A game well played

For those who watched the Australia vs Brazil match, most of you would agree that Australia played well. We didn't win, but we played well. Considering Australia is ranked like, what? 42? Against Brazil, the number 1 team in the world, with the number 1 player in the world. We managed to hold them off for the first half and even had a *few* close calls for Brazil. The world is taking notice of Australia, and we're all proud of the Socceroos for their effort (Despite me wanting to strangle Kewell and Viduka for missing the few shots in the 2nd half, and Kewell's tantie). But is is necessary to show reruns of that match NON STOP?

I've changed my daily ritual of getting a 3pm coffee to 3:30pm because the place I get my coffee has a plasma that is forever tuned into SBS. This way, I can watch "The Journal" where they show last nights goals in the first 5mins of the show. I rocked up yesterday at 3:30 only for SBS to be showing a rerun of the Australia Vs Brazil game. Well.....not totally unexpected, but a bit of a disappointment that I didn't get to see the highlights from the other games. I rock home at 6:15pm and they're STILL showing Australia vs Brazil! WTF? Ok...fine....I wait for the 7pm show which is dedicated to showing last nights highlights. Again, they start off with Australia vs Brazil and that went on for a good 15-20mins.

Today, I seriously needed a coffee at 2pm. Way before my usual 3:30pm timeslot. I rock on down to my coffee shop only to see SBS showing the Australia vs Brazil match AGAIN! Come on! I know we played well! I know we're proud of the socceroos! But this is getting out of hand! God forbid if we actually WON against Brazil! We'll be having that match on looping 24/7! I don't even know if I can be bothered tuning into SBS tonight if they keep showing Australia vs Brazil. I actually had my first night of uninterrupted sleep last night. No late nights, no broken sleeping, no getting up early, and it feels great!

Right now I'm contemplating coming into the city to watch the Australia vs Croatia game on Friday morning. The only problem is I'll need to be in the city around 4am to get a good seat......and it'll be COLD.....and theres the whole transport issue. But then it could be Australia's last game. I hope not, I want to see them go into the next round. Oh, and I'm also taking my Brazil shirt out of the cupboard. They haven't gotten to the stage where I would wear the shirt yet, but I'm getting it prepared......any day now.....

So I found my ring again. Well, I didn't FIND it, I just forgot about it in my draw. I got the ring when I was in Turkey last year, and I wore it every single day I was on holiday. So much in fact, I had a sunburn mark on my finger where the ring was. I stopped wearing it when I got back so I could get rid of the horrible white mark on my finger and hence, forgot all about it. It was only recently that I remembered the ring and dug it out again. This bought me to thinking about how I bought the ring when I was in Pamukkale.

This then led to me thinking back at all the great times I had bargaining. One of the first rules in bargaining, is showing the lack of interest in something. The more you show you want it, the harder it is for the price to go down. This is when I realised why I was always getting bargains. I really DON'T like all the things I've bought THAT much. Take for instance, my Pamukkale ring. I had walked into the shop and was browsing around. I walked towards the very first tray of jewellery I see, and pick up a ring that I think would fit me (I have big fingers) and try it on. It fits and it was ok. I take the ring off and put it back and continue browsing, before I could even take a step, the bargaining began. Now all bargaining usually goes in the following format:

Person A: How much?

Person B: $xx

Person A: Nah.....its ok (Pretending they don't like it/not worth the money)

Person B: Ok ok, I give you discount. JUST FOR YOU. $yy

Person A: No...its too expensive (Again, pretending they don't like it)
And so forth.

Now the problem with me was, I really didn't like it THAT much. But I was never one to turn down a bargain, and I was never one to lose an argument either. It's like I am possessed, and the words coming out of my mouth isn't really from me. Because if it really was me, I would've realised that I didn't like it THAT much and just say a firm NO and move on. But all the sales people are quick to jump on you, the minute you even LOOK at something, let alone touch it, they start the bargaining. Of course, if I REALLY DON'T LIKE something, I would walk away, but how many chicks don't like jewellery. I liked the ring, but I wasn't desperate for it. If I was browsing in a shop in Australia, the chances are I wouldn't have bought it. But they took my slight interest as a part of the bargaining process, as opposed to me really not being interested.

