could you be any
its not easy to type in a blog when there's simply red, robocop and david letterman all on at the same time. and guess wot, none of them are on channal five! (because it sucks, sucks ands sucks more, even more so, just because.)

oh kay, we're gonna stop talking like american cheerleaders, simply because i'm not one. but even if i was one, i wouldn't want to be one. am i making much sense? no, because blogging in spore seems so different from blogging in perth.

i realise this, because when i blog in perth, its mainly for a sporean audience, well, somewhat, anyone who's mildly interested in my minor acts of heroism on a day to day basis, but now that i'm saving the world here (with napkin man no less), the blogging bug just seems to have stopped biting/byting. still, we have to be comitted. -)

because i know there are others elsewhere in other parts of the world, at that i'd like to believe so.

and well, after such a lenghthy prologue, it should be time to announce that i watched house of flying chestnuts today.

do robots who discover humanity, have more of it in them than us?

one more robot learns to feel .. - the flaming lips

the play was really good, if you ever get a chance to watch it, please do, spoofs are funny.

shotgun happy
the joys of being back in your old home. the not-so-joys of having a mom ask you every single thing. hahaha, i know.. my mom's funny, she's asks me about every single thing, every single friend. if i'm just meeting a girl for the sitex exhibition, she asks (nicely) for a background check and everything, which is amusing. it's not that she's a control freak or anything, just a concerned parent, her twenty two year old son who's still seven in her eyes (or worried that he's already twenty two?). but yeah lah, i think one could have easily mistaken this for nagging, i have.. why does she keep asking me.. but then, when you havent seen each other for a whole year, you are concerned in keeping up to date with your kid's life. and yeah, if we saw things that way, we didn't have to lose our cools all the time.

over here
well, finally back home. spore just hit me with the weather, it was familiar and different all at the same time. but i really am glad to see the familiar things again, to be under the wings of care. i'm just gonna have a bit of a good break while i can, don't really have anything useful to say -)

weight lost to be
i know it's late, but i just can't seem to concentrate on packing. jeepers, it's like i got some kinda attention deficit disorder.. yet i know that if i take a nap now, i'll only wake up the next morning, no.. i have to endure this, if not i'll never leave perth.

my last night in perth, i've learnt so much, thanks be to God for that. He's shown me so much, opened my eyes, my ears, my heart.. could it be that i'm still reeling? wow, all the people i've met, and the journey still continues, everyday a new adventure. somehow, this year didn't seem like one of dread, i feel as if the sunshine gives me some sorta crazy outlook in life. yet i know, without God, i am nothing, not my revelations, not my musings, nothing of me could be worth anything in the grand scheme of things, yet God uses all things to encourage His chosen people. your five loaves and two fishes. did i ever mention i love that story? i just did -)

see you all on the other side.

Letter to Diognetus
Chapter V: The Manner Of Christians

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking18 method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring.19 They have a common table, but not a common bed.20 They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh.21 They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.22 They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life.23 They are poor, yet make many rich;24 they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless;25 they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

recurring thoughts
the gaping wound is still in my chest and it hurts just to breathe. or rather, move my arms. i'm hoping i can play a righteous gig tonight, we're playing the rosemount, and it's quite a good venue. i wonder if people will like us and have us back there. i wonder who we'll meet, oh the buisness of it all. i think i'll just go there and have fun, i may even master the emo-leap. nahhhh.. i'd break a neck.

blogging is strangely cathartic today, i haven't done much, but i did get the car checked out, not alotta good it did, prolly only be able to fix it when i get back next year. which means, i might not be getting the haircut i planned on. dammit, i do want a haircut, and a crappy job to devote my time to. i gave my laptop a new burst of life when i deleted a tonne of videos and now have four more gigabytes worth of free space. i gotta watch it though, new mp3s might just eat away at that. i need to learn photoshop, i need to learn photoshop.

siyuan loaned me his digital camera for the mission trip to japan, hopefully i'll be able to get some good snaps, i've never really tried, hopefully wotever training i've had with film making will translate into still images. hopefully, hopefooly.

must pack for the end of the world...

not a good idea to squeeze
oh crud. sometimes you just have to say that, especially when you have a gaping pain in your chest, which probably came from an overstrain of driving a car with a crappy gearbox. man, it hurts to move, i wonder if broken ribs is this sensation amplified a thousand times. and i'm hungry.

