mmm...cake

I want that cake, aw, you dont know how hard it is not to just grab a spoon and dig into it, but I must restrain myself, customers first. damn it. It's a vanilla deluxe mouse cake....*drool* I may only like it because it's stripey (I'm still into the Tim Burton thing) but it looks so gooooooooooood...I took this picture just before I had to let it go to the customer who had paid money for it :( oh well....(they bought TWO cakes by the way, rich greedy people...)

Animania Part II

Hey hey hey!

Last weekend Nhi and I went to the Animania 2008 Festival! Well, "went" isn't the proper word. Heh, we volunteered! Nhi was kinda dragged in by me. But it turns out that this was the best convention so far ;)

***We were in train-stable number 8***

Honestly I don't know how we did it. We woke up between 5-6am each day just to come on time. It was usually an 8am start. Freakin' freezing in the bloody morning. How can the weather keep getting COLDER!? Anyhoo the only antidote for being frozen once out of my oh-so-warm bed is knowing the fact I'll be seeing Nhi very soon. Plus a nice warm ride to the train station.

***Thats the look i get for being with her so early in the morning***

So on Saturday morning we left our homes and went past the sleeping neighbourhood watching the sky change from pitch black to inky blue, to a mix of everything with a blinding light (FYI: Thats the sun). The train ride was ok...though we needed to eat breakfast even though our stomach was not ready to tackle any carbos yet. But it can't be avoided, I needed something to get that toothpaste flavour out of my mouth. YUK! And then after I get food, I need drinks. But thankfully Animania provided these essentials, but i felt sick after eating one toasted crumpet. :S

We were assigned to Registration/Cloakroom/Helpdesk. It was great! Better than expected actually! Nhi and I hogged the laptops first thing they were available and were totally pumped to start serving the crazy anime fans. The other volunteers were awesome, so freindly and open which made it so much more fun and light hearted. We decided to have a competition as to who would snag the most patrons to their laptops! Hahahahah!! So stupid and yet so fun. I know I won. Nhi sucked, I must admit! Hahah! Poor girl was wedged between me and Johnny (person on other side of Nhi) and since we were both so high yelling "NEXT waiting!!!!!" people just ignored Nhi. Mwahahah!! Hilarious!

The day went by really smoothly. Lots of food was given. Such good hospitality! As it got closer to lunch time a handful of volunteers handed out the food. They actually went to each booth to find all the volunteers, it was like our health was their main priority. You could hear the walkie talkies from the managers' sqwarking "Who hasn't been fed!?" or "Karaoke needs fuel! Pronto!". Its so sweet of them. Theres going to be an after party in a few weeks maybe months, but I'm really looking forward to it. We'll be pumped up again by then ;).

What did we eat you ask? We had HOT (ok, maybe warm) fried rice! Very yummy. It was home-made by the parents' of the main organiser. Tasted really good! Like i honestly believed it was pre-ordered. The portions and ingredients were so well done! Then there were the "snacks" I suppose. There were boxes of instant bowl noodles and stacks of fun size chocolates. Like so much there were even left overs when Sunday was over. Bread, crumpets, cans of soft drinks and not to mention so much varieties of spreads. Really well thought-out. Oh and they brought in microwaves, toasters and a HUGE and i mean MASSIVE water kettle. Its not even a kettle, its this gigantic tall pot looking thing that boiled water. Really convenient. I might even aquire one for future outdoor purposes. LoL.

***What was left from my portion of food (haha! appetising isn't it?)***

Inside the convention there wasn't as much as I'd hoped. Which is probably a good thing. I didn't spend so much as $15 in total. Not too bad at all. I mean last time i spent almost $300 in total at Supanova? That includes taxi fees and travels. Still a hefty price, man. That was all my savings for who knows how long.

Cloakroom and Helpdesk (combined) was really good. I didn't expect it to be so ... whats that word? Cosy? No. Fun?. No, not that simple. Spectacular? No, thats just overboard. Intense? no...though thats close. BONDING! Yes thats what i'm looking for! Being in Cloakroom and Helpdesk made us involve ourselves more and things just became more intimate.

