Maybe not Seoul Garden next time.
When I went to the toilet at like midnight, I felt like I was peeing through my arse.
I blame it on the cockles. It smelt disgustingly rancid, and it probably was.
We had three cockle shells. We weren't sure what effect the heat from the boiling and barbequeing would have on them, but we thought maybe they might pop open, as clams do. I saw on Japan Hour, this clam, probably alive, you know these Japs, was just sitting on a wire grill above a cosy little fire, and pop it sprang open, and the juice from inside flowed out and sizzled in the fire. It was mouth-watering, especially since I'm far from a big fan of clams, or seafood for that matter. But we digress.
We fried one cockle and threw the other in the soup. After like 10 minutes when it still hadn't changed yet (still shut), we fished it out. After it cooled, Graham tried opening the fried one. And the result was he stained his fingers with a horrible shit smell. And the cockle meat, the cockle meat was dull reddish brown. That nearly turned us off, and Graham was bitching about how condemned his fingers with the crappy smell.
Straight after that by the way, Graham suddenly mock-collapsed on my shoulder. As I guessed, he had been given a headshot by the stupid oil on the barbeque pan. I almost couldn't breathe laughing. I on the other hand was relatively undisturbed. What's more disturbing though is how Graham could get oil splattered on him, and do nothing except bitch and bitch. His hand doesn't even jerk or anything. He just goes 'Awww freeeeaaaakk...'. Weird.
Anyhoo Graham used a fork to pry the cockle open, so he got Elton, who had fished the boiling cockle out, to do the same. And oh my God, when the cockle opened, blood freaking ran out la. Elton was like 'Looks like some PMS shit la ewww...' And I probably lost any appetite I had to fill myself up to my neck. Disgusting shit man.
About 20min later, we found that somehow the last cockle found its way into the soup, and had been stewing there for quite a long time. I was bitching that the soup would have been contaminated, but the others said it was ok, according to the ratio of poison : water I guess. But see, the great effects of probably no more than a drop of rotten cockle juice. Freak.
Woodlands had no LAN shop we knew of, so we went to CCK.
CCK's two LAN shops that we knew of were gone.
We went to JEC.
THE LAN SHOP WAS GONE.
Freaking hell. But we were at Jurong East anyway, so we just took 52 to Beauty World at Bukit Timah.
DotA was FUCKING HORRIBLE. It was worse than my first game I think. Just when I was starting to pick up stuff, like scanning round the area to make sure no enemies are coming!, it was gg gg already.
GG my ass.
KJ did well with Sniper though. As expected, everyone freaked and ran when he did Scattershot. Hahahaha.
But freaking hell Bernard, go kope Lich so damn fast, I had no choice but to use Lightning Revenant. Jeez I still prefer Lich.
After that KJ Elton and Bernard went off, so the five of us continued with CS: C0. Well at least that was better. I did surprise Ben and Ryan a few times. And I blasted Ben down in the last round. Ahaha. Oh and one round, Ben was trying to humiliate by knifing me. I turned around and blew him into the air.
Ben was like screaming and shaking KY's chair after that.
Went to Ben's house after that. I was freaking hungry so I bought a Double Cheeseburger meal.
I was full after the burger.
It's shocking can? I normally wolf them all down, and... sheesh.
Ben tried Resident Evil 4 for the first time. It deserved the 9.6 rating. It's already challenging to get your ass past the first couple of stages. And the price for failing is just wicked sick.
Apparently we start off in a village where the villagers are strangely hostile. Owned the first couple of people pretty easily. But we got to this village where there was this dead man burning on a stake, and there was this white pallid woman holding a sickle. She was quite some distance away, so we chose to ignore her for the moment.
SHE THREW THE FUCKING SICKLE RIGHT INTO BEN'S CHARACTER'S HEAD.
We were like temporarily pwned there, reeling in shock, then Ben's character, Leon, recovered. And we started blasting people.
After that we decided to run into a house, and closed the door from the inside, barring the villagers out for the moment. Quite useful, we got a grenade, ammo, a shotgun and some shells for it. A guy climbed up the ladder and broke through the window, and tried to attack Leon. We turned around to escape.
There were three people behind. The one closest to us had a chainsaw.
A running chainsaw.
It happened so fast we didn't even have time to scream and freak out. The guy lunged forward and shoved the chainsaw into Leon's neck.
