Still Busy
Monday February 22, 2016
Been back in the country for a full week now, having had an amazing time over in Melbourne seeing the sights, eating the food, seeing old friends and of course, the Final Fantasy: A New World concert which was the main purpose of the trip. I arrived on Thursday night and spent it at Andy's house, eating some teriyaki chicken burgers and the best onion rings I'd ever had, while watching his friend play Final Fantasy X for the first time - great way to get into the mood for the weekend. On Friday, I met up with Sonny at Madame Squint where I had a soft shell crab bao, and did some shopping around DFO South Wharf, H&M and Emporium. I ended up at Lygon Street, because I really wanted something from Brunetti, the delicious desserts place with cabinets of cheesecakes, fondants, macaroons, pralines... every imaginable sweet. After that, I wanted some steak, but because it was the Friday night before Valentines and I was sweaty and gross and #ForeverAlone, I felt intimidated going into one of the Italian restaurants and dining by myself, so I went to good old Chin Chin and dined like a king.
On Saturday, I went with Andy to Manchester Press for their famous bagels, then continued wandering around town for more clothing bargains. I had lunch at Mamak, and trained all the way out to Windsor where I surprised Ben for his birthday. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the pub there, called Windsor Castle, and even tried a chicken parma. Yeeeah. On Sunday, I met Darius for breakfast at the famous Hardware Societe and had a most delectable lobster benedict. I have so much writing to catch up on for my food blog, it's not funny. I followed him to church as well, inside the cinemas at Melbourne Central, and met some of his friends for lunch at Lentils As Anything, a vegetarian "pay what you want" establishment in East Melbourne. I was back in town to get ready for the Final Fantasy concert at the Melbourne Recital Hall.
I thought I could bring a drink into the amphitheater so I purchased a large bottle of cider from the bar while mingling in the crowd of hardcore Final Fantasy fans, some of which had brought along plushies (Tonberry, Boko, Cactuar :3) or even cosplayed for the night (Red Mage, White Mage, Auron, Cloud, Aeris). As I reached the door, I saw a sign saying no food or drink inside, so I had to scull my drink and ended up extremely drunk and emotional for the first half of the concert. But even as I sobered up for the second half, the music was still fantastic and nostalgic and powerful. There were cheers from the crowd during the most epic themes from almost 30 years of Final Fantasy music, and as the night drew to its climax, we were invited to provide a single word vocal for the final song - One Winged Angel!
I was off to the airport extremely early on Monday morning. I played To Zanarkand and Let it Go on the piano in the departure hall, but there was no applause this time around - probably because the airport was pretty empty at that time of day. Of course, Jetstar was late by an hour, which meant that once I got to Auckland, I would only have an hour to get through customs, get lunch, get to the domestic terminal and catch my flight to Wellington. That lunch I had from Auckland International Airport was the most depressing meal I've had - having spent four days in Melbourne eating the most delicious food ever and having to come back to New Zealand and eat Subway of all things... truly sad.
Since then, I've been super busy still, trying to finish the project I'm on. We were at Coenn's Provisions on Tuesday for Tim's birthday, drinking heavily at Fork and Brewer and S & M's on Friday for Bobby and Cory's farewell, I was at Pete and Bronwyn's wedding on Saturday where I was the only person to volunteer to speak, and I was at music at Central Baptist on Sunday. It's been an action packed weekend and I need another couple of days to unwind... but there's no rest for the weary. I was almost tempted to go back into work to do some loading optimisations, but I think I should stay at home and relax.
Posted by Jeremy at 8:01am on Monday February 22, 2016 :: 0 comments :: 
Epic Karaoke
Sunday July 20, 2014
We had some epic karaoke on Friday night at New Kor. Ants, Jo, Luke, Mike and I met at 8pm for dinner there, but unfortunately the restaurant was full, so Mr Lee let us have some pre-karaoke while we waited for a table. And in the 45 minutes that we were there, we belted out some amazing numbers: Ants and Mike dueting Creed's "With Arms With Open" perfectly, in the exact same style; Luke and I hitting some sweet harmonies with Bette Midler's "The Rose"; some smooth baritone versions of "My Heart Will Go On" and "I Will Always Love You". So good.
After dinner, we were joined by Matt, Ben, Jill, Charlie, Jimmy and Thomas where the festivities continued for another two hours, hitting max crescendo with Bohemian Rhapsody as the night's epic finale. There was plenty of soju and plenty of song, and it was a fantastic night indeed.
It was an early start to the next morning however, as I played badminton for the first time in almost six months. With my leg feeling marginally tight, I was able to play on and off for the full two hours without too much strain and had a great time easing back into an activity I have been missing so much this year.
