Kiss The Rain

Back when the Fall semester was still on, I told some of my friends about the song “Kiss The Rain” played by Yiruma. It’s a very nice song that I did not hesitate to learn. I started playing the song day and night before I began to master it.

I put some expressions into it and strived to make it sound perfect. It wasn’t easy, trust me. The days I took to make it sound right were definitely way more than those I took to learn the song. Apart from that, it’s very hard to play expressively in front of the camera. OMG!

So as promised, I’m dedicating this song to a friend of mine. *It goes with the poem I gave you* Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: PLEASE DO NOT FALL ASLEEP WHEN YOU’RE LISTENING TO IT!

Leave a comment if possible. =)

I Love My Friends!

Yesterday, I had dinner with some of my high school ex-classmates at Wang Chiew restaurant.

The name of the restaurant is real stupid. The Mandarin version of it - 黄记 - is pronounced as Huang Ji; Cantonese version - 黄记 - is pronounced as Wong Kei; and the English version reads Wang Chiew. What the heck? So I got into a slight trouble when telling my friends about the restaurant we’re going to dine at. (I used the Canto version when they are more familiar with the English version)

Anyways, I was really delighted when most of them turned up, which proved that I am not really a bad organizer! In fact, one of them  actually brought someone along*coughjaspercough*.

To satiate your curiosity, those who went were Michelle, Wei Guan, Li Foong, Wei Hoong, Jon, Jasper & GF, Jordan *LF’s Neighbour and I just knew about it*, Say Keong, Yung Xiang, KyeLing *Back from Aus!!*, and Huey Ee. So happy to see KyeLing after so many years.

My greatest achievement of the night – ordering food for everyone (13 of them) and it wasn’t easy. 6 dishes weren’t enough, sorry. But hey, we did have a balanced diet dinner. We had chicken, pork, fish, green vegetables, and tofu! Carbo, Fats, Protein, Fibre, etc. all there! =) My tummy wasn’t really satisfied, though, but it’s the atmosphere that counts.

Without further ado, let’s get on with the pictures. 

Ah~ What a wonderful family portrait!

Awww~ Me and 3 Angels. Charlie’s Angels? =)

From right: 1 serious, 1 suffocating, 1 AB-normal.

Ze good boys..

Jasper the friendly guy. Finally got yourself a companion eh?

KyeLing and Little Miss Sunshine! Yes, that shirt suits you a lot Huey Ee.

*********************

Second Round, People. Went to Swensens in Ss2 for some delectable desserts! Whee~

Ss2 is always so jam-packed! I wonder why people flock to MURNI every night without FAIL when the place is not very hygienic *sorry but true* and the food is not really that Gooooood, plus the food is expensive. Can someone kindly explain to me, please? It made finding a parking space around that area almost impossible.

I wasn’t taken aback that I was the last to get my car parked. Haha.

So it was my second time at Swensens. The first time was at Changi! The steak I had was really really great. I missed it so much. Coming back, I fell in love with the Banana Split Ice Cream thingy when I flipped open the menu. Ordered it and it was great but I have to admit that I regretted a little. Should have ordered something extraordinary. Never mind, there’s always a 3rd time! 

Li Foong had a slight dilemma back then choosing between soup and ice-cream. She chose ice-cream in the end. Wei Hoong was relishing his Chocolate something ice-cream to every drop of it, Michelle thought that the mango ice-cream tasted a little bitter, and Jonathan, who was sitting on the other end of the table, was trying so hard to seduce someone with his seductive ice-cream eating technique when he was surrounded by guys, weirdo. But overall, ice-cream made everyone happy! Yay to ice-cream.

On the unhappy note, half the group just sat and had ice water as dessert. So potong steam!

Halfway through, Huey Ee and Kyeling went out to buy a pen. Weird. I thought so too at first. Why do you need a pen in a restaurant at 10pm? Little did I know that they needed the pen to write me a goodbye card, but instead, they wrote on Swensens’ quality serviette. Let me show you how sweet they are.

It’s the sincerity that counts. You guys made my day.

Not forgetting Kyeling’s special present for me…

The silver lining – She didn’t get to eat Mango in Australia for a very long time and she’s afraid that my fate will be similar to hers. So she bought this so that I could bring it over to the states and eat 2 sweets each year on my own self-declared Mango Day. Unfortunately, the expiry date falls on March 2010, 3 months after I arrived at Des Moines. Sorry Kyeling! *finishes the sweet*

I feel like a bright, shiny lamp post.

