*Cries* *Cries* *Cries* *Cries* *Cries* *Cries* *Cries*

Just got a letter from the Strata council today, basically every tenant in our townhouse complex will have to pay a “one-time fee” of around $450 in order for them to paint the exterior of the whole complex… sigh… I’m totally broke and I’m not up for such kind of extra expenses. AND you know what, I just received a check from one of my clients, a $450 check!!! i.e. The amount of money will go directly into this crazy paint job…! How sad! I was so stoked to get the check today, was thinking how I’m going to deposit it in the quickest time and then have some fancy dinner or buy some fancy stuff… Oh well, that is life, I guess….

Bad things just keep on happening. I just upgraded my Mac OSX to Leopard….and this music software I’ve been using stopped working! (called Ivory Grand Piano from Synthogy, which I used to simulate piano sound from real grand pianos) Upon further investigation I realized that in order to use it in the new OS I’ll have to purchase an additional piece of hardware called “iLok“, which is something you plug into the USB, and the software will use it as a “key” to make sure that you are not using a pirated version of the software. How lame!!! So now I have to pay $50 to buy this stupid piece of hardware, JUST so I can continue to use the music software…!!

I don’t know. Everything seems to be, not acting the way I want it to. So busy at work, huge projects due soon and I’m struggling to get it done on time if at all possible. Clients’ stuff left undone, some are already overdue. So many games left un-played, sitting in my cabinet due to lack of time…Wii games…PS2 games….I didn’t have a chance to finish Final Fantasy 12, and also got a couple new PC games like Bioshock, Myst, World of Warcraft…that I didn’t even have a chance to play. I wish there is 25 hours in a day…or maybe make it…30. And then I’m getting so broke, not really sure why, guess everything’s getting more expensive but my pay. Well I’m full throttle in the process of researching on my next income-generating business model, but in the meantime, I’m stil…broke. Mortgage, car loan, all the utility bills, VISA, gas, food……argh! Well, at least I can write out my frustration on the blog, even if nobody sees it still I somehow feel a little better…

I don’t know.

Sigh….so busy, so much work to do, and seems to be neverending. I was planning to go snowboarding tomorrow but it has to be cancelled because of the work I need to get done. And then tonight I thought I could play some band with my bandmates but then they decided not to do it tonight =( Oh well. Anyway, I just joined mixi, it’s the largest social networking site in Japan, I think there is 10 million users or something. It’s bascially the Japanese version of Facebook, one of the differences being that you could actaully see the name of the person that has visited your profile in the past couple hours. Not sure if that’s a good thing since a lot of people wouldn’t want someone else to know that they have visited their profiles…I guess. Anyway, have a nice weekend, Herman =(

Finally got a chance to check out Winson’s new condo (co-worker at my last job), well he just rented it and moved in about 2 weeks ago. I personally don’t ever want to rent a place again, as all the money you “invest” in it goes to nowhere since you don’t own it yourself, but in Winson’s case I think it’s still good as he’s got this crazy good view of the Burrard Inlet / Flase Creek area. Yes, it’s in West End close to Davie St and Cardero St. Three minites walk to the beach, and many many many varieties of restaurants within minutes of walk, not bad at all IMO. I have always wanted to live in the downtown area…. but it’s just not affordable…. I heard from him that *any* condo around that area would cost over 500 grand, so people usually rent instead of buying. Anyway, congrads on moving in Winson!

We went to this Singaporian restaurant (didn’t bother memorizing the name of it) close to his place for some dinner food. Yuck, it was bad~~ and we sort of figured it as soon as we stepped in. Well as we were pretty hungry we were like whatever and just grabbed a seat. The food turned out to be pretty bad. I ordered my favorite “Laksa”, which I could say was totally below average - the coconut taste wasn’t there at all, plus the ingredients were kind of cheesy. Winson’s Singaporian fried rice was, well, just some normal fried rice with some seafood in it, looked like some of those frozen seafood anyway. We ate it all anyway since we were hungry, but I bet neither of us will pay another visit.

Was kinda excited to see this band show at The Plaza Club tonight, but turned out to be a disappointment, big time I’ve been to this club before, it was where Front Line Assembly had their Vancouver show and it always reminds me of one of the best band sound ever. The place was nice too, had great lightings and a great bar. Sai, Joe, Korie, and I got there right on time, but it was sooo empty and we soon figured that the show won’t be starting in an hour or two. We got pretty bored waiting so we ended up going to the Macdonald’s next door to get some bites. After around 1.5 hours the show finally kicked in, but as soon as they played the first song I already figured it’s going to be another crappy night. The band’s called “Sweetness” I think. The band song wasn’t bad, I like their drums, solid and stable, bass and guitar were cool, and the female keyboardist wasn’t bad at all. It was their vocal…that pissed me off so much. I’m not sure what’s the best way to word it but his voice just, sucks….lol. The kind of voice that he has wasn’t suitable for this type of songs at all. Another thing was that they were a cover band (yea I didn’t know that until they started playing all the songs that I was familiar to). Well, fine, playing covers is fine if you know what you are doing… but they just sounded… not up to par. I liked the piano solo from one of the two vocal guys, his name is Tim, I liked the way he played the piano, apparently he must have a strong classical/acoustic piano background. That solo song was the only song I liked throughout the night. The keyboardist girl was actually pretty good. It’s no doubt the vocal that brought the whole band down. Anyway, we were so bored with his voice that we had to leave during mid-show!

It was pretty quite today. Nothing much happened other than the super strong wind that lasted for almost the whole day (Heard about a few accidents due to the strong wind). Well, at the comfort of home, I cooked my second sanma fish (bought 4)~ I cooked it guts in, see if it’s going to be more tasty as people on the forums recommended. Also made a little drainage device with two pieces of aluminum foils to drain out the oil coming out from the fish - it’s surprisingly oily! lol… So cooked it in my toast oven for about 20 minutes at 350F, and it turned out to be perfect! Skin remained crispy (better than last time), and I actually ate a bit of the guts which turned out to be pretty tasty with its sort of bitter-ish taste~ Now I got to think of another way to cook my third and forth fish~~