So I moved into my new place last Saturday, and while the moving was all pretty smooth and everything get shifted okay, I found out late at night that I hadn't had any gas connected and so I didn't have hot water. This would have been close to midnight, so I was tired and frustrated and in my haste to go to Jono's house for a shower, I backed the car into a fence. Fortunately it looks like it's just superficial scratches and nothing serious, so that's that.

Of course, on Sunday, the power company still isn't working, so I didn't have hot water on Sunday either. That's alright, I was at Jono's house for a shower then as well. On the bright side, though, Tom was down from Auckland so we went to Strawberry Fare for some excellent desserts.

On Monday, the phone contractor arrived and told me I needed to be at home to sort out the bloody phone line, so I ran home and sorted all that out. The gas company had also apparently made everything work, so at least I have hot water now. Later that night, I met up with Mel at Estadio for her farewell dinner. And that was really good, I became a lot more social after a glass of Montieth's Crushed Apple Cider.

In any case, we went to the Library for more socialising and then I walked with Roman up Cuba Street on my way home, and we parted ways at Abel Smith Street. As I walked down, I became aware of two people following me. In the next instant, they had caught up and at that point in time, I thought about running but they struck me from behind and knocked me to the ground. I could hear them say something like "grab his stuff" but I struggled and they ran off without any reason, and also without any of my possessions. The only thing I had lost were my glasses, but I managed to pick them up, although they were pretty busted.

¯\(º_o)/¯

I phoned the police shortly after and they arrived on the scene very quickly. We did a few laps around the block to see if we could catch anyone, and we returned to the crime scene where I showed them what had happened and managed to spot some blood splotches. We returned to the station where an ambulance was waiting. I heard they managed to apprehend someone, so I'm thankful for their quick action and vigilance. They took some DNA swabs and some photographs for evidence, and then I was taken to the hospital for an examination.

I must have spent around three hours at Wellington hospital, just having my facial injuries checked, and the extent of damage to my eye. I also visited the ophthamologist yesterday to have a proper check over my eyes. It looks like everything is pretty superficial and that there's nothing permanent, so I'm thankful for that as well. They'll continue to monitor me over the next few weeks, and they'll also be taking an x-ray to make sure there's no fractures that they have missed.

Apart from that, I've been in to see the optometrist for new glasses, the dentist to fix some chips in my teeth, the insurance company to pay for my glasses and the police to finish off some paper work. It's been just a huge inconvenience and I'm quite annoyed that this happened like this. Physically and mentally, I'm fine and there's nothing serious, so I appreciate all the messages of support I've been getting. I don't know how long I'll be off work for, but I said I would try to come back on Friday.

I guess I'll see how I feel over the next few weeks, huh?

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.

INTERNET AT HOME!

YAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

This means more Starcraft II! Less staying at work! More lolcats! More information! More connectedness to people! More excuses to stay at home and shy away from social gatherings!

Just got back from Inception, movie was great, blahblahblah. I don't really want to talk too much about it yet, but all I'll say is that it is very worthwhile seeing, it's interesting and action-packed and definitely a thumbs-up from me.

Also hot off the weekend was a visit from Cinta, Jo and Alice. I took them to the best food places in Wellington: Chocolate Frog Cafe, Cosa Nostra (Cinta got a free tiramisu!) and Strawberry Fare, of course (two new desserts!). The weather was great on Saturday so we spent a bit of time driving around the bays and enjoying the sun, but on Sunday, the wind really picked up and gave them a good gale of what Wellington wind can truly feel like!

It's time for the half-year status check.

I've been pretty busy with Psypoke, helping to rewrite the news system and the admin panel, both running on code written six years ago by 18 Year Old Noob Jeremy, and also the GPCT code and marketing materials which I am very proud of, for the record. That intro flash is epic <3.

Since my last blog update, we've had Queen's Birthday where Richard and his girlfriend come down to visit, as well as Jono's girlfriend and her sister, and in amongst the typical sightseeing and random Disney singalongs, we went to Strawberry Fare for a night of delectable desserts.

