Nuanced Scenes

Just doing my part

2008-04-16T22:35:00.002+10:00

If you want to learn more about the movie Expelled, please go to this site.

Censorship, dishonesty, plagiarism, it has them all!

There is a point to make here, and i am going to make it.

Expelled.

Expelled.

Expelled.

Expelled.

Expelled.

Expelled.

to be continued..

Good days (midnight disjointed typings)

2008-04-16T00:27:00.003+10:00

When you are young and happy, you thought the world will last forever.

In those days, the all-important exams would loom up maliciously. But everything is okay, because we'd form a study group. Every day we'd meet, and till night we'd stay. What is the pain of studying when you are with friends? In the shadow of exams we'd fraternize, the group in the corner.

throwing paper planes and snack wrappers at each other, testing out understandings and acronyms. The work is tedious and dull, but plodding through it is easy. Students we all are; where and when better to form fast bonds than during exam time?

We've been successful.

We're doing what we wanted, but seldom meet anymore. Should i throw myself into my work? Can I?

Bittersweetness is such an ambivalent emotion to have.

In awe

2007-10-30T13:52:00.000+11:00

You know how much i like science. I'm a bio geek. So i really take offense when IDiots (can't spell idiot without ID) decide to strawman well working theories like evolution. Hence why i am in total awe at people who manage to make videos like these:

This parodies one of the common failed arguments against evolution, the so-called microevolution not macroevolution argument.

In a strike against Paley, the same person made a vid where a clock is evolved. It is in silica, of course, and you have to imbue to the clock certain characteristics that organic molecules normally have. But watch it for yourself:

Back to studying for me. Should be easy. I'm in such a good mood cuz these videos just made my day.

Some things should never be brought into this world

2007-10-21T14:07:00.000+10:00

A few notes.

2007-10-21T12:07:00.000+10:00

Yes, i am alive. Alive and kicking. Kicking and screaming in agony and frustration even. Everything is so hectic now. Honours applications, end of semester tests, reports, personal issues. I can't even summon up the energy to be half the smarmy bastard i once was.

A few notes:

No, ChangYang. No more cheesy memes. No more taggings that has such contentless content. I'm a nerdy biology geek, not a bimbo. Send me another book meme or something and we can talk =P

Someone told me that my blog is the most random one she has ever read. I think this largely comes from me being a geek. So, to further cement that viewpoint, here are some little somethings:
How to pick locks
Brainy man Steven Pinker on why we swear
Dynamic Periodic table

I spent the last couple of days obsessing over paper airplanes. Found a couple of sites and started folding away with last years lecture notes. Then i threw them off the balcony. I must have spammed the whole Citygate area with 9-10 pieces of random biology by now. Hopefully the people who get it will be so entranced by neuronal firings and stomach lining secretions that they won't complain. Paper plane websites here and here.
The second link is a step by step flash instruction on how to build a paper plane that was perfected by a bunch of young scientists. it won a competition i think. Nice to think of scientific inquiry applied in a very relevant area. This will completely overturn cellulose aerodynamics. The first site has a lot of fun paper plane designs, including a paper Zepellin and a paper helicopter (not as cool as it sounds). The paper helicopters stay afloat for ages. I threw one off the balcony and it flew all the way across the road over to the Carlton Gardens where i lost sight of it. Try it on a windy day.

I am very very glad that the birthday season is over. I managed to survive the September Swarm with moderate damage to my expenses. Like locusts descending on the green notes, they are.

Thats it for now. Maybe there will be more stuff coming along. Maybe there isn't.

Late night madness

2007-06-27T05:45:00.000+10:00

My flight is later at 3pm, its now 5:46am, and somehow, for some inexplicable reason, i find myself watching this:

Lets hope that i get so plastered from lack of sleep that i'll finally be able to get some rest on the plane. And lets hope that this vid won't last long enough to scar me in my sleep.

Heres a picture from the resultant topic i had with Wolf after showing him the vid.

Hell, i think i'm already screwed. Might as well take anybody i can down with me.

Cheers.

Ipoh Mali

2007-06-16T20:36:00.000+10:00

I can't believe i missed this.

I'm not usually for hip hop and rap, but i think this deserves a special place in my heart *grins*

Oh yeah.

Animaris Kinetic

2007-06-13T18:56:00.000+10:00

Sometimes you see something so awe inspiring, that you can't help but say "That is too fucking cool to exist." But it does.

Meet Theo Janson. For the past 15 years or so, he has been making a new life-form. Fashioning beasts from innocuous materials like plastic sticks, rope, and plastic sheets, Theo crafts creatures that harvest the wind in to roam the plains. Like a modern day DaVinci, his contraptions resemble the highly ingenious sketches of wood and paper machines featured in DaVinci's notebook.

Armed with sails and a multitude of legs, Theo's strandbeests creak to life, taking shaky but unhesitant steps, moving forward with mechanical precision. His creations have over the years evolved beyond simple movement, you can find plastic bottles acting as pressure valves, a series of locks that open and close, acting as logic gates, giving them a primitive nervous system. Some of them have the ability to detect strong winds with their sails, unleashing a strapped on hammer and start bolting itself down. Some are larger than a bus, the creaking contraption looks like part dinosaur part insect. Theo christens his inventions with the genus name "Animaris", such as Animaris Percipiere, Animaris Ventosa.

There was one part of his creation process that really appealed to me as a biology student: Theo uses the computers to make a code for his creatures, which roughly translates into a rough DNA analogue, and uses them to configure his beests. Using these codes, he'd use the computer to generate variations, and he'd select the best ones out in an odd homage to the theory of evolution. Racing his strandbeests on the beach, he would pick the fastest ones and combine their traits together. In an interview with Theo, he states that he would like to make herds of these things and eventually release them into the wild, letting them live their own lives.

For more pictures of Theo Janson and his works, you can visit his website.

Happy bidecade

2007-06-07T23:37:00.000+10:00

Lugging the luggage past the stairs and past all the doors, i come to the door labelled T15. Putting on a smile, i opened it. No one was in there. But the nodding fishing orange blob at the window seems to be content to see me, i wonder for a moment what sort of person my roommate is. Looking over at the occupied desk, i was pleasantly surprised to see an english name i had never encountered before. "Keegan Bow".

"huh, weird name."

***

I glanced at the bed, amused. The three girls trying to settle themselves on your bed seems to finally manage an ill fit, what with you being in one of the corner. Chattering incessantly about not letting you sleep till 3am, i wonder what sort of life would i have with a bunch like this.

Seeing as i didn't know them that well, and i haven't managed to make much headway in friendships, i was content to be ignored, as i tried to focus my attention back to the biology textbook.

Perhaps i should tell them i need to sleep as well? Nah, this is too interesting not to see to the conclusion.

***

We beamed with pride at the wall. I raised a skeptical eye at you.

"Isn't that soft porn? two girls kissing on the bed."

"no, its called "Kiss", and its art."

I go back to looking at my iceberg.

"Ok, so i'll put my rug in the middle of the beds, and my drawer can go to the middle too. You can put your lamp on top."

"Wonderful, coziest room in Albert House."

"No shoes allowed?"

"Yes."

***

"I'm thinking about starting a blog."

"Seriously? that sounds kinda fun. Maybe i should start one with you. But.. i dunno.."

"Yes, yes start one with me. It'll be good for you."

"Hmmmmm."

***

"Heh, i'll bet we're the only rooms to join the beds in this place."

"Nevermind, it'll be cozy! Unlike Jon's room. Its like, there is this hole in the middle of the room."

***

"Haha, so i'll put the cookie jar way at the top of the shelf, so Steph can't get at it. Nor Sarah. Mwahahahaha."

***

"Nooo, the net is gone!" I wring my hands up in frustration. "Yours is going to be gone soon too!"

A second later, sounds of dismay from your side vindicated my claim.

"Its like a wave, see. I have the crappier card, so when the system goes out, it hits mine first, then it hits yours a second later."

"Crap."

***

"Church bells on sundays and no bread in the freezer,
Derek standing there making us feel short,
and these are some of our most hated things!"
*chorus*

***

"Keegan, i'll most definately beat you today in Foosball."

"Bring it on!"

***

"I just felt that.. somebody else should have been responsible for his birthday, when we all have exams to deal with. That somebody else shouldn't have just spent the whole day playing RO with jon."

I didn't look you in the eye. There was nothing i could say, and i hadn't thought about planning anything at all, even though i should have.

***

"you know, you always say what i want to say 1 second faster than i can."

***

"Your thoughts are just too acidic."

"So what would be normal thoughts then?"

"Basic ones."

"ROFL, brilliant."

***

Some memories, dredged up from the recesses of my mind. Perhaps these impressions largely differs from your. But they are my impressions, nonetheless, and are uniquely mine, i hope. Uniquely mine, as a tribute of sorts.

Thanks for the memories. Happy 20th birthday, Keegs.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

2007-05-24T15:34:00.000+10:00

Its that time of the year again.

The time when exams, assignments, promises, commitments all comes to a head. Sometimes i wonder if deep within our psyche we all planned it this way. Subconsciously we must know that things are due right about this time, right? Why the hell do people put their deadlines to this date? Do we take perverse pleasure in squeezing all the work into one singularity of academic time?

My core subject presentations were due last week, on a Friday. Before that, there was a midsemester exam on tuesday. Right after that, there is another student presentation on tuesday. The core subject presentation has, tagging along with it, a 1,500 word summary assignment due this friday (ie, tomorrow). Due on the same friday is also a microbiology wikipedia style entry on a specific topic that we had to assemble. Come next wednesday, lab prac books are due. Tables need to be filled, graph needs to be drawn, and data assembled. A week of study break later and its the mother of all deadlines, the examination period.

Predictably, my body broke down and i started coughing and hacking. Its been that way for 3 weeks now. My body took the cue from all the stress and i came down with the annual flu. At least i know i wont get sick again this year. There is a huge huge irony out in the universe that my core subject's presentation was about the Influenza virus, and i was struck down by influenza right in the middle of it. If there is a god, i don't think s/he/it is a force for good. I don't even think it is a force of external evil.

No, if there is one force out there that is everlasting and eternal, its gonna be Irony. And its progeny called Sarcasm.

You won't hear from me much these few days. I predict to drop quite dead on sunday. Expect some pretty wild behavior from me on that day. I deserve it.

Nihilism

2007-04-30T02:08:00.001+10:00

"He ain't Heavy, He's my Father!" or, why you should help me with my quota

2007-04-28T22:15:00.000+10:00

The Chinese Theater Group cantonese production will be starting their show, "新难兄难弟" or "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Father!" will be hitting the Union House Theater on the 4th (friday), 5th (saturday), 10th (thursday) and 11th (friday) of May. Each show starts on 7pm, while the 5th has 2 shows per day, one of them on 2pm and the other at 7pm. And before you ask, no, i'm not appearing on stage this time. I was supposed to cameo as a butcher, but that somehow flopped. You can get tickets from me (and only me! mwahaha). The price is 11 dollars for C-group members, and 13 dollars for normal students.

Despite my ringing endorsement, i have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, i've not exactly been coping with the demanding time commitments one has to shell out for a production like this. Granted, i should have known it when volunteering myself to be the Sets assistant. Somehow i didn't expect every weekend to be gone, devoted to the theater production. I haven't been a good assistant leader. I have to admit that halfway through the production, i got fed up about my weekends being not my own. I discovered that i can be quite a private person, i need time for myself. Which is the reason why this will be my last production. Its a nice show, but i didn't get a good experience out of it.

But, on the other hand, the production is good. I've seen the rehearsals, seen the costumes, the props, the make up. As for the sets, i know they are good, because i had a hand in making them. Given what we had, the stuff we made are bloody good. If you watch the show, you might want to know that we made the bloody double decker bed, the street sign, and we slaved away at the various backgrounds. I may not be happy about my lost time, but i can appreciate what we did. Take the praise with a grain of salt, but i genuinely think it is a good show. This is reason number one why i am trying to sell tickets.

Reason number two i am selling tickets: I'm a Malaysian, and this show practices the Malaysian National Pasttime: Piracy. We basically stole the plot from a hong kong movie, revamped it a little, and bring it to you in flesh and blood. Its like, "新难兄难弟-3D". I highly approve.

And the third reason is: The ticketing manager is breathing down my neck. Seriously. Heres an advice to all production groups (coughCMGcough): get an angry looking , persistant and evil person as your ticketing manager (evil is optional though recommended). I know the ticketing manager before, but she seriously scares me when she goes into Ticketing Manager Mode.

On another note, i feel this sadistic thrill whenever CMG asks CTG for advice on production stuffs. Just proves how much more superior we are. Bwahahahahahahahahahaha. Ahem. You didn't hear that.

Arachnia on Acid

2007-04-28T01:06:00.000+10:00

Now, for the record, i have tremendous respect for wildlife. I really love nature, and i appreciate that animals and other living things should be given their their dignity. But, the person who first came up with idea of drugging spiders and letting them build webs is a friggin genius, man.

Check this out:

There is also this website with pictures, though it is rather lacking in commentary.

Moral of the story: Just say No to drugs, kids!

A day of silence

2007-04-18T22:41:00.000+10:00

A Human Enterprise

2007-04-18T01:09:00.000+10:00

I have struggled for a while now, looking for the best way to express what i feel about religion.

PZ Myers here did a wonderful job.

We turn to religion when sad, when happy, when angry. After all, there is something almost transcendent about emotions. It is inexplicable yet so very strong. Everyone has it. Most people must have, at some point, wondered if all our memories and our emotions, our utter sense of self will be preserved when we die. When that happens, however, we run into a blank wall. Its easy enough to imagine ourselves in someone elses shoes when they are angry, or when they are happy, or sad. Its at the root of empathy to put ourselves in others positions. But how do we empathize with someone who has died? How does it feel like to be dead? Though the body is dead, we have memories of their minds. I think we can't help but think that their personalities have ended up somewhere else. Thus religion is born.

Since we project our very sense of self into the afterlife, religion takes on a very personal meaning. It embodies our most optimistic hopes, and our most gruesome fears. Most people don't see religion as a cultural artifact. Religion is literally a part of them, the lifeline to immortality. A religion that comprises a large amount of people reflects the attitudes of that particular society.

Taken as a whole, religion itself becomes a blank canvas for the human psyche. Our most touching dreams, our greatest hopes, our darkest deeds, all reflected upon this entity known as religion. Wantonly, we splay ourselves unto this medium, laying unto it our subconscious desires (and not so subconcious ones). Instead of transcendence, it is belies a foundation that is so human, so down to earth. It really is just us, hoping for the best.

Parting words:

Religion is the greatest human enterprise. Like anything truly human, it is capable of the greatest deeds but also the most abominable horrors. Let that be a lesson.

Where the hell is Matt?

2007-04-16T18:57:00.000+10:00

For those who who do not know what to do when traveling, i have a suggestion:

I'm sure it'd appeal to all of you travelophiles out there ;)

Birthday Blues

2007-03-29T21:25:00.000+10:00

March is a month of merry making, birthdays and hotpots, housewarmings and cold puddings. Every week you hear the joyous tidings of another birthday, friends have reunions, old times are reminisced over cake, and wishes are made for a better future. So it may come as a surprise to some when i declare that i am fucking sick of it all. Nothing against those people whose date of birth lands on this month, but couldn't you all had gestated for another month or something? I am so broke now its no joke. At roughly 30 dollars per birthday (dinner + gifts), this is an expensive period. And of course, my birthday lies sometime before people come back, so no one celebrates mine. Oh the humanity.

After 4 birthday celebrations, with a fifth one coming up, it has come to my attention that parents have a lot of unprotected merry making in the months of January and June, leading to an unusual concentration of people celebrating birthdays in March and September. Yes, my dear peers, i am holding your parents accountable for my current state of impoverishment.

March was bad, but September promises to be even worse. If my memory serves true, last september i had 8-9 friends who had birthdays, which is almost twice as much as march. At this point in time maybe the smart thing to do is to save up and start severing off ties.

On another note, when would be the best time to have spawn-inducing sex then, if you were to be a parent? There are several things to consider. Firstly, you want maximum benefit per birthday. That would mean no holidays in the vicinity distracting people from spending money on your kid. We would also have to make pretty sure that your kid does not have to share birthdays with someone else. Secondly, you want a time where nobody is off for trips so they can claim absence. Our candidates:

January: Januaries suck. New year happens on january, and there will be the impending chinese new year (if you are chinese) and the inevitable school reopening to distract people. There will also be those rich bastards still holidaying somewhere in Honolulu. So don't have sex in April.

February: February is not as bad as january, but not perfect either. By now school is nearly in full swing, the assignments are out, and nobody gives a damn about birthdays. Plus its still new in the academic year and the new people don't know your kid that well to care about when he popped out of the oven. Use that condom on May.

March: March is the worst. Everyone's having birthdays. March is when people run screaming away for mercy when someone mentions birthdays. Moderate your fun on June, please, for the love of god.

April: April is when mid-semester exams are due, assignments are due, cocurricular activities are due, mentioning birthdays will just make the crowd go "diu!", so perhaps lets just talk about a movie for July?