Thinking back, I don't remember even seeing the rest of the store. They shop had trays and trays of jewellery, but I barely had to chance to glance at what they had because I was too busy bargaining and making my purchases. I remember sitting in the hotel room afterwards looking at the ring asking myself if it was worth the $20 I paid. I don't know if I talked myself into liking it or it really grew on me. But everytime I look at that ring now, I remember the great time I had overseas, and it was definately worth the $20 I paid. I guess the same could be said about everything else I got overseas. Yes alot of it is useless crap, but when I look at it, it brings back the fond memories and the horrors of getting screwed over on our holiday! Looks like I'm going to have to save heaps of money for shopping on my next trip!

Karma

What goes around comes around. Below is a story of how someone left their "sidekick" (which is like a PDA/blackberry that uploads data onto a server) in a Taxi. A girl found the sidekick, and refused to return it when contacted by the owner, and was stupid enough to take photos of herself and her family which gets uploaded into the owners account. The link is a public shaming of them and I hope the word spreads so stupid people like them can never get away with shit like that

http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/

Late nights + World Cup

I while back I posted an entry about how much I spend on Coffee a year with my one cup a day. Well, I went off coffee for awhile, relying on tea, that went well.....for about 2 weeks. Then my overtime period hit and I was on to 2 coffees a day. The late nights and weekend work has ended...but my 2 coffee a day habit hasn't. Suddenly its world cup time and I'm on 3 coffees a day now. This is getting out of hand! The money I'm saving by bringing lunch to work is all going towards coffee! It wouldn't be such a bad thing if the world cup was worth it.

Staying up late to watch Australia kick Japan's ass after their horrible horrible cheat of a goal was well worth the $6 for coffee. Hell, I'd pay $20 for coffee just to see Australia win their first game ever and score 3 goals in 8 minutes! HOW ABSOLUTELY FANTABULOUSLY AWESOMELY INSANE WAS THAT!? Watching the Socceroos make the world cup last year made me proud of Australia. Watching the Socceroos perform like that makes me proud to BE an Australian! This puts me in a real dilemma. I want the Socceroos to win because I am an Australian, but I love Brazil. Which is why I woke up at 4:30am this morning after just a few hours sleep to watch them play Croatia.

Its been 4 long years since I saw Brazil in action. I know theres been alot of flak about Ronaldo lately and how people think Brazil's time as world champions could be over, but to me, Brazil and Ronaldo is what makes the World Cup worth watching. That's what I thought until this mornings match. What the FUCK was that? No way did that match look like the World Cup. It looked more like a bunch of old lazy guys in yellow and blue having a practice session and aimlessly kick the ball around. Where the hell was Ronaldo? I didn't see him AT ALL until some time in the second half for a split second. How could Brazil only score ONE goal against Croatia? What the hell is going on? I know they can do better than that! Yes, the players are getting old, and Ronaldo does have a slight gut, but even with that, they're still supposed to better than most of the other teams!

I bought myself a Brazil soccer shirt a few world cups back and I used to always wear it when they were playing (Yes I'm a geek alright), this morning, at 4:30am, it was just too cold and too dark to search for my shirt. I'm glad I didn't wear it, cos I'll be ashamed to be wearing that shirt with the way Brazil was performing! I am now refusing to wear the shirt until they pick up their game! I'm still looking forward to the Australia vs Brazil match, but my expectations has changed. I always expected Brazil to totally slaughter our ass, but I would've been happy just to see them play. Now, I want the Socceroos to kick their ass. BAD. And we have a chance. Ok, maybe not, but we have more of a chance now than we did 4 years ago. If Brazil plays Australia the way they did today, we could walk away with a draw. If we're REALLY lucky, and I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY lucky, we could win. And I want us to win. I want Brazil to get their ass kicked by Australia who is ranked at 48 and wake up and smell the roses. Maybe then they'll pick up their game and show the world how the game should be played. But right now, I'm disgusted by Brazil's performance.

