Soob's Prog Blog

Hey, blogger

2010-11-22T03:27:00.002+08:00

I miss you more than I should, but you probably don't miss me as much.

Oh, and I now write here: http://subhash91.livejournal.com

It's a lot less messy. I think.

Goodnight, goodnight

2010-09-20T23:29:00.002+08:00

I've created a proper blog. Something less messy and more official. If I think you should see it, you will see it on my facebook page somewhere. Otherwise I either don't want you to know my thoughts or I accidentally messed up the privacy settings.

University life is fun, but tiring. I enjoy the freedom that comes with living away from my parents and the philosophical nature of most of the subjects I take. However, it isn't something I think I should take lightly. I tend to overstep boundaries. I'm not very good at managing freedom, so I've placed bans. No more alcohol while I'm in KL. No more unnecessary purchases(though this ban isn't very clearly defined OR enforced YET).

What was I saying?

Oh yeah. Mmm. I'll still blog on THIS blog from time to time, but the other two(links in the sidebar) will be phased out and merged by the end of the year. Just like how I transfered the Purplist episodes from its own website to the junkyard, I'll transfer the posts from the Junkyard and 2012 blog to this one. Then it'll be one big happy family.

This will be more of a personal, messy sorta blog. Where I blog about whatever I want without needing to structure the posts properly. But the Livejournal one will be a hardcore blog. I mean one that can be taken seriously.

Stay tuned for links!

2010-09-16T03:47:00.003+08:00

so. we go alone now, the both of us

Only I don't have as far to go as you

I am in misery

2010-09-02T05:15:00.003+08:00

I looked all around the internet for a comfortable spot. There's nothing here that's very comfortable. Except for the warmth of the laptop. That's right people, I'm in K-hell.

The moment I got here I got uncomfortable. It's the liberty, the hospitality. It ought to be inspiring. I really am trying my best to be inspired. But all KL does to you is leave you very scared. And overstimulated, I guess.

Everything here feels too intense. Making jokes is so much easier. Being depressed is 10X more depressing. Just worrying itself worries me; it's not like me to worry.

It's 5:32AM. I ought to be very sleepy, having risen at 7. But instead I am wide awake.

I ought to be very tired, having travelled around, lugging, well, luggage for the better part of the day. But I am surprisingly limber, except for the occasional scraping sensation in my kneecaps.

I also ought to be thoroughly entertained with Mafia II, having anticipated its release for over a month. I brought the Xbox up just to play it. Nothing. My mind simply refuses to feel good about the game, or anything.

I will probably go for a walk. I want to see this part of the town wake up. It should take my mind off things. Because the booze has failed to do its job right. It has only made things much more unbearable.

You will be baked, and then there will be cake

2010-08-30T15:04:00.003+08:00

Today's my last day of being at home. I know that once you leave home, you can never truly come back, but that's ok. Home is where the PC is.

For that reason, I've decided to transfer my PC, Xbox and eventually my sound system to KL. Because I'm just dependent on them like that.

When I do reach KL and get settled in with my PC (which will be coming a week later, I hope), I will begin work on my weekly written show. It'll be on a different blog and will be about things people actually like reading about. So it's a bit like your typical weekly youtube show, except its all words, I'm writing, and no ones watching/reading.

Didn't I already talk about this once before? Yes I did, I'm just excited to get back to writing.

Anywhossels. This will be my last post from home. Pity I didn't leave on a high note. There was a time when the blogosphere was alive. Now it seems we've settled to just reading what the talented people have to write. Natural Elitism in the Blogosphere! I will not stand for it!

I think I'll go play one last super awesome game of Company of Heroes, then pack everything I want moved up up.(not a typo)

Goodbye!

With my feet upon the ground

i move myself between the sounds

& open wide to suck it in.
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up & reaching out I'm reaching for

the random or

what ever will bewilder me.
whatever will be-

wilder me.

& following our will & wind

we may just go where no one's been.
we'll ride the spiral to the end & may just go where no one's been.
spiral out. keep going.

Everybody forgets

2010-08-29T04:40:00.002+08:00

Nobody remembers. Well, not nobody. Some people remember some things. Selective amnesia. Or was it selective memory? I can't remember.

Isn't it time for MY pound of flesh?

2010-08-20T03:30:00.003+08:00

Duty is important. I think I learnt it the easy, slow way, the way I learn most things. By all means, question duty, but not the way a kid asks why he has to eat his vegetables. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of my nightly routine, I ask myself, "Is this really necessary? Is this really what I want?". The answer is sometimes "yes". It never lingers to a "no", but it sometimes treads dangerously close.

When I was a student at college months ago, I did my duty wholeheartedly. I found friends and enjoyed my time there. I took chances and tried not to be my usual fussy self when asked to perform, host or help out with extracurricular activities. The reason I did this was not because I wanted to, but because I was duty-bound. It was my duty to enjoy it, otherwise I would have looked back and found someone to blame for a boring year. It was also my duty to study, because my parents invested a great deal of money in my education. And so I studied, and enjoyed studying. So that there would be no blame for failure or boredom.

Sometimes I get confused. I know that I do not know what my heart wants. I can only guess if my choices are all bound by my duty as a friend, son, brother, student or blogger or if I make some of them without thinking of consequence.

For now, consequence must be my determinant. Whenever I make a good choice, it is one that I've made because I was duty bound. The bad choices are all linked to my gut feeling.

My heart says do one thing but my head says don't be stupid.

Just this week I've made some very important decisions.

Most of the time, my head is right. I didn't want to go jamming today because I was convinced that it wasn't worth the effort.

But being tied to the duties of a friend meant that I had to go. And I ended up enjoying it thoroughly.

Just a sidenote--

I know I've talked about choices being silly misconceptions of what really goes on in our mind in an objective sense, but there's a difference. I'm talking about the consequences of my actions that somehow seem malleable, like there was an actual choice involved. It's science. And this blog is no place for scientific explanation.

Ugh, I hate talking like I know what I'm talking about sometimes. It's so much more enjoyable if there's actually someone reading or listening.

In short, I do regret that some non-choices have been made and that I sometimes have too little influence over the people who make me who I am. It's as if I'm being shaped by my inability to shape others. Hopefully, a new city will solve this.

Also, I am very tired of being duty bound. I don't get what I want because it's the noble thing to do. My brain says shut up, but my heart says speak up.

Where's my beer goddammit

The relief washes over me in an awesome wave

2010-08-15T16:57:00.002+08:00

It's almost like I don't know who you are anymore, Blogspot. Sure you look the same, but something inside you has changed.

We used to be able to connect. I'd come in with my photos and you'd just sit back and let me write out a post. But now, it has become am awkward process. Maybe it's me. Yeah, maybe it is me. I used to be a little more disciplined with you, and myself. Whenever I went for an adventure, I would write out the post in my head, then go home and write a post that was completely different from the one I had in mind(except for a few minor details).

Nowadays, the voice in my head narrates my life instead of making notes of key moments. I think it all started after playing Alan Wake. Alan Wake's inner monologue was so good I just had to pick that up and make that a part of me. But no longer. Sure it made my life sound a bit more interesting, but only to me.

wow. I just stopped writing for about half an hour. Why is it so hard. Ugh, it must be this watch. Imma take it off now. *takes off watch*

That didn't work either.

I took the watch off about ten minutes ago.

