Happy Birthday Aunty Patricia

It was Aunty Patricia’s 50th birthday celebration at Peach Garden, Miramar Hotel. she’s youngest of a set of triplets so they were celebrating their 150th birthday last night. The ladies were decked out in identical white gowns and had the same hairstyle. we were trying to identify Aunty Pat among the 3 identical triplets but we couldn’t until her husband Uncle Drake stepped up and smooshed her on the face.

It was an interesting night as Uncle Drake hired this bunch of performers to keep us entertained. it was something out of a getai performance. it started off with a plate spinner and that was already a jaw dropper. Before I could even close my mouth, a bunch of sumo-type dolls who rolled up on stage, one dressed like a clown, one like a sikh (who was singing a Chinese song) and one like a pervy monk. they danced among the tables while everyone clapped along. i was looking in horror as the clown danced around and offered her face for a kiss, then she scooped inside her oversized bra for sweets and offer it to those who kiss her. I have no idea in which universe is this considered entertainment. One wonders where Uncle Drake found them.

Here’s a video to capture that one moment in time I believe I will never experience ever again. That is until Uncle Drake throws another one of such parties.

Then this dude came on stage dressed like a 1930s Shanghai mafia boss complete with long trenchcoat, white scarf and a silver pistol. he waved it around at the audience, when a clown came up from behind him with a tented hoop of sorts. the mafia boss stepped in and the clown waved it frantically around him as the emcee asked us with baited anticipation, what is happening? what will he change into? is it a man? is it a lady? is it a man lady? do i really want to know?

and voila! it’s a man lady clown! i never would have guessed this one. the guy was still singing so i guess it was him, dressed in a sequined Mickey Mouse night gown with clown hair. I seriously wondered what they were tripping on when they came up with this one. “Hey! let’s sing a song about love and betrayal of a mafia boss in Shanghai 1930s! we start off with a mafia boss singing about his power but he lost it all when he fell in love with a cross-dressing clown! and then we switch over to the clown singing his/her side of the love story!”

There was even an act with Bao Gong in it. By then I had no idea what was going on as he came strolling into the dinner hall. probably got lost on the way to China. All these people could probably join the local talent show One Moment of Glory, or better known as OMG. Although for these guys it’s really Oh My God.

you know what I really find amusing? the waiters were entirely nonplussed about the entire affair as they continued serving food around the dancing clowns. either they were blind to the antics or this happens on a regular basis. what have I been missing out on?!

There were other acts too by family members. At the start, I couldn’t tell who were family and who weren’t, until the clowns and the cross-dressing started coming up. 2 kids came up to juggle those Chinese top spinners on a rope (“look Ma! if i flunk PSLE I can join a China troupe and perform at birthday parties such at this!”), one kid with a violin and 2 teens who did a skit about army or I’m not sure what because at that point I decided to walk out of the room. I came back in time for the applause and for their mother (2nd triplet) to go up on stage and hug her 2 sons tenderly.

There was also the emcee of the night from China who sang old 50s songs as lustily as she could. she tried to make people guess what songs she was singing and she’d give away her CD recording of old Shanghai hits as prizes. it got to the point where no one was listening and she was singing and entertaining herself.

I think the highlight of the night was when Patricia Mok came on stage. she’s a local celebrity who’s known for her terribly large mouth. It seemed like she was from the Shanghai Dolly posse that Uncle Drake and Aunty Pat hung out with, a motley crew clad in black netting, leather shorts and lots of gelled up hair, seated on the other side of the room away from the relatives. Patricia Mok dragged Aunty Pat onto stage to play a simple game of “guess who is your husband”. she blindfolded Aunty Pat and got 5 men on stage, Uncle Drake inclusive. each was supposed to kiss Aunty Pat on the hand and she was supposed to guess which was her husband. the final choice got to kiss her on the lips. it was amusing to watch as Patricia made fun of Aunty Pat all the way. I must say Patricia Mok can be quite entertaining, especially when she broke out in Hokkien.

The food was generally quite bad so I didn’t bother with pictures here. we ate the usual Longevity bun and the Long living vermicelli, before progressing onto the usual 8-course fare. 2 cousins came really late coz they got the dates mixed up so we ate their share of food. The waiters were highly confused when we gave mixed instructions to not serve their share first, and then to serve it coz we were going to eat it, and when we found out they were still coming we told them to keep it, then after 930pm when they still hadn’t arrive, we told them to bring it out so we could eat it. i think they were ready to spit in our food with our half-past 6 command of mandarin instructions.

Bryan: I want orange juice please.
Waitress: with ice or without ice?
Bryan: Orange juice! thank you.
Waitress: *frown*

it was an extremely entertaining night thanks to Uncle Drake and his flamboyant friends. I think all wedding / birthday parties should be like this. Aunty Lorna, who is 80 and hails all the way from Scotland, was probably the most amused person in the group, seated next to Grandma who was probably used to her son’s antics.