Another lovely family portrait! =)

Glad you guys had fun!

 

When can we meet up again? I couldn’t stop pondering…

Scarlet

Few months ago, I had my mom bought me a new piano because the one I had was really really bad. The sound wasn’t nice and I dislike the piano keys. Actually I just wanted a Yamaha piano. =)

So after getting the new piano, I started learning this song called Scarlet. A REALLY NICE SONG!

At first, I was using this piano sheet transcribed by Althea Chia. There wasn’t anything wrong with the piece, just that it’s arranged for beginners. The simplicity of the piece made it sounded different from the original song. I wasn’t pleased.

I went through all the hassle, rummaging through sites in search for a better one. At last! I found this piano sheet arranged by Noir1453. However, that piece wasn’t perfect. So I combined both pieces into Sean’s piece. =) Thank you.

Hope you enjoy. And PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT! Thank you.

The REPORT!

Disclaimer: This is a report I wrote for my club so it’ll be long-ish and detail-ish. The details are not that accurate as I wasn’t at the hall at all times/wasn’t paying attention. So, skip the writings and to the pictures you may. =)

It’s that time of the year again where people gather together on the last Thursday of November for a memorable thanksgiving night. This year 2009, thanksgiving falls on the 26^th of November.

Less than 2 months ago, a newly formed club, American Eagle did not plan to just sit silently and witness this exciting day turn mundane. Collaborating with the Techno Science club, another club of the ADP department had made the organizing of an exhilarating thanksgiving dinner with Charity as the theme, an absolute success.

The clock on the wall showed 5 o’clock, when the preparations were almost done. A little bit more decorations to be put up and some band rehearsals would make it complete.

Half an hour later at 5.30pm, the invited children from the Nur Salam orphanage arrived at the entrance of the hall of HELP’s residence where the thanksgiving dinner was held. They eagerly formed a line before the reception counter to receive a goody bag each, which was kindly sponsored by UNICEF, before swarming into the hall adorned with colorful balloons and ribbons.

While the children were being seated at their respective tables, chattering and giggling away, the committee members were busy ushering guests and VIPs who arrived a little later.

At 6 o’clock sharp, hosts Shannon Goh and Michael Campton put a halt to the cacophony and cheered up the guests with their jokes before moving on to the welcoming speeches.

The thanksgiving dinner officially started after our very own Head of Department Mr. Ho; Ms Rani, the advisor of American Eagle Club; and Edwin Low the president gave their respective speeches on the stage. The long awaited dinner was then served after 3 lucky draw prizes were given out to the lucky ones.

While the children queued up for the food, bands and performers were getting prepared to give the large crowd a mind-blowing performance.

First up was a sexy modern jazz performance by 2 girls, donned in vests and fedoras, popping and locking to the beats of the music, which ended a few minutes later with a thundering applause.

Followed up was a singing and acoustic performance by Green Eggs and Ham. Despite being occupied relishing the wonderful dishes the buffet had offered, the audience sportingly took some time off the food and swayed to the rhythms of “Use Somebody”, a song by King Of Leon and “Chasing Cars”, a catchy song by Snow Patrol, which were performed.

Up next, there were interesting activities and amazing prizes up for grabs for the kids, now that their tummies were satisfied. Standing side by side, the kids were given deflated balloons each. In order to get the prize, they had to compete among themselves to be the first to inflate and pop the balloon. It was so much fun seeing how those little kids struggled to keep the balloons in place and pop them.

The next activity was even more exciting as it involved toilet tissue wrapping. After the kids were broken down into 3 groups and provided with toilet rolls, they embarked on a frantic search for a subject to wrap. Michael Campton, the host was held victim by the first group and was stuffed with toilet papers to look like a pregnant lady. Although the activity ended in massive mess, it was worthwhile to see how much creativity was brought into play by the children with just wrapping alone.

The last activity for the children was singing performance. Prizes were to be given to those who had courage to sing a song in front of the audience. Those who love singing started whispering ear to ear for an agreement of a suitable song before heading to the stage. Soon, melodious voices sounded across the hall as the kids swayed their body and sang to every word of their favourite song. The audience was utterly awed and mesmerized by the kids’ performances.