Oh yes, I have something to talk about now. My watch(a fake I got from the best place to shop in Malaysia, Petaling Street) was clearly made on Mars, where the months of the day end on the 39th and start 00th(is that pronounced zeroth? Shit, I didn't even get that red zigzag line that indicates a misspell when i wrote zeroth.)

I took the picture convinced the date would revert to '01', but if went up to '39', and restarted with two zeros. Like I said. Mars, man.

So, anyways. It was my birthday last week and I decided to spend it the way I like best. Alone. But with friends, both online and in real life. Jeez does that even make sense?

Ok, first off, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't that old. When I was 14, I was able to stay wide awake for about 36 hours before taking a nap. But ever since then, I've only managed about 20-odd hours before telling myself I ought to go to bed. The average holiday would see me wake up round 11am, and sleeping round 7am.

I tried staying up on the beaches of Penang with my friends, but I eventually gave in.

I guess it's when the sun rises. Sunlight. It gives off a sickly vibe.

I spend the whole night enjoying my privacy and the endless supply of food in kitchen downstairs.

Then the sun comes up and, like an annoying acquaintance, invades your privacy and asks if you want to hang out.

"NO I DON'T BLOODY WANT TO HANG OUT"

That's what it sounds like in my head, but I usually just say I've got stuff to do, then go to sleep. Because it's rude to be rude to the sun.

Anyway!

I had to see if I was still up to it. I stayed up all night and then went out for a walk.

To see if I could handle challenge number 2.

You probably guessed this was on the list. No, not another boring haunted house raid, the good old green drain near my house.

It was already 8am, and I was showing no sign of weariness. Which was, of course, a good sign.

But then, trouble!

I hadn't been in that drain for well over 2 months. 2 months of Malaysian hardcore rain does an amazing job of changing the shape of the places you once knew.

As you can see, my left foot landed in the river. I was up to my sock in algae. yuuck.

That's right, I fell in the river. I've never fallen in before. Strike one.

Further up, I found the rain had more than altered the landscape, it had destroyed the best bits.

The log-bridge that was once strong enough for me to climb over had crashed down onto that large, difficult to traverse cement structure. Well, at least now it was easy to traverse.

But the real problem came right after that. It's hard to explain how difficult it is to cross a stream that is 1 foot deep and 1 meter wide. But these pictures should give you an idea of where exactly I got stuck.

Yeah. I fell in three times. I walked out muttering to myself, "shit shit shit fuck fuck fuck".

Never again. Some things should just be revisited in memory.

Anywhossels.

I found out that my shoes were quite waterproof.

Then I found that waterproofing works both ways.

8.30 pm:

And when the water found its way through the gaps between the shoes and my socks, it got in in and stayed in.

For an hour and a half.

10.00 am:

The soggiest my socks have ever been.

So I promised myself never to go down that drain again.

I also got a surprise from my college buddies. Nothing like cake in the face in the morning. It was extremely nice of them, and I don't want to ruin it by describing anything.

In the last month, I've been to KL and back 3 times. It was nice, at first. I liked being forced out of the comfort and laziness of my own home. But then it got really tiresome really fast. Chores, duty, fruitless labour. It got very tiring. And frustrating.

Ughh, I don't want talk about that. Not now, and not here anyway.

Oh yeah, and Chili's makes burgers just as well as Fridays. The only difference is that Chili's serves Kilkenny beer.

WTF on the number plate of a smacked up car.

The jams in KL are good for taking photos.

Oh yeah, the most badass, weird name for a town ever, I have found it. Minyak Beku. Literally, Frozen Oil. LOL.

That was taken in Batu Pahat.

Methods of smuggling booze:

Put it under the carpet and get a drunk looking injun to distract the customs officers.

Anal-humpin' gay dogs in Julian's house. If you can't see the smaller dog, you'll have to squint, the lighting is horrible!

Sorry, I had to rush through the pictures. I think it was the pictures that delayed this whole post. Usually when I don't have anything to write about, the pictures help out. I feel at least a month's worth of posts have gone unpublished because everytime I feel like blogging, I remember I have THIS post to finish off first.

BUT, I promise, that will all change. When I start my course at HELP university(yeah, I ended up choosing to do Law instead.), I will probably begin episodic blogging.

As in, one post on the weekends, which will comprise of several sections.

This will be done in/on a different blog (haven't decided if I'm going to stick with Blogspot, or try something else) and will be worked on a schedule, so it doesn't end up being neglected.

The sections I hope to cover each week are as follows:

1)strange news

2)anecdotes and retarded reallife situations

3)youtube video of the week

4)game/movie review/postmortem

5) pseudo-philosophy

6)regular comic/purplist-like episode

This way, I can sorta combine my current blogs into a super blog and save everybody's time.

I will post a warning on facebook around mid-september to remind everyone who reads this stuff.

That is all. Suggestions and insults in the cbox, plstq.

I also am passively happy again. But I don't want to talk about that. Not here anyway.

There is no love here and there is no pain. Everyday is exactly the same

2010-07-28T03:39:00.003+08:00

I'm very out of touch with all of this. With writing, with taking pictures, with socializing, with creating pseudo-art and pseudo-jokes and pseudo-philosophy.

I don't know when I began to lose touch. Sometimes I look at the distance, both the quality and the time between blog posts, between tank models, between proper friends, between projects and try not to feel bad about it.

It's almost as if I feel either fear or deflective boredom instead of guilt.

"That's ok, it's not my fault I'm talentless, I can try something else sometime else"

I often tell myself that I'm good enough for just about everything because I don't have to try. I'm very good at excuses, did I mention that?

I am.

My latest excuse is this town. I was going to dedicate an entire blog post to this town, and how it's too comfortable to encourage any sort of competitive behavior. Everyone in Johor Bahru is happy with the same old routine, so that must be why I'm so lousy at a lot of things I feel I should be good at.

Mind you, that's not so far from the truth. The most successful people in Johor Bahru are the most generic. Factory and shop owners, lawyers, and the older generation that pushed the town into modernization before slipping into this comatose state.

But that's not the reason I'm stuck in a rut. I don't want to try and understand the origin of the problem, lest I pinpoint something and/or run the risk of creeping determinism.

For now I think the best thing for me to do is be prepared for commitment to my course at Monash.

Oh yeah, I haven't explained my plan yet. Here it goes.

I'm doing IT at Monash KL, that much I'm sure you know.

My plan is to keep the hell away from the business side of IT. God knows too many IT students end up with a 9-5 job involving doing something mundane.(don't worry, I'll explain my back-up plan in case that ends up being me)

I'll be concentrating on programing and other technical stuff(which I was quite good at college level at least).

Here's the silly bit. My entire decision on doing IT is based around the notion that I will do well.

Because IF, IF I do well, I have a very real chance of transferring out to Melbourne for my 2nd and 3rd years to major in game development.

Yup, silly isn't it? I'm having second thoughts. But without anyone giving me real advice other than "that's a good choice" or "follow your heart", it looks like the only real way.

It's not too late to change though! I've still got 2 weeks before I sign up for the course(I've got the offer letter in hand already).

The real alternatives(in descending order of how much sense it makes for me to be do it instead)
1)Law at either Taylor's or Brickfields Asia College
-I wouldn't mind doing Law, except I'm just underqualified to do it at a notable university AND according to most people in Malaysia, there's an oversupply of lawyers. Especially Indian lawyers. Also, I've had a glimpse of the business world and the world in with young Malaysian lawyers work and live in nowadays, and I absolutely hate it. It's not what I want to do when I grow up.

