Fortissimo

A Private Moment

2007-01-30T23:13:00.000+08:00

I've been sort of neglecting this blog because 1) I'll be moving to Wordpress as soon as I work out how to import all these posts, and 2) there are simply more people I know reading my 125 blog. It's rather self-centered, yes, but then why sing on an empty stage when people are anticipating your presence at the theatre? Uwahhh chiminology.

This post, however, is a private performance, to continue in the vein of my analogy. I believe anyone who at this point still bothers to check this site regularly cares enough to know about this. Especially when, as I found out to my horror, my blog template doesn't even have RSS-enabled codes written in it.

Recently I learnt that two of my closest friends were going to Buffalo for a semester. I never entertained more than a fleeting glance of that thought, because I didn't see the need previously. And even though a good number of my friends are in Buffalo now, I didn't feel sad for not being able to go over. As soon as I heard that these two were going though, something strange happened to me. I began to reason with myself why going would be beneficial. I began to visualize myself staying with them in an apartment, conveniently taking a lift to campus in the car one of them is bound to drive, and all that. Suddenly I wanted to go so badly.

At first Angel Hao dismissed it as a simple case of I-also-want. But to my self-disappointment, I realised that it was so much more than that. I just couldn't bear to let my two friends go. Because obviously although, as demonstrated with another friend at Buffalo right now, we can still chat around this time (11-12pm SG), they won't be here, physically. And that was something I couldn't really imagine. As you might be thinking now though, I was rather afraid, disgusted even, of these stalker-like tendencies. They are my close friends, but how can I hold them back? And who am I to anyway? It doesn't matter how attached I am to them (or them to me, though I seriously doubt we share the same sentiments on that matter). They have their own lives to live, their own dreams to chase, just like me. Just like any other person. It is truly a horrible, cold feeling, to be doubting yourself, to be torn between what you know is right and what you want.

I'm not patronizing or pretending to be interested when my friend talks about the details and processes of arranging to go over, even though sometimes it does depress me to be talking about a near-impossible dream so casually. I feel sincerely happy for my friend that he's got this opportunity to go over. And you don't have to shut up about it, by the way, just because you read this blog post. I'm ok with it, and I really want to know. If anything I hope he, and my other friend who can well afford it, understand through this post really how blessed they are to be going over, to be even stressing out on a perpetually incompetent CMPB.

Along with all these ideas came some really smart ones about trying my luck with my parents. Thank God Angel Hao put my common sense on emergency high alert. I would only be disappointed if I were to ask them. So I held back, while querying on the deadline for my target semester. After ensuring there was no immediate rush, I rang up my cousin Sandra.

Several times before Sandra told me to always, always, always feel free to call her when I needed something - money, advice, material. The only material I've actually asked her for is my beloved guitar, and I'd be wont to ask her for cold cash. I accept charity, but to ask for it is beyond my morals. Advice however, I've asked a few times. And this was the perfect chance to hold her to her word. As I rightly predicted, she was in a position to know more about my parents' financial situation than I was. They wouldn't tell me anyway, so from a good amount of angles which you viewed the situation with, calling her was the best. She was quite obviously shocked out of her shoes with the bond amount of $75k, although I assured her a mortgage and bank statement was acceptable. And even then, she spoke in a shocked hush after she heard that the other expenses, tuition lodging and all, would chalk up another $17k.

See the thing about telling a confidant is you have a clear mind to put the situation into perspective. She enquired about the length of my program - 3 years. About the cost each year - almost 20k. And I was sobered when she said that my parents would be paying a year's worth of local fees for 3 months of an eye-opening experience. She urged me to 'really pray' about this, something which I knew very well I should be doing, but for some reason hesitated to do. It couldn't be plainer, I guess, that that's the only thing really right for me to do. Cos if the Lord doesn't provide a solution, I wonder if anyone else can.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing by disclosing these things. I see nothing wrong or private of course, other than face, which I increasingly scorn, but who knows what people out there may do with this information. I got the financial information I was looking for from my cousin - my parents' need to prepare money for the completion of our new condo, and to do that they have to sell the house I'm in now as well as our one other property. I was surprised when my cousin told me that if she was not wrong our other property, a small condo in Geylang (nothing fishy la) was paid for, but my HDB apartment still isn't. This is a huge surprise because I thought I heard in one of their conversations years ago that this flat was finally paid for. And considering that this flat is 12 years old, and that for a third of these 12 years my dad was earning considerable pay working in the banking sector, I was really puzzled. But the fact was that I knew couldn't possibly burden my parents by even planting the thought of me missing out on going over, above their long lists of existing concerns. I believe behind their nonchalant facades they are probably disappointed that they couldn't give me what I wanted. They aren't material-pleasers who would get me a useless thing if I asked for it, though they've surprised me time and again with stuff like the Casio digital watch I'm wearing, and more recently the Crumpler I'm using. I can tell when they snap at me for wanting useless things, and when they try their best to explain that we cannot afford it. They aren't good explainers, I only agree so that I wouldn't be stuck with them the whole night, but it's a clear distinction between the two situations.

I'm just writing this down for catharsis, and for recording's sake. As I said, all that I can do now is pray. I'm irritated by that sense that my writing isn't as fluent and eloquent as I'd like it to be, but well, as long as I can recall what went on when I read back......

Thanks for reading.

Now Listen

2007-01-21T13:52:00.000+08:00

For all the planning I've done I find myself lagging behind again. This is a short post to inform those who don't already know, or didn't notice on my 125 blog because you were more interested in sifting through my 1000 other words, of my intent to move to Wordpress. I've had a great time here at Blogger (and if any Blogger staff are reading this my greatest thanks to your dedication even though we don't pay a cent for this wonderful service). But for all the readership that I take pride in, the nagging at the back of my head was confirmed with Kevin's 125 class. My HTML, no matter how much I love it, how much I've personalized it, is out of date. Last season. Out of fashion.

CSS, while responsible for making the new Blogger so much more convenient to customize, is harder to grasp than HTML, and I'm no longer familiar where to put what if I ever have to get down to the level of textual codes again. Also my friends have informed me that Wordpress is easier for stuff like blogrolling, trackbacking, whatever whatever. I've said on Kevin's student information sheet that I wanted to have a bigger Web presence. I am starting with this move.

It shouldn't be a problem, I'll leave my new address on this site when I move anyway. But you know, for cosmetics' sake, it'd be good to change the link ASAP. ESPECIALLY if you're an irregular reader. If Blogger deletes my account for any reason, you're lost man. Lost.

Expect the move in the next 30-50 days the most.

Phantom

2007-01-17T17:11:00.000+08:00

Ahem.

I'M GOING TO WATCH THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Yes I'm back. I have many things I could have blogged about which I didn't and I'm now regretting it because it's just about disappeared from my mind. But this is just to announce to the whole world that I'm going to watch the musical of my dreams. A very very big terima kasih to Mariani who so sweetly agreed to help us buy the tickets first, and let us pay her back later. Without that I think we won't be going.

Ok. Now to save for $110. Plus the $2 SISTIC fee.

Yes ar! Hoo0~!

Happy Helium New Year

2007-01-03T13:49:00.000+08:00

GASP HE'S STILL ALIVE???

Yes I am. I'm not in the mood to blog. But out of the kindness and compassion of my big warm heart, I bring you this clip of my brother and I, at the NUSS Countdown Dinner, having the usual fun with helium (not flammable, so the next best thing is to inhale).

Hippy Niw Yiir! Heheheheheheeee!

I'm BACK!!! + Video

2006-12-16T21:08:00.000+08:00

Hey guys back from an excellent trip. Shall be posting the day by day accounts/summaries soon, I'm a little tired now. But meanwhile, another gem gleaned from Xialanxue. I don't really believe blondes are dumb, I always laugh it off as a media joke. I still do, but this is some pretty compelling evidence against my stance.

Enjoy.

Video

2006-12-04T19:21:00.000+08:00

Apart from the fact that it is simply childishly amazing, alot of time must have been spent perfecting this. It flies perfectly without wings (well, without obvious wings)! And check out the loop-the-loop. Cool man.

Church

2006-12-03T15:37:00.000+08:00

I was tempted to stay at home to try to study today, but I'm going to miss the next two weeks of church, and I don't want to miss even more, so I decided to screw it and just go.

During praise and worship, my ever-omniscient (hoho) ears picked up a sound haven't heard in a while, certainly not in public places in Singapore. It took awhile to register and confirm that I was hearing a soprano somewhere behind me.

I took a quick glance back and saw this rather old lady who as far as my quick glance could take in looked Indian. And boy was she fervent! At the end of one song she released and held a note that rang throughout our entire section of the overflow room. Like I said, it's been awhile since I heard any hint of a voice that could pierce through a chorus of say 50 others in my audible range. Faint yet distinct. It was only a little disruptive to me, but I'm sure there were some who were... more than a little disturbed.

So later we went to Raffles City, and I went to the toilet there. They had a sign in the toilet that said...

And so I thought... why would they put an ad in the toilet to persuade you to shop? And in any case, who the hell surfs the Net while shopping?

... *gasp* OH MY GOD LOOK this XX is such a biatch! Look at the things she writes ugh I hope SPCA locks her up in a oooooo look at that dress... here, you there! How much is this thing...

So I thought, hey. You put this ad in a toilet. And when you're in a toilet, sometimes when larger things need to be taken care of, you sit down for abit right? And when you sit down you have time to surf the Net for abit right? So why not...

Isn't that so much more appropriate for an advertisement in a toilet mirror? Man I should totally become an ad consultant next time.

Video

2006-11-26T22:22:00.000+08:00

Fantastic piece of CGI. If mere graduate students can do this, I don't see why the folks behind Death Note can't do the same for Ryuk. They're supposed to be professionals for goodness' sake with the best software on the market. Disappointing.

Playing with Gas and a Sweet Made of Strange Shit

2006-11-24T18:51:00.000+08:00

So I thought it would be fun to try out the Diet Coke-Mentos experiment for real, since I brought a bottle back from today's pizza party. I had one (ONE! ONE!!!) Mentos left and after seeing the amusing reaction with Sprite (significant amount of bubbling), I decided to go against my worry and leave the Diet Coke bottle unopened till I got home. See, the bottle was seriously hard, there was so much gas built up, and it seriously didn't help that the bus kept rocking, and making the liquid shake back and forth. But anyway, to retain the best possible reaction with what little materials I have, I kept the bottle sealed and fresh.

So expecting a mediocre reaction with just one Mentos, I unsealed the bottle, right in front of the computer that I am typing this with now, thought hajime-masu, and plopped it in.

There was nothing I could do. The reaction was split second. And not only that, it was unbelievably strong. The fountain kept itself at a good 10cm height for three agonizing seconds.

Considering it's a near explosive reaction we are talking about here, three seconds is really. really. really. LONG.

All I could do was grip the bottleneck helplessly, where seconds before I was attempting to cap up the moment I saw the velocity with which the foam rised, while Diet Coke flushed onto my table, the floor around me (1-metre radius ok), my keyboard, mousepad, even screen, seat, Crumpler.

It was death and destruction man. For three seconds, anarchy took gleeful reign.

Please. Do not try this at home.

Not at your computer. If you will die without trying it out, do it at your kitchen sink. And if there is even a slightest chance of a disaster, bathroom sink it is. It took me my shirt, pants, and another A1 size rag to mop up the mess. It be no funny.

Hey Peepers

2006-11-21T20:40:00.000+08:00

I haven't been blogging, but hey. Doesn't really matter right? No one reads my blog anyway.

Emo hoo0~! TAG LA YOU LAZY PEOPLE.

So after Oprah ended, The Tyra Banks Show now takes her place. I do admire her as a supermodel. She...

Okay I don't follow these things everyday. Although I must admit I'm quite drawn to the Ellen Degeneres Show. The laughter isn't canned there. Or hey, maybe they play a laugh track to stimulate the audience into laughing. Unlikely though.

So ya Tyra. She is charismatic, for one thing. On the runway she radiates life, unlike the size-0 models who look like they're only modelling because they would be forced to eat Mac's for breakfast lunch dinner otherwise. And she's proactive with stuff like breast cancer and all that.

So on the show aired today she was exposing the dangers of Internet chatrooms. They showed footage of her going into chatrooms posing as a 14-year old, and dirty old men showing their dicks on webcam.

And just to show how prevalent it was, she did it again. Live on the show. And again we got a dick on the show.

Then. The idiot asked to see her. On her cam.

So she said ok.

Uncovered her cam, facing the audience, and showed it to him.

He signed off immediately.

TIO OWN BOH?! HONG GAN HOO0~!

So think twice about showing your cock ah next time, if any of you readers actually do that.

You sick fuck.

Oh speaking of dirty stuff, a few of you know that I'm taking an interest in scanlated (for uninitiated: scanlated or scanslated = scanned + translated) manga. And having no Palm like G, nor wishing to have to go through the trouble of zooming each page to a readable size and then unzooming to go to the next page, I decided to print them out.

Yes. Print. Four pages on one A4 page. I rock. You... well maybe not.

So my recycled paper was my dad's printed material, with a hole punches. So I just reversed the order such that when the manga came printed out it was bindable. Now I knew my father had those file thingys you could lock and make a sort of bind. So I went to search his drawers.

When I found it, I saw at the back of that particular drawer were two packets of peanuts and kidney beans. This was his stock of snacks to keep him awake during his long nights and dull afternoons. I've always wondered how there was such a constant replenishment of these things in his trusty little container. I'd expect it to be empty sometimes.

Finding his snacks hidden in there really felt like finding your dad's porn stash.

I just hope he doesn't find mine.

Snack stash, not porn.

I Gave Hitler Too Much Airtime

2006-11-17T22:45:00.000+08:00

What a week I officially screwed up my last exam.

Yes, COM317 involves a persuasive speech as our last exam and my utter, lonely failure leaves me wondering about my grades. In all fairness I didn't prepare, really. I was writing my card notes in the first half of class while the others were doing their speeches. But to screw up that badly as to be stopped by Dr Sachs halfway... never expected it.

More indication that I should indeed join Toastmasters.

I did, but due to paternal objection I had to pull out.

So shiat.

After the speech I met Lirong and Andrea Ng at the 1st level carpark and Lirong went, 'RENHAOOO! WOOO~! LET'S GO OUT!!! :D:D:D'

'Uh...'
Andrea: 'YA YA! I DRIVE! LET'S GO!'
'Where...'
'Dunno... just go out la. Catch a movie or something! WOOO~!'

And in a rash decision, I agreed.

It's not that I was fried by my parents when I got home, I duly informed them, vague as it was, that I would be having dinner with my friends. Still my plan was to go home and wallow in anime.

I did have alot to catch up on. Well, I do. I have 32 running animes. It's fun, but not easy. Many times Ryan would go, 'Hey did you watch ep X of anime X?' And I'd be like, 'THE HELL?? I didn't see it on Baka!'

Baka is, of course, Baka-Updates.com, just about the best site for tracking new releases. The only thing hard to find are batch torrents of like for example, the complete episodes plus movie of Fullmetal Alchemist. That one you'll have to go to the other usual torrent search sites, which runs the risk of turning in Mongolian subtitles. It's really not funny to discover that sort of error after spending a month downloading 8.5GB. Baka only tracks new releases of English subs.

Ya so ANYWAY, we went to Cineleisure to watch Flushed Away. I like the slugs best.. damn cute can? But man... it was a record time for a movie. 60 minutes and we were out. And then after that, after walking around Cine, mostly with the two girls examining figurines curiously behind me while I was ogling at all the anime characters. There was this shop which sold... man. Alot of stuff. A life-size (plastic) replica of the Naruto ninja knife thingy... kanna I think they called it, keychain replicas of Zabimaru and Tensa Zangetsu (no Senbonzakura wtf! Blasphemy!). Also! Death Notes! And they were not too expensive. If I remembered the big scale replica was 9.90? Really not bad. And the cover is like those cheap leather sort...

I told the girls I'd just go back and buy over the whole store. Oh they have cosplay costumes for Naruto and Bleach - all 12 squad numbers for taicho costumes.

And! As we walked along, my mouth fell to the floor as I saw stacks. And stacks. And stacks! Of Hard Gay Kikki Ippatsu! If you haven't already guessed, it was the cute toy featured in the Hard Gay TOMY episode. If you still dunno what I'm talking about, you might be deprived.

$69.90.

Sigh.

OH WELL. I'll just come back when I have too much money.

We settled at Cartel for dinner. And we took a long time to decide what we wanted (spoilt for choice lor seriously). The service was good though. I think it was the first time that we were asked if we wanted bread. Also they took quite some time to deliver the food. And the cheese was what I call the implicit smell type, a very packed in, concealed taste, as opposed to certain other cheddars which go on an all out assault on your nostrils and tastebuds. So even though I quite accidentally dumped a whole cuplet (you know those little... cups they give for vinegar and oil... I call them cuplets. And I put cheese in them. And when I was tapping the cheese to sprinkle on my dissapointingly small portion of spaghetti, I knocked everything onto my plate). No matter. It was a just-nice taste in the end.

Great outing, but I totally blew my cash on it. Lucky it was spare cash. All the same, I'm left with no safety net now.

Oh well.

But today I gor reimbursed for the money spent in StompAIDS and well, at least I feel a little safer with $20 buffer. Better than hoping coins would save you should anything arise.

I really should learn not to spend too much. Really. Maybe whatever extra cash I get from my visiting auntie or whatever, I should just splash it on something I want, that nice Zara belt or an x-Fi sound card, so I wouldn't live my next few weeks in luxury then find myself flailing when my cash runs out. Freaky.

Spread the Word

2006-11-13T21:42:00.000+08:00

RoG is updated. Finally. In case I haven't blogged for so long that you people forgot what RoG is, it's my Christian blog, accessible on the left menubar.

Please notify your Christian friends about the existence of RoG and encourage them to have a look. I'm not out for fame, not when it comes to God's Word, but I feel all the same that not enough people are reading RoG, even though I'm almost equally certain that there are people out there who need to read and know things that I have put in there. As you might have noticed I don't even bother delivering posts on a regular basis. I write as and when I'm moved to. And there are still alot of things I need to know about my God, but I highly doubt He reveals things to me, or any Christian for that matter, if He thinks that enough people already know that message.

Please spread the Word.

Durex Global Sex Survey '05

2006-11-09T21:10:00.000+08:00

After perusing through the GSS'05, I noticed that Singaporeans advocate most an educatory stand. We (myself not included) constantly voted for options like invest more money in sex education, educate people more about sex, and the like. Now I have no problem with that, but there are in my opinion better solutions available in the survey. Consider the following:

What developing countries need most in terms of sexual health

Globally
Money to support sex education....................................34%
Greater access to condoms..............................................23%
Greater access to drugs/vaccines for HIV/AIDS..........14%
Money towards the care of people with HIV/AIDS.......6%
Help to encourage women to uphold their rights..........8%
Family planning..................................................................11%
Encourage people to abstain from sex till married........4%

Singapore
Money to support sex education.......................................27%
Greater access to condoms.................................................15%
Greater access to drugs/vaccines for HIV/AIDS.............12%
Money towards the care of people with HIV/AIDS..........7%
Help to encourage women to uphold their rights...........11%
Family planning....................................................................17%
Encourage people to abstain from sex till married.........11%

And this:

Best way to raise awareness of safer sex

Globally
A sexual health awareness day..............................................9%
Posters highlighting the importance of safer sex.............10%
Free condoms where high STI/unplanned pregnancy....32%
Encourage government to discuss safer sex issues..........17%
Teaching materials for schools and HCPs.........................28%
None of these............................................................................4%

Singapore
A sexual health awareness day..............................................11%
Posters highlighting the importance of safer sex................9%
Free condoms where high STI/unplanned pregnancy.....25%
Encourage government to discuss safer sex issues..........23%
Teaching materials for schools and HCPs.........................28%
None of these............................................................................4%

Yes I wanted to align them all but I'm getting so much problems so forget it. As long as the values aren't cluttered with the options.

The first one. Singaporeans are choosing education over greater condom access and that to HIV/AIDS vaccines. And a measly 11% advocated abstinence. A tenth of Singapore believes in abstinence. More than double that amount prefers protection. Now even if you believe personally that oral sex can be excluded from the definition of pre-marital sex, the fact remains that you are still exposing yourself to bodily fluids, which is just about the best way for AIDS to spread, unless you make a blood pact or lick wounds. In which case I think you should be put to sleep, but I also believe in giving chances, so go see a doctor. And a shrink. Now even if abstinence means that you have to resort to masturbation, I would rather fight that habit than die slowly. You can't even fight AIDS. You can only watch yourself rot and die.

I sound so StompAIDS.

Again in the second survey question shown. Majority goes to teaching materials, when there are choices such as free condoms and encouraging the government to discuss safer sex issues available.

Let me reiterate that I am all for education. But what I think Singaporeans don't understand is that education takes time to inculcate. You don't just tell your child 'Don't lie' once and he'd go 'Oh um ok sure.' and stop lying forever. Sex education isn't going to sink in after one graphic presentation on pornography and AIDS. Education takes time, years, to instill firmly. And what we need now isn't so much a need to instill moral values of abstinence (I said 'isn't so much', before you decide to start firing me), but more immediate and present action. Offer free condoms in red-light districts (I think we're paying for R&D costs anyway... $1.50 for 5 rubber bands worth of rubber talk about overpricing). Knock up some posters. Get the government to talk. Subsidize HIV vaccines (didn't even know there were haha). Unleash a hard sell campaign promoting abstinence.

Now some of these. Campaigns, posters, governmental discussions, yes they can be considered education. But these are more direct, reaching the masses, with a simple sticky message (at least that's their aim). The kind of teaching Singaporeans seem to favour is school-integrated education, which like I said we don't have time for. Now again I say I am not against education, I think we just need to focus more on impacting people now, presently, pronto. By all means start that sex ed program that people want. If we can instill such values in our youths, we won't have to waste time and money (I just pulled through StompAIDS and man, campaigning isn't exactly buying Play-Doh) printing banners to hang up, knocking up stages and engaging people to MC, gig, act, etc. Think of the areas the money would be able to go to then. Maybe in the future we won't have to suffer transport fare increases in exchange for no apparent improvement on our public transport.

StompAIDS Events Day 3

2006-11-09T09:41:00.000+08:00

I was glad when Derek or Hans said that today's guitars will be plugged to the mixer directly. I'm not tyrannical, but you have to have control as a soundman to ensure the best sound you can come up with. That's why as much as possible I'd like all instruments, with the exception of drums for smaller venues, to be miked/plugged up.

When the band was preparing for their first item halfway into today's events, a young guy no more than 30, came up to me from behind and said, 'Are you aware that you are not allowed to play until 1.15?' And I looked at him, and because I expected the people whom we've been working with all along from Student Care to talk to me/us if there were any problems, I was thinking in my heart, 'Who the fuck are you... get lost.'

'People are having exams now, we have been receiving complaints.'
'You are from?'
'Student Care.'
'... Where's Caroline? Andy?'
-keeps quiet-

In the end we had to push it back. And when we could do so no longer, we had to choose Derek's original because it was apparently the softest piece. And that guy came back and asked me to lower the volume, so fed up with having to adjust the instruments, I sighed and dropped the master volume by almost 10 marks. It was a relief for them to finish, because honestly man, I don't want to keep disturbing those upstairs, nor keep receiving complaints. I have only the guy from Student Care to get upset with, which is not fair, because they have the unfortunate job of relaying such messages. I was already preparing for a personal visit from an invigilator upstairs, whom I'll blast for the noise created during International Student Week, regardless of whether RMIT organized it or not. Doubt they did. The guy told me the second time he came to the mixer that 'I think the feedback from the Hall is that the band is ok but the talking is too loud.'

I had WTF written all over the expression I gave him. And Zhi gave me the same look when I told her the story later. Ridiculous.

At least when the band did their second piece, I could grant them a proper performance, since it was in fact 1.15 sharp. And it felt really great to open all barriers for their last song Smells Like Teen Spirit. Hans was not bad at rallying the crowd. Well, it was mostly UB anyway, so they'd go wild at the slightest cue. You feel so into the music, like when after the clean intro, I suddenly upped the guitar volume so that the next distorted phase of the song blasted from the speakers. And I was glad to hear that Ben Chen's bass had a beautiful sound, because I EQed just about everything plugged up.