I've already forgotten most of what happened on that Saturday but Sunday was really quiet. People were bored. Nhi was bored. I was bored. Everybodys' energy was just being drained by the lack of patrons.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE ARE BORED

***They miraculously produce decks of cards. UNO to be exact***

***Or they take photos of people trying to use time wisely (i.e. sleeping) Side note: That is not my extended arm***

I mean there was a HUGE difference. On Saturday we were serving people non-stop for 3hours straight. On Sunday it was only for 20mins and then after that the rare stray person would come by to see what was all the comotion about. And since there were about 6 people on duty and ONE poor patron...you get the picture. Everything was pretty lifeless. But one event that had me perked up for a few minutes was Nhi! Johnny (guy next to Nhi) had dropped a thumb-tack earlier while trying to pin table clothes down and couldn't find it. This whole time we were all saying "Oh well, its too bad for the patrons, I guess. We'll see who the sucker is that steps on it *snicker*" But 10mins down the track Nhi yells at me "Jenn! I found the stupid thumb tack!" I look up thinking "What?" and she holds the pin up and says "I was SITTING on it the whole time!" (BURST OF LAUGHTER) Ahahaha!! So funny! And so like me, I bombarded questions at her like "How did you take it out?" "Are you bleeding?" "Did you full on sit on it?" etc etc. Hahahaha!! Aparently not. She wasn't bleeding (at least thats what she says, i can't verify that fact) and then took her chance to bite Johnny's head off for being so careless. All the while i was still thinking about how she didn't fully sit on it. I mean who sits down SLOWLY and so careful like they knew they were going to be pricked? LoL. Still its just plain funny. So yea, that was the highlight of Sunday. At the end of the day we got free pizza. Though Nhi and I didn't want any. I don't think neither of us would want pizza for the next decade. :S

***Most of the time we mingled with this lot. It was a really good experience. And yes, that is Krystel***

In the end we packed up, took a grand photo, huggled and went home.

Oh yea, when we were back in town neither Nhi nor I wanted to go home just yet, (Like when do we ever?) so we drove to KFC and Mcdonalds drive-thru and literally talked for 3hours straight. In the car of course. I mean it was splendid. Besides the part where the car-park cleaner came past and scared the living daylights out of me. I saw a moving shadow being cast across Nhi's seat and i turned to my window but little did i know that i'd be almost face-to-face (even with the glass in between) with some old man in dark clothing and a black beanie!! But anyway the car was warm. @^________^@

The next day i slept till 2pm! I wonder what the "after party" will do to me...

Animania

Animania(Cloakroom section): [L-R] Anthony, Carmen, Jenn, Mario, Nhi

Animania was my weekend along with Jenn (no surprise there ;)). Another excuse to wake up at 5am (not happy). I actually enjoyed this one, for real. It was a nice surprise. To be honest I wasnt looking forward to this one out of the other events I volunteered for, but it proved to be better than the rest. Maybe it was just because all the volunteers were so friendly to one another.

Jenn and I were in Registration. Passing time by competing against each other in this lil game Johnny (fellow volunteer) suggested where we tried to register as many patrons as we could and whoever with the highest number wins (easy peasy right?). I lost count after 6 people (pathetic) but it was crazy fun, so much laughing and shouting and stuff.

Saturday was generally the "funner" day, while Sunday was pretty quiet and everyone (staff) had lost their energy (bored for long periods at a time). Jenn spent pretty much the whole Saturday being distracted by this dude Anthony, totally didnt let me have her attention at all (so mean!) but the other volunteers were so easy to talk too that I didnt feel so lonely, though I would have rather Anthony not hogging Jenn ALL the flipping day long. Actually they were entertainment for me and Mario (friend of Anthony's who pretty much got ignored too) they were acting like an old married couple, squabbling the whole time. Everyone noticed. Too funny.

