckland this weekend anyway.

I hate shopping -__- It's so tiring and boring, especially if you don't really know what you're buying. So you like, walk around aimlessly, trying to figure out stuff to buy, then when you've finished walking around, you've totally forgotten what you saw was good.

So yeah, we went shopping for Linh's birthday present today, at St. Lukes. In case she reads this I'm not going to spoil :O But it was a tiring experience and zzzzzzzzz and yeah I got stuck in traffic on the way home anyway.

But! Some cool things we found:
- a polar bear that goes "ROAR" when you tilt its head
- a trippy wobbling stand
- a cup with a propeller at the bottom to automatically mix your drinks (Creates a swirling vortex of power, it said)
- an ice cream cone that rotates your ice cream so you don't have to turn it when you lick it
- a mini Mahjong set

In other news, the graduation ceremonies are out. My ceremonies are:

Monday 5th May, 10:45am
Faculty of Business and Economics
- Degrees and diplomas A-F
- Bachelor of Commerce (conjoint) A-Z
- Property A-Z

Friday 9th May, 1:15pm
Faculty of Science
- Degrees and diplomas A-Li
- MSLTPrac A-Z
- Bachelor of Science (Honours) A-Z

Finally, here is a picture I took.

There's a kitty on my car 8d! (It's actually Debs car)