May: Happy Semester exam. Nobody cares about your kid's birthdays. They will sooner look at an incredibly dry textbook first. Bad month. If you want to be a good parent then don't have unprotected sex in August.

June: This would normally make a good month, but june is when we get the semester break, and so a lot of people won't be around. Still, its pretty good. Go for it.

July: Whee school just started. People just came back from hols and are in a bad mood. Who cares about spending money on someone else? Your kid will get mediocre presents!

August: August, is, i believe, the perfect month for birthdays. Its the at the early middle stage of the second semester, people have somewhat accepted the realities of studies by now. There are no celebrations going on in august, and the monotony is quickly sinking in. A birthday now would cheer everyone up, and they'll thank your kid by spending on her/him lavishly. So pump up that chocolate, drink that tongkat ali, and have fun on November. Your kid will be thanking me for this 2 decades from now.

September: Septembers are worse than march. Septembers are the worst. Septembers blow. 50% of colleged age kids celebrate their birthdays on september. Why let yours be the sheep? Be original! Lay off that tiger whip soup for December.

October: The final year exam is coming next month. Assignments are due, like, NOW. Only 4 more weeks till the big one. Some will party to let off steam, but most won't. Not a good month overall.

November: wow, end of year exam. If your kid has friends that party at this time of the year it means s/he is in bad company.

December: December would have been perfect, if not for christmas. People will be sneaky and just combine both christmas and birthdays into one. Plus there are those rich bastards starting to leave for honolulu.

So in conclusion, August is the best time for your kid to have a birthday. November should be ideal to "make the beast with two backs", to quote Othello. Be a good parent. Give your kids the best birthdays you can. Do the right thing.

Atheist nightmares

2007-03-29T20:58:00.000+10:00

In a splendid show of unreasoning, someone has made the case, concerning god, with a banana. Yes folks, this is the famous Argument From Banana. I assure you this is not parody or satire. The folks in there are serious.

Someone please tell the guy miming fruity fellatio that the bananas we eat are domesticated ones that reproduce asexually: they grow like potatoes, with the old plant growing a new one at its roots. Farmers then pick the ones with potential and grow them. In short, bananas are what they are today because they have been under human selection. Bananas in the wild come under all shapes and sizes, and a lot of them are so chocked with seeds that you can't bite a mouth-full without choking.

In an effort to one-up this ridiculous exercise of proving deities through foodstuff, someone presented the Argument From Peanut Butter, with courtroomy background music. No, really, i kid you not.

Assuming new life does spontaneously appear in peanut butter, how would he expect it to look like? a 3 footed bug with jaws and an ugly face? In the event that new life can occur in peanut butter, it would be more like a chemical that can somehow catalyze its own reaction, thus making more of itself, using resources that are already present within the jar. At the most he will notice is a bubble of mushy stuff in the middle of his peanut butter.

But go ahead and watch it anyway. I had some good laughs out of this one. I hope you will too.

Random flash files.

2007-03-20T16:21:00.000+11:00

I've been listening to this for the past 20 minutes, with no sign of stopping. To those who play RO, thats a female lord knight, and she is swinging the sword into an infinite stream of rybios. For what reason i don't know, but the music is so catchy i'll soon go mad. Yet i can't bring myself to switch it off.

For a nice dose of psychosis, there is also this: AAAAAAA
Simultaneously horrifying, spasmic, absolutely disturbing, there was somehow something unbearably funny about it. I was caught by surprise and had to spend 5 minutes laughing my ass off helplessly at the weird dissonance caused by the picture and the sound.

While we are at the topic of looping songs, i might as well let you amuse yourselves with the badger song. Someone told me his friend listened to it for 4 horus straight trying to see if something different will finally happen. He hasn't gotten back to me yet. I'm waiting to see if he is now nodding to himself somewhere in an asylum.

Disappointment

2007-03-19T23:51:00.000+11:00

Regarding the dinner, XXL (another friend who was also in the same boat as me) pursued jon, and his replying sms was thus:

"Oh, i think my friend has cooked for me already leh. So how?"

So you might forgive me for getting a mite pissed off. And feeling vastly insulted.

Jon, if you are reading this right now, don't you think its a bit uncouth and ill-mannered to ask people out for dinner, and then calling it off because you found another source of food? Isn't it even more impolite of you to not even tell me when you have called the bloody thing off? The least you can do is to apologize and tell me about it so i can stop waiting for you till 6:45pm.

This feels like a slap in the face. It seems like i misjudged you as a good friend after all.

Accusation of a friend

2007-03-13T18:45:00.000+11:00

I don't understand how a person like you, elected to carry such an important office in a big organization, can have a communication failure like this. Asking me to go for a dinner, waiting for my confirmation, then not telling me the time nor place doesn't reflect well on your organizational abilities. Leaving me hanging 10 minutes before dinner time with no updates whatsoever.. i've had to suspend my previous plans to accomodate this little reunion. Have you thought about that?

Perhaps its not your lack of communication and organizational skills. Perhaps are you just not applying them to me, because i am unimportant now? I hope that i am merely thinking too much, and my judgment of you as such callous a person, is merely a mistake. This is, however, not the first time. Nor is it the second.

I don't think you will read this. The real course of action would, of course, be to accost you personally. But i am too weary to bump into you intentionally, only with the intention of accusation. My ethos doesn't work that way.

So i post my frustrations here, and belt out my disappointment. You, the person whom i've shared roof with for 3 years. How could you do this to me?

Inanity tagged

2007-03-12T11:09:00.000+11:00

For some reason or other, Jiko has decided that the web needs more of me, which explains the rather specific mandatory tag that she slapped on to my site. This time though, it isn't anything intellectual like "Book tag" or anything like that. Instead, you are to be subjected to six things that i find weird about myself.

1. I played this bbc brain sex ID game and turned out almost completely neutral. Now, either this test was wrong on a couple of fronts (which i think may be the case), or i have a case of encephalital hermaphrodism. Which is still a cool condition to have. It is kind of true in a way, and those who know me well will know that i favour the equality of all myriad genders, up to and including the right to use force against each other (hey, if a girl can slap a guy around, then so can a guy retaliate in kind. Best solution is not to use it at all on anyone).

2. For a period in time i wore only BUM equipment clothing because i AM a bum, and also because in malaysia pretty much the only brands that fit my physique are american brands that stock caucasian sizes. I have since moved on to bigger (heh) and better things.

3. In a normal day, i will start going weird at 3am. The combination of internet and lack of sleep will lead to some pretty interesting comments from me, as i am sure some parties have already found out. To see for yourself, add me on MSN at Shoblastc-at-hotmale(mail)-dot-com. Just so you know, i live in greenwich +10, so you can prepare in advance.

4. I visit 10 webcomics a day. Seriously, webcomics is such a large part of my life now. I'm even tempted to start one myself about my adventures in biomed. Featuring stick figures, giant E.coli and microcentrifuges.

5. I visit 4 forums a day.

6. Eating habits. I eat tomatoes, celery, carrots, capsicum and corn raw. for the sake of convenience, when i eat normal grapes, i tend to just swallow the seeds because i can't be bothered reaching for a dustbin. Same goes to watermelon. There was once when i got bored, and chewed up an apple alongside with seeds. Did you know apple seeds taste a bit like almonds? Must be all the cyanide in there.

I am supposed to tag 6 more people. But for the sake of being contrary, i will make this a meme dead end. Anyone interested to do the tag are invited to not do so.

On February 21st...

2007-02-20T23:46:00.000+11:00

... 362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria.
1440 - The Prussian Confederation is formed.
1543 - Battle of Wayna Daga - A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a Muslim army led by Ahmed Gragn.
1613 - Mikhail I is elected unanimously as Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.
1743 - The premiere in London of George Frideric Handel's oratorio, "Samson".
1804 - The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales.
1842 - John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
1848 - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish the Communist Manifesto.
1874 - The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper.
1875 - Jeanne Calment was born, going on to live for 122 years 164 days, the longest confirmed lifespan for any human being in history.
1878 - The first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
1885 - The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
1893 - Thomas Edison receives two U.S. patents for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and for a "Stop Device"
1916 - World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.
1918 - The last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
1925 - The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
1937 - Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile.
1937 - The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.
1945 - World War II: Japanese Kamikaze planes sink escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damage the Saratoga.
1947 - In New York City Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
1948 - NASCAR is incorporated.
1952 - Language Martyrs' Day, marking language-revolution in the then East Pakistan (currently, the independent state of People's Republic of Bangladesh).
1952 - The government of Winston Churchill abolishes Identity Cards in the UK to "set the people free".
1952 - In East Pakistan (Present Bangladesh) Police opened fire on a procession of students, who demanded to establish Bangla as the Official language, killing four people and starting a country-wide protest which led to the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. 21st February was later declared as "International Mother Language Day" by UNESCO.
1953 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
1960 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.
1970 - Swissair Flight 330: A mid-air bomb explosion and subsequent crash kills 38 passengers and nine crew members near Zürich, Switzerland.
1971 - The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
1972 - President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations.
1972 - The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
1973 - Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Airlines jet killing 108.
1974 - The long-running Japanese comic strip "Sazae-san" publishes its final installment in the Asahi Shimbun.
1974 - The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal in carrying out a truce with Egypt.
1975 - Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.
1981 - Charles Rocket, portraying the gunshot victim in a Saturday Night Live parody of the "Who shot J.R.?" plot on the program Dallas, said, "I'd like to know who the fuck did it," during the live feed of the "goodnights" segment. Afterward, everyone except Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo was fired.
1986 - Nintendo releases The Legend of Zelda.

And then there was me.

A very sincere thanks to Jiko, ChangYang, YanTing, Keegan, HuiShyang and Wolfsgeist. You people have made my life interesting for the past year, either through the sharing of inanities or insightful conversation.

Thank you.

Shock

2007-02-18T21:25:00.001+11:00

I've always been lazy, and the same attitude extends towards my blog. When i post, i seldom reread my writings, and ever since Firefox 2 incorporated a spell checker into their browser, i haven't even been manually spell checking my own typings.

I may be lazy, but i still take pride in what i write. So it came as a big shock to me when i reread my own blog posts. Especially the recent ones, including the one below.
"Terrible" just about sums up my own feelings towards my own sentences.

I know i have been struggling for ways to express myself these past weeks, and i realize i am doing quite a poor job of it. For some reason the juices just aren't flowing. But i never knew how bad. Sometimes i would just stop in the middle of a rant, trying to think of ways to continue.

So i think i will take some time off to try to rediscover myself, and what makes my muse tick. I'd rather write moderately adequate stuff rather than badly expressed bunch of words.

So i bid thee adieu, and wish you success in all your endeavors.

Oh, and Happy AngPow Day. May you get lots of money in crimson packets.

Book Tagged

2007-02-15T22:55:00.000+11:00

A week or so ago, I've been made a victim of a cunning ego blog scam job, and is now forced to perpetuate a meme. The perpetrator is someone who will be my housemate for the next few months! De Horror!

Perhaps some preamble is necessary here. About roughly a week ago, i was innocently surfing online when Alycia popped in with a message on MSN. In a calculatively cunning move, she asked me if she could link my site to hers. Now, as any blogger would know, someone asking for a blog link is a major stroke to the ego, man. So i replied in kind, and linked hers to mine. And did what any other curious web-farer would do. To begin reading. Within 2 posts of reading, i came across this.

OK, so i fell for her tagging. But, i blithely countered her crafty trick with the all time human vice: Sloth. I had moved in, but i haven't unpacked yet (even after a week), so i had no books whatsoever within reach! The sound of Laziness laying the Smacketh Down on Tagging Trick sounded so sweet to my slothful little ears. However, a week later, i have unpacked. And in the interest of books and memes, i've decided to perpetuate this thing. So after wasting 3 paragraphs, i now present to you:

1) Grab the closest book to you.
"The Double Helix, by James D. Watson"

2)Open to page 123, go down to the 4th sentence.
3) Post the text of the following 3 sentences on your blog.
"This supertube permitted me to take pictures twenty times faster than with conventional equipment. Within a week i more than doubled the number of my TMV photographs. Custom then locked the doors of the Cavendish at 10:00pm. Though the porter had a flat next to the gate, no one disturbed him after the closing hour."

The book is written by James D Watson, the co-founder of the structure of the DNA molecule, his partner of whom which is Francis Crick. With the discovery of the structure, came a flurry of research into how DNA works. This book is a personal account on what went on in the discovery, all the set backs and triumphs. Above all, this book is valuable in revealing to the readers the humanity that occurs in scientific ventures. Real world obstacles, code of conduct between scientists, spats between colleagues, insecurities and doubts, as well as the good bits, all has their share of the spotlight in this discovery. Watson's account colours up the landscape that was drab and grey facts.

Now, the tagging. I will tag the people whom i think would read very interesting books. Just so i would have some back up material to read when i get bored. Without further ado, i thereby tag:

1) Gneake (you knew that was coming, didn't you?)
2) Jiko
3) Jingo
4) YoungYew

Making Dinosaurs

2007-02-08T21:37:00.002+11:00

I found this video clip that just completely blew me away.

The people shown in this video are actually making the critters for "Walking with Dinosaurs", used in a stageshow. I'm no dinosaur enthusiast, but i still felt a thrill up my spine when i saw the scene when a couple of technicians were positioning that armor plated armadillo dinosaur. I've always loved one of those as kid.

Seeing those people beside a life sized model threw me back into a surreal moment where everything suddenly becomes completely abstract yet a couple more times more real than reality itself. For a moment there my mind was in the dual state of knowing thats a model dinosaur handled by technicians and somehow thinking thats a freaking dinosaur, man! look at the size of that thing! whoooh!. Cognitive dissonance? hrh.

Late Night Visitor

2007-02-05T09:32:00.000+11:00

I was chatting with my parents last night on skype, when i happened to glance over to the window. Somehow, i noticed there was an extra brown stick there. The brown stick had eyes. Freaking out just a tiny bit, it took me 2 seconds to realize what it really was.

"A stick insect!" I thought gleefully. And its thankful that i didn't think it out aloud, for my parents just asked me what i have been doing these past few nights. Ahem.

So i told them i'll be right back, grabbed a camera, and approached the critter. And then i noticed something extra about the stick insect. It had wicked claws and it sways in the wind. So it isn't just a stick insect. Its either a rabid killer sharp clawed swaying stick insect, or its actually a praying mantis. Which is better than a stick insect because the latter insect rips the heads off other insects for a living.

Some photos here:

Tests

2007-02-04T21:09:00.002+11:00

Here are some online personality tests for you to while away your time. Be warned though, these are not your run of the mill "personality tests." If you normally do not introspect, be ready to sit there and think a lot. Some of the tests asks you a series of questions, and will try to ascertain if you have deep seated logical contradictions to your outlook.

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/whatisgod.htm
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/morality_play.htm
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/check.htm
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/matrix_start.htm
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/identity.htm
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/logic_task.htm

All of them are tests, except for the one about the matrix. Which i disagree about, by the way.

Have fun!

Back

2007-02-01T01:58:00.000+11:00

So i am back in Aussie. Not very happy about this because i could have had one more month of "Malaysia time" to spend plus Chinese New Year to celebrate. Doesn't hurt much not to have to worry about food either. Its the perfect student lifestyle: wake up, sleep, eat, play, eat, and then sleep. Notice there is no studying in there.

The only silver lining i could see is that my brother is also now here in Melbourne, as will another cousin. While it is a pain in the ass to help him prepare everything (bank account, buy books, hostel arrangements, etc), having a close family member out here is always better than none. As they say, blood is thicker than water. They also say “远亲不如近邻", roughly meaning "Having a neighbour closeby is better than having relatives far away". Purely in the utilitarian sense. Combine the two and you have the perfect solution: Relatives living close by! Hey presto! Relatives are good because they have a harder time saying "no". Though it cuts both ways.

Melbourne showed its pleasure to the both of us on our arrival by blasting us cold wind at us during summer, which i'm not complaining about. Then my brother got his first taste of Melbournian weather when, walking down the street, he was shined on, then rained on, then shined on again, and then pissed on, pelted at by ice, and then shined on again. All in the course of an hour. Heh.

Its 2am at night and i am too zombied to think of anything witty or smart, so i'll just end with a link: http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/wonder-showzen/

An Apology

2007-01-20T02:58:00.000+11:00

Do readers remember this?

If you do, then i would like to apologize for it. This story has actually been outed as a hoax.

Quoted from here:

Unfortunately, in our eagerness to find additional examples of the inappropriate intrusion of religion in American public life (as if we actually needed more), we accepted this claim by PEER without calling the National Park Service (NPS) or the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) to check it. As a testimony to the quality of our readers, however, dozens immediately phoned both NPS and GCNP, only to discover that the claim is absolutely false. Callers were told that the Grand Canyon is millions of years old, that no one is being pressured from Bush administration appointees — or by anyone else — to withhold scientific information, and all were referred to a statement by David Barna, Chief of Public Affairs, National Park Service as to the park’s official position. “Therefore, our interpretive talks, way-side exhibits, visitor center films, etc. use the following explanation for the age of the geologic features at Grand Canyon,” the document explains.