That night, I was at Jordan and Chloe's for their flat warming - a classy wine and cheese night. Another great night of fine conversation and an amazing selection of wines, cheeses and condiments, including's Nic's Cob Loaf, a hollowed-out loaf of bread filled with cheese, sour cream, spring onions and bacon. The night's activities included Josh and Damon visiting the rave party downstairs, and a flurry of selfie bombs on Damon's Facebook page.
Music at Central Baptist went well this morning. I wanted to spend more time reflecting on the devastating news on MH17 - yet another tragedy for Malaysia Airlines as one of their planes was shot down over the Ukraine killing all 300 people on board - but there were plenty of other wrongs in the world to pray for. There sure is a lot of conflict these days... it's pretty depressing.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:32am on Sunday July 20, 2014 :: 0 comments ::
Busy Month
Monday March 17, 2014
The month has been busy so far, with several social occasions peppering my week and plenty at work to keep me occupied. We had a sumptuous feast at Tiger, all you can eat ribs at Gasworks and a small but delightful dinner at my previous project manager's house. There's been nightmarketing and bubble tea and just general indulgence with food.
I went to the Power Plant display at the Botanic Gardens last Saturday, as part of the New Zealand Festival. It was a show of light and sound within the flora of the gardens. Ex-tropical cyclone Lusi was bearing down on the city and it caused a few showers during the night, but this only added to the mystery and eeriness.
On Sunday, the whole church was away at the annual church camp, so I took the opportunity to hold my own service - just jamming around on the piano with Wei and Andrew with no interruptions. Possibly the best church service I've been to! I've finally gotten my playing of "Let it Go" from Disney's Frozen to an acceptable level, and posted a video of me playing it on Facebook. Lots of great feedback and comments, thanks to all who listened! Still looking to finesse various parts of the piece to add volume and depth to the emotion and richness of the song. So good.
Posted by Jeremy at 8:58am on Monday March 17, 2014 :: 0 comments ::
Post Earthquake
Sunday August 4, 2013
Things seem to have settled down. We've had a few big aftershocks but things are more or less back to normal. Cordons have been lifted and there might still be a few carpark closures, but business is running as per usual and things are starting to feel routine again. The Geonet Website has provided heaps of information on the quake series, including a tally of aftershocks grouped by magnitude, probability tables for future aftershocks and the ten largest quakes since the 6.5 last month.
Work has been alright. We released version 1.2.1 of Robot Unicorn Attack 2 on iOS and are continuing to work on updates. There's a lot of bugs to fix and features that AdultSwim keep asking us for, and there's heaps of work to do on the horizon. We've had a change of Technical Manager and Technical Director, and the plans for the future look interesting and exciting, and hopefully we'll continue to improve and grow as a department.
Today has been messy. I didn't get much sleep last night and had to get up early for music at church this morning. I was super tired and it reflected in my playing. I hit the wrong chords and couldn't concentrate, I was flustered over timing and had to abruptly end the offering song awkwardly. I was not having a good time. I managed to get some shut eye this afternoon after some delicious steak from the Chocolate Frog Cafe in Miramar, but it was soon up and go time for Dale's stag do. We had some thrilling games of paintball at the new place on Willis St, with my workmates sporting some impressive welts and injuries. I escaped major injury, with maybe two or three big ones to my leg and arms. We had dinner at the Tap Haus and then back home for a couple of grim games of Dota.
Sigh, Dota.
I am out of practice and fed too much. Once things get like that though, I just feel like it's too much effort to practice and get better; it's such a huge time investment. One game can be horribly demoralising; the next exhilarating and adrenaline pumping. The same goes for a lot of online games I guess, and the unpredictability of your opponents means no two games are ever the same.
I'm looking forward to Wellington on a Plate this month, with deliciousness starting this Friday. It's going to be an expensive food month, but I'm sure it'll be totally worth it - last year I only managed Boulcott St Bistro, but this year I'm hoping to try El Matador, Logan Brown, Ortega, Hummingbird, Crazy Horse, Martin Bosley's and the Grill. Truly there is no sincerer love than that of food!
Posted by Jeremy at 12:17pm on Sunday August 4, 2013 :: 0 comments ::
A Weekend of Sport
Monday August 6, 2012
I think the last time I crammed so much sport into one weekend was the Rugby World Cup. Though I missed the start of New Zealand's golden run in the rowing on Thursday night with Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan, I caught our two-golds-one-hour on Friday night over at the Treehouse. And what an amazing hour - the excitement of seeing Hamish Bond and Eric Murray completely obliterate their opponents, then Mahe Drysdale finally obtaining his elusive gold after the bronze four years earlier in Beijing was totally exhilarating; congratulations to them all!
