Since the other website I secretly work on is down, I thought I should come crawling back to this thing and post some stuff. I have a lot of photos on my phone I need to upload as well...

Anyway, something is definitely up with IGN's webservers because it's been down for the past two days. We found some malicious scripts in two of the PHP files which I managed to remove, but who knows what else has been compromised. Sigh. In any case, I can still work on it I guess, it's just that there's nothing to show for it.

Let's see, in the past three weeks:

There was an awesome fireworks display over Wellington Harbour on Guy Fawkes' Day. It was damn cold and really windy, but we were sitting by the back end of Te Papa so it slightly sheltered. We got to lean back against the concrete wall and watch the spectacular pyrotechnics in the sky.

There was the All Whites Victory Celebration and the Santa Parade. It was boring. There were three things that interested me: Snoopy, Pikachu and the adorable corgis. Oh, and I'm really happy for the All Whites, but I don't care much for soccer sport in general, so meh.

Sidhe celebrated two shipped projects (Madagascar Kartz and Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5) and two submitted projects (Rugby League 3...and one I can't say but it's for iPhone and I worked on it) with yet another ethanol-filled night at Red Square. Lasers were included, as well as a generous bar tab, thanks to securing more work for us. Yay employment!

Got invited out for a wonderful lunch at this couple's house in Titahi Bay last Sunday. I totally miss home cooked food. The wife is a magnificent baker - the Tiffany cake is for royalty. Besides that, it was cool to listen to their stories. They've certainly had some fantastic experiences, including a three week voyage over the Pacific Ocean from Auckland to Miami (back in the days when air travel was super expensive). A few years ago, they even got a photo with the then junior senator of Illinois... Barack Obama!

After a big lunch, we went for a walk on the beach. The sand was so perfect and untouched, I felt the urge to write in it.



Of course, this led to discussion about parabolas, trignometry, differentiation...all part of a normal day's work.

Yay so I finally beat all four campaigns of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, properly too without cheating, although I had some initial problems when I had accidentally set the difficulty to "Hard" instead of "Normal". Next: The Frozen Throne!

Last Sunday we met up with John who was in Wellington en route back to his medical placement, and had a few drinks at St. John's by Te Papa. Following that, we split for a few hours while the Street Kids went to their church, then met up again at the TSB Bank Arena for the Diwali Festival celebrations there. I planned on getting dinner there but little did I know, it was all vegetarian! >_> Anyway, it was edible and we didn't stay for too long, but we did enjoy the fireworks over the harbour. The sound they make just echoes over the whole city, it's truly amazing.

As the poem goes, the city of Wellington celebrated Guy Fawkes Day with a fantastic display of pyrotechnics streaming from the harbour.



But for some, these fireworks meant more than watching a myriad of chemicals combust in the sky. These fireworked heralded a change. A change that attracted the interest of the entire globe as we followed the US Presidential Race during the later hours of the afternoon, until its pinnacle as Senator Barack Obama claims the 44th Presidency of the United States of America, defeating rival John McCain, 338 electoral college votes to 156. It is certainly a phenomenal landmark in the history books as America gets set to crown its first African-American President.

But of course, my project team and I were busy discussing important matters at our team meeting.



¬.¬

I was up until 4.30am last night watching the Opening Ceremony. Gah. The performances and the choreography and the fireworks were fantastic though, really awesome and vibrant. My favourite parts were the fireworks making footprints, the introduction to the scroll, the blocks that moved up and down and the tai chi display, and the lighting of the Olympic Torch was definitely spectacular too. Pyrotechnics were top-notch throughout the ceremony.

We had a farewell dinner for Bjorn on Tuesday night at Two Souls, where the food was fantastic. On Wednesday, Mel and I ate at Rasa on Cuba St before going to Central Baptist where we played on the piano for a good two hours or so. Friday night I met up with Laura and her friends at Lonestar (I had the ribs - they were awesome) before heading home to watch the Opening Ceremony streaming live from the TVNZ website.



Today - I am being very Asian and I'm boiling some barley water \o/ Thanks to my parents for providing the oversized pot. I had been thinking of boiling barley water for ages, and it wasn't until I got the opportunity to grab some barley from the Asian grocery store near Pak'n'Save that everything started falling into place. I couldn't find any rock sugar, so I tried the Asian supermarket on the corner of Dixon and Cuba, and I managed to get a packet of rock sugar crystals. Hopefully this won't be an epic disaster.

Speaking of epic, apparently it's now a verb at work. You just got epicked.

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.

Wow..it's 2008 already. Happy New Year indeed - I hope you all had a wonderful celebration with family and friends.

I don't know, I feel a bit down. I'm uncertain of what 2008 holds for me, especially with moving down and starting work. I miss Debs, because I would have liked to spend New Year's with her. As I write this, she still has another 3 hours to go lol.

Anyway, in summary of what I have done: Burgerfuel was closed so Sam and I went to this takeaway called Alligators where they serve huge burgers; spent time with the youth group just chilling and playing games; went to Point Chev beach and watched the fireworks at the Sky Tower; made a toast (with Grapetiser) with the youth group to the New Year; got locked inside Coyle Park (damn Auckland Council); got let out from Coyle Park; went to Momo's :D and played DotA. It's been a great night.