The one with a lot to cramp in one post

Well a lot to write here. Not sure if I can remember a lot from the past week. Especially the recently long (and welcome) weekend. And as I write this my whole body is aching in pain with a capital P and A and I and N. Think I should add !!! for good measure.
Well last Saturday had a bowling training session with my teammates for next this Saturday's tourney. The session was to get the feel of the game after not playing in ages. And my game was totally off. Managed a measly 100 average after 3 games. There were moments of sheer brilliance, but like I said, moments.
Also last Saturday had an impromptu karaoke with Farrish. He needed to kill time while waiting for the fiancee who was stuck at work. So we totally rocked the house. We even did a Micheal Jackson medley but couldn't pull off Billie Jean, David Cook style as the music wouldn't allow it. Also rocked out a whole lot of rock tunes so our voice wasn't there after the session.
After picking up Farrish's fiancee Ida, we went for drinks in Subang. Somehow we talked about our childhood and how strict our parents were.
Sunday night had a corporate dinner. Our client EON had their charity dinner and long-service award ceremony. The only great thing from the dinner was Noryn Aziz. Totally fell in love again. She has a great voice (unlike me) but like me we can pull off a variety of tunes. My colleagues and guest were all introduced to Noryn Aziz and were blown away.
Right now to why my whole body is in pain. Recently I enrolled to a fitness centre in Subang Parade. Felt it was high time I did something before I balloon into the Marshmallow Man. My personal trainer pointed out that my heart rate and blood pressure is good. Sadly that cannot be said about my BMI. I 'scored' a 27. And my weight has shot up to 95 kilos. He also put me through some weight exercises. My weakness was pretty much obvious. I'm weak, and really have trouble with weight exercises which require pushing. However the pulling exercises was a breeze for me. And also my abs are damn weak.
After the 2 day (Sunday and Monday) weight training my arms and chest are in severe pain. I hope that means its working. I can't even lift my arms higher than my shoulder. Which results in some difficulty when I pray.
Also a fun note, my iPod has been 'jailbreaked'. Had the assistance of my colleagues brother. So now I can do more fun things with my iPod.
Lastly, the reason I'm in a flow (blogging wise) is due to the fact that futsal Tuesday was canceled due to insufficient numbers. In the end I went home early and hopefully will get to rest my aching body.

The one with the PPKM Annual Dinner

Last night was the Persatuan Pasaran Kewangan Malaysia annaul dinner. The event where everyone is dressed to kill and where the lucky prizes are worth winning (there were a couple of Ipod Touch but my lucky draw draught continues). Anyways I honestly believe the lucky draw is 'fixed' as most of the winners are the who's who.
The night started early for me, since I was there early anticipated a traffic jam that never came. Felt kinda lost earlier on, since I didn't even recognize half of the people there. Guess there are really a lot of fresh new faces in the market and being their first time, they were really dressed to kill.
The dinner theme was 'Bling, Glamour Bling'. Emceed by Nell Ng and guest appearance by Phua Chu Kang (again) and music performances by Azman Warren. The dinner was held at KL Hilton. After two straight years going as Clark Kent/Superman I decided to go for something different this year. People will get bored of the red and blue and I didn't want to be typecast. This wear I drew inspiration from one of the NBA's best dressed, Dwyane Wade. Something clean and simple. Managed to find my bling, a necklace chain thing with what Arnold Schwarzenegger calls 'just a leaf'. My additional prop was subject to a lot of people's toying. Since it spins, everyone wants to play with it. And for my efforts I (somehow?) won 3rd place for Best Dressed.
The food kind of sucked and they dragged the dinner too long to accommodate some fashion show by the sponsor who just want to promoted their bling. Everyone was really waiting for the lucky draws but again I didn't win.
As the night went on, I bump into a lot of familiar faces. It was nice to see everyone again even though most were them were pissed drunk. Anyways I left early as I didn't want to get caught in traffic of what seems to be a very small car park (for a 5-star hotel) and probably there be a lot of drunk drivers.
An eventful night but the event could use some tweaking for next year.