Weekend away

My long weekend started on Friday where I took a well deserved day off after all my overtime. The accomodation was booked, the heater was packed, along with about 40 DVDs between us. Those of you who know me and Moishii know that we never have a "normal" get away. Booking the accomodation was a nightmare since every place we tried to book was taken an hour before we called. We finally settled on the only accomodation still available for the whole of Katoomba and made our booking. I booked online, sent a follow up email afterwards to try and confirm our booking. Called the woman's mobile numerous times and sent her multiple smses. Worried the place would get booked out, I eventually got through to her mobile. I basically said:

"Hi, my name is Lily and I tried to make a booking last night....."
"Oh! You're the one who sent me the SMS?"
"Yes I..."

*Hangs up*

"Wot da......"

I called back multiple times, each time getting her voicemail. That bitch hung up on me! I was ready to call it quits and cancel the whole weekend when she finally called me back after a few hours. Apparently her phone is dodgy and she doesn't know how to send an SMS. Whatever. FREAK. I booked and paid for the accomodation only to get multiple emails from her confirming and reconfirming and triple confirming the details I've given her about 5 times. We wanted to meet this woman. She could be the next $40 woman. But it wasn't to be. She refused to see us and basically left the key on the balcony for us to dig up.

We walk into the house and it looks like an antique shop. There were things EVERYWHERE. Moishii's room was covered from head to toe with hats. Thats right. HATS. My room was filled with teddy bears and dolls. Not cutesy ones, but hand made dolls with evil x eyes staring at you at night. The whole house was like the Big Brother room. There was room after room after rooms. Each room had like 2-3 doors opening into other places which had doors that opened to other places!

The Sunroom

Garden #1

Moishii's room

My Room

The Kitchen

We started panicking trying to find the living room because we were getting lost in the house. We finally found a livingroom that had a fireplace that was blocked off, this is when I start having a fit since the only reason we booked the place was because there was supposed to be a fireplace. Then the second panic attack began. WHERES THE TV? We scan the room trying to find a TV only to find this:

Spot anything? How about a close up?

Who the HELL puts a mannequin in the room? This was a bloody freaky mannequin as well since it didn't have any hair! Most people know what an overactive imagination me and Moishii has. This is when all the scenes in horror movies like "House of wax" and "Chucky" where things come to life start popping into our head. We freak out and run out of the room only to accidently leave the lights on. Both of us refuse to go back in to turn the lights off and I started freaking about how I can see shadows moving through the gap in the door. We locked the door and stuffed up all the gaps so we didn't have to see the light or the mannequin. We panic thinking we don't have a TV and the room is possessed with an evil mannequin. That is until we discovered ANOTHER livingroom which had a fireplace and a TV. We're saved!!!

We unload all our crap (Half of which was DVDs) in the pouring rain into the freezing cold house before we made a run for the car. We were staying fairly close to the Katoomba shops, so off we were to grab some food and do some exploring.

Roasted pumpkin and pancetta risotto

Potato Rosti with a Lemon Dill Creme Fraiche

You'd think that we would learn to relax and enjoy the mountains. No. We found ourselves at Flight Centre within an hour of arriving so we can grab brochures on Italy, Greece and Turkey. Yes I know we have about 50 of those brochures, and we know exactly what we want to do in Greece (More specifically Mykonos) and Turkey, but thats not the point! The brochures could be kindling for our fireplace!

2 hours later and we were freezing our butt off. We go back to the house and get the fire going. Within an hour we had a roaring fireplace, food, wine and DVDs. There were candles all over the room, but not in a romantic way. More in a "lets do a seance and film" type way. Talking about filming, our home videos came out.

Immediately after I finished my undergrad, I started my postgrad degree in Design Computing and Moishii was doing Digital Design. We had similar subjects, but that wasn't enough. We decided to do the same electives. Knowing our history together, we picked the most perfect subject for us. "Film Production" and "Script Writing". Part of the classes involved writing and producing short films. For Film Production, neither of us could be bothered doing any of the work such as Makeup, lighting, camera etc. So we volunteered to be the actors instead thinking we would get it easy. The scene we had to film was from L.A. confidential. Now I've never seen the movie, and I shot the scene without knowing what the hell was going on. Basically it was along the lines of me having to seduce Moishii. Rewatching that clip had me cringeing and wanting to poke my own eyes out with a hot poker. But I lived through that clip.