On Sunday it was rather slow moving, not as many patrons as Saturday's crowd (the line ended in 20mins, while on Saturday it took nearly over 3hours to get everyone one through). That day someone decided it might have been better if we thumb-tacked the table cloths down to the table so that it would move about but it wasnt such a fab idea when everyone had such a difficult time securing the thumb-tacks to the table. Especially when Johnny (he sat next to me) had to somehow lose one of thumb-tacks, everyone thought it probably landed under the table and that it wouldnt hurt patrons/anyone, that is until a lil later I felt something prick my butt! and when I got up to find out what it was, I pulled out the missing thumb-tack out of my pants! Why me?!

Besides that lil incident, it was a good weekend (I may have drank a tad too much complimentary soft drink on Saturday, felt groggy on the way home, but all is good). I didnt buy anything this time besides food really :( I need to learn how to save. So no new photos of TOYS :( though I did get this WRIBS bracelet from Jackson (he runs PININ) so that brighten me up (I like having something to bring home on outings like this. But we got to keep our ID badges and T-shirts, so that's rad too ;)). Thats pretty much all I can say on this. until next time.

Train tickets are dangerous sharp things.

I havnt been late night shopping in so long (approximately two years), also havnt bought DVDs in so long (Juno is finally released, I wanna buy it! but cant :S). So I went out tonight with my mum and aunt (it was a painful experience, never shopping with my mum again. argh!). Anyways on a brighter note, I found THIS!

in EzyDVD. Was a pleasant surprise, brought a smile to my face, I love the cover (those who have seen the film Get Smart know why it's funny ;)). Too broke to buy it though :(. Oh Well.

In other news: I've got a really bad paper cut on my thumb from my train ticket, it was full on bleeding (those things are sharp!). Oh and I made a paper plane during work (yeah I was "suppose" to be "working" at the time) and it flew! It flew so well that it went over the pie warmer, in the direction of the "eating area", did a loopty loop and hit this gentleman's leg who was at the time peacefully enjoying his pie...oops ~~

That's about it today. Peace out.

"I'm the first to speak. You're the last to know"

One of my all time fave band MAE is re-releasing their first album Destination:Beautiful with a DVD! too excited. Though it'll be released next year, but I'm still crazy excited. (for full details check it here).

Nowadays I dont buy CDs as often as I used to, 'cause I'm majorly broke. I do miss it, it's just not the same, I like having the physical CD in my hand, going through the lil booklet, looking at the album art, everything that completes the whole experience (especially with concept albums). I dont know, there's a lil bit more of an appreciation. I'm sure people will say it's suppose to be about the music, I totally agree but it's not the same when all your music is just sitting in your computer or in your ipod (soon to be forgotten about). One day I'd like to be cleaning my room ("one day" ha!) and find a lost random CD that I hadnt listened to in forever and just have all those feelings I had when I first bought the CD, how old I was, why I bought it, how it made me feel and popping it into the good ol' discman ;).

Random embarrassing fact: the first Cd I ever bought (I still have it somewhere in the house, and every time I do find it, it makes me cringe) was Niki Webster's Strawberry Kisses (I know, I know the shame of it all *hanging head low*) I still remember seeing the ad on tele back when I was about 11 years old and begging my mum to buy it for me, then putting it on replay everyday (for a really really long time) and even...*hanging head even lower* dancing to it....

So in the rare occasions when I do buy CDs I usually buy the special editions with DVDs, it's so much more worth it (who doesnt want to see more of their fave bands eh?). So I'll definately be buying the Mae CD ;).

Hic!

My favourite earphones decided to die on me today :(. I tell you it was the longest train ride home ever! And this guy just had to have his ipod on full blast for the duration of the journey(jerk). I'm too broke to buy new ones, so I have to use the earphones that come with the product (I really dont like those, they dont fit in my ears and they HURT).

In other news: I currently have the HIC!-ups.

In more news: I got an email from my future college last friday and they're sending out my offer letter and it should be coming soon. yay! :)

Photo of the Week

*** Driving home on (some) bridge at about 5 in the afternoon***

I say "week" but this probably wont be a regular thing.

