spidey

No matter how many times I watch Spider-man (with a hyphen!) 2, I just don't ever get bored of it. I feel as if I know just what he's going through. Feel as if there was no difference between Peter Parker and I. Both of us trying so hard to cope keep our world falling apart and yet watching haplessly as the walls crumble in our hands.

But then I don't have a superhero waiting inside to save the day. I've never been somebody's hero and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be. I'll never be a closet genius and I most certainly don't have a beautiful girl in the world head over heels in love with me.

Punch me I bleed. I always do.

I still am.

thats not exactly eye candy

I don't know what happened but in the three years or so of my estate's existence it seems to have somehow acquired the worst possible demographic balance ever. You see the thing about being a young hot blooded heterosexual male living in a condominium is the swimming pool, and its reputation of being a great place to go oggle young hot bikini clad babes happily sun tanning by or frolicking in the water. And the best part? They all live in the same estate as you do!! Bliss!

Now thats all fine and dandy except my estate seems to have a sore lack of young hot bikini clad babes and a serious overpopulation of middle aged tubby women. The fact that they happen to be bikini clad and oblivious doesn't help in the least either.

And then there's the grannys.

You've got to walk right by the edge of the swimming pool to get to my block so imagine what its like to come home after a tough day in school, head aching and sleepy......and then it happens. Granny gets out of the pool and hobbles out in front. ARHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Wet lycra clad Granny Ass!!!!!!!!! And you can't even close your eyes or you'll likely be worrying about wet underwear clad your-own ass.

Thank God I've never had to experience the horror of those granny water-robics sessions.

words don't do justice

I saw Sarah Tan!!!!

OMFG!! I saw Sarah Tan and she is so darn friggin ultra gorgeous!!! Agamemnon wouldn't have bothered sending a thousand ships to Troy if she'd been around in his court. Bugger off Helen. Now where's Sarah?



For those who are clueless, THIS is Sarah Tan. Ok its not a really good pic but its like friggin hard to find her pictures on the net. Go check out some really really really back issues of FHM or Newman. She looked magnificent there! And not even in the 'come hither' fashion that most of the girls in those mags are featured in. Aiyar.. just check it out and you'll know what I mean. Or go watch a Light Affair. I can't believe I endured 2 episodes of that bullshit just to watch her. Hell she's like one of the few celebrities who doesn't smoke!! Testimony of one of her friends who happens to be in my project group! She even showed us pictures of when they went to Sentosa together. Damn friggin pretttyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Her boyfriend is one helluva lucky bastard man...

swofford

A man fires a rifle for many years,

And he goes to war.

And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armoury,

And he believes he's finished with the rifle.

But no matter what else he might do with his hands,

Love a woman,

Build a house,

Change his son's diaper,

His hands remember the rifle

He will always remain a jarhead

And all the jarheads,

Killing and dying,

They will always be me.

lamentations

I'm supposed to be doing research for my project but I just can't bring myself to do anyting but procrastinate. Not that the project's boring.

What Was the Major Catalyst in the Electrification of the Guitar and the Electric Guitar's Establishment as an American Institution?

How cool is that? You can only do this kinda stuff in Arts! But darn it, today's like the only free day I've had in weeks and I'm loathe to spend it studying, even though I know I have to. First time in weeks that I can totally ignore the alarm clock and just sleep till whenever I want to.

So anyway doing something of this order reminded me that I have my very own bright red solidbody six string hanging on the rack behind me. Hanging and completely untouched for the past three months!! Shoots when I picked it up to play today it was just covered in dust! And the high E string snapped the second I tried to do a little bending! Aw crap. One of my biggest regrets is never going beyond the simple solo and oasis style banging away stage of guitar playing. This isn't helping.

I wanna be a rockstar..............

unbelievable

Osama bin Laden shattered the veil of a safe and peaceful world. SARs made people afraid to go out without a mask on. The bird flu has the world in a tizzy as it spreads like wild fire. And in March 2006, some frikkin gay has turned the male toilets in NUS into a bloody worrying proposition. I could barely believe my eyes when I saw the notice in the Central Library toilet beseeching all toilet users to be on their guard because some guy had been doing his business and happened to look up, only to find some jackarse's head poking over the wall from the cubicle next door and gazing away at.....ok...ew.....*hurl*

SMLJ!!!!