Sidhe celebrated its 13th birthday with a night out at the Lanes on Wakefield, where we gathered in our drunken stupor to somehow make the bowling balls and pins connect. It was a great night with fantastic food - I just could not get enough of the seafood platter of prawns, scallops and mussels. There was also breads, dips, pestos, ribs, chicken drumsticks, mini cheeseburgers, squid rings... so good.

We've also been given the first hard copies of Shatter for PC, as well as the greatest game of all, Rugby League 3 for the Wii!

Our success with Flick Kick Football continues as we hit the #1 paid app in the UK store last week, as well as good rankings in other countries. In celebration, we were taken out to Little India for lunch on Friday, as well as showered with Haribo gummi bears. Tech planning for my dream project also kicked off last week, with lots of things to do to prepare for the core programming, so we'll see how things pan out as time passes.

I've been spending an increased amount of money on food lately. We've had a few visitors from out of town and friends organising dinners and drinks...all adds up. Last week we went to Strawberry Fare on Monday. Friday was Satay Kajang and Motel. Saturday was Foxglove, One Red Dog, Hashigo Zake and the Library. Today...well, today was nice and simple, we bought lunch from the supermarket. But still! Food and friends are great.

I've updated my Gallery with photos dating as far back as May, so check them out.

And finally, I need to find accomodation within the next three weeks. ¦[

So I impulsively pre-ordered Starcraft II on Thursday, under much pressure from my workmates, with the justification to myself as "you're going to get it anyway, you might as well get it now and have a free beta key". And yeah, I have a beta key now, so if you're keen for a game, just find me on MSN and I'll let you know my battle account name. Oh yeah, I won my very first game under my own Battle.net account. Kekekeke ^_^

Anyway, we went to the driving range after work on Thursday for some fun and stress-relief. It was good to get back into the swing of things (HAHAHA) but I woke up the next day with a few sore muscles, so hopefully with more practice, it shouldn't happen too often.

And finally, we went to Strawberry Fare last night after I jokingly suggested it at dinner, and I was surprised to see they'd changed their menu again!! They replaced the Lime Tart with a Plum Pie, so I tried that. It was okay, but I would definitely recommend the Lime Tart instead. Such a pity :(

Signs of Easter approaching were present approximately two months ago, almost immediately after Valentine's Day, when the supermarkets swapped all the pink hearts for hot cross buns and chocolate rabbits. While chocolate, eggs and rabbits are all great things, I wish some people would remember that it's also about Jesus dying on the cross for the world's sin, and about his miraculous resurrection three days later.

Anyway, my parents decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to visit Wellington while I would be away in Auckland, so I epic-cleaned the flat and even bought some air freshner for my room since they said they'd be staying a night at the flat. I met them for one day last week and we went for a really good dinner (La Metropolitain) and dessert (Haha, GUESS), and the next day I was due to fly back to Auckland already while they planned to spend the day around Martinborough.

Thursday came by and I escaped work early with Surya and took the bus to the airport, got to Auckland and picked up the van that Dad had left at long-term parking and met my CompSci friends at Momo's. So awesome catching up with them...and trying to convince them to download my iPhone games ¬.¬ Looks like everyone's in pretty good spirits, except Bob who had been working retardedly long hours and was totally crazy that night.

Was picked up by Reuben on Friday and headed to church to prepare for camp. About an hour later we arrived on site safely, despite having to travel in John's canine-aroma car. The rest of the afternoon was spent in random team building activities, my favourite being the "cross the river" one because I got to boss everyone around. Night time fell and thus began the first few games of Mafia...

Saturday was all about activities. First up for team Lightning Bolt was the confidence course, which was more like an army training run through mud. I'm not phased about getting dirty but I didn't really have enough clothes to change so I was quite hesitant about it, especially the last one which was basically "submerge yourself in a pool of putrid mud". The second activity was climbing a cargo net about 15 meters high, which wasn't too hard, and the third activity for the day was archery.

