vin-ification

oh so much for my promise to continue blogging.

well, i was pretty sick through the new year, gastric flu, gay stuff. and the days just flowed by oh so fast. and now its time for Lunar New Year!

managed to sneak in some time to share about my two canine invaders and how i managed to dig out some memorable 'relics' of the past. pictures speaks a thousand words, so those will come later.

gonna go meet kok ping to get my mop tidied.

so dinner with my parents over the midweek revealed the fact that i had been wondering for awhile now.

except its pretty much worse, i suppose. my cousin getting a divorce, from his wife whom i've known since i was like early 10s. i guess the warning signs of a strained relationship has been there the last few times i saw them, which isn't all the often, considering that my relationship with my own family can probably be understated by the word 'strained'.

i've always thought they were a cute couple you know, even back in the days where guys would shy away from girls, regarding them as 'untouchables' (hah, and look at what we're doing right now).

much as a typical MCP my cousin was (guess it runs in the family), his soon-to-be ex-wife was always accommadating and taking things in her stride, pretty much the traditional relationship of man being the outspoken one and the wife being the meek one. rather impossible sight in recent years, i know.

things really change fast huh. the last i heard they having disputes over the value of their house. so from a loving couple to a bitter rivalry; i wonder if this is ultimately the way things have to end.

after all, getting together and even getting married, there has to be feelings in between right? even if cohabitting becomes unbearable, is the feelings that both once shared really gone?

personally i'd like to think even if two can't be together, the feelings one has for another are permenant and unique to one other. you don't 'loved a person'. but events are this seem to put me in my place huh, just another delusion of an ideal world.

as much i desperately try to maintain a weekly update for this blog, it would seems my life has other ideas.

all in all, its been a pretty good week or two. i suppose. minus the backstabbing i recieved up, down, left, right and up my nostrils and a series of minor/major illnesses.

of course, i wouldn't want to bore with details of how i managed to loan two PSPs, and how desperately i'm playing through them like a kid who had never had transformers toys. most kids do right?

of note would be a particular visit to a cigar bar! some first in a lifetime visit. and its actually a private, invite-only club so i guess the particular name of the bar can rest with me. let's just say they serve some pretty rare whiskies that you'll never. ever. find in a DFS store. sure, they've got macallans and all, but mostly in the 30, 50 vintage sorta. and they cause a bomb. quite literally too.

managed to sample three different whiskies. note the term sampled. this is mainly to cover up for my obvious abuse of the law by driving home after drinks. anywayyyyy...

Highland Park - forgot the cask and vintage. loads of fresh, ripe apples. not particularly the most balanced, but probably a crowd favourite, considering its direct fruity style.
Belvenine 25 years, Islay Cask. - my particular favourite, considerably well balanced and refined, with hints of fruits that doesn't show as much ripeness as the Highland Park.
White Bowmore 1990 - the creme de la creme, 5 figure whisky. dark orangy brown with loads and loads of fruits on the mid palatte. not for the faint hearted. or liver-ed.

of course, being at a cigar bar means i managed to sneak off a couple of puffs. just for kick's sake you know. in case anyone's wondering, i'm still pretty much the smoke-free ambassador.

the one i tried in particular was a free sample from the boss, which we subsequently discovered it costed a whooping three hundred a pop. and for a stick of tobacco that burns out in an hour or so i'd wager that belongs in the extremely expensive range.

La Corona Invincible 1964. toasty, cedar aromas. i have no idea how to describe this stuff, btw.


and just over the weekend was the British Club 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner!

some formal wear event, shirt and tie. and being the 25th anniversary, no prizes for those who managed to guess the vintage of the wines we're having!

i'd share the menu once i've figured out how to get a picture up here, but till then... back to my PSP(s)!

05/12/08 edit:




tada!

well if you ask me, the food is pretty top rate stuff and for the wines you're getting the price is simply a steal. i could go on and on about each dish, but that'd be pretty boring wouldn't it?

for the unenlightened, shortbread is not made of flour. or anything close. its some animal gland, go wiki it up, should prove some food for thought, with all puns intended.

due to the recent economic crisis, your's truly have been pretty bored at work, and since i've actually surfed through much of wikipedia's write up on fishes, wars, fighter jets and mystical beasts, i've actually started reading some greek poetry, namely Homer's Illiad, Homer's Odyssesy and Dante's Divne Comedy.

for the unenlightened, no, Homer is not referring the Simpson's Homer.

he's supposed to be the pioneer greek poet. If i'm not wrong, his Illiad, which is generally about the Trojan War, is translated by Alexander Pope, whom i believe many will find rather familar. for those who can't recall, 'you seek the orb upon the grave presided by A. Pope' should help bring back some memories.

Rather intriguing stuff to read, apart from the usual suspense and science fiction stuff.

pizza over the week with the chopstick sisters! haha, some heartwrenching stuff.

and the chance to sample the Beausejour Duffau 1990! some 100 pointer wine.

Aromas as fresh as a young wine, spicy notes with hints of licrorice. On the palette i'd suppose its already shedded quite a bit of its fruit, but nonetheless a firm, youthful tannin structure. Mid palette of dark chocolates. The finish is refined and smooth, lasting quite a fair while as well.