***

after that we headed to Quaich Bar at Waterfront hotel since we had time in between dinner and Sander Von Doorn at Zouk. it’s a whiskey bar which serves… whiskey. I didn’t mean to be sarcastic with the waitress who asked, “would you like to order whiskey?” but she was really asking for it.

a very pleased Bryan.

We tried both the Irish Whiskey samplers and the World Whiskey samplers. funnily, I didn’t used to like Auchentoshan until I got the chance to taste the rest and realised it’s nicer than most. we also had a Montecristo cigar in their tiny cigar room where I was trapped listening to this guy bitchmoan about his racist ang moh boss.

The night ended at Zouk where we listened to Sander Von Doorn punch out trance anthems and watched 3 fights go on around us. first you see one bouncer flashing his torchlight threateningly at one spot, then he leaps off his perch and then you see 5 more torchlights congregating into one spot and you know it’s a fight. that or the girl infront of you suddenly gets thrown back against you as you try to catch her and her friend apologises and says, “fight infront.” ah i love you Zouk.

Halloween 2010: Zouk The Fear Factory

Read this first: Halloween 2010: The Prep Work

The day itself, Bryan was still painting the last bits of the M-16 so Tricia and Eugene came over to hang out and give moral support since Bryan basically did all the painting. We tried on our uniforms but they were so stiff from the painting we had trouble putting them on. since the cloth didn’t fold anymore as it was more like stiff cardboard, I had trouble getting in since the legs of the pants was longer than my legs. After that I had trouble pulling up my pants [Video] past my hips coz we forgot than men didn’t have hips so we should have bought a size bigger to compensate for our asses. We were also fooling around [Video] for quite a bit after realising that the guns are battery operated and made PEW PEW noises with flashing red light at the tip. Very realistic considering I have no idea what a M-16 sounds like.

A very happy Tricia with her very green M-16, which broke into 3 pieces by the end of the night. Well done Tricia!

I was trying to throw a grenade. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to look at the grenade while throwing it, but at the direction I’m about to throw it at. Huh.

We had booked a room at Grand Copthorne, next to Zouk where the party’s at. We first pigged out at Zion Hawker Centre before heading back to the hotel room to change [Video]. for those who wish to dress up as army men or green toy soldiers in future, this is the order of dressing: Socks, pants, green make-up, hair, shirt, gloves. hat / helmet, gun. Like last year’s Halloween party, we had a lot of fun in the hotel room [Video] even before we stepped out for the party.

Since we were staying on the executive level, we were greeted by giggles by the duty staff on that floor when we stepped out to the lift lobby. Inside the lift, we were busy saluting one another when the doors opened and characters from the Green Hornet came in. we Hi-5 one another and headed down to the main lobby. Again we were greeted with amazed stares from those in the lobby. We tried to march to Zouk but we weren’t very good at keeping in line.

The queue into Zouk stretched all the way to the bridge at the far end, while the queue to Velvet stretched down the slope into the hotel carpark just before the entrance. We rued the fact that we didn’t go Zouk earlier but we were soon saved when one of the Zouk staff spotted our homemade outfits and ushered us right to the front of the line. we were nominated for best dressed and we had to pose on their stage to take pictures for submission. The pictures were then shown on the Zouk screens inside along with all the other nominees.

The best part about Halloween at Zouk is not just about dressing up, but taking pictures with random strangers for the sheer fun of it.

Fiona & Shrek

We engaged a bunch of Gladiators on the stairs. I don’t know why Tricia is smiling. and their archer defected to our side and started shooting the men in skirts.

Smurfs! Blue paint vs Green!

Met Kickass and Hit Girl along the way. they are so fucking cute la!

I almost got stabbed in the eye with her pokey thing.

This was hilarious. Pedophile priests with blowup dolls / boys.

you see what I mean about strange mix of greens?

We bumped into a bunch of Toy Story Aliens on the dance floor!

The other winners for Best Clones award!

Group Picture in hotel lobby. Night duty manager was more than happy to entertain us with photo taking.

Eugene staying in character right to the end.

It was well worth the effort. in the end we won Best Clones award for the night. First prize went to this lady who came as Queen of Hearts and she looked really good!

Halloween 2010: The Prep work (How to make green army men costumes)

It all started with a picture I found online.

It was a picture of someone’s Halloween costume in the form of green toy soldiers. For those of you who remember, back in those days, these plastic green toy soldiers were sold in containers of 50 or so. The soldiers came in various poses, all of them had 2 things in common: they were green throughout (even their faces) and their feet were all attached to a base board so they can stand up properly. these guys weren’t any taller than 2″ but provided hours of endless fun found in mock battles. For those who are of a different era, you’d probably remember them as the toy soldiers from Toy Story, “Sarge and the Buket O’ Soldiers”.