Which also explains why I froze in mixed feelings of anger and a sense of impending doom when Isa came half an hour late and plugged his guitar into his own amp. Right across the stage so it had little chance of reaching my mixer.

Cannot liddat sial a-bang.

So anyway, I lowered the midbass and upped the treble, resulting in a lovely twang sound from the bass. If you've heard Smells Like Teen Spirit, you know the bass isn't anything special. But the riff is really good, and the accented sound brought its uniqueness out. Hurray for EQ and me!

As the song ended, I felt a great boulder of worry and tension lift, and a flood of joy rushing in to take its place. The soundman's nightmare of relentlessly monitoring every single instrument, shifting volumes accordingly, was over, and I had pulled it off, spectacularly if the cheers were anything to go by. They were really more than just cued.

We did it.

OH again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH all those who came to support!!
Kaiyan for helping with sound (STILL GOT FEEDBACK LA!!)
Lirong and gang, our cheering kickstarters (WHOOOO~!).
Mano Guech Ryan Graham Rocky... and many others I didn't see personally but I know it took much more than these 5... thank you for pushing flyers and lucky draw coupons into people's frightened faces.
Juliana, for shamelessly sticking our logo stickers on bewildered passerbys' arms, for rambling on and on before 12pm to draw attention (WO BU HUI JIANG HUA YU)
Mariani and all those who tended to the banner (LAI LAI LELONG AH WOI!)
And of course, The Killerjanes, even though there were more guest stars than actual members (WHACK ONLY LA FUCK).

Man, without you guys, everyday would have been like the second day. -shiver-

This is one of the few times that being a small, budding group in SIM has been a huge advantage to us. We are small and we all know each other, and the support that we were blessed with was just amazing. My friend from RMIT dismissed the upcoming group with 'Oh I dunno those people.' Graham's brother didn't even know about StompAIDS.

So now we wait.

StompAIDS Events Day 2

2006-11-07T22:25:00.000+08:00

Today was our horror day. Our event time, 12-1pm, was right smack in the middle of our COM classes, so our friends could not support us with their numbers and let the magic of social proof take over. We didn't want a band after the complications faced yesterday. Damn worried.

Today however we started by installing the windmills we bought yeshterday, and releasing our rubber duckies. We counted we had 20+-. At the end of the day, less than 10 were present. Also we put all the hearts, broken and healthy, into their respective places, and installed the styrofoam coffin too that said Don't let AIDS be your final bed mate. Not bard at all.

Our friends have been really supportive, coming down immediately after lesson to create a crowd, and going wild with screams at my signal (woo Lirong woo~). After the event we stayed till evening where as predicted the after exam crowd added quite a number of signatures to our now messy banner.

So yay.

StompAIDS Events Day 1

2006-11-07T07:45:00.000+08:00

Man.

Today marks the day I start admiring May and Choy.

Not because they are hot, or because they have shades the size of anime character eyes. Not because they are celebrities either.

But because of their professional display of experience.

After their introduction, the moment they walked on stage, Jose said 'Ok for this game we'll need 12 people.' And Choy walked right back down the stage and in slightly over a minute, the stage was packed.

This is probably the first time I've witnessed celebs wield their power and status so... elegantly. It's like Choy goes 'Would you like to join?' And she'd just grab the arm, male or female, either pull him a couple of steps forward or walk him/her halfway to the stage, then she's off for the next victim.

Nobody could resist.

The condom game, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, attracted the most people. And Jose and Andrea Lim helped immensely too. Very easy-going and my God they switch tracks faster than you can say 'Oh shit'. Everything's fine by the time you do.

I think I would have been ok, but there were so many problems with the band... people having exams complain... sound system was bad... that by the time we were finished I was staying awake on borrowed time.

Well luckily I recharged by the power of talking cock. Our first target was our third poster ad, with the guy's head in his hands. One night stand becomes one's nightmare.

We said that that wasn't true. This is why the couple was in that position. M18~

Janet and Aaron had never felt so high before. They had had over an hour of saucy foreplay, and they decided that it was just nice to finish off. Take our time, they agreed, but not too much time.
Aaron was towering over Janet as he prepared to end it big. He had saved his performance for tonight, as a seal of their love for each other. Without warning, Aaron moved downwards, causing Janet to scream uncontrollably in ecstasy. Aaron abandoned all sense of control as he slammed repeatedly into Janet, grunting and groaning loudly. As he felt himself building up, he pushed even harder.
'Oh! Uh... YES....' Aaron moaned. Suddenly he lost all control of his groin and climaxed, to Janet's utter delight.

'AHHH! KELLY!'
'YES AAR.... who's Kelly?'

And that's how they ended up. His head in his hands, her fuming.

'Oh shit...'
'Sonofabitch player...'

And then there was the condom packing... When Andrea complained about it's nobrain-ness, I replied sagely,
'Packing condoms is never fun,
work from morn till set of sun.'

You know it's one of those phrases you can use all the time.

'Hey Renhao! What did you do in school today?'
'Packing condoms is never fun....'
'So Mr Wong, what did you feel was your greatest achievement during this campaign?'
'... work from morn till set of sun.'

Very very useful indeed.

Video

2006-11-05T07:17:00.000+08:00

Look ye look ye, the genius of mankind.

Crumpler

2006-10-31T10:36:00.000+08:00

So I got one.

It's rather huge, but that just means I can dump my whole room inside.

It was Saturday night after Campus when I first entertained the thought of saving for one after my friend told me about how he did so. It's roomy, the bag, but still $179 is quite the fortune to pay for a bag.

On Sunday my cousin Sandra and my parents were walking at the Raffles City Marketplace when we walked past the Crumpler shop, and I slowed to scan for prospective models.

Immediately (it was quite alarming actually), Sandra looked where I was staring and said, 'You like it? You like the bag?'

'Um... well I was thinking of saving for one, yes...'

'But you like it? YOU LIKE THE BAG??'

At which point my father jumped in.

'You like it? You want it? You like the bag? Come! I buy for you! You want or not! You like the bag?'

'Um. Ok?'

Isn't it nice to have people fawn over you once in awhile.

As much as I am grateful to my father for splashing such money on me (yes. it is splashing) I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the conversation he held with my mother. My mother was quite naturally appalled at the extravagant prices, and my father said 'Aiyah it's ok la. I'm not spoiling them la, but at their age, they need identity...'

Identity. Lol.

Honestly, I like the Crumpler more for the space and the uber sweet shoulder strap. The cushion is damn comfortable can.

It's nice to have branded goods, but I'm not exactly insisting that all Christmas presents if any have to be Bvlgari and above.

Actually as I am typing this in school, I realise that apart from my specs, which happen to be quite good quality stuff, just about everything else I have is branded. Half of the stuff are things people blessed me with. My phone (in part anyway), my hoodie, my watch, my shoes, my bag, my Nike t-shirt, my Dockers pants.

You don't have to be rich to be blessed with material people.

D'Addario Extended Play

2006-10-27T22:03:00.000+08:00

Three posts in a day my God I must be bored.

My previous set of strings, the GHS Contact Core Bright Bronze, was getting a little tarnished, and rust, in my carelessness, had begun to grow on the first and second strings, marring the sound by abit, that, not to boast, was probably only detectable by me, because 1) I know I have a more sensitive ear, and 2) I've been hearing that string plucked by my own finger everyday, so I could tell when the sound was beginning to go off.

The Contact Core, you should know, is not a very common set. Especially since I bought the Ultra Light set, from 10-46 if I'm not wrong.

If you dunno what I'm talking about, you're probably normal.

So at Yamaha the other day, armed with a blue note, I put myself in front of the strings section, staring at every single pack that had ACOUSTIC printed somewhere on it. And after having a 10-46 pack, seeing a set labelled Light: 11-52 made me roll my eyes and scoff in disgust. Light my ass, it'd light a fire on my fretting fingers that's what it'll do.

So I settled upon the the Extended Play section of strings. Now these strings, which most brands have in some form or the other. Extended Play, Extended Life, whatever.

These EXPs have their windings, for the lower strings, and just directly on the first two strings I guess, a coating of special material that retards oxidization, and thus, as the name suggests, extends the play or life of these strings.

Now these strings come with a price, for long life, pretty much just like any other thing... Porcelain bowls cost more than paper bowls, high-end graphic cards, which can play more games for a longer duration before requirements get too much to handle, cost more than a basic on-board card.

$24. +.

Which very obviously makes me utterly frightened of making one wrong move and snapping the string. $4. TOCK-OOOONNGG... and my face and tear ducts will also tock. Thank goodness I remembered what Graham told me about replacing strings, and followed his method, which I won't put here because it involves extra descriptive work on my part and will only serve to deepen that confused frown on your face anyway, so forget it. Graham said do this this this, then, when you're sure it's not gonna stretch anymore, you can then snip off the excess strings dangling off the machine heads.

After I snipped off the strings, I ran my thumb on each of them, and my heart stopped AND fell six feet when all I heard was a mindless buzz on the second string. Quickly I used the pliers to twist the little bit of string around the hole to try to secure the damn string. And thank thank thank thank thank thank thank thank double thank God that it did catch and tighten in the end.

And now I'm playing every night until my fingers everything but split into two, because even though I have little problem fretting hard enough, the cumulative toll on my accustomed-to-even-lighter-strings fingertips wasn't too amusing. Maroon lines indicate where the string had pressed into my hand, and I have this bad feeling that behind my callused skin my flesh had already been sliced into, and that if I just squeezed hard enough blood would happily gush out. It's quite bad.

But like I said, I'd rather have abit of pain for a week or so than live on light strings, although the light strings also provide an unforgettably bright tone for my guitar. But most guitars use my current string set guage, so I thought I'd better get used to it.

Plenty of time too, with Extended Play strings.

Rhythm of the Rain

2006-10-27T19:22:00.000+08:00

Ok, so now that I'm all bathed, conditioned, exfoiliated and clean, let's hear about what happened today.

Nutrition is actually getting more interesting. Ben however made the huge mistake of taking the middle seat, beside me, leaving his left for Ryan, and we terrorised him with our utter lameness all through 9 to 11am.

Mehhh.

I blame Ryan for my picking up all his actions. Like when Anna Jacobs said something about sucking blood, and we both bared our teeth hissed and moved towards Ben with our hands clawed.

Ryan: -covers his face- I feel ashamed.
RH: only because I did it too.
Ryan: yes.
RH: bloody hell.

And then after that, Benny Elton KJ Ben Ryan and me...

WENT TO PLAY LAN! DELINQUENTS WASTING TIME HOO0~!

No we were not delinquents. With the exception of yours truly everyone else walking into the LAN shop in formal wear.

Leather shoes included. Coolness, finesse and other accessories sold seperately.

Batteries not included.

So yeah there we were. 3 hours straight. BF1942, CS1.6-3 maps, Warhammer 4000 Dawn of War.

Warhammer was damn good. But I just don't think a noisy LAN shop with some sec school guy shrieking CHEE BAIIII every other 5 minutes and sounds from WC3 (A HERO HAS FALLEN), CS (TATATATATA), BF1942(TATATATA), SWAT4(TATATATATATA), is good for a strategy game like WH4k-DoW.

Oh yeah we played SWAT4 for 15min, and quit sometime after my ally Ryan (RYAN OF ALL PEOPLE) went 'Hmm what's this do...' and sprayed M16 bullets in my fucking face. Apart from that the game was lagging so we were more moonwalking than anything else. Ben very typically took that opportunity to line his rifle up and press the MOUSE1 button in glee.

After KFC, which I regretted suggesting, I'm still feeling full goodness, we exited the building.

The rain was roaring at our stunned faces in laughter as it fell in huge drops.

Since I had my trusty Zara hoodie and an umbrella, I chose to take the bus. And er Ryan volunteered too. Dunno why. So sacrificial.

Mehhh.

Long story short, umbrella no umbrella, it made noooo bloody difference. The only thing that kept me dry was... hey hey hey! My hoodie.

Seriously guys. I don't pay $75 for nothing. And. Zara isn't a classy brand for nothing. Even as it was still slightly damp it still kept me warm in class.

Since I could effectively not feel the rain on my upper body, I wondered where the hell I was going wrong with my umbrella. Because rain was running down my partially waterproof bag.

And right onto my ass.

Really, it's not at all amusing when you feel water trickle down your butt crack. Not. Funny.

In any case rain was more or less pouring off us when we got onto the bus.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
You make me happy, when skies are grey......

What a Quandry

2006-10-27T19:12:00.000+08:00

An executive was in quandary. He had to get rid of one of his staff. He had narrowed it down to one of two people, Debra or Jack. It would be a hard decision to make, as they were both equally qualified and both did excellent work.

He finally decided that in the morning, whichever one used the water cooler first would have to go.

Debra came in the next morning, hugely hung-over after partying all night. She went to the cooler to get some water to take an aspirin and the executive approached her and said: "Debra, I've never done this before, but I have to lay you or Jack off."

Debra replied, "Could you jack off? I feel like shit."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't normally cut and paste stuff, although it is a well-known practice for people to just dump song lyrics as a blog post, reflecting their present feelings. I came back tired after a long and mildly traumatising day to see this email, from the joke newsletter I subscribe to, and it was so retardedly funny I just had to put it up. I especially like the last part, when I can very clearly imagine Debra, eyebags and all, sighing and saying 'I feel like shit.' Priceless.

Halloween Shoppin'!

2006-10-22T17:28:00.000+08:00

Just when I thought I'd give up and go as the Grim Reaper and suffer the dire consequences of wearing the same costume, my cousin Sandra brought us to Toys R Us today.

I think it was because my brother, who had an upcoming (cheesy) play, something about not giving up your dreams, had to get two pairs of boxing gloves. And when I saw the package labelled 'Adult Cape', my shopping frenzy switch was totally flicked on.

So I bought one of those masquerade masks and that would make it easier to borrow one of Benny's rapiers. Dressing as Kuchiki-taicho and carrying Napolean's sword doesn't quite hit the mark. And then there's the 12 bucks to spend on the Vilage voucher too.

Lucky I got some money from that guitar sale.

In other news, my Fight AIDS team and I appeared in the papers today! And they spelt my name Wng Renhao.

Wng.

What the wng is your problem people? Huh? You got a printed, black-and-white copy of our names, you took it down in a notebook once more, you spelt everyone else's name correctly, and then you call me Wng Renhao, 18.

It's their fault. It's not mine, because I only can write my o like an a, because of my cursive handwriting. And Bao's handwriting was hardly cursive. There was no way an O could have been missed out since I was staring at the notebook while she wrote ALL of our names.

ONE WHOLE FUCKING LETTER MISSING YOU BLOODY DONKEYS.

I am

2006-10-21T16:49:00.001+08:00

S I A N E D ~

StompAIDS Press Conference

2006-10-16T18:48:00.000+08:00

Interesting experience today. We were all very furtive at first, with all our exhibits, keen for others groups not to see our stuff so we can pull out our trump card later and pw3n 7h3m n00bz. But slowly with nothing else to do, we warmed up to each other and started walking around seeing other exhibits.

We spoke at length especially with our direct neighbour, the NUS team, which I only know as the team who managed to get the main field, discussing the idiocy of our Estate managements, this cannot that cannot. That certainly was a freaking headache for us. For us to secure the koi pond's use we had to detail every single material used in the production of our ambient ad and assure them that it is impossible for their stupid gold bars of koi to eat it to their death. In fact, that was the point we discussed the most touring other groups. Well, advertising problems in general, whether permissive or financial problems, or others. The NUS guy even informed me when the News938 reporter was two booths away, allowing me to put everyone en garde so that I wouldn't be stranded alone answering questions that I would have to smoke, while the others gasped and marveled at the genius of other groups.

One group I was impressed was the other NUS group. Their posters caught attention because with the use of agar-agar and black paint, they spectacularly recreated the effects of Karposi's Sarcoma sores. And they did it with more sensous pictures than ours can you imagine? I thought our hands-in-ya-pants ad would be provocative enough. These people's three pictures were one woman stretching over a man.

Both naked.

Of course they had the sense to cover the nips with words.

And the four men, being intimate.

And the guy! Sprawling on a sofa! PANTS DOWN! With a girl in between his legs! He's MOANING FOR GOD SAKE!

Spectacular. Simply spectacular. When I called Zhi over and showed her the sores pictures, she went WHOA! Reason I showed her the sores pictures was because HPB in true Singapore style said that for the press conference the sores were abit too much, saying one shouldn't stereotype diseases like that, although I don't really understand what that meant. So they had to photoshop the sores out (the originals were still allowed for the campus ads) and print special un-sored posters.

While we were setting the projector up earlier in the morning, Hai and I were seriously puzzled why the projector only emitted a fuzzy circle of light, although it was clear from the color-matching that Bao's laptop was successfully connected with the projector.

We realised after 15min that the translucent slide-cover was over the lens.

Himbo moment hoo0~!

If even Hai could have overseen such a thing, I think we can all be forgiven for that occasional idiotic incident.

Well I'll leave you with some pictures.

Cool right the handsdownyapants? My favourite. :P Zhi's friend, the female model, must have felt damn happy hugging a defined chest and chiselled abs. When the ad agency woman saw the picture, she totally snapped out of her sleepiness and went WHO IS THIS GUY?!! And she called her friend over and they giggled over the many shots of his hot bod in Bao's camera.

Exchange Program

2006-10-15T18:59:00.000+08:00

Wow it was a great weekend. Saturday I went to Campus and brought Ryan along, and today Ryan brought me along to Lighthouse, where time passes like nooooobody's business I tell you.

You can read more about some stuff that happened, on RoG, which I updated. Again. Which is good I suppose. I covered Saturday's highlight. Two posts, my friend, is enough to knock you out, so I'm sorry if you want to read about Lighthouse that can wait -yawn-. Anyway I took notes, so less chance of me forgetting stuff. Like I usually do.

Sa, jaa-ne~

Clinique Step 2: Clarifying Lotion

2006-10-14T14:10:00.000+08:00

So I followed Sandra's advice and after washing my face today I swabbed my face with my mom's Step 2.

Have you ever felt the thin line between cold and fiery pain? Tell you something. I felt both sensations slamming into me like a freight train (two freigts, one from each side). I thought it was just cold, then oh my God you could just see my cheeks my nose my forehead catch fire. I did everything but scream wildly for the whole neighbourhood to hear.

Now I know how Macaulay Culkin's character in Home Alone felt. It. Is. Not. Funny. Trust me on that.

Maybe it's because I exfoliated just now?

RoG

2006-10-13T01:53:00.001+08:00

Updated: Dear Jesus

Updates

2006-10-11T11:06:00.000+08:00

From now on I will insert update notices for my branch blogs into my normal posts, like so:

(You people are a bloody lazy bunch you know that?)

UPDATED: RoG (1 post I mentioned before)
UPDATED: JoI (1 post today)

O Happy Day

2006-10-09T23:29:00.000+08:00

Things have been going well these couple of days, and praise God indeed for this flood of blessings, however small.

First was yesterday, when I had to sign up for my church's youth camp. Spaces were seriously limited, so even though I had no funds on hand, I gave my roommate-to-be the go-ahead to put my details down first. What I was worried about was whether my parents would allow me to go or not.

When I got home, I showed the info sheet to my mother. As usual, she said 'You go talk to your father la.'

When I showed it to my father, just when I was getting ready to hear 'Go talk to your mom' (My response of 'Already did' was actually waiting on my lips), he said 'I'll pay.'

I went silent for awhile, although my dad didn't notice as he was still busy reading the details (or was he?). After awhile I found my voice to say, 'What's that?'

'I'll pay I'll pay.' he said, waving an invisible fly away.

'O... ok.' I muttered, still in shock.

Praise God eh. The work of the tithe.

Then today, I sold off my electric guitar, which Ben gave to me so long ago, after he essentially got it free from China. Made $200 out of it. Originally I planned to get a sword from Caesar's, for Halloween, but decided it wasn't worth it because Benny had that sword anyway, and also I have a million things that would be much more useful than a sword.

So then I thought of a sound card. AN x-Fi sound card, to be precise. That was my original plan after all, to get my speakers first, then the x-Fi sound card. And then my sound system would be uberised.

Then I decided to wait, again.

When I got back, another idea hit me. I've been wanting a new handphone for ages! This would be a perfect chance for me to pick one up.

So after playing around with the model that I had been eyeing, I called my dad to ask for permission. He said that he didn't mind in principle, but he advised me strongly to think it over.

And after some persuasion I did.

And I'm glad I did. Because my father dug my contract sheet up, and I'm due for new plan eligibility.

Blessings keep fallin' on my head
they keep fallin'
they keep fallin' on my headdd...

We're getting new phones Wednesday.

You Mix

2006-10-08T16:20:00.000+08:00

The video you see is an example of a You Mix. Here are the rules copied from the blurb of this video.

- Use the soundtrack of one video and the motion pictures from another one
- Editing of the movie or the sound is not allowed
- Only the audio can be shifted in time

I dunno how big this thing is. Maybe its huge underground, or maybe this guy is trying to start something. By all means an interesting idea, but we'll probably waste our time viewing half-penny wannabe videos with no sync/artistic link/etc. at all. This video however is amazing (as I've waxed countless times to all online). Just as if this video was made for Crazy Frog. I saw some of the original, with the original song, and the video paired with Crazy Frog is so much better. For some reason it makes the video super steamy. Like, more than it already is. Or if you wish to talk dirty (some people don't get it till you do, apparently), it sizzles muh jizzle.

Enjoy. ;)

Haze

2006-10-07T22:33:00.000+08:00

PSI 150. Pretty shocking.

When this haze phase began a couple of weeks back (I think), and up to the point of PSI 50, I kinda enjoyed the smokey smell. To me it represented a thousand things, none of which I could have identified. A memory hotpot.

But when the haze reached it's unprecedented critical levels these past couple of days, my senses have been screaming OVERKILL every time I stepped out of the house.

I don't remember the last major haze in 1998 (again, I think) as this bad. Decreased visibility of the opposite block when its 50m away is terrible.

My father was suggesting we should put in a compensation claim to Indonesia for this. For what though? For us carrying on with our lives with nothing changing except that we bitch about the haze all day and develop coughs and breathing problems? Let's be real here shall we. Unless the health guys say the condition is too bad so please stay at home and don't go to school/work, we nothing to claim from them. Unless we're struck with mass bronchitis, of which I'm not hearing any news. Besides, I'm sure most of the relevant authorities are already working round the clock to catch the culprits. People often forget the size of our country. Just because we find murderers within half a week of the crime doesn't mean others can.

We have to learn to stop blaming others.

The Fortissimo Blog Group

2006-10-06T04:18:00.000+08:00

Shifted to Blogger beta. And somehow my Unicode characters don't show properly anymore. And since you people don't even follow my Please set your encoding to Unicode to fully enjoy my blog! anyway, I removed all the cute little flankers. So there. No more weird characters for you.

In any case, I am embarking on an ambitious project. Some of you will vaguely remember Mezzo Sforzato. Yes it's that fiction blog of mine with like an inch of dust all over it now.

With the addition of two more blogs, I now have four blogs under my name.

Crazy isn't it? But I'm tired of mashing my tirades, accounts, revelations, stories, and all into one blog. There's no focus. People read an excellent post on looking to God one day, and come back the next week to find a tirade with more colors than your digital camera claims to have.

So Fortissimo will be the head blog, where it serves, I hope, all intents of a weblog - recording daily life and casual observations for an audience to read and the author to look back and laugh to himself.

Mezzo Sforzato is where I will host all my original works. Poems, stories, well I doubt I'd put a play in there, unless it's like a 5-minute play. Even then I don't really want to think about the formatting ahead of me. Don't expect this to be updated all that often, I don't write for a living, and I doubt I will, unless my blog somehow generates some revenue. Xiaxue. Bleh...

Revelation of Grace, as you probably guessed, is the Christian branch. I put a couple of posts in there, and here I have a sub-ambition. My first series there will be on Christian cults. An expose, if you will, on their erroneous beliefs. Don't expect to get them all at one go. I'm not about to go out there and criticize something which I have a half-past-six knowledge of. For now, I do feel that the post Calling to Jesus will bless you. Tremendously, even. It's a simple truth, so I'm not sure if you're sniggering now and screaming DUHH, but most of God's messages are dead simple. Live simple. Whatever. Expect this to be updated once a week average. And I'm being guardedly pessimistic here. I'm predicting that after Fortissimo, this will be the second most updated blog.