2)Arts in Monash South Africa/Monash KL
-I was quite certain this was the course for me, but my parents don't think South Africa is a very stable country. Despite being nearly half price(in terms of fees), there's probably going to be a lot of money wasted on surviving alone on another continent.
Another major issue was the lack of job opportunities for Arts grads. Its a lot scarier than Law grads, who will at least have people who need their knowledge even when times are bad.
Arts grads generally know a lot about everything, but not enough to be professional at anything.
Psychology, philosophy, writing, journalism, political science. All subjects integral to the arts course and all subjects I would have LOVED to do. But it would have gotten me nowhere. Those fields usually have professionals who are experienced. I think I'm much better off specializing in something.

3)Computer Science
-Computer Science is nothing like IT. It's about the underpinnings of IT. It's basically an offshoot of electrical engineering. It involves math. I don't like math. It's up here because it's more hardcore than IT. If you can do Computer Science, you can do IT, but not the other way round. CS is a much safer path to the game industry than IT, but it's a lot of hard work, and really, if it's all math, I don't want to even try.

So there you have it.

I'll still be trying out weird stuff, writing, making fake art, and doing what I like best for a long time and I sincerely hope that in 10 year's time, granted I live that long, I can say my job doesn't define who I am. And hopefully the people I say that to can believe me.

Helluva blog post, mister.

2010-07-23T03:57:00.001+08:00

Dear... planet Earth.
Thank you for the opportunity to live.
So that I could experience Company of Heroes at its absolute best.
That is all.

Selective Amnesia's the story

2010-07-17T04:21:00.001+08:00

Previously on Soob's life

The following took place between July the third and July the seventh, 2010.

ummmm... Saturday after the mock graduation ceremony thingy(which went pretty well, I even got some award which I probably didn't deserve, hopefully they never find out how often I sleep in the library between classes), I had to rush home and get changed for my flight to Penang.

It took about 40 minutes to get to Senai. As soon as I got there I tapped my butt pocket and felt nothing. No bulge in my back pocket that wasn't a butt cheek.

I had forgotten my wallet. Wee.

Went back and got it(thank my parents for that). The gates were set to close at exactly 10pm, I reached the airport at exactly 9.57pm.

Ran like mad through an unnecessarily long tunnel.

Just as I reached the information counter, a voice on the P.A. system went, "Last call for Mr. Subhash Nair."

Shite.

Ran through airport security, who went easy on me despite me looking like a terrorist and/or communist.

I got to the plane just in time, they shut the doors behind me, and the entire plane erupted in noise. t'was the sound of 25 loud college students in a tiny airbus.

It was my first flight in 13 years. The last time I had been on a plane was back in 1997. I remember that last flight vividly. There was a lot of air turbulence, and the Christian Indian women behind my seat were praying to their lord Jesus Christ to save them, while my dad just asked them to calm down cause it was just turbulence.

I think it was those two Christian Indians that permanently labelled religious people, in my mind, as irrational. So really, I'm blameless.

Or maybe not, I was too busy trying to have my lunch during the commotion.

The flight to Penang was unbelievably quick. Barely 30 minutes in the air(not counting liftoff and touch down).

That's what JB looks like from 10,000 feet above ground at 11pm. Like an oil spill in an ocean.

At Penang Airport.

That probably stands for Malaysians Always Salute Batman.

Walking round Upper Downtown Penang. At Night.

Well, technically it was 2 in the morning.

I know you can barely see it, but that's a picture of a shophouse with an aquarium as its window. Pretty cool if you ask me. But you didn't. =(

Here are somore pictures of random stuff at night in Penang. (on Penang? it is an island, isn't it?)

All the roads here are forked.

Day 2.

Isn't this the most random speed limit ever? sixty five km/h.

Chowrasta is probably the coolest sounding name of a place in Malaysia. It almost means something if you say it to someone who speaks Italian but lives in Jamaica(again, could it be on Jamaica, if it's an island? Goddamn, where are the grammar Nazis when you need them).

It's like saying goodbye to a Jamaican, seen?

And here's a very unimpressed van!

Penang has some pretty cool number plates.

Almost all of them are abbreviations of some sort.

Private First Class!

Reflexology involves sucking in Penang.

And read the fine print, right under "Italian Restaurant"

Artsy shot, right outside Hard Rock Hotel in Penang.

Well, it's sorta artsy.

Anywhossel, you heard right, we were outside Hard Rock Hotel, Batu Ferringhi.

And we were supposed to sneak in 2 by 2 into the 3 rooms we booked. Didn't really work out. While everyone was having a swim outside, I thought it was best to take a nap instead(plus, the hangover wasn't helping).

Around 7pm(I was surprised we hadn't been kicked out of the hotel yet) we left for Georgetown for the most epicest meat fest ever!

Ok, fine there were some veges, but really, 6 different types of chicken and about 5 other meats? + it was all you can eat, so that was a plus.

Seoul Garden. Finally, something Korean that isn't epic fail.

Ok, fine there's also that Kia Forte that looks pretty decent.

OMIGOD, i just read a review, and the Forte is designed by a guy who worked at Audi. And in case you haven't noticed, I kinda like everything about the new A4, no wonder the Forte looks almost familiar.

Where was I? Oh yes, after the meat buffet, we took a walk down the beach, which was, i dunno, beachy I guess.

Found a lovely looking Audi A4(there's a picture on Gabs' fb profile) and then took the bus back to the hotel.

Allofasudden, 2 phones start ringing simultaneously, and a few messages pour in. Our rooms were being raided!

Without going into details, let's just say we came to an agreement with the Hard Rock staff that involved us nearly putting up for the night here:

Probably the doggiest looking place in Penang.

We took the last bus down to Holiday Inn and headed back North from there, looking for a cheap place to stay.

After scouting along the beaches of Batu Ferringhi for about an hour, we came across... Hard Rock Hotel.

It looked like it was going to be Baba Guest House for us, but then we found someplace more epic.

Boomerang Lodge! It was dirty, cockroaches in the bathroom and ants right where the floor ought to have been, yes, and the mattresses were about as thin as the latest iphone, but it was cheap and it was willing to take in more than 2 dozen teenagers at 2 in the morning, so that's what mattered.

Plus, for most of us at least, a holiday wasn't about luxury or anything like that.

Just having the opportunity to do something as silly as lying down in a sarong right where the tide hits at 3am was good enough. For me. At least.

And here's a creepy looking piece of driftwood that I took a piss on after a couple of beers. I swear it was talking to me.

Boomerang Lodge:

I also got to spend the entire night on a beach. Even slept off at one point and woke up to a slightly awesome sunrise. Not because the light woke me up, but because I had sand in my ass.

In the morning, we still had our deposit to collect from Hard Rock. So we headed back up there on foot.

I finally saw with my own eyes what the insides of tractor look like.

Although Hard Rock had been a bitch to us, I will admit that it was kinda cool. Almost artsy, but too... pretentious, I guess. Trust me, I know pretentiousness when I see it; it's in my veins.

We then took a few buses(Ferringhi->Gurney, Gurney->Komtar, Komtar->airport).

Ignore that last photo.

Anyway.

While moving from Bus 2 to Bus 3, something happened. It's the sort of thing that make people believe in miracles, because it darn near seemed like one after the walk of shame out of Hard Rock the night before.