There are easier ways for a guy to get access to male privates. Like unzipping your own pants maybe? WTF. Maybe us NUS guys should come up with some plan to catch this bugger. Then at least we'll have the joy of pounding him into the ground.

Frikkin gays.

hormat senjata

I've been steadily getting sicker and sicker since Thursday. Woke up with a headache on Thurs morning and ended up with a fever by night. Friday morning the fever was still there but now my stomach started protesting like hell and I ended up having to bugger off to the toilet every now and then. Today was both combined in full force, so you can imagine it wasn't exactly the most fun thing for me to go for a history field trip covering open patches of swamp and jungle that used to be the battlefields that Japanese and Allied soldiers shot each other to pieces on.

The subject might have actually been quite interesting if I didn't keep being distracted by the odd growlings in my tummy and the hyperactive triceratops in my head, but one particular battle area really really took my attention. One thing about having been in the army, when you're at the actual ground and being told how the fighting progressed, you actually have a pretty good mental picture of just what those troops went through about 64 years ago. This was especially so when we reached a point near Bukit Chandu, the place where Lt. Adnan and C Comapny of the Malay Regiment made a last stand against the Japanese so everybody else could bugger off to the fall back line. They gave their lives so that everybody else might have them. They sat on that hill, outnumbered, outgunned and totally cut off. And still they sat there and did their jobs without flinching. Watching their entire company, 120-150 men, get slowly but systematically wiped out. Only 4 men survived that final battle. And they watched Lt. Adnan get slowly tortured to death by Japanese soldiers who were completely infuriated at the huge price they had to pay to finally get the better of a mere company of Malay soldiers.

It takes courage to go into battle. It takes a HERO to go into battle knowing it will be your last. It takes Heroes.

quiet is the new loud

I know its bit late for this but I feel I have to blog about the Kings of Convenience concert on Thursday. It was just so totally awesome I'm still reeling from the after effects. And its hardly what I'd have expected out of a KOC concert considering that I used to put their music on to lull me to sleep.

Lots of bands sound so much better on recordings than live and in your face but KOC was quite the opposite. Boy I have never heard a band sound so darned good live before. Their acoustic sounds so perfectly clean and clear, not least thanks to their skill at guitar. The whole beauty of their music is the sheer simplicity of it, and they managed to produce such wonderful music, music that had people bopping their heads, snapping their fingers or just closing their eyes to savour, with just two simple guitars and occasionally a stint on the ivory. There was a song where they got the lights in the whole concert hall turned off and just let people indulge themseleves aurally. And when they did I'd Rather Dance With You, they had the whole audience standing and grooving to the tune of just the solitary guitar. But perhaps the best part, in my opinion, was when they got the audience to substitute their missing viola player with themselves! I can't remember what the title of the song was, but they had the audience whistling the viola part while the guitars played the main rhythmic lines. The result was a blend that sounded like a match made in heaven. Utterly and absolutely astounding. The first time I've ever seen the audience not only help the musicians make music, but make gorgeous, beautiful at that!!

I think I can safely classify that as the best concert I've ever been to in my entire life!

i didn't know that

Isaac -- [noun]: A person with a taste for acorns 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

i did not put you in a prison. i merely showed you the bars

I'm not going to skimp on words or expression here. V for Vendetta is absolutely, marvelously, magnificently, mind blowingly AWESOME!!!!! Or perhaps in V's words it would be a valiant, venturesome, veritable vision of future vicissitude. The graphic novel completely blew me away and the movie nearly launched me out of my seat! They changed quite a bit of stuff from the book but they did it beautifully and made a film that lived up to every little bit of my expectations.

VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI
"By the power of Truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe"
-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

V was a really good break from the self destructive lifestyle I've been leading the past few weeks. No not smoking, not drinking, not pretending I like to dance to music I'm pretending to like. No. Just death by plain and simple school life. I signed up for a three day week. I'm living a six day one. And its telling in almost everything I do. Even checking out pretty girls!! Was heading for the toilet today in the library when I spotted this gorgeous girl sitting to my left and couldn't help mouthing the word 'Wow!' to myself and gazing away. What I wasn't so quick to realise however was that all her friends at the table had already noticed me staring away and were giggling away by the time I realised that my voyeuristic notions weren't all that discreet. I buggered off for the call of nature.