Definitely a good wine, but frankly I have my doubts about the thousand dollar price tag.

there comes a point in life when you learn that somethings cannot be replaced once lost/broken.

that there are somethings that must be earned, not by what you do but what you are.

unfortunately, somethings in life never goes the way it should.

the kind of situation where you've once failed and yet it rests before you once again. do you ignore it to avoid the pain that once was, or do you forsake all logic and embrace hope once again, even knowing that the chances of success is pretty much close to zero.

the temptations of a scenario all too familiar, all too similar that it feels like it'll just end up the same way.

so we had dinner at flutes at the fort, celebrating someone's birthday.

ambiance wise, i guess if you're a fan of old architecture it should cut it for you, though the half alfresco and aircon blowing into empty space just sorta seems weird to me.

never got about to look at their winelist, the one they had online turned out to be their christmas menu o.0 so it was corkage and a bottle of Leoville Las Cases 1994, which i guess wasn't quite living up to expectations. Nonetheless, quite the full bodied charmer, abiet with a green finish.

food-wise... they have just about the biggest serving of soup and the smallest serving of starters. I guess its some kinda Australian-French inspired cuisine, but then again, with all those 'fusion' cuisine going around, its getting pretty hard to put a finger on it. The onion soup was ok-ay while the 2 starters of Alsaken Crab and King Prawn were passable, abiet on the overwelldone side.

my main of beef tenderloin was totally overcooked, even when i ordered a medium rare. the kind of overcook that you get when you either a)didn't thaw the beef or b)have the fire way too hot.

wine service could use a lil' work, but i guess the overall service was pretty satisfactory.

not particularly expensive, though the quality of food is definitely not what you'd expect of such a setting. guess it's worth a try if its an event where the symbology kinda overshadows the sampling of food. i.e the kinda anniversary dinner where you stare at each other and just stuff whatever's on the plate in while whispering sweet nothings.

but overall i guess it was fun, the presence of good friends and relatively good wine helps cover up the disappointment of food.

what followed is probably what you call a tale for another time, but it sorta culminated in me having a 3hour nap before going to school for endless waves of balance sheets, profit ratio and profit/loss calculations. or in layman terms, a pain in the arse.

just as i was watching television over dinner earlier, i happened to chance upon this channel 8 flick about 2 cops (tay ping hui & dawn yeoh).

there was this particular scene, where some misc. cop mentions that romance is all about timing, to which mr. tay replies that there's alot of things to consider, lest he regrets it in future; which i thought was pretty interesting.

all the talk about romance as love at first sight is pretty much bull to me, pardon me for being unfeeling, and lack of decision merely leads to having to go through all that nonsense of having to find a reason to break up or something like that.

which brings me to the next insight, what is called imprinting. which essentially is something i chanced upon on wikipedia, being pretty bored at work. i've also browsed some historical sites, shakesperse and etc, but that's a tale for another time.


Quote: Wikipedia, Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior

which essentially means that we look for partners that share the characteristics of people that we've been exposed to since young, generally referring to parents. though the theory that to land a girl means having to act like her father has yet to be proven.

which leads me to wonder, how often is it that being with a partner, you lament from time to time that she does not bear certain characteristics? that you wish she had certain eyes, certain mannerisms or that she'd have a specific reaction? and when you actually sit down to think about it, you realise that this are the characteristics of someone you've previously 'adored'? and you start berating yourself for using someone else as her replacement, giving rise to thoughts that perhaps you don't really have feelings for the present?

are you being fair to the present? or is this just a normal learning process?

or does it simply mean, that deep down you're still hankering for something that you have obviously failed to obtain. something that is fated not to be your's? something that you bear hope over, yet know for a fact that it can't be true?

so after a gap of a year or so i've decided to resume blogging duties for a reason unknown to me. maybe i'm getting a little sentiment over the days?

as for the reason for the jump from blogspot to livejournal, its because a certain friend's page constantly requires me to log in to view, so i thought if my own page was on livejournal, it'd probably make my life alot easier when i want to read some updates.

as for the curious identify of my influential friend, go make a guess.

as an update on my life, i guess i am

1. still alive
2. not much richer
3. still in the same ol' company, Wine Culture
4. embarking on a part time degree course at Kaplan, majoring in Marketing & Tourism Management
5. driving a pretty torn up van, courtesy of my company.
6. still single, as if thats any surprise

though i guess my life's been pretty good to me all this while; traveling, making friends, keeping friends (which is surprisingly increasingly difficult to do, even with all the advanced telecommunications), experiencing new stuff, tasting good food and of course tasting good wine.

so much for a length introduction, i'm pretty wasted for reason, make a guess, unknown to me and i'm having trouble focusing on work and driving. so chances are i'm gonna get sacked or killed some day along the lines. and considering that i actually like my life as it is now, i think i'll go catch some winks now.

right after i figure out how to get the url for this livejournal, that is.

edit: corrected most of the spelling mistakes. can't expect someone to be conducting spell checks in the middle of the night, can you?