Untitled

Not much really happening lately besides work work and more work. Still waiting on that William Blue letter (like where is it???). Enjoying driving the car around (in the areas that I actually know, other than that, scared breathless :S). Finally set up my voicemail in my mobile phone, the setup procedure is a pain! This was my 4th attempt, I usually get impatient and hang up, but this time it was kinda important. I'm still broke, getting a job has made no difference, so that's depressing to know, no more designer toys for a while :(. Being broke also means no live shows, been aching for one though..Jason Mraz was here last Saturday (sold out show) heard it was good (bummer). Yeah..not much happening, not much is going to happen for a lil while, maybe I'll finally get to see much talked about Dark Knight film next week, maybe, it truly is long overdue, I must watch it, see what the hub bub is about. Nearly puked during work today, wasnt a good feeling. Didnt realise I hadnt eaten proper all day, I ate chocolate and drank a lot of softdrink, was not a good combo then I had a Mocca chiller and my whole stomach just couldnt take it anymore, though I kept it in (which was painfuly gross). I feel a whole lot better now that I've had a nice home cooked meal :). Well I'm wiped from the long day and I might head to bed (it's only 10pm, I feel so old...). until next time, Peace.

"I know where we are!" -Jenn

I went Animania Volunteer training with Jenn yesterday (I'll probably save what I actually think about the training day til AFTER Animania). That was from 10am -1pm. We caught a train to the city instead of taking my car because I didnt want to drive all the way to the city..though then later that night...(will continue later in the blog). After Animania training we went out and had lunch, wondered the city, looked for the Lindt cafe (where we bought two dark chocolates with passion fruit filling (wasnt as great as we'd expected, expensive too mind you)), had ice-cream, more food and headed back to the train station at about 6pm.

oh and during the train ride, Jenn decided to "confess" to me that she was a "transgender" and that she was in love with me and that I should become her man. Which made absolutely NO sense! Too funny. She slowly came to realise that her joke had backfired on her. hahaha! (leave the lame jokes to me Jenn :P).

The night wasnt over yet. Jenn and I didnt want to go home, being such an un-awesome day, it was just wrong to go home disappointed. So we decided to go for a ride in my car all the way to Burwood, which also proved to be a disappointment when all that was open were restaurants and the cinema. Next plan, maybe a Drive-In movie, watch the Dark Knight (I know, I still havnt watched the film yet :S) sounded fun, until I checked session times (on my trusty 3G compatible phone ;)), they werent even playing the Dark Knight :(. Then I suggested we go Newtown, watch live music, eat and stuff. Though neither of us knew where that was.... Went into a petrol station to fill up the tank and asked for directions. We drove around for 2 hours searching for Newtown (a place that everyone we had come across for directions said "it's easy...!") We circled the city 3x. If I had a dollar for every time Jenn said "I know where we are!" I'd be rich, Rich Rich! I tells ya! :D. In the end we didnt go to Newtown, we gave up and headed for McDonald's for one last meal and then home. Though we didnt get to do anything, driving around for two hours and (kinda) getting lost and laughing the whole way was a fun experience! Next time we'll actually PLAN and I'll have a street directory in my car ;).

Oh No I forgot!

I forgot about World Wide Moment today! I'm so bummed out, I wanted to participate and everything. Maybe nxt time... hopefully then I'll remember.

My first Car

My mum bought me my first car today. Nothing fancy of course (it's a Volkswagen Golf '97) . It's going to take some time to get used to, too many separate knobs and buttons that I'm not used to (especially the indicators being on the left instead of the right, been turning on the windscreen wipers for the past hour or so). Anyways, Yay! I've got a car!

Apologises to Jenn, I didnt mean to go off at you, wasnt your fault, I was just tired and grumpy and frustrated and sore and and and! Sorry :(...

Driving Test- 2nd Atempt

I passed! with bonus points! Yay go me! now..I just need a car...