where i will talk abit of the dinner i had yesterday, satay, salad and wine.. all at a pastor's house, man.. it was so good.. and i was soo blessed.. i love food. -) mebbe i'll zip off to bed soon, and i'm very happy that naruto chapter 239 is out already, kakashi's gaiden is an amazing read!

squeeze something in ten minutes
well, gotta update before time runs out. basically, i've had a heck of a massive day, and man.. am i glad to be in the comfort of home to just stone out a little. but it was a good day, till about my gear box decided to collapse on me. apparently some hinges in my gearbox and my clutch are shoddy, and they decided to die out on me today. thank God for Roadside Assistance and free towing tomorrow, i just hope i can make it to the mechies, and get my car done up before i go back home..

home, on wednesday, i can't exactly believe it. it's been almost a whole year already..

for a friend, from a friend
vincent, you're a God-send.. thank you so much for the friendship you've given me over the years and may God bless you on this very happy birthday! and from me too, happy birthday. it's been great knowing you, going on a journey with you, and it's my hope that you'll find wot you're looking for as you get older! keep seeking the Lord and He will make your paths straight. a true friend and brother indeed, cheers to more adventures!

thomas, you're a God-send as well! man, thanks so much for everything you've shared with me as friends, if there were a deeper level of friendship, you're there. you've taken us on a fantastic musical journey, and it is with great pleasure and honour that we can still jam together, share our music with each other as well as all our little naunces of anime and rockstar dreams! you've been a great down-to-earth pal whenever my head was too in the clouds, and been a constant support to my insercurities. God bless you on your birthday! and from me too!

indeed, these are very special friends of mine, and they both turn a year older on the same day. Happy Birthday dudes!

fall on your knees and be strong
wrote that lyric down today, and i guess it's kinda telling of my relationship with God. if anyone wants to follow me, he must first deny himself and pick up his cross daily. that's the Christian life somewhat, in order to draw closer to God, there must be less of us and more of Him. if anyone holds on to his life, he will lose it. such is the walk, it sounds harsh, but truely when you're walking with that sorta assurance, it's all worth it, and best of all, it all makes sense. there was a time when i enjoyed the darkness, the mystery of the darkness, the allure, the cool, the rebellion, the mystical, the things that set me aside and apart in the dark. but then, you realise it's not total darkness, because you still have some semblance of yourself, you know it's dark, it's dim.. and you think you're set aside. but trust me on this, that when you're walking in pitch blackness, when you're clawing desperately at the walls for someone to hear you, when it's so dark you can't even hear yourself, you can't see your hands, spiritually you are blind from not just the blackness, but quite literally, your eyeballs have been dug out and you're flailing about in claustrophobic space. then you'll see that the dark isn't so cool after all, and we're supposed to be walking in the light of His grace.
and the sun brings to light all the sins of the world.

and for a terrible mix, cotte's fruit mix and absolut vanilla just tastes like medicine. something new, but never should have been discovered.

locked away
to my friends who are still doing exams or assignments, all the best and give it your best shot! God be with you all.. we'll see you soon on the otherside of the world.

i just had such a real dream yesterday. real in the sense that as i reached out to touch someone, i could almost feel this person. it was scary, because you're not supposed to have sensations in your dreams.

no more tearsu
not really a johnson & johnson's ad, but wouldn't it be nice? well, as you might already know, one of the things that gets me moving is watching warplanes jet off into the unknown horizon.

i was watching rambo ii the other day, and while it was in more response against all that metrosexual crap, needed some cliched 80's testosterone masculinity to balance out the social order of the twenty first century. anyhows, as much as they portray vietnamese as marauding savages, i did watch it also because the iraqi campaign has sort of been compared to the vietnam war, and well.. just to keep in touch with my feelings i suppose. but yeah, rambo's this war vet that has been screwed over by his government, and as we all know many people were against the war in vietnam. as such, rambo being a soldier was emotional and went on to say "just once, i'd like my country to love me as much as i love my country. while i won't say that blowing other people up shows your love for your country, but today many people are dying in Falluja, but Iraqis and Americans. maybe they don't know wot they're fighting for, because they dón't have the luxury of ethics and morals, it's kill or be killed. maybe they never expected to go to war, or the politicians are just using them as tools. having been a soldier once myself, i think about these things when i get the chance, because i didnt have much of a choice when i hooked up with national service, and i guess nobody on the ground asks for war, because we live on it. those in the sky, now they don't know wot its like. maybe you live in the sky too long, you very bored.