Without getting into details, a friend who's father has friends in high places made life easier for just about everybody.

It's like this.

You've probably heard of (if you're in Johor) Setia Tropika and Setia Indah. Well, the General Manager of Setia Holdings, the mega company that owns both those little towns was that friend of a friend's father!

And he was such a nice guy too!

If the night at Hard Rock had proven to me that capitalists were assholes, this guy was doing the complete opposite.

He had no obligation to(he looked like a very busy man), but he actually got his entourage to get our tickets and boarding passes, then drive us to his country club in the hills overlooking the airport (all 25 of us + luggage in a convoy of 3 or 4 cars), get us all lunch at a posh chinese restaurant, and let us rest and relax at the games room and sauna.

And I got to use a Play Station 3 for the first time. Would you believe it? Their country club has a kids room with a friggin PS3! Too bad it was some weird kiddy game called Ratchet and Clank. If only it was Uncharted or Killzone. =(

And there was a beautiful Audi A6 parked outside. Audis look amazing, whatever the colour.

We got to the airport just fine, and since it was a day flight this time, I got a coupla nice pictures.

Up in the Air.

On the plane, I finally realized that I was above the layer of clouds that always seemed unreachable and what that represented. Man over heaven. Man over God.

That's about it really. We've overtaken nature in pure awesomeness. Now to come to terms with us being part of nature. =O

Don't worry, I'm kidding, religious friends. If you're book says were not animals even though we eat, shit, sleep, fuck, and walk just like most animals do, then go ahead believe that. After all, the ability to rationalize must mean that we're different, right? Well rationalize this, how come a bird, with its ability to fly is not more than an animal, if most other animals do not fly?

I should be more specific with that since some insects fly and so do bats(and batmen), but you probably get what I'm saying, and if you don't then nevermind, you probably also think the earth is flat anyway.

God dammit I got distracted by God again.

We got to KL pretty late. Nikko Hotel was absolutely amazing.

But was absolutely expensive as well. If I had stayed an extra day, I would have had to beg my way back to JB.

The room was gigantic, and despite being priced a lot lower than Hard Rock, it was absolutely luxurious, and they gave us complimentary apples! And they also weren't so tight around the anus about us having 4 people to a room.

Nikko was just a canonball's shot away from KLCC. Seriously, we actually walked there for dinner.

Dinner of course, at CHILLI'S! Which is like Friday's, but with less random stuff on the walls.

There I got a gigantic burger and 20 bucks worth of RM1 notes! Amazin!

We were supposed to meet our other group of friends at Bintang Walk, so we took a taxi there(5 of us). Then we were instructed to take another cab to Reggae Bar. So we did that. But it was all the way in Chinatown. And it was pretty creepy looking. Full of obscene, loud music and foreigners. It was obviously the wrong Reggae Bar. We were then told it was Reggae Bar, Bukit Bintang, not Reggae Bar, Chinatown.

The taxis that followed were kinda like Hard Rock. They weren't so liberal with stuffing 5 people in. So we had to pay double with 2 taxis. Goddamit.

Anyway, stuff went down in Reggae bar, I ended up not paying for my drinks, and on the way back, we ended up on Stonor Street! Awesome, except a bunch of Stonors(and drunks) were to stoned, and drunk to take a proper picture:

After being forced into a Mcdonalds(I actually yelled "what's up muthatfukas!" upon entering) we all headed back to our rooms in Nikko.

Bathrooms there were weird though. The buttons are almost touch-screen like. Except there's no screen, you just have to touch them.

Oh, and the toilets were amazingly Japanese. They had these knobs with little pictures of little butts.

Three of us were testing out the knobs. I twisted it to "open", and suddenly this plastic piece slowly comes out. We all gazed closely and came a little closer to it. Suddenly, a jet of water:

It was hilarious. I nearly had my face sprayed with butt-cleaning water. (hopefully the same as regular water).

There was also a nice high pressure shower and a man sized bathtub.

The room I was in didn't have a very nice view, but I was told one of the rooms had the twin towers in sight.

I went home the next day.

Massive flooding round the temporary bus station in bukit jalil.

There's really nothing interesting to say here.

I almost didn't take notice of how free freedom felt. Not 2 years ago, the furthest anyone ever trusted me to be was 5 meters from an older relative, I almost choked thinking I was all alone in a big city, having to look tough with my beard to avoid being mugged on the way to Bukit Jalil while simultaneously trying to figure a way there and making sure my playlist didn't wander off to the few gay tracks I was forced to save on my phone.

This may seem odd, but I often use video game soundtracks as soundtracks to my own life. Just like Katt Williams' Everyday I'm Hustling.

Yeah, I don't understand black comedy neither. But like Katt, I think a soundtrack is pretty cool. It makes things like sitting down in public look like you're on an adventure. Or something.

For most of last year, my soundtrack was either:

Whenever stationary.

Or, if I was walking, then it would switch to:

See? Imagine how much more exciting everything was with that playing in the back of my head!

I still use the first soundtrack for whenever I'm stationary. But my moving soundtrack has been upgrading.

Now, I'm not kidding at all on this one. I listen to it in my car, on the bus, everywhere.

I think you'll understand why if you take the time to listen to it.

This next section, you probably don't have to pay attention to. I'll highlight all the irrelevant text in red, so you know when to resume reading.

I got my dad's PC after years and years of waiting. Well, not really. I wasn't waiting, this PC had always been a little unstable, despite having some pretty decent hardware.

So anyway, I got it, and after a few harddisk failures, it's up and running and almost feels homely.

Homely, because I've installed Company of Heroes. =D

That's right. After FOUR years of playing Company of Heroes on medium to low graphics, I finally can flirt with the Ultra Settings. (Isn't it weird, even this PC can't seem to take it on absolute maximum. That just shows how much thought was put into the game, the developers made it in 2006, but made sure the technology was at least half a decade ahead of its time. If I'm not mistaken it was the first game to support Direct X 10 on the PC. Direct X 10, of course being released a quite awhile AFTER the original game.)

This is maybe the 6th post(or the 600th post) in which I say something nice about Company of Heroes. I was talking about how I used a few game soundtracks as my own, but I've never been able to do that with Company of Heroes' soundtrack.

It's too god-like. It's the game soundtrack to epicly pwn all game soundtracks. It's shorter than most, but it builds up the moment it starts, and doesn't have those gay moments where the soundtrack kinda dies down for a minute, then kicks back in. It doesn't stop. It just pushes all the way and then dies off slowly. It's perfect.

Ok, I'm done.

Anyway, I got to the bus station(can you believe how distracted I just got in that last section? Jesus!) and took the first bus to JB.

Which, thank my lucky stars, was a desperate executive coach with about 5 passengers. They sold me the ticket for 30 bucks, which is about what I was willing to pay for a regular bus ride home. Except this wasn't a regular bus.

It had airplane-like massage seats! Seriously, this bus seemed more like an airplane than the planes I took on the Air Asia flights.

Any way, blah blah blah, generic lesson learnt from the trip, generic moral of the story, generic emotional line.

Generic awesome JB sunset:

Wow, would you believe that that was just what happened from the 3rd to the 8th? It's already the friggin 17th!

All that seems like such a long time ago, cept the soundtrack business, that's always with me.

um.

here are some more pictures.

A Malaysian BlackBerry.

And Kua in a blacked-out King Surf.

