Of Weddings and Tough Love

So I've been busy trying to get the various things needed for the wedding. Who knew weddings are so much work... and so much money too, if I may add. Most of which are really unnecessary to me. Like, I don't see the point of spending over $3k for a dress that you're going to wear for half a day, and for having a grandiose wedding banquet at a 5 star hotel which quite frankly, benefits only the hotels rather than the couple and the guests. I don't like paying $100 for dinners where the food is mediocre and sit around in a table with people I hardly ever meet during the course of everyday life. I mean, to put it into perspective, I hardly even blow $100 to go out for a meal with Intuition or my family!

So we're having the banquet at a nice small restaurant, reputed to serve good food =) The ambience isn't that fantastic, but the menu's looking really good so far and I'm happy with the rate we're paying. There will definitely be a church wedding =) I have asked my dear blur friend Gara to be the bridesmaid, and she asked me a very interesting question over MSN this morning.

She : btw...do u think u are bridezilla material?
Me : i hope not!! !!
She : ok...i hope so too!
Me : wahahaha... what if i turn out to be the biggest bridezilla there ever will be?!???
She : yeah if i'm gonna be the bridesmaid i'm sared....
Me : will u still be my friend??
if i verbally abuse the world arnd me..
throw my 4inch heels at the caterer for giving me the wrong shade of ivory...
tear apart the flowers that have got a tiny speck of bruise in them...
She: we'd better remember it's 15 years of friendship!!!
15 years!!
Me : what if i do all these and more!!
She : i think u need a whacking by then'
Me : wahahahaha
She : i'll hum the jaws theme at u if i see u displaying bridezilla signs
Me : hahaha! u shd bring a dorsal fin along too!
wave it frantically at me if i start frothing at the mouth and telling the pastor off for using singlish when preaching :P
She : haha, i have a dolphin toy..
Me : okay, that'll do
though i can't be held responsible if i change my mind on that day and insist on a proper dorsal fin rather than a soft toy. :P
afterall, I AM a leetle bit anal.
She : u get whacked right on the head with that dolphin toy
Me : =( i dun like this violent bridesmaid very much.
She : heehee...u can still change ur mind...but i'll stil like to be brideziller whacker :P i practice tough love.
Me : tough. is most tough.
She : yes

A True Story: E is for...

Once upon a time, there was a 21 year old guy who had everything going for him. He passed his driving test at the first attempt, and a snazzy photo for his driving license. Within a month of his getting his license, a relative was going out of town for a week and asked him if "would you mind terribly taking care of my car for me while I'm away?"

Of course, he said it's no trouble and happily kept vigil over the cute yellow Hyundai by driving bringing it wherever he went.

All was fine and well until one night, he ventured up the highway with his happy family in tow when suddenly, the car coughed and sputtered and stalled while still on the highway exit.

"Oh no!" he cried. "What am I to do now? There is no one else in the car who can help me!" Suddenly, he had a brain wave. "I know! I'll call my friend and ask him for help!" And so he did.

"Dear friend! I need your counsel, I need your help! My car died suddenly while going up the highway and I don't know what to do!"

"Eh dun panic dun panic. What happened? Any lights blinking?"

"I don't know what to do! The car just coughed and sputtered and stalled! All the lights on the dashboard are blinking and I have no idea why!"

"Eh... so everything was okay until you got up the highway ah? Your fuel tank okay or not?"

"Yes it's fine! The fuel tank is fine!"

"What does the metre say?"

"The needle is at 'E'! 'E' is for 'Enough', 'F' is for 'Finish', right?"

~The end~




Yes it's a true story. I really didn't make it up. This really happened to my friend this month, I kid you not. Somehow, I have the quirkiest collection of quirkie friends, eva.

"Meet My Girl"

A single, eligible bachelor on my MSN recently put this line behind his nick: "TB wants his gal--Rivela". My my, what a declaration coming from someone usually reserved about such topics. So I just had to ask...

