you'll probably never see this

It just seemed so right

and then it all just went totally wrong

and I have no idea why...

it only goes up from here

To those who've actually been bothering, the airline finally managed to locate the luggage and get it to us so I've finally been able to get out of these stinky jeans after 72 hours. Things have been really really good here in San Francisco. I think I can honestly say its been more than worth it coming here, even if it was pretty much a pain in the arse. Met this English guy and girl at the hostel and basically I'm just hanging out with them. Yesterday's walk around the city was really fun even if we had to climb knolls like nobody's business. I'm just glad those knolls don't have trees on them and I'm not in green with a frikkin 60 pound pack on my back.

Gonna get bikes and go across the Golden Gate Bridge today and try to get into Muir Wood on pedal power. Oooohhh....I miss my both my bikes..

oh look it gets deeper

We made it to San Francisco but they lost all our luggage. I don't even have a towel to take a shower right now.

Stars and stripes forever

rock bottom

If you happen to be wondering how come so many posts just came out at once and why they're so retarded (ok especially retarded), the major reason is the fact that I'm sitting in the waiting area of the Akron-Canton airport (where the hell?!?) at 0300 in the morning waiting to find out at 0500 whether or not I'm even gonna have a flight outta here.

Long long story.

My travel group and I were supposed to come down here from Sandusky to catch a flight down to San Francisco to start the travelling portion of our time here in the States but somehow Murphy really caught up with us today and gave us a great big hiding. The day didn't start well already. Apple messed up my iPod order and I had to cancel it and DHL didn't manage to get their package to Cedar Point in time so someone else will have to settle it for me. Now it gets worse. The car that we were supposed to use to come to Akron-Canton got taken out by one of the shareholder's to go to Cincinatti the day before. The problem was, he decided not to come back!!!!!! Not anytime soon anyway. So we had to rush out and rent a car just to take us to the airport because cab fare was way more expensive than rental.

Then things started coming one after the other. The people in my travel group aren't exactly the most intiative of sorts and so everyone pretty much dilly dallied and they only left at 1pm when they were supposed to leave at 11am. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem but the car wouldn't fit everyone and their luggage in so we had to go in 2 waves. Worse, the airport was 2 hours away from Sandusky (NO thanks to hong jin peng) so we would need at least 6 hours to get everyone there. And the flight was at 6.53 pm!!! Basically we were screwed from the beginning. But thats not the end.

Nick realised we had a slim chance of making it there so he went and sped, going 91 mph in a 65 mph zone. Problem was, the cops didn't see it the same way as he did and not only did they cause a 30 + minute delay, the bunch of us are now facing a hefty traffic fine. First wave reaches and car turns around to grab 2nd wave of which I am part. We're fucking late and we know it. But more to come. The driver falls asleep at the wheel and manages to sideswipe the right side railing on the I-80 at 75 mph. Huge bang, car bounces off and keeps driving. We're lucky to be alive but the right side passenger door can't open anymore and the front right rim is broken in two. Have no idea how much thats gonna cost but its not going to be cheap thats for sure. All we can do is pray insurance will cover it.

1st wave try to stall the plane as far as possible but to no avail and we reach the airport to hear the final boarding call announcement but all the baggage and check in counters have already closed. The only thing I can thank God for is a helpful Air Tran clerk who's helped us arrange later flights to San Francisco that'll get us there by 8.40 pm tomorrow night. Now the bad news. So what else is new huh? Those flights are touch and go because we're on the standby list for whatever spare seats they have. We could jolly well not have a flight and be stranded here for days because we have no other place to go.

Lets just say I'm not real inclined to see the glass as half full right now...

fun in wal mart

When you're bored and wandering around Wal Mart waiting for your friends to meticulously pick out facial wash you tend to look for something to entertain yourself. Don't worry Pat I won't mention names. Oh wait....

CARE BEARS: THE ANNIHILATION

take me down to the paradise city!

PRESENTING THE MAIN EVENT!!

And thats the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. THE shrine for any rock & roll fan worth any salt at all!! Its a pity they don't allow any photos of any kind to be taken inside to honour the inductees wishes but hey, what Eric Clapton and Nirvana and the Beatles and Guns n Roses and Sting and KISS and ACDC and Queen and Michael Jackson and Aerosmith and the Eagles and so on so forth say goes. No arguments bout that. The place is a frikkin treasure trove!! Guitars from every era from just about every player worth noticing. First recordings and journals with the first scratchings of massive songs on their pages; band biographies, outfits, discographies, tributes, playlists, photographs; psychedelic artwork, vintage gig posters, signature instruments and so much more more more more!!!! Spent 4 hours there and we couldn't even complete it all!! Bout 85% done I'd say. Doesn't matter. I'm coming back again some day.