oh yeah, and i don't like this metrosexual fad because men can still be bastards whether they're 'metrosexual' or not. big up to the guys and girls who realise that, but if you can't look past the facade of slick short hair, fancy deodarent, shallow sensitivity and what not, then scrape the surface. live with a little more conviction.

a dog, an orange
we're safe, for now. today's title is kind of the working title i was mucking around with for the film, but i don't think its gonna work. it's actually a depiction of the alternate film if our current film was gonna fall apart. we'd film a barking dog and stop-animate an orange peeling itself against a white background. well, while that isn't gonna happen anymore, it could perhaps work as a title for a film about something totally else, yet.. it's got a strange relevance that doesn't make sense. i'm not too shure if that last statement was supposed to anyway, but it's nice not to make sense once in awhile.

i've been listening to the decemberists once again, and it's funny.. because i didn't really like their music in the past, but now i utterly do! well, i'm glad i'm rediscovering the good music, but it was probably always good to begin with. this is good honest music that uses very traditional songwriting instruments to just make something simple and special, where the artist really puts his soul and influences on the line for other listeners. wot we get is a deep conversation thru the quirky setences that they weave together, all gelled together by a forceful march of instruments that wait not for you if you can't seem to understand their choice of instrumentation. lovely indeedy, you'll get one song by them in the year-end compilation.

we had a really wonderful dinner of laksa just now, and it was great to have guest over. peivn invited jade, and i got derrick and yuanheng over. oh, it was so fun to laugh over the dinner table, to just have really in-your-face humour that keeps you back-pedalling because you just say the darndest things after a little champagne.. and well, over dinner us guys kinda got questioned wot we noticed about women first. oh crap, i said curves, and well.. while it's on a totally superficial level, i didn't feel a need to talk about her personality and brain matter over the dinner table, don't know why, but did that make me come across as really shallow?

hahahaha, oh well.. i guess you're entitled to think if i'm shallow, and i kinda know that if i further explain how i'm not shallow, i'm actually re-confirming all suspicions that i am. so don't try too hard folks! one dinner is not enough to cast an accurate depiction of yourself, and not that you should be too concerned about it as well! don't let it stop you from being yourself, if you hang out with people long enough, you slowly learn more about them, and they too learn more about you. it'll be natural, and you don't need to aim to impress. the longer you are in the buisness of PR and impressions, i guess the more jaded one becomes and actually doesn't know how to cast more than just a first impression, and that my friends.. is when you start panicking.

on a final note, was just musing to myself whilst walking somewhere, about how 'real' everything was around us. if i can see something, is it really 'me' seeing it, or is it just a lens capturing reflected light off surfaces, forming an upside down image on the retina which then somehow gets interpreted by the brain as the right side up? so in other words, we could be confined with just wot's cast on our retinas (which by now could be anything if you're paranoid enough), or how our brains interpret these so-called images. it can be somewhat spooky if you're dwell on it too much, kinda takes the fun out of living.

we're inches away from anything
everyday, twenty or so denizens stop by this blog to get a daily taste of bananas. or bah-na-nah-s as we like to call'em. it's nice to know that this certain number of people drop by to take a look at your thoughts, it makes it seem almost worthwhile. i know we've been thru this a lot already, the 'significance' of reading this in the first place. well, i just wanna know i appreciate you even though i don't know you. you're kind of the reason why this blog still exists, and why i even bother to self-regulate.

and well, as with all things.. i'm kinda glad the year's coming to an end, real glad that i'm gonna see my folks and old friends soon, and also to be going on a mission trip to japan. it all seems so near, and yet i gotta stay here. which i don't mind save the least, but yeahh.. it's making me review the year and wot i've actually done with my life this time here. it sorta be almsot interesting -)

free mice
hey guess wot? australians can never get food right. imagine shock shock horror horror to my astonishment, that apart from junky tasting dim sims (salt-filled 'asian' pastries), they have soy-bacon called notbacon and best of all a new product called the sushi sandwich which is basically a triangular sandwich in the usual packaging, but instead of the wholesome grain goodness of bread, you get sushi, with soggy crumbed chicken fillet. its truely amazing wot you see in the supermarkets these days, makes you wonder why they havent put a man on mars yet.

nation states
just added this new link boo ware to my sites to visit list. it's a sydney based label with some of the cutest designs, i'm really contemplating getting a ghost family t-shirt done by them, or a dinosaur one. some things you just gotta have.