Finally, the last performance for the night was by the ministers of comedy. As they performed, Aunty May went from table to table, gesturing the audience to clap to the beat and kept the party going. When that could not make the night any merrier, she decided to invite people from tables to have a dance with her on the stage. Aunty May definitely made the audience choked with laughter.

Before the night was brought to an end, hampers were given out to the Nur Salam orphanage as charity, which was the theme of the dinner. Another session of lucky draw ensued, which brought the audience to attention. This time round, the lucky draw prizes were bigger, eventually bringing more joy to the lucky ones and greater disappointment to those whose numbers were not being called upon.

The night came to an official close right after the lucky draw.

 

 

 

OKAY! Pictures Time!

Qing Han happily playing with the kids! =)

Jeremy posing when he shouldn’t be there.

I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING! QING HAN IS IN EVERY SINGLE PICTURE! Anyways…..

I don’t like camwhor-ing.

Datin Jeesha! =) Where’s your hot dress?! HAHA.

Mr. KUMAR!

Ms. Rani! The teacher advisor of American Eagle Club and Techno Science?! o.O?

OKAY! SO THIS IS FOR YOUR NECK, YOUR THIGHS, YOUR BELLY, YOUR BUTT, AND YOUR BOOBS… There you go. 5 vouchers for the new Ukimono. =)

I’m not going to eat you Elaine…

That’s all! Heee~

Plain Silly

There is a never ending list of silly mistakes I made in the past that will bring about life-changing results. I would feel remorseful only after thinking through what I really did. Then I would start worrying as if tomorrow is going to be the end of the world.

This habit of mine is really making me sick of myself. Subconsciously, it's as if I feel that some excitement and drastic changes would make my smooth and perfect little life the more livelier and happening.

A fortune teller once told me... “You are born to be lucky. Your life is almost perfect. One of the loopholes in your life is that you worry too much about things. You have sleepless nights thinking about them. You lose appetite stressing over them. You can't stop thinking pessimistically about the results you might get. These anxieties you have are really unnecessary because things always turn out to be just fine.”

Today, I did a silly thing again. I really hope this time round, the fortune teller will be right once again. If things were to turn out wrong, I’m going to be embroiled in lots of hassles, naggings, and troubles. I would be the one and only silliest person in history who had ever done something that brainless and stupid.

~in silence, I pray~

Jennifer’s Body

When I first heard about this movie, I told myself it’s a must-watch movie and I’ll kill myself I were to miss out on it. It’s like the most anticipated movie this fall because the well-known hottest American actress Megan Fox is going stark naked in Jennifer’s Body. I can already imagine guys pointing at posters of the movie as they passed by and dreaming about that very day the movie is being released in the night.

However as days gone by, I heard bad rumours about the movie spreading fast like a wild forest fire. I began to have a second doubt about the movie. The must-watch movie had turned into one of those movies that are not worth watching. Since Megan Fox is starring in the movie and she’s going completely naked, it’s obvious that she’s going to be the only limelight of the movie and all else would be trivial and insignificant.

Anyway, I watched Jennifer’s Body yesterday with Clement. Lucky for me, he couldn’t find himself a female date so I was second on his list I supposed. Not that I’m gay and it’s good to watch movies like this with a guy, no? Met up with Mae and Elizah before we entered the cinema hall.

So what can I say about Jennifer’s Body?

It’s a hoterromedy = Hotness + Terror + Comedy.

When you see Megan Fox in Transformers, she’s already super hot. But in this movie when she’s draped in tight spaghetti stripes and super low waist jeans/undies, your brain goes “BOOMS” – Ms. Ris Low. The kinda hotness does not have the same degree as putting your licked forefinger on her body and it’ll go “pssssssss”. It’s way beyond that that it can make you regret doing the mentioned act. You’ll get a burnt finger and start crying for your mommy, that kinda hotness.

To be honest, you’ll go completely blank during and after the movie. You wouldn’t know what just happened or what’s happening cause you’ll be dazzled by Megan Fox’s hotness. And when the movie is over, you’ll have the wtf feeling cause you’ve not gotten enough of her hotness.