Oh, and right after that Penang-KL trip, I got back and got a scolding from everyone for being an incompetent fool and missing the July intake. So I took the bus back to KL to sort that shit out. I applied for IT at Monash, but am now having second thoughts.

(I just got the offer letter, but the deadline's a month away, so I still have a little time to mind-search.)

For some silly reason, I decided to take the train back to JB. Probably cause I knew the public bus route to KL Sentral, but not to Bukit Jalil.

The train ride was... quite bad. Not intolerable, but definitely not pleasant. The seats were made out of cabbage and cloth, and were about as wide as the treads of a Sherman tank(probably as comfortable too).

It's perfectly alright if you soil the toilet intentionally.

Oh yes, before I forget, I went and saw Toy Story in 3D. My first 3D movie, and really it was only slightly impressive. Mayhap I should have gone and saw a more action packed movie.

And Nike better start paying attention to their ads.

Spot the "CONED BRA" anyone? No one? OK.

Also, I've found Jesus. He has returned to us. As

A pick up truck. Yeah. Left out that detail in the bible didn't they?

I also picked up a nice looking fake watch from Petaling Street one day when I was in KL. After upgrading the strap to a fake Adidas nylon one, it looked like a watch from my dreams.

This picture does the watch no justice. It really is a cool looking fake watch.

Ok. That is ALL. Been writing this post for 2 weeks now. Time to get back on a regular update schedule.

el hombre sombrero unes noches el o-zee. Hoh hoh Hoh Hoh Hoh

2010-07-14T02:50:00.002+08:00

Hello my readers and friends.

Let me just start by saying SHIT, Germany didn't win the world cup. =(
The German team reminds me of Hitler's Germany.

Great start, took everyone by surprise(I'm guessing the Polish were shocked during the qualifying rounds). Lots of initial momentum. Slightly emotionally unstable coach(despite being the best looking coach for any team, he still kinda looks like sad, in a crazy, unhealthy sort of way.)

Just like the nazis, whenever they won, they won by a large margin.

The biggest difference I guess, is that they beat England this time. And they didn't execute any Jews!

But don't worry, there's always next time.

Anywhossels. I've uploaded a shite load of pictures from my Penang-KL trip to blogger, so expect a post by the end of this week(once I get home, I'll get right on it).

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, for the last 5 days, I was under the impression that I had to start my course at Monash by Monday. As in two days ago. Thankfully though, I cleared all that up, and will by starting in August, frog willing.

It may come as a surprise to some of you that I've settled for IT. (Well, technically it's still not set in stone, there's still a bit of red tape, and potential last minute drama)

But I think, at least for now, that it's for the best. Unless I find something better to do.

OK, I'll be taking the train home tomorrow and then I'll get down to writing about my third excellent adventure so far!

this is an emergency broadcast

2010-07-12T02:26:00.001+08:00

i am sorry for not blogging stop

will try to blog as soon as i reach jb stop

that is all stop

Real men blog at last minute

2010-07-02T00:55:00.008+08:00

I can barely remember anything. The way the days are rolling by, they may as well be called seconds.

The lack of updates should be an indication of how occupied/lazy I am.
Lemme see. I can't remember what it was I was supposed to start this blog post off with, but I may as well start with my excellent adventure to school to get the SPM certs.

It went well at first. It was once a second home to me. Well, not really, but sorta. More like a 4th or 5th home. After visiting it, I was reminded that my school isn't my home. It never is. How can you form a bond with something that will only last about 6 years and only leave a dent on you.

School isn't home. But the people, the friends at least, are mobile homes. Which is why I don't miss school at all. I miss my friends, and the good times we shared, but the school is just a replaceable backdrop.

Anyway, we(Julian, Gurvy singh and I) were walking about when we came across an old discipline/drink selling teacher(we call him satan, pronounced sah-tan, not say-ten).

This happened;
Singh : Eh, cikgu belum kena pecat lagi?
Satan : Apasal?
Singh : Tak tau, cikgu macam tu.

It was scary. We got chased around school by satan. He was pissed off. But I think it's safe to say that I probably witnessed the most epic pwnage of a discipline teacher in E.C. history.

Enough about that. I tried out Modern Warfare 2 in 3rd person yesterday, and I swear it's friggin sweet.

Just look at my kill:death ratio,

41 kills to 6 deaths!

even without comparing scores with the other players in the map, it's pretty amazin.
I'm not boasting, I really, really suck at 1st person mode. I usually break even with the kill death ratio in 1st person, but this is something else.

Oh yes, and then there's the Gunung Ledang trip, which was super. I'll summarize the trip, as to not spoil the experience with a poor thought-to-word translation, and let the photos do the talking(these photos aren't posted anywhere else, the majority can be found on facebook).

Me, being perfectly unfit, struggled with the 20 minute stair climb/uphill trek before we got to some rocks by a waterfall.

There, we found at least 3 different paths, and tried 2 of 'em. (the other involved crossing a river, which I still think is pretty crazy).

The jungle was full of silly surprises. Markers that turned out to be termite nests. Raffia string trails did not work as an effective bread crumb trail.

We settled for the 2nd campsite. Sure we didn't make it ANYWHERE near the peak, but we were all city boys, and had a lot to learn about the wild. And really, it was looking like rain and night was coming, so trekking wasn't an option.

Trust me, you don't know darkness till you've been in the wild.

At first, you think it's going to be well illuminated, like the campsites in the movies. But when the sun goes down, it really gets hardcore dark. And then you start hearing weird noises.

And trust me, we did.

Around 12-1am, Gurdave and I descended to campsite 1 to search for dry wood(it was raining for a bit, and that effed up the fire and dampened most of the wood). Everything was going ok. We went down a set of stairs. I had a machete in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

All of a sudden, there's this inhuman growl. I think it must be in my head(the entire night, I had seen ghostly apparitions that turned out to be signboards in the jungle). Gurdave stopped. I stopped.

"You heard that didn't you?"
"Yup. Could be a tiger, lets go back."

That may not seem very scary here, as text. But out there, I was pretty much semi-freaked out.

There was another growl about half an hour later, and Gurdave saw something move in the jungle.

It wasn't long before Zeke turned in.

Gurdave, Julian and I(Euch was asleep before midnight, he was driving the whole morning) sat by the bridge-dam thingy and kept watch.

After 5 minutes of sitting down, I realized I was having a dream, so I shook myself awake and looked over to the two of them.

They were both half asleep.

"oi"

Suddenly both of em are completely awake.

"yes". They say together.

It was clear that the sound of falling water and the cool night air was more sleep inducing than pee inducing(there's a myth that splashing water and low temperatures make you wanna drain the dragon).

After another half an hour of going back and forth between our dying campfire and the bridge-dam, Julian went in to sleep.

I struggled to stay awake and to stay warm.

Gurdave had no problem with either. He stayed up and kept watch and was in nothing but a single layer of clothing(not counting his undies, which I hope he wore).

He even got the fire going without much hassle. All hail the useful fire starting powers of Satan.

I fell asleep on a large rock in a thick sweater, a thin facemask and shorts. Gurdave woke me up at around 6. My teeth were chattering and my legs were numb. To top it off my lungs were probably filled with water. It was scary. And it was stupid of me to fall asleep for 3 hours outside.

But that's ok, because the sun was coming up. And for the first time, I witnessed an all-natural sunrise. Which really is quite over rated. It was hard to take a proper picture of it, I was shivering from the cold.

