Some links

30-second Bunnies Theatre - quick animated summaries of popular movies such as Titanic and The Shining

Billy's Dad is a Fudge Packer! - 50s educational video? NOT!

Listen to BBC Radio 1 Live - my favourite radio station - navigate the links for their archived stuff

OK Go's Here It Goes Again - beautiful treadmill work.

Circle Circle Dot Dot - Lego stop-motion music video, I've always had a soft spot for stop-motion

Gamespot's Top Ten DS Games

Gamespot's Elite Beat Agents Forum - "You know you have been playing too much EBA when: You start to like songs you have no idea who the artist is,You download the ALL the actual songs on LimeWire (true, as with the fact of Guitar Hero II), Then you download the songs from the game from some game soundtrack site that has the music ripped from the game (I have a few still going ^_^) You like Ashlee Simpson...O__________O (in this case, seek medical and all types of health) You think you can become an Elite Beat Agent." - shion_jr_kosmos

How to tick people off

Cats with headphones

My last.fm profile - shameless self plug

No school today

Woke up. Mom bought back GOOD nasi lemak complete with good chicken wing and okay chilli.



No school today. So fired up the DS, fired up the laptop, played Elite Beat Agents and I cleared that pesky Canned Heat level on the 2nd easiest mode (complicated rhythm, and the bass and the vocals are on alternate beats, making things particularly confusing), in addition to 2 levels last night. I was so sleepy I didn't remember which difficulty or level I complete them in, but I know I did complete 2 levels!

Well, having one morning, afternoon and evening all to myself, but not having any determination to start on schoolwork or revision or anything. It get depressing after a while when I realise that, really, the small pleasures in life are just that - SMALL pleasures. So what if I beat that level in Elite Beat Agents? In the long run, it doesn't matter. So what was breakfast was good?

Extrapolating. So what if I do well or do badly in school so as long as I churn out the degree in the end? So what? Even then, it's a lifetime of drudgery - the drudgery called work.

Extrapolating. We live, then we die. Why even bother pushing ourselves so hard to live? We die anyway.

I don't know if I should feel guilty enjoying those small pleasures - when my life's a shambles and right now, I ain't contributing anything to society or even family. I know it. My family has stopped giving a damn about me because my brother's working and hauling in the money anyway.

If I disappear off the face of the earth, would anyone care? Probably not, because everyone is so dispensable. Countries sending thousands to their death for some wooly war against terrorism. if the president dies, there's always a dozen of people vying for the spot. Countries won't collapse just because of a change of rule. If a even a president's dispensable, what am I?

Stinkin' thinking. I know that's what it is. I'm probably not being entirely logical here, just feeling crappy for the moment, so, well, I'm going to distract myself from this stinkin' thinking.



Cleared up my room and my desk, packed everything up, cleared out all the unwanted stuff, packed all the receipts of important purchases into one place, arranged my CD collection properly, put all my ties on the tie rack, bunched and tied up all the wires in my room. Weird how Nintendo has this predilection for printing health warnings and I'm gonna weed them pesky booklets outta the rest of the instruction manuals and chuck them aside. Usually this makes for good distraction. At least, it feels like something productive.



Tired out, plopped myself in front of the computer again.

Decided to go out for a bike ride. Was feeling so useless about myself when I couldn't hit 20kmh on the usual upslope (though happily, the next 2 attempts were >20kmh). Made it a long bike ride, to tire myself out, get all the angst away from me. Not a good day on the roads, being evening peak. Flipped a couple of people off who didn't respect my right of way. But managed to stay calm throughout. No berserk moments. At least the average speed on the speedometer registered 23kmh which was good.

Tired out, plopped myself in front of the computer again.

How to live DESPITE school

So. Today's a monday. And Monday means school. There's this mock-presentation lecturish thingie today, and attendance is compulsary.

Dammit.

==

The raw truth is - us students are smart enough to choose what lessons are worthwhile and what are not. And the stark reality is, we can't choose because the teachers and the parents don't believe us.

And so it means, every morning, thousands upon thousands of students are dragged along to school by their parents, students are kept in class by teachers with seemingly good intentions, students force themselves out of bed early just to attend lessons just for that attendance record. From kids freshly from kindergarten, to university students, to postgraduate students clocking in their coursework hours.

Let's be frank. Much of school doesn't matter. The teachers take full hours just to teach silly concepts that can be understood in minutes just by reading the textbook in the comfort of your own bed. And by drawing up florid diagrams and curly scribbles on the board, they feel like they're doing a great service educating the students.

But seriously, you mean you do pay attention to all the lessons in school? Bet not. But somehow, we're all stuck in school because we have to. Because our parents will scream bloody murder otherwise. Because the teachers will give us bad remarks. Because of detention. Because of peer evaluations. Because of quotas to meet. How then do we cope with this absurd reality?



1. In lectures, every second counts
Lectures are precious. Where else can you find such huge chunks of time where you are not expected to play an active role in your education? I'm not telling you to pay attention to the lecture. I'm telling you to:

1. take a quick glance at the lecture notes. You'll probably see that you already know 60% of the stuff, and the 30% of the stuff can be read yourself, and that remaining 10% is just pure junk that's way beyond your syllabus

2. now that you're convinced that you don't have to listen to the lecture, double-convince yourself by doing one of the example questions (if any) in the lecture notes

3. if you're sleepy, take a good nap

4. if you're bored, pick up your phone, send the messages to your friends you've been planning to, play that game you uploaded onto your phone, or stealthily read the comic book tucked into your thick textbook. But before you use your phone, MAKE SURE IT IS IN SILENT MODE.

5. if you're really bored, turn around, and play paper games with your classmate. Some games are better than others. A game of Win Lose or Draw would work, so would hangman or simply writing a story by having one player write just 1 word on the paper and asking the next player to continue it with another word and so on.

