....and then it died

I really should have done this long time ago.

It was a matter of 'Aiya I'll do it tomorrow'

And tomorrow never came.

There was no symptoms, no indications, no warnings whatsoever. One faithful night 3 weeks ago I came back home and it was still breathing.

Then it freezes suddenly.

'No big deal' i thought and let it to rest. Just have to call Dr Mervyn and everything will be solved.

And so without too much worries I let it rest for 3 weeks before calling Dr M to came by for a house call appt on Wednesday night. His initial diagnosis was to give it new blood and a fresh lease of life and everything will be back to normal.

Little did we expect that the condition was worse than expected. It was in critical condition, and Dr M decided we should bring it back to his place rightaway.

He tried everything in his capacity to revive it, all 5 hrs of furious rescuing. The whole process started over and over again, and as each minute passes by, i prepared myself for the worst case.

At 2255hrs, Dr M announce it dead.

'Sorry man, I did everything i could. Your hard-disk is gone case.'

It took a while to sink in.

I wrapped it up in a plastic box. On checking my external hard-disk (the one i bought to do BACKUP and NEVER DID), ok, consolation, at least some important data was backed.

BUT counting the losses:

• 18 GB of photos (10GB done in 2007, the pivotal yr)
• 12 GB of music

To sum up my feelings, allow me to do this over the net for once:

'KNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

The King's Birthday

Gf kept 'ti ti niam ti ti niam ti ti niam niam niam' about how wonderful the food is at this luxury arm of the famed Seafood Paradise at Defu Lane. So we went about and planned a celebration of the King's bday at the Chinatown restaurant.

Service: 90% full marks

The place was pretty empty when we got there at 1pm, probably the reason why we got undivided attention from some of the waiters and waitresses. One thing that impresses me was how all the staff can wear a smile and an eagerness to serve the whole time.

Make us feel cheery too. :)

Food: 80%

True to gf's 'ti ti niam ti ti niam ti ti niam niam niam'-ing, the food is good, almost spectacular, esp the cod fish （鳕鱼) and their '招牌菜s' double boiled Sharkfins soup with that extra thick gravy in traditional broth and mini Buddha-Jump-Over-The-Wall. The Peking duck was normal thou, i prefer minjiang's or royal china's.

The score would've been 90% if not for that small lil hiccup which i shan't mention here la. Not that we are complaining too much though; we got a 10% discount on the bill and a complimentary peking duck on the comeback.
In any case it was good for a return and give their other delicacies a shot.

Back to reality

And so the love affair with the roadster lasted for less than a yr. Everything came and went in a flash, shit cos I got no time to bid a final farewell before we trade for the beemer.

I dug deep into my 2006-2007 archives and found only I had only one outing with the mazda. Doesn’t help when 2007 was a blerdy busy yr for all of us.

The NB MX-5 was definitely a fun ride, and having said that, I must say that is all it has to offer. The car felt like a toy right from the onstart, the plasticky interior, the manual soft top and having to need an extra pair of hands when u want to remove/put on the hard top. There is zeeero practicality to the car, the jap designers definitely designed this over sats/suns; it serves well to be a weekend ride, or rather a weekend-night out drive in 'good' weather. And no-rain doesn’t define ‘good’ weather; you need a cool climate as well cos the air con doesn’t serves well despite the crampy cabin.

Coming back to the fun part, it is surely a cute car to drive around town, a mini head-turner. Try avoiding the rubbish trucks/buses/fortuners beside you at the lights and everything is alright. I had the luxury of being given the chance to drive the RWD and yet not owning it on a daily basis. The few times I took it out for a spin with gf we had lotsa fun and laughs with the top down strolling around in town and marina south.


The 1.8-liter BP-Z3 I4 serves up enough power for easy maneuvering its short 2265mm wheelbase. Drive is energetic and vibrant across all ranges (esp when the loud engine note is so audible within the cabin), and gives u the happy dial feel of 120 when ya actually doing 90 on the 1ton machine.

In any case, I’m sure the couple’s glad to be back in the german camp again with the E90. And this time round, I’m taking it for a shoot soon. Just in case.

:: 1 year ::

Over a hundred episodes of HK serials together, thousands of hours over the phone, countless jokes, laughter and tears and seeing each other for 364days in a yr -- we are past the significant 1st year.

Shopping for her gift cant be easier; I had this in mind since sept:

Well I think it’s a beautiful piece of jewel, and these are words from someone who doesn’t appreciate stones or metals.