Next up was all the filming we did for script writing. Basically every student had to write a short script, cast the script using our class mates and film it. This is where I did my infamous "Labour" scene where I had random strangers come up to me afterwards telling me how they watched my performance and absolutely loved it. Apparently my lecturer started showing my performances to other people. I was also cast as a "shy bank teller" and a student who stuttered. I can never watch myself on TV, let alone on a 3x5m lecture screen. I didn't show up for the final class where they did the screening of all the movies. According the Moishii, the lecture couldn't stop raving about my performances and got everyone into a discussion about ME for 40mins of the class, whilst blasting another girl's performance who had studied in an acting school in France and starred in multiple commercials etc.

Its been a good 4 years since I filmed the scenes and I felt that I was finally ready to face myself on TV. Before watching the DVD, me and Moishii discussed what happened and came to the conclusion that I had starred in 3 short films and was loved by the lecturer, and he was not picked for a single film. He was totally offended that no one had cast him in any of the movies, but he still wanted to watch it anyway.

First movie was my "Shy bank teller" scene where I am getting yelled at by a customer who is demanding to see my manager. I panic and tell him the Manager isn't here and he continues to scream at me. so I try to pacify him by saying "I'll go find the Manager". Suddenly Moishii storms onto the screen yelling he's the Bank Manager. WHAT DA FARK!?!?! A laughing fit started and lasted for a good 5 minutes. Neither of us ever remembering him being in a part of my movie. What the hell?? He wasn't supposed to be on anything!!!

We watched my Labour scene where my water breaks but no one would take me to the hospital, then there was my stuttering scene. Thinking it was all over, we played the next movie where suddenly Moishii finds himself on screen as a Police Chief!! What the hell??? WHY IS HE STARRING IN ANYTHING!! HE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE IN ANYTHING! We finally calm down and continue to watch him crack onto another character who we could barely see because the camera work was so shocking, then all of a sudden you hear me in the background interupting the scene because I was his secretary!! WHAT THE HELL?????? WHY AM I IN THIS SCENE?? I'M ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE IN 3 MOVIES!!!!! We had to stop the DVD because our laughing fits were getting so bad! This is scary!! I don't remember filming ANY of those scenes! Neither of us remember doing ANY of that!!!

Ontop of that, I found out that I was in HALF of the movies! I starred in 5 of the movies, and I was an extra in almost every single movie with the exception of 3! I was the new "Gym Instructor" and Moishii was a weight pumping horny guy who tried to hit on me only I ended up going out with his friend. Moishi found himself with a small cameo part in another movie whilst I was an extra roaming around in the rest of the films!! This is so scary! We don't remember doing ANY of that stuff!! Its like we had a 6months blackout of our lives and we're suddenly catching up! We dealt with this new knowledge the only way we knew how. Alcohol. Alcohol with more home videos of our last trip in 2005.

Waking up the next day with a sore throat from all the laughing, we tried to do some sight seeing only to see fog. There was jackall to see!





We rocked up to Echo Point and decided to climb down the stairs to the first sister for a few happy snaps and contemplated climbing down the rest of the 763 steps. That was until we saw a guy practically have a heart attack coming up. We gave up and cilmbed back to the top. It was less than 50 steps, but it was the most painful 50 steps ever! We were practically having a heart attack by the time we got to the top.

Thats NOT the steepest part of the stairs

View from the first Sister

We decided to stop by the local chocolate factory for a bit of warming up and went back home only to be greeted by a mouse in the livingroom causing me to tip boiling hot tea all over myself! Again, we had the fire roaring by 5pm and settled in for the night. We decided to go all out and cook a nice dinner:

Grilled Pepper Chicken with Mash potatoes and onion gravy and garden salad

To celebrate the wonderful meal and the effort we put in, we cracked open a bottle of red whilst watching DVDs. Within 10mins, the alcohol started hitting us, so we did what any other person would do. We opened a second bottle of Champagne (From Italy of course!). When that was gone, we went for our favourite Brown Brothers Moscato. Whilst we were on a roll, we opened our last bottle of wine whilst we called Cherry on the phone.


