So how come my blog postings have been reduced lately? Dating? Girlfriend? Too much partying? Wrong! It’s video games! Yeah I wish that my life was more interesting too. Hahah!

Anyways, “Ninja Blade” is the video game that I’ve been obsessed with for the past month or so, and I’ve been playing and replaying it on my days off and when I’m recovering from a hangover.

You are a super-ninja with big swords and … erm yeah, that sold me on the game.

And it looks like I’ll be similarly distracted in the upcoming months when the following games are released. First up is “Bayonetta” where you play a female witch with guns, magic powers and an awesome butt. Woohoo!

I’m quite excited about “Batman: Arkham Asylum”. The voice-actors from the original animated series will be voicing the game. This includes Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark “Skywalker” Hamill as The Joker. If you’ve watched the cartoons, you’d know that their voices fit the characters perfectly especially Mark Hamill’s. His voice-acting is a real revelation.

Plus the gameplay looks sweet!

And then there’s “Bioshock 2″ later in the year. Squeee!

With this much video-gaming and partying, my mom had asked, “How you gonna meet a girl this way?” I dunno myself but I shall blog about it when I do.

The next morning, we woke up groggy and still feeling the effects of the previous night and headed out to Richmond for lunch with the girls.

Richmond is, as you can see, a part of Melbourne that is very Vietnamese.

The girls were stuck in traffic so we hung out at a local cafe, drinking coffee, reading the paper and killing time with our phones. Such great time-killers they are!

And before we met up with the girls, we had a Vietnamese pork roll to stave off the hunger.

It was really yummy.

Lunch was mostly forgettable – out of all the restaurants on the road, we chose one which doesn’t do pho and their other noodle dishes were crap!

So anyways, after lunch we headed to Bridge Road to do some shopping.

The place reminded me a bit of Subiaco with its eclectic mixture of shops selling clothes, homewares and furnishings. But it wasn’t as lively as I thought it be, this being a Saturday. Recession, perhaps? Some of the shops were so devoid of customers that I saw shop staff lazing about on the couches inside.

I hunted around for a dress shirt, a jumper and a jacket and got them. The guys were done shopping fairly quickly but the girls hung around a bit longer. As the day was getting dark, and the Melbourne wind chill unrelenting, the guys decided to head home to rest up before another night of being out on the town.

Dinner time came and we took the tram into the city. It was a weird feeling waiting in the middle of the road while cars in both directions drive past us.

We all met up at Ants Bistro in Chinatown for Szechuan food. It was awesome but I was too busy eating so there aren’t any photos of the place or food. I can highly recommend it if you visit Melbourne. Be sure to book though, it was quite packed when we were there.

After dinner, we headed off to the Docklands for Watermark. It was gonna be “Lavish” – their Asian clubbing night playing house and RnB.

There were so many Asians in the place that at some point in the night, I updated my Facebook status thus,

In an Asian club in Melbourne. Wow, so many Asians.

Although the eye-candy was good, the music was not to our liking so we went upstairs where they had bottle service. A bottle of Chivas Regal with free-flowing mixers and ice for $180. Bargain!

And so we overdid it again slightly the second night in a row! Erm yeah well, I guess it’s not that surprising. But we sure had a lot of fun.

The next morning, our last day in the city, we decided to head out to the CBD and wander around. This building caught my eye – it’s part of the RMIT campus. Funky, innit?

We wandered along Lonsdale and Elizabeth Streets, and crossed to Southbank and back. Our last stop of the day was Koko Black at The Royal Arcade.

And here’s the end of the photographic proof of our little weekender to Melbourne. Our flight that night was gonna be at 10:00pm but we decided to head back to Simon’s sister’s place around 5:00pm to, yup you guessed it – have another nap.

Simon’s sister made us dinner at around 7:30pm and then drove us to the airport at around 8:40pm. We caught up with the girls at the airport, reminisced about our 3 days in Melbourne, and when we got onto the plane, all of us fell fast asleep.

The trip was tiring but it was so much fun. Let’s do it again!

We arrived at Tullamarine Terminal 3 around 12:30am Friday 15th Melbourne time, and were all a little bleary-eyed even though it was only 10:30pm Thursday Perth time.

But we were on a high – it was gonna be a weekend of eating, drinking, shopping and partying. After having some supper at Crown Casino, we headed off home around 2:30am back to Simon’s sister’s place. She was kind enough to let Simon, Tham and I sleep in the lounge.

For some reason, I didn’t get to sleep till 6am (too much excitement perhaps) before having to wake up at around 11am to get ready to head out for lunch at 12:30.

Lunch was at Shark Fin Inn near Chinatown for dimsum.

It was really good and inexpensive ~$15 per head.

After lunch we headed to DFO Spencer for some shopping. When I saw these shoes in one of the shops, I immediately thought of Kitty – she’d love these shoes.

Shopping was done around 5pm and we headed home to nap a little while before heading back out again for a night on the town.

Our first stop was Spice Market – a super opulent bar where it was deemed that my bright Ben Sherman jacket with the UK flag on it was too colourful for the place. Damn it!

Ironically, earlier in the day we had worried about Tham not being able to get in because he didn’t bring dress shoes and he had purposely bought a pair at DFO Spencer for the occasion. Turned out, it was me who had to worry about getting in.

I hung around outside and around the block for a while, so that the others can at least get inside and have a look around the place with Patrick, Simon’s friend who was our host for the evening.

After, we headed to Match on Little Lonsdale Street.

The place had an outside balcony area with nice views of the city, although it was very cold on the night.