Later we managed to get our ass out of that house after killing the chainsaw guy. We ran into another empty house.
Another bastard leapt from above with a warcry and sawed Leon's head off again.
Ben turned the PS2 off.
Kamen Rider Blade movie after that. Gosh it's good. I only find it horrible on Kids Central because of the first-freaking-class English dubbing.
Au naw... Ah-yuh-meh, 'r ya 'kay?
Haw haw haw haw! No she's naat. She'll dah, 'n Ah'll rule th'whirllll. Haw haw haw haw!!!
YUCK.
Henshin was so cool, the way they stroll through the card thingy. And man, multiple card attacks are sweet ok. Sweeeeeet.
My only complaint is that they have this freaking irritaing whew-whew-whew-whew-whew-whew-whew-whew card sound when the cards are being thrown. At least a metallic razor-ish zing sound would have been better. Whew-whew-whew-whew-whew your head.
Chiong-ed off after that (well I didn't manage to finish the movie) to meet my aunt at the airport. Nothing much there, except as usual I thought I was racing against time and as usual when I got to the belt I had to wait for sometime before luggage even appeared on the belt.
In the middle of the night I woke up with an itch and couldn't sleep, so I decided to try tuning the Chinese guitar once more. A Jem Jr. head, an unidentifiable neck, and an RG body and pickguard. What the hell. But hey it's free so I'm not really complaining.
Previously I had trouble getting the idiotic FR bridge into tune. But I finally know how to do it! There were some problems with the fine tuners (for those who even know what the hell I'm talking about) and it was stiff and not quite movable, so I had to press the long screw down that clamps the strings in place down, so that the whole saddle for that string moves down, and gives space for the screw to move downwards. Crappy shit. But China la. What to do.
But then I found that the action was too high, and I couldn't really tap, so I lowered the whole bridge height carefully. Not that I had a choice actually, the tension was so high from the springs that the two screws holding the bridge up was so damn hard to move.
After I shifted it down like 2mm I found that there was buzzing all over the place, so I turned the screws upwards two rounds each.
And voila. It's done.
See how first though. I still feel I couldn't whammy as well as before. There's some awkwardness about it, like the bridge is reluctant to move. Hmmmm... probably due to the fact that I somehow managed to dismantle the whole bridge system, and somehow managed to put them all back together again.
orchestrated by Renhao at 10:27:00 am
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
I cannot believe I haven't blogged about the Raishin yet. It's like one of the few accomplishments in my miserable life.
The Raishin is my signature move in the ever-increasingly complex sport (look if shooting random clay discs can be considered an Olympic sport, you shut your trap young man) of foozball (yeah I like to use Z instead of S).
The Raishin is simple. Combining the elements of power and surprise, the Raishin is an extremely hard midfielder shot. You know a Raishin from three things.
1) The table rattles (slightly or not slightly depending on the oiling of the bars, blah blah) when the midfielders are brought down. This is often accompanied by an audible krrng sound.
2) The ball, for a millisecond, seems to stretch into a light translucent orange comet. Then all too soon, it disappears.
3) Following 2), a ball-shrinking paang is heard as the ball slams into the goal.
The name Raishin is derived from 2) and 3). Raishin is simply Japanese for lei shen, 雷神, meaning Thunder God. The inclusion of the word god is also significantly symbolic, as the Raishin is designed for a left-hander wrist, which not many have, and consequently not many can do the Raishin. Even with left handers it requires practice to flick and of course target, bringing even further down the selected few who can accomplish the Raishin effectively. This author is only halfway through. But heck, this author invented the Raishin, so this author will take however much time he damn well pleases to train up on targetting.
The Raishin is most effective as an opening scorer, although there is no problem at all using it in play. Just wait for the ball to roll to a gap through the opposite midfielder and hit. Easier said than done. Also, the ball must roll onto your side of the field so that you can reach it in the first place.
Even though it has become a standard move for this author to flick his midders hard whenever the ball comes near (sometimes resulting in the most embarrassing backspins), it is advised to use the Raishin as a surprise attack. Sooner or later the enemy, if of any skill at all, will recognise a way to block your Raishin, and you do not want to acquaint him with the antidote too soon. Randomise your shots, or use the Raishin as a shocker if the opponents are getting the upper hand. That should give you a one or two goal advantage while they are recovering and on their toes. Another thing that can be done to keep the opponents on their toes - when the ball is successfully pumped up by the defender, or anytime the ball moves into your (the striker's) field, use 1), bringing the midders and strikers down hard, with a krrg sound, to give the psychological impression of an impenetrable lockdown.
