Yesterday,

7.30 pm — Go to cousin’s wedding banquet at a church.

8.30 pm — Getting little bit tipsy from having too much beer.

9.00 pm — A cousin goes up on stage to give a speech. I make some very crude remarks about her unnatural accent and send the people on my table into a laughing fit, attracting some unwanted attention.

9.30 pm — I feel smart, thanks to the effect of alcohol. A friend’s father-in-law suddenly wakes up from his old age and start to dance to a Hindustan song played by the live band.

10.00 pm — All the church members . My friend (who happens to know the groom, my cousin) drags me to dance with his family members. I declined of course, because I’m not that drunk.

10.15 pm — The groom joins the little shindig, dancing to hindustan songs. Situation is fast becoming too murky to my liking. I told my mom… the church members are being possessed by evil spirits. My sister reminds Emily not to let me drive.

10.30 pm — I bail the place to another birthday party at a rented bungalow. I actually drove.

11.00 pm — Coconut wine and stout at rented bungalow, spiked with neat whiskey. It will be dangerous for me to operate heavy machinery or drive at this level.

approx. 2 am — Night soccer in front of the bungalow field in my formal banquet attire. We used our cars headlights to see.

2.45am — Have to stop the soccer. I’m running out of breath and my banquet attire is full of mud.

2.50am — Shower and change to comfy clothes. Then more drinking with the guys.

3.00am — Test drive Tony’s new car out to the street and back. Saw a couple making out inside a car by the roadside during the short trip. The couple fled when I drive slowly by their car to check them out.

3.30am — Regurgitate my cousin’s wedding dinner at the toilet and decorated the bowl with brownish garnish.

3.35am — The guys force me to drink more wine. Tony spills some of it on my clean clothes and I threatened to set fire to his new car.

3.45am — The bungalow caretaker’s dog wander into the bungalow living room. Poured some wine into dog’s bowl, dog ignored me. The dog is fucking smart. My friends rewarded the dog with plenty of leftover food.

3.50am — I finally crashes on the sofa.

4.30am — Emily and I leave for home after a long day.

My body ached as I wrote this entry. More signs of old age.

*long entry - summarized happenings for the past 2 days

Organized a barbecue party on new year eve at a rented bungalow. A rather cheap one… because it was haunted. No shit. 80 bucks for a big ass bungalow with a garden big enough to accommodate more than 50 cars. But we didn’t tell the girls that it’s haunted because we do not want them to get hysteric about it.

But Emily was too smart to be bluffed. While Emily and myself were on our way to the bungalow, she asked me

“Are there any ghosts inside that bungalow ?” [she smelled conspiracy behind our plans]
“Nope.”
“You’re not bluffing me, right?”
“No I’m not. Even if there really are ghosts, they would be going out to party anyway… and they will be taking a break from scaring people tonight.”

Alright, that was the final lie I told for year 2003. Of course she didn’t buy that piece of lame lie. She soon found out about it after we’re halfway through the barbecue event.

The barbecue turned out to be quite ok. There were approximately 17 of us. We started at around 7pm and stopped at about 10pm. Then we went to a nearby pub for the big party.

By 11pm, we managed to settle down with a nice table and our booze ready. The countdown inside wasn’t really that grand, but it was alright. The theme was a bit boring - there were only a bunch of cheap balloons and stupid confetti’s - which a lot of them fell into my drink and I accidentally ingested a few. Last year, the very same club organized a foam party and it was incredible. Maybe the location of our table this year was not as good as last year’s.

And yeah, something happened to the air conditioner too. It was probably overloaded or something … the place was freaking hot with so many people inside and reeked of sweats + smokes. The bartenders had to take off their shirts to bear with the heat (or was it an excuse for them to show off their six packs?). The usually sexy + peachy waitresses were looking like pieces of used oily wax paper (you know, the kind of brown wax paper used to pack chicken rice..?) - they were sweating profusely and probably developed enough salt to pickle a full grown cucumber.

By 1 am, our group was almost flat out on alcohol intoxication and it was unbelievably stuffy inside at the club scene. We had to leave the party at around 2am before anyone got hurt. Staying inside there any longer could be suicidal — the place was like a gassed chamber with concentrated nicotine and smokes.

We went back to our rented/haunted bungalow and continued our barbecue party. It was quite an experience you know, to barbecue in the wee hours of a brand new year like this. But I didn’t party with the guys till dawn. I went to sleep at approx. 4 … too exhausted to go on - signs of old age.

Woke up at almost 11am and hung out (inside the bungalow) with the rest of the BODs (Boards of Directors - my best of best buddies). Went out together for lunch at 1pm. Noticed that all of us had developed that haggard look. Back home at 3pm. Things were pretty blur after that until a couple of them came over to my place again for more hangout sessions.