In the morning, we (more accurately everyone but Gurdave and I) had breakfast and headed home.

It was a nice trip, considering how last minute it was and how many obstacles we had to overcome. Most of our efforts were put into making sure we got to the place, and not the trek itself. Next time, maybe.

Well, one excellent adventure over, another half a dozen to go. Tomorrow, I'm going to play Neutron Star Collision by Muse, some other pop song, give a speech, and take a flight to Penang with college friends. So that's 3 excellent adventures in just one day. This is probably as busy as a holiday can get for me.

Well hopefully.

There's still the university applications and all that. Which I'm and absolute noob at. Ok gtg Holland vs Brazil.

2010-07-01T02:00:00.002+08:00

blog willing, there will be a post here tomorrow with pics.

next thing you know, they'll take my thoughts away!

2010-06-29T01:59:00.003+08:00

i am sorry. This should be a full fledged blog post, but for the first time in months, I'm getting tired before 3am.

so i'm gonna have to compress everything into short, unartsy, meaningful sentences. Like that last one.

My results were published this morning, and they were better than i had hoped. Because i actually improved a little. Weird considering i was more hardworking and focused last year.

Ok, what else.
i'm listening to too much Megadeth. Which is also odd because my opinion of them hasn't changed. I still think the vocals spoil anything worth listening to.

But some songs are pretty....neat.. I guess.

Tomorrow's the start of my new excellent adventure. It kicks off with a trip to gunung ledang, where we'll most likely(if god wills it) trek and spand the night camping.

The interwebs and my parents say it's too dangerous to Bear Grylls our way up the summit without a guide, so it looks like we may have company.

All that red dead redemption makes camping and trekking seem like an easy, fun experience, but it's probably going to be the complete opposite. I sure hope not. I'd be lying if i said i'm not excited about this trip. With the prospect of adventure and injury and death. It's all so much more exciting than
sitting at home and playing games.

I need to live a little, and i need a break from city life.

alright. I'll try return with a good story. Heck, i'll try return. Pls forgive the power of technology. It has delivered this blog post to the interwebs through a phone. A nokia!

p.s. I really should have blogged on my pc, so much has happened!

can't believe an 80s disco band wrote this

2010-06-24T04:42:00.000+08:00

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

The Snake behind me whispers

2010-06-21T04:29:00.004+08:00

Just got back from the Muddy Confluence. Drove up Tuesday mornin'.

It may not seem plausible, but I managed to pack my keyboard, mouse, mousepad, 5cm pc cooling fan, USB audio card, a power splitter thingy, five meter-long cables(not to be confused with 5m long cables), and a thick book into this tiny back pack:

It's true. But the actual PC and Monitor couldn't fit. See, THAT you believe.

That bag has been with me for about 2 years. Before that, my sister used it for school. I've been using it for just about every occasion. School, Singapore trips, holidays. I even used it to transport my entire xbox, with the power brick, 2 controllers and a bunch of games to Julians house.

It's things like this; you know, bags that work, that serve their purpose perfectly, that confuse me the most. Because I know(and you know as well), that there are people out there, adults, children, sometimes even ourselves, who just go apeshit for buying stuff. Bags especially. It's just something I've never been able to get into. Bag shopping. I've only done it in primary school. I used 2 bags in secondary, and then just searched the store room for some old dusty one to reuse.

Anywhossels, in Subang Parade there was this scary lady.

That one.

Because she was probably a he.
Sh-He--It (lol shit) was shopping in the womens section. I'm not sure where I stand on the gay issue.

I can't be a commie and an advocate of freedom at the same time. But should think freedom is a virtue. It just has to be properly regulated. Like in Europe, where even gays are kinda hot.

In the US, it's sickening, and the ones here in Asia just go the extra step. I won't lie to you, I'm perfectly fine with gays. But the moment they ACT gay, that's when I get freaked out. What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, KL.

It was ok. Brought my PC in anticipation of day-time boredom in KL. Night time was ok, because of the world cup. I was very disappointed with the Germany-Serbia match. Did we learn nothing from England?

Modern Warfare 2 has been pretty good so far. Sometimes I wonder why I still play it. It's definitely not as fun as it SHOULD be. The maps are getting boring. The weapons are predictable. I'm not that good, so I don't get that many killstreaks past 10 in a row.

But I am improving. My Kill-Death ratio is around 25:21. Meaning I kill 25 people every 21 times I die. Gaming. It's the only time where the Karmic circle of rebirth makes sense.

urhhh. I'm really sleepy. I SHOULD save this as a draft and post it tomorrow. But I will probably wake up around 3pm, so I'll make this a 2 part post. The 2nd part may not have any photos though. You have been warned.

I'll leave you guys with this awesome phone-screenshot of my GPS route. I was stuck in traffic when I noticed what the street name sounded like:

See? 16.5 kilometers per hour. I WAS stuck in traffic so I had an extra hand to do the screenshot.

E3 2010 just closed with some really exciting new stuff. Gears of War 3, Medal of Honor (reboot of the series), X-COM (re-imagining of the series) and Homefront(video below) are the most interesting, at least to me.

There's also a warhammer 40K mmorpg that's coming out, but I wasn't too impressed. The E3 trailer for Homefront was quite interesting though. Look at how well done it is:
here:

Communism for the win? Anybody? Nobody. OK.

To live and Die in Singapore

2010-06-15T00:48:00.007+08:00

Before I begin, let me just say that I'm really tired. I was up all day walking round Singapore(I'll explain a little later) and I suffer from really bad memory loss. I write good posts in my head, but when I sit down, nothing comes to mind. Which is why pictures and random images are so important in my posts; they remind me of something I planned to write about. Also, I wrote this post in parts, and rearranged it so it would go smoothly. But it probably won't.

My Aunt from Penang dropped her BMW 325i in my house. I know, it's not the most badass BMW in the world. But Goddamn.

It's definitely a very good looking thing up close. Every tiny detail, even in the head and brake lights looks like God engineered it. The inside is a little bland(like most German cars, all black leather and hard looking dashboard).

The coolest part was when my aunt showed me how the keyless entry worked. Guess how the car is locked!

See the handle? When the engine's turned off, just close the door and tap the top of the handle, and the car locks. Bloody cool.

And really, there's a few things cooler than starting a car by pushing a button.

This is one of those few things:

I was in Singapore the whole day while my mom and sister went to see Mika perform. And I think GPS is bloody cool. Imagine this. A mass of plastic and metal the size of a calculator is communicating with satellites orbiting earth, and it's telling me when to "turn left" and how fast I'm walking and when I'll arrive.

All of a sudden, I think it's better that we sacrifice some freedom and become slaves to technology. It's just amazing sometimes. It's too easy to criticize. People call it inhuman, but only because they forget to be human about it. Nowadays I go all starry eyed and amazed whenever I see a new piece of tech. I admire the skill, but not the method and consequence. Just that ability to make something Godlike without any God messing around with the process.

I think because I've come to realize how much effort is put into creation. Having built and painted 9 tanks (2 tiny ones, 7 medium sized, and 1 out of cardboard), doesn't make me very proud. It makes me feel quite useless actually. There are people out there who do this better, and even they don't get recognized for their efforts.

Speaking of tanks, my epic project will be completed on schedule. Just like a German ja! right on time.

All the parts are done. The epicly gigantic Tiger II (with commander and machine gunner mounted) and STUG IV(my best painted tank, with commander)
Both tanks were made to look as if heavily muddied.

