turkey, taboo and tyrant

most of the time, i write my entry before inserting the title. this is one of those rare times i do the opposite first (actually i can't remember the last time i did this).

we went to my grandma's place on saturday to celebrate christmas. well, it's just an excuse for a good old family gathering. almost all the cousins were there sans jiajian (confinement; he's a biker now), eugene (personal issues), roy (working in australia) and of course, my brother and sister.

dinner was pretty good, haven't had a turkey in years and then with roasted ham, spaghetti and aunt may's specialty potato salad; the food line-up was good. throw in a bottle of red wine from chile (courtesy yours truly) and it was the perfect christmas family dinner, singapore style.

and intermittent highlights came from our boy (who's considering a career as a superhero; specifically batman). baby put usher's dj got us falling in love on and off he went. he was dancing, spinning, even attempting to do a break-dance move at one stage. everyone was just laughing and cheering. aunt cindy and aunt leng displayed patience i never had in trying to teach joaquin to read. even cousin joanne got in on the act, sadly, all to no avail.

he also fended off quite a few people who wanted to carry and cuddle him. and at one point, he was kicking everyone. i have to raise my hand and apologise for that because it's really my bad. we were horsing around at home and somehow he found the act of kicking me to be thrilling. maybe it was also because i was play-acting by shouting and writhing in pain.

and the night ended with taboo. despite the advantage of youth, the team of aunt leng, aunt cindy and aunt may actually gave us a good run for our money.

there were some picketing in the background of it all but if you ignore that portion, it was actually quite a good and easy (and cheap) way to catch up with family and while 4 hours away.

merry christmas everyone!

lbj

forgot to mention this: saw lebron in a game versus my new york knicks; some of the stuff he did on the court was just out of this world. he dribbles and passes like a point guard, sprints like a football player, soars like anyone i've seen and is deceptively quick for his size.

he just needs to figure out how to win.

shanghai dolly

we went to shanghai dolly last night to celebrate one of baby's secondary school pals' birthday. verdict? i didn't like it. first of all, the decor wasn't very appealing. the crowd was very diverse. and the most important thing in a club? music. and dolly failed on this count.

there was nothing wrong with the sound system. it was fine. dolly's music comprised sets by singers and then the club djs spin tracks then it alternates back and forth. some of the singers were obviously out of their depth. there was a particular one that i was close to hurling a beer bottle at; this bespectacled dude sang eason's 富士山下. he was ok for most parts although he couldn't come close to replicating eason's pitch but when it came to the ending, he failed miserably. then there were times when the female singers sang and you couldn't hear what they were warbling about cause the volume of the band's music was drowning them out. and i didn't appreciate the k-pop (or j-pop) set in between. unnecessary is the most diplomatic word i can use.

and the deejays? well the first set was pretty good. got the crowd grooving. but you know something's wrong when 2 (or 3) songs get spun twice. i mean, come on. usher's dj got us falling in love is a great dance tune but twice? and the djs also seem to have a fondness for black eye peas. by the third set, things were starting to get boring.

i kept standing because if i sat down, i would fall asleep. literally. i was already tired (we sleep early nowadays except on fridays and saturdays) and had quite a few drinks. the music was starting to sound like lullabies to me at one stage.

the only real highlight of the evening was a singer who looked like the lanky version of 吴尊, the in-thing in the teeny bopper pop scene in taiwan now.

well, at least i got to have fries after leaving that place. fries, always a good comfort food. even though they always make you feel like lard in the morning because you realise that you had them with ketchup and after 2am, which is not the most ideal time for your body to burn fat.

i don't know how i did it, but i woke up with barely 4 hours of sleep and dragged myself to the mechanic to give white boy his 'treatment'. the air conditioner wasn't working great and we had to fix that. also patched up a hole in the back tire on the passenger's side. cleared the brakes of dust so it doesn't have that irritating "zeeing zeeing!" sound when we stepped on the brakes. well, the sound's still there but it does not happen on a regularly embarrassing basis anymore.

and there was a birthday celebration for one of baby's cousins at ah ma's place. free fried chicken, cake, some sake and card games. nothing more to crave for this saturday night.

and i end this post with a collaboration between eminem and rihanna. cause i can't find eason's 富士山下 on youtube that doesn't contain karaoke style lyrics (cheesy) or some pimply teenager seeking his/her 3 minutes of fame by filming him/herself playing the song on piano.

obama vs kobe

got this from yahoo!

apparently, obama met kb at an event and being a chicago bulls fan, this was what the president told kb, "derrick rose may have your number".

and kobe's reply?

"if he calls that number, i'll be sure to pick up after the fifth ring".

kobe owns obama!

i'm slacking off on the blog lately. that means 1 of 2 things: either too many things have happened or nothing has happened. thankfully (i think), it's the former. i apologise for the lack of images on the blog lately; it's just that with the new nikon camera, the file sizes are huge and uploading them on a 3rd party web site and then linking them to this blog is really tedious. with our last holiday in tokyo, half the photos we took wiped out the remaining space i had on the picasa site. i had to set up a second site to house the remaining photos.

in any case, our photos are now uploaded faithfully (i hope) into our external hdd. i'm thinking of printing some of joaquin's photos to complete his album. it's going to be a major project, especially since we haven't touched the album since he learnt how to walk...

random: i got the sony walkman waterproof mp3 player cum earphones. great for jogging and being able to jog in the rain with music should be a pretty cool experience.

another random: haven't posted for over a month! what the...

ok, anyway, in the period between, we celebrated dad's birthday at royal china. the food there wasn't that great this time around and i have to say peach garden is now my choice for dim sum. baby's got her x'mas gifts. we got our polo ralph lauren products from the us.

all in all, it's looking to be a great end to the year.

oh and mel, our tokyo trip>yours. lol!