Journal of Influence is what it suggests, an analytical journal where I detail incidents which have caught my attention. Of course, these incidents require a little something in them - the use of the art and science of persuasion and influence. Anything which has this factor, I will endeavour to break down to its very nuts and bolts. Non-Communication students (if you haven't already figured out that this was a COM course) can also read, no worries, because I will briefly explain the principles theories what have you before I go on. I don't really relish the thought of blank faces reading my deepest bestest analysis.

At the end of it all, I require your support if this is to become a success. Fortissimo's layout doesn't come with comment support, and I have a tagboard here anyway, but the branch blogs are fully Blogger templates, so feel free to leave your comments there. For future reference there are links to the three branches in the left column. I look forward to your responses.

Next post: foosball developments.

I'm out of titles so I'll settle for this one

2006-10-02T18:17:00.000+08:00

5pm today was supposed to have been quite a scorcher, but the haze reduced the baking sun to a glaring orange glow in the sky. To haze or not to haze?

Quite a good mood today, as I wandered around Tampines Mall, waiting for my mother. Of course, as usual it turned out that she went home straight and claimed that she did not see my two missed calls.

Strolling around the third level, I spotted Cards 'n' Such and decided to go in to have a look for a handphone holder, which I've been wanting for a long time. Turns out they did have them, and even with holes to pull your charging wire through. Just what I wanted.

It suddenly occurred to me then to take a stroll around the floor to see if there was anything else to spend on. If I really thought I wanted the handphone holder, my decision would not suffer the test of time. There popped in two other contenders along the way. First was an NIV Bible. To my pleasant surprise there was a cheap (no-frills, naturally) pew version of the Bible for just $15.90 (expensive? Bibles average at $35). I wanted an NIV version for reference because the translations are so different, that especially when I'm talking to Ryan, and he's holding an NIV (New Intl Version) and I'm holding an NLT (New Living Translation), we are saying two different things. The meaning is there, but the differing choice of words can seriously be confusing.

The Zildjian Trilok Gurtu Signature drumsticks were the other contender.

I was very impressed by it when I tried it out on the digital drum set the other day. Light, thin, good grip, and I, an non-drummer, could do pretty impressive things with it.

The thing is, my brother has an NIV Bible that he hardly touches. And the drumsticks - I don't play drums, so of what freaking use would a pair of drumsticks be to me?

So I got the handphone holder. A black porcelain cat kinda smiling like ^^. Lovely indeed.

The Late Night Daze

2006-10-02T02:16:00.000+08:00

It seems that it's true that I work best late night.

Up till now I have been snapping this in response to my parents' nagging about studying. That consists of 1/3 lie, 1/3 hope, and 1/3 minimal experience.

Of course, tonight, before delving into my work, I succumbed to several episodes of School Rumble Nigakki! before I could make myself get off. It seems I have to be in a state of tired alertness, meaning I'm alert enough to shovel on with my work, but where fatigue blankets my usual 1001 random thoughts from zipping around my head at twice the speed of sound and totally distracting/confusing/arousing/dazing me.

I thus met what I thought was an impossible target of completing half my work tonight. Well, this morning.

Alright, I'm going to collapse. Already a headache is glowing malevolently at the back of my head.

Adieu~

Der Fuehrer's Face

2006-09-30T20:20:00.000+08:00

I got this off my friend Bertrand's blog (accessible in the left hand column of links). Try to use your History/World Civ skills to spot the freaking obvious (no, really, it is) propaganda inserts. Other than that, enjoy. My favourite part?

Heil Hitler!Heil Hitler!Heil Hitler!Heil Hitler!Heil Hitler!Heil Hitler!Heil Hitler!Heil Hitler...Heil Hitler...Herr herrler...

Ooze the Fooz

2006-09-29T22:50:00.000+08:00

I had two foozballing sessions today.

It really depends on my mood, see.

My NTR was HORRIBLE. And consequently Ben and Elton were pruned dry by my Raishin. It also really helped that William was my partner. Excellent defense + fearsome Ikorose.

Later, after lunch I was in a considerably happier mood. And consequently Ben pruned me dry with his Heavenly Dance.

Wow.

Gone with the Wind

2006-09-26T20:29:00.000+08:00

Quite some time ago, one of my closest friends wrote on his blog, that if he didn't blog about this now, he knew he never would.

I find myself in that same position today. Two extremely worrying exams are glaring at me in the face, yet like my friend, I will sooner than I hope forget all I'm about to say. Already, I'm losing my thoughts.

Some time ago, I blogged on my friendship expectations, admitting that I have really high expectations regarding my close friends, and that if I am willing to walk from Tampines to Tanjong Pagar for them, they should have no problem doing that for me as well.

There. See. I lost my main thought. Hurrah.

Ok I'm hoping it'll come along again as I ramble.

Shit. I totally lost it.

Ok. Sorry. Bye.

Trouble

2006-09-24T20:00:00.000+08:00

I'm burping sesame oil air.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

School Rumble Video Clip

2006-09-24T19:06:00.000+08:00

The funniest anime I've seen so far, here's a clip from episode 12 of season 1 demonstrating the general brain power of the characters. The whole season 1 can be accessed on Youtube, with a simple search. Episodes 1 and 2 are in three parts, which I usually detest, but from episode 3 onwards, look out for the user called celest1 who uploaded the episodes before the new 10min rule kicked in - almost the whole season in single 23+min episodes.

Enjoy.

Klutz

2006-09-24T18:35:00.000+08:00

Apart from my usual self-tripping, which Hans and Graham take much delight in, I do have other klutzy moments. Let me unabashedly tell you about my latest one.

I came back from church today to find a choice of cooking instant noodles, or porridge. This porridge was nothing more than ikan bilis and rice, but that was a good enough base. I decided on porridge.

First up, dumped in a whole lot of Japanese Chilli Powder. My mom bought a bottle back from Japan, and I've been dumping it into anything that I've been cooking over the fire recently.

Then, the new bottle of Borvil that my dad bought (never tasted the same after they stopped it during the Mad Cow Disease). It's more flavourful than Marmite, which is just... a whole lot of brown salt. Brown liquid salt.

At this point my dad, as predicted, wanted to taste the Borvil in action. When I enquired about the chilli powder, if he could taste it, he said 'Yes. But not nice, spoil the taste.' 'Is that so?' I said.

I promptly added another generous sprinkle, eliciting an unembarrassed WAH from my father.

Now here comes the klutz. I started the fire and put the pot over the stove, then popped open the bottle of sesame oil.

See where this is going? Oh yes it is...

I was using an old milk-stirrer (a longer teaspoon with smaller scoop) and I those two spoonfuls of that measure of sesame oil was sufficient. It was.

Then, while trying the tip the remaining oil that had flowed into the hanging cap, I poured ten more teaspoons of sesame oil out onto my porridge.

I let out a strangled cry, of which one of the words was most definitely kersou, and immediately set the cursed bottle down. I didn't know what to do for awhile, but then it occured to me to tip the pot slightly so that the excess oil would just drip off. I didn't remove as much as I had hoped, because I would have risked further klutzing by tipping half the porridge into the sink. So with a brown layer of oil all over my porridge, I lit the fire and started stirring.

Hell it tasted good.

Really good.

Ha, War

2006-09-23T10:50:00.000+08:00

This poem was the only decent one I wrote during NTR. I wrote another one about foozball, and another about a nightmare school, but the nightmare school one was going off track into a gory Battle Royale flick, and the foozball one I freestyled left right centre.

My first thought was that this belonged on The Falling Worm, but since this is my flagship blog (maciam got 10 different blogs liddat) I'll post it here too.

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

Ha, War

Dulce et decorum est,
pro patria mori.
Impressive Latin phrases be,
Proclaiming sacrificial glory.

Has our homeland sheltered us?
You deny it hasn't?
Had it not progressed thus so,
Wouldn't we still be peasants?

Feel the fire in thy heart,
Hear the proud flame blazing!
Will you run through the wilderness,
Bombs and grenades falling?

Glory, honour, bleed with pride,
Think you're in a game?
Once you're injured, when you're dead,
No med-pack to claim.

Never had to shoot someone,
Never seen the gory.
Dulce et decorum est,
Pro patria mori?

(C) 2006 Wong Renhao

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

Okay, so the med-pack thing was lame.

And the peasants too.

...

I wanted some rhyme damn it!

Renhao, Bad-Day Magnet

2006-09-20T17:17:00.000+08:00

Yes. It seems I am a bad day magnet. Today was cocked up. I had a bloody thunderstorm cloud over my head all the way from school to Tampines. It didn't help at all I was standing. ALL THE WAY.

In rememberance of this day, I have decided to put my Photoshop skills to the test, by creating a Magic Card for myself, a Rare card from the Unhinged block to be precise. I have not let myself down. Ladies and gentlemens.......

LOVE IT OR NOT? COS I DO LOR! I R0Ck0RZ~!

Is a Beautiful Daaaayyy...

2006-09-18T17:04:00.000+08:00

Video
Allow me to introduce you to the epitome of political incorrectness: Carlos Mencia. Courtesy of Hans, this here is one of his finer moments as an Yindian 7-11 store owner. Video quality's abit blurry though, sorry. Every clip was just about the same.

As compared to my suckfest of a weekend, today was great. It wasn't wild, not like playing LAN or pubbing or anything, but it was quietly pleasant.

Didn't start off too well though. Shouldn't, really, with a Sociology test looming ahead like a spaceship which looks small at first, then it comes toward you and just when you realise the magnitude of it's size, you also happen to realise it's only heading your way because it's bloody out of fuel and going to crash in your face.

Everyone was tensely studying (most, anyway), trying to joke to lighten the atmosphere, if not for everyone's tightly-knotted stomach then at least for your own.

It ain't full marks, but it wasn't that bad as well.

Of course, that's what I said after the first test.

After we'd finished, I came out first, followed shortly by Hans, then Ben, who looked shellshocked but claimed it was fine. We strolled to the lounge, and as we put our bags down and started flexing our fingers for either pool or foozball (more or less the same muscles/bones) Ryan came in, then Elton. So we inevitably got drawn to the foozball table. First game with Elton at the back. When the ball came rolling in, I without a second thought flicked my left wrist and executed a textbook Raishin (it's just not the same without a streaking orange blur... :'( ). For a fleeting moment I enjoyed Ben's 0.0 face before he protested and said 'Ey no midfielder shots!'

'...'
'Never mind never mind, keep that point.'
':D'

After awhile the rule was reduced to no opening shots. I wouldn't have had much of a problem with that if it were still the orange balls (although it took alot my mental capacity to resist lettin' it rip when the ball came rolling into play), the new balls were so slippery it went past us before we knew what was happening, so it was an extra challenge to even position the ball for a mid-game Raishin, and the opposite team (just Ben and Ryan today) would always be on hysterical alert when I got the ball anyway, so that made it double hard.

Alot of defender/keeper screw ups eventually earned Elton and I a win. The second game, we kept our side but switched positions. And just as I was prepping myself to handle the first incoming ball, Ben followed up in the midfield and the ball walked right past my keeper's blind spot.

It was really great though because I could do Ten no Raishin (or is it Raishin no Ten... Raishin of the Heavens la however you put it in Jap) without worrying about rules, since keeper-smashing was allowed. Won again. The third game, we switched sides, and after a lovely Ten no Raishin (sounds better than Raishin no Ten anyway) on the first ball, I switched places with Elton, only to have him freak when the ball came his way because he could see nuts. After two goals for Ryan and Ben I pushed him to the midfielder's.

And he freaked when the ball came his way because he could see nuts.

Sigh.

Elton and Ben left after that, so I played elimination with Hans and Ryan. Bloody hell, I always get pwned big time on my own coins. And that dick Ryan tyco-ed his way to winning the game.

It was only 2.30 when we ended the game, and we wondered where to go since Ryan had until 430 before his guitar lesson. So we decided to go hang out at Raffles City. I took him to Gloria Jean's at the basement of Raffles to try to coffee.

Apparently Ryan's idea of a coffee is a Cappuccino Chiller, which tasted totally dubious. Like chendol, was my first reaction.

I opted for a Caffe Mocha, and made the mistake of majorly overkilling by dumping extra Hershey's Chocolate Sauce all over it. I'm still a little dizzy/nauseous from it.

There's just no word to accurately describe jelak. Now bow to Malay powar.

Kiddin'. Don't. :P

We went to MPH just up front from Gloria Jean's after we were finished and Ryan rang up some guy he was arranging to get Magic cards from so that he could arrange pick-up conveniently since I was around (that guy lived in the East). I'm totally used and abused by my friends. That guy must have thought Ryan was a sucker because he just kept on and kept on offering more cards to Ryan through me (I was on the phone with him to discuss pick-up) and the same idiot who admonished me to watch my finances with more care nodded absentmindedly to almost every offer and impressively doubled the original amount of money to be paid for his cards. Luckily for Ryan this guy was buying the two cards he wanted to sell, and Ryan only had to top up $1.50.

This means I'll be conducting two card transactions this Wednesday. VvV...

As I was on the train, I tried to catch some sleep, but I couldn't help noticing that a happy, satisfied, glow in my tummy kept me awake. Awake, and smiling contentedly.

Awwwww...

Rhetoric

2006-09-15T19:40:00.000+08:00

Yesterday my father noticed the Comm Theory textbook that I had just bought. And after staring at it for awhile, he revealed that he actually teaches this subject as well!

Well!

He went out of my room for awhile and came back with the assigned textbook for the course - apparently the school chooses, not the lecturer.

'Stupid book, I don't like it... see. Whenever you see this kind of paper and this kind of green words (the words were printed in camo-green) it must be a stupid Australian book, it always is.'

What the hell has that got to do with anything??

I decided, and rightly so, that one could more or less determine the quality of the book from its definition of communication, as most of these drier texts are bound to contain within its first 10 pages.

Communication is any behaviour, verbal or nonverbal, that is perceived by another. Knowledge, feelings or thoughts are encoded and sent from at least one person and received and decoded by at least one other. Meaning is given to this message as the receiver interprets the message.

It's horrible isn't it?

'Next time,' my Dad said, 'you can teach these sort of courses part-time la.'

'You learnt Comm Theory in MBA?'

'No.'

'Huh? Then how you teach?'

'Aiyah you think we know all the modules we teach meh? Just skim through the textbook, go there and bullshit your way through. Besides, you think I'm going to go through every single page meh? I'll jump here and there one lah.'

And his students actually adore him you know? He got a standing ovation when he received his PhD...

Way to go Dad. I just might follow in your footsteps after all.

Strange Day

2006-09-14T20:18:00.000+08:00

So I was at the doctor's today, seeing him just to get myself more cream and tablets for my eczema. And this doctor is quite a strange man.

[knock door, open]
RH: Hello
Dr: Mmhmm hello Renhao... hi hmmhmmhmm haven't seen you for hmm ooh quite sometime hmm hmmhmmhmm been about hmm few hmm months hmmhmmhmmhmm...

That's what spending 6 years memorizing every single scientific name for every part of the body does to you I guess.

Before that though. I had just got my queue number when, seeing that the inside seats were all taken, I opted to wait outside where there were seats too. I intended to give my ears a rest from my music while lounging back and reading The Devil Wears Prada.

As soon as I took my Zen out to turn it off, the music piping through my tortured ears suddenly stopped, and the moment I looked at the screen, the shutdown sequence was initiated, and the LOW BATTERY sign flashed.

Nice timing~

Then after that, I was paying for my medicine when I heard the sound of bells ringing, realising it was coming from the doctor's room. If not for the fact that I saw an anxious mother breeze by with an excruciatingly cute baby boy moments earlier (the doctor was probably about to shoot a .1mm needle into the poor boy's arse) I would have thought that the doctor doubled up as a medium as well.

When my medicine came as four tubs of cream, two tubs night and two morning, I asked if the doctor would allow another set (1 morning 1 night). After the lady had noted my request on a tab and slotted my record booklet in for the doc to decide, she returned quite sometime later with another four tubs of cream.

Well, the more the merrier. $220 whee. 'So how much can you claim?' my father asked my mom as he passed her the receipt for her to claim some cash under DBS's employee medical scheme, where she works.

Ten dollars, she replied.

They're a generous bunch. C'mon, admit it.

Lovely Night

2006-09-14T13:42:00.000+08:00

Right. So I was pissed yesterday right? But after I posted I had a fun night discussing Magic with Ryan on MSN Voice, even though he was supposed to be studying Econs and I was supposed to be reading Sociology. Worth telling about some fun.

In between morning and afternoon lessons yesterday, Hans and Graham listened to the Super Mario Brothers Rap on my Zen and I took Hans' Neeon and scrolled away. When I got to Kings of Carnival Creation by Dimmu Borgir I froze at the virtuousity of the drumming with a half smile on my face which would have effectively sealed my reputation as closet retard had any stranger walked in then. And then I was so estatic I started clapping like a seal and Hans nearly fell over laughing. Didn't take too long before we were joking about seals clapping to black metal.

So back to at night, Ryan and I were discussing midnight phone calls, and that I 'shouldn't allow people to walk all over you like that!' he said. And as usual in a futile attempt to psych me up he roared 'Feel your masculinity surge up and rise within you!!!'

'Feel your masculinity surge up and rise within you... That sounds like an erection.'

There was silence for abit before Ryan giggled (giggle not in the hehehe way but... a silent laugh ok. I have my sources. It's known as a giggle) and pleaded 'Can we just move on..?'

:) I gladly obliged.

I like it when people cheer me up.

Angry Day

2006-09-13T18:56:00.000+08:00

Yes. I am blogging because today was crapassshitholescrewedupjumpdown bad.

Started nice enough, great lesson as usual with Dr Sachs, then long break where I zipped back to do some work for the StompAIDS thing. I actually wanted to finish reading Sociology Chapter 2 before class, but good thing it turned out to be mostly stuff we learnt in our COM lessons. Of course, I'll have to read again to get the sociological point of view.

I dreaded getting the Sociology paper back, and with good reason. Atrocious score of 57. But well I kinda made up my mind to let it pass and just work hard for the rest of the tests, so it wasn't too bad. Besides, not that I'm happy, but I did expect less than 57.

After I settled my paper admin, and found out that through his 'A'-level/GP/bullshitting/smoking skills he obtained a smashing 84, I went up to join Ryan Kaiyan Kaijie up at the computer lab where I did my traumatising Ministry of Sound crap less than a week before, and just slacked/stoned while they alternated between discussing Econs and watching silly videos about how to behave in a sushi bar. We went down to the lounge for a game of pool, where I intended to collect the notes for the creative brief, then go home and do.

I ended up missing the pool game and nearly missing taking the bus with Ryan.

When I got up to alight to change to another bus to go City Hall, I forgot about pressing the bell. When I did, the bus driver, who was already starting up the bus, took one furtive look at me and continued driving.

Well, he was an ass, but it didn't matter too much since these connecting services always run for a few bus stops. 65 and 154 share like 5 common bus stops. Maybe more.

I got up the next bus 77 in a slightly bad mood, and what the hell is wrong with bus drivers nowadays? People on crowded buses, or worse half-crowded buses find themselves stumbling into each other because the bus driver apparently thinks he's going manual on a Lambo or something. Bus 77, however was far from crowded, so the lucky few on board were treated to the spectacle of my weaving around helplessly like a drunk mad shellshocked man.

Slightly concerned about the how the road closures might have affected the bus route, I got up for a moment to examine the map detailing the temporary route changes, which as it turned out, didn't change for 77, not where I alighted. When I took the opportunity of the stationary bus at Dhoby Ghaut station to get back to my seat, the stupid driver floored the accelerator, and I sitting down halfway was flung backwards into my seat.

All bus drivers are bloody jerks. Now bow to my witty pun.

At one stop, there was this guy who got up, and, believe it or not, was less stable on his feet than I am, meaning he also weaved around for abit. After he'd thrown himself into a seat before the bus driver could fly him through the windscreen, he pressed the bell.

My mouth fell in outrage and in my mind I burst out uncontrollably 'You fucking IDIOT!!' What the... why... HE COULD HAVE WALKED! I know he could have because the moment he alighted, he briskwalked at an impressive speed to get to the traffic light before it was too late to cross the road.

Cockster.

I went to Raffles City (to be more precise) instead of going home where I could get some needed rest before I start on my books because I had to pick a Magic card up from this woman, who ripped me off spectacularly by saying she already got me a card which I requested she help me look for. LOOK FOR, not buy and sell to me. She however took it upon herself to purchase the card and sell me a card ranging from 50cents to a dollar at FOUR FUCKING FIFTY. $4.50!!!!!!!! And she says I have to buy it because I asked for it and she specially bought it for me and that no one else wanted to buy it.

And when I entered the shop today to collect the card and be done with the debt, as was my intention, she informed me after searching for sometime that she was sorry but she left it in her card album at Serene Center.

By then I was actually too tired to even show an angry look anymore.

SCREW YOU LA STUPID WOMAN

The Ministry of Sound

2006-09-08T20:38:00.000+08:00

Yesterday evening out of sheer exhaustion I went slightly mad and consequently traumatized Ben.

I was talking to Ryan about serving in the Sound Ministry when Ben asked what we were talking about. Or something like that anyway. And you know, it's not like I was pissed at him or anything, but it shows just how tired and brain dead I was when I suddenly snapped and said, 'About how I,' I said waving my hands in the air like a bogus magician (well, aren't they all anyway) 'will be serving in the Ministry, of Sound.' And then again for no reason I just went on to bob my head and go 'D-ts D-ts D-ts D-ts' like some techno music.

Took me several seconds to realize the damage I had inflicted upon my reputation as well as Ben's fragile emo mind, who tried to run into walls and glass doors among other things in a futile attempt to knock the image out of his head.

Sorry. Lol.

Sociology and the Croc Hunter

2006-09-04T18:49:00.000+08:00

Two sad events in a day. A fucked up Sociology test for which I didn't technically finish studying for, and which half the cohort found out/realized only this morning that it was worth 20%.

Strangely though, I found I could get through the short answer/short essay questions. Either it was alright~~, or I can smoke so well I do it unconsciously and think I got through the questions fairly easily.

Still, it didn't help that the YeapLee incarnate locked us all out of the LT till 1pm sharp, and told us imperiously and in a loud, slow voice to line up in a line quietly and orderly.

Essentially, treating us as primary school kids. Bitcharse.

I don't really think I want to let her spoil my experience of studying sociology. The textbook's been an interesting read so far, although I can't really absorb anything. I'm not letting her traumatize my sociological perspective.

And in other news, Steve Irwin died of all things by a stingray... sting. We all had mixed feelings when KY came in from reading the Yahoo news, announcing his death in a pale voice. We all bundled out the door to read for ourselves, and after we sat in grave silence for sometime...

RH: A stingray... hahaha
Ryan: So ironic...
KJ: ...haha..

And then a grave silence settled in again.

RH:...... Okay let's play pool.
KJ: Okay.
Ryan: Let's go.

Well then, RIP Steve Irwin.

I dunno which bright genius started it, but we all went out for dinner, and by the time we came back, my brother opened his MSN to find turtles, or (tu), all over his contact list. After his friend explained it was a tribute to Irwin we decided to put it too.

And suddenly all our subnicks turned into Irwin catchphrases.

"This'un's a reel beeuty"
"Look at that beauty"
"Crikey, woht a beeotay"

Well... then... RIP, Steve Irwin.

Witch Doctor

2006-09-03T10:33:00.000+08:00

It was probably freaking scary then, but there are a couple of parts in The Exorcist that made me snort and cover my face. Best one:

Doctor: ... [explaining exorcism] Yes, because it's in their mind that they have been taken over by an alien force, or personality, so it follows that that force can be removed from their mind if they are convinced so.
Mother: ... You're telling me I should bring my daughter to a witch doctor, is that it?

That was not in the book.

Video: While it's far from the best card trick in the world, it's still quite a smasher.

Jelakamania

2006-08-31T22:43:00.000+08:00

This is amazing. I opened the Wikipedia page. And I forgot what I was looking for.

Went for pool with Ian today. And then Pastamania.

Bloody hell we underestimated these folks.

