Great night!

# posted by Shopaholic : 12:17 AM

I have a small crush. On a guy totally not my type. When I first met him, I didn't even give a second glance. However, as we spend more time together, I find him extremely adorable, gentlemanly and humourous. Not the physically hunky type which I would drool over immediately, but he has such a cute smile.

Not that anything will come out of it. He's not Singaporean, he's leaving on Friday, and to top it off, he has a girlfriend back home. But it's just a nice feeling to know that I can still be attracted to another guy other than Someone. To feel the heady rush flirting with a guy I like.

P.S As I was typing this entry, he just called and asked me out for dinner.

# posted by Shopaholic : 2:35 PM

Friday night. I was at Indochine (or Pho Chine?) Wisma with 2nd Boss, and 2 foreign colleagues around my age from Malaysia and Hong Kong.

We had sesame chicken wings as starters, Vietnamese main courses, ice-cream for dessert and rounded it off with drinks. Basically, we hang around the open air sidewalk restaurant for about 5 hours and enjoyed the performances by the live band. 2nd Boss entertained us with his experiences overseas and the other senior staff in the region.

The table beside us sat 2 women and a man. One woman in particular is extremely loud and attention grabbing. When they paid the bill, she grabbed it from the man and refused to let him settle.

Afterwards, when we were ready to end the night and asked for the bill from Waitress A, she disappeared for 15 min. Waitress B came along and asked whether we wanted to settle the bill (since we have long finished our drinks). "Yes please, we have actually asked for the bill 15 min ago."

Wait......wait......wait. Tap, tap, tap. Both Waitress A and B walked past us and ignored our attempts to catch their eyes.

10 more min later, we caught Waitress B's attention (more like she could not pretend not to notice our blatant attempts to get her to stop). "Sorry, please hang on for your bill."

5 more min......Waitress A came over with a S$400+ bill and asked whether this was what we had. 2nd Boss perused it and said no. It was full of martinis etc! Definitely not ours. Anyway, our bill couldn't be more than S$150.

Wait....wait....wait. All ignoring us. They went over to the table beside ours. The man had left and the 2 women were still lingering over their drinks. Waitress A showed them the bill they settled just now and said that they made a mistake, and could the ladies settle the balance? I heard the women making a fuss and then Waitress A went back to the cashier, presumably to consult her manager.

The 2 women scooted off from the other end of the restaurant, fast. Smart.

When Waitress A walked behind me, I stopped her and ask, "Excuse me, we have asked for the bill about 45 min ago. What's the problem?"

"Sorry miss, there was a mixed up with your bill. Someone else seems to have settled it. Could you hold on for a while?"

By then, I was super pissed off with the service. "A while?! We have hanged on for 45 min! If there was a problem, you should have come over and explained to us rather than making us wait like this."

"Sorry miss, could you please hang on?"

"NO!"

She only glanced back and walked off.

Finally, Waitress A came back with the correct bill. I asked her,"You made us wait 45 min without an explanation. Now it's past midnight and we have to incur midnight charges back. Aren't you even going to offer a discount as compensation?"

"Sorry, we can't do that."

"What kind of service is this? Where's your manager?"

"The manager is walking around."

Walking around???????? He has nothing better to do but walk around?

"This is extremely bad service on your part."

"Sorry, we are all new here."

"How is that any of our business? Someone should have at least come over to explain the situation to us."

She just shrugged and looked helpless. We paid up angrily. When we left, she still had the audacity to say, "Thank you, please come again."

I didn't even bother replying. With this kind of f****** up service, they still expect people to come again? In other restaurants, if we so much as mention that the beef taste a bit weird, the manager would come over and see whether there's anything he can do about it, offer to change the beef or to waive the charges. Here? Preeeeash.

# posted by Shopaholic : 2:02 PM

We have 6 foreign counterparts working in our office this 2 weeks and for the first time in this company, I relish the experience of working around so many people. Normally, it's only the 4 of us (now 5) enclosed in our private department.