6. lectures are when you're with your classmates. Make full use of the time and catch up with them, discuss the latest movies and even pore over product catalogues or magazines together.

7. if you can sneak out without getting caught, run some errands. Get the stationery you're planning to get from the bookstore, grab a snack, go to the library and borrow a book, empty your bladder.

8. and if you're the studious kind, just shut out what the lecturer is saying, and get on with your own homework/revision/etc. it's way more effective that way.

2. In practical sessions, get the maximum enjoyment
1. Remember your childhood.

2. What would the 8 year-old you do in the lab?

3. Now take out the metre rules and play Luke vs Darth, take out the 2-volt lead acid cells, short the wire across the terminals and have fun poking your friends with the blisteringly-hot wire. Or mix up a concoction of chemicals that resembles blood, then scare your squeamish class monitor. Or carve funny faces in the leftover potatoes from the experiment.

4. No matter what, remember that Biology teachers do not condone conducting your own practical experiments for the 'Human Reproduction' module.


3. Tutorials are mini stand-up comedies
1. Some examples:
"KC where is your Chemistry homework?" "My dog ate my homework."

"Can you tell me why an intermedullary rod is used in the internal fixation of a femoral shaft fracture?" "Can I poll the audience? Or call a friend?"

"Describe what you see in this X-ray" "This is a black-and-white X-ray. There is a black blob here, and another white blob below, uhhhh.... I think this black blob is normal but the white blob is not normal. There is also a greyish blob somwhere...."

2. Sometimes you do have to do your homework first. But often, sitting next to a friend who does his work regularly helps alot. And if you're desperate enough: if the teacher is explaining question 7, do question 8 just so that you get away scot-free should he ask you for question 8 right after that. Works wonders sometimes. Hey, we do have to clock in some practice sometime afterall eh?

==



So, back to my Monday. It was a very productive lecture. I revised a ton of statistics, I went down to the library to borrow a couple of books for my brother, I kept in contact with my friends, I confirmed that the exam timetable was reverted back to old (no more 1-week reduction in study time!), I took a very short nap, and I was making snide remarks about the evil professor who kept on insisting on having the students' presentation tweaked to his liking (down to the exact font size and wording) and made a few messages on my phone and discussed some plans and all with a friend.



Oblivious to the bitching and moaning professor. I think he has some degree of obsessive compulsive disorder - I commented that his shirt was unusually-well-pressed, my friend commented that he probably just started his workday, that asshole, and I recalled the time he made a no-show for a tutorial and was still at home during the scheduled tutorial time, thus disproving my theory.

That's my productive school day.



Went home with my friend (via the shutle service to Bukit Timah Campus, had to take a long walk up a hill to get to the bus) and it dropped me off in the middle of nowhere, had to take yet another long walk before I found the old familiar bus service 74.

Saturday

Not in a writing mood, so a quick one.



Run in Bishan Park, away from the noise at home. Parents getting cranky, for no reason at all. Just kept on running/walking for a couple of hours in the drizzle until I had to go back. Gee who cares, it's just water. Just needed some quiet time.



Vivocity, Island Cafe, awaiting the unvieling of Kelvin after he won a makeover off STOMP sponsored by Jean Yip. To quote Borat, the makeover was a great success, with Kelvin and the 2 other female participants also looking really good after that.

As for that cup of coffee - a 'flat white' - to put it bluntly it tastes like crap. Had to sweeten it to get the bad taste masked. Ryan got a 'long black', which made me wonder if, you know, they were actually referring to the genitalia of the 2 ethnicities.



They did a video interview, but I didn't want to look stupid so I stayed the hell away.

Ferret, Ryan, me tried to go to Vienna in United Square for dinner but the place's fully booked. Went to Pariss in Marina Square. It's really expensive at more than 40 a head, but the variety of food was astonishing. Stuffed ourselves all the way to the brim.






Maybe it was the sugar from the desserts, maybe it's the seafood, but. Whatever happened after that, ought not to be blogged about!

Arrrrgh

Saved Thursday's entry as draft rather than publishing, just realised. So if you want to read it it's now below the Friday entry.

Just survived a long jog in the drizzle. Had to get meself outta the house while mum is cranky and naggy and all, no matter how lazy I was feeling.

Exciting events lined up for the rest of the day!

Friday is

much better. Was with Ryan seeing how I could help defuse the situation he was in, and well, the immediate problem was definitely defused.

Groggy from continuous lack of sleep. So pardon me if this entry is in snatches of incoherent words.

2-player DS via Wifi link is really cool. Many games are playable by both players even if only 1 person has the game cartridge (but with limited functionality) . The client DS downloads the game off the host, using the feature Download Play. Tried it with Elite Beat Agents (only 5 songs available) and New Super Mario Bros (Mario vs Luigi, - each player tries to collect 5 stars while running loops around a level, damage the opponent to steal his stars, first guy to get 5 stars wins. Also, various minigames are available.)

Food.



Ceaser wrap - From Raffles City basement, not too sure of the name of the place. Lots of chicken meat. Really Tasty.

Orchard. Met Ferret during her lunchtime.



Free sample of a Starbucks cookie frap - why does it taste salty? A fail, to be honest.



The Xbox360 isn't very reliable, is it?

Was really groggy throughout. But I recall enjoying my time walking around the malls looking at random stuff. Freaky thought, in a few years we'd look totally out of place if we were to step into toy store and try out all the new toys. Youth. Gotta savour it while it lasts.

Slept on the bus back home. The soothing drone of the bus engine, the comfortable seat, the old familiar bus route. Sweet sweeet sleep. Reached home. Put on some soothing music Richie recommended me (Buena Vista Social Club - Rhythms del Mundo Cuba). Sweet sweet sleep again. Lovely. And now I'm off for more sweet sweet sleep. Goodnight.