We had orienteering on Sunday morning and mudsliding on Sunday afternoon, Reuben and I manned the barbeque for dinner and then we had some guy bonding time at night. We built a campfire, debated about Superman and Spiderman, choreographed a tribal dance and had some endurance contests, and when the girls had finished their make-up session, we gathered round the fire and made some smores.

There was much Mafia each night, I must say it's so much more entertaining when there's lots of people, and each session saw at least 20 people playing. I tried out some new rules: a zombie that resurrects after two nights but can be killed again after that, and two lovers (represented by separate cards) who are intertwined in life and death - when one dies, the other does too! Overall, the games were well played with the citizens winning the first few (when there were only 6 mafia) and the mafia winning the final few (when we played with 7 mafia). I have to say though, the last game of Mafia that we played was quite possibly the worst citizens game I've seen - the sniper shot the detective, the angry mob lynched both their doctors and at the end of the game, six of the seven mafia were still alive.

Srs mafia is srs.

Monday was quite rushed, after leaving camp a bit late, we had lunch at church before I caught up with my sister for an hour, then rushed to the airport and made it onto the plane before promptly passing out for 90% of the flight. Safely at home, I made it to 9pm before crashing out for the night.

It's been an awesome Easter weekend. I met some new people and caught up with familiar faces. I bossed people around and held the balance of life and death in my hands as a bloodthirsty overlord. I pushed my endurance to new limits, but probably because I'm more kiasu than anything.

I had a great time, and I'm sad that it was all over so quickly.

On an administrative note, I've included a button to share my blog posts and gallery pictures on That Site Which I Refuse To Join.

I'm sitting here in front of my computer, making the most of what little time I have left before Friday appears.

Now I'm all for Fridays, Friday is the best day of the working week (apart from Spicy Food Tuesday, but anyway), last Friday we did the weekly Starcraft II Beta Key draw and I won! It means I got a Beta Key to use, for a week, so I could play online with all the gosu Korean people. And while my winning record wasn't too flash, I learned heaps and got a real feel of this Battle.net stuff (It scares me). Friday has just ticked over and it means I have to get up for work in 8 hours.

Anyway, in the past week, there was the Rugby League 3 launch party at the regular Sidhe alcohol establishment, the Red Square, where we had set up three Wii consoles with the greatest game of all on each of them. I'm very proud of it, and I played it a few times...and even taught other people how to play. And yes, I did point out the things I did, and I even got a picture with my RL3 self (I look nothing like me).

Sunday was Surya's birthday dinner, which was a simple meal at Arashi, followed by dessert at Strawberry Fare (sound familiar? deja vu?), where I finally got that Chocolate Bleeding Heart and oh it was so good, the warmth and deliciousness just melted down your oesophagus omnomnomnom.

Busy weekend as well coming up. Crashtopher is visiting from Brisbane, so it'll be good to catch up with him, Pete's alcohol-fuelled birthday extravaganza is on as well, and finally it's only a week before I'm up in Auckland for Easter. Yay!

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...

Phew!

I love long weekends. Not only do you get more time to goof off and do non-work related activities, it also means the next weekend comes closer. Four day week yay!

Anyway, I got given some camera work to do on Sidhe's latest iPhone game - just making sure the camera clearly displays all the necessary game objects. Interesting stuff! Stay tuned for the big reveal.

Mat was down for Labour Weekend, mostly for the Formula 1 exhibit at Te Papa, but of course to visit me and catch up. Apart from Te Papa, we also went up the Cable Car and walked around the Botanical Gardens, as well as went to Strawberry Fare on both nights he was down, and visited Wellington Zoo. Pictures in the gallery!

I should probably stop apologising for the lack of updates. But to be perfectly honest, it's been pretty much the same old things happening week in, week out. I've been doing a bit of overtime lately as we lead up to our beta submission next Friday.