This deception was pushed forth by PEER, an "anti-Bush, anti-religion liberal activist watchdog group". In an attempt to sway the public over to their side, they apparently cobbled up the entire story with scant pieces of evidence and lots of creative journalism, making them no better than what they hate. This is a sad situation when people who thinks only of winning forgets they why they wanted to win.

The only silver lining i can think of is encaptured in this quote:

"Isn't it really sad, though, that society has gotten to the point that we are glad to find out the entire story was a hoax in the first place?"

All too true, regrettably, all too true.

PS: I sincerely apologize for being duped like this, and i am deeply apologetic for not checking my facts. I will try not to let it happen again.

Comet McNaught

2007-01-15T23:14:00.000+11:00

To those people in the southern hemisphere, Comic McNaught is now heading your way! I am actually a bit late in the posting, the best time to watch it (which is at its brightest) was yesterday, Jan the 14th. Nevertheless, there is still somewhat of a 4-day-long window of opportunity. So grab it now! Unlike us poor sobs in Malaysia and Singapore, where it is neither the north hemisphere nor the south hemisphere, thus we don't get to see anything.

Comet McNaught was first spotted 2006 August the 7th, by an aussie in NSW (called McNaught, in case you were wondering). Normal comets encircle the sun but leans far away from the earth. These are only of interest to professional astronomers with their professional telescopes and professional machinery and professional education and their professional- *gets shot* Ahem. Whats different about Comet McNaught is that its path goes very near and sometimes into Earth's orbit, and it even goes within Mercury's orbit, and therefore making it very close and very bright. In fact, it may be the brightest comet in 30 years.

I obtained these instructions for the folks in australia who wants to watch this comet:

Visibility from Australia

I'll concentrate my comments on the latitude of Sydney, which will be reasonably accurate for most of the Australian population.

The first possibility to see the comet will be at sunset on Jan 13 when the comet would be a *very* difficult object some 6 degrees north of the azimuth of the just set sun. The comet will set only 7 minutes after the top edge of the sun has set. You would need a very good horizon and beautifully clear skies to see it, but given the possible brightness it is not an impossibility. The tail would lie almost flat along the horizon to the comet's right.

The first real chance will be at sunset on Jan 14 with the comet about 5 degrees from the just set sun, up at 45 degrees to the right (and gas tail continuing away from the sun in that direction). The head of the comet will set about 23 mins after the sun, still in the bright twilight, but as the sky darkens it is probable that the tail will become visible at greater distances from the comet. It is close to sunset on the 14th that the comet will reach its theoretical brightest.

At sunset on Jan 14, the comet will be located only 1.2 deg due right of Mercury which will then be mag. -1, and some 14 deg from Venus which at mag. -4 lies up to the right of the comet. [The magnitude scale is used by astronomers to measure brightness. The Sun is mag. -26, the full moon mag. -12 and the faintest stars you see on a dark night are about mag. +6.]

The best geometry occurs on Jan 15, with the comet starting to move away from the sun (now 7 degrees) and almost directly above the position of the sun at sunset. The head will set about 39 mins after the sun, although the azimuth at which it sets will be 5.0 degrees to the left of the sunset point. It is quite reasonable to expect the tail to remain visible up to an hour after sunset, so it may be seen in a dark sky.

On Jan 15 the comet is already 3 degrees from Mercury, up to the left.

By Jan 16, the effect of forward scattering will have dropped back to about zero and the comet will already be heading away from the Sun and Earth; back to the obscurity of the Oort cloud. Although now clearly fading, it will be moving higher into the southern sky away from the sun. At sunset on the 16th, the comet will be about 10 degrees from the sun and just left of directly above the Sun at sunset. It will set 54 mins after the sun, 9 degrees to the left of the sunset point.

From Jan 17 onwards, the comet, although fainter, should be well visible in the darker skies. It then moves into the SW sky at roughly a 45 deg angle up to the left of the sunset point. The angular distance of the comet from sun at the time of sunset from Sydney then increases on a daily basis:
Jan 17  12deg
18  15deg
19  17deg
after which date the head of the comet will set when the sun has already passed more than 18 degrees below the horizon (astronomical darkness).

Theres also this nice picture to help those who are picture orientated:

Hope you guys can spot it! For those who wants to see pictures of it, here are some pretty good ones taken when it streaked past the northern hemisphere. As an addendum: From Jan 12 till Jan 15, the comet streaked past the field of view of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ("SOHO"), so we can expect to see some pretty spectacular photos soon.

Good luck!

Links of the Day

2007-01-15T03:46:00.000+11:00

I have added a new section to my side bar called "Links of the Day". I figured that since i run into so many interesting articles, i'd just put up those that i think is suitable for the audience and whatnot. You'll probably find something of interest in there as well.

Been meaning to do short "Introducing:" style commentaries on the sites like how i did with PBF comics, but decided its too much trouble. But, yeah, go ahead and click on them. Those who know me will know the links i put up are interesting. Some may be gross, but those are few and far between.

Hope you enjoy.

Perry Bible Fellowship

2007-01-13T16:24:00.000+11:00

If you would take a look around the blog, particularly under "Collage", you'll see this link called "pbf comics". Despite its religious name, it is as religious as a can of coke. Just as Madonna called herself madonna even though she is no madonna, the PBF has nothing to do with a bible fellowship. Instead, it has some of the funniest comics i have ever seen.

Gruewitch starts his comics innocently enough. Readers will often see a comic in bright kindergarten colours, with friendly, smiling characters doing or saying innocuous things. This veneer of pleasantness, however, is catastrophically (and hilariously) scratched away as the very last panel is revealed, which utterly betrays the preconceptions that was carefully crafted in the beginning few panels, delivering a bitch-slap to the mind. Even in milder comics, readers come off with the feeling that there is no more innocence left, but that only adds to the mindblowing funniness (is that even a word?) that are PBF comics.

So, visit The Perry Bible Fellowship, take a look around the site whenever you are bored. Maybe you won't be as enchanted by his work as me, but i can almost guarantee you it will tickle your funny bone.

An Outrage

2007-01-02T20:49:00.000+11:00

If you are ever going to visit the grand canyon around this time, and if you visit them and wonder about the age of the grand canyon, well, don't ask the guide there. They can't tell you.

Guides at the grand canyon can't tell you that the age of the grand canyon is tens of millions years old, for fear of offending creationists (read: The Bush admin and various US loonies), who believe that the world is 6011 years old (for them, the universe was created on 4004 BC, in the afternoon).

As if that is not loony enough, a list of books were slated to be sold at the grand canyon, and only 1 out of 23 has been approved. And this book curiously states that the grand canyon was created when Noah's flood happened.

If you want a thorough refutation on the basic idea of a global flood, read here.

For specifically the Grand Canyon,

read here. I hope this entry succeeds in informing whoever reads it. What we need the least now is more ignorance.

What a crummy piece of news for the beginning of a new year.

[Update]: This article has been outed as a spread of disinformation, so please disregard it. You can read the thing here.

5th of November

2006-11-05T15:49:00.000+11:00

I am not british, nor do i have any particular attachment to Guy Fawkes Night. But, this date has brought to us the lovely lovely V for Vendetta. So to commemorate the 5th of November:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,'twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

For a neutral POV regarding the 5th of nov, read here.

For an article with a definite mysoginist POV, read here.

Personally, i prefer the latter.

Reading broke.

2006-11-02T21:20:00.000+11:00

Here's a little something i saw on the net:

Reading is Knowledge
Knowledge is Power
Power Corrupts
Corruption is a Crime
Crime doesn't Pay

So...If you read, you will go broke.

(which explains my common predicament)

Plural Fraction

2006-10-31T21:01:00.000+11:00

Isn't it a strange turn of semantics that when you have something that is less than one, it is pronounced in plural?

Let me demonstrate.

Lets say you have 1 gram of whatever. It will be exactly one gram. I wrestle half a gram away from you, so now you are left with 0.5 grams.

We have exactly one gram, and then we have 0.5 grams.

As they say, less is more.

An example of bemusing weather

2006-10-30T00:49:00.000+11:00

At 5.45am yesterday, it hailed. Pebbles of frozen water fell straight from the skies and smacked themselves silly unto sidewalks, trees, cars, the buildings and their glass windows.

I sleep with my head right next to the window (i can't stand stuffiness), so i was awakened rudely by what seems to be machine gun fire from outside the building. The fact that it was merely ice hitting the windows didn't register, until my face was hit by a stray piece of ice.

Yesterday was October the 28th, the day before daylight savings starts. Spring is at its zenith, with summer to follow not in another two months, so it was pretty bright. It was so bright, at 5:44am, in fact, that i was wildly confused when i woke up. I thought i had awaken from an afternoon nap, but somehow that notion seemed wrong. It took me 2 more minutes to realize that it was in fact morning, and that Australian 5:45ams are just that obscenely bright during spring, by which time i was halfway worrying both about dinner and how nothing seems to be making sense.

The only thing left to be done was to close all the windows and roll down the blinds to get more sleep. Not before flipping the bird at the sky for the absurdity of it all.

Which is what any sane person would do, really.

The joys of windiness

2006-10-29T01:50:00.000+10:00

I love the wind.

Whenever a strong gust blows through, i feel a wild gushing joy, bubbling up inside me. I get the urge to run along with it, yodelling in the absolute wildness of it all. It is as if the wind has come to cut a swath right through our cities, our houses, and bringing along with it something else, something other. I stop to listen and feel the wind, as it forces its way through trees, unheedful of obstacles, making them drag and bend their branches along, helpless yielding to this great invisible creature.

When i am in the wind it feels like i am inside this road or path, and for that few moments i am within something else, something that came from beyond the city, beyond the sea. I would tumble after the wind if i could cartwheel.

The only thing better than a good gust is if there is a good wind in a thunderstorm. I used to stand at the balcony whenever there is a good storm, and just stand there silently watching the trees and the clouds, leaning over and supporting myself on the elbows. I won't understand people who fear lightning, i guess. Somehow standing there, feeling the wind on my face and listening to cracks and flashes of lightning makes me forget where i am, and just for awhile the city ceases to belong to us, it belongs to the skies, the surge of electricity from the heavens, the rippling twisting clouds.

And to the rushing, pulsing winds.

Friends in tonnage

2006-10-29T01:27:00.000+10:00

Have you ever considered the phrase "i have tons of friends" literally?

I was chatting with a friend online, and she has this misconception about me seldom talking to girls. I was going to retort "haha, well you are wrong. I have tons of female friends." But i didn't, because that would seem like a weird brag, and it would also make me seem like a masochistic pig. Which wasn't the intended context. But that aside, it got me thinking.

Your average friend should be about 50-60 kilos. Lets say 55kg, if you have mainly asian friends. A ton is 1000 kilos. So, in order to be able to brag that you know "a ton of friends", all you need to do is get 18 friends, give or take 2 (or three, if you have really diverse friends. in terms of weight.) Of course, males on an average are heavier, so you would need only 16 or so, and for girls, you'd need to know 20 or so.

Therefore, I have a ton of female friends. More or less. And i also have about 1.5 tons of male friends. :D

So yeah. I have tons of friends. About 2.5 tons or so.

(this number is actually inaccurate. I have tons more ;) I am just too lazy to sit down and start counting all the friends i know and meet on a regular basis.)

Existance

2006-10-19T00:16:00.000+10:00

"Sir, I exist!" declared Man.
"But," replied the Universe,
"That doesn't instill in me
a sense of obligation."
-anonymous

Delight of the day

2006-10-17T23:24:00.000+10:00

It has once been said, that "If you can't find something that makes you happy at least once a day, then that day was not worth living". And what makes me happy the most? I love new things, i love fresh new things, things that makes me think thoughts that i seldom think, and veers me to imaginations with a different tract. Things that are a bit different to what i normally experience as a day to day life often excites me.

So i have decided to sometimes post up my delight of the day. My delight of the day for yesterday was quite simple. I had a chicken sandwich with alfalfa. I know horses eat alfalfa, but apparently, so does these westerners. And they put it in sandwiches, and they put these sandwiches in plastic containers, then they put these containers on shelves. Then i come along, wondering what to eat, and buy them.

And it tastes refreshing. I never thought grass could taste so nice with chicken. Mind you, i am not saying its mind blowingly fantastic. But i could definately live with this for 3 days in a row. And that set me off to weird tangents for food.

So i was thinking, what if i placed chicken with raw bean sprouts? What would make it good? French Dressing? How about alfalfa with a sprig of mint? gonna experiment next week when i go to vic mart again.

So what is your delight of the day? Do you keep track of them?

Accomodation Woes

2006-10-10T22:53:00.000+10:00

Johnathan will be moving out next year to live with his sister, and so now i need to move. I actually saw this coming as far as last year, but the implications of it all never hit me until he me. So that leaves me with two options: I could stay on in seasons and put out adverts for new people to come on in, or i could move out.

Alas, i have grown quite sick of Seasons. For all its vaunted superior location, it isn't really anything that great. Plus the layout of the apartments leaves much to be desired, what with only one side of the unit facing the external, and that one side faces swanston. Dust galore. And the window is so tiny that proper ventilation in the room isn't an option. It is also opposite to a pub, and on warm nights there are people who get drunk and decide to dance/fight/yell/party in the middle of that oh-so-broad Swanston street, making lots of noise and waking me up. Sometimes i just wish a tram would come over and give them grievous bodily injury, or at the very least scare them till they crap their pants.

So the decision is to move. I have been eyeing several places, but none are definite. Still don't know what to do with my furniture. It will be difficult to move after settling down at a place for 2 years though. Sigh.

But, i am still open to other places. So to any of you who may be reading this and is interested in a housemate, or if you hear of anyone in the same predicament as me, please toss me a line. Any kind of help will be appreciated.

To make things more simple, heres a semi-vitae from me:

Name: Shou Farn, CHUNG
Nicknames: 炒饭（means fried rice. a bit of background here)
Hobbies:
surfing for random internet articles (dealing with a variety of academic/intellectual/net-culture),reading, drawing, chatting, writing
Courses: Biomedical Science
Usefulness: Will clean up when spurred, can cook passable meals

Hectic

2006-10-10T01:01:00.000+10:00

Just a generally hectic week lately, what with exams in a months time, and CTG going up into full swing.

So this is just a quick heads up, the show has been going on for 2 days now, and its currently a mini break on monday and tuesday. Full dress rehearsal on wednesday, shows on thursday, friday and saturday.

A trailer here. I am just showing it for fun, by the time you read this the show is probably over. Me and my procrastinations =_= They are going to do a Mandarin adaptation of Agatha Christies famous play, "Mousetrap", which is currently the longest running play on earth. The grandaddy (or mommy) or all whodunnits (at least, in my opinion).

I realise that i haven't even posted once about CTG (Chinese Theater Group), which is quite shocking considering how big a part of my life it now is. Well, for these two weeks anyway. Met a lot of good friends here, widened my circle of acquiantances considerably, had a lot of great fun. And i acquired a hk accent and a mainland chinese accent. That part was a bonus :p

Though the very first time i went on stage it was almost too humiliating. And i think they had entirely too much fun with my face.

I'll appear on stage again this time, for a very short while.
And this time around, i will look way cooler.

-expletive-

2006-10-02T15:08:00.000+10:00

[EmoRant]

As the numbness wears off, this poor soul is left with the gut-wrenching realisation that he has 3 midsems to tackle this week, as well as daily CTG full dress rehearsals to attend.

Left in the dust is a plaintive sob of befuddlement, wondering how on the nine red hells did he so blithely waste away 2 weeks of hols.

Yes i had a good holidays, dammit, and i now have to suffer for it. T.T

[/EmoRant]

Drawing

2006-09-22T19:37:00.000+10:00

I rediscovered my passion for drawing last night, when i should have been studying. But, i was sitting in front of a window, and the window is so reflective, and the pen that i should have been holding is actually a mechanical pencil, and... yeah.

So what came out was this:

Anyway, went home and fooled around a bit, dug up some old concept art photos as a reference. Wasted an hour merrily.

Also redid an old character concept, shown here as the before and after. If you can't tell which one is before and which one is after i will go lock myself in a room and cry.

Perhaps i should go into a bit of my "art history" here. I used to hate art. Can't draw for nuts. For some asinine reason my Pendidikan Moral teacher in primary school wants us to draw out those little diagrams that belies a moral conundrum (to cheat or not to cheat?), and i would always run to my dad to help. Then my mom would break out the tracing paper, and... but thats another story. The point is, i can't even draw inane Pendidikan Moral figures.

All that changed during secondary school. I met two friends, and we sat around each other. And secondary 1 (we call it Form 1. go figure) is very care free. So carefree, in fact, that we spent all day playing paper games and erasers and nametags. All sorts of games. And when one of us won, we'd do little street fighter figures of one person kicking the other persons ass on paper. And we'd make distinctions on characters; friend A's character is blond and has a white headband. My character has black hair, white head band and black shorts. Friend B's character wears a cap. And so on.

As our figures grew more and more elaborate, so did our skill with anatomy. Somehow we'd branch into micro comics, 16 squares or so, of one person fighting the other with unique skills (salted fish attack! micro wave sound sonic boom attack! jelly attack! Cincao drink attack! Saliva attack! Middle finger attack!), and from there we made up entire heroes and villains, fantasy landscapes and resident monsters (inspired directly by pokemon. Ahhh, pliable young minds).