By approx 5pm, I was literally transformed into a zombie. Everything that reflected inside my retina (or whatever shit you call that) was monochrome in color. Seriously, if anyone hot were to offer me sex at that moment, I probably wouldn’t have given a fuck. I was absofuckinglutely exhausted.

Halfway through chatting with the guys, I passed out and fell into deep sleep on my sofa. Then, as my saliva was about to start it’s happy hour free flow, I was dug up again. We’re suppose to go for our dinner together at a hearsaid kickass Thai restaurant. With a paucity of my energy left, I went with them straight to a friend’s place to pickup his girlfriend. But halfway through, Emily suddenly felt queasy and wanted to go home. And I drove a friend’s car home to fetch Emily home. She immediately crashed into the bed out of exhaustion once we got home.

But I did not get to sleep yet - as I have to stay awake to wait for that friend to collect his darn car, and that bastard only came at approx 11pm. I crashed right after that and never regained consciousness until that sick fuck alarm from my PDA woke me up for work today.

Signs of old age are getting eminent. The next thing I know, I might be spending my new year in an old folks home. The goddamn truth is sometimes scary.

“Where have you been these few days?? You think this house is a hotel aa ?” — that’s what my mom used to shout at me when I spent more time outside than inside, only to return home to sleep. That was many years ago when I was still a juvenile (though I have to admit that I virtually still am now). It happened again a few days ago. No… not my mom shouting, but me busy going out with friends. It started on Monday 24th November:

Monday 24 November

8.00 am - working as usual

3.00 pm - the guys called. movie tonight. plan was set.

5.00 pm - went home to take a bath and got ready to go out again.

7.45 pm - went for my physiotherapy session.

8.40 pm - finally my turn to start the physio after waiting for more than 40 minutes. Damn physiotherapist… but the nurse on duty there was kinda cute.

9.50 pm - the actual physiotherapy took only 30 mins but it lasted about an hour because the physiotherapist was attending to several patients all at the same time. Apparently, sports injury in Penang is more popular than Linkin Park. But I was cool about it because of the cute nurse.

10.00 pm - Arrived at the cinema parking lot. The place was 25 minutes away but it only took me 10 minutes to arrive. I was speeding like bat out of hell.

10.05 pm - My front tire looked abnormal. It was supposed to be round. Figured that it had a puncture after a few test pokes. Tire was pierced by a big long fucking nail. Shouldn’t have blogged about changing a punctured tire 2 weeks ago. Taboos are real.

10.06 pm - Decided to worry about the puncture later. Went ahead to meet the guys up first to find out which movie were we watching. It was “Brother Bear”.

10.20 pm - Went back to the parking lot. Burned a few thousand calories changing that flat fucking tire. Soaked with sweat as car park was musty and poorly ventilated. Got it done in 15mins.

11.30 pm - “Brother Bear” started screening. Wasn’t too impressed but, it was alright. Could’ve been better with more fight scenes / gore.

Tuesday 25 November

1.40 am - Back at home. Took a bath… went to sleep. Freaking tired.

11.30 am - Woke up. No wet dreams. Not working - Raya holiday.

12.30 pm - Went to the mechanic and had my flat tire fixed. Serviced my car as well.

2.30 pm - Mechanic told me my punctured tire was beyond help. It was fucked. Suggested to change the tires or live with a high risk getting it flat again.

2.35 pm - I took 5 minutes to think about it and decided to have all my tires changed.

3.30 pm - Car was done and paid the bill. The bill came up to about 500. I was literally broke.

4.00 pm - The guys called again and suggested shopping. Plan was set. Going to lug Emily along.

5.00 pm - Emily started her shopping session with the girls. Me and the BOD were tagging behind. God I hate shopping with girls.

8.00 pm - The girls were still not done with their shopping. My legs were at the brink of exploding.

8.30 pm - The girls were finally done with their shopping after our constant complaining. Somebody then suggested dinner at a seafood restaurant.

9.00 pm - Arrived at the seafood restaurant. The place sucked and everything was expensive. Lots of stray dogs there. Worst dinner I ever had in months.

10.00 pm - Hung out at a cafe. Had some dessert food to cover up the bad seafood dinner earlier.

2.00 am - Back home to sleep again. Super freaking tired.

And today, I had to wake up at 8am to go to work. When I woke up, my eyelids were heavy… can’t get it to open. I am virtually drifting out and about as of now. I seriously can’t take such shit any longer. Evident of age catching up…

Sunday - One of my department manager, Pete, organized a farewell karaoke party for one of our departing engineer - CK.

3pm - arrived at Red Box KTV.

3.20pm - I started off the party by singing few songs using my “super golden voice of mesmerizing”. The guys were charmed. We toasted a few pints of beers. It was nothing.

4pm - Some of our Taiwanese supplier joined us. Our crowd grew into over 20 heads. The beers were finishing fast.