Me: who is Rivela??
TB: oh, u really wanna know? here's her picture: http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g172/qqmomo/ok2.jpg
Me: ...
Me: ok she's really hot but still... I don't think she's your type.
TB: lol!
TB: btw, Friend C is asking about rivela oredi. i'm saying truthful things like, she's not from singapore etc. ROFL!!
Me: u're horrigible!!!
TB: but i'm not telling Friend C she's virtual :D Friend C asks if she's malay.
Me: ROFL!
TB: she assumes we met on the internet, which is technically correct. she asks how do i know her; i say i know her from online gaming, which is correct.
Me: OMG! I have to blog about this. this is too funny.
TB: =D ha ha ha.
TB: she's asking when are we getting married. i said not yet. the game hasn't implemented weddings yet, but well ... u never know. anything is possible.
Me: ROFL! why dun u say "internet r/s seldom last v long..."
TB: isn't it fun to have friends like Friend C?

A Desk Revisited

If you remember from a previous post, Confessions, there was a poor colleague of mine who had his desk wrapped up while he was away on reservice for 2 weeks.

FYI, he also went for the Hanoi trip, which took 11 days.

Before leaving for the trip, someone asked him, "Hey, aren't you afraid that your desk will get wrapped up again while you are gone?", to which he replied,"No worries! This time Quirkie is on the trip with me, so I'm very sure that my desk will be safe!" Tsk tsk, whatever gave him such awful ideas about me?

When we came back to work today, there was a nice surprise waiting just for him:
Poor guy =P I really didn't do it this time. Seriously!

My Interesting Room-mate

For privacy reasons, CL's name is changed to Spelling Bee (SB for short) for this blogpost.

The Night Before Hanoi:
SB: Are you gonna bring your sleepers and shoes to VN?
Me: *thinking to myself: What on earth..?? Sleeping bags? Sleepers? OH! She means SLIPPERS!*

SB: what other thinks are you bringing there?
Me: ...

At The PCs in The Hotel
SB: How do u spell grateful? Is it "g.r.e.a.t...."
Me: ROFL!!!!!!!!

At a Vietnamese Friend's Place
*SB writing down an address and TH looking over her shoulder*
TH: Urm... how do you spell "Michael"?
SB: M-I-C-H-E-A-L
TH: ...
TH: Oh... I think it's wrong

In the Taxi
Someone: I think we should spend the morning doing this...
SB: I seems to think so too
Intuition: "seems to think so"?
SB: *whacks Intuition*

Last Night
SB: Someone has been making a lot of harsh decisions and shouldn't be so harsh.
Me: Harsh?
SB: Yah lor.
Me: ...
Me: I think you mean "rash"?
SB: HAHAHAHHAHAHAA! *whacks me*

Of Whirlwinds, Quirkie Gatherings and Normality

Normality
I am happy to say that my swollen cheek (aka cheekmunk) is well and truly gone! All that's left of my wisdom tooth extraction is a gaping hole where the tooth used to be =) It's not bleeding nor infected, but because the stitches came loose very soon after the extraction, it's slightly torn. Thankfully, everything else is okay, I just have to make sure that food particles don't get stuck in there =) Which they do. So I have to rinse my mouth very carefully nowadays, but that's okay =) I'm just really happy that I can eat normal food again! Attention food, I'm back with a vengeance!!

And my hair colour is getting more and more normal ; ) Yay!

Whirlwinds
The weekend was a whirlwind of activities for me, so much so that the only time I had to stop and stone was on Sunday night, 12midnight.

Saturday was filled because of Smiley's wedding (congrats Mr & Mrs LSJ!), where I was one of the sisters, which meant we had to head down to her place by 7.30am before the groom arrived with his motley crew for the torture process =) For her wedding dinner, Intuition and I were the emcees; a first for me! I was the mandarin speaking emcee! My Chinese is not good nor is it fluent, but next to Intuition, well, let's just say that ACS is not known to produce Chinese speaking scholars ; ) Thankfully, it went okay, except for when I tripped over the groom's fathers name and mispronounced his surname twice in a row and nearly stuttered when I started. I felt like I was preparing for my O level Chinese oral exam all over again during the incessant rehearsels with Intuition. Intuition did well on stage, he's quite the natural, so all I had to do was to follow his lead with the mandarin translation =) We make a good team!