I'm not too sure exactly what happened, but it involved a phone call, a video camera, and somehow I got drenched from head to toe with a bottle of water. Moishii was screaming that we were out of wine whilst I was screaming that I was drenched and Cherry was screaming that we went on holiday without her. In the midst of all the screaming, there was alot of falling off the chair and laughing fits. We called it a night when Moishii passed out and Soccer was about to start.



The next day was basically a huge hangover with sleep deprivation thrown in. With the weather looking a bit better, we went for a drive around Leura and other lookouts only to end up at Echo Point again.



Atleast this time we could see the damn 3 sisters. The only problem was that it was 2degrees and the wind was killing us! You'd think people would dress in layers and layers of clothes to keep warm, well guess again. We saw 2 Korean chicks in mini skirts and little tops! WTF? I hope you freeze your ass off! We quickly duck into a coffee shop for some well deserved caffiene and fresh scones with cream and jam. mmmmmm After burning the insides of my throat with the coffee, we hop back into the car and race home to get the fire started. The weather was close to 2degrees with icy cold wind biting into us. By this stage I had fully mastered the art of building a fire, and I kinda went a tad nuts with the firewood. The owner had a huge, and I mean HUGE pile of wood saved in the backyard, and we went through 1/3 of it in the 3 days we were there. But I didn't care, we were cold!!!

Since it was our last night, we went all out to cook another wonderful meal:

Poached chicken Quesadillas, Minestrone soup, Garden and herb salad with pasta

To pass the time, we watched some DVDs whilst waiting for the soccer. Originally we had wanted to watch Candyman, but 5mins into the movie I started freakin out because the movie scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid, so we opted to watch Paycheck instead. After the movie, whilst I was making hot chocolate, Moishii suddenly felt inspired to film. We did a whole bunch of freaky horror shots that involved us going into the mannequin room IN THE DARK. Of course I freak out again and decide to camp out infront of the TV. During half time, they had a few commentators analyse the game. This is when Moishii noticed one of the guys was called an "Analyst" and reckons he could be an analyst. For anyone who watches the soccer on SBS, it is the old dude who can barely speak english. Everytime this guy spoke, Moishii had a laughing fit screaming he could be an analyst and say what the guy was saying. This went on for the entire time the guy was talking and I lost count of how many asthma attacks Moishii had. Basically the old guy had no idea what the hell he was on about, here are a few quotes from the Netherlands game:

"The difference between the two teams is Robben (The soccer player)"
"Its typical when you play 3 games, if you lose one, you're already 50% out of the game."

I don't know what it was, but those 2 lines set off a huge laughing fit in Moishii I've never seen before.

All in all, it was a good weekend with the exception of the freaky house owner and the multiple laughing fits! These laughing fits were worse than all of Greece, Turkey and the US thrown together!

Playing favourites

I know I shouldn't, but I do. My niece melts my heart all the time! Maybe its cos she's a girl, or maybe she is just the really affectionate type. I got a call from her tonight on my mobile. Basically she wanted to tell me that she loves me. Why? Yesterday she went to some festival where they had some bellydancers performing. In 2004 when I went to Turkey, I bought her a belly dancing costume. When she came to Sydney for a visit, I took her to my belly dancing class. Of course without me there, the costume got shoved to the back of the wardrobe. But after the performance she saw, she was so inspired, she went home and grabbed her costume out to dance.

She said to her mummy, and these are her exact words (In a thick Singaporean accent):

"Mummeeeee....I am so luckeeey to have an Aunteeeey that loves me so much that she buys me a beautiful costume so I can daaaaaaance."

When my sister told me that, I felt tears come to my eyes. Awwwwwwwww shes so cute!!!!!!!!!!!