A Look Back At Resolutions 2008

Before I post my 2009 new year's resolutions in a couple of days, here's a look back at the performance of what I resolved to do at the beginning of 2008.

You can look back at my early Jan post here for a quick recap.

1) Drink less alcohol
This, for starters, has vastly improved. From three times a week at the peak, to the current once a week. So its not yet at the twice a month level and I'm beginning to like drinking beers on my own (yes, I am turning into a kopitiam uncle) in the comforts of my home, BUT it is significantly better than at the beginning of 2008.

2) Exercise more
This was achieved with relative ease since I almost definitely put in an hour's worth of futsal once a weekday for the corporate league, and another few hours on Saturdays playing soccer with the basketball gang (yes, we have evolved). If you're remotely interested to come support me on the weekdays at East Coast, the schedule of our games is here. Maybe also factor in stress from work, but I've managed to trim myself back down to a "thin" 73kg as of this morning's weigh-in.

3) Eat healthier
I'm not sure how to quantify this, but I don't think I succeeded in eating any healthier. I'm still the Mcdonald's kid i've always been. Maybe less potato chips at home might help. One things for certain though: I'm definitely laying off Coke a whole lot more than before.

4) Earn more money #1
Given the current economic climate and my promotion at work (which did not increase earnings :( ), I can safely say that I probably will earn 30% less than 2007 instead. Boooooo...

5) Earn more money #2
Feng Shui for 2009 seems to be as bad as 2008. But that's not gonna stop me from investing. Stock trades went to an almost virtual standstill since July when the crunch started hitting hard. I'm glad I cut my losses really early and considering 20/20 hindsight, alot of things could've been much worse. FX trading improved quite tremendously, so that may be my focus for 2009. Long term fundamental trading will probably be the way to go. Along with keeping as much cash as possible. Savings have improved a little in spite of the tremendous costs of our wedding, so thats a good thing. Aim to hold 75% cash if economic crunch continues in 2009.

All in all, its been a pretty good year from a personal perspective. Job's still intact. Got promoted. Got married (proper). Lets hope that 2009 will be even better!

This Was Supposed To Be A Happy Post

But I just received news of the passing of a friend. He wasn't the closest of pals and we hardly met up even, but when we did he'd always have the best stories. Over beers we'd talk about the intrigue of Mongolian chicks in Beijing and everything else that shook the world. I was even supposed to plan a trip to go visit him sometime soon. Haiz. A huge loss to us. Rest in peace, buddy. Stay young always.

Had a quiet Christmas. Spent Christmas eve watching movies on 5 with the wifey at home over some maggie mee. Christmas day was at Jinde's wedding rehersal and then we hosted a tiny Christmas party for the wifey's ex-colleagues. Got a really nice Man U t-shirt in the gift exchange. I like! Boxing day was a blah day at work followed by a gathering at Bock Lian's place with the uni mates. Nice catching up, albeit the boys spending most of the time watching Man U edge out Stoke City by a Tevez goal.

Saturday was Jinde's wedding. I was his best man and tried to live up to that. Gate crashing was possibly the easiest and least painful ever. No chilli, no wasabe, no sweat. Fun nonetheless. Church ceremony was pleasant and then the dinner went by without incident. My best man speech was quite well received although I suppose if I had mumbled even less, the laughter would've been louder.

Oh well, I can't really say much out of my head right now. Still absorbing the news that came just a while ago.

Life is short and unpredictable. Love, enjoy and treasure it while you can.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just back from Macau and Hong Kong last weekend. Lost my pants gambling on almost everything that could have been gambled on. Was really fun though! Hopefully there're photos to come.

I even took a photo with the other Tony Leung! The wifey spotted him at the Agnes B store in IFC, HK! Pity he reeked of alcohol, though he spoke pretty eloquently.



Hectic days leading up to the new year!

Spending Christmas with the wifey's friends. Boxing day with our university gang. And then its Jinde's wedding! Really packed. Thankfully I'll be on leave next week.

I think I've fallen in love with Hong Kong!

Oh and I've been banned from visiting to Macau for at least the next 5 years :)

Annual Saxo Golf @ Laguna Bintan

Today was our annual Saxo golf game held at Laguna Bintan.

Think in total there were 13 of us. A couple of them pulled out because they were too cui from someone's stag party last night I think. I woke up at 6am to catch the 7.45am ferry, after partying hard last night somemore :P

Anyway we were pretty lucky to manage to convince Kaz to arrange for Youlong, Eugene, Benjamin and myself on the same flight (citing that we had a wager going). In the end we decided to challenge over a regular bottle in Dragonfly. It was gonna be Eugene versus the three of us combined, best-ball fashion. This meant that we'd take the best score for every hole and tally it against his, with no handicaps.


As anyone can easily make out, we got wiped-out by Eugene because he hit his first ever sub-100 score today. Xianz. Of all golfing days he chose today to be at his best. Even with our best scores combined, we still lost by 13 strokers. Haha. Then I also lost to Youlong by a single stroke. Cui. Then again it was a pretty good game for me (by my standards) also lah, so I shan't complain so much.

I'm burnt like a lobster!

Super Sized Hungry

Skipped dinner earlier before I went for soccer so I'm one ultra hungry hippo tucking into my mushroom swiss meal right now.

Xianz...lost to JP Morgan 1-5. Thanks John and Jannick for coming to help beef up our squad today. I thought we played pretty well against a top-of-the-table team, though we let in a couple of silly goals. Haiz.

Went to buy new Wii games last weekend and I've been hooked on this game called Tank, together with the wifey! Damn fun!

Manchester United's through to the quarter-finals of UCL.

December is a blah month for work. Everyone's going on leave all over the place. I'm clearing leave here and there too.

Saturday going to Bintan for Saxo golf once again!

Going to Macau next week! Whoot! Super looking forward.

Kissing Me Gentingly

Genting was awesome fun with da boyz(Brandon, Youlong and Ben)!!

Spent most of it gambling though. Haha. We tried almost everything. Every table and every game, we sat and tried at least once, trying to maximize the points earned with the Genting WorldCard.

In the end got saved by a HUGE(by my standards) bet during a drunken stupor at 4am. Was at the Pontoon table and had $150 of chips in hand. Suddenly felt the rush to go all-or-nothing. So I piggybacked what looked like a seasoned veteran and threw the whole pile of chips in. But he drew a grand total of 10 with both cards, so we had to double-up! I had to scurry to find another $150from my wallet just to let the game continue. And the 3rd card was a 4! Cui! I thought we blew it, only for the banker to go bust! Whoot!! The whole table shouted "Ah Pek!!" in unison, and cheered a collective hoorah when it WAS a picture! Walked away from the table with $600 afterthat. Shiok.

Ended up with only 4hrs of sleep and a 9hr ride back to Singapore all because we wasted 1 good hour at one of those touristy buy-local-food scamshops, and spent another 2 hours stuck in the 2nd link jam. Haiz.
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Its our first year anniversary for me and the wifey!!! Whoot! Love you dear!

Sis is in Dubai for the whole month!

Farewell drinks with Kevin Ashby tomorrow(sad to seeya go, boss)!

Time to tidy up the house abit!