In closing, do not be depressed or feel inferior at all if you find you cannot accomplish the Raishin. You are not stupid, nor slow. Always remember that.
You're just plain untalented.
orchestrated by Renhao at 9:30:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
The video is a huge slap to parents, and you would never think that two guys who make a show with alot of cussing and swearing could orchestrate such a brilliant score for musical numbers. Listen for the last line.
Goodness. Just when I thought it was all over the damned review sheets sent me into another frenzy. Feel so guilty for sending my part in so late... Sigh but that is over now.
Taking a useful break by watching Farenheit 911 from my usual source. Sucky quality but what do you expect la. I saw one called FARENHEIT 911 - The Truth and Lies about 911 and selected it thinking well, at least it's in one movie, or else the alternative would be the standard two parts for VCDs. Turned out the real title was just The Truth and Lies about 911, but some smart ass threw Farenheit 911 in in front, probably to attract more downloads. It's an amateur recording of a lecture given by one Michael Ruppert. Dunno him, and I only watched halfway, but it is interesting stuff even if it isn't Farenheit 911, so I'll keep the rest of it for the holidays. Still waiting for part 2 to finish. ZzZ.
I picked that zzz thing from Graham... zzz
In between answering the Comms review questions, in a desperate attempt to take a break, I played the HK Mahjong software that Ben lent me to install. I think I'm getting better now at building tiles and knowing which one to throw. My problem is I'm so absorbed in building tiles I just throw throw throw and if I'm unlucky someone will sek hu me and lose me 96 chips. Sheesh.
Playing with what Ben claims to be the three best players also is very irritating, because someone will almost always be holding on to the card you want. Take a look at this.
and this
Crappy. But I also have my moments...
See see see Joe Cheung's face?? Priceless!
and this!
Woohoo. I'm currently at 2 points minimum though. I'll want to progress to 3 points minimum soon.
Yesterday I accompanied Ben to school. Ben and Kaiyan were doing accounting (again... when I complained to Ryan about their incessancy with accounting he said 'Take the course and I dare you to say that again lol'. Hmmm.) and I went to the computer lab to do my Comms (I guess we're quite incessant about it too, the three of us). At five o'clock we knocked off, and went up to the fourth level. And just nice! We met Navi, the super defender smasher who gets pwned everytime now under Ben's Heavenly Striker rule. And we invited him to join us. And lo and behold, he says..
Close already.
...
WHAT???
Five o'clock. School close.
Aww man... And we were so looking forward to it.
Ben: Eh wanna go Mambo not?
KY and Me: Huh??
Ben: Let's go.
KY: On la.
RH: Alrightz.
And guess what Graham. I haven't let you down.
I PWNED THEM FLAT BUHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!
Thanks to Felice too.
I made quite a number of stupid costly fouls. But Ben and Kaiyan made even more.
We should play some time soon. :D
orchestrated by Renhao at 12:34:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
I have been darn worked out over the last few days. Doing last minute work on two assigments totalling 10 pages of bullshit isn't the easiest thing in the world.
But finally, it's over. And I can at least type out this short (relatively short) post specially for you before trying my best to mug for Psychology.
Monday - Ever since Ben's HK Mahjong was installed in Kaiyan's laptop we've all been finding excuses to use it. UGC saw a terrific (well not bad) presentation on Terrorism by Kwong Weng and Samantha and Melissa. After that was continuation of the Fog of War, but Ben was going to Bedok, and he was whining about how we should just zao. When I heard the thunder, I was packed in 5 seconds.
Out at the bus stop, Ben leaned against one of the metal pillars. Lightning was flashing all about us, and I made him get off the pillar. Seconds later, a brilliant flash lit the sky.
The metal conduit above us emitted a clear crack.
Tuesday - Attempted and successfully failed to make progress on my 225 term paper in the morning. Since I was targetting SNAG, I picked up the last copy of it, which was sitting on the display shelf in 7-11 and read through it.
I felt like I just went through Maxim.
Which, incidentally, isn't a bad feeling.
Except the girls were more or less hopeless. But good articles.