My room (Thursday)

Didn't have a good night's worth of sleep again. Sleep debt snowballing. Naturally, woke up feeling crappy, but it's not too bad cause I know that the sleeplessness is the cause of my crappy mood.

Plonked myself in front of the computer the whole day in my room. Without doing anything productive. Random blogsurfing, MSNing, etc. Tried to read the comics from the library, but somehow, a groggy mind doesn't enjoy following intricate plotlines of the war in Sarajevo or thick graphic novels.

Hours pass.

Took a peek downstairs and oh no. My mum was clearing out all my secondary school files and stuff from the shelves. Without informing me first. Literally panicked. All the stuff was laying in plastic bags at the balcony by the main door, waiting to be disposed. Was literally sitting on the balcony floor, fishing out all the stuff that I had to save.



I don't care much for all those geography or mathematics drivel that I studied in secondary school, but there was no way in hell I was going to part with all those short stories and poetry I heard learnt in Literature, or the English essays I had written that hold really fond memories.

Call me arrogant. But I know that I'm a pretty darned good writer, and to dispose off any of my creative works would be an insult to that. When my English teachers remark that my essays are interesting, I know they mean it. I may have gotten good marks, I may have reached impressive percentile rankings for General Paper in Junior College, but what really matters is the warm fuzzy feeling when my classmates want to read my essays.

But most of all, these essays hold memories. All that effort writing out-of-the-box, stretching the limits of the essay questions, writing satire and parody pieces for General Paper, all that. It was fun.

I flipped through my secondary 4 English file.

Write a story that ends with the sentence "That's it, I have had enough!". I wrote a 4-page gastronomic journey of a man eating a really delicious salad.

Also came across an essay that I had written on a very lazy day. No one took the essay seriously, and neither did I. Mine was a narrative from the point of view of a man who kept on pretending to be various movie characters.

There was one essay inspired by Graham Greene's Brighton Rock about a young gangster trying to find his place, that wasn't too good but somehow brought back lots of memories.

And and my mum wanted to throw them out. Tried to reason with her that it was irresponsible for her to throw them out. Then she blamed me for everything and anything. The whole conversation just went downhill. Somehow, if she has no concept that such things can hold such great memories, then there was no point discussing it at all. Was bitching about it with Ferret and Ryan via SMSes on the phone, sorta felt better airing it all out. But all in all. Nothing can be done, except carting those files into the safety of my room and sulking.

Flurry of emails on the class email group on how the exams had been pushed forwards by a week at the last minute, without proper justification or concern. How professional. Shit like this ought not to happen in National University of Singapore. But it does. Some classmates are writing letters and petitions and stuff. But to be honest? I'm too tired of all that crap to even bother anymore. What's new. Curveballs thrown at us, being treated like scum. That's student life over here.

Since I wasn't able to do anything about these problems anyway, I just shrugged them away and drowned myself in playing more Elite Beat Agents on my DS, reading some Foxtrot comics, MSN, just distracting myself from reality (since facing it head-on won't magically fix things anyway)

Oops, Ryan had some difficulties at home, and he's staying outside for the whole night. Hope everything'll be alright on his side. And I'm helping out when I can.

Wouldn't it be better if everyone just played nice to each other?

Wild Wednesday

Woke up. Slept. Woke up. Slept. Another day of poor sleep. It's seriously making me cranky and horrible. But if it's any consolation, at least I know the exact reason for my bad mood. Woke up at about 8am and after a while, decided to make a last ditch attempt to get some more sleep. It succeeded, had a pretty good final hour of sleep.

Did I mention? Yesterday, I took a quick listen to The Good The Bad & The Queen's album and nearly wet my pants in excitement at how good it was. Damon Albarn's work of genius. If you like the Gorillaz and you like Blur, what are you waiting for?

Today, I so have to get myself to a CD shop and buy it.

Oh there's this really cool new feature on SBS Transit's website, iris. It allows you to check the next bus arrival time for any SBS bus for any bus stop, which is really sweet. Checked it and oh, only 8 minutes left for the bus to arrive. Dashed out of home with my stuff, and made it to the bus-stop with 2 minutes left.



To my surprise, the bus arrived exactly on time. Sweet!

Blasted some Pokemon on the bus, decided to meet Ryan first since he was out already. Borders, Taka, got some food, then off to scour the shops for The Good The Bad and The Queen.

Gramophone didn't have and did not know of any future stock, so it was a disappointment, considering that Singapore hardly stocks any UK music until WAY after the release date.



But HMV had lotsa stock of that album, so I grabbed it right there and then, together with Gorillaz's Demon Days (led by Damon Albarn too!) which was on special offer. Now The Good The Bad & The Queen holds the spot on my CD rack as the only 2007 title. (I arrange them by release year, then within the same year by alphabet.) To quote Borat: Great success!


(Photo spirited from Ryan's blog)

Raffles City. Supermarket, Ryan got a Diet A&W, while initially I decided against getting anything because there wasn't anything that looked good and happened to be chilled. But then. Took a taste of Ryan's A&W, and strangely it tasted way better than the usual sugared version usually sold. Doesn't have that weird sourish taste to it, and it's thick without leaving that weird feel on your teeth.

Turned back, bought the last remaining can. Heh. I'm no dieter, but well, the idea of sugared drinks and its associated insulin-surge-diabetes-risk-messing-up-the-body thing just doesn't feel right.



Met Ferret, walked around Marina Square looking for Subway because they were giving out free cookies from 4-6pm. Was lost along the way, ended up in a hotel asking for directions, crossing carpark access lanes and etc, until we finally found the place.

The staff there were really friendly and gave us a cookie each! The peanut butter one was especially delicious. Never tried it before so it was a really pleasant surprise. Really funny how the sales person in charge of the cookies made sure to look oblivious to the cookie giveaway until the customer asked for them, then she beamed a smile and happily gave them out!