SMASH! v2

My version of SMASH! ;)

Nhi and I went to Smash! as volunteers yesterday. It was "okay". Very small, but it was cozy. I liked the volunteers this time compared to Suapnova. Way more easy to communicate with. We were in the Karaoke department. Last thing to cross our minds, thats for sure. Turned out to be really fun. Its really interesting watching people sing, whether good or not. I thought it was great. There was only one person that killed my ears, she yelled into the microphone and was high pitched at the wrong times. And she sung twice too. @@. The confidence. Whoa. All in all the vibe of the Karaoke room was excellent. Nice and bright and it had a large audience! Everyone was nice :)

***There was only one way to distinguish us "volunteers" from the patrons; the arm bands! I reckon its a very smart idea ;)***

On our breaks we went to see what stalls were in the Roundhouse and very little caught my interest. Though i was really tempted to go to PININ but i was just as broke as Nhi. No i was far more poor than her. I could not spend more than $5 on food so lucky we were given free food ^^, Even if it were only cold pizza and empty coke cans. Finally i dragged Nhi to PININ and then the guy that Nhi is aquatained to (Jackson i believe is his name) recognised her and surprisingly was able to get a limited edition toy she has been craving for. Yay! That made her day! And she also got a twisted book of nursery rhymes! That was so adorably wicked!

***A veiw of the Roundhouse from above***

Anyway the food was very limited. They had a Takoyaki store that took 20mins to make four balls and this little "Paris" bakery. Pretty neat. Very fresh! Nhi and I split a Strawberry tart in half and it was delicious!

The rest of the day went by like a blurr. Soon enough we said goodbye, had some nice cake and left. The night was still early and I was nowhere close to going home. So we went to find late dinner.

Went to the city of course. First Nhi needed the loo. This is a rare moment. LoL. She never needs to pee (i wonder where does it all stay?) This part of the night was the funniest! There was not one place Nhi could go to that had an open toilet. We first went to the building across Capitol, and the toilets were locked so we went upstairs and apparently the toilets there has been demolished. Decided to stroll to Market City. There Nhi was able to find a proper toilet. Still hungry we left to get maccas. And she needed to go AGAIN. There was no loo at maccas,so we decided to head to the Darling Harbour one but we didnt notice till we were right at the entrance that there were metal bars and a huge padlock indicating that this toilet was closed. Made me laugh so hard. So we chose to go to the toilet at the China Town foodcourt. The glass doors wouldn't open but there were people about, and when Nhi put her hand on the glass it opened. And to my amusment all the escalators were in one direction; downwards. We could NOT go up. *snicker*(I'm so mean, I know). The toilets are at the top floor. Busting Nhi whines and whines and i can't seem to remember how she found another toilet. Hahahaha!. It was just hilarious.

Yea ... the rest of the night was spent at Gloria Jeans sipping hot chocolate, iced chocolate and eating sweet krispy kremes. Twelve o'clock came 'round and we had to leave. 'Twas freezing out in the open air. Caught the train and then a cab home.

While we were waiting for a cab to pick us up this path-cleaning machine was coming our way and it was very noisy. So we ran all the way to the next street and i honestly believe the driver found this amusing and sped up a fraction. Ahh! It was so dark, cold and deserted and all we hear is this loud petrifying machine that looks like it will run us over. And to my surprise when we did get to the next street, minutes later it was behind us again! I was sure it was going to turn the corner away from us, but NO! It just HAD to cross the small road and force us to squash agaisnt the railings holding onto our dear lives. I am SO sure the driver went off course to scare the crap out of us. But of course, i don't give a flying fart anymore. So onto a brighter topic...

Next up is Animania! Can't wait!

Cheerio!

SMASH!

Jenn and I went to SMASH! (Sydney Manga & Anime Convention) yesterday as Volunteers in the karaoke section.

***Warning: This blog may be longer than usual***

The day started at 6am for both Jenn and I. Caught a taxi to the train station, picked up Jenn on the way (she had a headache at the time :S not such a great start to the day, on top of that it was COLD). Got to the city at 7 something where we would catch the bus to UNSW. Before we could figure out which bus it was that we were suppose to catch (even though the SMASH! committee had sent us an email with all the bus details on it) an old western man (who later we found out was a Sensei at TAFE) saw us running across the road "unsafely" and lectured us about "how dangerous" that was. We knew we knew. He thought we were from Taiwan (that's a first for me), we told him we werent and asked him if he knew which bus went to UNSW. Lucky for us he DID know and was a huge help, though before he let us go, he asked a few more questions like which Uni we went to and what we studied and stuff. Nice old man(which was probably one of the reasons why we couldnt just leave him and go to catch the bus(even though we were running late :S)).