Arrived slightly late for psychology. As it turned out Yeap was just running through all the previous learning outcomes. Most of us didn't copy since it was already somewhere in our notes, but it's hard to take mental note on stuff she said she would test. Kaiyan and I were looking at Pointless But Cool.com, and all the great gadgets he could buy (or dream of buying). Tried and failed again after that to do my work while Ben and Kaiyan were studying Accounting. It was irritating because when I unplug my earphones Ben and Kaiyan were incessantly quarelling, like some old couple, and if I plugged up, I would be bouncing to Uncle Fucker. Go figure.
After we officially gave up studying at 5.30, we went to IMM to help Kaiyan select a present for... someone. We went to a watch shop and looked for the cheapest one, and I singled one design out. $59. There were three face colors: black, brown and white. I eliminated white because the person was fair, and left Kaiyan to decide between the other two. He picked brown, just as I predicted.
Well actually I did mention out loud that brown looks nice, so I might have steered him in the direction.
My services were needed again by Ben, who went to Giant to get chocolates for his love. I asked his budget, and when he replied $20, I smiled.
If I could do as well in the arcade sniper game as in spotting and picking off dark chocolates, I would probably have become an arcade hero or something. In the end Ben probably got scared at the pile that was building up in my hand, and said that $10 worth was enough. I miscalculated Cadbury Old Gold to be $2+ when it was $4+ (bloodsuckers), and gave him $13+ worth of chocs in the end.
Went up to Kaiyan's shop and played Mahjong with Uncle Chen, Auntie Loo, and Joe Cheung, Long Hand, 3 points minimum while waiting for Kaiyan to zap notes for us. I was SO close to gaming so many times, but in all fairness so were the other three, when I saw their hand. But it's really not funny when one side declares 9 Sticks and the other side declares 9 Balls. When I saw their hands after the draw I nearly fainted, I was so close to getting my own ass raped big time.
Today - Got back late the previous night, about 9+. By the time I had really settled in to do my 225 paper, 大長今 had already started, which meant 10 o'clock. 大長今 has become my clock. I get my first warning when the opening theme plays at 10, when I hear the retarded hoolala song at the end, it's time to shut my computer off.
Sucks to have a curfew. Remember that children.
So not in the mood for chatting anyway I shut off the computer after I had printed my work so far out. I continued up to almost 1am, apparently, to finish up my paper. I was so relieved that my writer's juice started flowing again. Woke up this morning to type it out onto the computer, and check for errors, and then I'm fucking done. Finally! Just when I alighted at the SIM bus stop, Kaiyan tells me that apart from himself Rocky Graham and Jonathan, no one else has turned up, and they want to go Mambo. So I just wait for them at the bus stop.
Over at Mambo, everyone was playing poorly. It's probably all that stress that we've been ruthlessly subjected to these couple of weeks. I get better after I pull Felice on. Luckily the others agreed on KAP Mac's, so I could use my EZ-Link to pay for my meal.
Back at school Hocking is slightly late, and I entertain the rest with the South Park Movie in the meantime. We finish up Annie Hall, a great film with a star-studded cast. I met Ben at his Marketing class, and we leave for Bedok once more, and Tampines for me.
My juice is gone. I'm tired. I wonder how I'm going to study for Psychology. Perhaps it's better that I don't have random ideas running round my head.
Sam gyet tangggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg.
orchestrated by Renhao at 7:16:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
UPDATE
A special, early, double bill of laughter for my faithful fans. Both of Jay Leno's Talking Photobooth at Universal Studios. The bimbos on the last part of the second one totally asked for it.
Don't miss my previous post. Critically acclaimed work.
orchestrated by Renhao at 9:20:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
It's certainly hot, but there's a certain closeness and cosiness about wearing long sleeve. I just feel more protected I guess. Like if a bomb were to go off next to me I'd probably suffer horrifying painful third degree burns that would scar me for life, instead of die instantly and be done with it.
Booya.
When I walked out of the house today my parents were asleep and had no idea that their son was wearing formal attire for essentially nothing. It's horrible though, because since I don't drive I have to walk, and that makes me sweaty, especially my back. And, on the train, since I leave so early, I slept hugging my bag and crumpled my shirt even before my day at school began.
When Gaylene walked in my huge mass probably attracted her attention, and she went 'Oh my Gahdddd... wow... look at that...' And she was fawning all over me except she was like 4 feet away and not touching me. Whew.