As for the Terror part, it’s a little freaky because a hot actress like Megan Fox is bloody all over and altogether she looks like a man-eating maniac with her razor sharp teeth sticking out like a hungry predator thirsty for blood. Trust me, it’s not hot when someone that hot is so monster-ish.

The Comedy part was okay okay, at least it’s not some cold jokes that make you shiver more when you’re already that cold.

So all in all, I wouldn’t recommend you this movie if you show no enthusiasm in girls like Megan Fox or you’ve seen enough of her body! =) OR you’ll be wasting 2 hours of your time sitting through a boring movie that has not much content. Karyn Kusama is smart to smudge her lousy movie with hotness. That’ll win audience all right. 

Everyday Life

So I have been busy with my life and have never bothered to keep track of them. This fine day, I’ve finally broken out of the cocoon and started composing my life journals.

Maybe stating myself as busy is more of an overstatement when comparing to those in the US, but I am busy. Try embroiling yourself in a situation where you have 5 out of 7 days of rest, ample time to spare for siestas and wouldn’t mind waking up to the sweltering heat of the afternoon sun almost every single day. Owh, then you’re left with 2 days to get busy with life, which is tantamount to 32 hours a week only if you plan to have 8 hours of sleep.

32 hours to finish up one week’s work, isn’t that busy? Anyway, I just hope that I could focus on completing my part in the Balanced Scorecard assignment I’m working on currently and get over with it quickly.

On a happier note, I have been having wonderful weekends for almost a month now.

On the 3rd of October, I went to a friend’s house in Kota Kemuning along with my family and had the best moon cake festival celebration ever. Shortly after a hearty dinner of homemade nasi lemak, we armed ourselves with lanterns and candles for reloads and took a short stroll to a park nearby. It was night time and the air was a little chilly but a bit hazy so the air wasn’t as fresh and pristine.

At the park, there were kids running round the park, some playing with candles and waxed them to the graveled pathway, and others chasing each other at the playground while their parents stood aside, dealing with the lanterns. My friends, very much like myself found playing candles/fire much more interesting than lanterns. Hanging our lanterns around an immature palm tree, we started lighting up candles while shielding them from the breeze that whizzed through the park. Then it drizzled a little but that didn’t hamper us from having fun after so many years. Before we went home that night, we ate mooncakes and drank Chinese tea just like how anybody would celebrate mooncake festival.

On the 4th of October, my high school friend Kah Soon drove his brand new Honda city and picked Michelle, Chuan Chuen and me up along the way to Cineleisure. It was Kah Soon’s birthday on the 1st of October but because it fell on a weekday, we decided to postpone the celebration to the weekend. A fine Sunday morning it was when we hit Cathay Cineplex. Approximately 10 minutes later, we regretted buying the tickets.

It was Far Cry, a low budget film with hardly any contents starred by unprofessional actors and actresses, we were watching and I almost cried for help. The movie was on v-fib all the way, even during the fighting scenes. Trust me. It was so atrocious that any other movies ever filmed would have been better than this one. I was totally speechless when it ended.  

I give Far Cry a mere 2 out of 10 for their effort, which obviously did not bear any positive results.

On the 10th of October, 5 days before my mom’s birthday. We had an early birthday celebration for her at Sushi Tei in Tropicana City Mall. Japanese food is one of my favorite, in fact, my whole family enjoy eating Japanese especially Sashimi that goes well with wasabi. We ordered Teriyaki steak, Unagi Kabayaki, Salmon Mentaiyaki, 3 plates of Ebiko Sushi, 2 plates of Sashimi, 4 bowls of Sushi Rice, and some kind of grilled chicken with rice (forgotten the name for it).

Boy, was it a delicious meal! I relished every bite of it so that the taste could I remember for days. Here are some pictures of the food we ordered.

Guess what?! We celebrated for my mom once again on her birthday itself, October the 15th. This time, we went to Italiannies at The Curve. It wasn’t crowded that day despite the Deepavali holiday or whatever holiday it is. I’m a little ignorant about holidays nowadays because I’m no longer in high school and I only have 2 classes a week soihave5daysofholidaysaweeknomatterwhat.

So yea.. We ordered Lasagna A La Ravina, Chicken Parmigiana, and Penne Bolognese. The atmosphere was wonderful until they started playing the music like some kind of pub and it was noisy. We had to talk over the cacophony to make each other understand what we were saying. Then frustrated mom asked one of the waiter to lower down the music but they ended up switching it off.