Come second year of secondary school, one of them has already stopped drawing. Perhaps, having outgrown this childish business of fantasies and cute little sidekick monsters. But i never stopped. Been on hiatuses, yes, but never stopped. Somehow the notion of drawing something, an entire universe,shaping thought into paper.. it was exhilarating. Joined the art club during my 4th year in secondary school, and some years later, here i am.

I was actually feeling pretty smug about myself, until i met a friend of mine this year. She has been drawing for only 2 years, and has now commisions and what not. In fact, she will be selling art in the Melbourne anime convention called "Manifest" tomorrow. Even has a deviantarts account. Go check it out.

If some of you are already snickering from the fact that all these has its origins from a single-minded, juvenile urge to gloat in front of schoolmates from a paper game victory, then you'd be right.

But i don't regret a single bit of it.

I'm BACK

2006-09-16T03:43:00.000+10:00

HAHAHAH, I AM BACK!!

OMG, not that i didn't want to post, but i deleted my saved passwords accidentally, and i forgot what the username AND password for this account was. (The author knows that this excuse is extremely lame, but assures the readers that it is completely true).

Anyway, its now 3:39 in the morning, and is not so fine a time to ranting about in the cyberspace, but i have nothing to do, and jon is still in the shower, and i just got back from strenous physical activity, and i was fiddling around with the account, and somehow i got in again, and if you are tired of repetitive sentence structures, and are wondering why on earth you are still reading on, and if you are not averse to using physical pain as a means of shutting a person up, and.....

Well, apparently the password was NOT, as i previously thought, ******, but rather is ********. And in the past, i have only fiddled around with ****, ***** and *****.

Just came back from the MoMU ball and the after party. The ball was so-so, but seeing as it is their first ever time organizing such an event, i won't complain too much lah. The after-party though, was gooood. Never thought that i would ever say this, but for the first time, i enjoyed clubbing this time around. Called Platform One or something like that, the entire clubbing space is actually made in the form of tunnels, with the main gyrating/twitching/spasming/dancing area as one long tunnel. But the best thing about this place is the ventilation. I can frequently feel this stream of sweet, cold, fresh air drift through the area. Even with the entire place packed, it was cool. Part of the reason why i liked the place, actually. Thumbs up thumbs up.

On the way back though, was the best thing that happened today. I saw this red piece of paper on the ground drifting along, and all jon and wendy (was walking back with them) did was stare at it. I swooped down, picked it up, and i was right: AUD 20 dollars. Mehehehehe. EAT YOUR HEART OUT, XUE FANG!! (she picked up 2 dollars from the club floor).

So thats it for the night. Will post more. If you are wondering why i don't sound normal and composed and lucid as i normally is, well, extreme tiredness does that to you. I am at the stage now where the lack of sleep is making me feel chirpy. And high. I think most people who have stayed up and chatted with me beyond 3am will know what i am on about. Meheheheheheheheheheheh.

Superman

2006-07-10T02:00:00.000+10:00

I watched Superman once with my brother and another friend, but then dad wanted to watch it as well, so it was made into a family trip, and i got to watch it for a second time. And as you may have done before, we tend to notice things that we missed the first time around. The report where superman is seen all over the globe, i caught a fleeting mention of "Gotham". While i know that in the DC universe Gotham exists alongside Metropolis (is that his city? nevermind), still, hearing it gave me a tiny thrill.

WARNING, SPOILER ALERT, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

However, i soon started to notice little physics errors. So, physics buffs! Can any of you help answer these observations?

1) During the scene where Superman was playing omnipresent Ear-In-The-Sky, he hears the gatling gun thief and swoops down with a sonic boom. The thing is, we hear the boom instantaneously, as he hits atmosphere. While he could be travelling fast enough to break the sound barrier as soon as he hits thick air, should we hear it a few seconds after he passes through? From our vantage point. =/

2) You know how Kitty "accidentally" dropped the crystals from the plane? and on the spot of ground where the helicopter is, where the crystals dropped, it collapsed. So didn't the crystals fall into the sea? Why didn't they sprout and grow?

3) Superman lifts the entire crystal continent off into orbit, and with a final push, the continent sails off into space. Then, weakened, he slowly drifts back into the atmos- but wait! he is extremely close proximity with a landmass the size of a largish island, and at that height, even a mass the size of a large island isn't sufficiently attracted by the earths gravity anymore. So why should Superman be attracted to the earth? He is in such close proximity with the landmass, he should be pulled by its gravity field instead, shouldn't he?

4) After he ejects the island inland into space, he falls back, cape flutteri- wait, how come his cape flutters? At the distance where an island can be released into space, there should be no more air! =/

Anyway, i am a bio-person, not a physics person. Perhaps i am just misguided and mistaken. If so, please correct me =P

I am, however, happy that the director thought of a freefall situation in the plane, when it was falling, in the very beginning. Yay for freefalling. So.. thats about it. Please tell me if you people see anything else in the movie worth mentioning.

Truthful advertising

2006-07-07T12:04:00.000+10:00

I have, at long last, stumbled upon truthful advertising on the net!

While checking my mail in Yahoo the other day, i was about to log out, when i saw this!

How neat is that? GOSH I COULD WIN RM00,000! I WIN THAT EVERYDAY! I AM A WINNEHHH!!

not.

Before you get any weird ideas, the google search slot saying "Boys Will Be Girls" is actually about a weird program revamping a male rockband into a girl band. Spice Girl Style. Someone referred me to it. Read about it here.

weird little gender and pop-culture experiment, i know.

*I really need to learn photoshopping. I have this wicked idea of making my own RM00,000 voucher images and pulling a lot of crap, but i have no idea how to even manipulate fonts. >.<

Personality test, i succumbed

2006-07-05T22:58:00.000+10:00

Alright. For the first time ever, i succumbed to doing a personality test online.

Which File Extension are You?

There. Apparently i am HTML.

Seriously though, how accurate are these things? What is the error margin? i would give it plus or minus 80 percent.

Holiday project

2006-07-03T00:21:00.000+10:00

Barely two days after my holidays post, inspiration struck! I have a project: to make my own blogskin!

And i need your help. I have already searched the net for some beginners guides, but i would still like to know what you guys did for yours, and you websites, if you have any, that you found useful.

Are there any recommended blogskin programs?

I guess i am just tired of the same cookie-cutter schemes that everyone is using. I chose this one originally because i liked the theme "scribe", and i sort of like words, and the papyrus-like setting was sort of cool. Getting sick of it though.

Any advice for nooby lil old me? Any would be appreciated.

Holiday Post

2006-07-01T02:32:00.000+10:00

How do you spend your holidays? Lazing around home and abusing the play station? Lazing around home and abusing the bed? Or a combination of both? or are you the active kind of social person who has such a lot of friends that there are activities everyday? Or maybe are you those who vow to do something productive every single time the holiday starts?

I used to be like the last one. Every single time, since i could remember, i would vow on day one to do great things during holidays. I have since forgot what i have sworn to do. It ran along the lines of planting something (mostly melons, cuz i succeeded in growing a honey melon once :D) in the backyard, or making handicrafts (my parents bought handicraft books in the hopes of us growing up adroit. So much for that lol). In sillier occasions, i just swore to do something without anything in mind, because swearing to do something makes the holidays seem like a great adventure waiting to happen, and because i used to get such a headrush thinking about doing productive things. The key word here is "thinking".

Inevitably though, as the routine of holidays settled in, those noble goals of productivity gets pushed into tomorrow day after day. It would be wake up, laze, brekkie, play some games, read books, eat, exercise a bit, then evening would approach, and i would make a vow to start something the next day. It would go on until the next day is the day school reopens. I was such a silly kid back then.

As i grew up into secondary school, i still had such sentiments (perhaps a relic of primary childhood days). This time however, the goal is to write stories, draw comics, become a better artist. Writing stories never happened because i refused to hold a pen during holidays back then, drawing comics never materialised because i completed a single, very juvenile stand-alone comic and got laughed at by a whole class. Not my own class mind you, but for some reason the class next door got hold of it. Go figure. I still sketch from time to time, but drawing comics...

Then i got the PS2. Suddenly my goals seem much more realistic. Goals means i would finish a certain amount of games in a set vacation. This new combination worked wonders for me, unfortunately, it also worked into tempers for my mom, who didn't appreciate her son staring at the TV while periodically moving the fingers for 5 hours at a stretch. So i nearly finished my holiday aspirations for the very first time, if not for maternal intervention. Sigh.

Now that i have gone to aussie and back, my holidays doesn't have much goals. The only goal is to absorb as much of the family atmosphere as possible. That, and to thoroughly enjoy the bigger kitchen, the bigger bathrooms, not having to worry about what to get for dinner, not having to cook, not having to wash up (HAH), not having to worry about laundry (HAH), not having to worry about doing anything.

And the weird thing is, without any goals, i actually accomplished more. Taught myself to play a few songs on the piano, made some chocolate brownies today. And theres two more weeks.

Survival of the Competent

2006-06-28T01:48:00.000+10:00

I got this gem from Rotten.com

KIEV, Ukraine - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in the Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said Monday.

“The man shouted, ‘God will save me, if he exists,’ lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.

“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”

How stupid is that?

Nice to see Darwin invoked. Survival of the competent, indeed.

I'll bet that, in the event the lioness thought him too disgusting to even touch, he would have gone on to proclaim himself the new high priest of whatever flavour of religion he was intoxicated in.

I should be feeling some sadness over a senseless death, but somehow i just can't muster up even a shred of pity for him. Just general amusement knowing he probably stands a chace of winning the Darwin Award.

UROP

2006-06-02T15:55:00.000+10:00

Well, i got into the interview, but i didn't get the job.

On retrospect, just getting the interview was a feat in itself. A number of people that i look up to in my course didn't even get to the interview stage. I am grateful for passing that at least.

Have been checking the mail box almost 4 times a day towards the end of May and beyond, waiting for the results that i hoped for.

Got the notification today.

Given the late notification, i know that i have already been rejected. But there is still the shallow feeling of being denied something i have wished for regardless.

Nothing to do except for getting better academic results and shooting for it again next time.

On the plus side i get to go home. I'm happy with that.

Kleptomaniac

2006-05-19T22:47:00.000+10:00

Heres a lovely quote i found on www.thequotationspage.com . It just sums up a situation nicely and poetically.

"A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can't help himself"
-Henry Morgan

Lost voice

2006-05-16T20:11:00.000+10:00

"We sometimes never appreaciate what we have, until we lose it." Until recently, i applied this adage to a lot of things but never my voice. I always thought my voice a slightly husky, unservisable thing. I can't sing with it, it doesn't attract attention. Until the day before yesterday, that is. A viral got to my vocal chords and rendered me mute.

So the past 2 days have been something alone the veins of someone talking to me, i turn to them, open my mouth, ready to speak, and nothing came out! they look at me like i am tricking them. I try harder, then out comes the rasp "eeelooo. I looost my(this one is silent) -oice..!" Imagine a cookie monster tone.

I went to the market today and tried to buy something. A vietnamese woman was standing at the stall. I pointed at a piece of meat, and help up two fingers, indicating that i want 2 pieces. The woman went about the route of most profit and took it to mean i wanted 2 kilos. I shook my head and shook my hands at her vigorously. I gestured and tried miming 2 pieces, pointing at this piece and that piece, and she just stood there and stared at me. I tried lip synching it, but apparently my lip syncing has an accent, either that or her eyes are degenerate. Finally, frustrated, i resorted to The Voice. Out came the cow-groan :"I(silent) want t-two pieces..!!" She stared at me blankly. "TrrTWO PIECES!" "oh two pieces sir. yes sir".

Argh.

So boys and girls, treasure your voice. Heck, treasure everything you have. There might be one day when you will lose it. Never take these things for granted.

Sleeping pills

2006-05-16T19:53:00.000+10:00

I finally went to see the doctor on monday. And i tell you, clinic air is the worst. The moment i went through the entire procedure and sat down to wait, the tonsil starts tingling. And it started to ache. wtf.

I got in and proceeded to rasp the symptoms to the doctor. He jotted a few notes, typed in a few things, i saw the highlighted words "acute laryngitis", printed something out, signed it, and said:" there you go". Thats it. I waited 45 minutes for a 5 minute encounter. Zippy.

The printed material turned out to be a presciption, and i had to go down to the pharmacists to get it. Sien man. I didn't know that this isn't like Malaysiam clinics, where they have all the drugs and a few aunties packing them on the spot. Telling a sick man to commute all the way to the city to get drugs ah? later he spread the disease how? or actually them medical practitioners prefer it that way. hmmmm.

For some reason he didn't prescribe me anything for coughs and throat illneses. What he DID prescribe though, was a godsend. SLEEPING PILLS! wow. I always hear about these things, and how movie starts used them, and how people use it to kill themselves. Never thought i would get to use it one day.

I used one that night. And it is damned scary. I took one, then went to bed, coughing all the way, struggling to sleep at about 9pm. The next thing i knew, i woke up. Bam. One minute the housemate is doing work outside with lights on, the next moment i woke up in darkness, my pillow on one side and the bolster on the floor. And it was COLD. What a way to wake up. But it felt gooood. For the first time in 4 days i was able to roll around in bed without ever coughing.

Slept again till 8. Definately in much better condition than 12 hours ago.

Sleep cures all.

Annual Misery

2006-05-14T04:45:00.000+10:00

I am sitting here at 4:43am with the lights on, possibly disturbing the sleep of my housemate (there is a transparent patch on the upperwall that allows light to filter through. weird, i know). The sleeping cough has gotten me yet again. I don't know what to blame anymore.

I lie down to relax, and my throat starts tingling. My nostrils quiver, and my lips twitch. Before i know it the first one comes, and with it explodes a series of spluttering breaths, waking up the dead and disrupting the sleep of many. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't do anything. It isn't even ejecting anything out, aside from noise. It just is, and what it is, is damnably annoying. Its totally wrecked my voice for the next few days, and i have an interview on Monday! Oh the humanity!

There is an ironic twist to this. So far, there has been one predominant thought roaming through my head throughout the ordeal; that which is our Microbiology lecturer (Jannsen, with his zeal burning in his owl-like eyes) saying to us: "you have to remember, microbes do not WANT to invade you. They have no INTENTION to make you sick!" Well, no shit, Sherlock. Me agreeing with it doesn't make my predicament any easier, just a hell lot funnier.

Did i mention i have a test on Tuesday? I have a test on tuesday. My nights are spent trying to study, which gets me tired, and i would try to sleep. The moment i relax, BOOM. Lather, rinse, repeat. For 3 freaking nights.

Somehow i can't help but be reminded of last year, when i had my worst case of sorethroat of my life. It is aroudn May as well, and i caught it like i did this year, right in the peak season for diseases. It wouldn't have been so bad, but my parents insisted on me going to the doctor. And Aussie, being such a great country that protects its toiling workers, made sure that the only clinic close enough is not open. How i miss those 24/7 polikliniks back in Ipoh. So the only choice: hospital. Which charged me an extra 100+ or so because i had to use their emergency facilities (there are no walk-in patient counters there). I still had quite a mild case, but it was cold, and it is a freaking hospital (germs floating about). Bureaucracy and other patients combined made the wait about 3 hours long. By the time it was my turn, i was already shivering, and the manageable sorethroat has became a full-fledged stabbing pain. I could barely swallow.

I think it extremely justified for me to say May is one of the worst months of my life here in Aus.

11 more months to go.

Western Home Remedies, HAH

2006-05-13T16:21:00.000+10:00

Due to a combination of post-workshop clubbing, winter chills, flu season, and sweet chilli potato chips in a series ot 3 days, i fell sick a month away from the exams. Sorethroats and coughing are an unholy pair indeed. Thankfully it was less a case of sorethroat and more of coughing. Whatever it is, the direct consequence has been that i lost a LOT of sleep, and thus a lot of concentration times when i could have squeezed in substantial studying. Thats right, blame nature, not me (mehehehe).

Its been about a week now, and this afternoon the malady finally shows signs of abating. The first two nights were okay, got up a bit later, and rendered me a bit lethargic as well. Thats to be expected. By the third night i was coughing sporadically, but it still wasn't enough to cause me serious problems. By the forth night i think i was waking up my housemate and neighbours and nearby birds and the occasional spirit with my hacking cries of involuntary air expellations.

Fed up with just waiting for nature to run its course, i hooked myself up to the net and went searching for "home remedies". Lets take a look, shall we?

GINGER AND GARLIC TEA
Throw some shredded or sliced ginger into boiling water, along with a clove of garlic. Add a tablespoon of lemon into it, as well as honey.

Now, any chinese worth his/her salt will immediately go "OMFG SF you MORON, GINGER??!!!"
And apparently, i AM a moron, or at least banananised to such an extent. Ginger=single most heaty thing you can find in a normal kitchen. Ginger=sorethroat. Ginger=trouble. Ginger=hot. And i drank 2 huge mugfuls of the stuff right before going to bed. Predictably, the troubles began. When i was standing up and walking around, it was still okay. When i lied down though, or at least got into any sort of position of comfort, my throat started to itch like ten thousand fleas at the rumba. Stand up, dispelled. Relax, itch. Would have been okay, if not for the fact that i got not freaking sleep whatsoever. None. WTF.

