William Chong

Driving to work after a good Bible study, I (and the rest of East Auckland commuters) was greeted with the sight of a rainbow that arched across the sky, and across the motorway entrance.

It felt like I was driving under a chromatone bridge that was ordained by the Creator Himself.

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling/mighty thunder,
Thy pow’r thru-out the universe displayed!

 

Have a good day everyone!

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Don’t lose hope.

This one’s a birthday present too! A bit of a Matchbox 20 throwback, you know, when they were pumping out awesome tracks and before Rob Thomas opted for his rent-a-band.

It’s an uncommon first name but one that tends itself very well to a chorus – melodically pleasing to sing! The 2nd of a series of reducing optimism (see Head over Heels for the Backstreet Boy end of happiness).

 Under the Awning [4:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Downloads 1

Under the Awning – WILLIAM CHONG
Lyrics

It’s three in the morning
She’s crouched in the corner again
The world passes on and
no one is making amends
Her daily endeavours, they seem lifeless at best
And all that she longs for is gone
Under the awning who needs to pretend?

Her mind is a mooring of tears, sorrow and pain
Her makeup is blurred, cuts etched in her hand
And in this way she can hide from the rain
But looking outside she sees a rainbow

Chase all the grey skies away
Rainbow, colour this dark world I’ve found
Give us a smile
Your frown is upside down
Bring out those blue skies again

It’s ten in the morning
The crowd is dressed in black
She sees bearers walk on with such
weight on their shoulders
He gave his warning the counsellors tried
His father a grown man he cries

The note that the boy left
yea it’s a tough one to read
And it could’ve been her
but then she pleaded for a rainbow

And they’re moving on
Cos we’re moving on

Big party! Millions of people showed up. Well, almost.

Spent Friday and Saturday:

• setting up things like fairy lights, lanterns, oriental pizazz
• cleaning a really scungy chilly bin from its last outing
• setting up speakers and making sure they worked across two different rooms
• scanning heaps and heaps of baby photos for slideshows
• food prep (Tommy made Mantou, RB had her sushi etc)
• drinks prep (setting up a faux-bar)

At about 4pm we started experimenting with different feijoa vodka martini mixes, eventually settling on one that RB was happy with:

30ml 42 Below Feijoa Vodka
60ml feijoa juice

Shake with ice, strain into martini glass.
Add 30ml lemonade, garnish with feijoa slice.

Some cool things throughout the party proper:

• degrees of separation! Turns out Laurence’s friend Ray knows Sonny, and tall Michael knows Paul, and relatives of someone had various connections.
• The cake was fantastic – two-story heart-shaped, included about a 1/3 bottle of Cointreau orange liqueur in it
• Great outfits – RB’s and Rebecca’s seemed to have been done by the same Southeast Asian tailor
• Lots of food from Fong Mei! My favourite!
• All of RB’s fantastic artwork scattered across the walls.
• Seeing lots of familiar faces and having a decent time catching up!

Dubious points:

• Some people obviously came for the drinks, and then left without any decent farewell.
• Spiked vodka and grenadine fruit punch. Most of the Christian congregation left RB’s party red-faced (and not from embarrassment either!)
• In-house noise control.
• Who the hell gives someone a Striptease DVD as a birthday present?!

The only formalities came about from me asking people to share something about RB. Speeches were mostly short and simple, and focussed on RB’s positive attributes such as her intellect, artistic talent, loyalty and her onion-ness! (Shrek: “I’m like an onion.” Donkey: “You make people cry?” Shrek: “NO DONKEY. I have LAYERS.”)

Then they cut the cake, etc. Lots of people sang “Happy Birthday”. I’m glad you made it RB

Most people left quietly, without saying anything – even Laurence’s ride back to West Auckland left! Luckily a couple of us decided to hit town: RB, Laurence, Cheryl, Ray, Tommy, Colin and Marcy, May and Joseph. We were unfortunate enough to decide on The Lounge on High St – we hit it on a $5 cover charge night and a scratch-happy DJ trio, all who had unanimously decided that changing the song every 30 seconds was artistic merit (yeah right). Nevertheless, RB got free drinks from the bar and it all went wobbly-knees from there.

I think I slept at 4, which wasn’t too bad.

Good times!

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