(Photo spirited from Ferret)

Evil thoughts brewed. What if we went branch to branch queueing up again and again for free cookies? Suntec City. Joined by reinforcements! Crochunter was there! The Suntec people were almost as friendly, and they let us choose our flavours!

Next stop: Raffles City. Now, the staff were busy and a little peeved as they seemed to be running out of cookies so we just sort of meekly took the cookies and scurried off.

Gee, totally full from all the cookies. Next stop: Funan Centre, wondering if there was a Subway there. Turned out not to be one, but we had fun there, looking at all the tech stuff and most of all, Gamescore, a very popular game shop.


(Photo spirited from Ryan's blog)

Elite Beat Agents! And at a nice price too! I simply had to buy it. Ryan wanted to get an Action Replay (cheater!) but they didn't stock it.

Dinner. Sorta stuffed from all that cookies so didn't eat all that much. headed to TCC next (sorta like Coffee Bean which they took over the location from, only better and posher.). Chose the Kenya AA coffee, one of those premium coffee. Drank it black, and no doubt it was good coffee, but it was sorta strong and bitter and every sip was quite a small explosion on the tongue.



Took a slow stroll to Bugis, and recee'd places for future gatherings. All along the way, Ryan and I were doing this little game where we named 2 foods then asked the other person which he prefers. It's super freaky that so much of our tastes are similar - way beyond what can be explained by coincidence. e.g. tomato sauce in preference of chilli sauce, Nyonya rice dumplings as opposed to the usual ones, Honey Stars over Coco Crunch. It's uncanny!

Reached Bugis, then hung around for a while, then had to make our way back. Really sweet (but expensive) day today.



Took out my DS and fired up Elite Beat Agents while leaning next to the door of the train and earphones snugly in ears. Typical curious glances from the passengers nearby. But who cares?



Really fun game, as I've always been a sucker for rhythm games such as Beatmania and Parappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy. Easy mode's quite fun to begin with. Blazed through the levels, as all the songs that I already know the beat to felt really easy. And of course, noticed my embarassing familiarity of the beat to Avril Lavinge's Skater Boi. Yikes.

One thing about this game, It's totally unplayable in noisy situations where you can't hear the song crystal-clear. It really helps to use earphones with this game. Either that, or plug it into a hi-fi like what I did at home and groove to the beat of the kick drum.

Normal mode's significantly harder though, and you can't really complete a song in just 1 try anymore. But that's how such rhythm games should be. Just hard enough such that you master the song before you can pass the stage, but not too tough that you get sick of the song.

Really love this game! More to come when I progress through the game and therefore have more to say. For now, goodnight.

I am Spiderman (II)

(Continued from previous entry)

But Spiderman realises, Spiderman isn't allowed to fail. It's not even an option. No matter how tough it gets. No matter how meaningless it gets. No matter how helpless he feels.

Because. Failure is not an option when one is Spiderman. Suck it up, no one is going to worry for or pity Spiderman, because that would be an absurd proposition, no? Everyone expects Spiderman to be there, and Spiderman won't say no. And he can't fail. We all know the ending always stays the same. Spiderman defeats the villain, good prevails.

It's always more comforting when you don't see the cracks in the pillar hidden behind that thick coat of fresh paint. This is the direction that Spiderman HAS to take.

So you gotta thank this for the recent surge in music-related and society-related posts, and less of my whiney ranty posts.

Soundtrack for a Headache

Slept. Awoke. Slept. Awoke. 6 hours of fitful sleep with a headache to boot. Waking up in the mornings is especially painful with a headache (well, duh.)

Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb It's hard not to hear of Pink Floyd when all the music lovers of the previous generation gush about it, about how great they were live, how much of their youth was spent listening to them. Pink Floyd's music is all about the whole experience - not just the music or the melodies - but losing yourself in the whole atmosphere while you listen to their albums in their entireity. When you'ge got a pounding and raging headache, the best way is to lose yourself in some slow, soft music.





The Smashing Pumpkins - Mayonaise
Recommended to me by a friend on IRC some years ago. Love it.











Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
Old, good stuff.











Foo Fighters - Walking After You
I remember listening to this song many many times on the radio when I was 14, back when radio actually still played alternative rock rather than soppy manufactured crap. From the X-Files movie soundtrack, if I recall. However, the album version with mellower guitars is much better in times of a bad pain in the head though.






Sigur Ros - Hoppipola
Lovely song. 'Hopping Puddles' in Icelandic it is. Dreamy, sweet, lulling you into a peaceful retreat from that crushing ache in the skull.









Elbow - Powder Blue
Another, soft slow piece and the headache's hopefully gone now.











(Cover art blatantly spirited from www.amazon.com )

My Chemical Romance, Emo and Emo Bashers

Haven't done a modern culture analysis kinda piece in a long while so I guess I'd get started. Those modern culture kinda thing was what got me by General Paper in Junior College. Instead of focussing on cliched quotes from George Bernard Shaw or other commonly-quoted people, I took the liberty to write about popular culture and art and quotes people like Jarvis Cocker from UK Britpop band Pulp and relate the art, culture and etc with the stuff we see on TV and hear on radio. GP teachers liked it, I loved it - because it's MY field, so I stuck with it. Now to the meat.



What is Emo? If you trace emo culture, I would say it all started with the music. Back in the 90s when emopunk was a independent-label, underground sorta scene. I don't claim to know much about this early period of the evolution, but it was an offshoot from punk itself. Naturally, with punk came the mascara and mopey Robert Smith-esque look. It's not like they want to look 'emo' or anything, but it was just a part of the punk thing.

Next we got these bands that were just starting to break into the mainstream, for example The Get Up Kids and their ever-so-catchy single Red Letter Day. And who can forget Dashboard confessional, which had dominated the emo scene for goodness knows how long, but only really got their limelight when they had released the single Vindicated in conjunction with the Spiderman Original Soundtrack.