Ian ordered a carbonara and I a creamy chicken, and both of us added a Combo of soup, garlic bread, and drink. Ian was trying to persuade me to get another pizza to share. And I said wait till we finished the pastas before we decide.

With two forkfuls left on the plate, my last forkful made my vision swim. I normally don't like to waste food, Africa or otherwise, but enough is enough and I've pushed myself far enough.

Get another pizza. Hur.

After that Ian somehow persuaded me to play this game he didn't even know. He only knew it as The Violent Game.

Yeah alright it was fun I guess. You can pick all sorts of things up to whack people knock people shoot people blast people.

Yawn.

Mat Rock Hallelujah

2006-08-30T18:16:00.000+08:00

Once again, in my regular audience pool, only Hans will know what I spoofed in my title.

I said regular, bitch. You don't count.

Aight. Next two songs on my learn list for guitar. Romance d'Amour, which is apparently common I'm surprised no noob has tried to show off before. At least I heard it from 2 pros.

2 relative pros.

Also Hans's retarded, childish, vulgar, and ultimately hilarious Maat Rock Blues. You know...

There was a Maat Rock,
Sitting under the block.
There was a minah,
The minah had a dog.

Then the minah's dog (Shit I keep mistyping dog as dong... ew) goes on to bite the maat's cock... Well then. 'Nuff said.

Overall though, today's hour or so of fun was great and morale boosting. Mostly anyway. As Hans and G plucked away to Romance d'Amour I sat in stunned silence. Yeah those few minutes weren't quite funny. But hey! I could pick up the chord sequences for the most part, I played bass line when I couldn't (what?!), and I lead us three into a super-steamed version of Hotel California, complete with numerous cock-ups from yours truly, fills from G, and percussion from Hans (who better right).

MAT! -clap!- ROCK! -clap! clap!- HAL-LE-LU-JAAAHH! -clap! clap! clap!-

Curse of the Snapping String

2006-08-29T19:07:00.000+08:00

This is GHS's brightest-toned set of strings in the acoustic category. If you want to buy it, make sure you aren't confused with Bright Bronze. The one with the words Contact Core Bright Bronze is the brightest of the brightest tones. Although I actually think any decent guitarist should at least examine his options before making a purchase, and not just mantra-ise Contact Core Contact Core Contact Core and zoom in for them when there well may be 5 other strings sets that own Contact Core flat.

So these were the strings I bought yesterday. Now, I have had bad bad experience with restringing... I don't do it often enough simply because there isn't a need to. And well I'm not as charitable as Graham to help his friends restring. Well sure present me with the guitar, the new strings, the peg winder, the tuner, the wire-cutting plier and a pair of tweezers just in case, and yeah I'll readily help you restring. If I have the time. But I'm not buying new strings and bringing guitars back to my house to restring on the comfort of my bed. That's reserved for my guitar and me.

BUT ANYWAY... big digression... anyway, I'd actually restringed my guitar successfully. Seems that I went overboard with Contact Core. It's really super bright, the tone. Maybe I'll just get Bright Bronze without the Contact Core next time, that's just one step up. I dunno whether buying Ultra Light (Gauge 10 13 20 26 36 46) added to the problem.

Then there was a ping sound, and my hands totally flew away from the guitar. Because a ping usually means that the machine head didn't catch the string properly and like a clockwork timebomb it was slowly unravelling. And your hands do not want to be anywhere near a .013" guitar string when it snaps.

And actually, so it was. In a matter of minutes, the last of the string unwound from the peg hole and it snapped out with a twang. Ohh I felt like screaming. There goes my complete set what the hell! And I wasn't about to buy myself a new set just for one string. Then I tried to replace the old string back in, and this time I used the plier to tauten it while I tightened the peg.

The fucking string gave way to rust.

You know what they say about familiarity? Doesn't really breed contempt, but does give you major take-for-granted issues at times. My guitar was farrr more useless than I thought without the second string.

So today I went to Davis Guitars at Peninsula Plaza. Earlier in breaktime I had called Yamaha, Swee Lee, and Davis to check on whether they sold individual strings, whether they had GHS, and whether they had .013. Yamaha sold GHS, but they only had fecking .015. Your head ah 15. Davis had 13, but over the phone they told me they didn't have GHS and it was a brand called SIT.

SIT??

After visiting the surrounding guitar shops in Peninsula and then finally giving in and going to Davis, I found out it was indeed SIT - Stay-in-Tune.

Ohhhkayy...... I suppose Shitty-Inadequate-Terrible works as well too. I think my guitar is giving way though. I believe it's starting to warp a little, and also the second-string peg hole can't catch properly. I hope not. Even though these can be easily repaired, it would be a matter of time.

Incidentally I can't believe that I just got Russell Peter's joke about HKers correcting your English with their own atrocious English.

"When I said 'Me and my friend will come back', he goes, 'Yo' friend and I.'...... Well that's fine too, whatever makes you happy, y'know?"

How did I take so long to figure that one out?

Da Capo

2006-08-28T19:48:00.000+08:00

Quick post before I embark on flooding myself with sociology reading.

Sociology teacher is a fussy biatch, but as long as she keeps her fuss at noise, Sociology promises to be interesting. Which explains why I bothered to buy the book after just the first lecture, and sink myself into myopic destruction.

Nutrition's visiting professor Dr Hovrath was much more interesting than the SOC woman. He was one who could catch your attention by just talking, not like... the SOC woman who was like a better version of Peggy Su.

HEYYYY.... What's going on theree????? I like students discussing in my classsss! At the appropriate timessss... But I have issueesss! With talking when I'm talking!

Actually she's like a cross between Auntie Yeap and Anthony Lee. OH THE HORRORRRRRRRR!

My brother just danced himself out of the room to Whitney Houston's I'm Every Woman. With his coyly short running shorts, he reminded me of a sad Hard-Gay wannabe.

Hooo...

Anyway! My mom cooked spaghetti for me as a birthday treat! But before I went home, more shoppin'! Popped by Yamaha to get meself a new set of strings (which thank goodness is an overall lighter guage than my present set wound onto my guitar) and a capo. Now I noticed that there were capos which looked exactly the same, but had a cost difference of $1-2. After some observation and confirmation from a staff member, I learnt today that there was a curved top capo and a straight-top capo. What it's for I have no idea, but I believe there has to be a function. Guitarists aren't stupid enough to have 2 variations of the same product which looks exactly the same unless you can detect the slight bulge in the string-stopping rubber for the curved version.

Most guitarists anyway.

Well I said to myself that I'd put sociology reading on the top of my list, so unless I finish or get totally tired, my guitar stays untouched.

Myopic destruction!

Chao Chicken...........................

2006-08-28T09:06:00.000+08:00

Okay. I'm entering this from SIM Library right now, because the timings for my morning class was changed and we weren't informed in the short note accompanying the revised schedule. There was only a note alerting PSY students to a change in Week 5.

I'm doing this before I go up to have my breakfast because I'd like to be as pissed as possible. If I do this after breakfast I'll be typing on a contented stomach and I would quite definitely lose my fire.

In any case, I refuse to believe that anyone (maybe Andrea... and that's on the low side as well) would scrutinise every fucking pixel of every new revision of the schedule. We only look out for either red highlights in the timetable, or things that the accompanying note mentioned. THEREFORE, I have come to the obnoxious, presumptious, and superflous conclusion that everyone waited till 1159pm yesterday to check out the schedule for the first bloody time, and just saw the changes without knowing it had been changed.

Sigh.

CHAO CHEE BYE LA. Happy fucking birthday to me. Nahia.

Books to Bury

2006-08-27T18:12:00.000+08:00

Video: I enjoy most of the Scenes from a Hat segments, it's one of the funniest games on Whose Line. But this is a rare gem where all the actors were in a plain crazy mood. Enjoy.

Today I was at Borders killing time. I thought perhaps I'd just pick Neil Humphreys' new book up and find a quiet corner to read it all in 2 hours and regret buying it then. But I ended up browsing around and in the end, with my father's $100, I bought 3 books. The Neil Humphreys one, Final Notes from a Great Island, Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist (I know, I'm slow. But I thought given its critical acclaim it would be a good book for my personal library, rather than just borrowing from the NLB) and the latest Artemis Fowl book, Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony, which I bought totally on a whim, without even reading a page.

Oh what the hell. It's been a long time since I've had so many waiting for my devourment. I also have The Devil Wears Prada, now that my brother's done with it.

Final Notes is really good. At least for me. Brit and Singaporean humour is something you don't see together all too often, and you'll hardly ever see it again now that Humphreys is leaving. So if you enjoy this (really) unique blend, pick the book up.

Alright. Gonna bury meself.

Japanese Deluxe at the Hilton

2006-08-26T23:26:00.000+08:00

And Happy Birthday to me.

What can I say... I dunno what came over me to choose a Japanese themed buffet, you know I don't (didn't?) usually like Jap cuisine. But Top of the M doesn't serve buffet dinner, and Ritz-Carlton was serving Indo cuisine at 66+++. So what the heck? Try la.

Turned out to be good stuff.

For some reason though, we were all rather quickly full. But when it came to dessert, there was green tea ice cream which was so good, I actually thought it was pistachio at first. I had taken a plate full of desserts (brulee, cheesecakes...) so my mom decided to relieve me of my ice cream first and take some more for me when she was finished.

Except by the time she went to take more, it was already replaced with vanilla.

So after we were all full, my mother wanted to wait for them to bring the green tea ice cream out again and take a second round before we left. Since I saw that the vanilla ice cream was almost gone, I enquired casually about the green tea ice cream.

Minutes later it was out again.

My mother gasped when she saw my prize. We snapped a couple of photos of her looking elated, and I couldn't resist doing this to one of the photos...

Honto oishi deska, oka-san?

炸胡王

2006-08-23T16:45:00.000+08:00

Quite overdue, this post.

Went to Ben's for mahjong. I was supposed to meet Ryan at Bishan first to get Magic cards, but Graham, bless him, mistook his soccer training to be in the morning, and was waiting at Buona Vista at 10+ before he realised it was tomorrow. So Ryan and I quickly redirected our plans to mahjong, then cards after we were done.

Of course I, eternally cool, forever glam, beat Ryan to getting to Yew Tee by so much that by the time he arrived Graham and I (with Ben staring at us) had finished a comfortable breakfast.

It's sad because I start off well, and then I start giving off winning tiles like some charity. And I zha-hu-ed AGAIN. BLOODY HELL another careless mistake la! And after losing a few more rounds, I was down to 20 cents.

Twenty. Cents.

And all three of them being the bestest friends I could ever have plotted my humiliating bankruptcy by trying to kang (4-of-a-kind for non-mahjong people). A kang is worth 20cents and an ang-kang (picking the 4th tile yourself) 40cents.

I ponged.

Then I kanged.

Pong.

By then I was waiting for my winning tile while (if I'm not wrong) trying to confuse the others by randomly keeping and discarding unneeded tiles to confuse them as to which suit I'm waiting for.

And then Graham probably had no choice, or had a fucking huge amount of mercy and compassion rushing through him, and he discarded my winning tile asking 'Do you want this?'

I snatched it from him and exhaled for the first time in over half a minute. Blood immediately rushed for my head, and I collapsed on the table in mental exhaustion.

In the end, I still was bankrupted, and in the last round too, but what the heck. Ahaha.

Fight, Lyrical Revelry

2006-08-20T22:02:00.000+08:00

Video: Kohtaro Oshio's energetic piece played on a baritone guitar, hence the funky slap bass.

And in other news, I'm exploited and made to do free advertising for my good friend.

Lyrical Revelry. Ben's band (hurhur it rhymes!). Visit this blog for the latest updates on the band, their next jamming session's details, and song line-up. Also expect demo recordings in the near future. Aside from the above link, there will also be another link under the left column.

Creative I-Trigue 3600

2006-08-20T19:03:00.000+08:00

Check out my first birthday present from my cousin (Ms Guitar).
The Creative I-Trigue 3600 2.1 Speaker System. Of all the Creative 2.1 speaker systems, the only other model with an apparently better feature is the I-Trigue L3800, because of the Lateral Firing Transducers, which 'widens the soundstage and enhances mid tones'. If you didn't understand that you could either look up the word 'soundstage', or settle for this pathetic alternative explanation of 'better sound lor'. Or as the bengs say, 'more better or-lio'.

It was a choice between a speaker system, or the X-Fi sound card. Both were $199. Thing is I don't like the integrated sound card on my com. Coupled with a basic speaker set, the sound that was produced was totally flat rubbish.

However after being taken on a tour by a very good sales assistant and having my strange questions answered, little thought was needed to decide that the speaker system would be better now than a super sweet sound card. Why? If I get a sound card and install it, it still comes out through the same (now I can say) shit speakers. Furthermore, since the on-board card will be disabled, I can no longer plug up my earphones in the front jack. This renders the sound card quite a sad waste of money. Whereas my speaker model, if you look at the picture, has a headphone jack on its wired remote, and an auxiliary jack to plug up my Zen Micro after my com has been turned off (late night studying.... like real hurhur). Therefore the problem is solved if I get the speaker system first, as I did, then the sound card later, after saving up, and the day I install the sound card is the day I shall die happy thereon.

Before I review my speakers, a brief account of choice events. My brother's school Hwa Chong conducts a practice known as sabbaticals for one week every end of term. This is where a list of interesting programs are offered for the purpose of increasing one's general knowledge. The range of choices ensure you pick something that interests you.

So my brother signed up to be attached to a law firm for one week. And just this morning he received a notice through his school's electronic message board that students taking part in this attachment program are required to prepare a blazer or jacket of some sort, since they will be attending court cases.

Ms Guitar was mortified to hear that my brother had no jacket whatsoever, and was throwing his luck on my father's old coat. So she bought him a smart jacket. 99 bucks, but with a discount cut was slashed to 85.

My father, seeing this double whammy was livid. Lucky he never insisted that I pay my cuz back for my speakers.

Creative I-Trigue 3600 2.1 Speaker System Review

I copied the picture down for you lazy folks.

The Creative I-Trigue......

God bless you if you just scrolled up to prove you are not lazy.

The Creative I-Trigue series is the highest of Creative's three speaker standards, SBS, Inspire, I-Trigue, in order of quality. Since I have linked to the website, prices are subject to change, but at this point of time, the 3600 model is the second most expensive of the I-Trigue 2.1 systems, the only higher model being, again as mentioned earlier, the L3800, which costs a much more painful $269, making the 3600 the ideal 2.1 speaker system right now.

The selling point (or as Mass Comm would term it, Unique Selling Proposition) of the 3600 is the patent pending Acoustic Loaded Module technology. This link will take you to the microsite explaining the details of this technology. I originally wanted to extract the superb Flash animation off the microsite so you lazy people wouldn't have to visit the microsite and come back again (or maybe you won't, I lose out you know). But my piracy skills have failed me. Must have been some Javascript function I had no way of adding.

Basically it works like a trumpet (or tuba, as you might prefer after I explain the ALM's use). Sounds waves are put through concentric snaking chambers, creating the effect of a long amplifiying port in a very small space. This allows the production of upper bass audio (accented bass drum hits is one very important example) from the satellite speakers itself, creating a more natural audio experience, instead of the sensation that the bass drum is coming from the side or from your legs.

The different in quality as compared to my previous set of speakers is stunning. And for 4x the price, perhaps it should be. The 3600 tolerates high equalizer settings very well, showing minimal signs of overwhelmed distortion, if any at all, perhaps I imagined it. Because of the warm nature of the speakers (auditively speaking). I have had to push the higher-mids and the trebles on the iTunes equalizer higher up than I expected, to achieve the quality of sound I have come to expect. To prevent complications I avoided maxing out any of the frequencies of the equalizer. Although there are some albums which won't sound as good as I would like, because I tune to a single song and once I've achieved what I feel is the optimum quality, I save the settings and hope for the best.

I tuned to Tender Surrender.

So. If you have money on your hands, and you dunno what to do with them, give them to me. If you would prefer to spend it on a luxury, the 3600 is something to consider. And if you have too much money, give half to me. But if you prefer to spend them all on yourself you selfish arse, get the 3600 and the X-Fi sound card also priced at $199. Audio enjoyment will never be the same again.

Mahjong and Battlefield 2

2006-08-16T10:05:00.000+08:00

First two days of my holidays (not counting the second half of last week) packed with fun...

Monday

The plan was to meet Ryan at Khatib to pick up some Magic cards I ordered for myself and him, then lunch and off to G's house for mahjong.

Just as I was wondering whether Ryan was still sleeping while on the train at 1040, I got a message.

5 more stops to Khatib and good morning to you too.

Without even looking up I already suspected he was on the same train. When I counted off the stops on the map opposite me, I returned the message asking if he just left Novena.

I just reached Toa Payoh.

Holy hell we're on the same train. Where are you?

Second carriage from the front red shirt.

And so we were late for our appointed time together by 2 minutes.

Meanwhile I informed Ryan that I had no idea where the card shop was.

0_0

This was his face. And then all the way he was twittering in utter disbelief about how I arranged for something to be dropped off at a location to which I had no clue of, before I used my biological compass to lead us right to the card shop in triumph and glory.

That's when he decided to buy 3 Fireballs. Asshole.

After that for the rest of the day...

Wait no. For the rest of Monday and Tuesday and every chance he gets, he's asking for a strangle by mentioning the word Fyarrrrrr-balllleee!!

So back to Monday.

We took a bus from Khatib. Actually, we wanted to drop at Sengkang, and I thought that bus terminated there. I had however, thought wrong, and confused it with the other SMRT bus we seriously considered taking that said in its bright yellow dot-words SENGKANG INT. And that sent us into a brief panic pressing the bell before we realised that Punggol was also NEL anyway.

Luckily someone got off after we pressed the bell.

At G's house, we had to wait for abit before G's bro came back to be the the last player for mahjong. I can't believe I zha-hu 2 times (false game). And I can't believe I did that TWICE IN A ROW. The second one was purely careless. Fisch... Lucky I won a couple of considerably large hands so I was in a sorry state when we ended but at least not totally bankrupt.

Went for dinner at KFC, and then since Ryan said he didn't feel like going home, we played abit more xBox before we left. Actually we sat to watch a couple of pool games on ESPN or Star Sports or some other channel. It was a close tie race to 9, and this stupid dick won the whole game by a super tyco golden break. He could never have made the 9-ball bounce off 4 balls before plopping into the pocket. As the 9-ball neared the pocket, you could hear the audience going HOHH?!, because it was the deciding round after all. And I thought my tyconess was gay enough.

Tuesday

I arrived half an hour late because it started raining at Tampines at an inopportune time. Since the rain pulled the temperature down by a considerable bit, I decided to bring my hoodie for a walk in the rain.

Well it washed off alot of the Bvlgari perfume I tipped all over it.

Ben and KY were also late, but they had not much excuse since they cabbed here.

Haha.

Then, here's the good part.

Kaiyan didn't know where the restaurant was.

When we finally found it, it was half an hour left to the buffet.

In the end we went to PS and ate at Fish Market, the copy of Fish and Co. Actually I think it's better than Fish and Co. F&C's dishes are too fishy. Me no like.

So after that we went opposite Paradiz Centre to play Battlefield 2 LAN.

Ok bottom line I still suck at games.

But I'm improving.

Slowly.

It's especially satisfying to snipe KJ down from a tower, because this guy uses the sneakiest moves to get behind you and pop the trigger.

And now I'm broke.

Girly Shoppin'

2006-08-11T16:38:00.000+08:00

For the record, before we start with today's post, I'd like to express what a bloody bore a day home alone was, and that I knew I should have arranged something for today. Only a super funny anime, courtesy of Ryan was able to make me laugh abit.

Okay now. Recount of yesterday. CSE was tedious, and many of us usual half-hourers found ourselves locked for 1h30min. A good portion of the class stayed till the end.

Now. With Ryan deciding to slack at home, and Graham off for mahjong. I was left alone. But I wanted to do anything but go home.

So I decided to go along with Bao Zhi and Pam to town to try to absorb some retail therapy. Felicia, with nothing better to do anyway, joined us as well.

We alighted opposite Wheelock Place. The first stop, then, was Zara. Bao bought a cute little bag. Then we went to Wheelock... Felicia and Pam to Borders to find a book, and Zhi Bao and I to Apple Orchard. They to look at their Mac stuff, and I to ogle at sound systems like I always do. We finally found a shop of my interest when we walked out of Apple... a figurine shop. And just as well, a new set of Bleach figurines arrived! They finally have Ichigo in bankai mode, complete with a billowing cape, and a Tensa Zangetsu that's 3/4 his height (10cm). The package comes in three sections of joined plastic. The Ichigo figurine, the sword wrapped in thin cardboard to prevent a bend as much as possible, and the stand. I took a picture with my phone, so it's sucky quality... he actually looks like they forgot to paint his eyes. But just a rough idea for you people... I'm not wasting my time bringing him around to show off and snap Zangetsu into two.

Yep. Later we were eating at Mos Burger when Justin and Cheryl Ann joined us. He was asking if I found anything to my liking (a pink silk scarf perhaps?). And when I showed him the figure, his eyes lit up like a blessed little child and he starting waxing over the figure and the bankai sword. At Mos Burger there was this lady who wasn't exactly young, but had an enormous smile on her face, and enthusiastically greeting everyone who walked in. So enthu she startled Zhi when she suddenly went HI WELCOME TO MOS BURGER :DDDDD. It did unnerve us a bit, but we dismissed it as one of the few gems happy to be working, and reciprocrated her smile.

After dinner we went to the Cineleisure Isetan for awhile because Zhi wanted to check out the Clinique 3-step. And there we all were, me rather outstanding, huddled around the products display going... yeah my mom uses number 2 as well... there's the one specially for acne... ooo... no my mom uses the bigger one... oh this is not the biggest.. no she always buy the bottle twice this size... usually from DFS... ohh...

I was planning on getting some sort of mask to rip out all my blackheads (there are only so many you can squeeze without drawing blood). But I was thinking if you clear the blackheads and don't close the pore holes you're just wasting your time aren't you. I was hoping to get a sample of the clarifier or whatever it was that was supposed to close up the pores. But they only had the three-step sample. Sighz.

After that. Mango! I could see why the girls were all sparkly-eyed when they talked of going to Mango later. There were so many beautiful dresses there. Pam bought a lovely red and white one. As well as a ring that was way too big for her hand, I thought, and that looked like some anime activation gem or something.

-kiss- Materialise! -tuiiiiii-

Wonder who besides Ryan would understand.

After that I had had my fill of walking and staying out of home. So I bade them wywy, and trudged home, tired perhaps, but not too weary.

It's only the night after the exam, and already the weekend and half of next week is filled with activities. I only hope my wallet holds.

鸡酒

2006-08-10T08:47:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was the first time in a long time I had felt really confident and at ease neglecting revision till night time. Usually I'm cao-sian and I find things to do to avoid revision. That's usually when I die painfully the next day.

Almost all my cousins from my father's side came yesterday to descend on my mother's chicken wine, otherwise known in Cantonese as gai-zao. Well actually... there are a total of 5 girl cousins from my father's side of siblings. 1 didn't come yesterday because she was down with flu, and another, my guitar cousin for those of you who know, didn't quite take to the gai-zao. All the guys, my cousins-in-law, eyed the golden brown soup with suspicion, and warned their wives not to drink too much with a stern reminder that they had to go to work tomorrow.

We thus entertained them until 3+ in the afternoon, and then after they left, I stoned in front of the computer for awhile before giving in to my body and plopping on my bed for a nap. I woke up in time to see the guard-of-honour inspection, the lap the President makes in the Land Rover, the joie-de-vivre, and the march off, from the NDP, before walking off to do my own stuff. Somewhere around the last of the fireworks, I walked into the kitchen to see my father preparing coffee, and the aroma from the powder (which wasn't like anything special it was standard ground Chinese coffee) caught my attention, and I agreed to a cup for myself. First time I didn't even bother to put sugar or milk. I must admit it was because I was lazy to go into the kitchen to get a sachet of sugar, so I tried it first, and well it was fine so... coolness.

When I finally got down to preparing for revision (preparing ah, not even starting), it was 8+. I printed out the 4 Javascript codes from the labwork to annotate, which I thankfully saved, and Graham kindly typed out relevant portions of Appendix C and D from the textbook to send over to me, and well I guess he revises as well. Thank goodness, because Appendix D is hell of a useful. Then as I was running through my notes, of which I'm missing two freaking chapters, I found the two lab reviews our lecturer printed for us after alot of us asked him what he thought was stupid questions. My face actually lit up when I saw them. It's been ages since I got this sort of reaction.