On Saturday we caught the Chiefs vs Sharks game at Four Kings, while simultaneously watching the women's triathlon and further rowing events. The atmosphere there was great, with so much joviality and passion for the rugby. So much fun! I caught the rest of the rowing including Storm Uru and Peter Taylor taking bronze for the lightweight double sculls over at LBQ, who were celebrating their birthday with free drinks and delicious cake. It was a relatively early night for me though because I was rostered on music for church on Sunday. Music went very well, including an epic finale to Great is the Lord, He is Holy and Just - we don't sing the coda because it's very difficult, but on Sunday we decided we'd play it anyway, and it was such an awesome crescendo and build up to the end that we surprised the congregation and earned a round of applause!
After a delicious yum cha at Big Thumb (despite it being in receivership...), it was a quiet afternoon and dinner, before heading to the Treehouse to catch a bit of the men's hockey and the cycling omnium with some scrumptious lemon meringue and gingernut. What a weekend.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:27am on Monday August 6, 2012 :: 0 comments ::
Chap Goh Mei
Sunday February 28, 2010
Today is the 15th and final day of Chinese New Year, and I thought it would be appropriate to share a soppy love song at church this morning, so two weeks ago I recruited Jono and phonetically taught him some Mandarin and today, with all our friends watching eagerly and the church congregation not knowing what to expect, the two of us sang Tong Hua.
So nervewracking. I actually stuffed up in the middle of the song but thank goodness I managed to hit the right note to keep going.
Anyway, last night we were at Arashi celebrating the "end of Chinese New Year" ¬_¬ and it was just great for everyone to get together and catch up over a nice meal and an awesome dessert.
Strawberry Fare has three new desserts on their menu! I wanted to try the Chocolate Bleeding Heart which was chocolate pudding with Baileys in the centre, but unfortunately they had run out so I tried the Lime Tart which was absolutely delicious. Beth tried the Flourless Cake, which was a gluten free chocolate cake with some berries, much like the Raspberry Drenched Cake.
We were approached by a lady from a nearby Hen's Night table who was seeking a random guy for the bride-to-be to kiss and Dave volunteered, with hilarious results. We continued to analyse Dave's love life using the wine bottles, wine glasses and salt and pepper shakers to illustrate various people.
Last weekend I was up in Auckland for Hsin-Yao's wedding, so it was really good catching up with all my school mates at the same time. I figured I would leave the people photos for someone else to handle (I'm looking at you, Mat) so all you will see on my blog are food photos. You'll also notice we went to Sylvia Park to kill time between the church service and the reception, and I stumbled upon EB's shelf of Rugby League 3 games! \o/
On Sunday, I randomly turned up at KCC and attended the young adults bible study, before having Chinese New Year dinner with family and friends, before an 11 hour bus back to Wellington...
Posted by Jeremy at 5:49am on Sunday February 28, 2010 :: 2 comments ::
Over Overtime
Monday August 31, 2009
It appears that overtime is slowly phasing out, so tentantive rejoicing. The game hasn't shipped yet because we're still waiting for some issues to be resolved on the publisher's side, so in the meantime, most of us are just sitting at work, testing and playing the game and fixing bugs as they come through.
Boooorrrrrrring.
Derek's last day at work was last Thursday, so we farewelled him with lunch at Viva Mexico, and then Friday Starcraft, Friday drinks (2 for 1 at Blend lol) and Karaoke at New Kor. While it was all really fun, I prefer my karaoke to be a bit more "structured" per say - I can sing, but I can't yell and it pretty much turned into an alcohol-fuelled yelling match. Which was not optimal, but hey, we had some good group singalongs with Eye of the Tiger, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Whole New World.
I was involved with the Youth Band at church last Sunday, where we led the service. They sound really good and just need some polish for perfection. I switched music teams, so this coming Sunday I'm on the piano again (for the third Sunday in a row). Not that I mind, I just lose that extra hour of sleep on Sunday mornings!
Oh yes, I'm also looking to go back to Malaysia over Christmas/New Year's because my grandparents are celebrating their 90th and 80th birthdays in January. It's going to be great, I haven't been back to Malaysia since the beginning of 2003, and I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to taste all the delicious food back home.