Essay essay.....

different views

Finally got to ride tonight after a 10 day hiatus!! Well ok 10 days if you don't count humping Bukit Timah trail on Sunday. Was really scared I'd lose some of the ground I've been gaining these past few weeks but thank goodness my fears were unfounded. Actually it looks like the break might have done just the opposite and helped me improve some more. Managed to keep up with the cousin and do a full 44-46 km/h on a flat!!! And for quite a long period of time too!!! Ok at least it SEEMED like a long time to me. The cousin looked as if he didn't even break a sweat. And when he started sprinting, as in REALLY sprinting, close to the end of the stretch, I didn't have a chance in hell of catching up.

But frankly the highlight of the night was a long conversation with one of the guys who came along for the ride. Another Canadian!!! But anyway, over the best millo-peng in Singapore, and the ride back home it was really great getting a view of the Singapore education system and the way things are done here from a third party. Like why he's actually giving serious consideration to sending his kid to the Singapore American School to do Pri 1 instead of a local school even though it would burn an $18000 hole in his pocket every year; how our pragmatic attitude might actually work to our disadvantage and what this place would be like if our GDP weren't always numero uno on our priority lists. Even how Singapore might be the only proudly facist country in the world except we call it something else. And of course how Americans are dumbasses :P

Woo!! Turns our the Just for Laughs festival will be happening during the time I'll be travelling in Canada!! Montreal here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who ever said history was boring?

The prof for my Singapore Military History module is hilarious! He's this huge Canadian guy who's totally obssessed with football, ice hockey and the ways our grandfathers went about blowing each other to pieces.

Every lecture starts off with him proudly displaying the Arsenal crest and then waxing lyrical about Henry and co's exploits for the week, especially after last week's pushing aside of Real. If any of us had stood up and starting crooning an Arsenal anthem he might've just given him an A for the rest of the semester. The next slide would then usually be a larger than life Montreal Canadien's (ice hockey) crest with one exception. That would be when the Canadian women's ice hockey team wiped out the rest of the competition to clinch their umpteenth Winter Olympics gold medal, and prompting the Olympic committee to seriously consider taking women's ice hockey out of the next Games altogether because the Canadians are just too owning. He was so ecstatic we were all pretty sure we'd be witness to him jumping on the table, clicking his heels and dancing a jig.

Ok he didn't. But he sure looked like he was going to.

Tutorial class is a hoot too. For some reason, his idea of a perfectly sized project group is essentially the number of people in the class......divided by one. So right now we end up with a project group consisting of 28 people!!!! And project discussions go something like this:

Some guy tried to explain the ideas we've come with while speaking softly:

'Err, so prof, we've kinda deci-'

And nearly jumped out of his skin when he got cut off:

'Speak the hell up or get the hell out of here! What on earth are you trying to say?'

He was decidedly happier however, after someone else finally manged to explain the project proposal and, as discussions went along, he realised its potential for him to be able to:

1. Eat Malay food
2. Drink beer.
3. Drink more beer.
4. Be witness to a great big ball of a coffeeshop fight.

Now he's promised to buy us all a round if he gets to have his way. If all Canadians are like that I ain't coming back after Work and Travel.

absolut

While muggin my life away in the library today I got thinking about Team Absolut (the team I cycle with just about every other day) and found myself supremely amused with their penchant for giving everything some sorta funny nickname. Just about everybody has some sorta moniker thats stuck so well some ppl don't even know their real names.

First there are the normal nicknames for obvious reasons, like OldMan (who really isn't that old and is fitter than most young men actually), Beef and Doc. Then the reasons start getting just a lttle odd. There's Diesel, who's supposedly called that because he can maintain a high speed but can't accelerate fast; there's DAISY, because some US bike company screwed up and sent him a baby blue bike with a huge flowerery motif; Sting, because he used to keep wearing yellow jerseys; Protein Shake, because Beef was already taken; and Bruce the Macho Man, because both Beef and Protein Shake were already taken.

Oh and even the rides aren't spared. So now we officially go for Thursday Torture Trainings and Saturday Morning Madness every week. TTT and SMM for short. Haha they crack me up.

Dammit I want to cycle so bad. One whole week without cycling!! Withdrawal withdrawal.....

ahh choooooooo

I dink I dhave a dold....

what the hell

Something happened today that has me pretty shaken up.