Well I'm typing this before leaving for school, and after it's all over, hopefully I'll go somewhere to celebrate.

Ryan you pangseh kia. I'll never forget this!!

Exam Over (almost)

2006-08-08T19:23:00.000+08:00

Feels like exam is over liao after the two COM papers. I totally fucked up the Mass Comm I'm rather worried I won't hit B- and will have to retake it. See la never study. WELL I'M SORRY!

After yesterday I quickly bucked up and studied abit more for today's Intercultural Comm. And well it paid off I guess. Even though half an hour before the exam Bao Fel and I we're reading but not absorbing anymore (sponge full) we knew it would all come back smoothly when the MCQs jogged our memory.

And it did.

At around 25 minutes into the exam, just as I was getting ready to raise my hand and be the first to beat the hell out of that damn place, the invigilator flipped the mike on.

'Mmmkay those who wish to submit their paper please raise your...'

2/3 of the class shot their hands into the air.

The invigilators didn't even bother making us sign out on early submission. They just collected and off we were.

Tara came in 15 minutes late (or was it 20). When the invigilator asked who wanted to submit early she was still staring intently at the question paper.

After Hans and I had packed our stuff back into the appropriate cases and sections and pockets, we walked past the lift.

She was already waiting there.

Express dasher hoo0~!

Oh if you'd look up at the address bar, if you're using Firefox or IE7 to view this, or if you're lucky with IE6, you will see my new favicon, the ff symbol for fortissimo. I was thinking of many fancy things... and the purple color wasn't left out, just so you know, but I decided to keep it simple and in line with the white layout of my blog. So there it is.

OK. Happy National Day. Don't forget to study for CSE/HR. I might just forget to study for mine. :D

Finger Finger

2006-08-06T18:31:00.000+08:00

Video: Japanese acoustic guitarist Kohtaro Oshio (I think the Americans spell it Kotaro... if your search doesn't turn stuff in with the h just delete it, but that's how the Japs spell it) playing live his now famous rearrangement of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. Aside from the great sense of calm it brings you when you listen to it, he has got some strange techniques up his flowery shirt sleeve. Mindboggling, sometimes. I chose Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence for the first video (you know me la discover something only will put up four videos of it for an entire month... if I don't find something else in the meantime) over another original song of his, which I will put up next week, because it's familiar. Everyone has heard some version of it I hope - piano, techno, Maksim (which would be piano-techno anyway haha). And also because it's slow, non-guitarist viewers can also see just what he's doing. And for guitarists if you think you're able to pull it off with (the ever-dubious) 'some practice', there's a part around 4min20 that I'd like to see you try.

Now on to other news. Been boring these few days... Graham didn't come for the last lesson on Thursday (must have been real eager to see Shanghaiman one last time). So Hans and I sat on top and out of sheer boredom I started playing with Zhi's MacBook's Photo Booth again. Picture = 1000 words, so...

This is just weird... haha.

Should have asked KY Ben KJ Mel to take pics with this effect and put it in their anti-Mac (HAHA LOSER HAHAHA) presentation. Not that hard to have a smashing photo from this effect.

Um haha...

I know. I look totally like Fat Bastard.

And then during break time Mandy Jane and Val were photowhoring too, so I shamelessly joined in.

Photowhores UNITE!

Um no comment?

Look at Val... dunno what she doing hahahaha.

See what did I tell you about nice photos.

... yeah so anyway... lol...

Even though Rara said she wasn't taking I still felt abit paiseh that I was right in front of her so she probably got a treat of my less-than-tight ass... sigh.

Yesterday I went with Chuan En Bryan Bryan's mom and Bryan's friend Meerza (Mirza?) to the American Club's Eagle's Nest for lunch to celebrate Bryan's birthday. Was contemplating buffet because the seafood chowder looked smashing, but then Chuan En chose a la carte so I wasn't about to officially make myself a glutton by asking for buffet. Even so the portion of food that came was far beyond my expectations.

You know Americans always have what they call sandwich or burger on their menu right? Now normally at most other not-so-high-class restaurants it would have been a ripoff more painful than waxing your inner thigh. But when Chuan En's order for one of the sandwiches came in...

It was equivalent to a footer at Subway. A footer. With fries.

And I thought my plate was like rather empty, but when I was done with the apparently small hill of mashed potatoes, I was beginning to feel full.

Incidentally those were the first really mashed potatoes I've had in some time. Not like those cheap reconstituted stuff at KFC. Or Megabites.

After lunch we adjourned for coffee and tea. Well actually it was only me and Bryan. Chuan En only took an orange juice on second thought. I took a double espresso.

Siao I tell you. But not as good as LaVazza coffee. Or that headsmasher I had for complimentary breakfast last year at Aranda. After I added milk and took my first sip, I was nearly knocked out.

I totally forgot about sugar.

So then Bryan went to get a stirrer for himself and got me two packets on the way. And I dumped them both into the cup no bigger than my Zen Micro. Or if you need another comparison, no taller than the average glue stick.

Another knock out from the blinding sweetness. Sheesh.

Apart from that, Bryan and Mirza regaled us with their stories of clerkdom, about a mad Indian lady who makes you redo everything 10 times and a staff sargeant who uses NBKNNCCB for a comma.

Wonder what I'll get.

Engrish.com

2006-08-01T14:08:00.000+08:00

So I was having fun with Graham's new notebook, from which I'm blogging now, and wanted to have some humour website to pass my time while Shanghaiman rambled on. So Graham recommended Engrish.com, and well check this out...

And for those of you who noticed my nick about dolphins and hands was also taken from a horribly translated warning sign.

I still can't get the hang of my Magic deck. I've drastically altered the deck already, took out all the greens to make it a red/black deck. I'm gonna die later if my mana fails to serve me again...

On Friday I attended my brother's Hwa Chong Drama Club production of Army Daze, where he played Johari, the fat idiot who thinks he's got muscles and looks like a rock star. And compared to all the other skinnies on stage he really did look fat. But what affected me more was the atmosphere. It was a first in the history of their Drama Club. A totally sold out event, because the idiots (see la study until no common sense) sold more tickets than there were seats in the auditorium. As a result audience who came late, parents kids and students, all had to sit on the floors and on the aisle steps. It was impressive la actually, to see the auditorium totally packed.

So anyway. When the pre-play video was run... each character introduction was received by whooping cheers and screams which immediately reminded me of my secondary school days, a long, long, time ago...

Ok ok it was only two years. But it's a long time ok.

Suddenly all the VSELDDS productions came rushing back to me, all the preparations, all the rehearsals, teachers making us to the exact freaking opposite of what we wanted so that all our lines were, to us, so retardedly fake. The great feeling we had in our hearts when a full house gave a thunderous applause. And the audience. The only time we ever appreciated a rowdy audience.

Memories... all alone in the moonlight... I can smile at the old days... I was beautiful thennnnnn........

Ha. Ha.

I miss secondary school already. Certainly not the academic part though.

Sunday, I went to my aunt's house for lunch after church. Well it was a late lunch, eating at 2+, so you could imagine we were quite ready to devour anything on the table, which we didn't really have to worry about since my aunt (and her mom) was a fabulous cook. We had butter-fried potatoes (plain compared to other forms of cooking potatoes, but strangely good shit), Korean vermicelli, fried bee hoon, and ngor hiang. Ooooo drool......

Meanwhile, my aunt had guests in her house. She had engaged herself in Amway products, those home-selling stuff that you demo to others in your own home and hope to hell that they buy it from you. Even though my friend, who was being housed by my auntie while he had his education here, had nothing much on his computer, I tried as much to stay in his room, because I didn't want to sit through the demonstrations. Uncles and aunties aren't exactly dynamic.

Empooty

2006-07-30T19:04:00.000+08:00

New video harharhar so farrrrnieu I got nooooooo juice to blog so I typing like this they say if you put a 1000 bananas in 1000 typewriters with 1000 monkeys in 1000 metres they will produce Shakespeare for you but I say I like French cuisine even though I've never tried it before enjoy and hope I get my blogging juice back soooon

Let my mushrooms GO!!!

2006-07-23T18:57:00.000+08:00

Didn't do much in the morning and early afternoon watched videos all through. Left at 3 for Campus and by the time I reached City Hall I was late so I took a cab to Suntec. The driver took me on a merry-go-round. He probably took my unsmiling face to be dissatisfaction, so he went into a one-way conversation about how the idiots put up a new sign saying 'no right turn' so he had to go one huge round. Cab drivers really don't know how to take monosyllablic grunts as a huge hint to shut up and drive... must be lonely, having people there but not talking to them.

IT'S THEIR JOB DAMMIT.

Anyway, $3.80. Manageable. I walked out of the lift at the 6th floor to a blast of noise... the chatter was unbelievable... it was only a couple of minutes past 4 and the place was already filled with people. Met Maria after awhile, she brought me up to date on the whole new thing. Campus is starting this chill-out corner, where basically you can pick up a free packet drink. And then there is the MAD Initiative, Making A Difference... there were T-shirts for sale but they were vintage designs and I didn't quite like them, so I passed this time.

The chairs were removed this time... well most of it anyway. We were all treated to a pre-service dance, then Pastor Chin came up and well apparently he replaced his prepared message with a one fresh from the Lord.

You know what. Fast forward to post-sermon praise and worship. Pastor said, after the first song.

'Let's Tell the World okay?'

The whole room went nuts.

Haha I had alot of fun. Alot. Of fun.

Dinner with the rest of the caregroup (even though I don't go caregroup... they all stick together anyway, with any event). We were at the Milennnia Burger King, and I was at the counter ordering (Mushroom Swiss hoo0~!). Bao Yan and Li Rong were waiting behind me. Baoyan suggested extra cheese extra mushrooms, and I laughed, thinking she wouldn't bother. In any case I'd ordered already so...

So I was the first to get back to our seats, and I didn't want to start first (courteous what). So I went back to give them moral support and just be there for them.

No la I was just kaypoh.

When we got back to our seats, Baoyan opened her burger.

Extra cheese, and extra mushroom.

No extra charge.

All through dinner Baoyan was really funny, making endless jokes. She told us about how as a curious and arguably innocent little girl at Primary 2 she heard about how cats don't die when they fall, and she didn't exactly want to throw a kitten off the parapet. So she sat the kitten on her lap.

And the opened her legs.

My God at 1 year's old, I wouldn't have been as fast as the kitten, who promptly shot its claws out and scratched Baoyan's legs trying to break its fall.

One thing. This care group is uber at wasting time. We spent half an hour standing around waiting for nothing.

I didn't really wish to take a bus home, since it was so late and I wanted to get home fast. After some deliberation I flagged the first cab I saw.

The cab with the bright green LED sign announcing TAXI.

Comfort Cab.

$14.10. Bloody hell. But I think I'll save my cab money for Saturdays from now on. Kinda worth it...

Le Benefites de Leisure

2006-07-21T22:38:00.000+08:00

Well.

Today was a good breather.

After CSE lab went with G to meet KY......

You know what? Let's talk about CSE lab first. Hahaha.

Anthony Lee came on time today, and gave out our assignments shortly after. As I had predicted, today's Javascript was fun to construct. I actually finished mine within half an hour you know, but I forgot to print an extra copy of my code for Bao and Pam, so my submission was delayed by another half hour. But that half hour was not to be wasted. First stop was Carol, where her code was processing the same result whether it was this or that (we were doing the IF function of Javascript). I asked her to put the script into my thumbdrive and let me look at it from my desk, because I could hardly think standing behind her and back bent 90. And next came Maria, so I asked her to put it in my thumbdrive too. I actually suggested entering booleans for Carol, but I realised upon running through again that I put the NOT sign somewhere else... goodness. Maria... forgot la. Lol. There was probably another one I helped too, but I forgot who. But then came Melvin. I noticed Graham bending over him, Yang looking at his computer too, and a big crowd there. So I squeezed myself and leaned between Yang and Melvin. And you can imagine lor... 4 guys bent over a com screen examining lines of codes over and over and over again. If Graham hadn't had his codes open to compare too, I probably would never have found the mistake.

Me: Um Melvin... lemme see Graham's.
-click-
Me: ... yours?
-click-
Me: ... ... ... -press UP arrow...-
-up to the head of the codes-
-changes Function to function-

Now everyone is silent, pondering the possibilities of this being the one letter to solving the whole jam. In movies this would be the time where everyone looks incredulously and says, 'Noooo......'

G: -moves to save-
Me: Nuh wait lemme check through the rest.
Yang: This is probably it though...
Me: Ah try first try first.
G: -Ctrl-S- Get ready to swear.

And as we all watch in breathless silence...

-click the browser window-
-F5-
-prompt pops up-

Melvin: CHEEEEEEEE BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
RH: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
-general laughter and slight pandemonium-

That was probably the funniest code problem I solved today.

Pamela's one... lol mistakes all over hahahaha. Closing her head two times and opening the body two times...

Later Maria asked for my help again because she had shifted her IF functions to the user-defined portion, and had trouble having the alerts executed. What's funny was, Lirong announced after sometime that she had successfully completed it. Ah, but upon checking, I found that Maria didn't even include the operation into her code's body script, so it was a simple matter of linking the calculated answer to her function, and letting the sequence do its thing.

Yes ar... Problem solver hoo0~!

So.

Sim Lim Square.

Took a bus with G to Clementi to meet KY, then went on to Bugis. We decided to eat first before our quest to check out laptop prices for G, and get an ADSL gateway for KY's shop (Internet access hmm...). Decided on some place called Kim's with omgdamnnicesmelling Hokkien Fried Mee... I however ordered Salted Fish Fried Rice, my favourite! But crap la, the salted fish didn't even infuse into the rice lor, it was just fried rice and biting on the salted fish to get the flavour, which in case you don't already know is unhealthy and not exactly delicious at times. Bio-ed cars while eating... there was a(nother) Tuscani yellow parked where our table was. The more I look at Tuscanis the more I don't like them. And I used to, because of their economicality as well as the shape, which was rather close to the ideal sort of sports car shape that I like. Unfortunately, a million others also probably thought the same way, and after seeing no less than 3 Tuscanis today, I think I'm giving up on it. If KY's right, it would be long out of production by the time I can afford it anyway, so might as well wean off it now.

We basically swept the whole place at Sim Lim, floor to floor. I was so confused as to where the tube speakers I saw before were, because the last time I went to get my EHD the place was like flooded with them, or so it seemed to me. But I started from the top floor the last time, and the bottom this time, which of course in due course explained everything to me. And guess what people. After I sampled the speakers with Are You Gonna Be My Girl, KY asked me to put it to the test.

With opera.

Let me explain... I told him the other day that even the Zen Aurvana, much less the cheaper ones we own, could not handle the high notes of opera. This pair of 2.1 speakers plus a small seperate console (volume treble bass the works) costs $299. And with a tube.

To save them, and to a lesser extent myself the embarrassment of soprano notes blasting into the middle of that techno-saturated place (I say again ah. Tetno and trance music - DIFFERENT), I softened the volume and forwarded to the last part of the song, then brought the volume up abit.

Couldn't handle.

You know something though... I'm starting to suspect it's my custom EQ. It cannot be that a $235 pair of Creative earphones, and a $299 tube-fitted 2.1 speaker system, cannot handle opera.

Because my EQ is customed for my earphones. And it might not show up on lousier audio equipment, but here is, I'm guessing, where EQ makes all the difference.

On the other hand, ph33r d 0p3r4!!

After we were finished with Sim Lim, we were about to hop on the MRT, KY to Jurong and his lovely shop, while I was going with G to City Music to check out acoustic guitars that he was planning to buy.

Luckily while we were walking Graham suddenly spotted Peace Centre.

G: OMG... ey there it is!
RH: Really?
KY: Peace or Pearl Center?
G, RH: ...
RH: -troops to the side to check- Peace lah.
G: Ah cheh.......

Lol.

So anyway. City Music people are asses. You can touch this this this guitars without them moving an inch to 'assist' you, but if you touch the hanging guitars, it's almost like the flash-step next to you and say, 'Please ask for assistance'.

How the hell would I know can?

Tried bass today, didn't work... I wonder why though. Last time when Melvin Derek Hans they all were jamming I play bass ok what.

After that we went over to... I dunno what the shop is. Luthier Guitars? Where they had Simon and... Peter, I think, or is it Schuster. Simon and something, Luthier, and Timothy acoustics. Damn nice la the sound. Helped G select one. There were 3 guitars but one had an unmistakably brighter tone than the other two. Apt for G, with all his soloing. And a bright guitar isn't exactly detrimental to strumming anyway. Also there were just two electrics for sale, both by The Music Man. I had difficulty with one, because the tone was so mellow... but the other had a very acoustic timbre to it, so it didn't feel so awkward with it. And they are both fully customable. Color, pickup configs, lefty, whatever. At a price of course.

I estimated that if I asked for whatever I wanted (lefty, purple, HSH/SSH config) it would probably come up to 3.5k. And we all know I'm optimistic. The guy there was nice though, leaving us to do whatever we wanted, try whatever guitars, and all.

So. So much for leisure. After a knock-out nap on bus 65 (seems faster than I'd come to expect today), I came back, at 5+, and ladies and gentlemen I have just completed CSE assignments 2 and 3 in a row. 9+ now.

W00t.

Hear ye hear ye the benefits of leisuree.

Well I added that last e to rhyme it. Sounds nice what.

Uno Problemo

2006-07-20T21:32:00.000+08:00

Ever since I stepped into UB-SIM, it's been like that.

Peace, happiness, fun, laughter, joy.

And then after that something crops up. Or craps up hurhur.

I'm being vulnerable, just in case you haven't got it.

When something goes wrong, when we end off on a bad (or really bad) note, I'm angry. I'm also upset, confused, dejected. Yeah why is it always me? Why fucking me?

Actually, you know, it isn't, but 'allo, depression does that to you. Why don't you try it. If you can... ah cannot right?

Renhao 1 : 0 You

So anyway, upset confused dejected.

Basically, that continues until the problem is solved.

Complexedly? I'm left hanging in the air. I mean who else can I ask what's wrong?

Hey... what's up with him?
What's up?
He's like not talking to me...
Oh really? Why?
I'm asking you.
Oh I dunno... ask him lor.

Some help. But I could hardly ask for much more. And everytime I happen to bump into that person, I can't meet him in the eye, every movement of his seems to be hostile to me. It's stupid, I know, but listen up guys (girls). This is what happens ok? Don't take it lightly, it may sound wussy, but if it hits you it hits hard. And you know it's not something you can easily help avoiding if you don't have the character for it. I don't yet know anyone whom you can free from 3000 years of entrapment in an otherwise really really nice oil lamp, and grant you no more problems forever and ever with a flick of a finger. And if I knew one, you wouldn't be the one freeing it anyway. :)

Sianz (not even ji pua)

2006-07-19T20:10:00.000+08:00

Yeah I got that line from the mrbrown show. Forgot which one though, I think it was one of those earlier Skypecast ones. Funny.

Haha.

So anyway, KY was telling me about how if I wanted to hear the extent of our Creative earphones abilities, I should watch Top Gear with it. He said he could hear the cars zooming about, and the train travelling from right to left.

I met him early today, you know just for the heck of it... wake up horribly early and go to school half-asleep. I know, right? Life made up of such simple pleasures.

When I plugged up, I heard nothing.

At all.

The sound was good as usual... The half-techno background music was great with the bass... But the screeching was equal on both sides, there was no sound travel at all. The soundstage was just totally... one-dimensional.

KY attempted to blame it on my small-size earbuds, which I nullified almost immediately.

Final test of the week... CSE's Javascript... whatever la. Lol. Finished in 5 minutes. Hoo0~!

Goodness la... COM class is terrible. I was so sick of him I left after the second break. Of course, not before getting my results back... 26/30. Considering the highest is 28(.5?), ok la... It's fine. But I had a miscomm with Zhi about taking today's notes... I thought she said type it out la... then can print out, which I found rather unusual, since one could copy and paste the points from PPT, and I was just typing to stay awake, when she actually said don't need to type it out la... can print what...

Which made much more sense unfortunately.

Oh but, while Uncle Hong was rambling, I decided to play with Zhi's Photo Booth... software that came with her MacBook Pro, which incidentally is sweet except for a RAM problem. Photo Booth, plus the super small, and super good in-built webcam (which is actually only the size of any two letter word you can find right here on your screen) gives...

I only snapped this one photo, which was the swirl effect reminescent of The Ring, because I found the effects so funny, and so did like 10 other people watching my antics from behind me. See Li Rong and Maria photo-opping behind me? If it carried on I probably would have been sent out of class.

Shortly after I got out of class (which Graham and Hans did too), sitting in the lounge half-knocked out and half-watching Kids Central, I got a call from Ben (this guy doesn't know when to SMS one I tell you) asking if I wanted to zao (Beelok again). Luckily I was already out of class otherwise I couldn't get out even if I wanted to.

Did I mention. My paintballs (half of them) finally worked yesterday. I thought I'd just fire a couple for firing sake, and BAM, there was a red blot on the wall.

Oops.

12 pellets later, it took me a whole lot of JIF (or CIF whatever the hell they call it) to get the paint off the wall. Damn hard can. When I tried to show them today, it refused to burst again.

I think it works on concrete. And if that's so what's the freaking point of making it?! Isn't it supposed to burst on humans?

Sheesh.

The Other Test 1

2006-07-18T22:03:00.000+08:00

I hate studying.

Studying hates me too, probably.

I don't expect to do as well as yesterday's test, but fine all the same.

So after the test I went to the lounge for (guess!) foozball! Halfway round the two senior year teachers came to play with us again. Goodness they were funny. Elton and I had just (I think) pwned KJ and Ryan with two textbook Raishins. The Korean guy took the front, and the American took the defender. Korean guy was good, nearly Raishin-ed Elton. The American was a newbie, characterized by weak movements from his defenders and keeper. I took him down with three classic angle shots, and goodness I thought I made alot of noise. The first shot he jumped up and yelled FUCK so loudly (or was it ARGH I couldn't tell). They were just really fun to play with, and I expect them to be great to learn from too. If I ever see them.

Shared a cab to Bee-lok with Ben, and what the fuck are these guys thinking raising the prices?! Fuck as if the 10cent increase on the pick-up charge and the doubling of the after-5 surcharge wasn't bad enough, the meter ran at twice it's usual speed. Think about it, it's actually possible to stare at the meter and see it change without having to blink. Do you have ANY IDEA AT ALL how freaky is that? 7 bucks again... I am so going to have to swear off taxis. :(

I remembered one of the foreign exchange students telling me about the vast number of channels on AOL Radio, so I checked it out today, as well as downloaded AIM. My goodness, everything was there... Alternative Rock Pop Classical Metal Electronic/Dance... You name it man. The great Renhao hereby recommends it.

AOL Radio. Go for it.

Wonder

2006-07-18T09:58:00.000+08:00

I dunno why I feel mortally embarrassed when I see Koizumi singing Can't Help Falling in Love.

I dunno why.

I was trying my best to laugh, and then I just flipped the TV off. *shudder*

...

Ok bye.

Test 1 (30%): Cleared

2006-07-17T18:46:00.000+08:00

In less than half an hour.

We all thought we were doomed, when the invigilator gave out the scripts. It wasn't randomised, so all of us had the same last two questions.

Who created the cinematographe, and in which year? (2 points)
What is the significance of books? (4 points)

Everyone around me went into panic mode, asking each other who! Who! When! WHO! I think it was Mariani who supplied the answer 1895, and I supplied my guess of Lumiere Brothers, which turned out to be indeed correct.

When I turned the paper and started on the MCQs, I found they were mostly easy. However, alot of them were cold-memory questions, and our friend is going down in the end-of-course evaluation. 10+ years teaching the course in Buffalo and he still does this sort of crap.

I wanted to hand my paper in at 353, but the lecturer said to wait for 4, so ok lor I check through while waiting. I felt my phone buzzing and I thought it was Ben calling. When I got out however I was mildly surprised to find it was KY who called. When I called him back he said he was already at the bus stop, and told me to hurry up.

When I got there, Ben wasn't with him.

