Orangeous Dailies

I bought a can of Knock Out beer. It’s my first time. Saw many foreigners buying this brand of beer, even in the afternoon, so I’m thinking this better be strong and worth the money. Since tomorrow is a public holiday, I might as well get knocked out a bit tonight.

Shit!

Knocked out my table

I knocked the can over while I was removing it from the plastic bag. Just one simple knock created a foaming shitty mess.

*takes a sip*

I think Baron’s way stronger, and tastes better. But I do like the message on the can. It gives me a very… very powerful feeling, knowing that I am a real strong man, and I want results.

Bold statement

Come on! This is only 8%. what do you call those guys that gulp down Amsterdam Maximator 11.6% beer? Superheroes?

[Update : 010508 : 0158H ]

Happy May-fucking-Day. I was wrong about Knock Out beer. That mix with Baron has got to be something. No wonder… those foreigners bought Knock Out beer with Baron, I remembered. Shit, this damn thing works damn well with mixing other beers with it. Balls, I was wrong this time round. The $9.80 was worth it.

We signed up for the 10-week Obedience Dog Training Novice Class course at Pet Movers. Cost us $300 per dog. Every Sunday, 10:30AM at Pasir Ris Farmway 2. If you’re interested in joining the class, you can call Christopher @ 96748874.

The first lesson was for the owners only. Some theory and demonstration lesson on how to apply the choke chain training method. Our homework was to go back home, train each dog for 1 hour a day. Dog wears the choke chain, and whenever it strays off, we pull.

Choke chain loose

Choke chain tightened

Either the homework wasn’t done well, or the two Schnauzers were too damn stubborn.

I turned up for the second lesson last week. The moment we set foot on the training grounds, the two dogs went crazy. They were constantly barking at all the 10 other dogs, trying to break free. They never kept quiet, like all the other dogs did. Even as the trainer was talking, Carlos was constantly barking, trying to drown his words. We were all so embarrassed. Everyone stared at us. Either barking or trying to attack/sniff at other dogs.

Trainer told everyone to take turns bringing their dogs out to show the class how they have been training them. He had some keys in his hands, and used that as a distraction to try and lure the dogs to him. All the other 10 dogs performed relatively well. Then it was our turn, to bring our dogs out. Michelle brought Gabbie out. She was scared, disoriented and Michelle had a hard time controlling her.

Then it was my turn to bring Carlos out. He tripped me over, got me dodging all over the place. He was scampering all around. He didn’t go after the trainer waving the keys, which was good, but he went straight for the other dogs. Eventually, the trainer had to take the leash, and he gave Carlos a hell of a time dragging him around and disciplining him. At one point of the lesson, Carlos tried to bite me, so I called the trainer over. He picked up the leash, and with a loud NO! yanked it upwards. Carlos got a shock, and did his best to remain low-profile, but only for a short while.

At the end of the lesson, Michelle and I were discussing about how embarrassing the session was. There was no reason why other dogs, big and small, could remain quiet, but ours couldn’t. We realized that we were pretty much the laughing stock of the entire lesson when our dogs went out of control. The dogs’ behavior reflects a lot upon the owner’s attitude. And we both vowed to train those two every single day till this Sunday.

We won’t ever go there again looking like a clown.

Today Carlos still refused to sit after issuing and demonstrating nearly 100 over Sit commands! It’s our second day training him. And it worries me, how he is ever going to make it this Sunday.

Dear Human,

What! What the hell? I just can’t believe it!

Gabbie trying to hump Carlos

I think Gabbie will do better with a strap-on.

With love,

Carlos

Related : Chalet 190408.

After all of us had too much to drink, we needed some exercise to regulate blood flow to the brain. The three of us pinned Waikian down and the girls had the honor of coloring him with mascara. We helped him clean up after the mess, with nail polish remover.

Jessie booked a chalet @ Downtown East from 18th to 20th April. The BBQ was held on 19th April.

Big thanks to all those who came :

1) Bernadette (we’ll never be able to thank you enough for your help!)