Could finally take photos downstairs in the lobby. Thats Geri, Yvonne and Pat. And of course me wishing I was George Harrison. Well ok not really considering he's dead.....err you get what I mean

Huge tribute guitars done by some artists. Don't ask me who.

WE BUILT THIS CITY!!

WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK & ROLL!!!!!

The girls going David Bowie stlye.....or was that Bob Dylan?

Bloody hell la Pat. We look for directions you chao geng take our backsides.

And of course as with every outing there must be proper documentation of food glorious food. I've been here 3 months but I'm still Singaporean la.

So thats breakfast at Cracker Barrel. No thats only part of it. And that already consisted of magnificent pancakes, cream butter, sausage patties, scrambled eggs, fried apples, bacon, ham, grits oats and other stuff I can't remember. And then the girls being girls had to go order desert too (desert for breakfast?!?!) so we ended up being stuffed like a turkey on a particularly good Thanksgiving.
For dinner it was some Chinese/Thai restaurant in the tiny little Cleveland Chinatown. But who cares? TOM YUM GOONG!!! Well ok what looks like tom yum goong and tastes a little bit like tom yum goong. But what the hell la. We're in America.

Bye bye guys! Cleveland was fun!! Enjoy the remainder of your work and I'll see you back home! BBQ stingray la :P

HELLO GABRIEL!!!!!!!!!!! 

Walt and Martha (on the left!) brought us out for a boat trip!! 

debbie working on the picture for her up and coming platinum albm cover 

two can play at the same game 

just makes me think of the OC for some reason 

alright alright so i like ducks... 

shades of beautiful 

doing some cat-fishin with the chad 

these are the days worth knowing

Its hard to put the happenings of the past few days into words. I would say they've been a blast but I guess that doesn't really cut it. Even work has been pretty much relak jack.

And of course having fun!! Haha, it helps when you're gum with your supervisor. Too bad they really don't have that much power, but at least they could make me a breaker on my last day, which meant I could jump around from game to game every hour and take tons of photos!! I hate the place but I'll miss these people!

They even dragged me to Applebee's Steakhouse at 1 am in the morning and gave me a treat!! Area 2, YOU ROCK!!! Jerrod, Chris, Felicia, Ruben, Adam, Ryan, Jeff, Jason, Meghan, Gillian, Christy, Mike, John, Da'Ronn, Vince, Keith, Greg and a whole bunch of others, you will be sorely sorely missed!! Till we meet again!! Love you guys!!

My very last F2 and clock out!! How significant is this? Significant enough that I put it up even though I look kena sai in this picture. Gabe this is for you doode.



Went down for my last ever service at the Chapel on Sunday and said farewell to more people I'll miss very much. I guess I could say Sandusky has become a home away from home. They all treat me like family and you know what, it really does feel like one.

Thats Janey on the left and Peggy on the right. They were the ones who first brought me to the Chapel and basically all but adopted me. They were there for me so many times I've lost count. Thanks for all the love and encouragement guys! The circumstances through which we met were unforgetable enough already. I'll be back to visit you someday. I promise!! Ok I'm a pretty tired so I'll just post up a bunch of pics as usual.

ORD LO

ORD LO

ORD LO

ORD LO

ORD LO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

=P

war

The daily routine in our apartment now is to switch on CNN in the morning so we at least have more of a worldview than the Sandusky Times can give us. The past week or so, coverage has been on nothing else but the burgeoning Israeli-Lebanese conflict and rightly so. This is going to be politically incorrect.

The guys in Hezbollah are bloody COWARDS.

I mean look at them. They're hiding in Lebanese towns just long enough to fire rockets at Israel and then bugger off, letting the residents of those towns take the brunt of the Israeli retaliation. They're dragging a reluctant country into a war it doesn't want. The Lebanese Army itself has no desire to fight, with the exception of the Shiite muslims among them. Not even them in some cases. Lebanon has made so much progress over the last few decades the last thing they need is all out war against a country that'll likely flatten em with impunity. And the worst part is that Hezbollah is crying and whining over the fact that there IS a retaliation. I've been doing some research on Arab conflict with Israel and it seems that the entire crux of Arab world strategy is to act like a pertinant child. I'm no expert but it seems that the Arabs are always the ones who attack first, get beaten and then start whining about Israel should have just stood by and let them carry out their slaughter. Happened in the 6 Days War, happened in the Yom Kippur War and its happening again right now. And every single time the world laps it up as the Israelis throwing their weight around.