The heavy-set Russian KV-2 tank(commander's head just jutting out and decent damage details on the paintwork, as well as "muddy threads" effect)

The least fun I had was with the infantrymen. Each piece had to be meticulously painted, organized, glued together, armed and equipped. That's barely telling the whole story, so just observe from this picture:

The bloody soldier is smaller than my thumb!

And I had to do 23 of them(including 3 tank commanders)! The Germans got a dark green outfit, the German Mortar team got gray uniforms. The Russians all received historically inaccurate apple green uniforms because no other colour seemed to work as well.

The latest tank I've done is a bit of a disappointment.
1)I bought it when in a bad mood and I don't think it was fair that I did at the time
2)The model was of inferior quality(made in Russia, with badly designed bits that didn't always fit)
3)It took 6 months to complete cause college kind of distracted me
4)The paint job was ENTIRELY by brush, so it looks poorly painted. None of the sprays worked with T-34 tank.
5)The end result looks pretty lousy. But some touching up should solve that.

And now the moment none of you have been waiting for! The landscape!

Using my foot as a scale(1 foot : 12 inches), you can see that it's about 2 and a half feet long by 1 foot wide.

The part with newspaper that says "DAIKIN" is going to be building in a town. Will paint a road that leads out into the hill, from which the Germans will be attacking.

I painted it last night. Haven't touched the town area. Just laid down mud-coloured paint for the outskirts of town.

Oh, and my Graphics card's fan stopped working. Occasionally, it gives out little squeaks and dies off. Solution:

Bought a RM15 standard PC cooling fan, and put it on the graphics card. Genious I tell you!
No really, it works. Modern Warfare kept crashing before. Now it's fine!

I'm driving to KL tomorrow with my family. You know, I think I like driving. A lot. Especially when, on the rare occasion, everything goes right.

When there are no cops on the road.

When all corners and gear changes(even automatics can be clunky) go smooth.

When the guilt of pollution is the last thing on your mind.

When the Singaporeans are all in Singapore.(really, I know I'm generalizing, but it's true, Singaporeans are terrible drivers. Not only do they not understand the concept of patience, but they're also stupidly proud of how they drive. A bit like me, but I don't show it WHILE driving.)

Also, hopefully I don't die in a car crash tomorrow. If I do, I'd like to declare all my organs EXCEPT my kidneys up for donation. The kidneys go straight to the icebox and the rest of my family members must wait for the eventual rise of the price of kidneys before selling. I have spoken.

I'm going to be doing something really stupid tomorrow. I'm gonna pack my PC, monitor, mouse, keyboard and cables for the KL trip. I'm going to be there for about 6 days, so I may as well go prepared. May even bring my xbox, but only if there's space.

Everyone who reads this has heard of Metallica. They're so famous I can be sure that the statement is true. Everyone on the internet has at least heard of them. What a lot of people don't know is that they have had many rivals and contemporaries who arguably outperform Metallica, but receive a fraction of the fame and fortune.

Slayer and Megadeth. 2 bands you probably have never heard of (unless you're Gurdave or someone who knows about music's heavier side.).

I don't listen to either band much. Mostly because I equated fame with how good the band was. It's common sense that output should equate to input in an equilibrium state. Even in the world of music. But that's just the problem isn't it. Nothing's ever in equilibrium, so why bother with equating the two.

In real life, effort is never rewarded.

Effort is so randomly rewarded that there's little to no correlation.

Which is why, I think, most people settle for instant gratification.

Do a little, take a little. Maybe that's why all the great tragedies and great stories have gone. The modern world doesn't need heroes or villains, just a constantly updated news reel.

My brother isn't the best person to take advice from, not because he gives bad advice, but because he's bad at putting words together in the form of advice. But something he said to me about patience was quite useful.

If I was still the kid I was 10 years ago, I'd be a Singaporean driver in every situation. Not in the kiasu way. But in the "me me me me me" way. My brother was always the patient one, and I'm proud of him because he's actually making a name for himself(he got at least 2 job offers before his final university exam).

I was talking about Megadeth, goddamit. (see, this is how I forget things)
Yes, Megadeth. I don't like their vocals. Dave Mustaine sounds like a kid trying to sound evil. I can't take their music seriously. Because even when there is some brilliance, it often gets smothered by the vocals, lyrics or some other musical mishap.

There is one. Just ONE exception. A song by Megadeth that's perfect. A Tout Le Monde. I'm pretty sure Gurdave likes this song a lot more than I do. And really it's the one song that Dave Mustaine sings well and wrote well too. Maybe one day I'll be able to relate to the lyrics. I'm pretty sure it's about suicide in France.

Don't remember where I was
I realized life was a game
The more seriously I took things
The harder the rules became
I had no idea what it'd cost
My life passed before my eyes
When I found out how little I accomplished
All my plans denied

So as you read this know my friends
I'd love to stay with you all
Please smile when you think of me
My body's gone that's all

À tout le monde [To all the world]
À tout mes amis [To all my friends]
Je vous aime [I love you]
Je dois partir [I have to leave]
These are the last words
I'll ever speak
And they'll set me free

If my heart was still alive
I know it would surely break
And my memories left with you
There's nothing more to say
Moving on is a simple thing
What it leaves behind is hard
You know the sleeping feel no more pain
And the living are scarred

I know this must come as a surprise, but I watch the World Cup. I've been watching it since 1998 like most people my age. I was an England fan back in the day, but only because I thought Argentina was an evil country and that Germany was imaginary. Since 2002, Germany has been the team for me. Oliver Kahn is definitely the coolest looking goal keeper in history. He will be sorely missed. By me, mostly. Not in a gay way.

Last night's game was amazing. Germany played like a machine.

Oh yes, today in Singapore, I saw this near Raffles Medical:

Isn't number 10 Messi? That guy is so cute in the Astro ads(not in a gay way). But sometimes a bit annoying.

Also Singapore is not my kind of country. I walked around a lot.

After dropping off my family at Expo, I headed to Tiong Bahru, because I knew about a hobby store there. The trip took half an hour, and when I got there, everything cost more than S$25, so I just looked around and mentally slapped myself for wasting my own time.

Predictably, I started walking to the next hobby shop(not really, I took an MRT there). It was in Marina Square(or something, can't remember the name). Went there, realized everything was over S$40 and mentally slapped myself again.

I told myself that I walked enough to deserve a meal at Carl's Jr. Searched for 10 minutes and ended up in a hotel, doubled back and found it and realized everything there was more than S$20. Mentally slapped myself a third time then walked back to the MRT.

As usual, I had trouble with the brochure-handout people. When I was in KL the last time, I nearly grabbed the UNICEF guidebook thinking it was a handout. This time, I was listening to music on my headphones, so when a credit card brochure-handout guy approached me at the MRT, I panicked and smiled and firmly grabbed the paper in his hand.

Then I looked down at the paper and sighed in relief. It was really a proper brochure. But he wasn't letting go!

Instead of tugging it from him, I took my ear phones off and listened to what he had to say. He asked if I was a student. I said yes. He said "oh, thanks". And we never spoke again.

