It struck me as extremely ironical that I was reading Fast Food Nation, a book expounding the evils of fast food, while stuffing my face with Billy Bombers' fatty Cookies and Cream milkshake.

Shopping is tiring, and there is absolutely nothing to buy.

How is my entry to New Year 2008 spent? Why, sitting at home getting drunk watching Frasier of course. Oh Joy.

A Frasier moment

There's an episode of Frasier in season 6 where Frasier meets his old bartender friend from Cheers. After one day both of them are bored with each other as they find that they have nothing in common. Frasier has moved on and outgrown the bartender and feels terrible about telling him as they go way back.

How TV imitates life.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

Gosh, the whole of december prior to Christmas has been hell. It was so incredibly busy (the most busy I've been since I started working), that it was pretty much 4 am nights every day leading up to the Christmas holidays. I worked 2 weeks straight in the first two weeks of december, including weekends, which pretty much meant that I didn't have much rest in December. It was exhausting.

The Christmas break has therefore been an extremely welcome one. For once I didn' t have people chasing me for this, that and the other.

Unfortunately I didn't have much time to buy any Christmas presents for anyone. The only thing I did buy was a present for my boss who's been incredibly great the whole year. Buying something for someone who has everything is incredibly difficult. I scoured the whole of Orchard Road. Went to the Hermes shop in DFS -- they had really stuff, but, at $1850 for ONE SCARF, it was really a bit out of my reach. Ditto Tiffany's and LV. In the end I got a Bose Sounddock for her iPod. I hope she likes it.

One of my old school friends came down to visit, and I skipped the Chorale party to go out a group of them. Dinner was kinda shit.

Sorry -- slight digression -- I've been using my mac so often that I keep pressing the wrong keys on my PC now.

Anyway. Back to the topic -- we ate Punggol Nasi Lemak which in all honesty i think was really quite mediocre. Yet the queue was about 15 minutes to get food. It sucked -- I would not go back there.

After dinner we headed to the Wine Network at Dempsey Road and polished off 2 bottles of very good red wine -- one from Chile and the other from Australia. The company was very good -- I'm actually hanging out with people my own age for once. It's a rather accomplished bunch -- 2 doctors, one dentist, and myself. What I like about them is that they are all such down to earth and honest people. We're all from very similar middle class backgrounds who did good here. We remnisce about how we used to squeeze 4 people in a hall room during term holidays in university to save money. How getting drunk in hall was a treat 'cos alcohol was too expensive to be consumed freely. And getting drunk meant overdosing on Duty free Absolut Vodka. At S$27 a bottle with 43% alcohol, it was a great way to get drunk. How we used to have competitions in the hall to see who could outdrink each other. It doesn't really count when you pass out outside my room and had to be assisted to bed notwithstanding the fact that I collapsed in bed 2 minutes earlier. We talk about our daily lives at work. One doctor tells me how the ugly nurses keep flirting with the doctors in the hopes of snatching one (kerching! passport to Hermes!), and how he has to lie that he's married with one kid to fend off unwanted attraction.

The trappings of wealth is starting to show. One has stopped wearing G2000 stuff and graduated to Zara. He says he's going to move on from Zara soon to Massimo Dutti. Gee, and here I am in my factory outlet tshirt looking like Shrek. The Singaporeans might scoff and say pffft Zara, but it's a pretty big deal as Malaysians go. I mean, where we're from, I think Crocodile is the height of fashion.

We talk about houses, the state of healthcare in UK, Australia and Singapore, and about our next car. Adult stuff. It's such a refreshing change from "oh, when do you finish army? wat vocation?" "oh, what course are you going to do in uni?" "oh, how's exams?". There's nothing wrong with that, just that it gets tiresome if it's the same thing over and over again.

Great wine, great company. I is content for today.

I don't know what possessed me to buy...yet another iPod.......In total I have 3 now, from the smallest shuffle to the largest iPod video.

I also don't know what possessed me to promise to buy my secretary a new handphone for christmas. Christmas is a season of iWant iWant iWant.

Right now, iWant a break.

iEmbarrassed

It seems they are not as soundproof as I thought they were since I got caught by my friend outside doing it. I guess I really should not have gone "FALLLLLLLL ON YOUR KNEEEEEEES" in the lift at 100% volume thinking it was soundproof. How funny it must have been for anyone waiting for a lift to hear a voice go right past the floor.

Urgh. To think I've been doing it so often like warming up on the way to performances. I wonder who else must have heard.

SITEX

SITEX is just evil. It really is. It keeps making me spend money. Every show. Without fail.

Evil evil evil.

On the bright side, say HELLO to my er foray into the world of Apple. Hmm...well yes, I got myself a Mac Mini. I want to try it first. I guess if it's not good enough it can be my er Media Centre. It's pretty enough to sit next to my TV.

Unfortunately, the thing doesn't come for another 2-3 weeks. BAH. 2 GB RAM, 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo. I hope it's powerful enough. What am I talking about, I use a Sempron 3100+...

Let's see. List of shopping items

Mac mini.
External HDD.
Shure headphones.
Wireless keyboard and mouse.

To buy: Apple wireless keyboard. It's hell of expensive, I'm not sure if it's worthwhile.