It's music. It's not some mopey dopey act about bloodletting and feeling sorry for oneself. It's not about thinking it's cool to be sad or anything. It's music. Music that appeals to a younger crowd, that lets them identify themselves with.

To be honest, My Chemical Romance - the band that had gained as much notoriety as popularity for fitting the emo musical style and fashion sense - is not bad. While they are not entirely original (lifting much of its ideas from bands like Queen), they do sing well, play well, and write songs that appeal to a large audience.

Do we really have to judge a band by what category they're pigeonholed into, rather than the quality of the music? I don't think so. But I dare you to wear a My Chemical Romance T-shirt in public and NOT be verbally lynched for that.

There are some bands though that do have their roots in emopunk, but have since shed the fashion sensibilities associated with it. Jimmy Eat World and Weezer are 2 of them that come to mind. I love Jimmy Eat World. So sue me. It's pretty sad that bands have to shed their emo image just so that they won't get ridiculed.

All in all, isn't emo just music and its associated fashion and culture? Nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to ridicule about. It's a genre with some great bands, just like all other genres.

Emo is not an insult.

Privacy policy - Draft 1

Privacy. It's an ethical dilemma. No I'm not talking about my own privacy - I know exactly how much I want to divulge and how much I want to keep private.

I'm talking about the privacy of others. There are many issues that are assumed to be private (including real name, age, illness, associations, work, etc) unless mentioned otherwise. The usual stuff. So in this case, the policy is:

I will not divulge potentially private information about someone else, unless
1. explicit permission is given
2. the someone in question has already mentioned it in his/her easily-accessible blog
3. it's an 'open secret'
4. the information is unlikely to be of any real consequence, e.g. "Richie thinks Borat rocks."

Photos too, I'm really reluctant to put photos of people who aren't me. But ethically, I have the full rights to, because photography is always allowed in public places unless otherwise stated. But as a polite gesture, I don't post the photos of people if they don't feel comfortable with it. But if the other party camwhores on his blog/doesn't mind/etc, by all means. But generally, I'm not totally comfortable with posting pictures of human beings.

Gear mashing

(Archive photos, not in a photo-taking mood lately)

Weekend mornings are when the bicyclists crawl out of the woodwork and start clocking in their kilometres where I cycle, i.e. the Old Upper Thomson/Upper Pierce Reservoir route. There's always a great pressure to try to drag myself out of the woodwork on the same mornings, as it's a comfortable feeling being one of many cyclists plying that same route, overtaking the weaker cyclists, admiring the cyclists who are able to leave you in the dust with just a deft spin of the pedals.

Bad news. My speedometer's not working. What this means is that I can't monitor how well I'm doing, as one's guesstimation of speed is seldom accurate. Somehow, blazing down a main road at 45kmh can sometimes feel as fast as 25kmh in a narrow curvy road. Always been tempted by one of those new wireless speedometers, especially the one I recall razorviolin recommending me in this blog.

And I am proud to present my findings about how wearing yellow does not make a cyclist go faster. Know how they have the yellow jerseys in long races to mark out who was on top of the leaderboard? I think it makes casual cyclists feel good when they wear one too. But I am proud to say:

I overtook a roadie wearing yellow. And I was on a slower mountain bike. And I wasn't wearing anything flashy, just an old T-shirt. Uphill. It's sort of a nasty thing to do, but yes I gotta admit that I was gloating at how much better I was at ascending hills, despite not looking half as fit as he did.

Reached the end of the series of climbs, rested a while at the reservoir, then set off again, only to see Mr Yellow right ahead too. Slaughtered him again on a climb, feeling high with all that adrenaline.

Was about to crest a hill, only to see a selfish ass park his car at the top of the hill (bad for visibility) and throwing food out of the window for the monkeys (feeding the monkeys makes them increase in numbers and they become aggressive towards people when they don't get their food fix).

And to top it all off, whatever remaining space there was on the road, there was a half-bitten pineapple right smack on the road. Had to manoeuvre my way around it at the last minute as I didn't see it from the bottom of the hill.

I was incensed. Those selfish road abusers. The logical part of me tells me that they're just selfish and ignorant, but there's this manic part of me that insists that they're out to get me, miam me, kill me. Did the glare-at-driver-with-killing-eyes, hand gesture thing and yes. The driver had the defiant look on his face I swear.

Really took me alot to keep my rage in check, as rage is a bad bad thing on the roads. It almost got me killed several times before.

When I'm in rage, somehow I just bash wildly, not caring if I live or die in the process. Stuff like venting all my frustration by going at totally reckless speeds, taking mortal chances, even trying to chase down the cars and buses that have offended me. (My friend reminds me that I stand to lose MUCH more than these drivers do, it's truly logical, but somehow it doesn't register when I'm in a Hulk-like fury.)

But this time, I got by quite safely. No silly dangerous actions. Got back my marbles before anything happened. Heard a ratcheting sound that I swore was the freewheel of the yellow cyclist's bicycle. Looked back and that yellow cyclist was way outta sight. Must've been some sound from elsewhere.

You know, I really wish to get this fury/rage/anger/berserk think in check. But how? My friend SH and I sorta figured, it's going to do me in sooner or later at this rate. And I won't want that.

And did I mention, a change of battery and a couple of hard knocks against the floor got my speedometer working again! Yay for percussive repair.

Truly random stuff

No, your blogs aren't random enough. These are some totally random snippets:

For Borat fans: Check out Korki Buchek's page on Wikipedia. Featuring a sound clip of his world-famous single, Bing Bang. Yes. I'm crazy over Borat. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm though. I think I've lost a couple of friends after I made them watch Borat.

==

The Good The Bad And The Queen's album will be out in the UK on the 22nd. I gotta look out for that. They're this band consisting of Damon Albarn of Blur's fame, Simonon from The Clash on bass, and Simon Tong from the Verve on guitar, and some African guy.