Last Saturday we had a farewell lunch for Jane, who's leaving to study journalism overseas. There was also a large booze up at Matt, Pete and Owen's where I proceeded to get totally plastered off my face, which was very red and then very pale as I started feeling sick. Never again. Anyway, in accordance with the bet I have going, I made it to six standard drinks so Owen had to ramp it up to a "Hot" Tom Yum Laksa from Cinta last Thursday. I think I suffered more than he did :(

Ness and Sabrina are in Wellington for a few days, so I met up with them for drinks at Momo's on Tuesday night after work, then again today for STRAWBERRY FARE where we proceeded to stuff ourselves silly with high-sugar desserts. I'll spend more time with them tomorrow (hopefully not too much shopping) before they head back to Auckland.

We got free tickets to go and see Transformers 2 on Wednesday night, courtesy of the social club at work. It was so cringe-worthy. I mean, it had lots of good action and destruction and so on, but the novelty of the first movie had worn off and the second one just had so much cheese and corn, it was really difficult in some places to watch the screen. Rob, who was sitting next to me, can tell you how many times I facepalmed throughout the movie, because it was just that bad. Average at best, but don't expect too much. Best Transformers: Devastator and Bumblebee. Worst Transformers: Starscream, the Twins.

Today's news was just swamped firstly with Farrah Fawcett's death, then with Michael Jackson's heart attack. It was pretty shocking, I heard it through the chats first, then watched as news sites across the world began updating with reports of his hospitalisation, then finally his death. Some of the radio stations here just played several of his songs over and over again. What a day :s

We've moved up in the world and upgraded from the Fortress... to the Villa.

Yes that's right, we are now residing in what we have nicknamed the Villa, which is an apartment block 50 metres down the road from the fortress. We pay $30 more each week but in return we get a nice modern apartment, definitely feeling the warmth, and it comes with a dishwasher, fridge, dryer, carpark, and free access to a heated indoor lap pool and a gym. So awesome. We spent all of yesterday shifting our belongings in the cold, wet, windy Wellington weather, but with much help from Jono's family friend who had a Hilux, we were able to spare ourselves total freezing by piling all the big stuff into the boot and carting it over.

All's well that ends well.

And certainly it ended well with a night at Strawberry Fare! I met up with my home group at 8pm, I was totally starving after not eating since lunchtime, and I greedily ordered a garlic bread for myself while the waitress took our dessert order. Turns out she didn't give our order to the kitchen until about 30 minutes later, and she was so apologetic about it and felt really bad, so she gave us a round of FREE HOT CHOCOLATE, YAY!! And on TOP of that, we had an entertainment card worth 25% discount, so a garlic bread, hot chocolate and a lemon chocolate cheesecake came out to $11.75 for that night.

On Friday night we celebrated Sidhe's 12th birthday with an open bar tab at Red Square. And I got totally hammered, I had something pretty bad and got a headache around 10pm, incapacitating me for the rest of the night. So damn embarrassing. When the bar tab ran out, we relocated to the Terrace for yet more drinking. That's two weeks in a row! >_>

This week coming up is our last week before Alpha, so it's going to be pretty full on. At the end of it, I can enjoy a nice three day weekend in Auckland over Queen's Birthday.

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.



¬.¬

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.

I've apparently survived my first Wellington winter, and to remind me of the days to come, we were on Oriental Parade with Nats and Ben, who were visiting from Auckland.



Of course, Oriental Parade immediately implies The Parade Cafe.



Which rounded out an awesome weekend of food.



I've been recovering from a cold lately. I had to give a presentation to my team at work on Friday, and that was extremely difficult. On the brightside, I got another Show and Tell prize - a Rubik's Cube keyring! Not that I care much for those things anyway. I need to remember to buy borrow obtain, using unspecified methods, Spore the game - some guys at work were playing it since its release on Thursday.

I finish this post with some muffins.

So yeah, last Sunday, when I posted that Facebook message, we were having some friends around for a Sunday roast, which was delicious by the way.

This past week has been busy; we had an internal conference at work where we listened to some of the seniors talk about various topics - it felt like being back at Uni, except I couldn't fall asleep. It was, however, very informative, and entertaining at some places as well.

