Car Wash... The Works

Lately, there is this new internet advertising / marketing concept, where the websites hook up business owners with potential new customers by getting the business owners to offer their services at reduced rates. In order for the new customers to get the specials, enough people must take up the offer - and this could be a minimum of 5, or 20, or even 200, depending on what it is. The websites offering deals around Melbourne are: scoopon, spreets, zoupon, crowdmass and jumponit.

I've picked up some massages and facials for around half price and recently, I bought a "The Works" Car Wash with Clear Water Car Wash in South Yarra, for $19 (normal price is $38.90). Now, $19 is still quite dear compared to the manual car wash (you could get away with washing the car for about $3) but I thought the service offered at the Clear Water Car Wash was quite good!!

Let's see - the services offered under the "Works" service are:

1. Handwash
2. Triple Shine
3. Fragrance
4. Towel Dry
5. Tyre Black
6. Spray wax
7. Interior Blow
8. Sealer Wax
9. Windows
10. Vacuum
11. Wheel Superior <-- don't know what this is. :P
12. Bug Remover
13. Console Wipe
14. Underbody Wash
    
15. Dash Wipe
16. Door & Boot Jams +
17. Tea or Coffee
    

While enjoying my comp coffee at the cafe, I observed the car washers washing every surface on my car and they did look like they were putting effort into it. Then the car moves on to the next area where machines spray various liquids in rainbow colours and later washes it off with water sprays from above and the side. They didn't look like the usual high-powered jet sprays, but were very effective.

Later, another 2-3 guys wiped down the car, both inside and outside. I was particularly impressed that one of the guys, painfully removed the leftover sticky bits of a permit sticker I had on my windscreen (and there was quite a lot of it). I was hoping they would do that, and they did... made me so happy!!!

In conclusion, I think all cars deserve a good clean-up once in a while, and I would recommend these guys. Can't always get it at $19, so it's good to remember that it usually costs $39. Best to do it yourself at the manual car wash. :)

Movie preview - Easy A!!!

A couple of months ago, I joined the "contagious network", a website that seems to have access to special screenings of new movies and other events and members. They've offered me the opportunity to watch a couple of movies before... stuff like "Zombieland" but I'm not really keen on zombie movies (even if they are supposed to be funny), so I've never taken up any of them.

However, a few weeks ago, I received an email from them, about a new movie called "Easy A" which caught my attention. It's about this girl (played by Emma Stone) - who is a "nobody" at school, who pretends to do the naughty with a boy at school (who happens to be gay), to improve his street cred ... and then later, other boys asks for her services. This makes the popular girls led by Amanda Bynes very unhappy...

I think this is going to be a pretty fun movie to watch and I will be watching it next Wednesday, 25th August after work... which will be fun!! Will write more after the movie!

Check out the trailer here, on facebook, no less. :D Link to official website here.

New Kenwood Mixer

My friend, Carol - is enrolled in a Cert III course in patisserie and has been providing us with sweet treats after her Saturday classes. Separately, last week - I went over to her place to "help" with making curry puffs that she was taking to a friend's "tea party".

Since moving to Melbourne, I haven't done much baking, short of the simple recipes which involved some hand mixing and baking. This is mostly because I never had all the barang-barang required to do any real baking.

So, I've decided to get a mixer... and headed to the shops over the weekend. I went straight for a Kenwood mixer. My mum has had one for as long as I can remember, and I think Daniel's mum has a mixer that is similar and the same brand too... the mums' mixers have a large porcelain mixing bowl which turns - but the new models now have stationery bowls... :) Spent $300 on it. :P We see it as a long-term investment. Our mothers' Kenwoods have lasted a lifetime... so it's left a good impression. :)

Carol's got a really high-end mixer that is also used by the cooking school she is attending. It is a Kitchen Aid mixer, more than 2x the cost of the one I bought... I don't think I can justify buying a super-high-end one just yet, as I'm only just starting out.

