Work continues. Not much to say about that, the project is going well at the moment. We are working. Really. Today's lunch was vienna chicken schnitzel, spinach lasagne, roasted sweet potato, and asparagus salad.

Today is Pool Night for Jimmy, so we went to the Burlingame Steelhead Brewery for some drinks and some pool. I had a raspberry cider and a pear cider - both fantastic and flavoursome, although very easy to drink. Fortunately for me, my superior mathematics skills shone through my inebriety with some tricky angle and ricochet shots on the pool table, with Tony and I winning against Mike and Jimmy 2 - 1, and Jimmy and I winning against Mike and Tony 2 - 1 again.

I just got back from dinner at this Thai place down the road. I was thinking of going to Taco Bell tonight, but since tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, I reckon I'll have my fair share of Mexican food yet.

The Sidhe Christmas function this year was a two part extravaganza, the first part being Tron: Legacy and the second part being at the Ballroom, a pool lounge.

I went into Tron expecting "terrible" and I got "average". I was anticipating lying in my seat, writhing in agony but it wasn't actually the case. It was a mildly entertaining film with pretty graphics (bar Jeff Bridges in CGI) and an enjoyable soundtrack. Final verdict: not the worst two hours of my life. I have to say, though, movies aren't very social events. You're all focused on the screen and can't talk with anyone, so if we could avoid yet another movie for next year's Christmas do, that would be great. (Last year, they had 500 Days of Summer, but I was unable to attend that due to my flight to Malaysia ":(")

Following the movie, we had about an hour to kill and Surya really wanted to go to Strawberry Fare, so we gathered a small group and went. I was astounded at the number of new desserts I hadn't tried... there was a strawberries and cream one, a gooseberry dessert of some sort, the key lime pie was back, and there was a cranberry and white chocolate cheesecake, which I ordered. Absolutely fantastic.

The rest of the night was good. I played two games of pool with Jordan against Damon and Rob C, in which we were owned, twice. The remainder of my time there was catching up with various people, drinking, scoffing some pizza, just chilling and relaxing really. Being a Thursday night, there was some self-control to be exercised so most people started drifting away around 10pm so we could at least turn up to work the next day...

The last day of work was pretty uneventful, and I was just cleaning up my scripts and committing my code to the repository. We submitted the Zen Puzzle Garden update to Apple, so hopefully it'll go through review soon. We said goodbye to four of our artists by having dinner at Harem, and we learned of some surprising resignations for next year. Gasp.

The past week has been pretty hectic in terms of finding a flat to live in. After turning down the Mt Victoria property that I mentioned in my last post, we were kinda desperate to really wrap up the flat hunting situation before the end of the week. It so happened that we found another place at the bottom of Brooklyn Hill that Charlotte and I loved, and it also turned out that the landlord really wanted to get the tenancy sorted before the end of the week as well. So all in all, things aligned perfectly and now we have a really nice flat about 20 minutes walk from work and we are paying the same amount of money for it as the Mt Vic property.

Thank God for that.

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.

Quite the drama for me this Easter trip, although I didn't lose my glasses like the last time I went away for Easter.

Firstly, I was working overtime on Wednesday night and we got curry from Dawaat, which lead to a rather bad case of indigestion. I was still up at 3am on Thursday morning, lying in the foetal position in bed when I remember my parents had given me this miracle Chinese medicine for general stomach aches. It worked so well I even went to work on Thursday and made it to Auckland safe and sound.

Secondly, on Monday night, I got a text message saying the flight had been delayed by an hour; Juliann and Surya were already at the airport so had to wait out the hour. They decided to check in and asked for my booking reference so we could all sit together, but to no success - they kept getting some errors and couldn't do it. So I decided I'd get to the airport early-ish to get a good seat, so I got to the kiosk and swiped my card; it said it couldn't find my e-ticket so I went to the counter. The lady there took my ID and put in all the details, then looked at me quizzically and said I didn't have a ticket. With fears growing, she took me to the ticketing counter and the lady there put in all my details, looked at me, looked back at the screen, looked back at me and said... "You've booked Wellington to Auckland."

Oh man, I have never been so mortified in my life.

But the end result is that they changed me to Auckland to Wellington, free of charge, and they still fed me apple pie and chocolate ice cream. So huge props to Qantas for doing that for me T_T

Anyway, the weekend was great, I got to catch up with everyone and ate some great food (Photos of the food to come soon). It was hard to do stuff because places were closed on the two public holidays, but I still managed to play some pool, some handball, some Trivial Pursuit and of course some piano. It was really relaxing and a much needed break from all the overtime I had been doing.

