So did you all hear about the freak storm we had in Perth? See the pics in the links below.

Storm-hit city a natural disaster zone – The West Australian.

Insurance catastrophe declared after storm – The West Australian.

The weather forecast was for rain and thunderstorms in the evening – no big deal. But what hit us was something way more than that. It’s like someone unzipped a bag of water over Perth and then did it continuously over 3 hours. And then decided to throw some ice cubes into the mix. And just for kicks, decided to turn on the fan also so the ice and water will fly sideways. Fun times.

It was one hour before my knock off time when I heard the distinctive sounds of hail. The lightning shot across the skies outside my window and water was gushing down the sides of it. When it was time to leave for home, I was watching all of this from the lobby of my office building, contemplating should I make a run for it or not. In the end, I thought fuck it and ran. Woohoo!

The best way to describe it would be: it was like buckets of water being thrown at you because that’s how strong the water felt as it hit me. I couldn’t see more than 3 metres in front of me making things bloody dangerous. I remember being forced to stand by the side of the road with no shelter, and waiting to cross the road thinking, “Please please please, turn green!” As soon as I saw the green man flashing, I bolted across the road to the bus stop and saw other people who were wet and miserable like I was. By now, I was completely drenched.

I got onto the bus bound for the train station, standing all the time and dripping water. As the bus stopped near the train station, I bolted again. The rain has lessened by now but the wind was still going strong.

Esplanade station was very crowded by now. As I stood there squeezing the water from my clothes, shivering and air-drying myself and my iPhone (yay! it survived!), the crowd got larger and larger. I was there for about half an hour watching the signs trying to tell us when the next train might arrive but in the end, that got turned off. I think they gave up too. Hah.

After about another 10 minutes, I decided to go try my luck at the bus station. Looking back down at the crowd as I was leaving, this was what I saw.

When I got up to the top, I can see the security guards stopping people from getting down there because the platform was way over-crowded.

Things weren’t much better at the bus station – the power was out and only essential lights were turned on. They turned off the electronic signs here too.

The stair wells were dark like this and the escalators were not moving.

Down at the platforms, people were trying to cram into buses that came few and far in between.

I was trying to get onto this bus but check out how many people crammed into it. Can you see the people up against the front door?

I decided that this wasn’t much better and started walking back to the train station to just wait it out there. And yay, it looked like the people there crammed into the last train too because there weren’t many people on the platform and when the next train came in a few minutes it was mostly empty. Joy.

You can almost see the cars outside the train on the dark freeway, jammed almost all the way.

Anyways, by the time I took another bus from my local train station back to my neighbourhood it was about 7:30pm – two and a half hours after I had finished work. The whole area was pitch dark except for the lights of the cars on the road. The power was out.

The family thawed some bread from the freezer and had some cold canned food with it. The blackout was to last till 1pm today. I was hoping that the power would be out at my office this morning too but no such luck. Hahah!

So yeah, last night? It was the biggest storm to have hit Perth in 15 years and I think it was worse than the last one. But what an adventure getting home.

And see what a difference a day makes! This was taken today around 6pm. Luckily for us, the follow-up storm that was forecasted for today never happened.

Footnote: friends from Singapore who were staying in some apartments on Mounts Bay Road had to be evacuated with others to the Perth Exhibition Centre due to the big landslide. My friend’s mom even made it onto the local TV news saying the immortal words, “It was shocking!” Yeah it sure was.

Was talking to an old friend and ex-colleague of mine about his 6 year old daughter …

Me: She’s very pretty.
Him: *sigh* She’s only in pre-school and she thinks she has boyfriends already.
Me: Hahah! You think you’ve got problems now, wait till she goes through puberty.
Him: You have to say that, didn’t you? Can’t you let me eat my lunch in peace? Now I’m totally stressed out.
Me: Hahah. Sorry man.

Marcus is a fan of …

• Getting all jealous when your crush talks to someone of your gender … even when they are old like your grandpa.
• Scratching your butt when you pee.
• Walking the long way just so you can walk behind that hot chick just a little bit longer.
• Looking down at your food and chewing really slowly because you see someone that you don’t want to talk to walking towards you.
• Thinking your dog smells fine when everyone else doesn’t.
• Shazaming songs and if that doesn’t work, googling the lyrics.
• Putting on earphones when you have to do a #2 in a public toilet so that you don’t have to listen to the embarrassing noises and worry about how loud and echo-y the place is.
• That fake lemon smell in car fresheners.
• Silently mouthing the words to WTF. You just did it, didn’t you?
• Giving the finger to the computer. With both hands. And moving them up and down.
• Cracking your fingers three times because twice just isn’t satisfying enough.
• Making that stupid face when you’re trimming your nose hair.
• If it smells ok, you can still wear it.
• If it’s yellow, let it mellow. I’m helping save water, assholes!
• Staring at your own blog, thinking how great it is.