Most importantly, she will be extremely pleased I bothered to check out that corner shop at taka.

Dear her made me a sweet photo book, its a lovey dovey walk down memory lane as you turn the pages. There were our 'firsts' of everything, the overseas trips, the the candid shots, all nicely captured.

And we had a quiet and slow dinner at Wacha. Nothing beats good food, nice ambience while talking hearts out just like it was the first date again.

HAPPY 1 YEAR DARLING :)

Thank you for everything.

Up close & personal with iPhone

Mrs cheng got the pirated-smuggled-hacked Apple phone and i got to first hand try it out.

Well, in actual fact, there are more cons than pros getting the iPhone.

Firstly, it doesnt import all ur contacts on the sim.

Second, it doesnt have a stylus, its an out-and-out 1001% full touch screen phone.

Lastly, Sis' phone failed to engage smses by the 2nd day.

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BUT WHO CARES!!!! ITS COOL!!

Verdict: I'm getting one once it comes in via Singtel.

The resolution is amazing, perfectly complimenting the highly touted animation within. The phone responds cleverly to every touch, and there's a feeeeeel connection between phone and user.

Simi HTC Group. NEH. Muahahaa~~ :P

New Sports Hero

Everybody should have a sports hero.

And I have plenty of 'em.

During youngER days,

Bball: You have the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan, then Orlando Magic and Anfernee Hardaway

Then soccer comes along:

U have Man Utd and Eric Cantona followed by David Beckham.


Growing up, we stayed out of the sun and picked up snooker, falling in love with Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Got the riding license and start paying attention to Yamahas and Hondas and the flamboyant young MotoGP champ Valentino Rossi, while i ride the italian machine.


Then we got hooked to EPSN and know how wonderful are Pete Sampras and Tiger Woods at their games as we try new sports entering mid-20s.


So when pple asked me who am i rooting for entering the 2007 Formula One season,

'OH, Kimi Raikkonen lor'

Fact is, i only found him cool as a Tag Heuer's endorser. :P

And just when every other sports hero out there seems to falter/retire, in comes a new kid:


He's the reason why I:

1) stayed up to finish the entire 71laps brazilian GP on sunday

2) stayed focused throughout the race

3) felt the immerse heartache when his McLaren failed on the gear shifts costing him 30 secs, dropping to 18th

4) heart kept pounding in the hope he will still make it to win the overall champ while he fought back to finish 7th

5) am bloody angry that K.R. won in the end



Nair mind... there's still 2008. And they are bringing him to SG.


I'm already looking forward to it.

:: Sunset Grill & Pub ::

Its only a 10 mins drive away from my place, why did i take almost 10 yrs to patronise this cool place?

The drive in is challenging thou, be sure ur headlights are working. HID helps :)

Heresay from gf the boss is the original founder of Jerry's @ Jalan Kayu, who sold it when it became popular for a neat sum of money and set up a retreat kinda joint here.

Sunset is located within Seletar East Camp, right next to a runway and hangars surrounding it. U get the world war feel, like pilots off-duties enjoying beer + beef in the officers' mess, and the deco inside justified every bit of the ambience. Also get the feeling that the place will kena bombed anytime also.

The buffalo wings are the highlight, we decided to test with the level 2 spiciness first before slowly working our way up to level 10, in time to come.

Gf's sirloin steak is good, almost on par with Hog's breath. My ribs has a funny taste thou, dont try it.

Otherwise, everything's fine.

Fried mushroom button

Bliss Cafe @ Ponggol Park

Gf wanted to try this cafe off Hougang/Ponggol road for the longest time. No wonder she's grinning when I suggested going there when she hopped into the car.

A nice cosy place camouflaged from the heartland noise within ponggol park, u get the waterfront feel ala brewerks/indochine along clarke quay.

They dont get much publicity with the cafe view shielded from its own single storey building. And that's the best part, cos across the road is the typical 24 hr kopitiam which would've killed off any ambience.

Food is passable and not too pricey for dining-by-the-river too.

麻将 and the vegetarian

Imagine u are a vegetarian and some1 in ur group started:

KIA LEH! JACK'S PLACE DINNER LEH!

Very sian half right?

Well, in mine, there was a:

KIA LEH! NERNG POK LEH!

That is the war cry telling all vegetarians to go find their own food.

As such, i couldnt understand what the craze all abt being carnivoral.

Thankfully, I get to find out when gf fed me a piece of meat.