After having a couple of beers, we headed for dinner at a place called “Shabu Shabu” located in a hole in the wall of a parking lot. That’s Melbourne for ya.

Dinner was kaiten shabu-shabu, or Japanese hotpot with the dishes flowing through on a conveyor belt. We paid $23.50 each for a buffet that lasts about an hour and a half. But we got there late, so we had only one hour.

And more alcohol was consumed. It was gonna be a happy night.

Dinner was done at around 11pm and we headed off next to Murmur, another hole in the wall kinda place.

More drinking was done, wee.

Just before midnight, we all had itchy feet and a friend in the group suggested a hip-hop place called The Croft Institute which was located somewhere in Chinatown. So off we went on a little trek once more.

The place was located behind dark alleyways …

and smelly Chinese restaurant dumps.

Woohoo, more drinks!

And yes, we did get shit-brain – literally and figuratively.

The rest of the night was a blur. When we left around 3am, I was in a daze.

But I remember leaving with a big smile. ‘Twas a very good first night in Melbourne.

I had said that I am not the sentimental type. I am able to talk about past relationships but I don’t hold on to anything that would remind me of them. I have no photos, no clothing, and no knick-knacks of any form floating around in my room that would give you an idea that I’ve ever had a girlfriend.

But I don’t expect the same from a potential girlfriend. Of course she would have been with other men as well. If she’s had more boyfriends than I have had girlfriends, I don’t consider her of looser morals – I’d consider her more experienced. And she doesn’t have to hide her past from me. I wouldn’t want her talking about her exes all the time, but I won’t make her feel that she has to hide herself from me either.

That is why I don’t understand the men who mandates that the woman cannot have anything that reminds her of past boyfriends, even if she hides them away out of sight. Being jealous is bad enough, but being insecure and jealous about the men who had been in her life is insane. Or at least, you will go insane thinking about it.

I am not saying that the current boyfriend and the ex should get along perfectly, or that the boyfriend should allow the girlfriend to hang out with the ex alot like it’s not a problem (it is!). But to fret and worry about how she might feel for a guy in her past because she held on to a few gifts and photos is stupid and not healthy for the relationship. More energy and effort should be spent on the current and real relationship, right?

If I am going to be with a woman, I am going to accept her completely and that includes her past because it’s what made her into the person that she is now. It goes a lot into understanding her and that’s always a good thing.

If your man can’t accept your past, you have to ask yourself, “Why are you still with him?”

Looking ahead and looking back can co-exist
(keepitsurreal @ flickr)

I’m currently in Melbourne with Simon, Lydia, Tham and Andrea for a short weekend trip. Be back Sunday night with hopefully photos to show and stories to tell.

Yesterday, I went to McDonalds and had myself a McFeast of a meal. No, not the burger but items from their new (and hopefully permanent!) Value Picks menu.

In the photo, you can see these:

• Fish Filet Snack Wrap – like the burger but with two small pieces of fish patties and in a wrap with lettuce. $2.95
• Deluxe Cheeseburger – like the normal cheeseburger but instead of tomato, onion and pickle, it’s with mayo and lettuce. $1.95
• Apple Pie. $1
• Mini Frozen Coke. $1

All for a grand total of $6.90. The low prices are good but I love being able to have a range of flavours even better, like having dimsum or tapas.

I was rightly chuffed after that.

Update 14th May 2009: Yay! My cousin has come around to my point of view and is happy with the compromise. She also conceded that the day was a happy one, even if the eventuality wasn’t.

Tonight I got a message from a cousin, asking me to remove her wedding photos from my blog. As you might guess, the marriage had broken down and I assume that looking at the photos of happier days is difficult for her. At the same time, she probably also don’t want them available on the general Internet.

My first reaction was of annoyance. This is my blog, it is a record of my life and thoughts. I was there at the wedding and I had a blast with my family and relatives. She may not think of it positively now, but we were all truly happy for her. As such, asking me to remove the photos and the post was like asking me to forget that the day had existed. I’m not going to do that because I can’t.

The other thing that got me perplexed was that it’s not as if no one in our immediate family and social circles don’t know about her current situation, and about her having married once. Seeing her in a wedding dress in a photo from a few years back isn’t going to shock anyone. This is true even if she thinks that divorce is a bigger social stigma than it really is these days. No one is judging her and I don’t think anyone in our family is too. Disappointed and a little bit sad we maybe, but no one is judging because we haven’t walked in her shoes and not many of us know the full story.

Though in the end, after having a long thought about it I decided to compromise. I will still be seeing her and it’s best to keep things cordial and civil at least. I emailed her to let her know that I will remove any photos with her ex-husband in it but the ones with her and her family, and us the relatives I’m keeping up. And I’m not deleting the post because reading through what I wrote, I didn’t find anything that deserves to be deleted.

This post also serves as notice to everyone that I know. I blog. It’s what I do. It’s a big part of me. If you come into contact with me in any way, shape or form you might end up as words here.

I’ve already promise you that I won’t write or post anything compromising about you. In fact I believe I’ve toned down a lot – I’ve learnt my lesson. In my opinion, it’s made my blog a little less exciting and I have to think more about what people may think these days. It takes a lot of willpower to keep my fingers from the keyboard sometimes.

So in return, I hope you understand that it’s difficult and sometimes frustrating for me when you request that I remove something which I have already carefully thought out about. I will compromise a little, like I have done for my cousin but it doesn’t mean it’s something that I like to do.

I don’t expect you to have a thick skin like I do, but I hope that you respect me enough to understand my position.

p.s. to those of you who remain friends with me, knowing that I blog, I love youse all!