Those are the birthday celebrations this month. Other outings were Friday movie outings with Aaroni, Qing Han, Jie Hwa, and Bryan. We had watched a couple of movies like Gamer, Ugly Truth, Surrogates, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Pandorum.

Gamer was so unrealistic and inhumane. You either pay to control or get paid to be controlled. It’s a sick movie. Some perverted bastard could hire you, for example, if you’re a sexy lady, bring you around and make love with strangers while you’re unconscious. Or some immature child could hire you, if you’re an inmate, control you in a gory battle where if you were killed, you’ll be dead forever. No resuscitation or whatsoever to bring you back to life. I hope we’re not seeing our future right there.

 Ugly Truth was awesome with pretty Katherine Heigl starring as Abby and handsome Gerard Butler starring as Mike. I love how they put words in a way that it’s obscene and funny at the same time. Totally a brilliant adult comedy.

Surrogates was of something similar with Gamer but better. This time it involves robots in lieu of real human body and you’re totally in control of your own substitute(s). You could perform dangerous stunts like skydiving, bungee jumping and etc. without having to consider the risk of death while having the ability to gain pleasure from what you’re doing. But to own a surrogate would cost one a hell load of money.

Okay. This is one happy animation. An ambitious scientist who persevered to make his every endeavors in creating a machine that would contribute to the world worth while. He worked hard in his crib out in his father’s yard since young to invent something useful despite often being ridiculed at by his peers. Finally, he successfully invented a machine that could turn water into any food one could think of. That’s all I would disclose. Telling the story further would make this a spoiler.

I love the story of this movie and it’s not scary at all! So for non-Horror movie lovers, you could include this in your list. =)

That’s how I enjoyed half the October away.

Crazy Beginning

A lot had happened recently but I was a bit laid back about putting it all up in my blog. With my latest post due sometime a month ago, you could already guess the number of chill pills I have been consuming. So, I’m here to haul it all up the ocean before everything sinks deeper and fades away.

If you are someone who keeps track of my barren blog, you definitely know that I had been working part time jobs on and off throughout the previous semester break, which had earned me quite an amount of pocket money. I was coerced into putting a halt to my sudden urge of working when college reopened, which was something I actually looked forward to.

On seeing the miserable ADP timetable, I was gravely disappointed at the number of subjects offered this fall semester. However, when I gave it a slight thought, I couldn’t help but empathize HELP, as dedicated lecturers as Ms. Yap and co. had turned or are turning their backs on the institute. Leaving behind a pillar-less crumbling tower, which is not only facing a shattering end but also an imminent danger of bankruptcy, sadly to say.

4 days of waking up early and attending a full 10 hours of class each day, gave me more doubt of what not to take than a comforting assurance of what subjects to take. As an ending outcome of shopping around and choosing subjects, what I got was exhaustion instead of a decision. I sought help from Ms. Mamoorian, who is the admin of Drake University via E-mail and later found out that the only subject I could take was Accounting 2. Ridiculous ain’t it? How can someone take only one subject in a long semester? Unless that someone is as jobless as Riz.

Political Science wasn’t that bad, especially when Mr. Ho the Head of Department was the one conducting the class. A retired lawyer Mr. Ho shared many of his first-hand experience in class, which I found amusing despite the exaggeration of having to make friends with the ministers of the Malaysian government and even some former president of the United States. Frankly speaking, I was this close to registering the subject as I was pretty convinced that it would be an interesting class. I didn’t in the end after I got a reply re-confirming that it was absolutely unnecessary for me to take it even as an elective. So Accounting 2 it is.

I really couldn’t imagine me wounding up being a couch potato at the end of this semester since last semester had already made me a lot lazier than my first year in college. So I gave myself a little motivation and continued my job hunting stint! Having ample time to spare, once again I was spending time trawling through forums, searching for “lucrative” part time jobs. =)

After sending out about 10 resumes to 10 different agents, I received notifications about interviews via phone calls and sms pretty soon enough. Without further hesitation, I accepted a promoter position at the DiGi specialized store at the Tropicana City Mall outlet due to the reasonable pay and the simple job scope. Never did I know that I was being lured into a Trap of Boredom.