'Its good, try it', she says

Am i glad i did.

And 4 mths later, i'm having a very consistent 5 to 8 poks per weekend, starting from fri midnight to sat morning, then sat night to sunday morning, followed by the final stretch from sunday evening to night before the monday blues kicks in again.


The poks went on in my backyard, so i think my neighbour should be damn pissed by now cos The King hosts his own regular premier league 3 poks there as well while we have the sunday sessions in the living room.


Now i have legs msging me for advance and immediate booking slots early in the week, ranging from bros, uni study-buds, NMC aluminis, to even primary school pals~~

No wonder they call it the social game.

And so far so good, no smelly legs that play but no pay.


Meanwhile, i'm on the verge of renaming the contacts in my phonebook to the following format:

Name.MJ

Name.noMJ

The extension behind denotes MJ player or non-MJ player hahahahahaha

Joking la~~ I think gf is going to kill me :P

Then again, dont think i will ever be the 'nerng pok' party pooper

NMC Tour De Spore 07

A night of meeting up with old friends with some nice driving through jalan bahar to drop by kranji dam, then a disciplined lineup to Woodlands Jetty thru minor rds and finally causuarina for supper before me allan and joyce sneaked off for 2 rds of MJ.

The turnout was very healthy, 40 cars in total from the young generations to us old folks from the Alumni, not bad not bad considering the first NMC meetup was a pathetic 7 rides. Kudos to the current committee, the event was well-handled and smooth in transition, as of the past few TDSes. Its pretty awesome how the club has evolved into such decent size from the original pioneers when WT put up the 'indecent proposal' to then-SAO back in 2000.

Some of us have moved on to newer rides, while the old ones still look all shiny and sparkling.

Nevertheless, u put all together in a convoy and it makes a pretty awesome picture :)

Western Chow

I got to know this really funny guy through mian a couple of yrs back when bikes were the coolest thing in our world.

Now he's putting his glib tongue into good use being his own boss. In fact, its a father and son team. Son the creative director threw in the ideas and father the chef drove them with his culinary skills.

Only thing the place is super ulu. But once u master the way there, u will want to go back again.

Oxtail Stew

Hainanese Chicken Curry

Check them out:

Lorong Ah Soo Blk 134

Hougang Ave 1

Even got website ok. Damn professional.

www.westernchow.com

Give some support to another young budding entrepreneur~~

BatamMania

Yes its back to The Queen's hometown again~~~

And this time round we are not pulling any punches, its going to be seafood seafood and MORE seafood again.

Even hardcore The King brought along his gull medicine to combat the protein-rich food.

Thus, once we got off the boat its to Aneka Selera for the first round, an extremely old school kelong restaurant from the 70s-80s sitting on timber piles and floor slabs.

Luckily they upgraded the toilet. We used to bang sai bang jio into a hole cut nicely on the floor slab and u shoot directly into the sea.

And then you are having seafood like 200m away.

In any case... here's the food :P

At night, back to good 'o' 555 for the second, the usual same stuff.

All within a span of 5 hrs.

To top it all off, uncle brought us for supper ---> Indonesian version of German Pork Knuckles.

And it smells soooo good i couldnt help but finish half of the servings, 1 hr after a heavy dinner.

At the end of the whole thing me and dear gf got so sick of swimming creatures we vowed to stay away from seafood for the next few weeks.

BUT we will be back very soon. :)

Stanchart Run 07

Yes i'm doing it again

Mark jio-ed for the 42km run.

SIAO BO

My personal goal this time is to finish the 21km in just over 2hrs.

Last yr was 2hrs and 26mins. So i got 27mins to kill.

I reckon i start slowly now, 3 runs a week, then top it up with an upcoming ICT, I should be able to make it la.

And i managed to drag GF down with me! :)

She doing the 10km with Mrs Cheng.

It will be a milestone to get her to wake up at 5am and start running at 6am.

I think she havent realised that part yet. HAHAHA~~~

:p

Canton Wok by Chef Kang

One of the best Zi Cha in SG.

The food is wonderfully delicious and $268 for a 10-person feast is well worth every penny.

No joke, the chef really prepared a ten-person volume on every dish served.

And there was only 6 of us. Siao liao.

In the end we had to tabao the vermicelli back home.

Which is still damn good when we had it for dinner on monday after reheating.

Bacon Prawn rolls with mayonnaise

蒜 茸 珍 珠 糯 米 蒸 蟹

鸳 鸯 排 骨