I can't wait. Their single Herculean has been a herculean success so far, and sounds like a cross between Blur and Radiohead and The Dandy Warhols.

==
Foxtrot comics are classic. Very nice. I like. Found it in Orchard Library.

==



School still sucks, and with every passing day, I find it a challenge not to strangle that professor. My friends see that fury in my eyes every time he enters the room. They share the anger, but not the hate.

My teammates have been particularly cold to me after a few no-shows and do not keep me updated on the project anymore.

==



Pokemon FireRed is a great game for bus commuters like me. It doesn't need much dexterity, so the bus suspension and the skill of the bus driver aren't going to be factors in determining your enjoyment of the game. You can save anytime, and it's mind-numbingly fun and keeps the pain of having to go to school, or the dread of having to face more crap at home, or the frustration of being stuck in a traffic jam at bay.

==

Breko's Bugis doesn't have very good food but the ambience is cosy.





==

Was eating dinner and insisting to my parents that eating white rice (tasteless, odourless, colourless and you might as well eat something tastier rather than waste your stomach space on rice) doesn't make sense and has 'no proven benefit'. (Yes. The community medicine lectures didn't come to waste, everything to me nowadays is seen in terms of cost vs benefit, evidence, statistics)

Was musing how we pop all kinds of food - natural and artificial - into our mouths but how much do we really know about the risks, the benefits and etc? Sure, we know cholesterol is bad, vitamins are good. But beyond that? You don't see studies being done on whether celery or cucumber makes people live longer, or whether beef or turkey does your arteries in sooner.

On the other hand, do a search on statins (a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs) and you'll see thousands of studies comparing all the various statins against another.

Conclusion? Pharm companies have the dough to pay the researchers. But your cattle farmers don't even bother, because they already know, you're going to buy their meat anyway.

==

This was truly random.

Have you ever seen the rain

(Random blog title from bozo. Asked him for a random line for inspiration)

It's raining all the time the past few weeks though somehow, the promoters of Rain's upcoming concert thought it'd be a fun thing to mess around with the weather dials and gauges.

It gets in the way of everything. Bicycle rides shelved because it'd be too much of a hassle to clean the bike up after all the mud splashes. Not to mention, the puddle water getting into your eyes, on your clothing, et cetra.

Rain sucks.

And I think I've rammed into yet another writer's block. Somehow, there's nothing special I want to write, no life experiences I want to etch onto the archives of cyberspace at all for now. Always happens when school reopens bleagh.

Screw School (say that ten times fast)

You are Spider-Man


You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.

Spider-Man 60% Hulk 60% Robin 52% Batman 50% Superman 50% Supergirl 42% Catwoman 40% The Flash 35% Wonder Woman 32% Green Lantern 30% Iron Man 10%

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Was MSNing with CH and musing, maybe I'm really Spiderman.

So, quick story. With great powers come great responsibility. The truth is, although medical students do not actually have much power in the real sense - we don't make treatment decisions, we don't have any authority to change anothing - there are some powers that we cannot choose not to have. And there's this bunch of misconceptions and expectations that society expects out of us, and sometimes these are plain unreasonable and absurd.

Why medical students are like Spiderman:
1. When crime strikes, when Mary Jane is in trouble, Spiderman can't choose not to take action can he?
We do know our stuff. We might not be able to do stuff, but we definitely have that power to give information. We know more than most of the general public, and if what we know might help someone else, I guess it's a moral responsibility to provide that information. Can't say no, can't run away.

2. Spiderman has an image to keep up.
We can't just do anything we like, because we are role models. If I pick up a cigarette and smoke, it's only natural for others to think 'gee, even a doc-to-be does it, it can't be all that harmful right?'. Fair enough.

But what I, for whatever reason, choose to smoke in full knowledge of the risks? It'd be a logical decision to me, but I wouldn't want to bring others down along with me when I smoke.

We have to be conscious of this role-modelling thing all the time and it drives me nuts. Just because I'm a doc-to-be doesn't mean that what I do is OK, yeah? Nobody's perfect.

3. Spiderman doesn't owe you anything.
Neither do we. You don't pay us, you don't even respect us, you act like it's your right to make us explain everything and anything to you, to drop whatever we're doing just to reassure you that your acne marks will fade or that the running nose you're having will subside in a couple of days.

If we don't know you, we don't know you. Stop trying to pretend that you're our friends when you barely know us, because that trick won't work. We don't know you and don't owe you. Unless of course we feel that we need to step in.

4. You don't tell Spiderman how to shoot a web.
If you don't know even a tenth as much as we do about the field, don't even pretend to do so. You'll just look silly and immature in our eyes. We spend years mastering this skill and art, and you didn't, so don't think you know more or that you can do better than us.

5. Sometimes Spiderman fails too. And he'd appreciate a little help.
If you had watched the movie Spiderman 2 you'd know. Even superheroes get overwhelmed and burn out. Even superheroes lose their powers sometimes, and superheroes need help sometimes.

We don't know everything in the field. You wouldn't expect an electronics engineer to know every single detail about how your television set works. You wouldn't expect an astrophysicist to explain things that even the best scientists don't know. So don't ask us why males have nipples or why you took longer than usual to recover from a particular bout of flu. We simply don't know. And don't use that stupid 'if you don't know how can you save lives next time?' line, because you and I both know that we don't need to know everything to be proficient.

We get sick too. It's not our fault when we fall ill. Just because we chose this field doesn't mean we don't have a right to.

We have our setbacks too. All too often I hear "he's a medical student, he'll overcome this", or "if he made it into medical school, this shouldn't be a problem, no?" or "I'm sure he can help himself." That's bullshit, you know. We're human just like you too. We can't always be the ones helping without being help. When we need help, who else can we turn to but you?