Seriously can you imagine whats must be like to be Israeli? 60 years ago you've had literally millions of your own people get knocked simply because some guy with bad hair decides he can't stand to be in the same room as you. After thats over you finally get a chance to have a place of you own and then you find out that the whole sub-continent can't even stand to breathe the same air that you do. And they outnumber you 10 to 1. For the Israelis, its nothing to do with trying to keep their resources of the hands of others. They have to fight for their very lives. Its something to have someone hellbent on accquiring something you own. Its another thing when all that someone wants is your utter and complete cessation of existance.

If I were an Israeli I'd hit back as hard as I could as well.

burn in hell cp

I just can't believe how fucked up this place is. Here's the thing. If you fulfil your contract duration with Cedar Point, the company will pay you an additional $1 per hour bonus for every hour that you slog for them.

IF you complete your contract.

And thats a very big if. Quite a few of the locals have told me that CP's got a reputation of getting rid of their employees close to their contract end date so they won't need to pay out the bonus but I kinda took that with a pinch of salt, half believing it because I hate CP but half not because some people do get their bonuses.

Now I believe it 100%

Guess it's my own fault. Should never have mentioned to my manager that I only had 5 days left on my contract. He gave me a surprised look.

'Really?'

'Oh yeah. Believe it.'

*sly smile*

'No it doesn't.....'

I walked out of the office laughing, thinking he was joking. 45 minutes later I get served up a final warning notice for supposedly giving out prizes when the guest didn't win and also making the game easier for guests by knocking cans manually off the platform.

SMLJ!!!!

The thing is the report claimed that I had been tricked by a customer into giving him an extra shot when it was really really busy and gave him a prize by mistake. WTF!! It WAS A SATURDAY!!!! I'm HUMAN!! Mistakes are bound to happen!! There were like a dozen people clamouring to play at any one time and I was running desperately around trying to stack cans up, collect money, pull meter chains and siam flying bean bags all at the same time. On my lonesome!! As for the knocking cans off part, I don't deny I do it. But only for little kids!! They come up to the game and completely miss the target altogether! Whats taking off one can out of 5 for them?!? Some of them can barely even get the bean bags across the space to hit the cans. Whats more, they don't mind if we let kids stand on the counter or give them extra shots and basically just treat them nice. But they mind if I take 1 can out of 5 off?

I guess its a good thing I'm good with my supervisor. He's the one who told me to lie low for a few days because they're trying to find a way to not pay out my bonus. Happened last year and its happening this year. Frikkin hell....

Osama if you're looking for a target, try one with the initials C and P.

holy crap!!

This really is the worst place in the world to be a football fan. Well at least for the football you actually play with your feet. Matchfixing scandal going on in Italy since May and I didn't know about it till Ambrose told me Juve, Lazio and Fiorentina got relegated!!!

OMG!!!!!!!!!!! SMLJ!!!!!!

RELEGATED!!!!!!

Juventus in Serie B!?!?!?!? Chievo in Champions League? So am I still allowed to wear my Juve jersey and not get tomatoes on my head?

ORD LO!!!!!

More than a year ago I walked out of the gates of Hendon Camp with my pink IC clutched in my hands and thinking (thank goodness!) I'd never feel that ORD LO!!! feeling again.

Well I guess I was wrong.

Frikkin Cedar Point. But anyway, including today, I have a mere 10 days before I'm free of this godforsaken place. This place treats its employees like a piece of juicy fruit gum. Pop it in your mouth, chew out all the goodness and then spit it right back out. Most of the Americans who started their contracts round the time I started mine have left already, either getting fired or quitting of their own accord. I'm actually a lao jiao here!! And I can't wait to be gone.

(to the tune of Purple Light)

O-R-D

Take my money

Go and play, throw it all away

Fly back home

Eat hokkien mee

With my family and my friends and chili!!!!!!!

Sorry la it's not as if I make a living out of writing music....

i like being a beer advertisement

we'll all miss reebok....but maybe not that much 

Why can’t I be the one who holds you

Why can’t I be the one you want to

Hold you tight as the world comes and passes us by

Why can’t I be the one who brings you

Breakfast in bed as the sunrays greet you

Why can’t I, be that guy

Why can’t I be the one who loves you

Why can’t I be the one who gives you

That fuzzy feeling you get when the he knocks on her door in the rain

Why can’t I be the one who brings you

A smile on your face when it looks like its all blue

Why can’t I, be that guy

i like!! 

more than meets the eye

As if Pirates weren't god enough they make it even better by including the trailer for the Transformers movie!!!!

OMG Transformers!!!! Check it out at www.transformersmovie.com. Hoo boy I can't wait!!!

Go FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!

go singapore he confirm kena fine 

i'd like to see em drive that in iraq