Nats was down for the weekend for a med conference too, so we caught up with her. Matt Andrews was down as well (in b4 joke about stealing bags) so he joined us; Tom Bye was around and I yelled out "Tooommm, Hiiiiii" before we had to drove off, so I don't know if he recognised me or whatever.

I was on music again this morning; I didn't know half the songs, but I still managed, which was great. I also arranged to get access to the piano during the week which is FANTASTIC, I've been eagerly waiting to try out Still Alive on the piano (Thanks Stephen :3) but also it gives me an opportunity to practice during the week so I don't freak out on Sunday morning. Met with Mel and Raewyn after church for lunch at Nando's, where Mel and I shared a whole chicken.

We met up again in the evening with the intention of enjoying some jazz at Lido, but it was pretty full so we walked to D4, but that was dead, so we headed to this place on Majoribanks which was closed. With hunger pains rapidly rising, we resolved to go to Strawberry Fare, where I had a salad and some chocolate brownies. I think I scared Mel, Paul and Raewyn with my I-am-eating-but-it-looks-like-I-am-having-an-orgasm face. I think my CompSci friends know which one I'm talking about.

Last Tuesday, the company had the Speed Racer premier at Reading Cinemas. While most of us concluded that it wasn't as bad as everyone said it was, it was certainly...epileptic and corny in some places. Overall, it was entertaining and had some action-packed shots, but I wouldn't say it was fantastic-fantastic. Oh, there was an after party too, and that was pretty good. I got to play the game for the first time (I highly recommended it) and got to hang with some workmates, so that was pretty cool.

Amy was down in Wellington again, selling dumplings at Pak n Save, again, so we met up for dinner on Wednesday. I took her to Great India where we had some awesome curry and some not-so-awesome Indian dessert dumplings. We went over to Strawberry Fare to make a booking, where I saw Sunni and Raewyn. I told Raewyn that Amy was on the Jet program as well and the two couldn't stop talking. Go figure.

Anyway, we met up again on Thursday night with Peter and Laura, and we had dinner at this place called Piccolo on Vivian Street. It was small and empty, but the food was pretty good and the owner was really friendly and talkative. I advised everyone to eat less because we went to Strawberry Fare afterwards YAY. Between the three of us (Laura had to leave), we shared a Jaffa Tower and a Lemon Chocolate Cheesecake.

Friday night it was time to head to Auckland. Due to bad weather, the flight had been delayed by 30 minutes, so it wasn't until 8pm that we were actually boarding. However, some retard had decided that he'd check in his bags, but not show up on the aircraft. So we waited an extra 30 minutes for him to show up, and Qantas finally decided that they wouldn't wait and started to unload his bags. So yup, just as they finish unloading, aforementioned retard shows up and boards the plane (with heavy glares from the other passengers) and we finally fly off at 8.50pm or something like that.

It was around 10.30pm when we finally got to May's house. After the initial greets, I started scoffing some food that John had saved for me while the speeches started. It was a really good party, quite cosy and really friendly. It was midnight or so (time really flew by) before everyone started leaving, so I texted Andrew and the others to see what they were up to. No one wanted to drive out to Te Atatu to go for milk tea, so we canned the idea and made plans to meet up on Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday morning, my sister and I went to this place called Fuze on the peninsula for brunch, and I ordered some bacon and eggs with an extra lamb chop. It was good to catch up with her, especially over such good food.

I met up with Andrew, Richard, Mat, Nat and Jono at Benediction, just off Newton Road. I was still full from brunch, so I didn't eat anything, but I had a milkshake and watched the others enjoy their meals. Jono had to head off, so we split up: Nat, Mat and I went to Dress Smart, looking for a jacket for Mat, while Andrew and Richard dropped Jono home. We reconvened at the flat, which smelled like rubber thanks to Richard's ingenuity, and just hung around. Pretty soon after, Mat went with his family to see Kung Fu Panda, so the remaining four of us went to... MOMO'S! So good. So much better than Wellington milk tea.