Quirkie Gatherings
5 Aug was the gathering of the PMs at QuirkieKai Land! Sadly, we're gathering to say goodbye to our dear Singing Tigger, as she's returning to the States in September =( We don't want to let her go, but I guess in life, there's always some coming and going. True to her name, she sang us a gorgeous song, "My Tribute". It is a beautiful song with meaningful lyrics, and she's blessed with such a rich and gorgeous voice. A hushed awe descended upon the room as Mich played the piano and Singing Tigger sang her heart out. Everyone whipped out their digicams and handphones to capture the moment, but nothing beats a live performance =) I was honestly expecting a crowd to gather outside my windows as she reached the chorus of the song. What a treat it was for all of us present =)

Ms Krong also sang us a song in a way that only she can! Walt Disney, should you need voice talents for any cats, look no further! Ms Krong can meow her way into the hearts of anyone who cares to listen to her feline rendition of "Christmas Isn't Christmas."

Mr Bing sang about 2 lines of a song too, and it's forever burned into our retinas and etched into our memories. Mr Bing, Mr Bing, Mr Bing. You will forever be associated with "Physical" and "Teletubbies." I'm sure Mich will agree. Poor Mich, tis her first time meeting you and I'm sure she won't ever forget your quirkiness!

Speaking of singing, I'm just really glad I'm moving out of this place by next year. This group sang passe national day songs with such gusto that I'm sure my entire neighbourhood heard their rendition of Stand Up for Singapore, 5 Stars Arising, We The Citizens, This Is My Country and other such hair-raising spine-tingling patroitic propaganda songs. I'm sure MP Mah Bow Tan would've been mighty pleased with me should he have passed by my humble apartment during that time, but in the mean time, pardon me while I find a hole to stick my head into. I mean, seriously guys, I have to live here, you know?? You guys, you guys just do the damage to my reputation in the neighbourhood and then you leave! Me, I have to stay here and face the neighbours! What am I to do??

And so, with the quirkie gathering over and done with, some semblance of normality returns to my life =) But I wouldn't exchange those 5 hours of wine, song and laughter for anything else in the world--I really had a great time. It's the quirkie moments that makes life so special, no?

Specially for you!

Psalm 71:19-20
19 Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God,
You who have done great things.
Who, O God, is like you?
20 Though You have made me see troubles, many and bitter,
You will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth You will again bring me up.

A Nice Evening =)

Last night, Intuition and I spent an evening with Intuition's friends, E (Intuition's old friend) & G (E's girlfriend, from Korea). We had dinner at Prego's, which was expensive but the food didn't disappoint. I always look forward to eating at Prego's, but I can only afford to go there if there is a discount available because it's so expensive and the portions aren't very big. A plate of carbonara costs $22+++ and a Ceasar's salad is $18+++, so you can imagine what the other fancier dishes must cost. Intuition had a 25% discount voucher which we put to good use yesterday.

E & G are a really cute couple. Because she's from Korea, she did some sightseeing and we brought her to the Esplanade as well as to 1 Fullerton to take some photos and to sightsee. We also brought them to Tom's Palette for some yummy ice-cream, which they enjoyed. She kept apologising "Sorry, I'm tourist" whenever she stopped to take pictures of sights we take for granted, such as the skyline and the view of the CBD from the Esplanade. Looking at these sights through the eyes of a tourist helps me to appreciate the pretty views in Singapore all over again.

I had my camera handy with me, but no tripod =( Boohoo. Night shots without a tripod invariably end up aggravatingly imperfect. When I look at all these almost-there-but-darn-it's-BLURRY!!!! shots, Mr Bing's words of wisdom comes to mind: Always take your photos with a tripod! One such shot:

I love the skyline and the effect of the clouds in the photograph. BUT it's tilted and if you enlarge the shot, you can see that it's BLURRY! It would have otherwise been perfect, but it's slightly ruined! Slightly ruined shots are worse than completely ruined shots because you see how close it was to being a great shot and you just ache for what it could have been. *Bawl!*

Thankfully, for all my lousy shots and almost-there shots that evening, there is one blessed shot that survived the long exposure timings with a nice sharp focus. I bring you The Merlion.