and finally i have time to report that arafat's gone off the face of the planet and that already the US and UK are busy poking their heads into fresh buisness of possibly things that don't concern them. i'm shure they're licking the lips, rubbing the palms and fiddling their thumbs with such a leaderless state, and how better to use the country for their own good. but lets just wait and see the soap opera that's gonna unfold.

in other news, is peace between palastine and israel really gonna happen? if so, is that a sign of the end-times? lets pay attention folks, be ever watchful.

fallujah
the streets crackle with gunfire as explosions in the sky blanket the night's peace and tranquility. all around, the all seeing eyes of green take in the death and destruction of those caught in the middle. friend from foe, fly by wire, the systems of relationships crumbling beneath the hail of bullets and shrapnel. here new bonds are forged and old bonds are splintered, son hates father and mothers against daughters. once trusting friends cower in the face of the barrel of a gun, we're not painting pretty pictures, we're not telling like it is, we're telling you stories, scenes from the front. the people you see don't have the luxury to contemplate a hope or saviour in the face of imminent death. perhaps life doesn't just go fleeting by, it becomes an anti-climax of bleak nothingness. where life just standstills as the world goes by, born into a bubble that this is all we know. and then they return into the grey of nothingness, as if it never happened, for it was better than being alive. the scars of the mind, one wonders if such deep wounds can ever be healed, the ones you can't see, the ones that are killing you inside out, where your blood vessels never heal on their own. can't they see, can't you see, that we're not the only ones that are, that nothingness really isn't something, that nothing is really something, and to be thrown back into the dark void, or bright void of nothingness, is not just to cease to exist, to not just be lost into the cosmos, to not even be brought back to a point of singularity before the cause ever took shape.

we stare down the barrel of a gun, hoping to be sucked in away from all this. how far down can you actually see?

hold me now aveda
wow, quiet since saturday. quite unbecoming of me. well, uni's finally over and i'm picking up the pieces of unfinished assignments. i don't really have anything to say because i'm kinda stoned. we spent the day looking for books to research on for the assignment, then instead of starting on a reading plan, i wated an anime called sprigan which was kinda cool. but too much dulls the mind, especially when a day just sweeps you by like that.

oh yeah, i might as well gripe on the fact that i'm helping some random person on their final year sound recording project. she's gotten me to play bass parts for a terrible terrible band that got together playing evanecence's bring me to life and franz ferdinand's take me out. its progressive rock oh kay? with all the odd time tempo shifts. and i'm being sarcarstic if you're dumbass. well, this post wasn't meant to insult any of you, *sigh* i think the heat is just getting to me. and the fact that everytime i listen to the demo tracks, i feel like puking from the sheer lack of effort that went into playing something so scrappily. a waste of airspace and my lifespan just being part of the project.

quote of the day
even if i don't post a daily quote. you know you and your friends have been reading too much french philosophy for a unit when after everything, you meet with your friends in the school library to watch a dvd in the dvd room, and he can't find the controls on the tv because they're on the top instead of the usual side and he goes:

wahh, this tv damn post modern. spewin'

the superjesus

rhythm and r.e.m
if i'm sitting here staring the computer screen observing as black slowly fills wthe white of the text input box here in blogger and listening to digweed on my mp3 player, i think i'm on the path to cognitive disbelief. i have no idea wot i just said, all i know is that i'm sick and tired of bashing out random letters on the keyboard in the hope of sorting out the voices in my head regarding my assignment. especially when its supposed to be about random thought. gahhh, wots so random about selectively choosing random thoughts? i've been staring at this screen for too long, it doesn't talk to me and i feel alone. strange but true./.

as the world sings
the US elections today. is it so already? the grand finale to this year's biggest soap opera where the actors are real life improvised actors? where the deaths are real, and the stupidity is real, not like that jessica simpson crap. quite honestly, i don't follow much, i have smaller issues of my own to concern about. but i thought just for good measure, to jump on the bandwagon of more american hype and media.

if kerry gets elected, will we see the pull-out of troops in Iraq? if bush gets elected, will we see the Free Trade Agreement amended to better suit its allies in Australia. what will happen to Singapore, will we still be clamouring after the American way of life even more? will the American dream be the Singaporean dream?

sometimes, i think we give the United States too much credit, we inflate it's ego too much. sometimes, you wonder if they should mind their own buisness. but then, it's also a matter of time before we say that they should have helped in certain situations because they had the capacity to.