I wanted to get some ingredients at the supermarket today... but after a while, realized I couldn't get everything I need... so I might need to slowly shop around. There was a Chocolate Mud Cake I wanted to try, but I thought it was too chocolatey. ;) (Carol treated us to chocolate mud cake, and chocolate brownies last night). There was also a strawberry sponge cake... but I think strawberries are not in season. So, now I'm looking around for recipes... and maybe will try to do something next weekend. :) Will put up photos of ... erm... my trials. ;)

KL 2010 - around CNY and lots of cleaning!!!

Went back to KL at the end of February (tail end of CNY) to see the family, but mostly to try and make wedding arrangements for when we go there in September. Flew back with MAS - though there was sufficient space, still pulled up really, really tired. Might be because I woke up really early to watch one movie ;) and saw "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs".

Got to see my cousins: KB, Joon and Shen as soon as we arrived as KB was due to leave to go back to London. It was really, really, really good to see them. There were jokes and teasing (and this time, I was old enough to know they weren't being mean) :) and it was just really good to catch up and see them.

Didn't see that many friends - only Wilson, Ale, Mandy, Cheng and Xin. I "wasn't allowed" to make that many plans as I had to work around my mum's work schedule. She was really nice though, and let me use the car all week while I was there.

We've found a supplier for cards, got wedding rings, saw some hotels and decided on the KL venue / reception date. Saw a bunch of movies, Alice in Wonderland, Invictus and Up in the Air. Movies are cheap in KL... though the 3-D glasses are a bit of a rip-off. They charge you RM5 to RENT them. They have to be returned after the movie and are usually smudgy and gross. Hoyts sells them for $1 or $2 and they recommend you reuse them (to save money) and they are CLEAN!!! :P

Flight back from KL was beautiful... :) We got the exit-row seats and it was so nice to be able to stretch out and sleep relatively comfortably. Watched one more movie - Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side. Thought that was very good!!! Enjoyed it a lot. Was really homesick though. :( Missed my family... (though most people were telling me that I was being emotional because I was really, really, tired from all the running around and travel.)

Got back last week ... and the apartment was a mess. Housemate was in the process of moving out. She was meant to go at least 10 days EARLIER ... but knowing her, she isn't very organised or urm... hardworking... or ... tidy / clean. She finally left on Thursday and Daniel drove down from Canberra on Friday night and we cleaned and threw out a lot of stuff on Saturday and Sunday. I was fortunate enough to be able to find a guy to help us with steam cleaning the carpets - on a SUNDAY. That is very rare - and this guy is really good and helpful. If anybody needs a cleaner, let me know and I would totally recommend this guy.

So, I've now moved in to the bigger room but there is still a lot of moving to do, i.e. my stuff from my old room to the new room. I just plan to do my laundry for today ... and maybe do more stuff tomorrow. I am looking for a new couch. I'm not sure if we'll get a second-hand couch, or if we'll get a new one. At the end of the day, it depends on the condition as well as the price. So, I'm keeping an eye out.

I'm just really glad to have the place to myself for now. I've missed having my own place. Will probably get a new person in, maybe for a few months... but will have to get everything else "tidied up" and "sorted out" before that.

Australian Open 2010

I was a guest of ANZ at the Australian Open this year. :) One of the brokers said they had the Superbox for Day 4 (Round 2) of the Australian Open and invited me to join them. ANZ is one of the main sponsors of the tennis this year.

The timing has been pretty awesome. The event was yesterday, 21/1/2010 and I had today off (it is my rostered day off) and I am flying to Canberra this evening, for the Australia Day "long" weekend. I've arranged to take Monday off as annual leave and Tuesday is Australia Day. So, if I had been privileged to be invited to the later days, in theory better players at quarter/semi finals, I might not have been in the state to attend!

Anyway, my cousin was also a guest of the Herald Sun and they had almost courtside seats. I think maybe the 2nd or 3rd row. It was at the end of the day session and they had spare places so I got in to watch the end of the match between Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) and Donald Young (USA). Hewitt won. Courtside is really cool!!! Hung out with my cousin a bit - then I made my way to the lifts that take people up to the corporate boxes.