Quirkie Tales of Quirkie Friends

I. The Lame Jokes.

Q1: At an international school, the children were practising high jump. A child from the Czech Republic couldn't even clear the lowest barrier. Why?

A1: Because that Czech didn't bounce.

* * *

Q2: What song does Dayong sing everyday as he goes to work?

A2: Dayong Sampang (Dayong shang4ban1, ie, go to work.)

Ha-ha-ha. These lame jokes are copyrighted by Mr Bing (YES he came up with it. *faintz!*).

--------

II. The Funny Friend.
This friend of mine, let's call her Gara, is truly funny without really trying to be, i.e., she will say something and everyone else will burst out into laughter while she looks around, bewildered.

So said friend went for Japanese lessons with her sister. One day her sister couldn't make it for the lesson, her tutor asked her in Japanese, why isn't your sister here today?

The correct answer is: My sister is working (imoto wa hataraiteiru)
Her answer is: My sister disemboweled herself (imoto wa harakirimasu)

According to her, during that lesson, she also told her tutor that she "ate a departmental store" :P Her tutor must love his job with priceless entertainment like that every week =)

Gara also tried bakuteh for the very first time when she's 26 years old. Yes she's Singaporean. No I don't know where she's been all her life. She tried it for the first time in Brunei, an Islamic nation. See the irony??

Another one of her priceless quotes: one day on MSN, she was asking me about "Mr Imitation" and I'm like, who?? so she said "your boyfriend!" and i'm like, "That's not Imitation. It's INTUITION!!!" Of all the words to be substituted... For the record, I do not have an imitation boyfriend, although I can't say the same for some of my branded clothes and bags...

The Laughing Dinner Party and a Rum Cake Recipe

On Saturday, some of my (definitely quirkie) friends came over for dinner. It was a gathering of ex-colleagues and some of us have not met each other before, except in the online world. The chemistry was explosive and even before meeting up on the actual date, there were a lot of strange online exchanges going on via emails :P

We didn't have get to talk very much as most of the time we were laughing til our sides hurt :D It was a great evening of good food and company. Innocent words and phrases such as "Ahmad", "hotmail" (don't ask), "spicy" and "making space for rum-cake" effectively stopped us from eating as we laughed and laughed and laughed. We had to observe a minute of silence so that we can simply concentrate on eating our pasta, but even then, it wasn't a very silent observation :P I think the fumes from the red wine got to us while our stomaches are empty :P

The Mr Bing and Ms Krong talk show that evening was hilarious, hilarious, hilarious. It's the best comedy show in town, unfortunately tickets are not available to the general public :P No pictures are posted here to protect the innocent (i.e., the rest of us, except Ms Krong and Mr Bing...) If you're looking for entertainment acts, look no further.. just don't do it during dinner, for no one will be able to get a bite of food into their tummies!

We all laughed and ate to our hearts content =) Everyone brought something that evening, and all the contributions were great. After dinner, we had a round of Balderdash and laughed even more. If laughing can extend someone's life, we were saying that we must have had our lives extended by a week at the end of the evening! What a night!

The Menu:
Food:
Salad, made by Sheena.
Chicken wings, contributed by Bing Ren.
Meatball pasta, cooked by Yours Truly.
Rum cake, baked by Pauline.
Beverages:
Sparkling fruit juices, contributed by Ee Yuing.
Red wine, contributed by Gwen.
Mango tea, contributed by Yaling.
Others:
Paper cups n plates, by Matt.
Balderdash, by Matt.

I shall post the recipe for Pauline's rummiliciously delicious rum-cake. It's divinely delicious. My family had some of it for dessert on Sunday and were immediately huge fans of it! I have a tonne of superlatives for the cake, but never mind, here's the recipe. Go try it out! You won't be disappointed! And don't skimp on the rum!!