CB I felt so cheated can? After bitching at him I wanted to go back, but then 52 arrived and somehow he persuaded me to take it with him. Crapinated.

Back at Tampines, after a short visit to Yamaha to pick up some picks (hurhur) I went to Shih Lin Snacks to get a XXL Crispy Chicken, which I haven't taken in a long time. Right beside it was a bubble tea store, and the menu suddenly sparked faint memories of its Chocolate Oreo ice-blended. And I bought it too.

I tell you, it beats McCafe's Double Chocolate flat ok. Freaking ripper-offs.

I intended to bring the crispy chicken home to eat, so being smarter than you think I am, I asked for a plastic bag. The guy looked at me abit uncertainly and informed me that it was a dollar.

I looked up at him.

He said 'Do you still want it?' I went um no no thanks.

Then he pulled a plastic bag out and held it open. 'Kidding :D', he said.

Ò.Ó

Taken for a ride hoo0~!

Oh yeah. I found the medium-sized earbuds for my Creative earphones too large for my ears. It creates a vacuum in my ears la what the hell. Very uncomfortable, and once I pull it out for a breather or to adjust, chances are I won't get it snugly in again. So I used the small ones. Not all that loose, and the smallness makes the transducers (I'd say speakers or amps but they're earphones for goodness' sake) closer to my ear, which in turn makes the bass an earth-shaking blast.

Worth the price.

UPDATE

From nowhere.

I'm glad I have MSN news alerts on. It alerted me to the tsunami this afternoon. My initial thought was that goodness, it hit from nowhere. And then when I read that there were tsunami alerts an hour beforehand, my thoughts changed to goodness, it struck so quickly. But after some thought, I realise it's not every time that the Earth gives you weeks or days or at least half a day of warning, as with Merapi. So. Remember them in your prayers people.

There's another thing I had in mind but forgot...

Ooooh goodnesssss.... olddddd......

Give up. Lol.

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest

2006-07-16T18:51:00.000+08:00

Dead Man's Chest is the best movie in my immediate memory since The Matrix Reloaded in 2003. You have to either watch it in a theatre, or else with a 7.1 THX-certified Dolby Digital Surround Sound Home Theatre system. And a 50" plasma TV (or HDTV). It also helped that GV used digital film playback, so there wasn't one single scratch in the entire film.

How we got to watch PotC:DMC is an even better story. Originally my cousin bought four seats to Superman, showing at 1340. We noticed a lack of the usual crowd present before a theatre opening, and sat down for awhile, before picking up nachos popcorn and drinks and then heading to the entrance booth. An assistant rushed down, confused, to tend to us. She enquired what show we were watching.

Us: Superman.
Her: Finish already.
Me: WHAT?!

She proceeded to flip through a list on a clipboard, and running back and forth through the pages, she said she would check and glided off to the snacks door, leaving the four of us, hands totally full with our snacks, staring wide-eyed and confused at nobody in particular, except maybe the ultra life-size and ultra fake Will Smith MIB statue.

Another guy came out and explained that there must have been some error in the system, that there was no Superman screening anywhere around this time. He however, could replace the tickets with four tickets to Pirates of the Carribean.

Cuz: Um... you boys ok with Pirates of the...
Me: [who secretly wanted very much to watch Pirates anyway] Yes no problem! :D
Bro: Yeah... fine.

Except Pirates was screening at 1410, and we had to wait like half an hour more before we got to enter the theatre. It's a good thing the popcorn combo was the The Lake House Combo, and the popcorn box had a sort of cover-lid which was supposed to look like the mailbox, the central object of the film. Because I can never hold myself back from an open box of popcorn, I mean I do just what it says man I just keep popping them. So with the lid I was able to keep 3/4 for the film.

Incidentally we had plenty of time to watch the trailers. And whoa this summer season promises alot of shows that look good. Hoodwinked has finally come to Singapore after like... gosh I dunno how long. 3 months? Probably more. It's been freaking ages since I gave up downloading it on BT. Couple of horror movies that look good, then there's Tokyo Drift among the couple of action movies... goodness. Time to pass my HD to G again. Hoo0~!

Whaddaya know

2006-07-15T18:10:00.000+08:00

Goodness what do you know... I still haven't posted up that little written conversation between Hans and I. And now that KY's posted up his point-by-point reply, I don't really see the need to do one myself.

I'm just... stoning... psyching myself up to study... three tests next week...

It's probably time to get physical. If not, almost time. Otherwise there won't be fun.

What am I saying ahhh going mental here..............

Final Moments on the rising dragon's now defunct and no longer visible comments page

2006-07-15T14:13:00.000+08:00

Kaiyan has rescued the comments. He says it's the final bit, but my dear friend, that's all 23 of them there. I was quite bummed that I didn't get to read the comments posted after my fuck-fest (I put the hypen to distinguish it from fuckfest, which is something that I'd say is much much much sicker than what I did). But read it today, and I enjoyed it (duh lol). Get the full document here. Meanwhile, excerpts:

[First comment by Ben]
Benji~ said...
eh you think you remove your tagboard then the issue is over ah? lol not so fast, public apology or i will break your twig and set you on fire (:

[Nard's oh-so-vulgar reply]
Leong Shi Chuan Bernard said...
Haha LTA Roy is right, I shouldn't even bothered to knock some sense into u. Let the army handle u all when u enlist, u be suffering hell with yr negative attitude. alright , sorry for fucking u upside down , satisfied happy .
[no not really we aren't, but moving on...]

[Simon doing his part]
fleshimp said...
and get it into your thick fat head; if i am negative about army, would i have served in the unit and bleed the color red for my fucking beret. think, if u can. i am never negative about it; but i don't like how you as a person, are making the whole population of males out there dislike army; because of what you are doing and what you want to represent; trust me, in no way do u fucking represent the army, if anything, u are an insult to the males who ever served ns, look at you. gawd.
fleshimp said...
oh and one more final piece of info; why do i disdain you from representing the army, i happen to know one of the sergents who took you before. i heard lots of stories about you; embaressing ones i think you don't want the world to know. so if i am you, i will shut up about army, before someone burst that bubble and show the world the truth.
[ohhhohohohooo... juicy hoo0~!]

[Nardo Lardo]
Leong Shi Chuan Bernard said...
... blahblahblaharmyrocksmysgtsoffsrulecolchanhoo0blahblah...
And I am not longer negatively weak thinking Bernard Shi Chuan that I used to be, that U can pull down easily. Standing here is a much stronger tougher better Bernard n I have the results to prove n show for it.
[... right.]

[Simon again!]
fleshimp said...
for someone like inferiority complex, teasing is a form of making you learn to cope with it, cos i am sure you've been teased for all your life. am i not right. chuckle. body fat percentage teasing is cos you really still look fat; for your own good, you got to rip more. and i did say that; not to be quoted. there's this thing called 'personal space and privacy'. you want it this way, i have my ways of retaliation, and u know i am capable of that. so better think twice abt mentioning my name. you have been warned. you want an all out war from me? leave my name as it is. u want to avoid this war, remove my name. remember, i am capable of making a person's life really miserable. want to deal with it?
[I as someone who has been and still is teased will have to disagree with the first part, but otherwise it's drippin' juicy, aye?]
fleshimp said...
if i lead an all-out anti-bernard campaign in school, how many supporters do you think i can gunner. don't pit yourself against me bernard.
[garner darling... lol]

[oooh heh my fuck-fest!]
Il Maestro said...
Oho very good no censor here.

Oi Chee Bye Chuan, we've all tried to be very civilised about this, and with each fucking word you say you are just agitating us more and more and fucking more. See I learnt how to use HTML tags can you or not HA FUCKING LOSER. Do I do things like this? No, only you. Freddy and Simon tease you you not happy is it? You have just put us on the fucking warpath you moron. We will fuck you upside down (not you fuck us WE WILL FUCK YOU) and make sure that when you finally apologise tears will stream down your fucking face and you will be gasping for fucking air. You think you finally say the word 'fucking' we all ooooo scared ah? Look here ok I can utilise the word 'fuck' and its many derivatives far fucking better than you will ever learn to in your miserable excuse of an existence.

Another thing Chee Bye Chuan. My father knows Colonel Chan. Very soon we'll know whether he even knows your fuckface.

Benji~ said...
wheee (: an apology! yay! but not as i wanted it :( aww bernard i think you just agitated us a bit more now. negative attitude? goodness me did i say i hated the army? if i did and didnt wanna serve NS i would be gone by now right? nards are nards tsk. lets just see who will be bending over at the end (:

MoLeZ said...
Are you so weak that you get demoralized by some teasing? Teasing is just a part of college life. Freddy also teased me to be gay with Simon what. And I don't whine about it like you. I join in. If you get demoralized that easily, you must be a wuss and must have also felt the same way of what they called you!

And how many times have we told you that you DID NOT try to portray a good image of army for us. You totally ruined it. Do not try to act as a spokesperson when you are not trained and not even qualified to portray a good image for the army.

Your enemies, that is Freddy, Simon and Wei Yang however have proved themselves.

And finally, we still demand the public apology. Not this nonsense, insulting, apology with no sincerity.
[rambler lol]

Benji~ said...
oh and BTW bernard you wanna see what my negative attitude is? just keep this up, yes real smart of you to piss EVERYONE off.

just dont apologise, give that fucktard face. oops vulgarities..:P FUCK YOU LA CB. err i mean..ah whatever FUCK YOU la i meant that (:

just keep this going and you will not only receive negative attitude from me but from EVERYONE else too (:

heh heh have fun suffering in somewhere that is not as bad as hell

ehhh hold it..i dont know. not very sure about the last thing i said.. i think the ppl you pissed off can give you more than hell?

let what i said process and settle in your head. is it even possible to knock some sense into you?
[not at all actually]

Leong Shi Chuan Bernard said...
thanks for your 'kind' intentions, simon. but I work better living up to the fullest potential with people who cheer each other, mutual support. that's why u all snickered at me, I responded back negatively. what u see what is what u get. The same went for me when I was in the army, worked badly with pple who had nothing good. I worked well with pple who positively reinforced me and I responded back in positive kind.
renhao kaiyan ben etc - haiz leave it up to u. can't be bothered anymore. no comments from u anymore . moving on with or without u, life still goes on and I will prevail
[prevail your empty airhead la ji neh]

Leong Shi Chuan Bernard said...
positive reinforcement is the best method, I do not work well with pple who snicker, snide remarks, deboost morale.
...zahzahzahahohahzisbombahrahrahrahcolchanahahaha...
that's the end of this, anymore further, close the blog. no more time for this anymore, I got many other better things to do than this . this I know, I will survive and make it thru all odds prevail in the end to the decisive victory, cos I done it before falling and getting up many times. that's how I made it here today and will rise up further. THIS IS THE END OF THIS. PERIOD !
[no its not :D far from it]

[final smackdown before the comments were closed]
MoLeZ said...
Can somebody get things in this nut head? How come he don't understand a single thing we say? I don't know how you end up in the same ESL class as me. Your understanding of English seems far worse.

Firstly, HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT BEN'S INJURY IS NOT FUNNY? Why didn't you insist on running out and fighting the war when you were in the army? Instead, you were slacking! Slack into a blob like you are now. And people have preferences. I prefer SCDF to SAF and thats it. You think SCDF that easy? I see the SCDF ppl next door training so hard everyday. Funny is it? They brave through fires and injured people. You talk some more cock you see whether the SCDF will save you when your house catches fire one day.

Secondly, this is not the end. Not settled ok?
rahrahrah...
You? You wrote some cock and bull story about us. So, prepare your apology and stop thinking that its settled.

~ ~ ~

Please be reminded that these are excerpts, and that the direct download link to the full document has been placed at the top portion of this post.

The Fallen, Falling, False Worm

2006-07-14T20:31:00.000+08:00

All Anti-Chuan Campaignees, as if you don't already know, sovietmole.com has kindly set up a branch blog titled The Falling Worm at URL www.dragoncgo.sovietmole.com, reason apparently being dragon your head you are a worm... Anyway thanks to Mr Leong Kaiyan, owner of sovietmole.com and the son of Starhub who gets all the nice numbers.

Now, I saved whatever was present on CBC's tagboard before I went to bed, and hoo ya! (hurhur) so did Kaiyan, as I found out when I accessed TFW this morning. They are rather priceless as it is, since the originals were wiped out (loser). And I happily doubled it's pricelessness by tidying it up, re-arranging the posts earliest-to-last recorded, and bolding the names so you won't get old flower eyes reading that whole chunk. But then I realised, there was something wrong with the layout after that. And daymn I hate to see the layout out-of-place from the way I like it (without the horizontal scrollbar... if you bothered to read this you are either really nice to want to know or else totally lifeless). I thought it was the invisible formatting that was ported from the tagboard, to possibly Kaiyan's com, saved as a draft somewhere, and finally transferred to TFW as a post. So I tripled the pricelessness by fricking HAND-TYPING the whole thing out again, so that it would fall in with the layout.

Well it didn't.

I was so pissed. My hands are tired can? Sigh so I have given up and put it over to TFW. So please please please go and read it.

Another link here, in (the most likely) case (that) you are too lazy to scroll up. And if anyone knows how I can get past the formatting problem, please let me know.

In other news, just gonna repeat here again that I will shortly be putting up a transcript of a written conversation between Hans and I in COM class, because we were so bored and it would be stupid to talk, given that my PRC/Shanghainese/whatever-la-from-China-jiu-dui-le-la lecturer is totally anal about talking in class. I'm surprised he didn't snap at us for bursting into frequent silent laughing fits. Yeah so anyway it was all on paper, and I got another brainwave~... ACC entertainment hoo0~! So up it shall go shortly.

I is a bad boy

2006-07-12T18:53:00.000+08:00

I skipped class today.

Well not really.

I signed attendance, then I zao.

Had lunch today with Hans's friend, for those of you who know the scene, Oshiego vocalist Kadir (or Qadir I dunno lol). Hans got him to jaga our bags, while we went in there pretending to listen to his cock talk while waiting for the attendence file to come by. Hans went to the toilet and never came back. Finish business call Graham. Graham picked up a call and never came back. I went to fill water and never came back.

Went to Mambo, and I played well today I think. In school before class my proxying estimations finally started to actually work, and I proxied the cue ball to the green 6 to the red 3. And on that round I cleared 5 balls before the cue ball decided to be funny and pocketed itself. Nauhia.

Lance Corporal is still not giving up. Hmm after 3.5 attacks from Simon alone (Simon's last wasn't as ouch compared to his earlier ones), Lance Corporal decided not to give up, but actually to close his eyes ever so tightly and reminescence about NDP '04! How's that for denial. It's like me closing my eyes and saying I'M LEAN STRONG MUSCULAR TALL DARK AND HANDSOME I AM A SPLENDID 1.85M AND I DON'T HAVE HAIR THAT LOOKS LIKE A FRICKING SWIMMING CAP IF I DON'T HANDLE IT PROPERLY.

Actually I do think that slimming down would boost my looks. By how much is another thing of course, but that's for another day to discuss.

V's England V Powderful

2006-07-11T23:31:00.000+08:00

Kaiyan suggested today that for my previous post I should have written it V-style.

V being the V from V for Vendetta, for you aliens out there. The character played by Hugo Weaving.

So anyhoos after he suggested it I freaked and started bitching about how hard that is... I told him it was 3 times the standard, fluidity, poeticity etc. of my post. And I hate to say this, but I pretty much bankai-ed, meaning that was like already 60-70% of what I'm capable of.

But no fear guys. Because as I am writing this Simon has unsheathed his Zanpakutou for the third time and bitchslapped LCP into what would have been clinical depression but nooo LCP would only get it like 2 years later when he returns from one of the breaks of Li Zhong Qiang's class, fuming and swearing vengeance upon the gods' witnessing eyes.

Cuntinue ah, we cuntinue.

So anywayz \m/ hailz to you Simon! \m/ and if you ever come out with a musical album I'll be first in line to get your autograph.

But here we see a classic example of what I was talking about yesterday. I would have loved to copy out the whole thing but our relentless attacks pushed the start of it all out of the tagboard's range. LCP said he couldn't be bothered to talk about it anymore, dismissing all the hard work we put into churning out the most painful insults possible. Right after that tag, he followed with 7 tags' worth of essays.

This kind of people you tell me you want to take their advice or not la.

Anyway, the action is all happening on LCP's tagboard. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Before more priceless insults disappear! GO NOW!

EH BUT. Read my blog post first. Just scroll down... get past Zidane and my earphones, which incidentally rock the world. Yup. It's after that. Have fun. :DDD

World Cup, Earphones, and V for Vendetta

2006-07-10T23:45:00.000+08:00

Zidane Zidane Zidane. What a waste.

I was so dead when it was time for the match. By second half, I was dozing off. By extra time, it took my dad's WHOAA to wake me up. Surprising I didn't feel tired all day today.

Decided to take a cab to Marina Square to get the new Creative earphones I was eyeing just yesterday, as opposed to taking the MRT to City Hall going to Marina then cabbing to school if necessary. After I got it I took 75 from the Esplanade. It's quite a distance, but I was so busy with adjusting the EQ to fit my new earphones that the journey was over as soon as I had settled on a setting.

It's not easy man, settling on the EQ. The bass power of the earphones were just tremendous, and I had to put it as the last of my 5 bars to be adjusted so that it doesn't interfere with setting the others. Also the sound isolating function tends to muffle the sound abit, hence making it a tricky thing to adjust for clarity. It's not as clear as my Audio Technica, and I daresay it never will be, but I think it's good enough with the plus points of the other factors.

Now. :)

Hataku, Raishin~

Lance Corporal Leong Shi Chuan.

You have put yourself in my disfavor (and dare I say made a whole lot others indignant) by citing my name in what looks very much like, and probably is an attempt of a lash out at a choice few who have had their patience worn thin by your constant uncalled for glorification of National Service. Your patriotic little lecture, Lance Corporal, has far from made us sorry little kids who admit they know nothing of NS. In fact, I like to think you maxed out the volume knob of our discontent voices.

By the way, Lance Corporal, I don't attack with vulgarities. While I respect the impact some feel it has, I think it's like clubbing your target with a coarse wooden club festering with dried blood. I like to strike with the gleaming sword of standard English.

Well, now that the prologue is over.

Bankai... Hyakurai no Hitsugi~

In your introduction, Lance Corporal, you expressed a hope that we 'will take National Service seriously with a positive attitude'. Many of us have negative preconceived notions about NS thanks to our fathers who tell heroic tales of wading in rancid mud, and eating dog biscuits drier than desert sand, and how the cook would drag a sawdust-coated block of ice on the grey dirty floor, only to give it a cursory wash before dumping it into the cooler before filling it with water and syrup. Let me impress upon you just how much you are not helping alleviate these notions by irritating us with the constant broken-record ramblings of your godlike superiors, and your heartbreaking regret that you cannot serve in the frontline of combat because of an injury which we only have your word of. In Semester 2 I blew up on the tagboard you see on your left, swearing at you to 'shut the fuck up', I believe, and other really painful things. You apologised then and said you would say no more to provoke me, and with me everyone else on this blessed Earth.

Since then I have lost count of the number of times you have posted irritatingly long essays on Kaiyan's blog and I believe Issy's? Possibly more. Oh yes, Felicia's too, and of course that's where someone who claimed to be your friend came to your defense. I have lost count of the number of times Kaiyan or someone else (actually, mostly Kaiyan) has told you to stuff your face and shut up with the apologetics. I have lost count of the number of times you have called a ceasefire, a word I see with increasing irritation due to its utter irrelevance to the context in which your text appears. I have lost count, Lance Corporal, of the number of times you started it all again right after you call a ceasefire.

I don't expect you to know alot of things Lance Corporal, given the amount of brain memory and processing power you devote to military-related subjects. I would, however, expect you to understand the term ceasefire, especially since, according to you, you were 'a combat fighting man for about a year'. Given what I've heard of the army, I think the meaning of stop-firing-please-stop-stop-stop-firing-I-say-practice-has-ended-war-is-over can be succinctly summarised into the word ceasefire.

And now, you lecture us for losing our patience? Tsk tsk I say.

We may speak of trying to escape National Service, or at least the harder part of it, through various sneaky ways and means. Given your talent of making really awkward ones, I'm guessing you can define 'joke' well enough. Let me tell you here, right now in front of everybody (because of course my blog garners more readership than yours haha blehh... oops how arrogant of me). With all my heart, Lance Corporal, I aim to be at least a 3rd Sargeant, if not enter OCS (Officer Cadet School in case you don't know). Unfit as I am, scarred by eczema as I am, I know I am prepared to go through discomfort to attain that goal if I even can. So don't you dare flap your excuse of a mouth, Lance Corporal, when you don't even know half of it. As for the others, I think that they know truly what they want without you mothering all over them, which incidentally you do a terrible job of.

Ungratefulness? Unfilial piety? Disloyalty? How dare you, Lance Corporal.

By the way. Unfilial piety? Filial piety happens to be associated, and rightly so, because of the presence of the word 'filial', to a parent-child relationship. Please enlighten us as to how that fits in in the least with your country? Secondly, 'unfilial piety' conveys that you are unfilial-ly pious. I'll say, Lance Corporal, there's a first. Which halfpenny dictionary did you find that in? For future reference, the correct term is 'no' or 'without filial piety'.

I don't find a dislocating arm funny. If it fails you at a crucial time, you are literally as good as dead. Signaller? Medic? Radioman? I don't really care Lance Corporal. You might put the whole country at the other's mercy with an unexpected dislocation, never mind fighting at the frontline. Or do you just rush ahead and spray bullets Lance Corporal? I tend to do that in games, and I've long since found out that people don't really like that. Because you sacrificed yourself for nothing Lance Corporal. No one will honour you with a posthumous medal, dream on. When you could have taken two or three more of the enemy down by staying back and taking careful shots, you instead run out like a total fucktard, and pardon me because that is just about the only thing to describe such an action, and let the enemies rejoice over peppering that dickhead with 200 bullets. You will die in disgrace, you hear me Lance Corporal? Utter disgrace, not honour. You want to talk about wasting time? You wasted the army's resources training you only to behave so stupidly.

Brainwave~... maybe that's why they demoted you to storeman. They probably felt safer with you giving out bullets than firing them.

'The army's warning to you for your own good'? Excuse me again, but fuck you Lance Corporal. Fuck you and fuck you again. Allow me to momentarily assume the voice of the army by saying how dare you so nonchalantly take on the role of army spokesman? Seen the World Cup, Lance Corporal? Learn now if you haven't already seen that speaking out of turn is as much as firing a gun into your mouth. Perhaps you are the one who should jolly well wake up and shut up where your words are not needed. And allow me to assure you Lance Corporal. They are not needed in more places than you can ever ever imagine.

We know very well whom we are protecting by serving our due time in National Service. National Service, Lance Corporal. If it's not for the sake of our country, do you really think we would train ourselves for Timbakthu? We do not doubt that you have learnt invaluable lessons from National Service. And even if we doubt you, which I have half a mind of doing so now, there are many others whose very appearance bears testimony to their fruitful two years of NS. Freddy, Simon, Graham, Zhen Zhi, Derek and Weiyang, naming but a few, don't even talk about their countless achievements in NS, why should you, Lance Corporal? Nobody cries or whines easily at challenges. And harhar to you if you did before you served NS.

So which want do you want, Lance Corporal? Your own choice, up to you. Do you want to keep your own set of beliefs to yourself and redeem the damage you have done to no one else but yourself during this past year? Or do you want to open your damned mouth, try to force your ideologies down other people's throats, and be a social pariah for the rest of your miserable life? All is fair in love and war, Lance Corporal Leong Shi Chuan, but remember for your own good and sake that there are lines to keep yourself behind out of camp.

My answer to LCP Leong Shi Chuan Bernard and the rest of his imaginary friends

2006-07-10T23:42:00.001+08:00

Ben wrote this and I am posting it on his behalf. Even though we are shooting down the same person, I must distinguish that his views are his views, and mine, mine. Take it up with the apt person.