The Corporate Box is not that big... apparently it caters for about 18 people and there were about 30 of them in total. Met a couple of people that I talk to on the phone a bit so it was nice to put a face to the name and the voice. Most of them are really friendly and nice. They served dinner - which included prawns and fresh oysters, lamb, fish (I think it was barramundi - it was yummy!) and chicken. For dessert there was pavlova and trifle and some really rich looking cakes. I had just the pav and that was pretty sweet and quite good.

So, for the evening session on Day 4, Round 2 - we saw Roger Federer play an unseeded player, Victor Henescu of Romania. The match wasn't very exciting. 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 and it was over in 99 minutes. The highlight though, was when Prince William made an entrance! He is visiting Australia and he dropped in to watch. Everybody got up to try and get a look of the Prince. He went away shortly after the men's match ... and I thought he had left... but apparently, he had gone to meet Federer. Jim Courier who is a commentator for the Open, asked Federer to 'welcome to the australian open' ... and I thought he was a bit taken aback at first, but he managed to say... "Your Royal Highness, Welcome to the Tennis". :) Everybody cheered at that...

After that, it was the women's match, between Casey Dellacqua (AUS) and Karolina Sprem (CRO). I would say that they are "evenly matched" ... scores were 7-6, 7-6. They went into tiebreakers for both sets. However, I thought overall - they weren't that good ... each of them made so many errors, giving away points and games ... you sort of think that the only way someone is going to win, is if they make less mistakes than the other person. Here's another bit of interesting information ... Dellacqua is going to face Venus Williams, next. For her sake, I hope she doesn't keep making so many mistakes or she is going to crash out and really badly at Round 3.


Disclaimer: Prince William / Roger Federer pic is copyright of Australian Open

Birthday 2010

"Celebrated" my birthday two weekends ago. Was in Canberra because I thought it would be "appropriate" as the last time I was up there was in November. However, Daniel's brother stole my thunder! ;) He got engaged - about 2-3 months ago ... and he got married on the same weekend as my "birthday weekend". ;) So, Josh and Wendy were the main stars for the weekend. I'm not going to blog much about the wedding - as I don't know if they're going to appreciate their photos being put up on the internet for the world to see. So, if you really do want to know more about it (or see some photos), message me (friends/family only please), and I will send you a link.

As a present to myself (sort of) I bought a new mobile phone. A Nokia E71-3 (or E71, version 3). I bought it off eBay and it was a very "exciting" auction. ;) There were quite a number of E71s up for auction ... but this one in particular, was originally from Telstra and works on their Next G network (UMTS 850). Previously, I had a Nokia N73 that was a 3G phone - but because it doesn't work on the same band, I have been using EDGE for the last 3 years... very, very frustrating! Anyway, the auction ended at 2.36am - and I woke up at 2.30am to watch it and bid on it. I was concerned that the price would be much too high, but it ended up being $355, which is appropriate. My N73 was $600 - eBay price, 3 years ago and Telstra sells the E71 for $589 outright.

Anyway, up to about 3am - I was emailing and texting the seller - sad, I know! I was hoping to get it on Friday before I left for Canberra, after work ... and the guy was hoping that I could pick it up from Chadstone, at 7pm. My flight left at 7pm! After some SMS table tennis, including him asking if I could meet his sister at Crown Towers (on the other side of the CBD from where I was) - he said - "I'll just leave work early and drop it off at your office?" I'm like - sure, that would be awesome!!! Usually, when a pick-up option is offered (i.e. save on postage), the buyer has to go pick it up at the sellers agreed location ... but this guy dropped it off, very cool! So, I got it - just in time, for "birthday weekend" hehehe.

I'm still working out how to use GPS... but other than that, I like the QWERTY keyboard (still getting used to it) but yay!!! New phone!!!! :) I blame (formerly) working in a telco for my obsession with nice phones ... but having lasted 3 years before changing phones - I think that is pretty reasonable, isn't it?

Belatedly... Christmas 09 / New Year's '10

Took a few days off over Christmas... Cheng was in town, courtesy of Air Asia specials... so we arranged for Daniel and me to stay in Melbourne - so I could catch up with her. Saw Wai Hoong too ... but he left after brekkie ... he really wasn't in to going "window shopping" at the artsy fartsy shops around Brunswick St. It was a bit rushed as we were trying to cover a lot of areas in less than a day - including Smith St and Lygon St. and we did a quick lap around the CBD. Took Cheng to Koko Black, which I think completely chocolated her out - and she gave up on the Lindt Cafe altogether. :( I've always been meaning to try Lindt Cafe ... but I guess, that will be on another occasion.