There was literally nothing I could do in the shop. Allow me to enlighten you. My job scope was to promote DiGi postpaid lines and that I would receive a commission of as high as RM 20 after successfully selling 4 lines in a day, the subsequent lines sold would earn me as much as RM 5 per line. Since Tropicana City Mall is a new mall and is nothing compared to any other shopping complexes in the Petaling Jaya district, the number of shoppers were pathetically low each day, even during weekends. I ended up helping DiGi users, mostly foreign workers reloading credits into their accounts.

I felt like a retarded freak who had never embraced any from of education, doing something that only required the least amount of brain work. It was so boring and a complete waste of time that when my friend invited me to a gathering the other night, I smsed and lied to my agent about a family emergency as soon as I hung up the line, ditched my supervisor who was happily playing bejeweled back at the shop, and left work an hour earlier for the gathering. God blessed the night, it was awesome.

The following morning was Fawesome when I was told that some client decided to put the store on hold temporarily, which in English means I do not have to work in that hellish place for some time. But even if I was asked to go back later on, I would reject it anyway.

So, I’m unemployed again! =)

Yuka Revisits

I was awaken from my dream to the techno rhythm of “Untouchable.” As I fluttered my eyes open, I saw the black phone, neatly covered up and protected by a layer of silicone, flickering as the deafening ringtone filled the room mercilessly.

It was August 23rd, a dazzling Sunday morning as birds gracefully flew over rooftops, chirping away. About a year ago today, I hosted a Japanese girl with the name Yuka, who came to Malaysia under the Lions Club Youth Exchange program. Hosting her was a wonderful experience and a crazy adventure as together, we explored the confusing corners of Kuala Lumpur in sweltering afternoons on foot, taking silly pictures and laughing at the jokes we made.

Yuka’s strength is in mastering languages, which allowed us to communicate with her without much complication. That made jokes more sensible to her, which I fancy and it definitely spared us ample time for more outings rather than staying home trying to explain things to her with awkward body languages. Aside from her prowess in languages, she’s an amiable person who is very approachable and friendly. So it wouldn’t be much of a surprise that she had nested an enormous network of acquaintances during her 3 short weeks of stay over here.

After receiving the call, I heard this familiar voice propagating through the headset from the other side of the line. From that moment on, I knew that today was going to bring back nostalgic moments to me and relive those wonderful memories of Yuka previously etched in my mind. Yes, it was Yuka who had arrived a few days ago. She came over here along with her friends from Japan. After hanging out in Malaysia for about 6 days, Yuka decided to leave her gang and arrange a meet up with us on the second last day of her trip in Malaysia. So nice of her to remember us.

So all the excitement started all the way in Sunway Pyramid, where a guy whom Yuka had been staying with for the past few days, put her under our care. After ensuring that her belongings were safely placed in the trunk, we strolled around and traipsed from handbag shops to boutique aimlessly. Occasionally making fun of each other while trying on trendy shades and putting ugly polka dot dresses around Yuka’s neck.

There was a farewell party specially organized for those Japanese YEs that night in Sunway, but Yuka decided to fling it for a hearty meal with us in Italiannies at the Curve. It wasn’t entirely a regretful choice for her, in fact, it was a great decision to join us at the dinner despite the hard time she had when deciding on whether to join her Jap mates or us.

My dad ordered a plate of chicken lasagna along with some meatball pasta and a plate of steamed chicken with potatoes, seasoned with some Jalapeño slices and a spicy gravy. The expressions she made when relishing those delectable dishes while sipping at her bottomless iced lemon tea was priceless. When all the food were cleared up, she had to struggle to get up from the cozy chair she had been sitting on because she was too full. Had to pay a short visit to the toilet, I guess?

That’s not the right way to call it a day. Shortly after we reached home, we found ourselves heading out the door for supper! Of course, the best place to be was at Kayu in Ss 2. She loved the Roti Canai and the Teh Tarik, so a plate of Roti Canai and a glass of Teh Tarik it is.

After supper back home, we wanted to help her out in tidying her luggage bag as she’s leaving for the airport the following morning. Too bad, she lost the keys to her luggage. What carelessness. Thankfully, she later remembered that it was with one of her friends, so there wasn’t any luggage packing until the next morning. The best part – We called off the plan, donned our pajamas, settled down on a comfy sofa in the living room, and chatted half the morning away. What a day.