So, to my chinese brothers and sisters out there, Screw the M*****F***ing CB AngMoh Home Remedies!!!!!!

Don't be like me, ok?

Miss

2006-03-23T23:04:00.000+11:00

Once in a while i fall into this melancholy mood, and i start thinking about the past. Strange how when one gets something good for a change, and you think you are happy, when suddenly you get a yearning for something in the past. I am happy now, with a good timetable, and absolutely fabulous subjects. Yet something afflicts me. I am lonely. Not in the BF GF kind, and not for want of conversation. Yes, i have a housemate, but thats just the two of us. And Jon isn't particularly in the same wavelength as me. And internet conversations just get so superficial sometimes.

What i miss is my first year here in Aussie. I miss the camaraderie that only a gang could provide. I could honestly say those months where we had outings, late night chats, Safeway trips, card games, are one of the best times of my life. There is just something indescribable about having a regular group of friends you can go to, who are in the same building as you, and you can just look them up for no other reason other than you are lonely. No conversation is even required. Sometimes we just study together, even when it is different topics, different schools even, silently, but never lonely. I miss that sort of sanctuary you can retreat to, away for a while, from the new country, the new state of independance and responsibility i have been thrusted into.

Ever since i started biomed i have been rather lonely. Its like i haven't a stable gang of friends in uni or even back when i was in Trinity. The ones i consider my "true" friends are always domestic, and sadly, it holds true this year as well. The sad thing is that now my gang is no longer in close proximity. I am alone. Sometimes i can feel the loneliness, especially at lectures like genetics. I see people walking up the aisles, happy, chatting with their bunch, laughing, while i sit singularly on a spot, with a fake smile and pretend industriousness, sorting out my notes. I sometimes latch on to acquaintances, and some are even quite close. But the nature of their conversations are so different, so uninteresting(to me), that i cant join in, just give nods, make irrelevant comments, and feel like and outsider. And thus i leave. Ergo i am lonely. Sigh.

Ikea leggo furniture national set

2006-03-16T16:58:00.000+11:00

I think Ikea should have this national lego furniture set, seeing as it comes from Denmark and all. Plastic cushions, blocky sofas, beanbag filled with legos(oww) or for more comfort, filled with those legoman heads. And the best thing of all, it would fit the modus operandi of Ikea perfectly, its all self assembly! Instruction manual included lah, of course. You assemble everything yourselves, including planks. And sometimes you might even need to assemble the nails themselves. All they need to do is to sell you this big bag of plastic and this sheet of paper. This is a dream come true for those DIY nuts. Or, if you would prefer, the kids can do it all for you, though we mustn't be startled when they turn your sofa and coffee table set into a 4 seated spaceship with blinking lights.

This is such a good idea i am going to write to Ikea tonight, even!

Socially Acceptable Living Room

2006-03-14T21:07:00.000+11:00

So now me and jon have a socially acceptable living room. By socially acceptable i mean we have an honest-to-gosh fully functioning TeeVii. Socially acceptable because Keegan and XXL, have always been buggering us about our curious TV-deficiency, which they claim will cause some inefficiency in the functioning unit of the house called a living room.

Actually i had been anticipating a TV since last year, and the proof of that is i got a TV stand second hand from some guy, on the year before last. See? i have vision. A 2 year vision, in fact. But the TV didn't materialise last year, and the poor stand has been forced into the humiliating role of shoerack and part-time mice hive. Not anymore. Now it is the proud supporter of our 51cm (thats 21' to you self-alienating weirdos) and a brand new DVD player. For the first time in a year and 3 months, i watched The Simpsons in my own apartment. Heh.

As for the rest of the living room itself, we have been redecorating. I guess the blame goes to joshua, who has been having so much fun decorating his new place that jon caught the heat, and i gotsnatched along for the ride. Jon went mad, and got an earthen bowl-dish thing complete with stand and filled it with potpourri. We also purchased a huge piece of cloth to cover up the sofa, as well as another piece of cloth to cover up the coffee table. So.. Tadaaa! Socially acceptable living room. As a personal touch i got a windchime, which fell down on the first day. Knew i shouldn't have used bluetacks. I hung it up with something sturdier, so now it is tinkering merrily in the breeze.

I finally got a new table. My old one was 4th hand, and was given to me free by cousins. It was scarily creaky, and when i put my com on it, the table sagged in the middle until it gives one the impression that its gonna fall down anytime soon. Scared the heck out of me as well. My new table is larger, thus a bit misfitted. BUT, i got it at the reject pile in IKEA, its only malfunction being ex-displayed. So what if it is a bit scratched? I SAVED 40 DOLLARS. Looks a bit awkward, but if you see it, and feel inclined to make a comment, then please STFU. I LOVE MY NEW BIG TABLE! THE SPACE! AHAHAHHAHAHA!

Not satisfied with merely a table, i got a plastic cabinet. Crude, loose, but spacey, it has since this afternoon fulfilled all my storage needs. For 35$, its not a bad deal. Now my shelf can be a shelf and fill books like a proper shelf does, and not be burdened down by camera, wires, a bowl, stationary, water bottle, thermos, batteries, olive oil, CDs, trash, etc. I could almost hear the sigh of profound relief.

So thats it. The end of this post. If you are around the neighbourhood, drop by, visit us, smell the potpourri, gag at the potpourri(WHAT DO PEOPLE SEE IN THESE THINGS???), watched some TV, look at the table. Before it deteriorates into utter inhospitability again.

Too fat to fuck

2006-02-21T02:56:00.000+11:00

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-13508674,00.html

Lol i found this news over in a UK news site.

'They Were Pretty Big'
Updated: 13:19, Saturday February 18, 2006

A heavyweight couple caused a pub ceiling to collapse by frolicking together in a shower.

The pair checked in to the The Black Horse Inn in Taunton, Somerset, and spent an afternoon drinking in the bar.

They then went upstairs and got in to the shower together.

Their amorous behaviour caused some damage and water started to pour down into the bar below.

The couple left early the next morning, but not long afterwards the ceiling collapsed, leaving landlord Steve Ball with a £5,000 repair bill.

Mr Ball said: "They went upstairs at around 8pm and it wasn't long before we could hear them in the shower.

"They were pretty loud and all the regulars found it pretty funny at first.

"But then a torrent of water started pouring from the shower and into the bar.

"The couple were pretty big, they must have had a combined weight of 35 stone.

"They must have dislodged a pipe while they were in the shower causing the water to flood down."

All to which someone commented:"I understand fatties need lovin' too, and I'm thrilled they're sticking to each other rather than finding some skinnies to smother, but damn, when you're so fat your sex literally causes a floor to fail, you're too fat to fuck. Officially too fat to fuck. And that, my friends, is fucking sickening."

NOTE: i am pretty heavy myself, but this takes the cake. The thing i found hilarious was how the patrons were laughing at the noise, then changed their tune when the water started to flow down, LOL.

Hotmal.. oops, i mean, hotmail.

2006-02-20T00:36:00.000+11:00

Hotmail is just subliminal messaging for Hot Male, i tell you. It may be a vast conspiracy to lower our moral values and increase the temperature of our males!! AHHHHHHHH

Feb 15th

2006-02-15T17:28:00.000+11:00

The day of roses and chocolates passed by without a whimper of occasion in this little corner of Ipoh where i reside.

I sincerely congradulate those who got laid last night.

Right. Now all of you would to wait another year so that you can make up for your lack of affection to loved ones in 364 days by making a grand commercialised gesturein one day to erase the record.

Holiday post- Of regret and screaming.

2006-02-13T21:10:00.000+11:00

There is something seriously wrong with me. I am almost hoping to start all the studying again. Home is starting to get boring, but no way in hell will i go back to Melbourne so soon. Aussie will be even worse, for now.

Internet is my best friend, lalalalala.

Seriously, holidays can start to get so dull. Then as the trend goes, there will be a period where you start yearning for things to start rolling again. Then out of the blue the holidays will end and when taht happens my tune will dramatically change and i will be suddenly thinking "WTF have i done this whole holidays noooo i do not want to go back i haven't bonded enough with my family yet ahhhhhhh" all the while walking in to that tube thing that takes you into the plane, nevermind the fact that i spent my free time during the hols unabashedly staring into the computer screen like what i am doing now only to realise i will be screaming later AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ok thats my holiday post. I have wasted enough time as it is. Less than two more weeks and the hols end. Sigh.

Randomness-The Library

2006-01-15T22:26:00.000+11:00

I went to borrow this Reader's Digest Condensed Book in the library today, and since they all looked like each other so i randomly took one and borrowed it. When i read it though i just looked at the card at the back. The last person to borrow this book did it in 1999, and when i looked closer, lo and behold it was myself. Wtf i read this book 7 years ago.

Hair loss

2006-01-14T20:52:00.000+11:00

Well not really. But i was playing around with this stubble on my chin while i was surfing the net, and the hair just came clean off! WTF!

On one hand it may mean i don't have to shave, just pull, Ahahahahaha.

On the other hand may i be losing hair?? Crap.

Experiment end

2005-12-21T17:46:00.000+11:00

Well! I gave it nearly a week and then some, but no hits. On one hand it is good news, spam trolls aren't active. Always a good sign. Now at least i know stand alone terms doesn't attract any spam. I still don't get why a simple term like "biology" would get 4 hits of spam though. These people have the weirdest sense of association.

Experiment

2005-12-13T21:36:00.000+11:00

Okay, for those who would care to check my "Snippets-Biology" post you would see that i received 4 spams that congradulated me on my oh so enlightening and important posts on health and what not. Coupled with Keegan's former problem of spamming, i decided to concoct this simple experiment. I am going to post nothing but key words in the following paragraph and see how much spams i get. If anyone sees it then maybe they have an idea on what to avoid.

Heart disease viagra tongkat ali fat cholestrol biology penis large operation iraq money economy get rich quick blog bible god breast enlargement horny restaurant porn sale shopping deals cars win million crown prince royal family tunguska(no idea why i put this one) posters Orlando Bloom Britney Spears newest best university college loose weight gain mass united states health loans problem plan erection ciggarettes cancer UV medicine cheap sex free career finance manhood guaranteed muscle whipped cream lesbian manga hentai anime doujinshi milf action movies chance dating attract match increase credit medication UFO degree psychic motivation insurance.

Thats it. I can't think of anymore. Originally i wanted to make a sentence but i'll see what i will achieve with just broken words. Haha. Now all i need is to wait.

Writing

2005-12-12T04:14:00.000+11:00

Sitting here in my room at 1:20am in the morning. I just wanted to belt out a few words before i go to sleep. I was just sitting in front of the computer, not really thinking or doing anything, just listening to music, when i felt like writing little nothings.

The holidays are in full swing for me. I know this because i am slowly losing my sense of time. Sometimes i really have to struggle to remember if it is a weekend or not. Not to say i am not enjoying this. Though by all means it has only been a week plus since i returned to Malaysia. I guess my holiday time table has been a bit skewered since cousins and grandpa from Johor visited us right on the first week i came back. Anyway, my real holiday plans starts tomorrow. Means i have to get up and start doing all the "productive" activities that i keep promising myself i'd do every holiday. I'll see how well this turns out. After all, there is still another 2 months.

My dad and younger brother is in the room next door watching football. I don't think i will really get the game ever. Cynically you might say it is a game of 10 men chasing a ball only to kick it away right after they got it, to 2 person who desperately doesn't want the ball anywhere the hell near them. Ahahaha. Just realised i lost passion for watching sports. Any sport. Well, maybe not ice skating. Nor badminton. But nearly all other sports.. bleagh.

I have this knot in me that needs untying, though i know not what it is. I feel like i have an issue with something, but i know not what. It is a rather passive discomfort, like there is a dim, unresolved issue lurking deep within me that may be 2 days old or something. Which is the main reason why i am writing this piece with no apparent association between paragraphs. I am sort of hoping i can pull it out by writing what is on my mind. No success yet. I hope i will remember what it is eventually.

On another note, i am rather exciteted about the possibility of getting a new laptop. It is rather materialistic, but i get a thrill whenever i think of having a new laptop, better than the old one, and me sitting there transferring all my stuff into the new one and personalising it. Its the process that excites me not the thing itself. However, i really do want a new one though. This one is almost 2 and a half years old, getting slow, and the memory space is rather limited. This computer would have been good for office and business work, which is precisely what it was originally for. But for a student like me who likes to collect random movies and cool junk, limited memory space is a big nono. Don't even have a 3D card. Speaker sucks too. Sigh.

We have a beanbag! It was quite odd. I visited Joshua's place and sat on his beanbag to play on the PS2. All the while i was thinking what a great idea it would be if i had a beanbag. And hey presto! when i came back to Malaysia i saw in my room a nice big beanbag sitting in my room. So cool. Comfortable as well. The only thing ever that isn't nice about beanbags is that it offers no support whatsoever when you want to get up. So make sure you get all the stuff you want like a drink, pillow, blankets, the game controller, the remote, snacks, air-conditioner remote, handphone, laptop, and whatever else you might need in a room well within reach before you sit down. Since it is so confortable to sit right into a beanbag, deeply embedded within. It is a bitch to get the beanbag so comfortable and you are in just the right position and you have to get up. Hahaha. Ok that is enough random beanbag comments.

Keegan is having a garage sale. Sigh. I wish i was back in Melb for a day. I love garage sales. There is just something unfathomly satisfying about browsing through other peoples rejects. It just reveals to you what kind of stages a family went through recently or a long time ago by looking at the stuff they bought. So fun. And somehow it is also comforting to know that someone had used it, and maybe loved it and had taken good care of an item before. I know it is certainly true on the matter of books.

I still can't believe how much i had taken our freaking LARGE house for granted. Of course, my house in Ipoh isn't THAT large. But it cetainly seems that way after living in a tuna-cannish apartment for the better part of a year. I went into the toilet and was like holy-goodness it is almost one and a half the size of my apartment room. Went to the kitchen and went OMFG i didn't realise it is bigger than the living room. Went to the living room "Walao it is as big than living the whole unit!" Haha. We have an Indonesian maid and i sort of forgot. Everytime i ate i'd look at the dishes and think "oh boy is this gonna be a pain to wash up afterwards" then realise "HEY I DON'T NEED TO WASH UP". But i didn't went and used a couple more dishes just for the fun of it because now i know how torturous housework is. Pity the maid really. Even if she is paid for it.

Getting tired of the PS2 for a while. All the button mashing has made the tips of my fingers sensitive. And sore. Especially the thumb.

Ok i think that is it for now. And it is STILL unresolved. Gah.

5 random things

2005-12-10T00:20:00.000+11:00

Well, thanks to Keegan who aroused me from inactiveness with his 5randomthingsaboutmyself thing, which he conveniently tagged unto me, i have to say 5 random things about myself. Seeing as how no one reads this blog i am afraid it will be a dead end here, for i won't be able to tag anyone else. But fear not! I still have my friendster blog! Still have a lot of victims there.

1. I whistle.
I whistle. If you are a neighbour of mine, or a former neighbour of mine.... ah heck. If you live anywhere around the vicinity of a 10 meter radius within me you will know that for a fact and curse me for it. Ever since i left the brassband i have this urge to flesh tunes ringing in my head. And since i can't sing for peanuts i whistle it and since i have been whistling for 5 years now. Therefore i can be shrill. And i still can't whistle a tune nicely. I can only do it shrilly. And annoyingly. Very annoyingly. Be afraid.

2. I like quirky quotes for nicknames.
Well some people likes their MSN nicknames to be simple, but i like mine adourned with a phrase that doesn't make much sense, or delivers a rather useless philosophical advice, or just plain nonsense. Sarcasm preferred. My first ever nickname was "SagelyNoddingTeddyBear". Which drew protests from friends complaining that it was too gay. Whatever. Currently i am using "Congradulations! You are unique, just like everyone else." Personal favourite was used by a friend in Germany, titled "WARNING! Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be nursed back to health, then shot again." Ahhh, nicknames. Fun stuff.

3. I do not like the war of genders, or stereotypical stuff.
I have to echo Keegan here, i hate labels. All those crap about how "real men" should act or how guys are not supposed to cry, or how there is a set of rules on how men and women should act. And my personal anathaema:" It is wrong for a guy to slap a girl, but if a girl slaps a guy, he probably deserves it." Biggest load of crap i have ever heard of. A person should act as s/he sees fit depending on a situation. If it feels good to cry, let loose! If a girl doesn't want to get married young, don't! If a guy doesn't want to open the door for the lady, don't condemn him. He doesn't owe the lady anything. Unless of course, if he does owe her something. Then that would be different. That would be a debt between individuals. Nothing to do with a person's gender.

4. I try to play back songs in my head.
You know how when you have listened to a song 7 times and it is embedded firmly in your psyche? When i hardcore on songs like that i can play it back in my head. No radio needed. And since it is all in my head anyway, there is no pesky reality interfering with the song's perceived greatness. If you walk by and you see me tapping on the table or chair or my leg or available surface, it will most likely be me playing a song in my head and i am trying to play the imaginary song on the imaginary piano keyboard. And if you see me puckering up my lips then be prepared to run. I am about to whistle. Well, at least the whistling isn't imaginary.

