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writer and occasional bum Eli James. More...

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Valentines

This MSN conversation just happened a few minutes ago. It's ... interesting, if you'd see for yourself.

Fren says:
Any admirer?

Dienasty says:
haha
i wish
but i wouldn't know

Fren says:
Haha
Who knows? You might got
You're better looking than me
N i could get dates

Dienasty says:
lol
i don't think so
for one

Fren says:
You can do better

Dienasty says:
i'm in an all boys school
that means i have significantly less experience than you
plus limited contact with the opposite sex

Fren says:
Look for girls in an all girls skool then
Dude, you're gonna be 18

Dienasty says:
lol

Fren says:
Go clubbing

Dienasty says:
i've no problems talking and mixing around with girls

Fren says:
Pick up girls there

Dienasty says:
hah
no a club kind of guy

Fren says:
You're in kuching for goodness sake

Dienasty says:
the problem is i never take a relationship further than frenship
don't dare

Fren says:
Shy guy
Haven even got your first kiss eh?

Dienasty says:
nope
heh

Fren says:
I got mine, my first kiss is frenching

Dienasty says:
nice
but then again you're in a co-ed school, right?

Fren says:
Ya
But my gf is in another skool
But broke up already last yr

Dienasty says:
hrmm
who do ppl from diff schools meet i wonder
limited contact = hard to keep up the relationship

Fren says:
Haha..
Its easy really

Dienasty says:
right
handphones?

Fren says:
Ya
Or
Mit up everYDAY after skool

Dienasty says:
how?
unless your schools are nearby
hoi
gfs take up too much of your time

Fren says:
You got car license dude

Dienasty says:
not yet
still learning

Fren says:
Ah.. Ok

Dienasty says:
and i'm talking about you - how did you meet up everyday?
that's super hard
right?

Fren says:
My skool is near....

Dienasty says:
hmm
yeah
well so is st thomas's and st mary's

Fren says:
N there's a flat near there where i make out

Dienasty:
Okaaay

Conversations like this sometimes really make me hate Valentines day. Very, very freaky. For the rest of you not marred by weird convos, Happy Valentines Day, and remember your family as well while you're in that ... flat ... somewhere ...

Kisses and huggies and prezzies abound. Chocolate lovers rejoice, i can't wait for Easter.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Kenny's Birthday Party

All right. I'll admit it. I've been neglecting my personal blog.

A few things have happened over the last few days. Kenny's Birthday was a great UGS meet, i discovered the existence of a programming language called XAML with Tze Lun (some people have been touting it as the replacement to HTML), i finished Halo, AND i"m finally making some headway with my Wordpress theme.

But, as the title of this post suggests, this is about the Fr3ech man himself - Kenny Voon Yung Shen. Let's get down to it.

UGS Gathering - Kenny's Birthday

We've been organizing this one for the good part of two weeks, but by some stupid lack of foresight on my end most of the organization fell on poor Wen Qi's shoulders ... (coughcough i was working on wordpress, okay? ) Anyway, she deserves full credit for being the matriarch and the organizer of what can be called the First Gathering Kenny Enjoyed. No kidding.

The plan was like this: supporting cast enters stage left at 11.00. Female cast members enter at 11:45. Main character walks into coffee bean and supporting cast yell "Happy Birthday Kenny!", taking him by surprise and making him smile with obvious delight at the ingenuity and loyalty of his friends. Spends time eating cake, drinking coffee and talking. Everyone leaves at about 1 pm, with happy memories and fat (what with all the whipped cream and sugar and chocolate, goodness).

Get real.

Here's what actually happened:

I was supposed to reach there at 11, but my sister had school at Kuching High. This complicated matters, a bit. At exactly 12:43 the night before Ben smsed me and we realized there was no cake. Uh-oh. So Ben said he'd buy one at Tun Jugah just before we met up at Coffee Bean.

Stage Hitch #1:
Ben calls supporting cast (read: me).

Ben: I went to the only bakery at Tun Jugah, ah, and they said the cake will only be ready by 3.
Me: Heh? How lerr? Where are you now?
Ben: Tun Jugah. You?
Me: On the way. Tell you what. We meet up at Tun Jugah and then discuss what to do there.

Phone conversations ends. The two supporting characters in the car (me and Paul) start discussing options. In the end we stormed a bakery, got a chocolate cake, and stormed right back out. Crisis solved with quick thinking, wallet emptying and my driving mom.