I got two ticks for wearing a tie. Ahahaha. In the end it was so strangly that when it came to my turn to present I gave the tie to Graham and shook his hand. Hee.
While waiting for my second section, I went to get the bottle of mineral water to drink. And I had opened it when I reached my seat which was next to Gaylene's, and she said, 'That's my water...' I dunno how I did it so quickly. I set it down on her table and said 'I opened it for you.' Totally swinged it back at her. Lol m-m-m-m-m-m-m-monster killlll!
Poor Rocky got a rude shock when he presented that illiteracy rate during Mao's reign dropped from 90+% to 7%. Gaylene was so indignant that she blurted out 'Bullshit.' And then she corrected herself and said 'I'm sorry I mean... That's... that's not right. It's wrong.' But well, whether someone says 'bullshit' or not, it's still a shock to find out that you screwed up your facts.
Overall I think it went well. The only thing I would ask for is more time, so I could get through my part about a common streak in dictators slowly and clearly. That was a very important finding after all.
For taking so much time however, we were ordered by Gaylene to come to watch Derek's presentation. Gaylene was on the verge of postponing it to tomorrow, but they did it just in time. It was honestly a wonderful presentation, I don't say that just because I ate up their time with my loso merry-go-rounds about dictators' shitty childhoods. It was about Japan's conquest of Asia, and gosh that was better than any history lesson I've ever taken.
In COM225 we watched Annie Hall, the film that caused some upset by nudging past the first Star Wars to win the best Picture. And I actually recognised a super hot Diane Keaton before Graham did buhahaha. She hasn't changed alot, when I saw her in The Family Stone. Except her hair, her face getting a little bigger, a couple of lovely wrinkles. I recognised her from her eyes and nose. Lovely stuff. She got Best Actress in the same year. I think Annie Hall was a sweeper that year. Amazing really, how it could address so many serious, and dry issues in a funny way. Woody Allen was wonderful playing the neurotic (I think) Alvy.
After 225 the Clique requested that I stayed to watch their presentation and take photographs. Gaylene did them a favour by watching their speech and pointing stuff out to them, although by that time they had so perfected it, even Bernard passed my basic level. Hoho getting smartass now.
Kaijie had his facts and arguments, but he was really nervous, poor thing, and he kept stopping to think because he probably blanked out for awhile. And his transitions were frankly shudderable. But well he hasn't exactly been public speaker, so I really shouldn't pick on him. Hohoho.
However... Kaijie said however in the weirdest way. Well he said he was trying to process what to say next, but that's a real weird way to take up RAM from the pronounciation sector. Ha anyway.
Another thing. I am a superb photographer. You hear me? SUPERB.
When I got into the class though, I found out to my horror that the auto-flash was on. And covering it up I made it look like Kaiyan was presenting his part in a red-light district or something. It was horrible. I had to slip out to turn the flash off because the stupid camera was making such a loud beeping sound. And I had to cover my mouth in with my hands fingertips-together to look cool, because I was trying my best not to smile too much when Kaijie said however again. Da Silva was surprisingly easy on them, probably because they were the only group to do a Business-to-Business product. Not many people can do that, but I think the whole idea itself forced them in the B2B direction. Good for them then.
Foozball, then dinner with KY at IMM LJS. Yeah I'm suddenly out of writing juice. Sue me.
orchestrated by Renhao at 8:17:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
After racking my brains over the puzzles on my handheld Sudoku Pro 1, the Today newspaper's weekday puzzle seemed insultingly easy.
Also Ben and I learnt from each other today. He learnt slicing, eliminating possible places for a given number, and I learnt (d'oh) to eliminate numbers by observing the square, row and column. Wonder why I didn't notice that earlier. And Ben's more or less a first timer la -.- .
We started reading the horoscopes, and when we got to Kaiyan's one it read that a loved one would pay more attention to him, and I said Which would be him, and pointed to Bernard. And well I nearly got strangled for that but what's new... As we were exchanging horoscope readings and friendly spikes, Bernard suddenly asked to see Mr Muscle, obviously eliciting gay comments from the others. But the others insisted the horoscopes be read finish first, and then he could see his Muscle Man. Meanwhile Ben had for some reason commented that for all his muscles and 6 pack (We were proud of Kaijie who beat him cos he had an 8 pack... no no no I don't have... I'm fat and unfit) his Fat Man/Little Boy looked quite small, and well, we sort of agreed by silent assent. It's best not to give a loud wholehearted YES in response to this sort of comment, but anyway, I searched for the page with Mr Muscle, while muttering Now where is your man... And for some reason Ben thought that was very bad of me. Uh?