5. Me!
Mwahahahaha i try to be random. Make innane comments while feeling high in a conversation constitutes an abrupt past-time for me. Occasionaly i would open a conversation with an unsuspecting victim, or someone who is unfortunate enough to open one for me. The poor person will be treated to a weird sentence with no sense and i will yammer on about nothing in particular. But even when i am normal(heh) i still like the concept of randomness. I like the idea of a wildcard in every plan, a sense that everywhere, anywhere, something out of the blue might happen. It also helps that the most interesting cases in life are the random ones, or the ones that doesn't fit into any category. I love it when i read about some species that they discovered that doesn't fit into any phyla or classes or whatever. Bewildering the hell out of conventional thought is what i like to read about.

Aaaand that concludes the 5 random things about me. Enjoy your day.

Snippets-Biology

2005-10-24T23:17:00.000+10:00

I feel inspired to write again, though not much. now i aim to write a little snippet each day. Sigh. i have a feeling that this will be another one of those "promises" that will go down the drain. Again. Yeah. so here it is.

Biology

I finally realised why i like biology so much. It is because i am an avid collector of stories. I like to read. Thats why i enjoy bio. Let me explain how i came to this conclusion. We were on lectures about genetics, and it suddenly occured to me midlecture that DNA, they are just letters! And a sequence of DNA that makes sense, is called a gene. Its a word! And when the genes gets expressed, they get translated into Proteins. Which fold. And the folds interact with the bodily chemicals. A Paragraph! And how the various paragraphs interact with each other and produce locomotion, or how they tell the tale of digestion. A story!! And the cool thing is, as evolution goes, the unsuccessful doesn't survive. All of the stories in biology are best sellers. They HAVE to be, else they won't be here. That is the reason why i love biology. Everywhere you look you see the tale told by molecules, each of them interesting in their own way. And since evolution works in a free-for-all way, you find unexpected interactions all the time. Endless plot twists! What more can a reader ask for?

Word i found interesting today:
Simpatico: to be on the same wavelenght as someone, congenial, sympathetic.
Example: Joan and Lauren weren't always simpatico, but they complemented each other well enough, and the two roommates haven't had a fight as of yet.

Whim

2005-09-17T01:38:00.000+10:00

These few days i have been acting on whim. Been acting less on a rigid, rational analysis of a situation and more on instinct and whim. And i have been having fun so far. Take for example, 3 days ago. I was back from school, then i spotted this corridor corner on the corridor of my apartment. It has been there for the entire duration of my stay here (7 months) and i never thought about exploring the rest of the place. Well, out of whim, i did. It was as if there was this switch that went off in my head and i just suddenly decided that i wanted to explore the place, nevermind that i am tired, sweaty, parched and have my heavy bag with me. I was rewarded though, because i found this concrete space, more of a huge balcony, actually, where you can gaze at the stars perfectly. Which is nice since Mooncake festival is coming up and i feel like going out to some open space and stare at the stars.

And then there was yesterday. I was staring at the open balcony and there was a piece of hard paper near me. Stared at the balcony, stared at the paper, glanced at the balcony again then picked up the paper. 10 minutes later a paper plane flew out the balcony, made a perfect dive and hit a tree, rebounded and landed on the road. Then a tram ran over it. Heh. Normally i am much more environmental and what not. But that night... everything out the window. Damn, i submit to urges now. I know it is wrong but ever since i came here and notice i have this high balcony that opens up to a big wide space i have an itch to throw a barrage of paper planes all over the place. Seems like such a waste of oppurtunity not to. Sigh.

And now my latest act of whim: running over to CheeSings house to borrow a cake mould at 2am on a friday night. haha. Thats all for tonight.

Slack

2005-09-17T01:35:00.000+10:00

Just to drop a line and let people know i am still alive and not maimed or injured in any kind of way as to debilitate me and cause me to not write. My muse has went on holiday and my mind is now as uncreative as an uncreative person. Lame. I know. What can i say, my muse left me, so i am can't think of a suitable anology. har har.

Most random thing i ever did ever

2005-09-02T22:03:00.001+10:00

So halfway through my bath just now i suddenly decided that the toilet floor is too dirty, and so i cleaned it. Half nekkid, wrapped in a towel and covered with soap. Got the mop, bucket and some detergent, splashed water all over the place, mopped it all up. Even got the kitched area a bit wet. If its any consolation my lunacy created a clean toilet. For some reason i felt REALL GOOD after doing that. Go figure. Maybe i should act on whims more from now on.

If you don't already consider me a freak now would be a good time.

Current state of being: Random

Guilt

2005-09-02T00:57:00.000+10:00

One night i was getting hungry, and it was around 1:30am. SO i went out, and crossed Swanston to the 7-11 opposite for a meat pie. On the way back, i saw this huge shape of a figure stumbling out of the semi-alleyway beside Uropa. It turned out to be a fat caucasian man, a really big guy. And on his nose, all around his mouth is what appeared to be blood. He saw me, then went:"Call someone mate, i been mugged, i been punched in the face.." And he looked disorientated. I didn't have my phone, i didn't have my wallet. What i DID have, was the 20 cents leftover from the change. So i gave him that, and told him to use a payphone. I was alone on the streets, and i was feeling vulnerable, and for some reason i had this fear that he might be putting on a show and waiting to mug me. So i ran. On the way back, i passed Keegan's friend, LiWei. He didn't seem to have noticed me. I ran back up to my apartment. That guy was just 1 minute away from my place when i bumped into him. That incident was on my mind the whole of next day, but i went on with life.

So 2 days later i bumped into LiWei's blog. Heres the link: http://willywei.blogspot.com/ . Turned out that he and his friend bumped into the guy shortly after i went past them. They helped him, called the emergency number, etc. So it turned out that he IS indeed mugged. All of a sudden i felt the guilt. The guilt of leaving the poor guy behind as i ran away, leaving him mugged, disorientated, blood on his face. And it was pratically at my front door. I could have gotten down some tissue, went up to call the ambulance, gotten him some disinfectant. Something. Anything. Instead, i ran away. Somehow i felt like i have failed as a human being.

My mum told me that this is the first time i came across a situation like this, so i shouldn't feel too bad. But the pain is there. And i learnt my lesson. When you are out, BRING A PHONE. In case you are the one who got mugged, or met someone who did, you can contact someone. That, and to all the people out there, never walk alone on the streets at night. I used to run around thinking that i am all invincible just cuz i am a big guy. WRONG. That poor fellow was about twice my size. Yet he still got mugged, punched in the face, left in some deserted area. On big, safe ol' Swanston street. 3rd lesson, lend a helping hand to whoever who needs it. Carry the emergency number in your wallet, in your cell phone, anything. Lend out a helping hand to whoever needs help, who knows, this may happen to you or your friends.

And in the off chance that the man who got mugged may read this page: My sincerest apologies for leaving you out there. I will do better next time

Chain Writing

2005-08-24T22:20:00.000+10:00

... where i see something random and make a paragraph about it, then i write another paragraph on a word or phrase from the initial paragraph, chaining it. I post these when i have nothing better to do.

We have a digital clock sitting on the counter. It is platinum in colour, with the logo of Petronas at the top. It was given to my fater as a gift, though for what reason i have no idea. The funny thing is that there is another clock which is of the same type, model, and auxillary functions sitting in the kitchen back in Ipoh, and it is also a gift, from another company. I guess now we all know where companies look to when deciding to send people gifts. Still, i don't know what kind of gift it was inteded to be, since they are sending a chinese a clock. Call it a time piece, call it a digital time telling device, it is still the same.(For a Chinese sending a clock is an insult, it means waiting for you to die) Nevertheless, it is light, and it has many functions, and so i took it with me to Australia, looking at it even now. Most of the functions i approve of, and things like the day and date and month is immensely useful. The thing that made me wonder though, is the thermometer. A clock like this is not meant to be kept outdoors, because the plastic may very well melt, but nowadays who looks at the thermometer indoors? whats more, the gift was intended to be used in Malaysia, the place where thermometers have been driven to near extinction, save hospitals where they do anal probes, har har.

Kitchens. I personally feel that a kitchen can never have too much sauces, or too much spices. Get a bored person together with a lot of spices and seasonings and usually new foods will be born. Fun stuff, those. Me, i only have a meager can of mixed herbs, which taste i am getting fairly sick of. If only i can have a fresh supply of spring onions and ginger and coriander and chilli and basil and oregano. Those things works wonders on a bland meal. And lets not forget the tomatoes. Red is good. My kitchen is a mess now, because i haven't taken the trouble to clean it properly. And when i think about having to cook everyday my will just dissipates. Cleaning wise, that is. I still enjoy the cooking, and mom is right: when i feel too bored and it is dinner time, cooking up something new is always a nice diversion.

Tomatoes. Wonderful red orbs. I love the stuff. Buying them raw and eating them as fruits is what i like to do. And i do not eat it for its "flavanoids, which has been scientifically proven (gosh i hate those terms) to have antioxidant properties, blahblah". I eat tomatoes, because it tastes like a tomato, which is reasonable, given that it is a tomato, and i LIKE tomatoes. I get irritated when people gasp and go AH MY GAWD YOU EAT THOSE THINGS RAW!! In fact, i get irritated when they act all surprised that you can eat certain things a certain way. Like what they eat is the only legal and proper foods and all other people who eat other foods are freaks.

Eating. I am someone who eats almost anything. Only thing i don't like is slimy stuff, like ladies fingers. And the main reason why i hate the stuff is cuz it is slimy. Let me digress: i eat foods for the sake of the food, hunger comes a close second. I eat to enjoy, to savor the flavour, to admire how everything is combined together, and how the texture makes it so good. Enter the slime. The slime covers my whole tongue, saturating it with one flavor only. It is slick, and makes my tongue slippery. It is the texture that is an anti-texture, numbing my whole mouth. Yetch. And people wonder why i don't take ladies fingers. There is a basis to why people think mucus is disgusting, you know. I can proudly say though, i am able to take most foods and enjoy it. Makes life much more interesting that way when you can have more oppurtunities to enjoy ourself at meal times. You have to eat around 3 times a day isn't it? might as well make a a pleasurable experience.

Life. Somehow, i think people over-glorify life. They make it all sacred-like, but they still eat meat, still kill pests, still eat grain that has probably been splattered with pesticide, still take a bath! Hahaha. The fact is, life is everywhere, but it can end anytime. Be it a human life, a microbe, a giraffe, a cell, or a chick (you know who you are). The moment we live, we die. The only thing that has even a semblence to immortality are cancer cells, and a fat lot of good they do to you. "DON'T TRY TO PLAY WITH LIFE!!! THATS PLAYING GOD!!! YOU WILL BE CAST TO HELL!!! WHO ARE YOU TO KILL INNOCENT BLASTULAS??!!!" Those always makes me angry. Sure, thats killing, sure, that could be a human being. Think of the potential! Don't take a bath then. Your body skin is teeming with bacteria, and they can be beneficial, or commensal, or downright dangerous. But they are a life right? That baby might someday become a leader in world wide peace. S/He could also be a serial murderer. That strain of bacteria might hold the clue to curing aids. Hell, given another 10 year it might mutate to be beneficial to us, maybe even curing our skins of acne. Who knows? What are you bitching about? Its none of your business. If you don't want people playing with life, then don't have sex. Don't have children. We have been playing with life all throughout human agricultural history. Taming wolves. We are changing their evolution. We are changing their very existance into something else. Sheep, cows, horses. Humans have dictated how these lines breed. That is also playing with lives. The fact is, i don't see what is so sacred about human lives. Not that i will go out there and slaughter 100 babies and feel no remorse, but i just don't see what the hell is it that makes certain parties so riled up that they go poking their noses into other people's business. And i have yet to see a passage where god remarked that to play with biology is to play god, and to play god is forbidden. To me, life is life, a miraculous occurance, but a routine occurance just the same. To really understand ourselves, we need to poke, prod, examine, and find out more about what we are.

Science. Science is a weird thing. Science is all about knowledge, yet the more of science you uncover, the more you know that you don't know. To borrow an analogy, it is like clearing a pieces of unknown forest to discover a lot of other connected unexplored patches. The more you explore the more unknowns there are. Yet the fun is in finding them. Thats what attracted me to science. There are always the promises of new things. Unknown areas to uncover. Fun things to learn. The cutting edge. It seems funny how physists of old rain scorn on other sciences. When you think of it, nature doesn't care that we have divided science into different groups. We happily sundered the realm of the living into Biology, forces and motion and electricity into physics, and atomic interaction into chemistry. But bear in mind that there is no such distinction in the natural world. Nature doesn't give a damn about how this is biology and that it shouldn't include some physics. I think if we look everywhere and into every discipline of science, and if you look deep enough, these tags and categories become meaningless. The movement of the arm displays remarkable physics, digestion employs numerous different chemical reactions, enzymes rely on hydrogen bondings, which is made possible by atomic configurations, and electromagnetic forces hold the protein into shape. And so on. Thats what, for me, makes science so interesting. Peel away a layer of something you thought is familiar, and there is the promise of mystery. And the answer sometimes contains a bit of eveything, some familiar some not. It just has a way of making you reevaluate your opinions. You can look at your own two hands in totally different ways, yet it will still be familiar, because you had them your whole life. One just never realised what secrets it contained, and what makes it tick. I get a rush of satisfaction whenever i learn how something familiar to me works, and now i can remark to myself:"Oh, so THATS whats going on in there. Interesting. Good job."

CurrentMood: Feeling weird

Randomness-Coffee

2005-08-24T08:49:00.000+10:00

Ahh, Coffee, i depend upon it entirely for keeping me focused on lectures. Too bad it gives me one hell of a bad breath. Life is about compromise, i suppose.

Sunday

2005-08-23T11:53:00.000+10:00

Wow, that was such an eventful Sunday i had. Jon was telling me about this Badmiton tutorial for just 3 dollars at the badminton club at Melbourne Uni, so we went to take a look. And it was the University open day as well, so we pretended to be ignorant year twelves and asked for a melbourne Uni bag. And it irritated me so much because last year they passed out no bags, which proves to us how they use OUR money this year to make the bags. Well, at least we got one, haha. Anyway, we went to play badminton, XXL and Serene was already there. I didn't know what their "water level" is, but from what i could see, Sree seems quite Pro. Haha. me and jon realised that we would get trashed so badly if we challenged any of the frequents.

And we found out something: THE INSTRUCTOR IS EVIL. We had this training method where he whacks the shuttlecock all over the place and we are supposed to recipocrate, and then return to the middle as soon as possible. For mine, it was okay, he slowed the pace down, yada yada, cuz i was a sucky noob. But when it came to Serenes, he was like a demon, whacking the ball literally all over the court, and then when we looked at his face, we saw that he was grinning madly, enjoying himself watching people scuttling back and forth. Evil guy. Bu overall it was okay. My game really picked up when Serene taught me how to hold the raquet properly. Wow. I never realised how important it is to hold that thing correctly. I played so much better after that. Haha. Me and jon got beaten by XXL and Serene 15-10. Considered not bad for beginners. So fun. I will definately go again.

We also sort of planned to go for a nice midrange (15-25$) dinner at Lygon that night, and XXL wanted to go eat at Mondo Piccollo. Me jon and Serene all ordered Veal, and XXL ordered steak. We were waiting for the meal while chatting, taking in the nice ambience. In such a nice place you would expect excellent food right? WRONG. It was a shock. The veal looked like pork, which it is not, and there were only like, 4 stingy pieces,all which are sliced thin, which is not bloody much when you forked out 27.50$ AUD. Veggies were the cheap variety, and the only redeeming feaature is the avocados and fresh shrimps. XXL had it worse, her medium beef was grilled to the point of well done, and it was tough. The steak wasn't what was expected either as it was 2 little pieces, instead of one big piece, as was the norm. The two little pieces didn't even add up to a normal one at other cheaper places. The taste was mediocre. At the entrance the usher boasted this fat chef who supposedly have cooked for them for 20 years now, but when we looked in it was this young, lean latin looking guy, wearing a cap and working at the stove. So everything he said about a good chef is an utter lie, and the quality of the food (or lack there of) confirmed to us that the standard of this place has dropped a lot (apparently XXL went there before, and gave it glowing praise pre-shock). To say that we were dissappointed is an understatement. So now heres the message: DO NOT EVER GO TO PICCOLLO MONDO. That place is a bloody rip-off, and the less customers they get now the better. Cheats.

Disappointed with our dinner we went looking for desert. It was so funny. XXL wanted to go to a certain cake shop, and jon had in mind another. Under the impression that they were heading for the same place, we were led for a walk along lygon, passing those stupid restaurant ushers who kept ring to get us to go in and "get you some free garlic bread, you can sit wherever you like, get you some coffee" abour 4 times. And the worst of all was the Mondo Piccollo person, who can't recognise any of the people who he scammed. I had to suppress the urge to punch him 4 times. When we finally found the place it was already 8pm. We spent another 20 minutes standing at the counter staring at the cakes like idiots because we can't decide. I think the waitress was getting a bit pissed of at us. Her expression wasn't too encouraging. The cakes was nice. We had a ncie chocoate rum and raisin cake and an orange almond cake. And nothing more happened after that.