6. Peter Parker doesn't like to be disturbed.
Look, we're all sick of being superheroes for so many hours of the day. If you're our friends, stop bugging us with your 'you're the doc, you ought to know how to answer this' and stop reminding us of the drudgery we go through during the rest of our pathetic lives. We really don't want to think about the kind of crap we experience when we don our white coats.

Whenever we don't have a white coat and stethoscope on, don't bug us. We have our real lives too. No matter what, we are people (just like you) first, then medical students.

==

If you want to know, after that mindrape last week, I'm still sufferring a major burnout, too afraid to get back on track to go on with that project thing for school.

Having a viral infection and feeling groggy and with a pain in the sides of the throat don't help too.

I'm not sad or anything, but I've been extremely tempermental lately.

If you're the person who made a wrong number phone call to me and received the lecture about how I obviously am not from a transport company;

Or if you're the person who insisted that you have the right to bug my brother to do some survey thing late at night just because you're my friend;

Or if you're the person who added me to a mass MSN conversation and hanged my MSN for a couple of minutes while I was in the middle of conversations with 2 friends;

Or if you're my schoolmates in my project group who I ignored phone calls and messages from because I was too burnt-out and afraid of even more work and afraid of breaking that news that I really can't cope and had to push the work to them;

Or if you're my friends and have noticed me being unusually short-tempered and nasty lately;

Or if you're my mom and dad and I was being unreasonably cranky;

I wish I could muster up the will to apologise.

I'm quite afraid of becoming numb and cynical and jaded and bitter from all these shit. It's so totally not reassuring when most of my seniors are already cynical and jaded and bitter from the years in medical school.

==

On a lighter note, I've decided to stay away from the bicycle lest I go berserk from my crankiness and end up squished between vehicles. I'm safe. Went for runs instead.


Red sky at night, sailor's delight? Luckily it didn't rain.



Lower Pierce Boardwalk.

Review: Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis

Thanks for the head-up CH!

It's a sad era for Britpop when you see your favourite bands of the mid 90s fade away and disperse into a number of solo side projects. From Blur we get Graham Coxon's solo projects, the Gorillaz and more recently, Damon Albarn's The Good the Bad and the Queen. Suede was reincarnated as The Tears, and so on.

Pulp, along with these superstars of the Britpop era, faded, leaving Jarvis Cocker to do a couple of collaborations, most notably the contribution of 3 tracks to the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire soundtrack, before finally settling to produce his debut solo effort.

I'm tempted to compare Jarvis to Graham Coxon's recent solo effort Love Travels At Illegal Speeds. Both albums feature a bespectacled songwriter writing chirpy songs reminiscent of the buzz and enthusiasm of the original mid-90s Britpop boys.

The album starts off with a quick piano intro, before bursting into the familiar croon in Don't Let Him Waste Your Time, the first single off this album. It's catchy, it's sweet, but somehow, it just doesn't hit enough special notes to become a masterpiece like Common People.

In this album, makes use of soft jangly guitars and generous splashes of percussion almost in the same way Pulp used to. The old tried-and-tested style essentially, and this is a good thing to me, having missed Pulp for a long while.

The first half of the album's fast and melodic, keeping your feet tapping while Jarvis makes morose lyrics such as Heavy Weather and I Will Kill Again sound so damned happy.

The second half of the album becomes more experimental, with hits such as Fat Children (it's as catchy as Do the Hippogriff!) and Disney Time (we're back to Jarvis's old sardonic self - "How come they’re called “Adult Movies” when the only thing they show is people making babies filmed up close?"). And with misses such as Big Julie and Quantum Theory that would probably be better off just being notable B-sides rather than lacklustre album tracks.

All in all, it's worth several listens, more if you were into Pulp in the first place - this album is proof that Jarvis Cocker IS Pulp, complete with the dark cynical humour and catchy tunes. Nowhere as catchy as Graham Coxon's Love Travels At Illegal Speeds, but at least this is Pulp reincarnated. No doubt about it.

The past few days

have been harrowing, painful, horrible and I really don't want to talk about it.

But this is a blog about me yeah, and I'm obliged to update my audience about the happennings of my life. Before you read on, keep in mind that yes, the worst is over, I'm much much better off than the me of the past few days, so that's a big relief.

School had begun a couple of weeks ago, and this time round it's the Community Medicine posting. It consists of revision lectures/tutorials for the stuff we had learnt in year 2, plus a new module Occupational Medicine (got to visit a semiconductor wafer fab - the neighbour of the famous Xbox360 CPU fab plant).

But the beef of it was the Community Health Project. A lowdown. It's this hugeass project, with a group of about 40 trying to do up a professional research paper, using data collection and analysis. Sounds impressive? Not.



What actually happens is that we are at the whim and fancy of the professor in charge, acting like minions and labourers, doing all the dirty work of data collection, while the professor dictates what is to be done, then puts his name on the research paper.

Enough of the details. In summary:

1. The project was utter crap. The objectives were so poorly-defined, the methodology so messed-up, it's never going to amount to anything purposeful.

2. It involved getting to NUS on most days at 10am or 11am, then going to Clementi New Town to do door-to-door surveying, all the way to beyond 10pm when we call it a day (or rather, a night)



3. Was feeling so crabby about it I sorta flared up at my mum, and then I left for school in the morning, returned home to see her already asleep, awoke to find that she's already out to work, and so on, feeling totally crappy not knowing if she was still angry or anything after so long.

4. The results of the endless hours of door-to-door surveying was horribly diappointing. So many hours of effort and hardly anyone was willing to be surveyed. Self-doubt set in, naturally, and I was feeling totally useless about it, because the other surveying teams sorta did better.

5. All of day 1's and part of day 2's effort was all wasted, because the evil professor decided to write off all the results as a trial study rather than the actual survey at the last minute.

6. The quota keeps on increasing, the plans keep on changing at the whims of the professor. It's doubly, triply painful when one doesn't know when the hell will end.