After scrutinising it for a couple of seconds, Bernard passed it back and said 'Ehhh I've seen bigger.' distastefully. To which Ben KY and me stared at him and I couldn't help but blurt out 'You've seen men with bigger crotches???' And Bernard hastily said 'No no no bigger muscles!'
Ohhh...
After UGC Ben and I were supposed to go cut hair together but he said he was too lazy/tired/whatever-other-synonyms. So oh well, I go to Tampines lor. Before going to EC though I go to Times to check the fountain pens out. I intend to get one fountain pen and one calligraphy set.
Anyway when I get to EC its empty and I'm shown to a seat immediately. The hairdresser addresses me in Chinese, to which I reluctantly answer. As you can see though I've got my terms ready, and fluently enunciated 弄薄不要剪短. If all you see are funnily accented characters for goodness' sake set your encoding to Unicode.
So the barber starts her job.
And gets through it without a hitch, and without me suspecting that I will come out of that chair looking like a total cuckoo.
When she starts to vacuum my hair however, her friend walks in. Probably a colleague. She smiles at her, and keeps her head turned, vacuuming through the same line while showing what looks like a wistful smile at her friend, so that I begin to suspect that even uncut hair would get sucked off.
She turns back and after a while, for some reason put more pressure than needed against my head. Suddenly my whole head is caught up with the suction and I'm jerked backwards for abit before the suction lets up.
And for once I'm totally satisfied with the work on the back portion of my hair. Normally they do funny things like cut it real short or high slope it. Then I would be speechless, and they would normally take it as a sign of consent and give a cursory flash of the other side of the back before restoring the mirror to its slot.
orchestrated by Renhao at 8:15:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
I've always always wanted to see Steve Vai play this. Now that I've found it, I'm sharing it with you all. Guitarists will take delight in identifying his many technical licks and tricks, and non-guitarists will hopefully get the swept-away feeling I get when hearing this song.
Today I, well we went to my favourite restaurant (well not favourite but it has fond memories) Triple 3 at Meritus Mandarin.
Me with the sumptous spread
It was my bro's birthday, well actually its tomorrow, or rather today, since it's 1am. But we decided on Saturday to celebrate for some reason.
When the three house musicians arrived, after they'd played the birthday song (we suggested that it should be called the Bday Restaurant since just about every table they went to had a birthday person). They ended... well we ended up hearing Happy Birthday like 10 times. Anyhoo after they finished our Happy Birthday, it fell upon me to choose a song, and I said Estrellita. First thing only the guy screwed up the intro solo, but I think only I noticed because it wasn't all that glaring a mistake but I flinched anyway. Then after that all three of them screwed up the harmonising. They had a little trick though, which was start soft then get louder when they were sure they harmonised correctly. So its like Estrelliiiiiitaaa del lejaaaaAAAAAA-no cieeeeee-looooo... I was like give up...
Anyway when I'd made my round I realised it wasn't all that big a spread, but they provided alot of carbo stuff, so we were very quickly full without much choice. My poor mom missed out on the fabulous ice cream because she made a mistake and overloaded on the equally good chocolates. Such a waste. I had ice cream on a waffle which was basically chocolate overload... Melted chocolate, then mini oreos, then chocolate sauce, then chocolate shavings, then chocolate ice cream, topped with almonds. My God it was darn sinful.
Oh well.
Les Musicien (I think that's how you spell it... I dunno I'm just a French poseur)
Apparently my mom knows how to act cute too
orchestrated by Renhao at 12:40:00 am
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
If I remember correctly, one fact I learnt from Communication class is that 70% of communication is non-verbal. 20% verbal. 10% content.
Which means we are relying on 10% of communication in IM. Relying on 30% of communication on telephones. This theory only applies to conversational communication, by the way, hence excluding emails, blogs, letters, faxes, so on.