Current Mood: Foul, aching in a lot of places from badminton and wushu.

Cars

2005-08-15T21:59:00.000+10:00

I don't know why, but i am just not interested in cars. People my age tend to have their dream car, and they like to drive, at least my peers back home. They will all be like enthusiastic to learn driving, then they will be zipping here and there and everywhere over town. All except me. And my mum would occasionally come up to me and say:"So you still have no interest at all in cars?" And i would go:"No, mum, i don't". And i still don't.

And here i must start my rant. Why is it expected that "young people" my age should show an interest in cars? I mean, it is not a prerequisite for life, unlike breathing. And sometimes my peers would look at me like i am a freak just because i don't drive. I would understand it if i told them that i was reluctant about breathing.

And even if i started driving again when i go back, it would make no difference, i could drive a maximum 2 months, then it is off i go again back to Aussieland where i have no car, not even a bicycle. Then my hard reearned skills in Malaysia would go to waste as i spend another half to a year in Melb.

Haha. So yeah. Now whenever people aorund me chat enthusiastically about the car they want, and ask my opinion, i say that i want a Honda Civic. Why? Because my mum drives it!! Hahahahaha. Okay, end rant for today.

CurrentMood: Relaxed

Ants and the Giant Humans

2005-04-02T15:42:00.000+10:00

Recently i have been thinking. And it is in part due to biology as well.

Consider a eukaryotic cell (thats a cell with different compartments to you). It has mini organs(organelles), bound together by membranes, constituting a whole, working together. Then consider those organelles. They are made out of molecules of different sorts, working together as well, unknowingly, unconciously creating a "self". Now consider an ant, or animals or plants or humans in general. An ant is made of different organs, brains, limbs, exoskeleton, ect ect. Nature build on success stories, the large copying the small, only on a much grander scale. You still with me?

In an ant nest, different classes of ants come together and interact, performing their own functions so well caliberated to the others that the nest may seem like an individual, starting a war of territory with other nests, "moving house", finding food, reacting much as a single organism would.

So now, at what point will that happen to us humans? When you think about it, our conciousness depends on input from outside, sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, five senses. At the larger level, what we're building now is actually sensory organs of the mechanic kind. Satellites acts as neurons for information exchange, microphones acts as ears, cameras act as eyes, and we humans are acting somewhat like ants in a nest as well. We specialise, and contribute towards society. Granted, we have much more freewill, but from the big picture, it looks pretty much the same. So at what point will all these information, helped by we humans, take on a rudimentary form of conciousness? With the information network stretched across the globe, will the entire planet come alive? Is there an awareness starting to form within the throes of the billions of humans? Will there be an entity called Humanity, reacting much like a hive or a nest? If we ever get contacted by a super intelligence from an alien life, will it hold conversations with Humanity, while the individual humans scurry here and there unknowingly, unconciouss about being a part of a greater consiousness?

What do YOU think?

CurrentMood: O.o

Gush

2005-04-02T15:36:00.000+10:00

Its funny how sometimes i feel reluctant to sit down and really write something, like the email back home i promised my mum for so long. Sure, i have been busy, sure, i have a lot of things to do, but in the end i realise i am just procrastinating. Whenever i get reminded of it i have this image of myself sitting in front of the com for a few hours cranking my head on what to write.

Well, i finally did it like a week ago and guess what? i didn't even take more than 7 minutes. Less than 7 minutes, thats all it takes, and i have got a nice 3 paragraph mail done. Sigh... i have been such an ass. Same with this post. I haven't been bloging for the past 2 months with the excuse of being busy and now when i finally sit down to write something everything gushes out. So fast.

CurrentMood: Kicking myself

Pointless

2005-04-02T15:26:00.000+10:00

This blog feels kind of lame nowadays.. i mean, i don't think more than 10 people know about this blog, and then only a fraction out of that 10 will even consider coming here to entertain my ramblings. I suppose i am to blame, not updating for so long, till people forgot about this place. Oh well, you reap what you sow.

I have been thinking about doing anew, start another one, but this time try to post some stories on it. Who knows, they may strike a chord with someone, and i will get a huge following (haha, as if). Then i will get like 50 comments per post, and get flooded with email to update and hate mail to say how much i suck. Ahhh. Web fame, sounds so fun. Famous anonymity. If i am lucky i may even get approached by some editor of some remote magazine who wants my tales and then i will get rich. Haha.

So much for fantasies. I will use this post as an apology for not updating for such a long time, hopefully i can keep it up.

CurrentMood: Feeling Pointless

Annoying Greeting

2005-01-20T03:15:00.000+11:00

Well, seriously, now adays i have gotten really annoyed at the phrase "how do you do?", and "what have you done today?". To which i basically say the same thing. Then they ask me how have my holidays been. How am i supposed to answer that? I have tried "I'm fine", but after the 20th time, it starts to get old. As for the "what did you do", its the same as always! The thing is, those people that i chat to everyday, for instance Jon and Stephanie, or anyone, they ALWAYS ask me this. How am i supposed to answer that? its not as if i didn't say the same thing yesterday to them, or the day before, or the week before. I'm not exactly pissed that they asked, its just that, its asked the same way, everyday, and i answer the same way, everyday. Gods, don't people nowadays take a hint? If it has been the same for goodness knows how long, then just stop fricking asking the same thing.

Okay, for those who feels the need to ask this silly question to me again, I'm fine, I' not sick. I spent my day reading stuff, played a bit of piano, drew a little, read a little, played a little, went out for a while. Thats it. That is basically what i have done for the past 2 weeks of my holiday life.

If i were to enquire about a persons day, i would go "anything interesting today?", or something a bit more specific. Be specific, damn it. I hate it when someone asks me something vague, and i actually have to struggle to answer. Then there would be an awkward silence.

Maybe i'm just in a bad mood today, so i am just ranting. Its not everyday you see a guy pissed about someone greeting him. But for some reason... *shrugs*

Current Mood: Moody

Library trip

2005-01-13T13:30:00.000+11:00

Recently i have been attracted to the idea of writing out something again. I guess i must be a very easy person to influence, because i read a couple of really good stories, and that was enough to make my habds itch. It makes ME want to write. Sad to say, what motivates me is very much external.

So when Lai asked me out to the library i took this oppurtunity to discuss story ideas with him. It turns out that he is actually there to do some Form 6 Biology project. I hope he has more fun than my Trisomy 16 one. At least he gets to look through books with pretty (disgusting) yet fascinating pictures with bugs and beetles. Anyway, i was feeling pretty awkward, because i didn't want to disturb him.

But that guy just sat me down at one of the tables and we hit it off. I showed him my ideas, he shows me his ideas, we exchange news, and i take out a piece of paper for plot discussion. And we got more and more animated. It must have been a pretty strange sight. Two guys sitting there on a tiny table surrounded by Insect books, chatting and waving about, pointing excitedly and gesturing wildly while working on a piece of paper. People must think we rediscovered an extinct bug in Malaysia or something.

Its funny how getting another's perspecctive on something help you clear things up. Up till now, i have been reluctant about a certain idea i had, because i was stuck. Then, somehow, putting it on paper and mind maps gave the story a push. And Lai gave me a lot of suggestions he has. And the thing flew. So fun. I also noticed that i often have a lot of ideas for Lai's storylines, while he has a lot for mine. Perfect partnership i guess.

Well, after that we sorta packed up and left. I wonder if the guy did any work at all. Hope i didn't cost him anything. Bit anti-climatic right?

Current Mood: Slightly elated. Swaying to music.

Middle of Hols

2004-12-20T16:12:00.000+11:00

Well, its been two weeks, and its now somewhere in the middle of the hols now. And i haven't really accomplished anything yet. My original resolution was to go to the gym, learn Tai Chi, keep up my work with the flute, and hopefully write a few stories.

Checklist: Gym tick
Tai Chi cross
flute cross
stories cross
PS2 tick tick tick tick
yRO tick tick tick tick tick tick tick

Well, you get the idea. Those two in the end were not in the original plan, but... oh well.

But seriously, why do people nowadays demand that we do "meaningful" things during the hols? Isn't the holidays supposed to be a time of relaxation? and what better way to relax than doing something that you like, to get contentment from it? Isn't that quite meaningful enough?

Granpa's Birthday

2004-12-10T02:28:00.000+11:00

Today is grandpa's birthday, and as usual, my mom got busy the day before. She prepared the special "sugared drink" (read in cantonese), got ready a few dozen quail eggs and boyght a load of other stuff. On the big day itself, which is today, the entire family (well, minus a few this year) came to my grandfathers house to eat the special lunch my mom toiled away at making. Then after lunch, everyone stayed behind to chat and catch up on old times. A lot of my family now lives away from the hometown, in places like KL. For dinner, we had the usual, a family outing at one of the chinese restaurants, chinese dinner style, until welll after 9 pm. This happens twice a year, every year, for as long as i remember; once for grandma's birthday, the other for grandpa's birthday.

I am saying all this, because these are details i have come to cherish. Only during recent years, do i realise how lucky i am to have these kind of homestyle "almost-holidays", these household traditions, a festival of sorts. Especially after my year in Melbourne. I have met people who only live in nuclear families, little more than strangers to other members, i have also met people who has a large family, like me, but with a bit of bad blood in between. I also know some friends who tell me they just lie in bed all day on days like Chinese New Year, a boring day just like any other day. There are some who even told me they sit awkwardly next to their own cousins, strangers all. This is a lifestyle that is quite devoid of family traditions. It is kind of sad that these friends of mine don't have any "family tradition memories" to look back at, to discuss them proudly, to recall them fondly. Which all makes me feel very lucky that those scenarios did not happen to me.

I guess i have my grandfather to thank for this, for i think he has managed to keep the entire family together. And that is no mean feat, considering that the family is 45 members strong. I t is my grandpa who always insist that those families still living in Ipoh come over to the house for dinner. When i was still a kid, i used to think this very tiresome. But now, i actually see the sense in that. Thanks to my grandpa, all of the kids in my generation (all 20+) refer to each other with familiarity. Also, thanks to him, all uncles and aunts maintain close ties and relationships. And lastly, thanks to my grandpa, i have a series of fond memories to look back upon, be it Chinese New Year, or his birthday, or any sort of a celebration.

So, to my grandpa, i want to wish you a very happy 80th birthday, and thank you for all these years of family and joy.

Current mood: sleepy (stuffed)

Bo Liao

2004-11-21T03:07:00.000+11:00

I am posting just for the sake of posting, here is my forth post. This is it. Har har har. Hmm. This doesn't feel fun. Wonder why Keegan always does it. *scratches head*

Malanchony

2004-11-21T02:43:00.000+11:00

My roommate left. And i am feeling very lonely. And sad. It's really ironic. I have always wished for a room to myself all along. But then now that Keegan has left, i am feeling listless. Like my "beloved" T15 is not the T15 i have come to know anymore. I can't exactly put my finger on it. Its like the room lost all its colour or something. Its just not interesting anymore. Sigh~

Now I can't really relax in my room. Its too big and empty. Me and Keegan have always prided ourselves in keeping one of the coziest rooms in Albert house. Other rooms like Jon's room and XXL's room has a gaping wide hole in the middle that makes you feel useless when you stand there. Haha. But i am sure we are most definately the only twin share room in Albert house who has joined beds! But now the coziness is half gone. Sure, my poster is still on the wall, the rug on the floor, the Stop-If-You're-ShouFarn-Then-Take-Your-Key sigh he drew is still there. But the Gusle lamp is not there any more, and neither is Ashley and Hannah on the wall, or all the decorations on his shelf. The room looks "unlived". It has suddenly gotten a lot bigger.

If that is not enough, the stupid internet connection is failing me. Stupid thing can't even go on for more than 20 seconds. Thus the sight of a 188pound Malaysian Ipoh Male holding the computer with one hand in the middle of the corridor, directly below the router, holding the door open, while the other hand types. Sob. My arms became so tired that i was forced to find another spot. Which is why i am now currently typing this in the dining room at 3am in the morning.

Other than that, there is the exams. And i am forgetting the Semester One Maths. There is something sad about spending 1 and a half hours on Semester one beginner's stuff, while breezing through Semester 2 "difficult" stuff. Aih.I want this to end quickly. After seeing 4 people from my group pack up and go, i keep thinking about going home. Everytime i sit down to study, my mind drifts away and i envision my self doing all the oacking with breathless exitement. I can't concentrate. My mind keeps wandering. Hopefully putting it down here will help. I will have to study intensively tomorrow. Ganbatte!

Current Mood: title says it all (feeling glimmer of hope though)

Tears

2004-11-21T02:28:00.000+11:00

TEARS

Tears. He remembered them flowing down his face on that day. He didn’t know how he knew, since it was raining. He was out in the rain, the drops touching every part of his body. Maybe because his tears are hot. Maybe he tasted them, and they were salty. It didn’t made a difference to him anymore. He was used to this. He has always been left out in the rain. He was never been able to help. He can hear the cries, but he can never get inside. Always outside, outside in the rain….

Rain. She has come to dread the rain. Rain brings back memories, painful ones, those that she wants to forget. The first time, she was forced to watch. Watch Ben standing outside crying. It was raining, and he was crying outside, locked out by him. The fact that he was raining blows on her didn’t register much in her memories. She only remember seeing her Ben, crying in the rain. She only knew, now, the pattern. How she came to dread the rain. He had always stormed in on rainy days. Only on rainy days, would he come out of his study, lock Ben out of the house, and proceed to handle her roughly, his eyes glazed, breath stinking with alcohol. If she resisted, he would rain blows on her; if she didn’t, there would be cries all the same. Because of her cries, Ben would cry. He would cry amidst the rain, accompanied by thunderclaps….

Thunderclaps. The first thing he could remember of that day was of the thunderclaps. Thunderclaps, so loud, that he almost can’t hear the phone. Then came the news, of course. After the news came…he can’t remember clearly. He can only remember drinking, while crying in anguish, crying in despair over his little brother, his brother he had cherished so much… His brother has left home, left his family, to elope with her. When he first saw her, he knew nothing good can come of it. But his brother didn’t care about objections. Not from his friends, not from his parents, and not from him. He had eloped, then adopted a new name, and went into recluse. He had tracked Roger down, of course. Tracked him down, but didn’t interfere. He saw his brother’s life, and it was happy, though needy. He had consented then, to stop interfering, because he believed Roger was now happy. And he didn’t bother them. Just went on with his business in town, and monitored them once in a while, with an occasional visit, often with money slipped under the table, to make their lives a bit more comfortable.

Then came that day, that fateful day, with the thunderclaps. The day Roger died. He was involved in an accident, on the way to the hospital, where Ben was born, when his car lost control and crashed into a lamp post. A few hours ago Roger had phoned him, told him how happy he was, telling him that the doctor said it would most likely be in these few days, and arranged for him to be the newborn’s godfather. He had sounded so happy. That was the last he had ever heard of Roger. Grief stricken, he had staggered to the household bar, and drank himself to a stupor. The next day he had visited her. It was a boy. The doctors said not to tell her yet, but he noticed she looked panic stricken, and seemed to know why Roger wasn’t there with her. Later that day, she told him.

She told him. She blamed herself for Roger’s death, and so, she told him. The money he had given them on visits was not enough, of course. They were unable to manage financially because she has to stop working due to the pregnancy. They had finally succumbed to the pressure, and went to the loan sharks. She knew, the day before Ben was born; they left a message, a threat. Roger had tried to hide it, tried to reassure her, but she found the note all the same. She entered the hospital with trepidation. And when Roger wasn’t there the next morning, with the doctors putting up strained smiles for her, she knew. The autopsy report came later that day, and the police confirmed foul play. His brother went into a blind rage, and screamed in anguish. The hospital security personnel had to physically restrain him, and sedations were given before he would finally calm down. Two weeks later, he offered to let them live in his mansion. She accepted gratefully, and cooked meals for him, and cleaned up his house; and he in turn funded Ben’s education. But it was just a contract, there was no warmth, and he would only talk to her curtly, or not at all.

For the first two years, it wasn’t so bad, except on rainy days. He would fall into a melancholy mood, and she would flinch from the accusatory glares he leveled at her. As the years went by, conditions grew worse, and then it started. The first time it happened, he shoved Ben roughly out the door, in a drunken rage. Then he descended upon her. She didn’t resist, because she still blames herself. Blames herself for his lost brother, blames herself for Ben’s lost father, and blames herself for her lost husband. She remembers grabbing at the window pane, looking at Ben crying. All she can do now is to lie here, memories flashing through her head. Not memories of her ravage, only memories of Ben crying, crying in the rain, the most vivid ones always complete with thunderclaps…

Thunderclaps. Ringing in his ears, he remembers seeing his mother face sometimes, at the windows on the second floor, her pale face twisted in agony. It would always be Uncle Alfred who lets him in later, opens the door and leaves it open, and then turn back into the house, walking away curtly. He grew up in this, and when offered a chance to study away from the country, refused, for fear of leaving his mother alone, alone in the louse with Uncle Alfred. Until today, another rainy day, with thunder. Uncle Alfred had tried to lock him out again, but this time, he’d resisted. He is no longer a child now, a grown man, and he had shoved his uncle roughly. They had struggled, and Uncle Alfred had managed to push him down. By now, he saw uncle Alfred had a deranged gleam in his eyes. Ben had picked himself up quickly, and ran after him, only to see the gun. The gun, in Uncle Alfred’s hands, pointing at his mother. He hadn’t been able to stop him. A shot rang out, and hit his mother’s left breast. She slumped over, and a mad rage filled him. He now remembers, through a red haze, grabbing the gun from the cackling uncle, squeezing the trigger several times, and blood on the floor everywhere. The gun still in his hands, he staggered out into the rain, his head swimming in a sea of confusion, and he looked up. A shock ran through him, as he saw her pale face staring back at him, through the window. No! She is dead! Killed by his uncle! That’s why he’d… that’s why he… If she wasn’t hurt, then he wouldn’t…. He mumbled incoherently. Then, a wild thought, at first just a wild impulse, then turning into a coherent choice, finally coming to a concrete conclusion. His hands moved up, though he didn’t notice them. He can only focus on his mother’s face, her pale face, staring back at him, a face contorted with grief, and agony. How many times has it been now? Him standing outside, looking up, in the rain….