Speaking of food, thanks to no overtime, I've been able to cook for the first time in what seems like a month. On Saturday night I had steamed tofu, stir fried bak choy and carrots, and apricot chicken! And because I could, I bought some bacon and had that for lunch on Sunday. By bacon, I mean the deliciously crunchy kind, not the soggy types you get on burgers or whatever. Soooo good.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:41am on Monday August 31, 2009 :: 0 comments ::
There is such thing as a "Free Lunch". And free dinner too.
Saturday February 14, 2009
Mel organised lunch at Great India today, so Jono, Rosie and myself bundled into the car that Andrew had so kindly left for us and headed to Courtenay Place. As we were walking, we stumbled across something rather peculiar on the ground.
It was a small piece of purplish paper.
It was just sitting there invitingly.
I picked it up quickly. It was a $50 note. That pretty much paid for lunch for the 6 of us at Great India. And a delicious lunch it was too \o/
And then again, at Central this evening, we had a "light meal" to welcome our new pastor.
In other words, I had two very good meals, and didn't pay a cent for them.
That constitutes an awesome day in my books!
Posted by Jeremy at 8:02am on Saturday February 14, 2009 :: 0 comments ::
Rocking It Out
Monday October 6, 2008
As I said earlier, I was on music again at Central Baptist yesterday. I arrived at 9am, as usual, and practiced the songs. All good, all well, seems the dynamics and the timing were all in shape.
We were stuck for an offering song, so I decided to play a song I'd never played at Central before.
It was quite possibly the most inappropriate song to play during an offertory.
It was certainly a song that smashed the boundaries of Central's realm of hymns and contemplative music.
Just as the offering was announced, I broke out the hugest grin ever. This is the most mischief you can have during a church service. When all was quiet, I took a quick breath... and started off with a piano slide into the jazzy Em7 and Amaj7 chords of My Redeemer Lives.
It was awesome. I had so much fun.
Anyway, after the service, we had lunch at Nando's, dessert at Kaffee Eis, and then I met Ray who had just arrived in Wellington for a three week work spell. We met Peter at Butlers on Willis for a quick drink, and made some dinner plans.
Raymond hadn't eaten anything all day, so he got a curry from Reading Cinemas, and I wasn't feeling that hungry so I got a banana-kiwifruit-orange-apple thing from the juice bar. But of course I felt hungry afterwards, so we skipped straight to dessert.
So good.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:14am on Monday October 6, 2008 :: 5 comments ::
Music
Thursday October 2, 2008
I'd been speaking to my parents on Tuesday night (as I always do) and one of the topics I brought up was the music at Central Baptist. I mentioned that the music was very conservative and not as lively or modern as Kelston, and that's something I lament. Songs like Be Unto Your Name, Majesty (Here I Am), Amazing Love, Complete, All the Earth, Who Am I... they're awesome songs and incredibly rich in both their message and their musical structure.
I felt a bit empty after playing on Sunday, because I wasn't enjoying myself as much as I did at Kelston. I was off beat and not enthusiastic. I miss being able to jam with Reuben, Matt, Cinta, Mary Ann, Sam, Ben (when he used to play), Steven and Andrew. Now that I think about it, I think it's because I felt restricted in what I can do because the lead singing isn't as strong as it could be, and as a result, I have to lead with precision in the melody.
Well, today was different.
I got a call on Tuesday night from one of the ladies at Central, asking if I could be the pianist for this Sunday as well. I said sure, why not. Practice was today at 6pm.
And what a practice it was. It was a joy being able to play some familiar songs like Jesus God's Righteousness Revealed, I Will Give Thanks to Thee, Great is Thy Faithfulness and Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart. It was awesome being able to play how I wanted to play...to wander with the notes and play different beats. The two lead singers have fantastic, powerful voices and they harmonise so well. It was really uplifting.
Church music for the win.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:10am on Thursday October 2, 2008 :: 1 comment ::
Weekend Photos
Monday June 23, 2008
Well, not photos strictly from the weekend, but whatever.
Wellington at Night
Show and Tell Prize from Sidhe
My First Music Practice at Central Baptist
Yum Char with Laura and Peter at Dragon
So yeah, I had my first music practice at Central Baptist. It's quite different from KCC - we start at 9am on Sunday morning and finish just before 10am O_o which really puts on the pressure. I knew some of the songs and picked up others, and I was accompanied by a saxophone, an organ and a flute, so there was plenty to mask my mistakes. But it's a really nice piano, as you can see, and it's really great to be playing for church again.
Yum Char was pretty average. Yeah, what can I say? It was a bit more expensive, not very good variety (too much fried food), and the mango pudding tasted very artificial. We'll be sticking with Majestic...although Peter wants to go to Grand Century some time.
Posted by Jeremy at 7:16am on Monday June 23, 2008 :: 0 comments ::