With so many foreign colleagues around, Boss is treating us to a lot of good lunches and dinners. Just this 2 weeks alone, we had meals at Jumbo Seafood Restaurant(love the chili crab), Teochew Garden Restaurant, Lao Hokkian Restaurant, Si Chuan Dou Fu Restaurant (THE best. Located at 60th Floor UOB Plaza. Paranoiac view and ultra yummy food) and tonight, Lemongrass Thai.

The food is great, but I've put back whatever weight which took me so long to shed. Plus, with the late hours I'm working, I have no time to go to gym or slimming wraps. DAMN, I feel fat and bloated.

# posted by Shopaholic : 11:36 PM

Workaholic and Mydaemon would cheer! Our new Prime Minister Lee has just announced a 5-day work week for the Civil Service in his National Day Rally speech.

Some of the other changes which is very petinent to us commoners:
1) 12 weeks maternity leave, extra costs absorbed by govt.
2) Infant care subsidy, which will be higher than childcare subsidy
3) Decreased maid levy for families with children <12 years
4) Childcare leave for parents with children <7 years - 2 days a year.
5) Tax incentive for first 4 children

I hope I got all the details right. But notice something? All the above are targeted to facilitate a better environment for couples to have children. They are reeeally concerned about the decreasing birthrate. I would cheer, except that I'm not a 'couple' yet.

Before PM Lee announced the 5-day Civil Service work week, he mentioned that he had resisted and rejected many such proposals for years. Then, he acknowledged that it's now necessary. It signifies to me that he is a PM willing to accept past mistakes and to make changes. Cheers!

# posted by Shopaholic : 11:00 PM

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! Li Jiawei lost to Kim Kyung Ah, another screeching** Korean, 1-3 games.

Kim No.2 is essentially a defensive player which makes for boring table tennis for the audience. However, her persistence wears the inscrutable Li out and the frustration makes its way to Li's face and game.

Li delivered a few brilliant and well maneuvered shots, but it was a pity she couldn't keep her cool.

There goes Singapore's hope and her S$250K.....

Still a fabulous player and still pretty. I hope some endorsements come her way.

**A lot less annoying than Kim No.1, but still annoying nevertheless. Did Kim No.1 find that working for her and pass on her secret or do they teach that as part of the training back home?

For the record, I love Korean dramas, latest being Summer Scent.

# posted by Shopaholic : 6:59 PM

New layout again. I made the pink striped background some time ago but couldn't decide how to use it. And that's another of my vectored picture in the header.

Everytime I make a new header, I find that the old one's not as nice as I thought.

# posted by Shopaholic : 2:34 PM

I managed to catch the final game between Singapore's Li Jiawei and N.Korea's Kim Hyang Mi for the Olympic's table-tennis semi-final. Singapore's shot at an Olympic medal after 44 years and Li's shot at either S$1mil (gold) or S$500K (silver).

It was a close game all the way till 9-9 until Li lost the last 2 points.

You can almost see the tension flying off both their heads. But why does Kim keep screaming after each point? Super annoying. And her expression? It's as though she wants to stare Li down.

Something struck me while the camera pans in on their faces. Li might have lost the match, but she wins in terms of looks hands down. What perrrrfect skin she has!

Anyway, although she lost the match, it's still all right because she tried her best.

BRONZE BRONZE BRONZE tomorrow! All the way!

# posted by Shopaholic : 6:30 PM

Blogger is offering the toolbar in 4 colour options: blue, tan, silver and black. Why no pink?!? Black is quite cool, but it clashes with my theme.

# posted by Shopaholic : 10:39 PM

I have been a terrible blogger lately. If this goes on, I might as well simply close down the blog. Time has been such a precious commodity lately, I use it mainly for essentials such as sleep.

The work is also thwarting my diet because I turn to food when stressed. There's only one thing I can deprive myself of each time, so since rest is deprived, it's hard to curb my cravings. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

# posted by Shopaholic : 10:20 PM

Check out this movie clip of some of the Malaysian Idol auditions, courtesy of Sleepaholic. Absolutely hilarious! And that guy in the yellow shorts? Wahahahaha.