2) Michelle (my sis) and Robert

3) Sean Pillay (thanks for the bottle of Jack Daniels)

4) Waikian

5) Pang

6) Kwok Leong (thanks for the bottle of wine)

7) Chee Nin

8) Auntie Susie (Jessie’s mum, for all the snacks she brought)

9) Dad

10) Uncle Ho and family (dad’s colleague)

Over 300 photos in this album from 3 different cameras! The three girls were simply just snapping away at everything. Now you can all take your own sweet time to look at yourselves from every angle possible.

Bernadette, Michelle, Robert and Waikian arrived early to help out. While the girls went shopping, I went to fetch Waikian, who had a bandaged toe.

We started the fire at about 6pm, as guests started to pour in.

Kwok Leong was the first one to arrive, bottle of red wine in his hand, helmet in the other and grinning away. Sean arrived shortly with a bottle of Jack Daniels. I think they both met up in the supermarket’s alcohol section.

Everything was relatively tame when the parent’s arrived. Only drinking, no smoking (we all had to go upstairs to smoke). No F-bombs were dropped, only occasional vulgarities.

All hell let loose once everyone left, and only seven of us were in the room. We consolidated the alcohol and bartender Pang mixed us some really wicked gin tonic. Waikian started cheating very early at drinking games. He would refuse to drink, then chalked up a huge debt of shots, which we made him pay back later. We played a simple drinking game which gave us the much needed kick to start the party off. Lowest card drinks.

Waikian cheated again by swapping cards, only to realize he was much worse off. By God’s will, every card he took turned to shit. He drank 5 times in a row.

Meanwhile, the girls were also having fun with the costumes Bernadette brought along.

When we got really high, Waikian gave a lame excuse not to play. He pulled that stunt off at the wrong time, while everyone around was high. So all of us pounced on him, and tried to remove his pants. We didn’t go very far and only managed to reveal the color of his underwear. So the girls started to paint him with nail polish and mascara. The fooling around ended when he tumbled through the huge gap between the beds, and we were worried that his already-damaged toe would drop off.

While the rest were sitting around taking their own sweet time to sip on their drinks and chit chat, Pang and I were shooting flaming gin.

The party ended around 3am, and as we dragged our drunk asses to send Pang, Waikian and Sean off to take a taxi home, we unknowingly made a fool of ourselves near the entrance. Only Bernadette was sober at that point of time, and she took those pictures.

The very next day, while our heads were mercilessly pounded by endless headaches from the hangover, we looked back and told ourselves: WE HAD A GOOD TIME AFTER ALL!

Video : Human Drawing Board

Photo Album : http://www.flickr.com/photos/sukianto/sets/72157604674706100/

Will be back on Sunday! Time for a well deserved break after the exams and major project.

A 50-page major project on performance appraisal to complete by tomorrow.

I have a persistent habit of leaving important things till the very last minute.

*gulps down a Red Bull*

Down with a fever. My brain is so fried right now. Will be back tomorrow.

Dinner at Changing Appetites @ Marina Square.

Her new found shopping companions Michelle (my sis) and Bernadette.

Org Structure, Culture, Perception and Individual Decision Making, Attitudes and Satisfaction, Group Behaviour, Work Teams, Communication, Leadership Issues, Power and Politics, Conflict and Negotiation, Org Change and Management.

Organizational Behaviour paper tomorrow! Last paper of the semester!

*switches off the computer and pulls out the plug… to minimize distractions…*

I was down with a runny nose yesterday night, so I took one tablet of Rinafort (a prescribed flu medication) before heading to bed. I slept well because I was drowsy after that.

When I woke up to run this morning, I was hit by extreme thirst halfway through. My throat and mouth felt extremely dry and I was gagging instead of breathing normally.

I learnt from Mum (to put it in layman terms), that flu medication actually dehydrates the body thus preventing excessive mucus from forming.

I think I’ll bear with the runny nose next time.

I found some newspaper articles dated 12 years back, laminated and neatly tucked away at the back of my drawer. I took them out, read them, and laughed real hard to myself.

I was in Primary 4 then. My mum had an obsession with tuition teachers. I had tuition almost every single god-damned day. It came to a point where I dreaded those tuition teachers. Shopping trips would end early simply because, our dear son has tuition in 45 minutes so lets all wrap up and go home. While mum fed the tuition teachers well with good cash, I fed them with lots of homework, so I had additional time to play without having to worry about deadlines. They did my homework and I learnt absolutely nothing from all the tuition.

