Backlog Chapter: BBQ @ DTE

Probably a week or two after Cosfest'07, I was back again at Downtown East, Pasir Ris.
This time for chalet. My dad had gotten a free room over at the resort side, courtesy from Comfort taxi group (sure, the company does give him some perks... like, once in a blue moon).

[Costa Sands Resort, Downtown East]

It would be boring if it were just the three of us (parents + me), so we had my mum-side of the family invited as well. Most of them turned up, while the rest who didn't... let's just say they were afraid of getting hit by dengue.

Let's talk about the room. If it was a hotel, I would rate it 3-stars standard. You got the standard tv, a bathroom, king-sized bed, and extra pillows in some random closet. It was rainy that day, so everything outside ended up wet and irky imo. The slight drizzle affected our charcoals quite abit. We were using this crazy-ass charcoal brand which proclaimed itself to be 'long-lasting'. Took us a darn hour and numerous change-of-hands before a decent fire started.
I blame the charcoal.

DTE resorts ain't the best, but at least it beats some of the other chalets I went before. It was a saturday, and tons of families were there as well. I would reckon' almost all the rooms were full that day. Maybe majority of the families got those free booking from Comfort too? o_O

So on to the people who braved the rain and mosquitoes to come; my aunt & uncle, with their children Melissa and Marilyn, my grandparents, and my granduncle and his wife who were more than willing to come. Okay, so that only sum up to half of my mother's side who showed up. =(

The rest of the day was just eating bbq junk and practically doing nothing constructive. Didn't bring any games whatsoever, so me and my cousins just stared blankly at each other, and would laugh at the slightest amusement over random period. Yep, boliao to the extreme.

Fun times though. Fortunately, we had grown up together while cultivating the skill of the boliao-arts.

nope, this mob of people are no members of my family

While my side was sharing woes of boredom, our immediate neighbour had garnered such a huge crowd-size that they even occupied our backyard space and bbq tables. I think I overheard it was this dude's 21th birthday, and everyone from his families, to old schoolmates and their dog came over to celebrate. He got a girlfriend too, though Mel remarked that she looked more like his younger sis than gf. Oooh, lolicon. Anyway buay chio de.

As our resort-room was small like the sized of my room back home, there was no way we could have everyone do a sleepover. So when midnight came, it was back to the 3 of us. Mel wanted to stay overnight and I thought of doing a movie marathon, but a pity nearby PohKim do not rent out dvds, and that idea was tossed out of the window.

And that peacefully ended our little stay at DTE resorts. All of us never really enjoyed the room much, so immediately at sunrise, we packed our stuff and marched off to the reception to book out. Grabbed a bite at the foodcourt (kwaychap) and then hit the sack back home. Oh, and remember the 'long-lasting' charcoal? It was still heated when we left.

Thankfully I didn't catch dengue, but I had partial-flu thereafter for the entire week. It sucked real-shit as my hearing sense was affected to about 50% (it was that bad).

*Author's note: Something tragic proceeded after this event. My grandmother after returning from DTE complained of acute pain on her leg. Only a week later was she then admitted to hospital. There wasn't any hope of recovery for her leg, and after a series of checks, they eventually had it amputated off.

Although she is still in hospital as of current, her condition has been improving. It was really saddening to see my grandma now with only one leg, but I thank God she has remained positive over this matter. =)

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Backlog Chapter: ExoroGame, NUS

Continuing the quest to finish my backlog chapters, here we go~!

[ExoroGame Youth Challenge '07 @ NUS business]

A beginning similar to the East Coast job-take, good ol' bro Andrew invited me to participate in the Exoro game competition held at NUS, some saturday ago.

Click here to read more on details about Exoro. For those too lazy to visit the link, Exoro is basically a business/marketing simulation game created by a bunch of NUS business students. This particular competition, opened to all JCs and Polys(?), was most likely organized to promote, and at the same time test-play their game.

^the lame game called Exoro that NUS produced =P

All I was told the day prior to the event was I had to go to NUS and play a game. Just that.
I definitely went like~ "Okay...whatever" and showed my face on that very saturday at Bouna Vista, enroute to NUS.

Due to a little problem called 'lost', our troupe got in late (and last one too) for the event. No sweat though, the organisers barely begun the briefing. I was a little drowsy for reasons unknown, and had difficulty processing the game's rules. Not helping was that there was a JC cutie sitting in front of me throughout. Pity no front-shot photos, folks.

We were the only representives from a poly-institute. And the JC representives (8 schools?) all seemed like year1 dorks. There was this particular bespectacled nerd-boy who caught my attention since beginning as he was going stuttering all about while asking common-sense questions. Never did I expect our group would have to suffer his crappy gameplay later.