Went to Paul and Kylie's place for Christmas Eve. Kris Kringle (sort of like random gift exchange) was fun... I picked up a serving dish thing with two little dishes for sauce. Am slowly starting to accumulate household stuff... :) Unfortunately though, before arriving at the party - I got some really, really, really bad news. :( My aunt passed away of cancer. :( :( :( She was only diagnosed less than 3 weeks earlier ... and it was really, really, sudden. :( :( :( She will be terribly missed during Chinese New Year this year as well as in the future. :( :( :( I thought some of my other cousins (one in London, and the other in Adelaide) that sent flowers did a good job of making people laugh and feel better. In their message, they asked... "Do you know where auntie kept the recipe for Curry Prawns?" :) And my brother was even better - he asked my cousin if she knew how to make "Tamingung". It's a Foo Chow dish ... that my aunt made every year during Chinese New Year when the family got together... my cousin told him to google it ... but I don't think no one really knows how to spell "Tamingung". :P I miss my aunt. And I really missed my family during the period.

Daniel and I had made bookings to go to Mornington Peninsula for a few days after Christmas, so we went ahead with our plans - just to get away and try to relax - and recharge the batteries. Still, felt really, really bummed out about my aunt. We went back to the Peninsula Hot Springs... (I've written about them before a few years ago). They have renovated and the bathrooms are really nice and new and somewhat hi-tech - magnetized lockers! It was really nice to soak in the hot pools... and thanks to the Entertainment Book - it was buy one get one free.

Hmm... what else did we do? Nothing much for New Year's. Oh - I got a lot of Chocolate for Christmas. This Santa Bear dark chocolate teddy is from my cousin - and it is a Koko Black chocolate teddy. It was yummy... and very decadent! The little hamper on the right - is from Heritage Chocolates. I rang a radio station (old habits die hard!) and won it. The downside was - I had to drive about half an hour to Rowville to collect it! I'm still not sure if it was worth the long drive ... but anyway - it was free! :)

New Office

No... I didn't get a new job... :P

The lease on my company's old premises at St Kilda Road was up and it was not going to be renewed as the owners were planning to have the building demolished to build a new apartment block. So, the company went around looking for a new office and we've settled on a building in the CBD near Flagstaff Gardens / Railway Station.

It was a bit overwhelming when I first stepped in ... there were bright lights (they are new!) :) and everything was everywhere and everyone was no longer where they used to be, i.e. they changed floors and were hard to locate!

I've given up my view of the city for the view of the atrium roof (yippee - not!) ... but there is a lot more storage space, so I guess that's more practical. I often draw the blinds at the old place anyway, as the sun used to get in my eyes. Parking is dearer ... $13 per day (casual) but I'm not sure how much monthly parking costs. The old place was $7 (all day street parking) or $10 (covered). However, the train station is practically next door - and I am home in about 20 minutes after leaving work. Only downside to that is that I have to change trains at Richmond. Still, no big dramas.

There are LOTS of shops in the area - both retail and food ... so there is quite a lot of variety in comparison to the old premises. I am meeting Doris for lunch tomorrow and we will have to sort out where to go. So many interesting places to go to and many offer lunch at about $10, which is ok - for city dining. The customers were a lot more dressed up though, suits etc. Maybe it's time to change the wardrobe?

Flagstaff Gardens is very busy at lunch time... I saw a lot of people just sitting on the grass enjoying the sun. I'm not sure if they'll still be doing that on Wednesday as it's forecasted to be a 39 degree day. Bleah! There was also a group of people doing bootcamp this morning ... uh, not too keen at this point... I remember all the pain and barely being able to move after a week of bootcamp!

Coffee was pretty good too... though dearer. I guess that is what I will have to expect, now that we are in the city and no longer outside the city. I like the variety though. It is good.