The picture was amusing because it brought back childhood memories. But little did I know, showing it to Bryan sparked off an idea that led to our Halloween costume this year. he got it into his head that we should all go as toy soldiers. Eugene was cheering the idea on, Tricia seemed enthusiastic but I was a little reluctant. Wear green paint from head to toe? not very cool right?

From the start, there were a lot of hiccups along the way. we spent a Sunday afternoon trawling Army Market at Beach Road looking for… army gear. we were in luck that there were stalls who still sold the old army uniform and even managed to get some secondhand pieces. The stall owner was used to non-army types buying uniforms as she said a lot of people buy from her stall to wear these uniforms for paint ball, which suddenly warmed me up to this idea of owning an army uniform. Suddenly this whole thing started becoming fun.

She brought us to this other stall who sold old boots since we didn’t need proper boots. it was managed by this really old man, who the lady cautioned, was an honest man but terribly confused with what he’s selling so we had to make sure our shoes were a match before buying them. The old man kept shoving one side of each shoe into our faces and insisted we bought them, even though we kept trying to tell him that two left sides don’t make a pair. we tried looking in his dingy little shop for the right sides to our left shoes, but since he spoke no Mandarin and we spoke no Cantonese, it was an act of futility. In the end, we thanked the nice old man and had to buy china made rubber boots from another stall for $35 each.

Pleased with our purchases, we went to Carrefour to buy plastic guns and spray paint. at this point, everything went downhill. Since Bryan was busy finishing his marking, he didn’t join us this Sunday so following his detailed instructions over the phone, I bought the exact colour of spray paint he had already gotten, only to find out it was a different shade of green from the face camo paint we had bought from Army Market. he went into a flying fit after that and some crossed words were exchanged. but that was only the first hurdle.

Eugene went to get green make-up base from Cosmoprof coz Tricia and I insisted that we weren’t using camo face paint on our million dollar faces, and since my skin has become more prone to outbreaks lately, I didn’t want to wake up the next day in blotches. upon comparison, we realised the expensive face paint didn’t match the spray paints either so we were still in trouble.

Bryan then went back to Carrefour and changed the spray paint to the right shade. however when he tried spraying the uniform, he realised that he finished 1 entire can and he hadn’t gone past the mid drift of the top part of the uniform. that was when he realised we were screwed. I did a quick check on eHow and found out the dude who did the uniform, used 12 cans of spray paint for one set of uniforms. TWELVE. we had 4 sets to finish!

Cracking his head, he went to the paint shop to get water-based paint. They had to custom make the colour to  fit the face paint we bought. Uniformity is critical to this costume’s success. everything had to be the same shade of green else it’s a big failure. the paint went on smoothly for the uniforms, but little did he know how much paint he needed. instead of buying 1 big can of paint, he ended up returning to the paint shop twice more to buy more of the smaller cans. the store owner was like, “need more paint?”

we also faced a problem painting the plastic M-16 guns because water-based paint didn’t stay on it very well. so he headed back to the paint shop and tried to find oil-based paint but they didn’t have the right shade of green. The owner suggested bringing the material to the shop to test, and I burst out laughing at the thought of Bryan carrying a plastic M-16 into a paint shop. in the end, he decided to buy an oil-based white spray paint to coat the guns first, before applying the water-based green onto the guns. it worked perfectly. I swear Bryan is amazing when it comes to fixing things like that. I think we make the perfect pair. I’m the cool headed one who is generally better at solving situations but he is good with fixing things with his hands.

the last problem we had was when Aaron tried to pull out last minute. Last year, we had went in a motley of uniforms with no common theme; Eugene & Tricia as Snow White and her Dwarf. I wore the Lolita dress I got from Tokyo. Aaron as a rather short Grim Reaper and Bryan as the dude from Scream. We thought we could go as 5 again but Aaron didn’t particularly want to go army men and didn’t tell us till we all got our uniforms. After spending close to $100 on everything, I was more than pissed off he hadn’t said anything earlier. I wanted to smack him when he said he thought by not replying to emails, we would realised his reluctance at wanting to do the army men. I shouted at him, “NO! IF YOU DIDN’T REPLY EMAILS, IT WOULD BE MEAN YOU HAVEN’T READ THEM!”

so he tried to appease me by coming along anyway. but since his uniforms were done by himself and didn’t follow the stringent colour proofing that Bryan did, it came out looking a strange mishmash of green colours. he also manged to convince his friend to join us in this, which was okay except that his friend also came in a strange mishmash of greens too. they both turned up late for the party, which was a good thing in the end since they weren’t with us when we were spotted by Zouk management for our uniforms. Otherwise, we might not have won Best Clone costume for the night!

