Overdue Update!

I can't believe it's the 4th day of 2008 already! As usual, i'm super overdue with the postings because there's so much to do and blogging is probably not ranked very high on my priority list anymore. Not sure if this is a good thing or not, but i realised i don't even post entries at home anymore and blogging is purely a 9-5, weekday only activity!

Anyhow, the past 2 weeks or so have been somewhat crazy! A couple of days before Christmas, a friend's dog had a freak accident and jumped off from 9th storey. Chester has always been very fond of this bitch (literally) and we were deeply shaken when we received the news. Even though we didn't manage to catch her before she breathed her last, we spent some quiet time with her and our dear friend until it was time for the hospital staff to bring her in to be frozen before she was cremated some time later. I shudder at the thought of seeing a loved one dead and stiff before my eyes but i know very well that facing Death is a prerequisite of Life itself. I guess that's why it's important to take time out to breath the air, feel the rain, relish in the good times and not dwell in the bad. Life's too short, really.

The morning of Christmas eve was mental for me too because i hid the husband's presents at my parents' and had no chance to even wrap it and write the card since we spent our weekend there!! Had to take the morning off to tie all the loose ends before heading home to him where both of us took every chance to poke and prod each other's wrapped pressies in a bid to guess what the other person had bought.

Sad to say, because our new home is still not here yet, our plans to spend a nice, cosy x'mas in our new pad was thwarted and we had to proceed to Plan B. It's kinda like a custom thing for us to stay out during Christmas Eve and this year was no exception! However, we've grown abit smarter for the past 3 years ago and instead of getting ripped off at restaurants and have totally no choice over what to eat (it's either Set A or Set B!!!), we've decided that room service was a much better option. We had Zambuca in the comfort of our room for the past 2 years after we were pleasantly surprised that everything on their ala carte menu was still available for room service whilst other guests that were dining in the restaurant itself were subjected to choosing either Set A or Set B.

This year, i decided that we should try another location because i finally discovered how expensive it was to be staying at Pan Pac. True, i loved that place from the food to the view to the glass elevator that made my ears blocked but with a baby arriving soon, i thought it'd be wiser to be more prudent with our moolah. We went to this place instead and got a room which had an equally good, if not better view than Pan Pac. The husband was so afraid i'd fall off the belcony when i was stretching half of my body out trying to get a good shot of the night view!! Pictures later!

The disappointing thing was, we didn't have much choice with food though and ended up, for the first time, having Asian food for our Christmas Eve dinner!! Not a bad choice though, since we cleaned up our plates in no time. After church, we checked out the bar at the hotel lobby for their in-house countdown event but decided against joining in the fun after finding out that 2 drinks (and i can't even touch alcohol!) would cost us close to 200 bucks!!! Headed back to our room for more room service (this time it was a super good beef burger!), chocolates, teevee and couple time till it was midnight.

Something quite funny happened at midnight but i'll talk about it later when i post the photos! Anyways, my guess was right (after all the prodding) that the husband got me a new mobile - i'm finally in the wifi league too and can surf the net in toilets too...haha! My last phone suffered a death of unknown cause and i had to resort to using a super old one which i must mentioned was also a present from the husband. That phone has served me well and even though it's kinda worn out and outdated, it's like a comfy pair of shoes you know you'll never discard! Btw, I kinda realised that the husband has been my faithful mobile supplier for the last 10 years since my dad got me my first Ericsson flap-phone 10 years ago. I have no idea how many times he had to renew his contract with Singtel in the past just to get me new phones (either because they were drowned, misplaced or were simply outdated) but i know it sure is a hell lot lot lot lot of times!!!

The husband's initial guess was that i had got him music DVDs but was stumped when he felt something weird (in his words: "ehhh why round round one?!?!"). Little did he know that the real present (the Xbox360) was still at my parents' place and i had only wrapped 2 games and the controller....muahahahha!! I think he was abit shocked for words when he finally realised what the real present was and could only manage to utter, "you....you....you got me an xbox ah...!??!" I reckon the new console would be perfect for our new 42-inch TV!!!! NOW, we just need the house to be ready before we rock and roll!

I was initially torn between the Xbox360 and the PS3 but after affirmation from my male colleagues that ANY console will make a great gift for any gaming guy, i went for the Xbox360 because of the better graphics and games. I think i made the right choice because the husband has seemingly been enjoying modding and racing virtual cars (i was joking with him that he got his Evo after all!), killing soldiers and being Batista, much to the envy of my male colleagues who have read the husband's facebook status last week. With our bonus being handed out this week, i'm guessing a few of them will be getting the Xbox360 and will be exchanging games with the husband very soon!

And if u think i have been staring at the ceilings for countless nights since then, hell no! I actually ended up being the addict and staying up till 2am to breed Syrupents and attract Mousemallows. That, of course, incurred some good ol' nagging from the husband who would suddenly wake up from his deep slumber, realised it was the wee hours of the morning and would proceed to gently remind me it was time to hit the sack! If he didn't wake up, i think i would have continued playing! All thanks to the walkthrough the husband found for me, i have since also found a great way to recycle all the trash papers in my office too...heh. Gaming is addictive as we discovered years ago when we'd play Worms online on our 56K modem - realised it's not that difficult to chalk up hundreds of dollars on your phone/internet bills if you're a game addict. Thank God for cable modem now.

Now, we're on a quest to look for more multiplayer games so we can game together, but on my condition that the husband is not allowed to "whack" me but i can "whack" him if i want to! Even when we used to play Fifa together, i took Brazil and made the husband take Singapore (or some other crap team). Not a glorious win for me but who cares, it's too hard to defeat him!!! Even when we played as ally teams on AOE, his game statistics at the end was always better than me. I think i can beat him at Puzzle Bobble though....and Street Fighter if i'm lucky that day.

This post turned out to be longer than i'd expected because i seem to have so much to blabber about. Will try to upload some pics soon but for now, it's time for fish steamboat at River Valley Road! We used to love that place (Li Guang Ji) awhile ago but the standard there plummeted for awhile due to a change in chef but apparently they've gotten a new one whose specialty is fish head steamboat so we're gonna give them a 2nd chance - will update you foodies!