So we're relying on a tenth of communication during MSN chats (or Yahoo!. I wanted to type or Yahoo! for you bohemians but I kinda realised second place in the list doesn't quite count as bohemian...). We worked round that, or in a layman's perspective we improved communication, by smilies. And MSN took that one step further with the introduction of emoticons. Right. So we have little faces now to let people know how we feel. Then MSN ran out of ideas for cute yellow faces, so they opened the floor and let their users create and save custom emoticons. We had a whole new wave of cool emotes, and then we started having Kuchiki taicho doing chire, topless sluts flopping their jelly breasts and round yellow figures rolling on the floor laughing and kicking. That probably adds up to 20% more communication into the conversation.
Would that bring IM on par with telephone conversation? Nope. Because telephone conversation relies on the full 20% of verbal communication - our tone, our volume, our expressions. IM uses only 20% out of the 70% of non verbal communication, a meagre 28.57% of non verbal communication. As it is, because of the wide umbrella of non verbal communication, we are unlikely to get anywhere near using the full 70% of it. In fact I think it's already a one in a million chance you can sustain a full 30% usage of verbal communicative techniques all throughout a one minute phone call, much less using full power non verbal communication. How much can 29% do?
Yet capitals rarely appear anymore. The most common punctuative symbol is the ellipse (...). Conversants don't require question marks to know that a question is being asked. Why?
I notice that these do-aways are with people that I talk to often. Of course, there are certain things I stick to with every person I meet. Almost all the time I spell words out in full, with exception of longer common words like tomorrow (tml), remember (rmb), never mind (nvm), oh my God what the fuck barbeque (omgwtfbbq), and so on. I don't capitalise any names, including mine, except maybe God and Jesus. My chat-lines imitate how I would talk, entered each time I would pause if I were talking. I would, however, have more do-aways with Ben, for instance, than with my secondary school classmates, and more do-aways with them, than with my cousin. In the end, it looks like it boils down to familiarity. Certainly on all fields and levels there are misunderstandings, misinterpretations and miscommunications. And sometimes quite fatal too. But that can't be helped, given the thin platform we've unwittingly constructed ourselves to balance and converse on. Is there a possibility of increasing communication in IM?
Stay tuned to find out. I'll come up with the answer in like 80 years' time.
Other news, next semester's timetable is... well fucked up and relaxed at the same time. We would be taking 3 courses at a time, and 2 courses at a time for the Business people. But each class is from 1.30-5.15pm. 3h45min. Can fricking die la. I have no idea at all why they would want to have such long classes. I hope it doesn't last for the rest of our years here. We'll all become study zombies.
orchestrated by Renhao at 10:30:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
Another board game by Sining today. Not as adrenalin pumping as I'm the Boss, and this is an RPG. Still the whole concept was a novel idea. Ben was the traitor, and we all combined forces against him and exterminated him in like no time. Haha. Blobs away!
For some reason though, Kaijie's character is 1) ugly, and 2) can't ever seem to win dice rolls. Like he had I think 3 or 4 units of Knowledge, and even when he left to discuss Marketing and Sining rolled for him, he couldn't even get a total of 3. On 3 dices! Sigh. There's one more game to learn to play. Sining has got three board games. And there's only Railroad Tycoon left to learn. Then it's back to I'm the Boss.
Gosh today was a long day though. We had to sit through a whole hour-and-a-half of an Interpersonal Comm presentation, which oh alright was quite interesting even though as usual the discussion was mainly among Juliana Hans and me. And to reward us Hocking gave a simple quiz. 2 True/False questions. And the second one was related to the first, which was about an anecdote Hocking gave for some theory. And then he realised that he didn't explain the whole story to us, and so he finished the missing parts, and explained that 'Yes this anecdote has some elements of Personal Idioms in it.' And you could hear like half the class, especially Hans, go 'Huhyah...' and change their answer from False to True. Either he chose to ignore it, or this is the price for going to so many Springsteen concerts.
Having had no luck in the malls, I decided to drop by Cash Converters and see what I could find for my brother's birthday. There are always always quirky stuff there, and I thought maybe I would find something. Actually I kinda sensed I would walk out without having to worry anymore.
So I'm in there, having finished examining the pool cues, which aren't all that worth their prices. And I go on to the back of the store. There the salesman was demonstrating a sound system to this guy, and he was playing Hip Hop or some funky variation of it, and my earphones were no match. I could feel and of course hear the bass bumping through my whole body for goodness sake. The woofer was like the size of a mini wheel can?
This is the first time I'm using can like that... you know, the Singlish 'can'. It's damn huge can? It's fucking pain can? I hate these shit to my guts can? That sort of can.