I read The New Paper a lot when I was young. And I was all too familiar with the Dear Mr Wijey section. He seemed to have the solutions to all the problems on earth. And I enjoyed reading his section. So one night, I went into my room, took out a piece of paper, and I wrote a letter to him. Slapped a stamp on the envelope, and mailed it over to Mr Wijey.

Days later, people from The New Paper started calling. Reporters rang my house asking to speak with my mum. Some spoke to me, asked me a few questions here and there. You’ll bet a million bucks that I complained to them with all my heart and soul. I told them precisely how fucked up having tuition everyday was. Mum, on the other hand, was more than happy to share her superb parenting techniques with the whole world.

And one day, an article (which was heavily edited and in no way like the letter I wrote) got published in the Mr Wijey section :

Check out the day and month.

Eventually a photographer came over to my place, arranged stacks of books on my computer chair and told me to hide behind the books. He snapped a few shots and left. This article talks about how fucked up my Chinese grades were :

They changed my name to Brian.

Well my parents are Singaporeans, they want me to go to EM1 very badly.

Yea right! See how the reporter tried to suggest the typical Singaporean kiasu culture? FYI, my mum and dad were both P.Rs at that time. My mum was from Malaysia and my dad was from Indonesia. My dad got his citizenship only when I was in secondary school and my mum just got hers recently. Obviously the facts weren’t right.

Looking back, I felt totally stupid and naive to have written that letter, which was blown up to epic proportions by the reporters, without realizing the good intentions of my parents. I felt even more fucked up thinking about that huge sum of money, wasted on tuition teachers who did nothing but my homework. 6 years of primary school tuition fees which could have been better used to finance my university education.

Click on ALL SIZES in Flickr, to read the articles.

Popped by Pet Safari @ Vivocity to get some dog food. Jessie fell in love with a 4-month old male West Highland Terrier puppy on display, so much so that she returned to the shop for the second time in a day. The puppy had really sharp features, was alert and curious, and he loved being carried around by Jessie.

However, it was going for $2,250 (after a $100 discount for cash payment), way more expensive than the price we paid for Carlos ($1.9k). Michelle and Dad both advised her to consider pet farms, which have a wider variety of dogs, and way less expensive.

After she’s done terminating her problematic maid and getting the new one, we could go there to make the final decision, hopefully with Bernadette’s help as well!

[ Update - 070408 / 6:26pm ]

Kenn had a bad experience with a pet farm. Check out the comments section.

Spending a Saturday night at East Coast Park was more fun than I had expected. Jessie came along, helped Michelle (my sis) and Robert with the two Schnauzers, Carlos and Gabbie, which we brought along.

We managed to get overnight rentals from the bicycle shop next to Beach Cabana. (Directions : From McDonalds, walk out till you are facing the sea, then walk left all the way till you reach this green bicycle shop). Found two bicycles with huge baskets meant for dogs for a flat fee of $8 each. They dumped the dogs inside the baskets while I bladed behind them. It was really fun. Kids were pointing and nudging their parents. And everyone else who went past were all looking at the basket. Some came to talk to us.

We had our dinner at Subway. The two dogs spotted some stray cats and went out of control. And the stray cats just kept on coming back, maintaining a safe distance, staring at the two dogs, before running off and repeating the same whole process over again.

We went on from 9pm to 12 midnight, stopping a few times for them to roam about.

Gabbie quietly observed everything going past, from inside the basket. She even fell asleep.

Carlos, however, kept fidgeting in his basket, and Robert had a hard time trying to control the bicycle.

The two little dogs were so tired they instantly fell asleep once they got into the car.

Not even a sharp turn would wake them up.

The white lines are a fucking pain-in-the-ass to remove

The wax built up in the car crevices for almost a year. Every waxing session thickened the white lines. Paste wax (which I enjoyed using because all the hardcore rubbing made me feel like I’m doing some real work) was the main culprit behind these lines.

Until one fine day, which happened to be today, I decided that the lines were becoming too much of a fucking eyesore. Four hours and two used toothbrushes later, I managed to get most of the wax out of the crevices. The amount of brushing and scrubbing was hardcore.

I’m never ever, ever, ever going to touch paste wax ever again! Not without letting the professionals do the job. And most importantly, because I SUCK AT IT! Heh!