Finally got to UNSW at 8.15am (Volunteers were suppose to get to UNSW Roundhouse at 8am (convention officially opened at 10am for patrons)). Found our way to the green room (which wasnt even green, hmmm :P) got our names marked off and headed to the Karaoke room where we would "help" set up (or rather struggle with our bright Green Volunteer arm bands! (the safety pins used to pin the band together wouldnt pierce the band, but instead it would bend the safety pin itself (photo proof from Jenn. I must snag photos from her))). Met our other fellow volunteers (cool bunch of people).

Patrons were slowly filing in around 10.15,all excited and eager. Though at that point I had to have my two hour break (Jenn joined me during the first hour then after that I was by my lonesome...). Jenn bought Japanese octopus and Prawn balls (for correct name, go to Jenn's blog on this event ;)) though she wasnt able to eat it as she had to return to the karaoke room and her food wasnt ready yet. So I stayed behind (seeng how I still had another hour to kill) and waited (for who knows how long!) to collect her food. After that I wondered the Roundhouse once more and bought for my brother a Bleach DVD (vol.9), a 1m wooden sword and a Bleach figurine set. In attempt not to tempt myself into buying toys (I'm broke) I avoided going to PININ (FYI: PININ sells vinyl toys) and headed back to the Karaoke room 30mins early. I was Door person (checking if they had tickets) for the next 40mins or so and was FREEZING, I had left my scarf and jacket back in the green room, lucky Jenn had her big nice bright orange warm jacket with her and let me borrow (thanx J).

Karaoke Competition started at 1pm, It's amazing how serious the competitors are (so strange, it's funny). there's apparently a lot of pressure, one girl broke down into tears in the middle of her performance (sad really.I apologise, Jenn tells me that the song she was singing was very emotional and deep, now I feel like such a douche :S) . Another came off stage all frustrated, exclaiming "that was disgusting!" (FYI: when I say "stage" I mean the front of the room). Most are confident though. My fave (also the the crowds' I'd say) was this asian guy, had a whole routine and everything! Amazingly freaky! A video of him should pop up on YouTube soon (saw a couple of people recording him with their mobile phone) when it does, I'll be sure to post it here ;). Though before him I was pretty much falling asleep, it was getting quite boring just sitting there watching and listening to people singing songs that I've never heard of or understand for that matter (most were in Japanese, but good on them for being able to sing in Japanese and having fun).

3pm, Jenn and I went on our last break. Went back to the green room after we heard there was FREE pizza! (boo ya!) though it was pretty cold when we arrived but still a lot left. oh! oh! Selina and Rose (two of the volunteers who were working with us) bought Jenn and I drinks 'cause they felt bad that they didnt come back on time after their break (which was totally cool with me, and totally nice of them to do so) Jenn got Milk Green Tea (?) and I got this lemon/sparkly water. It was the most interesting looking bottle, had a lot of fun trying to open that bottle that's for sure until of course it fizzed over! Sticky sweet water everywhere! plus I let out a loud "ah!" causing everyone in the last two rows in crowd turn around (oops).

Anyways, back on topic. Jenn and I wondered the roundhouse once more. and my plan in avoiding PININ failed and I ended up buying a toy, that Jackson (the guy who runs PININ) got especially for me (I've been looking/wanting the the toy for a while now (picture below)) and Gris Grimly’s Wicked Nursery Rhymes, love em both! though I kinda used my brother's money to buy it.... :S so I gotta pay him back...

ok this blog entry is getting rather long. I'm gonna end it by saying it was an OK day, could have been more fun (if certain people were more clear with instructions) but overall good. Next Animania. I'll post a few photos up from SMASH when the other volunteers send me them (so check back here later) and Jenn may or may not blog in more detail about the day. (I was rather vague).

My next attempt at getting my P's for driving is this Tuesday. until Next time. Peace.