The one with the farewell dinner, Izani's wedding, karaoke and bowling

Long title for this post as plenty of material this time around. Plenty to post, hopefully I'm still in the groove. As for the events, it all began on Thursday night till Saturday afternoon before my futsal Saturday session.
The farewell dinner was for Hazeriq and Melvin. Hazeriq suddenly resign on Wednesday and Melvin has completed his one month internship. As for Hazeriq's resignation, it came as a sudden surprise to everyone, but I guess he has his reasons. But for me, he rushed his decision. And he didn't consult or talk to anyone about wanting to leave the building. Anyways, all the best in your future plans.
My colleagues decided to hold a farewell for both Hazeriq and Melvin at Delicious One Utama, since both of them live within the One Utama radius. Attendees included my colleagues Marlini, Su Farn, Huzaila and Maz. We were later joined by Mr Yee and his wife Elsy. Food was good but the waitress was something else. Sweet girl and very good at her job. Working part time as she is still studying, her shifts are on Thursday and Friday. Sounds like an idea for buka puasa one Thursday or Friday.
As for Friday, double gig for me. First attend my colleague Izani's wedding at Merak Kayangan. After that, a karaoke session. One last show before the fasting month. But as I recall, we did buka puasa karaoke last year. The rockers include Shahreza, Farrish-Ida, Shah-Faizah and newbie Nadya (hopefully she was not traumatized by our performance). Well last night a lot of new songs performed including Linkin Park's What I've Done, Justin Timberlake's SexyBack and our new favourite which will be included in the "must-sing-during-karaoke-session-list" Mika's Grace Kelly. We all had fun singing, jumping and dancing to the tune. As well try to imitate his voice.
However, last nights session took an ugly twist. Lets just say there were issues and 4 of the 7 were missing most of the session. But those who remained, tried to make the best of it. Felt if we had the whole group, would have been more fun. But at least its good to know that things have worked out. For me, despite my efforts to keep the place rocking, its not the same without everyone. Hopefully our next vocal exercise session will turn out differently.
I entered a bowling tournament under my bank's sports club. Well my scores impress anyone, but I joined for fun. But bowling organized by PPKM is a whole lot fun, or maybe because I'm still relatively unknown to AM. As for my scores I hit 107-149-131. Didn't do any training prior to the tourney, so my first game was "finding-rthym-game". Began to pick up in second frame, but when it came to the third frame, the cross-lane team resorted to time wasting tactics by going MIA. Their delays really put me of my groove. And the door gift was a t-shirt. A Scouser-red t-shirt. Red really doesn't work for me.
Still made an appearance for futsal Saturday, even though I was half-an-hour late, but promised the guys I'll come as numbers were not promising. Still manage to produce one moment of inspirational genius-like magic. With the fasting month coming up, I guess my futsal sessions will take a break and be held as per need-to-play basis and subject to availability of players.
One last note, somehow I made an appearance in Off The Edge September issue. Check it out if you have time. Hehe.

The one with the Japanese buffet and karaoke

Well last Friday was one of those days I really need. Just hanging, chilling and joking around with my friends. Due to every ones suddenly busy schedule, we all don't really hang as much as we use too.
The newly weds ShahFaizah suggested a get-together dinner. I thought they wanted to show their wedding photos, but it still wasn't ready. So in the end we went for a Japanese buffet dinner at Shogun, One Utama. Farrish-Ida also join for dinner and I came after a short futsal Friday game. Short because they had more than enough players and my presence wouldn't be missed.
So five of us had a good dinner with a wide variety of Japanese food. But we were missing two other friends in Shah (performing at some gig) and Farah (other dinner plans). Still food awaits. I think I sampled most of the meats on display. Was in carnivorous mood similar to a raptor.
Since its been a while since we hanged together, everyone was wondering whats up with the new look. I told them I'm going for the messy scruffy look. Realize the clean cut good boy image was beginning to get boring and was losing its appeal anyway.
During the dinner, the subject of karaoke came about. Since it has been a while also we all decided to go for it. Ended up in Red Box Sogo and we were joined later by Farah and a friend of Ida's, Suraya. The staff at Red Box still recognize me and asked how come I haven't been around. Its been a month since we last rocked the joint. Anyways my performance that night was pretty much of a letdown. Wasn't really energetic as I used too. Still manage to perform at a standard level, but guess it was either the heavy dinner or my mind was partially elsewhere. But figured it was both. Still managed to have great fun and that's what is important.
Well the weekend went by so fast and another rough week awaits.