interestingly enough, because the world paints such a grand picture of these two major parties, we rarely give thought to the other minor parties that are seeking some sort of change. wouldn't it be something if some relative unknown suddenly came out from nowhere to lead a nation. those protest votes. hahahaha, they'd be caught with their pants down, never expecting to win, but having to scuffle out the toilet door just as the reporters clamour in wanting to ask them how they feel about winning. geeee.. i dunno, i was taking a dump when the news came in. it was spewin'! i'm so not taking this seriously.

so right now, from this side of the world, we're just observing, and since we can't vote, we'll just do our part and accept wotever the world throws at us. strive to get thru the day, rest, and get thru another day. the cycle repeats itself, one day at a time.

breakfast table musings
two crumplets are too much, one crumplet is too little. one and a half crumplets would be fine. don't put jam over cheese, put cheese over jam. this way, you won't be smudging your face with jam. crumplets are something like hotcakes with sponge holes in them. coincidentally, it's how i envision sponge would taste like. it doesn't exactly have a pin-pointable taste, kind of like a cross between hotcakes and a weird chemical polymer. which it probably is, i'm not discounting that fact.

a lot has been going on, but i feel as if i've not been going on. studying for a test right now, but actually i'm not, i'm typing this out. sometimes i underestimate just exactly wot life can throw at me, sometimes i think i'm indestructable. i'm not, i probably can't even sustain myself. why doesn't my brain just become as lazy as me and shut itself down? or why can't my personality be as hardworking as my other bodily functions, which always produce things on time.

jeannie, if you're reading this, you'll need an airport express hub or an airport extreme hub for your wi fi connection. basically the ibook will come airport extreme enabled, but you'll still need to connect to a hub. and as with apple products, you have to fork out money for specifically their products, it's a good way to take away your freedom too -) but it's a small price to pay for cool stuff. oh yeah, i'm not shure, but you might not need to buy a router for your PC if that's the case, because the airport extreme hub has a LAN/ethernet port, so this means you can only connect one other computer/client via a LAN/ethernet cable. i think the airport extreme hub supports up to 50 wi fi users. the airport express hub does not have this LAN/ethernet port (i think), so all it can do is support your client, and 9 more wi fi users.

my verdict is that the airport express hub is good and sufficient for home use, and the airport extreme hub is more for office use. ideally, you can take your airport extreme hub to uni, and support 49 other wi fi users around your study table -) i'm shure one could meet lots of interesting people that way -)

neat
brian, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing.

Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.

You tend to see things in "wholes" without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utitlize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern.

In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some "inner dialogue."

All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.

You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.

It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk "missing out" on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account.

psyche yourself out here. <-- click the purple link

deleauze
this french philosopher dude suggests (to the best of my intepretative ability), that the present exists as a montage of the past and future. i'm not gonna go into any sorrid details, mainly because it just gets confusing thinking about it, but i just don't really see how anyone could apply this to film theory. in a huge way, yes, i feel dumb. are you dumb??? yes!!!

so yeah, a montage of past and present? jeepers! well, if you bother to think about it, or smoke magic shrooms as im shure this delauze chap did.. wot we have is now. we'll never gain the past again (can we go back in "time"?), neither can we stretch out and touch the future (again, can we actually?).. so yeah, the present exists.. within a frame, the extreme polar ends in between the past that just occured, and the future, that is just waiting to happen, a nanosecond later.

it's a montage, where we are right now is just a giant giant montage. daymn, i abhor these french wankers.

appleseed
i used to want to own an apple product some two years ago, always wanting to make the switch. then, about this year, i decided that i didn't need an overpriced piece of hardware that too many 'cool' people had. today as i was helping jeannie seive thru apple's wireless technology, i thought that i might want an apple product all over again.

they really do look good, but when i think about practicality, i really wonder. do i need a wireless hub, so that any stereo i go to will be able to play songs from my itunes from my ibook? then, i think about pirated software, i'll have to pay for all my software, the professional stuff like pro-tools, reason, igarage, propellerhead.. gotta pay for everything full price! if i don't like windows, why don't i just learn linux instead? but of course my laptop just won't look asthetically appealing.

so at the end of the day, do i still need an apple? not when i can't afford a doctor..

shouting under a great sky
we're under the greyness of decaying world order. social structure is slowly disintegrating back to the savagery of the cellulor nature. arghhh stoppit, stop this nonsense, no more talking rubbish.

alright, not many updates, just that i hope i'll last the week in terms of academia. twenty three more days till i go back to spore!