Then again I was listening to Lloyd Webber. And Lloyd Webber music is a wuss when it comes to blasting.
Anyway I finally saw something wedged underneath a couple of stuff I can't imagine anyone would buy anyway. And lo! A calligraphy set! Five nib sizes, five ink cartridges and one catridge sryinge. Converter they call it. I have no idea what you're supposed to do after you suck ink up. Probably squirt at others.
$5.
I would have bought a mini aquarium. You know those with bubbles and plastic fish that appear to be swimming. But the motor wasn't working. Otherwise that would have been even better. As it is calligraphy is a great gift already. My bro's into visual arts after all.
Thank you God. One worry down.
Apparently the wind was blowing so strongly it toppled one palm right across the road, and one of the billboards for the Badminton Hall. Actually, the only one. And it isn't really a billboard just a huge frame for ads.
Random.
orchestrated by Renhao at 9:11:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
Decided to scrap Darth Vader. Well at least until there isn't anything else to put on. I blame this video entirely on Felicia Song. She purposely said yah yah boys dont watch skating knowing our ego and I simply had to watch it...
It was great. Especially the throwing spin right before the chorus of the song. You can hear the hoooo and the clapping so damn loudly.
Picked $10 up on Friday when I was on my way to Blujaz. Damn I forgot to mention this again. Anyway Ben was with me, at Dover, where he would meet his mom for dinner at Tiong Bahru. I honestly surprised myself with how fast I recognised and reacted to the red folded rectangle. I guess that's how money minded we are. Ben didn't even notice it, nor understand when I unfolded the note and straightened it in his face with triumph. Just when we reached the top of the escalator, I did it before I forgot. I pulled the note out, kissed it lightly, and muttered 'Thank you God.' Ben was like 'What are you doing?' And I looked at him in disbelief and said 'You mean you didn't get it?' And I showed him the note again. 'I picked it up!' 'Oh. Oh cool!'
And he asked for interest for his loan which well isn't all that important to this topic hahaha.
Point is, I felt in my heart that this was an attention grabber from God. So much has happened over the past couple of weeks, and I felt myself slowly but surely slipping away from Him. And well probably knowing that anything with dollars pounds or ringgit would catch my eye, He opened my to that $10, like saying 'Hey hey. I'm still here. By your side. You may have left me, but I will never leave you, nor forsake you.' So reassuring.
Time to buck up then.
orchestrated by Renhao at 3:27:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
Finally finished Amityville Horror. It's basically sudden-loud-music-and-big-scary-face horror, not creepy chilling horror. But oh well will do. One step further from hum ji-ness. Especially with Silent Hill coming up. I was telling Ben about it when I chanced on the ad the other day...
Me: ooo silent hill is coming out
Ben:5? [He thinks it's the game. I think it's cos the games' getting suckier that's why they have to come up with a movie.]
Me: I mean the movie lol
Ben:oooo when
Me: 28/4
Ben:k cool lets go and watch
Me: i warn you first, i will scream louder than the girls
Ben:im busy :D
Me: a hole
Forgot to mention that I'm glad those who went for UGC consultation enjoyed the Hitler miniseries. It was wonderful when I watched it.
orchestrated by Renhao at 3:15:00 pm
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.
Went to see Charles play, finally, at Blujaz Café yesterday. It was raining so damn heavily, and we didn't know our way, that our friend who was supposed to be late got there like 20min before us...
A bassist, a guitarist, a soprano saxaphonist. What can I say? They were wonderful. Charles' Telecaster was beautiful, nice sound too. The saxist was really good, maybe it's because he was live, but I thought Kenny G was crap compared to him when he played Kenny G's song (forgot the title, Songbird I think). I was recording but I think our voices spoilt the whole thing. Especially Liau Chuan En's......
The two songs I knew that Charles sang was Summertime and Nature Boy, and they were wonderful. The bass-sax guitar-sax improvisations were also wonderful.
Just after I warned Chuan En not to make a fuss, I was trying to order rum coke with a straight face when he said loudly, 'You're ordering what with your food??' and I glared at him, and said 'That would be all ^^.' It was probably nothing, but I know why people drink after a tiring day at work. It felt really good to just have alcohol in your bones. Blood. Whatever.
orchestrated by Renhao at 8:47:00 am
© 2004-2007. All rights reserved. You have been warned.