Rum Cake :):):)
1 cup pecan or walnut (toasted)
18 1/2 ounce yellow cake mix
3 3/4 ounce instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 bacardi rum
2 min high speed
bake for 1 hour 325F

Glaze 1 stick of butter, 1/4 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup rum
melt butter then add water+sugar
boil for 5 min
remove from heat and stir in room temp

1 more reason to smile... or is it?

Been meaning to post these pictures for a while =)



This is a peace-offering from Shortstop who have used my Cranium (the board game, not the body part) more often than I have, and have discovered that the play-dough is mouldy O_o Also, read that little note there that says "Life can be sugary sweet... but at times it can also get chili hot!" ? A story of deception lies behind the kind words...

One fine day, as we sat through a seminar on the DaVinci Code and how many of the theories are pure fabrication, people started to pass sweets around to keep ourselves awake. So little Shortstop here passed me a little red candy, telling my friends that it's specifically for me (and they could take any other candy, BUT that red one). Unsuspecting me took it gratefully and popped it into my mouth.

When the flavour finally registered with my brain, I couldn't reconcile it. It was flaming hot!! But candy should be sweet, no? Something doesn't add up here.. Candy = sweet. This candy = VERY HOT. At this point, Shortstop was red in her face trying not to laugh (we WERE in the middle of a seminar!), and I was red in the face because MY MOUTH WAS BURNING UP!! Ptui!! spat it out and went to the washroom to rinse out my mouth which was still BURNING. (cue in Smeagol: eeet burrrnnssss.... eeeet burrrrnnnsssss!!)

Life lesson here? Beware of the Shortstops in your life, or they may just pull a fast one on you. (grrrr.)

Friends :-)

I'm not very good at keeping in touch with friends. Usually, I tend to be the passive one, waiting for people to ask me out or to call me. As such, I don't have a lot of friends that I regularly meet from my secondary school and JC days. Thankfully, I do have a few good ones whom I meet up with, laugh a lot with and talk a lot with =) Gara, Mer and WXY being some of them (the only ones?!! boy I lead a sad life!!).

They also know that I love to eat and have a growing fondness for cooking, so they've been egging me to cook for them. This holiday period was the perfect time to do so, seeing how some of us are clearing leave and one of them is on holiday, being a school teacher! I gave them a few choices: pasta or hamburger? They chose pasta. Cream or tomato sauce? Cream sauce it was!

Personally I like tomato sauce, but I can see why they prefer cream sauce. Many eateries serve the tomato sauce pasta too tart and not very tasty. Cream sauces on the other hand, usually taste of cheese, cheese and more cheese, and you can't really go wrong with that, unless you're lactose intolerant, in which case you have my deepest sympathies.

After some mulling, I finally decided on something simple but cannot-go-wrong: Bacon + Mushrooms + Chicken pasta (using linguine). Really, there is no way this will taste bad as long as you use good bacon and fresh mushrooms! I used store-bought cream sauce and added some milk to the sauce, because I didn't want it to be too thick and saltish. Some cream sauces bought off-the-shelf have enough salt content to last you for a week. Thankfully the one I bought this time wasn't too saltish but silly me, I didn't note down the brand and name >_<

WXY and Mer did a great job with the desserts and drinks. They bought the cakes (chocolate based, no less!) from Four Leaves and brought sparkling apple juice for the evening. Gara said she nearly brought Baileys but decided against it, to my greatest regret =( My brother was at home, so I had to cook for him too. He repaid my kindness by being our in-house waiter ("Do you need more drinks?" *goes get more cups for my friends*); his service was top-notch, but the only tip he got was that he could partake of our meal together ;) hahaha.. It was a great evening of fun and laughter =)

Gara, WXY and Mer also presented me with a log cake that evening! They also sang me "Happy Birthday" for the first time in goodness knows how many years, since we hardly ever get to meet around my birthday period! (See, the other sucky part about being born on Christmas is that no one is really free to meet up with you!!!) Anyways, you babes are tres sweet ;) Thanks a mil for the cakes and the company!