Paul and i entered Coffee Bean, happily carrying our prize - the cake box. Wen Qi, Ravin and Ben were there. We moved to a comfy corner near stage right (better theatrical ambience) sat down and started stuffing photos into the album. Ravin and Ben left to buy a shirt for Kenny. Nicole, Samantha enter scene.

two_phones

Stage Hitch #2
Kenny enters. In a textbook case of panic mouth-move-faster-than-brain, we chased him out. "Leave! Go away! You're not supposed to be here!"

He does so and vanishes into the dark bowels of Sarawak Plaza.

Nicole: "Did we just do that?"

Uhhuh. Right. :S

CIMG0937

Zhe Rong, Vivian and Garrick enters scene. Girls buy drinks. We scribble as fast as we can on his present. Sam makes a comment on how thrigger happy we all are. The cameras are flashing everywhere. The tension builds up ....

Minor Stage Hiccup #3
Ben and Ravin rush onto the stage in an extremely flustered mood!

"QUICK QUICK! HE'S COMING! I SAW HIM OUTSIDE!"

We stared at them blankly. "I know. He came in just now and we chased him out."

"Oh." Then - "Quick! SIGN SIGN SIGN SIGN!"

Kenny's scrapbook

I call Kenny to enter stage right.

He enters. After a whole lot of "Hello"s and "Happy Birthday!"s the boys buy drinks. We chat, we snapped pictures. I tested a little of Sam's drink and a little of Nickki's drink (sorry girls!). A moment of "Err - what do we do now arr?".

"Eat the cake!" I said, and we opened the box.

Cake

Minor Stage Hiccup #4
No lighter. This seemed relatively small, since candles were not a must for birthdays ... i think. Hey, coming of age ceremonies in certain parts of the Savannah required the birthday boy or girl to fast for a day and then sit still as ants are poured over them! And they had to be dressed in a loincloth! Okay, so that was how i remembered it, in a encyclopedia ... somewhere. And even if we had a matchbox, this leads us to ...

Minor Stage Hiccup #5
Smoke alarms. Apparently Coffee Bean doesn't encourage customers to roast their own beans. Hmmph.

Nicole poked the candles into the cake, and i stopped her, since she was destroying it. I licked the biggest one for jest. Then as Kenny was camwhoring with the cake knife, Nicole came up with the brilliant idea of sticking a candle into the cake and forcing Kenny to pull it out with his teeth (Kuching Birthday rituals are more exotic than African ones, apparently). And, this led to ...

Stage Hitch #6
That candle was the exact same one i had licked.

Uh-oh.

We solved it by giving that part of the cake to me, which incidentally was the part of the cake with the MOST icing. You know, sometimes i swear Kenny and gang want to give me pulmonary heart disease. Hmmph.

We sang the Big Man a happy birthday song, and he cut the cake. The cake immediately looked like how one of those Klang Valley cliffs looked like after a particularly nasty rainfall (read: landslide). We all ate dreamily, enjoying chocolate-induced happiness.

Then we started playing "Honey I Love You". This was where things started getting weird.

Kenny apparently wanted to marry me, thus raising questions about what gender was i underneath my jeans. I proposed to Wen Qi, and Wen Qi propose to Ravin.

CIMG0968

Both were blushing so hard it was difficult to know who was proposing to who.

CIMG0965

Ravin proposed to Samantha, and Samantha proposed to Garrick.

CIMG0972

Garrick did a marvellous speech on Nicole. So it came to be that Nicole had to propose to Ben.

CIMG0979

Poor Ben.

After which we come to the cutest picture of the entire gathering:

CIMG0981
Ben proposing to Vivian.

In the end Nicole tried proposing to Paul, but she failed miserably. Paul was absolutely brilliant. In the end the only person who didn't kena was Zhe Rong, but only because Vivian was too shy to do anything about that.

CIMG0987

The girls left for Girls Brigade shortly after, and we went to Tun Jugah for a little saliavating at all the Macs. I saw these books:

And then we departed. You know, looking back, it's a wonder we can have so many gatherings together. We won't exactly win a Tony award for all the Hiccups.

Smoker

But, as they say - the show must go on! Happy Birthday to the BiG MaN Kenny Voon, and may the new year bring plenty of opportunities and prosperity to his home, his car, and his love life!

CIMG0946

*gee that sounds corny*

Dramatization brought to you by Eli James and his terlalu- free time. Someone remind him of the real world, please. He hopes you have enjoyed yourselves. Now go join UGS immediately!