# posted by Shopaholic : 9:38 PM

After 2 episodes, I'm a little disappointed with Singapore Idol. Somehow, it feels as if it's trying too hard to model itself after American Idol. Very contrived. Even the sarcastic remarks by Dick Lee seems to have been heard from Simon's mouth before. And the contestants just aren't as colourful, some of whom are obviously there not for the competition but to get a TV appearance. I'm hoping it will pick up later.

# posted by Shopaholic : 11:18 PM

New shoes! (Yes, AGAIN! How do you think I got the nickname?) It's beige and white from Substance. I love the idea of hairclips on the shoes. So unique. They can even be removed if you prefer, which of course I won't since it defeats the design.

I'm normally very hard to please when it comes to shoes.....more of a clothes person. So whenever any catches my eye, I can't resist the urge to get them. Just so it happens rather a lot of them have been catching my eyes lately.

# posted by Shopaholic : 11:14 PM

I was out last night with Workaholic, Alcoholic, Nic-aholic & her darling Immortal, and MShi (Alcoholic's Japanese hairstylist. Yeah, he makes friends everywhere.). After dinner at Sushi Tei, Far East Square, we went to En Bar at Mohammed Sultan.

Nice place to chill. Jazz music inside and big screen showing football outside. Being the posers (cool ones of course) we are, we lounged inside enjoying our Daiquris, Champagnes and Choyo (? some Japanese sour-plum tasting alcohol).

A middle-aged fat-bellied sugar-daddy came in with his young, fair protege. Very pretty and sweet looking, extremely well-polished. Nic-aholic spied her french-manicured nails. They ordered plate after plate of sashimi, prawns etc.

I asked Workaholic, "Give you, you want? Assuming he's super rich."

Workaholic, "No lah, not with that gigantic belly. Maybe if a bit better looking, like Richard Gere, then ok."

I nod. "But of course, Richard Gere will probably go for beautiful supermodels lah."

Later, Immortal's friend's fiancee (winner of some FHM beauty contest) walked in with (gasp!) another man! If Immortal hadn't mention it, I would have thought they were a couple from their intimate behaviour. He called another friend to inform the friend (with the fiancee) but too bad the friend he called is away.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, pretty much everybody is cheating on everybody. Well, she might be cheating or maybe they are purely platonic friends (as if!) but it looks pretty much like cheating to me.

That's that. None of my business, I'm just kaypoh.

We rounded off the night with supper at River Valley Road. Roti Prata and Teh Tarik! Any wonder it's so hard to lose weight?

# posted by Shopaholic : 1:56 PM

It's National Day, Singapore's 39th birthday! No matter how boring or rigid some people claim it is, I love my country. It's safe, clean and efficient. I don't have to worry about getting mugged walking on the pavement or even walking home at 3am at night. Enough said, Xiaxue described it best.

Oh, and Singapore Idol's debuting tonight after the National Day Parade!

# posted by Shopaholic : 12:27 PM

Men who joke about my butt thinking I'm out of hearing distance? ASSHOLES.

# posted by Shopaholic : 10:18 AM

And finally, we have Alcoholic and Sexaholic.....

# posted by Shopaholic : 8:29 PM

Added Nic-aholic and her darling too........

# posted by Shopaholic : 6:38 PM

I just added Sleepholic and Workaholic to the header. Will add the rest of them when I'm done. Hopefully, this version has more resemblance to your pretty selves.

# posted by Shopaholic : 3:22 PM

Tired, so short post.

Work, work and more work.

New guy, X's, started work on Mon. Nice guy, doesn't seem to be sneaky/ cunning.

Su and I had an email fight yesterday, made up today.

Workaholic and Sleepaholic went for holiday in Bangkok today. Wish I was too.

Will elaborate over the weekend.

# posted by Shopaholic : 10:52 PM