7. I can't even meet up with any of my friends to destress or anything

8. Objectively, all the other groups are having it much easier. No weekends burnt, no leaving home at 9am and returning after 11pm for days in a row. And all the pain was just for something that simply didn't make any sense.

It was mindrape. As a consequence, I:

1. Blew up at random people. "What's wrong with this idiot? If he's not going to write legibly, then why does he bother writing at all and wasting my time?"

2. Oh well, feeling freaking frustrated at everything and feeling destructive. That and going bicycling in the morning peak (only time I'm free with that kinda schedule) is quite a deadly combination.

Somehow, when feelings of self-destruction set in, for that split-second I don't even care if I live or die when I tailgate the bus at 40kmh with just a couple of metres between 10-tonne behemoth and puny bicycle. Or when I weave through heavy traffic and challenge another heavy vehicle to win the spot in the yellow box. Somehow, I forget that I have only 1 life. And there's this part in me that convinces myself that if I survive this, I can survive anything.

On hindsight I could've gotten myself killed there and then. It's retarded. But at that moment it sure didn't feel that way.

3. Felt way worse than I had ever felt in a long long time. Lying on the bed, feeling too down and fearful for the terrors that preceded me for that day, not wanting to go to another day of that mind-raping project. Blasting U2 on the stereo and wallowing in self-pity until I ended up turning up late for the project on a couple of days.

4. Lost the mood to sleep/eat/play/do anything. Somehow this time round, no matter how my friends tried to cheer me up and all, it sorta didn't work. Words of encouragement don't change the fact that I still have to leave home at 9am and return past 11pm when my family is asleep, for something totally meaningless. I had to tackle this all by myself.



AND. I decided. After a very wet and depressing and unfruitful night. No more being mindraped for me. I think my sanity and my family matter more than some useless project and school grades. Maybe I'm weak - my teammates could stand the heat, although reluctantly, and I got mindraped by the exact same project and schedule. But what it comes to is, if I can't tolerate it, I just can't. No use forcing myself and losing my marbles along the way.

Just catching up with Ryan on the phone reinforced my decision. There are more important things. Grades and not letting teammates down may be quite high on the list of priorities, but what kind of life would that be if I can't even see my family awake, can't even meet my friends at all and when I get so messed-up by everything I could feel myself slowly bring mindraped?

Didn't turn up the next day for the project. Never regretted a moment of it. Caught up with Ryan, had a quick jaunt in the new shopping mall in Ang Mo Kio. It was raining, I was wet, I was leaving my teammates to face the hell by themselves, but I never felt that good in days.

Today

is one of the days so crappy that I'd rather not blog about it and hopefully, it goes down history totally forgotten without a trace.

over my head

today is wtf day

human beings can be so nasty. wtf. shit always happens when one least expects it. when nasty things happen to friends one can't take it lying down. time for revolution.

waagh school pwned me. now my nights and weekends are all gone. 4 cups of coffee isnt enough to wrench one's messed-up sleep/wake patterns back to normal. dman

(In the spirit of Mexcel's blog entries)

Yet another day of fun

Ice cream tasting session courtesy of Ice Cream Chefs. Jeremy's personal invitation! They sell homemade icecream with all sorts of cool flavours (Horlicks, Peanut butter, Blueberry, you mean you can resist?)

The 4 of us (Kate, nikonll (without the 1), Ryan and I) reallyreally enjoyed it. The ambience is great, it's a LAN shop/pub of Jeremy's friend and it has all sorts of cool lighting that changes colour. However, it sorta made food porning difficult as my phone's camera got totally confused on how to do the white balance for the lighting.





Setlist for the tasting:

1. Vanilla

2. Watermelon - as you know, exotic flavours get all the mixed opinions, and well, I don't like the idea of creamy watermelon

3. Horlicks - who can resist? Tastes sweet and lovely like those Horlicks Malties sweets they used to sell



4. Peanut butter (above) So tasty and creamy and rich and nutty and smooth we went for seconds at the end.

5. Green tea



6. Coffee! (above) It's not particularly brerathtaking or special, but it's just coffee ice cream done really well.

7. Blueberry - another hit, somehow blueberry is one of those few fruits that go really well with milk and cream

I swear, the ice cream looks better in real-life. It's the lighting.



Empty cups.



The survey forms!

nikonll had to go to work, so sad goodbye to him, then the three of us decided to make our way to City Hall area, for Kate had DJing duties at Suntec and Ryan and I were meeting up with some other regulars from the forums in the 'Stomp 30s' thread. A pity that Ferret and Kate's both occupied with work!

The bus there was bumpy. It's a City Shuttle bus, and well, they use Nissan UD buses. Fond memories as a kid of 5, taking it to kindergarten every day. They have this sliding rear door that had always fascinated me as a kid.



Still early, so the three of us window shopped in Marina Square.



Twinkie had to go to work, and then we met up with the rest of the people for dinner. Waraku Restaurant. They got their menu online too. Cool stuff.



Not into healthy food (Seefood diet here - I see food, I eat it) but this salad just looked so lovely. Didn't catch the name, didn't care what was in it, but the photo in the menu looked so good, I simply pointed to it and ordered it. They drenched it in soya sauce, they placed wasabi in hidden locations and I got my tongue stung unwittingly twice, but it's overall quite good.

Other food porn:







Tried playing Pokemon Ranger on Ryan's DS for a short while. It's a pretty cool idea, circling Pokemon on the touchscreen in order to capture them and making sure the Pokemon doesn't walk across or attack the line you draw. But but klutzy and psychomotor me prolly get stuck somewhere early! ("You are a retard? Physical or mental?" - Borat)

The whole bunch of us met up with Kate again at the Suntec fountain, and we just chilled out, went to Starbucks, and it was a really blissful night just hanging out, taking things easy.