Christmas Presents!

This year, I've received lots of lovely presents from my lovely friends. This year, I've also received some erm, interesting presents from my interesting friends. The winner of which must be this:


an electric toothbrush.

It was given to me by the guys in my cell group. When I first received the oddly shaped package, I didn't think too much about it until one of them asked me to guess. I felt it, and it seemed to be shaped like a toothbrush, so I asked incredulously, "Did you guys get me a toothbrush?" and he said "well, not quite..." and then i was like, "An electric toothbrush??" *cue in slack-jawed open eyed expression*

I was like, WHAT WHY HOW WHHYYYY??? Did I suffer from terrible breath? Are my teeth yellowing already? Are my gums receding? Do I show more plague than teeth when I smile? No, no, no and no, he said. It's because I like to eat, he said. So it was a toss-up between a cookbook, a blender and an electric toothbrush (so that I can brush my teeth after I eat). Sodesu ne.

Well, some thought certainly went into it, but still... I would have much prefered the cook book or the blender (and I was actually thinking of getting a blender so that I can do purees :D) but I guess I should be thankful. Afterall, it is a practical gift and it was thoughtfully picked out... It wasn't like they plucked it out randomly at Gardian Pharmacy and Tadaaa!

I was wondering how did they know I like to cook. Apparently they got the idea from this blog, which I didn't know that they read. Anyways, guys, this post is dedicated to you! Thanks for the Christmas prezzie, I will use it with much amusement and will remember your thoughtfulness each time I brush my teeth after I eat ; )

Let's talk about something else.

An obligatory non-food picture of a quirkie family pet. Its quirks include furiously digging furiously on the floor for nothing in particular.

I've been going on and on about food for the last few posts, so much so that my friends are asking me if it's a food blog I'm starting, walking in the shadows of great food bloggers like Chubby Hubby and Kuidaore. Well... that wasn't my intention, but there certainly is a lot of inspiration from these blogs! Looking at their food creations make me weep with frustration, that many of the items they've described so succulently are food that I've not even tried! But i digress... *ahem*

I can talk about the funny people in my life! *beams!* Gara certainly thinks that I've got loads of strange friends, she being one of them. She thinks that it's cos birds of a feather flock together, but I think it's cos opposites attract, me being so normal and all.

Quirkie Habits of Friends that I've Observed
1. Friend A: likes to "countdown" after he has to shut his PC down forcibly and needs to turn it on again. I.e., he will hold the button down til the PC shuts down, then before starting it on again, he will quickly do a count down: "12345678910...10987654321", THEN he'll switch it on again.

2. Friend B: Friend B is beyond description... I don't even know where to begin. His strangeness is innate. Maybe I'll share his classic joke: "I like to dash around... dash here, dash there... so that people will say that I'm DASHING. *heeheehee!*" and that's just the tip of the ice-berg!

3. Friend C: Hahaha.. my precious Friend C is unforgettable. There's also no way she'll chance upon this :P Friend C likes to dress up to work, and on days she feels prettier, she'll say "Quirkie! Come and take photo for meeee!" so I'll snap away as she preens and poses in various locations in the office. After that, when she views the pictures on the computer, she'll exclaim "Aiyohh I look sooo fat here! See, it's all your fault! You take photo, make me look fat!" There is no justice in this world :P

My own quirkie habits? Why, surely I don't have any! I just like to eat good food and that totally excludes Cafe Cartel, Pasta Mania, Macdonald's, Delifrance, TCC, Sakura and other overpriced yuckyfood establishments (my other nick is Food Snob, as given by Dumbbell). Please, if you're my friend reading this, please don't ever, ever organize a gathering at such places!! I love to hunt out cheap and good eats. One day, when I've met my quota of non-food related posts, I'll post up a list of food places that Intuition and I have carefully researched on, devoting our time, money and effort to making sure that it is worthy of a place in our Little Blue Book of Food. ^-^

So there! A non-food (almost!) post!