4.10pm - CK and Pete also invited their boy toys - a couple of KTV girls whom they befriended some weeks ago. I was not sure why they were so excited about the girls because they definitely looked like overdressed sewer lizards to me. They were an eyesore. The rest of us eased off the pain by toasting a few more pints of beer.

4.30pm - My super “golden voice of mesmerizing” did it’s magic again. The KTV girls were charmed. They bowed in deep respect to my “golden voice of mesmerizing”. We toasted a few beers but that still didn’t improve their outlook for me.

4.35pm - SaltyFish (our really big boss) arrived. He missed my “golden voice of mesmerizing”. It was his loss. He should try to be more punctual next time.

4.45pm - CK ordered whiskey. The party started to get real. None of us was focusing on the singing except my colleague AssTee. He sang like Elvis… with plenty of action… but he needed to learn more about rhythm and timing.

5pm - Emily called me up. She said she will be arriving from her Langkawi trip in 45mins. I was suppose to pick her up at the mainland.

5.10pm - I challenged Rob (my undead boss) for a bottoms up. CK told me Rob had a record of taking off his shirt in public when he’s drunk. I was laughing so hard that I almost dropped my glass.

5.15pm - We finished 2 bottles of whiskey. I’m blitzed. I asked the KTV girls to get more education. SaltyFish told them to finish their Standard 6 level first. They took the joke well and we toasted a few rounds. I’m still very uncomfortable with how they looked.

5.30pm - CK & one of the lizards were slow dancing in front of the KTV screen. I couldn’t see the screen. I took one of AssTee’s shoe and pitched towards the lizard. It hit her lardy ass and I was penalized by finishing a glass of neat whiskey.

5.40pm - I had to leave the party. I’m seriously blitzed and needed to sober up to drive (I was suppose to fetch Emily).

6.00pm - Emily called, and I was still looking for my car. She was furious. She told me that she will be hitching her colleague’s car home and I better have a good explanation of what’s was going on. I realized then I’m in serious trouble.

6.30pm - I reached home and passed out. (miraculously, I drove all the way home by myself…)

I only managed to wake up around 7am this morning with a serious hangover. I made an SMS to my colleagues that I’m not coming to work.

And I have yet to make any explanation to Emily about why I didn’t pick her up yesterday. But I guess I need not to do that anymore as she would have been able to tell by herself, what actually happened to me.

Friday Evening…
5.10pm - Left workplace, fetched Emily & headed home.

6.30pm - Charles arrived at my place. Brought me my RJ45 cables for my Streamyx connection. Now, I can temporary live on the cable instead of cracking my head to figure out that stupid wireless device.

6.40pm - Charles broke my expensive sofa. He literally broke it into half. I don’t know how he did that. Need to call the carpenter tomorrow.

8.30 pm - Met up with more friends at Anson Park for dinner.

10.30pm - 8 of us arrived at C-Front club. The club looks great. Just had a new renovation. Everything is blue and lots of attractive waitresses. We came to the right place.

11.40pm - All the BODs arrived. We are also joined by some other friend’s friends. Our group swells into an unbelievable crowd of over 20 heads, & started the drinking binge. We’re 50% through the bottle of brandy.

12.30am - We were 100% done on the brandy and started the first bottle of whiskey. There were only a few of us focusing on the drinking and talking nonsense. Saw a friend throwing up in the toilet.

1.30am - We were about to finish all our booze. 90% of us are already not legally sober to be able to drive.

1.35am - A guy tried to take advantage on some of our girls. I intimidated him by grabbing+forcing him to drink the purest form of booze available on our table. Saw the guy gasping + choking before running off into the dance floor. Never saw him again after that. The friend that puked, was permanently attached to the toilet bowl and was making lots of sharks fin soup.

2am - Somebody ordered 2 more bottles of booze. Considering the fact that everyone was so worked out, my friend Soon and I agreed that it would be impossible for us to finish the remaining 2 bottles. No fucking way.

3am - We finished all the booze. I was so pissed drunk, that I couldn’t find Emily who was standing in front of me. We all did a bonfire dance and I asked Ayamas if he wanted to swap partner. He told me I was drunk and he would swap if his girl agrees. I told him back that he was drunk.

4am - We left the place. Someone drove us to a porridge shop and miraculously, we met back the rest of the members there. Ate a bowl of teochew porridge and cracked plenty of dirty jokes. The girls weren’t impressed.

4.30am - Back home. Went to toilet to throw up.

4.31am - I told Emily, “Hey, I can see the teochew porridge I ate just now ! uwwekkkk….” She wasn’t impressed. It is hard to impress someone nowadays - I thought.

4.32am - “Emily ..look ! the dehydrated vegetables just came out ! omg .. this is so unbelievable !”

4.33am - The tofu I ate at the porridge shop came out. And it’s green in colour.

5am onwards - Diarrhea… and my ass hurts till now.

Sure it was a wild night. I’m gonna have to take more rest today.