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

I sincerely hope that you wont sue me for using your name here and use my
words against me for it is only fair that since you used my name for one of
your posts i use yours too (:

Im writing this post on both lky and rh blog as my blog is for private means
and although you asked for it, you have no rights to visit it (:

first of all, i would like you to come online right now and defend your case
instead of writing as YOUR sarg, or in anycase "bernard superior" thats so
original and unlame. if any case there is a bernard superior and would like
to tag as bernard sgt, im sorry for slandering you, i will hereby apologise
to you (: im not targetting you or NS or anything, i just want to correct
some facts which our friend here, maybe enemy now who knows? depending on
what he does after i post my entry, from begging for mercy or pouring tea
and kowtowing while saying sorry over and over. i dont know, my imagination
runs wild at times, well so does some ppl with an active imaginations to
create new army friends, im not stating names though, but then once again im
not targetting anyone (:

dont try to shirk whatever you say for i will copy and paste from your blog
whatever you wrote, no im not lifeless, im just a little bit cheesed off
about what you have to say about me and my friends so i shall dedicate this
time to you (: aint i sweet? (: you should thank me for this instead of
hiring a hitman to get rid of you, the latter choice is so much easier so i
bet there are ppl who will do so for free. oops i just gave away the chance
of a sneak attack OOO DID I JUST USE AN ARMY WORD? are you like totally
alert now? well well now that i got your attention, ambush, sneak attack,
whatever kiwi paint, BACK to the story.

FIRST of all
NEVER write my name in small letters, i am the one who walks the path of
heaven, do you know how pissed off the Gods are by you doing that? how dare
you even mention my name in your "humble blog" which you so claim? however i
am patient and am a really nice guy so yup i will forgive you for that. i
seem to be not on track with whatever i wanna say but i guess that thats my
style which is far from yours that is woah i wanna whack the singapore
students who hasnt been to NS yet cuz i am so great and i have been to NS
and got ALOT of experience but am still an LCP. OOPS! i mentioned rank but
thats reality, face it (:

Item of business #1: "even try to downgrade yr physical medical status by
whining abt yr injury, difficulties, problems."

whining is not the word, do you know whats whining? you are whining on your
blog about omg why they trying to chao keng omg this omg that. key to solve
this problem is for someone to say stfu to you. you should know what that
means right? alot of ppl said that to you before right? how about this? i
dislocate your arm 5 times, i leave your arm there for 1/2 an hr before
plugging it back into you like an plastic doll. lets see you not bitch and
write a 13 page long essay on your blog. (:

Item of business #2: "It saddened me to hear some of u like ben chua said
this once some time ago that u thought of the possibility of escape N.S by
going to UB and not come back. U said it once and I remembered it." "ben
chua u a young boy have the thought of running away after receiving our
protection for yr growing up years. that smacks a bit of ungratefulness,
unfilial piety and disloyalty from u."

oolala i see the name of the great one here, well well i would shoot you the
next time i dont see my name as Benjamin Chua. but you shall be forgiven and
not be banished to the depths of hell this time. aint i just great? so
forgiving.
anw i think it was benny who said that but im gonna stand up for him in any
case, if he ever said it or if i ever say it, it would most likely be
jokingly. did you see me :D after that? or did my face look like yours? oh
wait. my face could nv look like yours. at least i hope not! omg nightmares!
ah!
soooo anw..urgh *shakes off the fact of me actually thinking about such a
thing* i would have been kidding about it since i have not enough money to
run away and leave my poor parents behind (: im really filial you know not
like how you SLANDERED me, but then although we have sort of been protected
for years, have our money been guarded well? think about it, why are you so
poor? just think (: let it all process...taxes come to mind? ERP? etc etc?
let it all sink in now (: thats a good boy..shall we wait for 3 more days to
let everything settle for i see a dazed look on your face (: i have no time
to waste on you, i shall continue but make sure u understand whatever i said
ok?

#3: I felt somewhat indignant but did not voice it out cos I thought maybe u
may be ignorant of the army. so what you dislocated yr shoulders a few
times.

voice it out next time alright? everyone might agree with you against me (:
the odds are REALLY high on that, just speak your mind, dont "give me face"
as you would say and then bitch about me in your blog and dont even wanna
talk to me online i feel so sad and disheartened :( enough about the
emo-ness. dont try to talk bad about me in your blog ever again, or else you
know what else will come, you didnt ask me to read your blog at all, if i
werent blog hopping i wouldnt have realised what a stupid thing that you
have done. if im ignorant about the army? how about you? so what
dislocation? lol do you have sub. degeneration stage 2 before? do you even
know whats that and how much it costs to repair the damages? GO CHECK ONLINE
AND GET YOUR FUCKING FACTS RIGHT BEFORE YOU BITCH NEXT TIME. ack hem i meant
that in the friendliest way possible (: i am going to get downgraded cuz i
deserve it, imagine this, you do pullups half way arm come out, funny? think
before you speak, dont just open your mouth and stare at blank space next
time.

#4: So Don't think straightaway u can only be a storeman, messboy clerk.
That's a very negative pessimistic attitude that u have

do i want to be a storeman like you? nop (: thats like so whats the word
here? humiliating ha. you can have the positive attitude while taking stocks
while i dont know do something else that is much impt, yes stock taking is
impt lol hahahahahaaha real impt (:

#5: Speaking of who is a wuss , idiot? that is YOU, not ME ! In the army, We
call this chio keng boy and I hope that u jolly well wake up yr idea and not
be a wimp. This is the army's warning to u for yr own good, toned down a
lot. U gonna get this worse if u don't change yr thinking.

did i say you are a wuss? an idiot? lol WAIT i take my words back if i didnt
say it. you ARE a wuss. you ARE an idiot. shooting you? personal attack? lol
you did it first (: i did NOTHING to you. you had to bitch about me. and you
wussed out you just WUSSED out dare not talk to me face to face, had to hide
behind bernard superior, he your mother ah? no offence auntie leong but then
your son tsk. hiding under his superior skirt oooooops :P chio keng? lol
alot of ppl chio keng not many wants to be sai kang warrior like you,
suicide tower first thing. lol wanna die dont take this course dont take
business admin, take suicide bombing, how to kill 60 ppl in 60 sec for
dummies (: that book should help you quite a bit.

lol you said something to lky but he has to defend his own case for i have
to talk to my baby who is far more impt than you. but then i am gonna say
that if you continue this nonsense the time we are going to have in NS will
be a much nicer time than you being in UB. a bloody miserable hell of a time
(: as quoted by you (:

how about this? we settle the rest tml (: if you wanna shoot me down with
some more of your sai kang mindsets go ahead, i will listen, give my
opinions and you have to listen to it with a POSITIVE mindset i realised
that you said positive MANY MANY countless unneccesary times.

Seriously, I hope that U all (namely you and you and your erm superiors)
will have this right kind of mindset by the time u are done with my post, a
different better, stronger n tougher man, and dont come bitching to me about
how sorry you are and how you would like to beg for mercy. This is my answer
to u.

have fun! (:

I'm back

2006-07-08T20:44:00.000+08:00

Faithful readers of the eunuch's court, send thy praises to Wilfred (linked on the left) for starting my writing engine again.

Incidentally even if you don't know him (Sec 3/4 classmate) please please for the love of God Satan and all the mutants in between go read his car accident post. I haven't laughed so hard for a long long time.

So. Gonna sleep after I finish this, and hopefully wake up at 245am to watch my beloved Deutschland battle Portugal. Got meself a bag of my favourite very nice and very fattening Ruffles Cheddar for it. I do wonder if it would be a good match though. It's only third place, and C Ronaldo gets booed for red-carding Rooney off.

For all you know, he was winking at some girl fan behind the England bench. Yar he'd be a bloody jihong but that so beats sending Rooney off.

Incidentally I don't quite fancy Rooney. He's in a black mood half the time and yelling at people. Ballack on the other hand maybe a cheery little fellow but if I see him miss a free or penalty kick by a million lightyears ever again I might just send a hitman after him.

Being an earphone-connoisseur/techie/whatever's-the-right-word has its suckiness. I thought my Audio Technica earphones, which have delivered very very well during the prime of it's lifespan, would at least hold out till I pick up my new pair of Sony/Apple in-ears. But nooo, the left's gotta show signs of giving way. And I was hoping the wear and tear would stop at the rubbers peeling...

Oh. I borrowed Ben's WC3 CDs the other day because the patches weren't working. Then when I got back, I downloaded the 1.20e universal patch and tried it out and it worked, so I returned the CDs unused.

Today I found out that whenever I attempt to join a game the fucking game hangs my com. I don't look forward to having to ask for the CDs again. Not that I'm actively playing WC3 much. My main game when I have time and am parent-free is Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. There is just so much fun in surprising an Axis fragger with a very painful, surprising, and depending on your ego, humiliating Panzerfaust. Or sniping Axis soldiers on the opposite parapet when they are busy spraying bullets downwards in the general direction of the spawn point. Asses. But a panzer naturally slows me down a terrible bit, which if course makes me susceptible to a counter-Panzer, a mortar, an air strike, and basically just about everything else there is.

Sighness.

After I settle my new earphones, the next thing on my list is a 512 RAM. And a reformat. Originally I wanted to put sound card and new speakers first, but my on-board card doesn't exactly produce tinny sound, nor does my pair of speakers produce 5cent audio, so they can wait.

Thanks again Wilfred. You won yourself one Idol vote.

Just one.

Expensive leh.

Tagged.

2006-07-07T20:22:00.000+08:00

The fact that I'm even doing this shows how bored I am.

Yeah alright not supposed to complain.

Actually it's not complaining what.

Moving on.

1. Do the following WITHOUT complaints.
2. Choose 5 people to do this after you complete yours.
3. Leave a tag on that person's tagboard to say he/she/it/somewhereinbetween has been tagged.
4. Start your post with 'I have been tagged' then do this.

I HAVE BEEN TAGGED by my quite good friend Shu Yun, whom I've yet to meet still.

Favourites

You know I'm typing all this out because Yun my dear your blog doesn't even allow me to copy one post without taking the rest with it -.-

Ok ok no complaint.

Favourites

Colour: I still have yet to find the name of the purple I like. There are a few choice shades not too dark not too light that I like.
Food: ... alot la. I don't like anything with peanuts and peanuts itself, veggies I wonder why I only like to eat restaurant and hotel cooked veggies...
Song: Into Immortal now. Black Metal madness. But other choice selections include:
ABBA
Armin van Buuren (Trance)
Avenged Sevenfold \m/
Bon Jovi
Bossanova
Corinne May
Diana Krall
\m/ DIMMU BORGIR \m/
Disturbed - 10 000 Fists
Satriani and Vai
Groban
L'arc en Ciel
Tango
Nat King Cole
Old Man's Child
South Park Movie OST
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Yellowcard
Movie: Ah... South Park movie I guess... Keeping Mum was nice too.
Sport: oh shut up lol
Day of the Week: Fridays cos I get to come back early after a relaxed lab session
Season: Winter. Cold = I like
Ice Cream: The deepest darkest chocolate ice cream I can find. Bravissimo's not bad.

Currents

Mood: N/A lol
Taste: Just take the opposite of what everyone normally likes, that's my taste
Clothes: Bailide sports T-shirt (mom bought from Shanghai... good for exercise absorbs sweat) and Nike parachute shorts (those silky shiny material)
Desktop: Windows
Toenail Color: I haven't done my nails in a long time, but I doubt I'll even touch my toenails save for when I have to cut them when they're a foot long
Time: 2040
Current Surroundings: Bleached snow-white light, fan whirring at no2 speed, Tyrants by Immortal playing on speakers
Current Annoyances: Having a lousy sound card, unable to blast music, having an 11 o'clock computer curfew, having no one I can talk to online, having slept when there's no soccer tonight, having yet to do my Comp Science assignments, having a lecturer who pronounces origin as orgy.... alot la I can bitch forever.
Current Thoughts: following chords, drums, guitar picking, vocals from the song. Yes I deconstruct them. Yes I rock. No not everyone does that.

Firsts

Best Friend: Grace Chua, kindergarten
Crush: Jan, P5/6, no no more crush. 1 month in VS I was outta it.
Movie: How the hell would I know... Death Becomes Her probably. Classic shit man.
Lie: I didn't do it.
Music: Nursery rhymes la duh. Eh no no it's from one of those baby things hanging over my cot.

Lasts

Cigarette: Never had never will
Drink: Coke
Car Ride: Tompang Kaiyan's cab yesterday
Crush: Jan lor.
Movie: Munich I think. Watched on the comp.
Phone Call: Dad who woke me up from my sleep
CD played: Haven't played one in freaking ages

Have you ever...

Dated one of your best friends?: No. I don't have girl best friends. Yet.
Broken the law?: Yeah
Ever been arrested?: Not that I can recall
Ever skinny dipped?: I could go the disgusting way, but I'll just say no.
Been on TV: Probably as a dot at the back of the screen.
Kissed someone you don't know: No.

5 Things You Are Wearing: Bailide tee, para shorts, specs, a whole layer of oil on my face, and a head of increasingly messy hair
4 Things You've Done Today: Successfully scripted Javascript for lab, played Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, napped for nothing, convinced my father to buy Mac's for me somehow
3 Things You Can Hear Right Now: Fan, distant motorcycle, and uh more random vehicles
1 Thing You Do When You're Bored: sit stare stone

People to Tag: (its actually People to Do but that sounds wrong)

Bertrand
Felicia
Isabel
Jillian
Kaiyan

Death and Destruction

2006-07-03T01:39:00.000+08:00

Okay I really can't think of any other title. I'm just stumped.

This weekend's (rather good) football matches has left me tired during the day time, and I napped today again.

Except that there isn't any football match now.

Which leaves me pondering about love life and sex on my bed.

That uncle I wrote about some time ago. He passed on on Saturday afternoon. The poignant irony is that my aunt returned for the weekend from Hong Kong to see to her house renting business, and she would drop by to see him.

When she got to the hospital, my second aunt had already informed the others that the doctor informed her her husband didn't have long. My aunt immediately went in with my eldest aunt and second aunt. My mom and dad waited outside, not really wanting to crowd the ICUnit. When my aunts came out, there was no more point for my parents to see him. It was just as if he waited to have my aunt see him breathing one last time before he left happy.

Thus beckons the question: Would he have hung on had my aunt not come? He was in more or less a coma after all. He couldn't consciously hear anyone, much less respond. Was it the best form of apology to my aunt he could have given, waiting for her before breathing his last?

What bothered me more was the rather obvious fact that quite from the norm, my aunts and mom wasn't exactly in tears and surrounded by used tissues. And this is the moral of the story ladies and gentlemen.

My second aunt was never one for social support. During my first nephew's one-month celebration, she didn't turn up. When someone else's relative passed away she didn't show up at the funeral either. I've often heard resentful whispers about this among my mom and aunts.

DotA players should be familiar with this concept. You don't help when your ally is in trouble, when it's your turn to be raped, they won't be crying over your death either.

Family, or friends. Certainly family should have little exceptions. And as for friends, if the relationship means anything to you, then you should always always always be looking out for one another, showing care and concern, and not just taking taking and taking it.

Right. Class dismissed. Practice makes perfect people.

BOOKS REVIEW!

2006-06-30T09:41:00.000+08:00

This is actually for my CSE course, supposed to 'Design and creat a web page to show a list of one of the following (I got Books checked on my list) You should have at least 5 items in your list.'

So. Here goes.

Just for the record, these 5 books I'm about to list and review are just off the top of my head, not like the all time best sellers or anything. Just stuff that I like.

Harry Potter Series
JK Rowling

So much controversy, but why? Probably because the Harry Potter series makes magic so real that we all start to believe in it. It can't be that far away when the hero of the story is a British teenage boy... right?

No not really.

From a 1+cm thick book for the first one, to an almost 4cm thick book for the latest, author JK Rowling undoubtedly put herself under pressure when the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire came out. Fans from then on expected a thicker book each time, and though Rowling refused to be pressured by that, fans were not disappointed with the thickness of the 6th book, only 20 or so pages less than the previous book.

It has been noted that compared to Book 4, Books 5 and 6 have become increasingly draggy in pace. However the action is still delivered with well packed punches, and we are anticipated the release of the 7th book in the summer of 2007 - one year from now.

Artemis Fowl
Eoin Colfer

Possible rival of the Harry Potter series, Artemis Fowl is a skillful combination of magic and technology. Devices such as sonic grenades and ear plugs that shut sound off only when it exceeds a certain decibel are not uncommon. Except of course, the main character is a teenage evil mastermind, who we all thinks turn good at the supposed end of the series (third book), but that ends with a cliffhanger where he plots revenge on whoever erased his memories (a fairy did at his request). The latest book, however, has generated negative comments. Poor author had alot to live up to.

The Giver
Lois Lowry

A Utopia book about a society where everyone has been standardized. No one has known color, nor war, nor happiness, nor snow, rain, or sun. No one except one, known as the Receiver. The Receiver is like a walking encyclopaedia, with all the memories of the Old World, things people will never experience. This novel is the story of the community picking a new Receiver, and the old Receiver now becoming the Giver, transferring his vast wealth of memories, both good and bad, to the new Receiver. And as the Receiver learns of the joys and grief of the Old World, he decides to run away in search of a better place to live.

The Chrysalids
John Wyndham

Another futuristic book, quite like a 1950s version of X-Men. Set in an implied aftermath of a nuclear blast (I don't remember it explicitly mentioned but it was mentioned that the grounds for a great radius was covered in black glass, which in turn one infers that it was melted sand from the immense heat of the blast.

Mutations were banished unforgivingly, because the new society was extremely religious and believed that mutations were evil. What the father of the protagonist doesn't know is that his own son was a mutant - not a physical one, but a telepathist. When his sister is born, it is discovered that she had psychic powers far beyond the capabilities of the protagonist or his psychic friends, and they use her strong signals to communicate with people in a nearby civilization to call for help as the anti-mutant task force closes in on them.

And Then There Were None (aka Ten Little Indians)
Agatha Christie

To me this book from the Queen of Crime is the epitome of her mastery of crime fiction. Eight guests are invited to spend a weekend at a mansion on a small island. After their first dinner there, a gramophone record is played, announcing to the eight guests and the two servants what crimes they were guilty of and got away with. Soon after, the ten people started dying one by one, each death a resemblance to the deaths described by a poem on the wall, entitled Ten Little Indians. And when all had died, who was the killer who drew them here? In a nailbiting climax, Agatha Christie simply pulls one bolt out, and lets logic come crashing down on you.

The End!

2006-06-29T18:52:00.000+08:00

But do we live happily ever after?

Two days of high stress and little study have finally passed into memory, and I got an alright A- for COM205, but what of Stats? Seems I got the Bayes' Theorem question wrong (screw you and your cursed theory Father Bayes), but I was so sure it was right. It made sense anyway.

Oh alright I admit, I've had no blogging juice, and I still don't have it.

Paintball bullets suck. SUCK YOU HEAR ME. Give such a hard shell how can it break you stupid manufacturers. Let's see any toy gun give 5kg worth of force to break the pellet.

Dicks.

World Class Clumsiness

2006-06-25T19:25:00.000+08:00

The new video, in celebration of World Cup and my legendary clumsiness.

Slept till 10 or 12pm, I can't even remember, then slept in the afternoon from like 3-6 again. Gonna study tonight liao.

Yesterday's match between Germany and Sweden was great. Well, at least the first half was. The first half was just fantastic. Hope to see action with England-Ecuador tonight too.

Yes I am going for tomorrow's MGQ consultation. I will die a miserable death if I don't. As Ben says, Ramesh will become Beyond Godlike once he's finished raping us upside down with the final paper.

Touch

2006-06-24T22:15:00.000+08:00

My second Campus Ministry meeting. I'm so glad I went.

Pastor Chin decided to take some time this evening for just praying in tongues. Honestly I didn't quite know why I just went along, I felt nothing special. But Pastor Chin said to shut off your mind and emotions, so okay well alright, since I'm not going to be doing anything else anyway...

Pastor first called for those who have yet to receive the gift of tongues and wished to do so. Then when he was done, he called for those who have been feeling dry... Like your life had no meaning at all... Like you didn't know anymore why you existed. He called for those to come out to receive.

There were many times in main service that I didn't want to go up, when Pastor Prince simply declared that Jesus was in the house and this would be the day of your miracle your breakthrough your healing blah blah blah. Although I very much wanted to, and although I knew there was nothing wrong in going up because my cousin would do anything but point and laugh and call me weak. But I just didn't.

Today I felt the usual dilemma again. Oh forget it, I thought, I'll just receive it from here. I should explain that I was by myself. I didn't know where Maria was and Rong didn't attend today (for which she apologised so profusely I was momentarily taken aback). So I thought what the hell, who is there to laugh at me or even think differently about me? I need this dammit.

So I went up, and freak, it was so cold can? It was raining outside and the room was like a fridge, and I didn't bring my hoodie today because I remembered it was warm the last time round. It was so cold that I didn't know whether my difficulty breathing was due to excitement or coldness.

Ah more explanation to do.

For those who don't already know, it is a common thing in service, quite common anyway, when the pastor takes a moment to just pray for those who feel they need a healing, or breakthrough in their lives, or a simple miracle. And when the pastor or leader lays hands on the person in question, it is not uncommon to see them losing consciousness. There's always someone behind to catch them, because aside from the fact that the full effect would probably not be realised if the leader had to catch the person, he would also have to pray for lightning legs for himself to zip behind the person before he conks his head on the floor and passes out for real. This is called a visit from God.

So as I lined up to be prayed for people were dropping left right and centre. There was this girl from the main service praise and worship who seriously pulled no punches. She just walked up to the next free person and went SALAKALADRAMASHADAHADABALADA FLOW FLOW FLOW.

Needless to say the person dropped like a zapped fly.

As it came to me, this guy whom my cousin knew personally and introduced to me came up to me and held my hands. And all this while I was going through my head... What's gonna happen what's gonna happen will I fall will I laugh will I cry what's gonna happen...?

Now as my friend prayed for me, from nowhere I felt everything fall away in an instant. My energy, my worries, my troubles, my sins, my strength. It was there, it was not. Just snap, gone. I stumbled backwards and effortlessly pulled myself back to consciousness. Then my friend went on, saying pour a fresh anointing on him, and again, I felt myself give way. But I actually managed to catch myself before I hit the floor.

Good thing probably, or the guy behind me would have lost his grip anyway. Haha. I do think it was doubt though that kept me from falling, which in all respects I wanted to, not just getting a half-past-six experience. When I felt my energy go, I was like... what the hell it really works?... and that's it my energy came back to me.

Sigh. Never doubt God. Especially when you believe he is the one perfect God. Sheesh.

But it's beautiful, how it comes to you. Not some ball of energy slamming the lights out of you. Just an overpowering energy you don't even feel running into you. I never did fall unconscious, but just to enjoy the feeling I lay on the floor for awhile.

When I got back to my seat I went on praying quietly in tongues. Just letting it run... letting it flow... When I finally stopped (I dunno why I stopped either), I felt what I've been longing to feel.

I was without worry, without fear. My heart was still, still as... um... a lake... on a... non-windy day. Not a stir affected its flat, shining reflective surface. Instead, a calm, quiet peace, radiant with joy, shone from within the depths of my heart. This was what they were talking about. This is the shalom peace I thought I felt.

Not even close.

How wonderful.

Holland-Argentina

2006-06-22T19:46:00.000+08:00

Not Sweden, although I distinctly remember G saying Sweden. In any case, it was a disappointing match. My afternoon nap only got me past 130am+, and by the end of the match I was dead on the table. 0-0, with only a couple of nice moves in early game. Damn pissed.

I think I'll just be watching major matches from now. I'm tiring myself out for nothing at all.

Also I'm finding pockets of time to play games now. Ryan burnt the Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory installation for me (257MB, no freaking way I'm downloading it), and I'm glad it works even at high graphics settings, which is essential because I don't wish to assault my eyes with the desecrating images of 800X600 graphics when I have a 1024X768 screen.

My first entry to a map was a joke. There was totally no one around as far as I could see. I ran around and discovered a niche that led to a long underground path. As I reached the otherside of the tunnel, I heard footsteps behind me.

I freaked out and turned around and fired a shot.

It was an ally.

I could see his soldier frowning at me like I told him to do something with his mom, and then he fired at me once. We both stared at each other blankly for awhile, before he ran back the way he came.

I couldn't even say sorry because I forgot where the chat button was. Second time I didn't know I was supposed to wait in limbo, and spectated instead. I followed this guy who was pwning everyone on the field. It was painfully simple. All I heard was.