Rain. She can hear it as she clawed herself up the window pane weakly. She saw her Ben again, her grown son, staggering out with the gun. He looked up, and for a moment, she saw her him as a little boy again, crying, looking up. The illusion was shattered, when he slowly lifted the gun, with the muzzle finally resting on his temple. All the while he looked at her with haunted eyes. She wanted to shout, wanted to scream, but she was too weak. He pulled the trigger. She didn’t hear the shot, because thunder chose that moment to strike. Everything was dimming. The last thing she noticed before everything went dark was not the pain, nor the blood gushing out. Not Alfred’s body beside her, not Ben’s slumped form in her full view. The last thing she noticed were moisture, flowing down her face.

Tears.

Ahhhh!

2004-11-21T02:23:00.000+11:00

Ahhh!! I have been ignoring my blog these few days. And that guilt-inducing Keegan(roommate) keeps blogging eveyday. Damn. Ended up with a record of 5 blogs a day today. Sigh.. I blame the exams. Finally feeling some stress. Not gonna sleep tonight(kidding). Well, since i have nothing to blog about, because there is no time, i will just post a sad, depressing story in my next post that i wrote sometime ago. Sigh.
Seeing keegan pack up makes me ache for home. I'll be so lonely tonight. Sigh. Thats the third sigh. Make that the forth. Sigh.

Current Mood: Depressed

Insomnia

2004-11-01T23:59:00.001+11:00

Yesterday i had insomnia. After such a long time, why now? I digress. Back in Malaysia, i frequently had this problem, and would lie on my bed eyes wide awake until about 4 o'clock, in the morning. Back then, school starts at 7:10am. After i came to Aussie though, that problem dissapeared, and never came back to haunt me. Until last night.

I have several theories. Firstly, it could be due to that smoothie i drank the day before. I confess, i was basically breaking the rules by walking into a Juice bar and buying a coffee soy ice blend. And coffee it was. I saw the person put 3 BIG spoonfuls of the powder in my drink. So, in retaliation for this sacriledge of rules, i don't get to sleep. Sounds fair to me.

But then again, it could just be that it was too hot. I lied there for 3 hours, switching positions all the time, because it was a hot night, and i was collectiong heat. Could be due to the coffee also. Heaty stuff.

So i lied there until 6 o'clock, and it started to become bright. I wanted to lie there and change my positions, when i noticed a cool change has occured. So i just stayed in the current position, and enjoyed the coolness. After i regained conciousness, it was suddenly 10:30am, and i woke up just in time for the end of class. sigh.

Curiously enough, even though i only slept 3 hours, i felt surprisingly refreshed. The whole day i felt even more acive than usual. Weird. However, it messed up my eating habits. Didn't eat lunch. sigh.

Current Mood: Sleeeeepy

BACK!!

2004-11-01T23:41:00.000+11:00

Yahahahar... I'm back!! 2 months of vacation from writing... hmm. Lets see, what shall i write about? There is both good news and bad news. Being the happily cheerful and blissful(read:ignorance)creature that i am, i'll start at the good news. Well, all thanks to Jon, Lawson and Joshua, i have been hooked to this game called Ragnarok Online. Hard. That's the main reason why i haven't blogged in a while. I am very sorry people, but i simply blew all my megs on Ragnarok and University Applications. Sad, really, to be ruled by a mere simulation. But hey, its very very fun. Plus the interaction.... ooh. Fortunately, me and Jon seems to be on the verge of stopping, at least until after the exams. That is the good news. The bad news is while we are stopping for the exams, the other 'Mainer' reason is because there is no more megs left for us. Yep. After this announcement... no more future blogs until the 20th of November.

As for any updates, well, to those people reading from Malaysia, daylight saving is once again upon us, and the time difference between Malaysia and Melbourne is now 3 hours. Damn. The random news listed down there is in no particular order. Just rattling off whatever i could think of.

It is now two weeks till the exam, and one week till the drama. i foresee STRESS. Not for me though. I am never stressed. Got a reputation of being Happy-go-Lucky to maintain.

The youngest member of our group, Jon, just had his birthday. So, phew, no more impromptu birthday plannings, no more impromptu cash expenditures, no more suspenseful moments of surprise, and sadly, no more birthday fun. It is all over and done with.

My mouse broke. Sigh. Wonder how much a mouse is in Malaysia. might want to go back and buy it. The Aussie mouses are minimum 20$ each. And that is just the ball mouse. Sigh.

Current Mood: Wacko

Fun Day

2004-10-04T22:38:00.000+10:00

Well. I had a really fun day yesterday. Went picnicking at Saint Kilda Beach. One of the few times where i really looked forward to something, and it didn't turn out to be a dissapointment.

It all started the night before, where we went Safeway to buy supplies to make the sandwiches and also buy drinks and other stuff for the day out. There was a brief moment of tension as we pondered on what on earth to buy for a certain picky member of the 'picnic group', but other than that, it went along smoothly. There was a period of time when everybody else was on the phone except for Jon and me, so we both whipped out our phones and started taling to each other face o face, on the phone using our free calls. After we got everything ready, i had a feeling they won't have enough money, so i ran upstairs to withdraw money. Sure enough...... Oh well, at least the sandwiches were 15 dollars under the budget, which is good.

The next day i went down to start making the sandwiches, and joined later by Joshua, June and then finally Jon. We slaved away and managed to finish it by 10:30am. There were still leftovers, so the four of us took care of the spoils, heh. The idiotic thing is that the moment we finished preparing the sandwiches, the people sarted coming down. Sigh. I had to console myself on the fact that any more than four would have been too much help already. The tram ride to the beach was uneventful, except for the time when Jon threw the ball and i started to roll down the tram. Major embaressment. Halfway through the trip, the empty ram suddenl filled up with beach combers, and i was afraid for a moment that we wouldn't be able to find a spot.

When we finally arrived at the place, it was already 12:30. nearly 30 mintes of tram ride. The beach was emptier than i thought. I think most of the passengers went to the amusement park nearby. We ate lunch at the grassy side of the beach. The fun really began wen we decided to play Captain's Ball. Me, Joshua, June, XXL and Sarah formed a team, opposing Keegan, Jon, KerShin, Cynthia and Diane. At first i thought we were going to lose. But then height finally won out, and we devised a good strategy where the tallest team mate would go guard the opposing goal keeper. Smacking the ball away is *FUN*, heh heh. We won, of course. Joshua and XXL made good goal keepers. We won not because the opposing team didn't use this strategy, but rather those that are suppose to defend the goal keepers kept running away from their posts to chase after the ball, leaving the goal keepers with a clear line to catch...

Went cycling after the game, at 18$ per bike, its not cheap, but i shared with Keegan and Jon, so 6$ is still palettable. Ahhh, the first time on a bike after so long is truly refreshing. The speed!! I love it when the wind is whipping in my face. I went on a merry ride, and went crazy speeding up and down the cycling lane. I surrendered the bike later to Keegan, and helped teach XXL to ride a bike. Not much progress with me being there. By now, which few people shared to rent which bike didn't matter a hoot anymore, and most of them are too tired to continue cycling, so i grabbed a bike and went cruising quite far away with Jon. Had my first near-fall then, as i stood up on the pedals and then the road suddenly became uneven. Hurt my ankle too, and i had difficulty walking today. Anyway, when we finally headed back to 'camp', we saw XXL riding down the carpark smoothly, albeit a bit slowly, towards the cycling lane. With one smooth motion, the front wheel turned, and she knocked into the first pole seperating the cycling road from the pedestrian lane. For some reason she always rides staight, but then sometimes will home in enerringly for the poles. Oh well, pretty good for someone who just learned how to ride that very afternoon.

Went to eat fish and chips for dinner after cycling. its already close to six, and a few of us went to the tiny Safeway there. Said Safeway is fairly idiotic, since they don't even have a lane for non-buyers. So we had to budge slowly out. Then Joshua informs me that we are to rush off to the beach again to look at the sunset, which is a looong way away. We ran there with open paper trays of Fish and Chips on each hand, and reached there just in time for the sun to finish setting. Sigh. Anyway, the fish tasted really good, and its very fresh. Even the squid rings tasted good. After that the group got very high(on sugared drinks) and cold. Staggered to the train at 7:30pm and staggered back to Albert House later.

Current Mood: Tired(Yawn~)

Musings (again)

2004-09-28T16:54:00.000+10:00

Bored stiff. I feel like drifting this time, meaning that i won't have a definate title, and just rant on about whatever that comes to mind. Hmm. They say your subconcious dictates a large part of your actions. Freud even described the concious mind as only being the tip of the icceberg, and the 90% left is all subconcious. That certainly is interesting. Of course, he went on to say that most of these have to with repressed sexual urges. Which is certainly a lot more interesting, but that won't be for this innocent blog. There are innocent readers out there, after all. Well then, if this is all true, then todays blog may have a definate underlying theme after all.

Do you believe in this thing called a talent/creativity dam?? Happens to me. I will not play the piano for a long time, or forget to draw for a long time, or Foosball. But then when i do start again, more often than not i find that i haven't detiriorated at all, but rather, even improved sometimes. Weird, huh? Those sciencily psocology people gives an explanation: that all this while of apparent inactivity, my subconcious mind is working on it endlessly, without me knowing, linking up new ideas and relevations, and when i get ready to do a paricular skill again, they all just burst out. But then, why the old adage "practice makes perfect"? Does that mean that they are wrong? Lack of practise makes me rusty, but short abstinances also makes me better.

Well, my own theory is that i am just an impatient person, who gets bored of things very easily. If i do a thing too much, i'll get so sick of it that the drive will simply not be there anymore, and i'll just perfrom like a robot, stagnant, never thinking, never improving. However, once i stopped for a while, it begins to look new to me again. Maybe. Hmmm.

Another thought, where did this thought come from, anyway?? I often ask this question. And my friends always groan whenever i start to trace the conversation back to its origins. But then, its so fascinationg. Its not as if we have especially short attentions spans, but the fact is that the concersation keeps changing topics.
We will be talking about horses in the first place then by the end of the conversation the subject will be on, say jellyfish. After going through carriages, egypt, the sun, then space travel, then air, then..... I think its very interesting how the mind can link things together so effortlessly, and go through all the diverse topics of information. Dunno what my friends are complaining about either. I think its a nice subject. Or a topic of discussion.

Current Mood: Zonking out

Songs

2004-09-27T23:33:00.000+10:00

Concerning my hobbies, i am very picky. There are only a few things that interest me as hobbies, and music is one of them. I used to tell myself that i only like classical music, but recently i found out that is not the case. I realised that except for a select few classical songs, i don't really enjoy it, generally, especially music by Bach from the Baroque Period. But enough about annoying things like Bach. Then a while back, i played Need For Speed, and then started to like those heavily rapping, nonsensical, shouting-match sort of songs. I was quite shocked at myself for that for a while.

But then, after some thinking, i came to realise that the songs i like is mainly affected by memories. Like the Need For Speed music. I now know that i came to enjoy it, because i had a lot of fun playing the game with my brother, and good memories are associated with it. Then gradually i remembered that my list of 'songs of appreciation'' only ever widens after i had a particular nice event associated with the tune.

However, there are some songs that i instinctively liked, at once. The best example is Pachabel's Canon in D. The first time i heard it, i fell in love with that song. Another one in Clair de Lune. And, much to my Singaporean friend's chagrin, i liked Who Let The Dogs Out a lot. So maybe its a combination of both. I think maybe the song already is very appreciable, its just that i need something to make me start appreciating it. I'm just that sort of sentimental person, haha.

Current Mood: Feeling a bit nostalgic

Mooncake Festival

2004-09-27T23:16:00.000+10:00

Well, Mooncake Festival is tomorrow, and because of that, i am missing home. Haih. It is funny, really, since Mooncake festival doesn't really used to mean anything to me. It used to be just another one of those 'special' days in our house calendar, where my mom has to work extra hard on meals, and we just feel a tad bit more special. I guess it's still the same back home, just that this time, i am not around to enjoy it. Maybe taking something for granted is needed to make someone miss something. They say absence grows fondness, and familiarity breeds contempt. I don't know about the second part, but the first part is definately true. I was so happy when my cousin gave me a mooncake. I came back to Albert House to find that nearly all of my friends own a mooncake or four. Heh. It even turned into some sort of status symbol. Exactly what kind of status, i don't know, but it became a symbol, nonetheless. I remember my roommate being laughed at because he doesn't have a mooncake. Quite stupid, really.

We cut two mooncakes here in T15 just right now. I was munching on it happily, while chatting with my cousin and brother. I told my cousin i was eating mooncake, which she immediately reply: 'i don't really like leh'. Then as i was eating, i found that it was quite true for me also. In spite of that, i still enjoued it. As my friend so eloquently(not) put it, :"Hahahaha! Food from home! Mmmmmm!!". It was just that. Food from home, my anchor here to my traditions, and a brief reminder that i am doing something my family is doing also.

Current Mood: Sick(for home), happily munching

Musing

2004-09-23T02:07:00.000+10:00

I dunno, but sometimes i think, when you have a problem with someone, it is better to be direct about it. For instance with my roommate, who seemed to be real quite these few days. Almost seemed to be avoiding talking to me also. Which made me think he was mad at me, which makes me mad at him cause he seems to be mad at me but wouldn't want to let me know that he is mad. Talking in riddles here. I would almost kick myself for letting this thing simmer for so long. Well, at least after i told him, things worked out again. Problem better solved than a certain other incident i'd rather only sparingly mention.

Well, life during the hols is getting hectic, heh. Such a far cry from my usual holidays back home. Holidays used to be wake up, play, get scolded, eat, play, get scolded, eat again, play, get scolded, sleep. Repeat, rinse and lather. This time around, it is wake up, try to remember what day it is, refer to mental timetable and then get ready for the excursion-of-the-day. Whew. Its the first time i have something planned nearly everyday for the hols. Tomorrow will be the first time we are not having a particular group outing. Might as well. I feel like waking up late for the holidays. Haha.

My sleeping pattern is starting to go awry as well. Sigh. Been staying up later and later, watching movies and playing cards with friends. Then wake up just in time for brunch. Which is 11am. Although i know some people who exclaim "11am?! So early!", this thing is starting to vex me. I used to take pride in being able to wake up early, having a well oiled, well functioning biological alarm clock. Not the case anymore. Sigh. At least i still sleep only 8 hours and then shoot up. I know someone can sleep for 12 easily. Haven't become one of *those* yet. Thank goodness.

Current Mood: Tired...Yawning

De-Stressified

2004-09-17T13:38:00.000+10:00

Yay! Holidays! Finally! A few weeks of highly stressed chain of never ending nerve wrecking essays and projects are finally over!! Breathing out: Ahhhhhhhhhhh.....(content). I'll be so glad term 3 is over. I mean, the 1st 4 weeks os quite okay, then the HOI deadline looms in on the 5th week, and it just goes downhill from there. First have to hand in HOI, after that is the Drama presentation, later we have to hand in a 1000 word Bio Essay, following it up with the Chemistry poster presentation thing, then EAP plan and draft, and after all those things are done, Exam week. PHHEEWWWWW. I'm so glad its all over. I'll be looking forward to term 4, where we do nothing but plain, good ol' studying and mugging. I'm actually missing Malaysian education school life. Opting for Monotony. Imagine that.

However, something good actually came out of this. Because our Bio and Chem projects take up marks, so we don't have exams for those two. And since Lit is done 1 week before the exams, and the EAP one is tested already, so that means no Bio, Chem, or Eap for this term's exams. Which leaves me with only two subjects. Maths and Literature. I must say, this is the first time the exam week has been so stress free, compared to normal weeks. 1st day maths, whack and come home. Second day literature, have to whack a bot harder, come home. Free!! On Tuesday!! Morning even!! It was over before i could say 'huh?' All i have to do next is to come back to Albert House and laugh at those people who are taking Maths 2, Economics, and Physics, cause they are still being tested on those. And laugh hard i did. So nice. Even the MUFY people weren't spared. Even they finish later than me. Haha.

Current Mood: laughing(at people) and relaxing