Decided to indulge a bit today and play street soccer with the other arts guys, specially since I've been mugging my brains out for the History mid term today and just felt like letting it all out after. I was looking forward to it so much I never imagined what would be in store.

A mere 5 minutes in the game and I found huge difficulty breathing. Not the kind where you're tired out and breathing hard. This was the kind where it seems as if there's not enough air to go about. My lungs were working overtime and I felt as if I could barely get a decent breath at all. I was hyperventilating before I even knew it.

And then the world started getting wobbly.

That was when I knew I had to stop or face consequences I might not really like. Not to mention it was bloody scary. So I switched places and ended up goalie for most of the remaining game. I honestly have no idea how or why I stayed till the end because the dizziness never went away.

Somewhere in the middle of my goalie stint it hit me that my ears were blocked.

The kind of blocked that you get when you're on a plane, or go diving. But this time I couldn't clear my ears no matter how hard I tried. My heavy breathing started echoing in my ears like crazy. It felt like I was up on some mountain top and yet there I was right there on paved, flat low ground. All of a sudden the atmospheric pressure had become too much for me.

Now my whole body is aching even though I barely moved at all. What the hell is wrong with me? This is scary shit man.

top of a doghouse

I can't remember the last time I walked in that door and actually felt that I'm home.

stupid people

U: I happen to think that every country that engages in conscription is barbaric.

Me: So that means you're calling South Korea, Israel, Singapore, Turkey and Taiwan barbaric?

U: Yes of course.

Me: So what would you suggest we do to defend our little island?

U: Oh just don't go to war of course.

Let me get this straight. I CANNOT STAND PACIFISTS. I just can't believe that there are still people who think like this around. People who actually believe that if we throw all our weapons away, dissolve all our defences and burn all our fatigues, everybody in the world is just going to sit down and play nice! There was a time when most of the world thought this way. Lets everybody get rid of our arsenals and play nice eh? They were still thinking that when the Japanese Army marched into China and declared their plans of a 'co-prosperity sphere'. Still twiddling their thumbs when a man named Adolf Hitler decided he wanted to be king of the world. A world minus Jews I might add.

And what does a pacifist say when I point out that fact?

U: Oh its simple. Don't let a man like Adolf Hitler come to power

Me:....

As I recall, when some people decided to drag a certain megalomaniacal Middle Eastern off his tyrannical throne, (a megalomaniacal Middle Eastern who got his kicks out of gassing minority citizens in his own country I might add), the very first people to start crying foul were these very same people who advocated stopping him in the first place.

Bloody hypocrites.

lonely planet

Well I'm supposed to be studying for my mid-terms this week but I seem to be far more enthusiastic about planning where to go after my work stint ends in July. I'm just so friggin prematurely excited about it! Even if I am probably going to be travelling all on my lonesome because nobody wants to go to the places I want to visit. At first I was pretty adamant to drop down to Florida (beaches, bikini babes and killer whales!!!! what more could you ask for??) and then head off to the former largest outdoor swimming pool in the world, New Orleans!! And just in time for the Satchmo Festival too! Thats a week long jazz festival celebrating the music of Louis Armstrong. Mr Crackled-Ol-What-a-Wonderful-World-Voice himself! Like how cool is that?

Unfortunately, there seems to be disappointingly few people who share my enthusiasm so I probably have to give the Southeastern States a miss. It really ain't safe to be a lone chink in the French Quarter of a Southern American city dominated by Blacks.

Now this is the part where I find Canada. And all of a sudden I'm over the moon with anticipation! There seems to be great stuff happening all over Canada every single day! Check it out:

1. Summer festival in Toronto with heaps and heaps of good food, cool stuff and good music!

2. Ben & Jerry's Factory in Waterbury. Vermont(yes I know thats in the States. STFU already)! Need I say more?

3. Up to Montpellier for the St Stephen's CHOCOLATE festival!!! Like....woah!! One whole week full of lovely chocolate activities! Treasure hunts, flea markets, tours, contests, music and loads and loads of chocolate!

4. Down to Nova Scotia for the Louisburg Crab Festival! Yum yum yum yum!

Shoots I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. And I'm gushin like a girl. Shite. Ok back to Financial Accounting.

payoff

I did it!! I did it!!! I managed to keep up with the T@ guys for the better part of 100km!!!
Usually I get left behind at the Old Upper Thomson stretch but today I managed to barrell down that road in FRONT of the group!!!