So the game proceeded, and our group already had sights on losing, due to lack of motivation. We watched the JCs' children scrambled all over the place 'playing' the game with serious intent. Buy, and re-sell/market product-cards was the core of the game. Anyway, our group ran into gaming-debts as soon as the 3rd round, and became laughing stock of the lot. Haha.

With no hope of winning, we just casually played through to the end. That is until aforementioned 'geekboy' (I shall here-on label him as that) reared his ugly head and tried to pull a fast one on the judges.

What happened was that we finally got a chance to sell off a particular product-card that has been lying stagnant for some time. Being debt-ridden, we immediately sold it off without a second. At that very moment, no seller contested against our product, so it was successfully marketed off. Only a min later did geekboy throw his weight around, trying to argue with the judges that he wasn't 'present' during the selling period, and NOW he wants to contest against our already-sold card. Oh boy.

Usually, being the nice dude I am, I would let people like him go about their way. It was just a game anyway. However, what I didn't mention was that this certain geekboy was giving his lame-ass 'absence' excuse the second time. He apparently had the same problem with another group earlier and now he repeat his pathetic ways again - on us.

I kept quiet for a bit and watched as he argued over the proceedings with the nice, soft-spoken female judge. When I felt like the judge was about to break down, I stepped in and as cool as ever, promptly took back our card, though not without shoving the dude a one-liner:
"Don't let me see you day-dreaming and then go complaining again."

Should have seen his retarded expression.

That very incident also knocked me back to full senses, and I quickly came up with a sure-win strategy, but alas, it was already too late for our group. No miracle could save us from our debts. Well, if you want my strategy, ask me and maybe I will share with you.

For some kickers, Geekboy's team got in to the qualifying round, along with two other groups. And naturally, our group came in last position. Hooray for TP!! No luck for 1st prize = S$1K though.

I left in a good mood anyway; as I sure as heck showed someone a piece of my own. I think I saw geekboy still looking pissed as we left by cab while he waited for free shuttle. Pwn!

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Backlog Chapter: East Coast job (read it!)

I PHAILED!!!11!

^ Yep that. Nothing to do with today's final exams or sort. But things doesn't look too bright on that either.

So erm... some time ago I promised something like mass-posting my backlog events. I think one month had past since then. *whistle~*

Haha. OOPS! Don't worry, I am back, and I will clear the whole load in today's post! Hooray!!

I love posting handful of relevant photos while I blog, as I am a firm believer in the saying - "A picture is worth a thousand words". However, since I am going to do a bulk-entry today, I will present the photos in collage style. Behold!

[Work at East Coast park]

^I even added little comments in it - click to enlarge duh

Two months ago, I took up a small one-time job offered by my pal Andrew. Something to do with a 1km marathon for the 1k elderly expected to show up. I think it was $5 per hr thingie, for a 4+hr event on a sunday morning.
That particular sunday was the last day of the 2weeks holiday we had after poly's midterm. I thought I should mention that, 'cause I had immense body aches all over and hence had to struggle to school. >_<;; In summary, working under that event boss Sam is craptacular. He was all bossy-like & sarcastic, pushing every around like slave workers, ala trying to squeeze everyone out of their money's worth. Not surprisingly, only a few could find him nice to be with. To be honest, I could still tolerate his attitude, but that day's job sucks a hella-lot for just the $20+ pay.

My sole job was to navigate and guide all buses to the carpark, filled up certain bus particulars as they come, and escort the passengers (old folks) out. Not entirely difficult, but somewhat tedious since I am talking about 30-odd buses driving in within a short span of 20mins. Andrew, me and another dude were assigned this duty, while the other lot ended up as guides for the visitors. (<--the easy job)

^the escorts... silly me, I should just took that job and save all the trouble

Sam, being the slave-driver that he was, grabbed hold of me and threw me the role of maintaining the game-store. I wasn't briefed in any way, but had to fill in anyway. Ended up working my pants off for 1hr++, picking balls up countless of time for the old folks to play 'mock-basketball'. Needless to say, I sprained my back soon after.

Not once did anyone actually bother to switch over with me, so no break, no drink, just plain ball-picking. And I could see the others already slacking in clear view while I oversee the store. woot!

As the crowd gradually cleared off, I definitely thought I could take a breather, but that Sam had to show his face. Gave me a "Good Job!", and asked me to grab a few men and pack up the tents. wtf. I definitely 'grabbed' a few men.... or women in that case, since they were easier to coaxed over to do the job with me. Reinforcements in the form of Andrew's sis and her friend came around to help too, and I appreciated that.
Maryann; Andrew's wife also turned up and brought me what I imagined was the elixir of life - ice milo. Thank thee!

So what was supposed to be a simple job ended up taking up triple the effort for that miserable pay cheque. Sam-dude was impressed over my work that day, he wanted to book me for the next assignment. It doesn't take a genius to guess whether I took the offer or not. =D

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