So yeah, went back to work today. It was SO boring, I fell asleep in our three hour sprint planning session. What a great start to the New Year!

I've had an awesome holiday up in Auckland, just catching up with everyone. I went to Momo's, the driving range, Rotovegas, Goat Island and the airport five times. I played DotA, table tennis, table tennis extreme, pool, handball, lots of piano, Rock Band, Singstar, Buzz and Photo Hunt. I went on the famous Rotorua luge, the Agrodome's Big Swoop, I saw the Lady Knox Geyser erupt as well as several geothermal park attractions, I hung out with friends and family and I ate and ate and ate and ate. See my gallery for all the pictures. I have some YouTube videos to upload later as well.

Satisfied Jeremy is satisfied.

I had a fantastic Labour Weekend. So good catching up with all my friends. As a result of the excessive fun, I have caught a cold and am suffering at work. Today was terrible, I couldn't concentrate and I kept sneezing and after drinking that disgusting Lemsip crap I felt like throwing up.

Anyway.

I finished up at work on Friday and met Laura and Raymond at Cha for dinner. It was still relatively early, so Raymond and I went back to his apartment and Laura went back to hers at around 7.40pm. Then Raymond wanted to have a shower and by the time he finished...it was 8.05pm.
Picked up Laura at 8.10pm
Got to the flat at 8.15pm
Picked up Jono at 8.25pm
Arrived at the airport at 8.30pm
Boarded the plane at 8.40pm
Took off for Auckland at 8.50pm

Yeah, rushed, much. In the chaos I left my keys at the flat, but that wasn't too big an issue. I got picked up by Casey at the other end and met Bob, Ted, Amber and Han at Momo's, where I proceeded to knock my glass over and cut my hand in the process. After bleeding profusely, they decided to give me a free drink (YAY).

I turned up at church on Saturday morning, much to the surprise of the music team (apparently Jin hadn't told them I was on). So yeah, I got to play piano, and that was great jamming with the boys again. So much fun, far more fun than at Central Baptist. Afterwards, we distributed some flyers for the Light Party before I headed over to St Heliers to meet the Grammar Gang for lunch at La Vista. Great food there, so good to catch up with everyone. I was free for the rest of the afternoon and it was still early, so we went down the road to play Mini Golf. There were so many fails there, it was awesome. Props to Amnon for beating Richard!

It was still early in the day so we went back to Mat's flat and just hung around for a while, watching Family Guy and playing some Smash Bros Brawl. I really can't stand the Wii control scheme (and that's not because I've been working with it for the past week). The Wiimote has so few controller buttons that they could not possibly encapsulate all the techniques into a user-friendly scheme. Once I started with the Gamecube controller, it felt so much better. MetaKnight and Dedede are awesome! :3

Left the flat and went to Cinta's place for dinner with her, Alice, Jo and Reuben. We had apricot chicken, some cheese and cauliflower, boiled vegetables and roast potato, and Oreo cheesecake for dessert. Awesome stuff. We spent the rest of the night solving those stupid take-apart-shape-and-put-them-together-again puzzles.

Sunday morning was church, had heaps of fun on the piano but it wasn't my best day (I screwed up the offering piece) but I think people just appreciated me being back on the piano, which was really nice. We had testimonies from our group heading to Cambodia for a short term mission, as well as a delicious curry lunch for fundraising. I hung around for a few hours for BASIC and then the guys went to play pool. All I can say is... black ball fail.

I went out with Dad and Uncle Tony and family to this teppanyaki place in Ponsonby called Fuji. Entertainment was fantastic, food was delicious, but unfortunately not as filling as I would have liked. Really had to work for our food as well! I caught a piece of egg in my mouth, and two bowls of rice flung in my general direction.

Met up with the youth group guys at Momo's (haha, again). I didn't cut my hand this time, which was great. I had a taro milkshake with mango pudding, but didn't feel like eating much more. We were keen on going out after that, but nothing happened and we just went to bed.

But Matt, Sam and I ventured out the next day in the blazing sun to Mission Bay, where we enjoyed some unhealthy breakfasts in the form of ice cream, waffles and pancakes. We hung around Bastion Point before heading into town. We took at stop at Yifans where Matt played the new Street Fighter - I really like the art style, with the black paint strokes. I had to rush off soon after to meet Casey, Bob, Laura and Raymond for yum char at China. Good food, again, but unfortunately I was still a bit stuffed from breakfast. However, I did manage to cram a durian puff and a mango puff, so all is well.