Player: -BANG BANG-
Opponent :Medic!
Player: -BANG BANG-
Opponent :Medic!
Player: -BANG BANG-
Opponent :Medic!
Player: -BANG BANG-
Opponent :Medic!
Player: -BANG BANG-
Opponent :Medic!

You get the drift right? No?

Player: -BANG BANG-
Opponent :Medic!

I left after awhile. Looking forward to tomorrow, either gonna DotA if G and Ben are up for it, or else I'll explore W:ET, the basics to which Ryan kindly filled me up on as we were taking the bus to Pasir Ris. Very interesting. But then again, Ryan makes everything he likes sound like the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Player: -BANG BANG-
Opponent :Medic!

SopCast

2006-06-21T23:27:00.000+08:00

I'm watching the World Cup through P2P Streaming. You can barely see the ball at times, the quality is essentially small and only slightly above average streaming quality.

Just now I was frightened out of my wits when I activated my player, SopCast.

Channel is offline...

WHADDA FREAK?!

I tried other channels. My usual is CCTV5, their sports channel.

Their meaning China by the way. Most of these programs came from there, so obviously the most popular channels available are their own.

Tried other channels... Star Sports... Guang Dong Sports... all offline! AHHH!!!

Thank goodness it was probably some down time. Didn't miss much anyway the Portugal-Mexico match was boring.

Sweden-Argentina!

Besuch vom Donnergott

2006-06-20T22:01:00.000+08:00

Double treat for me today people. I got 20/25 for Stats, which was what I hoped I'd at least get yayyy thank God. And besides that, the Raishin has returned to my blessed fingertips.

I dunno why actually. One moment I was still missing like hell, and the next time I played I brought the Heavenly Striker to his knees. :D

Well actually, I think it's Kaiyan's iPod Shuffle. His songs must have been hypnotising me. Makes sense right? This Dragonforce freak. Music madness + cheesy lyrics about how through the fire and the flames we'll carry on is rather lethal you know.

We'll see.

Gaming gaming gaming unfailing

2006-06-19T23:58:00.000+08:00

These few days DotA has been terrible, up to the point that the slightest provocation would make me leave. Ryan impressed on me the evils of leaving and in retrospect I shouldn't really have, but what's done is done, and I can't apologise or do anything to change it.

Today however, Ryan got (forced) me to play new maps, preferring not (flatly refusing) to play DotA or Card Shuffle.

Lol ok la it was real fun in the end thanks for the new maps. Except I still don't like NotD... maybe it's because 1) you need experienced players to have a fun time, and 2) you can teamkill which resulted in my death because some smart fuck set a flamethrower off right in my face. Should have banned him.

Species War and MtG (Magic the Gathering) Wars were cool, black magic rockorz. I also made Ryan join a map called The Weakest Link, which was damn horrible, but damn funny. Essentially instead of intelligence questions, the map creator decided to take the game a step down (or up) by making you guess the character behind the voice clip played. And for me, 1) I don't play Warcraft maps, as doesn't Ryan, and furthermore unlike most people (I think) I turn off the unit responses because I find it absolutely irritating to keep hearing them say 'Of course' 'Your wish, master' 'Immediately' 'Hohoho'.

Alright none of them says 'hohoho'... I think.

The only Warcraft character I heard before was the anti-mage at the starting movie of the custom map, summoning the nagas... So to me half the voices were anti-mage's.

'The sky is mineee...'
RH: AM?
Ryan: No...

'I will survive... vengeance is mineee'
RH: AM?
Ryan: No la.

Ah well.

My mom's back from Japan though. This week was a good break from her (as I'm sure it was a good break for her from us), but it's probably better I don't think of gaming as much. Once in awhile a gaming marathon like today is fun. But everyday... I'll look like a zombie.

Geddit Ryan? Hahaha. :)

Authentic American BBQ

2006-06-14T11:29:00.000+08:00

Between studying for a test for which I have no clue of the topics, and going for a once-in-a-lifetime authentic American BBQ... I had my doubts. But Felicia (of all people!) convinced me to stay by saying that she'd lend me her notes because she was soon to be done with it. Of course she'd be, and of course she'd lend me her notes, and of course I would be deluding myself for about 15min that I was studying.

Tried something at the foozball table. I was blasting Immortal when I took the mids and strikers (sorry ah Big Ben cut your queue haha). I couldn't hear anything... not Ryan's commentary... not the sickening rumble of bars being flicked hard... not even the sound of my own Raishin. I should say I did improve. Managed to even get past William at point-blank range (which we all know is ironically almost impossible) to score.

Since I wasn't going to study anymore I followed Felicia Rara and Jane to tompang the shuttle bus for the exchange students. The place was Fraser Residences, rather posh service apartments at Robertson Quay, right above dbl O no less. It was a wonderful place for a BBQ, four small pits two on each side to make two BBQ pits. The exchange students didn't allow us to help with the preparations, so I settled for eating chips... In the Jack 'n' Jill bag of chips there were thses cute little mini jerseys to attach to your handphone, and there were two in it, Polish and South Korean jerseys. I immediately gave the Polish one to Pshamac to his delight.

As we waited for the food to cook I joined Jun Jie and Jeremy and other seniors who came to play silly card games. We played In-Between, which consisted solely of deciding whether to bet that the third card would be of a value in between that of the first two cards that were opened. I was given 20cents (suay suay use up all my coins earlier zZz)and ended up with 30cents, plus 60cents that the pool was split between us. Wei Yang was saying how he lost $300 on one round before... the first two cards were Ace and King... maximum range. So he must have bet $150.

Open 3rd card... Ace.

When you get a card of the same value as either of your first two cards you pay double your bet... gay I know...

Later Vady (or Vandy I'm still not sure) wanted to teach the seniors Texas Hold'em, but without any chips he called it off after awhile. Actually I suggested using the heap of potato chips (what! They are chips aren't they??) but he didn't really want to.

Americans have an enormous appetite... I ate like a burger and a couple of chicken wings and drumsticks and I was full... but these guys had like so much more stuff on the pit it was amazing.

I was worried about the test tomorrow though so I left early... waited forever for a taxi... sheesh. I cabbed to school this morning and I cabbed back from dbl O... $25.20 hoo0~!

But guess what? Jane and I saw our Indian security guard friend! She even knows his name is called Raj. At first I was skeptical because he strolled right past us without so much as a glance, and then Jane said he would respond to the name Raj, to which I said that so would a million other people (literally). Later however he came over to say hi, and with a pained expression he informed me it was Women's Night, which not just meant that women who just an hour or two ago were austere senior secretaries were now half-dead in a pool of their own vomit, it also meant that general fights broke out between men and women.

Girls ah girls...

I'm officially dead for the test tomorrow.

The Taste of Victory (somewhat sweet, but mostly just overwhelming)

2006-06-13T22:15:00.000+08:00

I walked into the aftermath of a series of devastating foozball matches involving a very happy Ben, an emotionally scarred Kaiyan, and an amusedly pissed KJ. Strangely my joining Ben's side resulted in his loss 10-6.

Jinx hoo0~!

Actually I'm getting better at defender and lousier at striker. My Raishin has an almost non-existent chance of striking, and my wrist hurts whenever I flick the midfielder. That however doesn't stop me from keeping Ryan on his toes when he's opposite me.

Or beside me, either way it's pretty much the same for him.

Ben was going on about walking the path of heaven, ruler of everything, and the sweet taste of victory. And when we got to class Ramesh was talking about the first two case studies, which immediately silenced us because our case studies were so different from just about everyone else's. When Ben/KY/KJ/Bernard's group got a 9/10, we thought we were done for.

Ramesh: H. G. R. Square?
Me : Here sir.
Ramesh: [walk over to pass case study 1 to me]
Me : Thank you.
Ramesh: Welcome.
Me : [look at paper] AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!
Ryan : ... [look at paper] What?! 10/10!
Graham: Eh serious ah alright man!
Me : Hahaha! HGR²...
G, Me : Hoo0~!
KY : WALAU BULLSHIT SIA KNNBCCBOMGWTFBBQHOOLALA...
Ben : :/ ...
Ryan : Hmm... you know Ben. The taste of victory is... a little sweet... mmm but mostly overwhelming.
Me : Hahahahaaaa gay power hoo0~! XD

We tied for the second case study because both our groups didn't rank the universities. But that makes it an overall win anyway.

And that was effectively where Stats ended for us.

Zschech in da House!

2006-06-11T00:38:00.000+08:00

You can just see the difference.

Darlene led Praise and Worship today. People were literally yelling ONE WAY!!! JESUS!!!... it was electrifying. Suddenly the church singers are bleh... haha.

About the video. I wanted to put up another video of Miss Swan here, but first timers won't appreciate her particular inside jokes and all, so I put this episode first as an intro to this idiot of a character. Next week is ROFL time.

And now! I declare this week Random Week. In celebration I shall be putting up random comments in my subnick.

Enjoy. And join in the fun too!

Day of the Devil (or Devil's Day whatever)

2006-06-06T21:58:00.000+08:00

I thought 6/6/06 would be the death of me.

Hurhur geddit geddit?

But uh no I'm still here blogging... Au contraire, monsieurs et madamoiselles, today was quite a smash.

Started the day though with some not-too-good stuff. I was stressing over the Stats analysis report, because the combined forces of Ryan and Hans (Master Smoker and Genius Cock Talker) only churned out a 1.5 page report. When they assured me that all bases had been covered I gave in and printed the stuff out.

When I got to school, I saw Ben's bag. No guessing where he was haha. I was playing a game of Number on the pool table and I must say, when you do a jump-ball that pockets the target ball two days in a row, I wouldn't really call that tyco. :D

Joined Ben after I was finished, he was soloing against Elton and KJ and pwning them so bad. No surprises which side won when I joined him. I did well on defender.

Stats. Booooring...but I'm starting to pay attention hoo0~! About time though, it's getting complicated now. You can't be far from a painful pwnage when you need to flip your textbook and notes back and forth before you understand the Poisson Distribution. When you'd learnt it last semester.

It's pwah-zon, okay. I shiver everytime people say poison...

Both breaks, went for foozball, got thrashed. I was with Ryan on the red side, and the score was 4-4. And he was rambling as usual about careful ah... Then I put the ball in and he suddenly went DAMMIT!!!

Ben scored an opening shot.

I was laughing too hard to snap at him properly. All that came out of my mouth was what d'y'mean... put in... ball... dammit... pang...

Taking 151/154 alot these days... Another trip scheduled tomorrow because Ben is going to Bedok. Might even become staple for me haha. Sick of getting my butt numb on the train.

No really. It hurts when I shift my ass as the train gets out of the tunnel.

Hans came dressed for the occasion... a long sleeve shirt of I-forgot-which-band and a caption on the back saying spread your legs... I wish to recount nor remember the rest. Was planning to watch The Omen but shit just blew my money on cab fare, maybe next week then.

Incidentally, Hans's band Absence of the Sacred is coming out with a debut album and I saw the link on the UBSIM forum to his band's hi5 page. Not bad stuff. Well actually it's pretty good shit, but for those who on the off chance dunno shit about Hans nor his music it's actually death-thrash metal (something like that bah) and real heavy stuff. So you have been warned.

Hans this has cost you an album. :D

On Death

2006-06-02T17:53:00.000+08:00

I experienced human death when I was 12 years old. It was my grandmother, a noisy, smelly, irritating (and -table) dame who despite her nuisances loved my brother and I, and spoilt us constantly, as, I suppose, any grandparent would. When she was still a little healthier and more active, she would give my brother and I 20 cents each, to go get what she called chippees from the minimart downstairs. That's probably how I got acquainted with the Mamee noodle snack.

I won't blame my parents for it, but subconsciously through their actions, their show of constant irritation with my gran, cursing half the time they walk out of the room, snapping mie siiiiiii?!! everytime my gran called, it rubbed onto us, and we grew to be terrible in our attitude towards our gran, only being nice when she gave us little treats, which by then were not all that great... one single Mentos wrapped in chinese calendar paper... what the heck. Once I stuck a needle deep in my gran's sofa, thereby concealing it but yet high up enough to prick whoever sat on it, thinking the reaction worthy of America's Funniest Home Videos. Luckily my mother noticed and removed the needle.

I just watched Final Destination 3. I thought I was totally wimpy by sizing the movie down to the WMP bar, but I'm glad I did that because you so do not want to see a head being flattened by two weights on full screen. Or a head stapled with nails. Take your pick.

My grandmother died a painful death, quite worthy of Final Destination. The cemented floor outside our house, which at that time was recently recemented, turned out to be slightly sloped. My mother and maid were bringing her for a haircut. My maid turned to help my mother relock the gate, which had to be opened both sides to let my gran's wheelchair pass. My gran's wheelchair wasn't locked, and it moved on the slope, straight down the flight of stairs.

In my room I heard my maid scream, and I actually strolled out to see what had happened.

My mom had by then rushed down the stairs, untangled the wheelchair from my gran, and heaved her up. My gran vomited a huge pool of blood, covering half the landing. She screamed 'AIYOH!' and heaved my gran further up into a sitting position, where she stayed till my father took over.

Traumatic? All this while, I was actually watching from the gate everything unfold with mere scientific curiousity, probably like the way you'd react when you see aqueous phosphorus react with air and ignite for the first time. Just slightly raised eyebrows and a slight O on your mouth.

My gran was a strong woman. She had been through alot of hardship raising my father's family up, and this could not show more than when she survived accident after accident, always coming back to her room eventually to make more trouble for us. This time was no different as far as the initial story was concerned. She was still alive, probably shocked speechless for awhile, but soon she was moaning 'Pain, very pain...' in Cantonese, and my father, whom I knew all my life to hate her like his worst enemy, cradling her in his arms, replying in assurance, unassured himself, 'It's ok, it's alright.' That taught me true love and filial piety all at once, and recounting the incident now this particular picture surfaces, clear as day, as if it happened just now.

Soon the nurse arrived, and helped my gran onto a stretcher-chair... you know that cross with a stretcher that can fold like a recliner to become a sort of wheelchair... and she started pressing around my gran's body, probably doing an initial diagnosis to aid swift treatment later. And it was amusing to see my gran yelp and yell at the woman for pressing at a painful spot.

That was the last I saw of my gran. Alive.

I was woken, along with my mother, with the phone ringing at about 3+am... She had been summoned to the hospital for some reason (I didn't realise at that time but now it's so obvious). I wanted to follow her, and she agreed, but then later changed her mind after promising she'll keep me updated. And so I missed my chance to bid my gran goodbye.

When I woke up next morning, my parents were back home. The first one I met was my dad, and I immediately enquired about granny. And typical he looked away for a moment and said, 'Ah mah ah.... well... let mummy tell you about ah mah's condition la.' And shit, I just woke up I had no mind nor energy to push him for the answer. Besides my mom was just outside.

Deep down, past the walls of hate and resentment, my father must have been shattered by the death my gran suffered. My father was born in the year of the tiger, 1950, and his character aptly matched his sign. Hardened, fierce, and strong. The funeral and my subsequent talks with him about this subject were just about the only times I remembered seeing him tear. His retrenchment, his initial failure to get a job, and all our wrongdoings he took with stone-faced disappointment.

When I met my mom outside I repeated my question to my dad. And my mom did something did never did often, not from my cognitive stages onwards. She said, 'Ah mah ah...' and embraced me, 'ah mah passed away already la.'

What she did not expect however was that I felt no sadness at all about this otherwise traumatic development. As with observing the aftermath of the fall, I accepted the news with no emotion, or perhaps just a tiny bit of a sinking heart. My mother probably expected me to go wild or something, having corrupted my fragile little mind with such devastating news. Scream, shout, cry, yell, give God the finger, moon Him, curse Him, I dunno. I just said, 'Oh... ok.' and returned my mother's hug, cueing her in turn to release me from her embrace. My maid, on the other hand, was sitting there looking, and aptly so, like she'd killed someone.

When I next saw my gran, it was her body, fresh from the mortuary. I was looking down from the 14th floor as the van unloaded her. And when I next saw her up close, she was coated with literally an inch of make up, sleeping peacefully in the beautiful coffin.

What happened was the doctors gave my gran something, which made her better. It wasn't too soon before, as usual, my gran was yelling at doctors and nurses.

Couple of hours later, she was silent. The doctors reported hemorrage. My dad was saying though, from where? If it had been from her injuries surely she wouldn't have time to snap and yell before the internal bleeding shut her up. Maybe the doctors...

Point is, her face bloated. Bloated to become an egg shape because of the hemorrage. And that was how her physical body left the world. With an egg head. How sadly funny.

I'm still not done yet maybe you want to continue tomorrow?...

So back to the make up on my gran's body. When I asked why she was painted so (hideously), Mom explained simply, 'Chinese believe must leave the world beautiful.'

In that case I'd rather you don't touch my face when I die or I'll bloody well haunt you. My gran's face was caked with a horribly thick layer of beige paint, and on top, crude colors for eyes, blush, and lipstick. If it wasn't my own gran, I would so not be amused to see such a face at night.

Interestingly, those couple of days did show one or two suspectedly supernatural occurences. What occured more was the totally weird things my cousins and naive me did.

The next day, after my gran's body arrived back from the morgue, my three cousins (not Sandra) and myself went to Prime Supermarket, a distance but not too far off, to buy things that our gran liked, to offer to her later that night. On our way back, if I remember, my cousin asked me, what was the thing you most regret from gran's death?

It didn't take too long for me. I meant it when I said I took granny for granted, that she'd alwyas be back to make more noise, that I didn't appreciate her love, that I merely thought of her as a smelly hinderance to our family. I felt myself choking when I had finished my reply.

Among the things I remember being bought, I'm sure there's more than three, were Pringles Sour Cream and Onion, which she bought and kept for absurdly long periods of time, some sort of facial powder, those in a light beige solid cake in a small square red box, which she put on for the maid to see, and me if I'm lucky. And of course, clear as day again, the item which I bought for her. The item which brought me solace from my regret.

A single shrink wrapped styrofoam box of durian.

Later when I'd offered the box to her, I put it down and walked to the side. I burst into tears. That was when I gratefully accepted...... whoever hugged me's hug. Yep that's me. Waved my old maid goodbye at the airport, and when she had disappeared from view into Transit, I looked at those weird low bars alot of kids like to stand on to mash their own faces into the glass looking for their auntie or daddy or something... and the BAHHHH started crying from nowhere. I start when everyone's almost stopped and wiping their tears.

So you know other than at those times (funeral, not the maid's goodbye), I can't remember being really that sad. Do you know, when we were pushing the van later, I looked back and saw my mom and brother crying, I felt like crying too, then I willed myself not to, and when I looked away the feeling was gone. I felt really quite dumb then. But on the bus I cried in the end.

So anyway, that morning when we went to pick our stuff up, we were passing some ground floor houses, and from nowhere we saw this rabbit sitting on the concrete. The following conversation ensued...

I am not making this up:

Me: Rabbit...
P,L,M: Oh yeah rabbit... oh yar hor... ooo...
M : What's it doing out here like lost like that?
P : *brainwave* Eh...
Us: ?
P : Ah-por was born in the year of the rabbit you know...
Me: *look at rabbit* *look disbelievingly at P*
L : You think...?
P : Ah Hao, call ah-por...
Me: What?!
P : Call la... see whether it respond or not, maybe ah-mah is trying to tell us something...
Me: I... er...
P : Whatever you call her.
Me: ... *look at rabbit for awhile* ... Ah mah?
Rabbit: ..................................
P : ... Ah por?
Rabbit: ..................................
Me: I don't think...
M : It's not la Ping, don't be silly.
L : Yeah...
P : ... hmm...

And thus we continued our journey to Prime.

Later I overheard my father retelling the following conversation.

Second Aunt: *in grief* *faces registers slight confusion and awe* *nudges my dad* Look...
Dad: ... ?
SA : Look... Mother's picture...
Dad: What?
SA : On her forehead... look, there's a light on her forehead...
Dad: ... you...
SA : Can you see... wow......
Dad: Reflection la... zzz.
SA : *despondent silence*

On the morning after we went to Prime (that means that the next morning after this would be the day of cremation), we were sitting around just either talking or enjoying some silence. All of a sudden, one of the monk's chanting instruments, a sort of small 'Singing Bowl' on a handle, and a thin short metal rod tied to the handle, so that the monk could flick the rod against the small bell-bowl making a light and lovely chime... all of a sudden it started sounding.

And consistently too, as if keeping beat to an invisible orchestra.

My cousin M suggested uncertainly, 'Maybe she wants us to see her.'

We all got up and I peered once more into her made up face. It was daytime, so I stared into her face without fear, and as I did, I became absorbed in my own thoughts, thoughts that were quite beyond even mental tangibility, just stuff running, running, running endlessly through my head, communicating concepts of another dimension, principles of another universe. Present, yet unreadable. I was content to be just standing there, watching my grandmother's peaceful eternal slumber until I had my questions answered. But somehow my father interpreted this negatively, and drew me away before I could sink any further, saying 'Come, don't look so long Renhao, come.' To which I reluctantly complied after some time.

Where I should be grieving, I was instead filled once more with scientific curiousity. I remembered being impressed when with all of our pushing, the van went along as if there was no resistance at all. I remembered hoping so much to catch a glimpse of the scorching flames that would destroy the beautiful coffin and my gran's body within. I remembered being disappointed when the metal door closed before any burning started.

Too young to appreciate death? Perhaps. But if I could still break down at the funeral of someone whom I barely knew, what then of my mother's funeral? My dad's funeral? Would I be glad to have a burden off my back? Or would I a grown man scream and cry like a spoilt child for them to come back, please, come back?

Would I be glad that they were saved before they died? Or would I be blaming God in a fit of denial? Or would I, a failed servant of the Lord, weep for my parents' eternal damnation, and ask for the forgiveness I'll think I'd never receive?

Would I...

Chilly Sunday

2006-05-28T15:37:00.000+08:00

There's something ethereal about doing diabolically complicated homework (only cos I didn't pay attention, no more of that from now), cold weather marinated in your flesh, and listening to Tango. It's just shiokorz.

No church today because Sandra's off on a seminar, so I'm trying my best to catch up on schoolwork. As you can see I can't quite be successful, blogging at 3.40pm. Indeed, I merely managed to complete the last bit of typing lecture 2's notes of my COM205, and I'm doing stats now. I still have Lectures 3 and 4 from 205...

But meanwhile, enjoy the chill. The next one that arrives might just spell impending doom.

Incidentally, alot of people in the middle of our conversations always go OOO I saw your blog that video... the hard gay thing... hahaha so damn funny... hoo0~!

I cannot believe there are so many lurkers on my blog... Tag la walau eh. I don't put the board up there for fun you know.

You've seen the Yahoo! episode, so here's the (rather disgusting) ramen episode. Enjoy hoo0~!

HGF Hardo Gay Fever HooO~!

2006-05-23T21:20:00.000+08:00

Seems every one caught the Hard Gay Fever from Graham. Or well, I caught it from Graham and the whole world caught it from me. :D I've never seen people laugh so hard since I brought Whose Line to school. Ahh the fun times.

Stats lecturer turns out to be another Indian gentlemen... Are they taking over UB or something? In all respects he's a nice person, but as with most statisticians he starts off nice then just rollercoasters downhill. Think Chris Leong.

Or maybe it isn't fair yet, because first lesson is introduction to the topic and he just went through all the things we knew from before... Histogram pie chart bell curve standard deviation nominal ordinal interval random I mean ratio... So we weren't really paying attention. Also for the BA students it's their first time in a 3and3/4 hour lecture, so the class was quite dead today. I threw my pen down in disgust when the lecturer said that he would get Kevin to upload the slides on the Portal.

Incidentally, fountain pens drink more ink than we drink water... I only changed my cartridge (granted it's a small one) like a week ago, and now it's finishing again. Zzz gonna have to see about that $99 super chio-ster fountain pen. A real one, not some cheapo one for $4.20.

Foozball after lecture. When the others learnt from me that Ryan wasn't joining us, KJ looked out of the window and said 'Walau!'... ...

KJ: Walau!
RH: Huh so fast they are downstairs already?
KJ: ... no.
RH: ... -.-"

Weird leh you.

It's more fun saying Raishin! when you have a HooO~! behind it. It's actually more fun saying a whole lot of things when you have a HooO~! behind it.

End of post HooO~!