Pretty soon after, we were at the Blockhouse Bay Tennis to celebrate Matt and Andrew's 21sts. It was...strangely familiar. But there were lots of people, lots of good food (again) and lots to do. There was music, there was dancing (no Singstar though), there was some alcohol (I went totally pink...but so did Matt), there was a really good atmosphere about the place. Great time.

Sunday was church, lunch at Wendy's with the youth, a quick catch up at Amy's place with her, Ted and Bobby (the food looked awesome :/) then dinner with my parents. We had beef stroganoff and roast chicken, plus my sister had made some apricot choc-chip muffins and my dad had brewed some feijoa wine. It was awesome.

One of the best weekends ever. Sigh.

Blahblahblah blah blahblah, blahblahblah. Blahblahblah blah blah. Blahblah, blahblahblah. Blahblahblah blah blah blah. Blahblah, blahblahblah. Blahblahblah blah blah blah blahblah blahblah blahblahblahblah blah blah blah blahblah blahblah STRAWBERRY FARE blahblahblahblah blahblah blahblah blah blah. Blahblahblah blah blahblah, blahblahblah. Blahblahblah blah blah. Blahblah blahblah blahblahblahblah blah blah blah blahblah blahblah blahblahblahblah blahblah blahblah blah blah.

I guess I've just been so busy with everything. Last week was the last week of the sprint at work, so we were trying to finish things up. Mat, Nats, Stacey and Richard came down over the weekend for a visit (see the Gallery pics), and I've got an influx of work from Psypoke...and also another secret website ¬.¬

Let's see... last weekend was really good. It was great to see Mat again, and he got to meet all the Wellington people I hang out with, as well as see some sights (including my work place). We had lots of good food (YAY PARADE CAFE AND STRAWBERRY FARE). We did a 15 minute run through Te Papa, we visited Mt Victoria in incredible winds, we watched the All Blacks beat Ireland, we played Pictionary (never again.), Mafia (never again.) and Puerto Rico, and Mat even went to church with us.

It's bug-fixing week this week, so it should be relatively quiet, but I've got a lot to do outside of work. *yawn*

Alice, Cinta and Jo came down to Wellington for a visit on Saturday very morning. I picked them up from the airport at 8am - thus began the love affair with Wellington.

Saturday was sight-seeing day. We went to Mt Victoria, Oriental Bay, Lambton Quay, Civic Centre, Te Papa and Botanical Gardens. We saw the Beehive, that stupid Platform 9 3/4 sign at the Railway Station, the giant floating silver ball, my workplace, a large umbrella.... we ate lots of delicious things too. We had brunch at the Parade Cafe (I had been there with Andy, Nat and Jono before) where we totally indulged on far too much bacon, corn fritters, eggs and divine chocolate cake and carrot cake.

Sunday I took them to Central Baptist where they were treated with scones ("I approve!" said Alice). They can report back to KCC and tell everyone how I'm doing :p We went for yum char after that, at Majestic Cuisine, where we insisted on tofu fa, mango pudding, and durian pastries. I also took them shopping down Cuba Street and Lambton Quay, and that was rather excruiating. We had a simple dinner - two wood oven pizzas from Maverick's, just down the road. This was in anticipation of epic dessert at Strawberry Fare, where we ordered far too much and I had to force myself to consume the entire lemon cheesecake that I had ordered (It was delicious). They also met everyone from the Estate and the Hub - we hung out for a bit at the Hub.

But the worst of the shopping had yet to come, as we went to Dress Smart in Tawa. Geez. Haha nah it was alright. There were some cool non-clothing shops there that had interesting things (like a sim card backup device for $2 or something like that, or giant candles shaped like Chess pieces). We had a quick bite at KFC before heading back to Valley Girl on Willis, where we saw Auntie Su, Yining and Liann. Then it was a quick walk up Lambton Quay and Cuba Street again, before heading home to pack. We ended the weekend of awesome food by going to Great India on Courtenay, where, again, we ate far too much.

It's been a really good weekend! And we have more visitors this weekend too \o/