Spent the rest of the afternoon fixing dad's computer, then met up with my sister for a chit chat. Her cat is adorable <3 and very vocal too. Being the awesome sister that she is, she managed to get me this:



It was a quick dinner at Uncle Tony's before heading to the airport. What a weekend. Catch all the action in the gallery.

It's really hot today x_x We had Stanley's Roast for lunch, and then I went to Auntie Val's house to fix up her computer (Intarwebz troubles). Matt and Holly stayed in the car with the radio/fan on, so when I went to start the car...yup...flat battery. So I called Cinta and Brendon came over to jumpstart me and I was on my merry way home.

Anyway, Friday was Sonny's 21st party thing, so we went to Dolce Vita on High Street for dinner. And I was incredibly hungry so I ordered a steak with parmesan cheese on it. And after devouring it within a few minutes, I was still hungry, and Sonny couldn't finish his pizza, so I had some of that as well. The cake was good though :3 (The cake was not a lie). And after that, we went to play pool at the same place, where I proceeded to fail miserably and lost a 5 ball lead to Jess -.- But at least me and Jess beat Sonny and Steven, so all in all, it was a good night.

Yesterday, we went out for dinner and I had prawn balls :3 And it was awesome.

Anyway, after church today, we went to Wendy's for a quick bite, and with nothing better to do, me, Sam, Matt and Weng Hao went to play pool at Breakers. Wow, it was so incredibly hax. The final game, I managed to do that trippy "make the white ball hit the other ball twice for the win" and I also did the "random ricochet off everything for the win".

After that, Ted texted us saying he was finally back home in Auckland, so let's go out for dinner! And what better place to go to than the Korean place we went to three nights ago! Hooray. Nah it was a good meal. We ate and then stood outside for ages just talking. My legs were really sore.

Yeah then after that I was heading to Momo's with Matt and Weng Hao, when Cinta texted me saying I had a speeding fine. Ugh. What a horrible way to end the day. Rargahrgarghgrhgrhh. $80 too. That's like, 12 milk teas.

And petrol is bloody $1.759 per litre. Omg.

Sam has been bugging us to play pool, so, finally, after music practice yesterday, I took him to Breakers on Lincoln Road and we had three games. He was winning the whole way through for all three games, but when it came to crunch time, he just couldn't sink the black ball and I ended up sinking all mine and the black ball for the win. He managed to win the last game though...haha..yes..I mean I let him win ¬.¬ In case you are interested, there were several hax shots, including one where a cue ball hit the white ball twice and went into a pocket \o/

Anyway, there were like 7 youth at church today. Brendon disappeared soon after the service, and Philly had to go somewhere too, so the remainder of us went to Subway (Eat Fresh) for lunch. Following that...we went to play pool! :d The first game lasted a whole three shots as Weng Hao pocketed the black ball accidentally (Me: "Oh you're bound to hit something in if you hit it in that direction!" WH: "Okay!" *hit* *black ball goes in*). The second game was going well until I pocketed the black ball ¬.¬ (FAIL) By that time some other dudes wanted to play, so we left and went home.

Wow it's New Year's Eve tomorrow. 2007 has gone by pretty quickly.

So yeah, yesterday, I totally went to Momo's again - this time, with Matt, Sam, Sam and Weng-Hao. I had a rockmelon pearl milk tea with pearls, and two beef and two lamb sticks. Apparently Amy and Bobby were there earlier as well. I think we missed each other by 30mins or something.

Today, I got a txt from Daniela saying "OKAY WE'RE HAVING DINNER TODAY SEE YOU THERE" with no prior warning so I was like "O_o" but yeah I didn't have anything on so I was happy to oblige. There were 10 of us, and we went to La Porchetta's in the city. I shared a half/half Mexicana and Original Porchetta's pizza with Ron, and I also ordered some garlic bread, so it was a good and satisfying meal, but not too expensive either.

One of the waitresses dropped a huge platter of empty plates on the floor. I swear the crashing and smashing lasted more than 5 seconds (which is actually a really long time for plates to be doing that, if you think about it). Epic fail, but it was kinda funny.

After that we went to play pool, which was incredibly entertaining. You CSC people are so hax. Seriously.