The one with the day after my birthday

Been some time since my last post. Nothing really much to say as of late. Anyways, it was my birthday last Friday. Nothing really happen though on Friday, except a slice of cake from my office colleague.
The action played out on Saturday. After futsal, we had dinner at Johnny's at One Utama. Pre-event before the main event, Transformers. Dinner was with Farrish, Farah, Faizah and the two Shahs. Got a t-shirt as a birthday gift. The t-shirt read "Am 'not' Bank, therefore AmBroke". Cool t-shirt, maybe I should wear it under my shirt at work.
Then movie time. We were later joined by Hafizah and Mark for some transforming action. Overall movie was watchable, but being a Micheal Bay movie, he did drag it. Some scenes were not really necessary and sadly there wasn't much character development on the Decepticons. The movie focused a wee bit too much on the humans. Didn't really see all the robots in their glory, especially Megatron who only transformed into whatever he was suppose to be only once.
Also received a birthday gift from Hafizah. Got Kinokuniya vouchers, guess I should be heading off to buy books soon.
Well post-movie, thought we were going for drinks. Apparently they had surprise for me, karaoke. Yeah baby, another vocal-exercise session cum rock concert. Only Farah and Mark were unable to join us. Had great fun (then again, karaoke with the gang has always been a blast). Just wish they had more up-to-date songs, or at least some My Chemical Romance.
After karaoke, last event was some 'nasi-lemak' action somewhere near Kampung Baru. After that we all finally made our way home.
As I was driving, I was hoping my car would transform.

The one with the Melaka trip

Just got back from Melaka. Went with Farrish-Ida and Shah-Faizah. Planned as a bachelor gig for Shah ended up as a get together. Ended up as tour de Melaka and seafood dinner and a Starbucking experience in Melaka.

We all went in one car, Farrish's mums car. For me, it felt good being co-pilot even though I offered to help out with the driving duties. Along the way Faizah pulled out a sudoku puzzle dated 26 January 2007 which she still has yet to solve. I offered to help finish it. Completing a sudoku puzzle in the co-pilot seat isn't as easy as I thought. But I manage to focus and finish the puzzle in half an hour. Arrived in Melaka town and went around to see the sites. Just walked around looking for photo opportunities and such. The Farrish had to make a pit stop to meet his brother and pass some items. After that we began the trip for dinner. I was very hungry already as I didn't have lunch, then again everyone in the car was already hungry by the the we headed for food. Dinner was at Medan Ikan Bakar, Muara Sungai Duyung. I'm not much of a seafood expert, so I left it to Shah to order. We had a variety of food as you can see in the pictures below. The meal overall was an experience itself. The food was damn good. Been some time since I last enjoyed seafood. I myself can't really take seafood, but as long as I lay off the prawns I should be fine.

The Ikan Bakar place

The appetizers

The main dish

The after shot

After the meal, we were all stuffed and I think I could be used for a human sacrifice. As we got into the car we decided to wrap it up with some coffee at Starbucks in Mahkota Parade. Had the usual Caramel Macchiato. Coffee was needed to keep everyone awake in the car for the ride home. One thing we all did when we were in the car was sing. Sing to whatever was playing on the radio. Just to keep everyone lively and active. But once we hit the highway Ida, Faizah and Shah fell asleep. So I had to keep Farrish company as he broke every land speed record there is. Didn't even realize we were going that fast, must be the V-TEC. Guess we all had a long day and the next thing we need is sleep. Which seems right about now for me.