Ok thats probably because they let go, but still... I KEPT UP!!!!

Happy happy!!

fuck fuck fuck

Now I get a call from the bike shop telling me that my 300 dollar pair of 5 week old wheels are damaged beyond repair. Somehow the rear wheel rim split in two and the spokes are falling out! 300 bucks!!!

If someone up there is trying to see how much it'll take to break me, he/she/it won't have to wait very long.

come fly with me....please?

Oh boy I'm in yet another dilemma. Ok two. Spelling dilemma right was one of them but thats solved. If only the other was one as easily put away.

Right now I'm facing the prospect of two 26 hour flights all on my lonesome and perhaps a few weeks alone in the good ol US of A. This afternoon I just found out that the person I was supposed to be going on the Work and Travel thingy with pulled out of the program entirely! She said she'd told me a long time before but I can't for the life of me remember her ever saying anything like that to me. But then I wouldn't give mysef that much credit either. Not when I'm losing stuff and doing stupid things left right centre because I'm not exactly an elephant when it comes to remembering.

But still....I don't know what to do! The only other friends I have going to Cedar Point are SMU ones and they're all buggering off before my exams even start and leaving mere days after I finish the work stint. Add that to the fact that they've all got their SMU cliques already and there are woefully few NUS ppl going to Cedar Point and basically, I'm screwed. Can't even decide what flight dates to put down.

These days I just wish I could catch a lucky break somewhere...anywhere.

rednecks

Today I got an inkling as to why Americans aren't exactly the most popuplar people in the world at the moment.

Quite understandably, the Americans are now all paranoid buggers who think everybody's trying to kill them, so part of the process of getting a visa to enter their much hyped country is to go to the US embassy for an interview. So down I went today to that big old stone building on Middlesex Road along with a bunch of NTU people whom I happened to meet at the Speedwing office earlier on. I have no idea how i got it into my head that Americans are considerate and efficient. All I know is that that little misconception was utterly shattered the minute I got there.

The bunch of us were greeted to the sight of a whole line of people waiting for their visa interviews OUTSIDE the embassy. No, not in any sort of area demarcated for waiting; not in any sort of conditions for waiting. Nope. They were all standing and queuing along the MAIN ROAD!!! Under the blazing sun with no shelter, no seats, breathing in car fumes every couple of minutes, being heckled by an extremely rude security guard to get orderly while standing in a line that stretched all the way from the outside of the guardhouse to the sidewalk near the main road. All this while the other guards watched us from inside their air-conditioned room and bitched about God knows what. We were out there for more than an hour, perspiring like a walrus in a fur coat in Afghanistan.

But I should've known that wasn't the end of it. After we finally managed to make it inside the building, after surrendering our cell phones mind you, we were directed to a large room packed full of Asians and issued a queue number woefully woefully short of the one they were currently serving. Maybe they thought they were doing Singaporeans a favour by letting them indulge in their national past-time. I dunno. They didn't even bother trying to make life easier for the people waiting there. Pathetically few seats meant lots and lots of people were standing. No help desks meant hardly anybody knew what to do. No vending machines or stalls meant as the hours wore by, people began to notice their tummies growling.

One of the guys in my group found an area off to one side that was totally vacant and even had a tv screen blasting US National Guard propaganda. The only problem: the area was meant only for US citizens. We managed to overcome that by getting permission from a security guard to sit down inside, but 5 minutes into our respite, an embassy staff (a Singaporean!!!) caught sight of us and got the same guard to kick us out.

So anyway, after all this trouble, you'd expect this interview thingy to be something pretty big. Boy were we in for a surprise. As it turned out, the 'interview' was conducted on two sides of a bullet-proof glass window with both parties standing up, like something you'd find in Changi prison. And the interviewer seemed more indifferent than anything else. He asked me a grand total of TWO questions:

1. What is your name?
2. When do you graduate?

And that was it!! After 2 hours of waiting!! Well I suppose it could've been worse. There was an Indian family before me at another counter. The parents were all dressed up in suit and sari and dragging their little girl along. The father walked up to the counter with a smile on his face...only to have the person behind the counter ask him what he was smiling about, and to wipe it off his face. Full Metal Jacket all over again. All he needed was to ask the Indian guy to choke himself.

THIS is the country that I'm so excited about going to? These are the people who think themselves worthy of deciding the fate of the world?