As I was mucking around on the computer the other day, my mother walked up behind me and said rather matter-of-factly, “hmm, there’s a hole here” whilst poking down on the top of my head. Noooooo!

“Didn’t you say that it wasn’t that big?!”

“I said it wasn’t that big but there’s a spot there. On the good side, your hair is very dark. I don’t see any grey at all. My hair started to grey when I was in my late 20s. You are taking after your father then. His hair is still very dark.”

“Yeah but he’s bald. When did he start balding?”

“Hmm, in his mid 30s?”

“…. I’m in my mid 30s, mom.”

“Well then …”

Heh. So I know my hairline is very high up, and it looks like it’s receding but it’s been like that for a while. Given a choice between a hairline that is creeping up and a bald spot developing on the top of my head, I’d rather have a receding hairline because then I can look like Agent Smith …

But that’s probably not gonna happen and I’m probably gonna lose hair in 2 directions. I hope I have a good looking skull.

Last night, I went to The Garden at Leederville with Tham and Robert and we all thought it was an awesome place. It’s right next to the pumping Leederville Hotel and it’s sorta an extension of it. There’s an area enclosed by glass walls that is the dining area, and then a bar with lots of high tables and stools surrounding it. There’s also a roof-top lounge and a couple of sunken vergola areas. It all looked very chic but it still felt very casual and comfortable.

The Leederville Hotel’s main dance area is situated right next to The Garden. You can peek into it and you can see the disco lights bounce off the walls. With the music spilling out from there, you get that nightclub vibe but it was not so loud that you can’t talk to each other. Though you can’t walk across to The Leederville directly – you still have to walk around the block to get to the queue, and at first I thought that kinda sucked but in hindsight, I think it helps gives that secluded feel.

There were a lot of pretty people walking to and fro the place which just makes us guys love it even more. It’s my new favourite night spot.

My grandma passed away at 12:30pm today. I am sad but relieved because her final years have not been the best – she had been bed-ridden and she suffered from pains and aches everywhere, and was coughing a lot. Now she’s free from her mortal coils and for that alone we are glad.

I will be flying off to Singapore tonight and then up to Penang a couple of hours later. The funeral should be in 2-3 days. After that, I might spend another day in Penang before flying down to Singapore to rejoin Tham and Kayo.

I’ll be returning to Perth on the 17th. I hope to have some stories and photos to share then. In the mean time, I leave you with Ferris Bueller’s classic words about living every day appreciating the people and the simple pleasures in your life.

(Youtube)

I had planned for my holiday since September. I was going to be spending one week in Singapore from January the 8th till the 16th with Tham and Kayo, and my parents will be here to look after Snoop. The tickets had been bought and the accommodation booked. Then everything changed on the 27th of December. News came that my grandmother who’s in her 90s was hospitalised and it doesn’t look good this time.

Dad flew off to Penang on the 30th and mom followed the next day. And that was why I had the house to myself to celebrate NYE with my friends. I had to then hope that the kennels that I’ve always used would have a spare place at such short notice. Luckily for me they did, but the only day they could take him was today.

All the while, my parents have been updating me every day and most of the time their messages were along the lines of “this might be her time”. This added to my stress as I would have to fly off at a moment’s notice which means I would have to arrange for urgent leave from work, call my cousin who had previously agreed to do it to come over to house-sit, and to arrange for Tham to take Snoop to the kennels. I had also anticipated not being able to take the same flight to Singapore with Tham and Kayo.

Planning these contingencies was ok but not knowing when I would have to deal with them was very stressful. Every day for the past week, I would wake up and hoped that I didn’t get a message on my phone telling me the worst. I really hated not being in control of my schedules, and the stress of not knowing got to me. I was glad that I had my friends around me most of the past week to help ease my mind and anxiety attacks.

As it turns out, I could still take Snoop to the kennels myself today and I would still fly to Singapore tomorrow night with Tham and Kayo. But, I now have to fly off to Penang right after I’ve landed because now is “really her time”. I’m not sure how long I will be in Penang for but what’s certain is that my plans for my time in Singapore is no longer valid. I won’t be able to catch up with some of the people whom I’ve been meaning to catch up with, and I won’t be able to be with Tham and Kayo in Singapore as much as I wanted to. Though I still hope to have a few days there on the way home to Perth.

It’s kinda silly and selfish but all this time I kept thinking in the back of my mind how my holidays have been ruined, though death is never good timing is it?