Introvert went to Mambo Jambo

Listening to: Aztec Camera – Somewhere in my heart

As an introvert, I like to keep to myself a lot. While I enjoy company of people I like (yes, there are people that I don’t necessarily like), I need my alone time because it’s tiring to constantly keep people entertained and give them a reason to still stand next to you and listen to you yak.

The new girl in my team commented that I’m really focused in what I do. I’m not sure if she meant it as a compliment or not, but I confessed that I like to keep my mind on what I’m doing and finish as much of it as I can. I hate getting interrupted but in my current job, I always get interrupted. Questions range from the totally clueless (“if he didn’t get the link, shall I email it to him again?”) to strategic manipulation (“what would you do if this happened?”) to the inane (“is there a professional way of inviting people to join in this?” “uhm how about – would you like to take part in this campaign?”). I’m constantly signing off on documents and checking on other people’s work.

When I first joined this company, I remember Angelia‘s word of advice: SMILE MORE. so I tried smiling but that failed miserably when someone confessed she found me scary fierce, DESPITE ALL THAT SMILING I DID. then my ex-boss constantly tried to get me involved in department activities and such. at every appraisal I passed at everything except socialising. I had to stand out more to get noticed in the company, because if i don’t get noticed, how is she going to promote someone that the other departments’ bosses don’t even know exist?

So I tried. really hard. you must know it is very difficult for an anti-social person who cannot stand human beings generally to act like she enjoys their company. I don’t hate the individuals, just that I have to do the social thing as a whole. Whatever few close friends I have, I keep them close to my heart. The rest I can say I don’t give a flying duck.

But last night, I was the queen of the ball, the butterfly of the room. My boss had this sudden inspiration that the entire sales department had to drink away their mid-week blues at Zouk Winebar. he said it was a thank you for the hard work party but really it was just to drink and get silly. It wasn’t something I’d usually turn up for as I abhor office events that try very hard at being a social thing, but as a friend to my boss, I showed up to support his little party.

It turned out to be really fun! we might have hit the bar a little early at 7pm but with the drinks that kept coming, it didn’t matter that the bar was almost empty except for our group of 20. the drinking got serious when Zouk bosses came out and got us all sng muey shooters (or what they call Sour Plum Infusion. but I’m still gonna ask for sng muey soda if I ever ordered it again). i circled the table so I moved from the oldies (those aged 30 and above) and the young ‘uns (mid 20s and below), something that I rarely do with people I don’t really know outside of the office.

I felt like a mamasan. I spent the entire night keeping an eye out for the girls. whenever one of the young ones disappeared (there are 8 of them), I will look around and asked, “Where’s so and so?” and made sure they re-joined the group safely. Even today back at work, when I found out one of them was crying in a corner coz she got scolded, I sent 2 of the girls out to look for her and made sure she was okay.

It was great watching everyone have fun. I guess it broke the ice for some and I’m relieved the girls welcomed my new coordinator into their arms so I don’t have to worry who she could lunch with everyday (coz I don’t have the energy to make friends with a new person 13 years my junior). It’s also fun to bond with the old ones, monkeying around on the dance floor or shouting out favourite 80s songsat each other  that the 20 year olds don’t get. (“huh? who’s Aztec Camera?”)

Upon reflection, I thought it was a great way to get everyone to know one another, considering half the team is new ever since my boss went on a massive recruitment drive after so many resignations (his fengshui was terrible. I told him to move his desk to the car park).

Things one finds out after shit loads of alcohol:

• One of the younger ones S was in the same secondary school as I was. when we realised we were both from RED HOUSE, we did the school girl squeal.
• other girl was disappointed to be excluded coz she was from IJ Ahlian. but we bonded over the fact we both went to CJC!
• R likes to hug people. she not only hugged me once for helping her out with some project, she hugged me after drinking a lot, and even pecked me on my cheek. I wagged my finger at her and said no tongue! and she squealed like a school girl.
• with enough encouragement, you can dirty dance with anyone.
• my colleague confessed that i was the most dateable person in the group. I told him it’s only coz the rest are 15 years too young.
• after getting his ass home, he texted me to tell me he got home safely. I think he has a mini crush on me.
• SM could drink like a fish but she couldn’t do maths. when my boss asked her what’s 9 x 7 to test how drunk she was, she said 49. after making fun of her, she insisted she wasn’t drunk. my boss then replied, that means you’re dumb!
• my colleague was so drunk he announced that I had B cup boobs.

This morning my colleague caught me in the corridor with my hand on my head.

him: what happened? hangover?
me: no?
him: headache?
me: no?
him: bang your head against something?
me: haha no? I didn’t dry my hair properly before I went to bed and now my hair is sticking out a bit *lifts hand to show sticking out hair*
him: -_-