That wasn't the end of it(at least not for me). While walking out of Marina Square(or whatever it's called), someone approached and (I was still with my ear phones on) I just shook my head and hand in a way that usually makes salespeople back off. But the salesperson still was all up in my face. So I read the brochure(lucky I read it before grabbing it, it wasn't really a handout). It said something about children with heart disease. I didn't want to remove my earphones (A Tout Le Monde was playing), so I just said "sorry, I'm Malaysian, I don't have a heart". And then I kinda started walking a lot faster.

Anyway, right after that, I went walking again and found out the MPH near City Hall was closing up and that all books were on SUPER CHEAP sale.

Really. I bought a book for S$3. And it has at least a thousand pages. I'll give you a hint. It's not the bible.

The most expensive books in the store was only S$20, and that was only for books that were previously priced >S$100. Amazin'.

Took my time searching through for any Sin City or Batman comics, but all I found were Batman colouring books. Given my history of non artsyness, I wouldn't wanna risk insulting batman by getting one of those.

I went back to the first hobby shop I ever visited(the one that started my tank collecting hobby) in Peninsular Plaza. It wasn't there anymore. Which was sad.

Walked and walked a lot more. The GPS was really useful. And cool(did I mention that? And it was free of charge).

The rest of the journey wasn't THAT exciting. We took the LAST bus back to JB at 11.30pm. I actually had to stand right at the door. It was scary, whenever the bus turned I had to push myself against the windscreen to keep from falling out. I couldn't take any pictures because it was THAT cramped.

But I did manage to listen to a BBC podcast about the Maoist movement in India. They're having quite the revolution up there. I know I'm not the most Indian Indian in the world, but I share their dislike of imperial powers and neo-imperialism.

While in Singapore, I found a spot where WiFi was free! It was nuts. Singapore usually charges for everything. I spent a good 3 hours siting there between a Church and Raffles City blog hoping and facebooking, and also analyzing Singaporeans.

After a while a pattern emerged. Singaporeans are always mechanical. They're not perfect, but they are very rule-bound, and very conformist. Every young couple that sat down nearby pulled out cigarettes and started smoking. After their cigarettes were out they either started making out or eating their Mcdonalds. I swear at least 6 couples went through the same routine. And of the non-couples that passed by, more females than males were smoking.

There also seems to be an age factor to this. Everyone past their mid 30s didn't smoke, instead they were on the phone.

But they all seemed generally blissful. Not in a 'deep sustained happiness' kind of way, but the "i'm enjoying life" kind of way. They're ignorant in a good way. They're ignorant but so full of life. Even if that life was plastic.

It even brought a smile to my face when a couple of lesbians sat down and did a McDonalds+make out routine. I've never seen sexier things done with McNuggets in my life.

That said, I think the sheer amount of exotic cars in Singapore just destroys the experience of seeing a nice exotic car. At first it's amazing, then it's just "oh, right a Lamborghini".

I think I like Malaysia now.

The inevitable summer

2010-06-12T00:46:00.006+08:00

There is a saying, "The only real wisdom is knowing you know nothing". I think I may have misquoted it as a Buddhist saying. It's actually a Greek saying. Or maybe it was just something Socrates said, and he was Greek and that makes it a Greek saying. Anyway, I think I can safely misapply the saying to my ambition.

From this moment henceforth, everytime someone asks me what my ambition is, I'm going to say that I do not know. And if they start complaining, I'm going to say that the only real wisdom is knowing you know nothing. And they're going to think I'm a dumbass. A perfect circle, you see?

I'm preparing for the long list of questions from the long list of relatives that are about to come raining down.

I really don't know what I want or need to do.
My first choice is law, because finding loopholes in arguments is the most productive thing I do in my spare time.

I wouldn't mind doing psychology, but no one wants me to do that, and really there's no real incentive to do something half the art students end up doing if it doesn't land me a job outside of the business world.

I can't do econs, because my communist ideals would get in the way of everything and there are already more qualified people around to do that.

So it's either law or something computer geekish. I really wish I had a talent for math, engineering sounds so cool. It actually feels like the most productive field, as goods are produced instead of services. I.T. guys and psychologists do a shit load and, yes things do get done, but none of those things feel as concrete as making something useful out of bits of the earth.

The econs people step in and sell those things at unreasonable prices and psychologists analyze the lot and find a common behavioral theme. A perfect circle, you see?

Earlier this week I went for an morning walk/jog with Gurdave and Bryan. 5AM. Who wakes up that early for exercise? Gurdave and Bryan apparently. After what happened, I don't think I ever want to exercise again. Ever.

That said, the world looks so much better at 5AM. Quieter too. Cept the spot near the customs. That's always busy.

And rejoice! H1N1 can be prevented by installing public sinks with large water tanks on top.

Unless of coarse, one of the evil pharmaceutical companies pour a vial of H1N1 into the tank. In any case, why would you need 8 sinks in the middle of nowhere for?

One of the pups went over to my neighbour's yard and nearly got ripped to shreds by the rottweilers. Praise be to Fjord it was unharmed. Here's a blurry photograph I took with a nokia:

They're all in the drain. But you can only see the white one. Cameras are racists too.

I've still got your back, just like a buttcrack

2010-06-04T02:47:00.004+08:00

Steve Jobs left a comment in my cbox! Normally, this would be a cause for celebration. The problem is, I've just heard some terrible news. News that gets me commie blood a-boilin'.

See, in the old days you would only have to look past 'progress' to find all of capitalism's faults. The lousy distribution of power. The child workers(even in England, there were child workers up to the turn of the 20th century). The unlawful treatment of non-whites.

It was everywhere, but little action was taken where it should have been. Because the people who had to power to change things were the same people who gained most of the benefits, including the rifles and bullets that only a progressive, capitalist economy could mass produce.
*sidenote*
think about it. The bolt action rifle is a simple weapon, and I can explain the entire mechanism with ease. But I could never produce one. Not even one. Not just because it's illegal, and not because you'd need to have an engineering background. It's because you'd have to be able to coordinate resources in a way that no one man can do efficiently. The timber for the main rifle body, the iron ore for the steel that forms the barrel and the rest of the assembly. The brass bullet shells and the gunpowder. Not only do the sub-components of the rifle need to be separately manufactured by very different industries, but the components themselves require resources. It's nuts that mass production is possible. But it is, only with the structured system that capitalism provides.
*sidenote over*
I WAS TRYING TO MAKE A POINT HERE, STOP DISTRACTING ME.

Ok, here goes.

I think we've effectively covered the mess that we used to be able to blame on capitalism.
We blame big corporations, who aren't even people(really, how do you blame something that isn't even a being, I don't even blame my dog for stepping on me).
Big oil spill, solution: boycott BP. Sure, yeah it IS technically their fault. But BP isn't a terrorist group. They're a company who wants to sell you petroleum, and they have got competitors. One fuck up, and suddenly BP is the bad guy. I sincerely believe Exxon, Shell and Petronas are no better than BP. They're all big companies that want the same thing, BP was just the thief that left a trail.

I said BP six times.

I'm still distracting myself from my main point here.
As cynical as I may be, this bit of bad news really ruined my Thursday, partly because it was my fault.
Here it goes:
A worker in the Foxconn factory in China died of exhaustion after working a 34 hour shift.

First I laughed. Haha, the capitalists have done it again. Foxconn makes computer components for big companies like Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and most important of all, Apple(the last time Foxconn had a problem like this was with that dude who lost the new iphone while it was in testing phase). Steve Jobs said he'd do an investigation or whatever, but who cares.

I stopped my laughing when I remembered one of my previous blog posts. The one where I dismantled my Xbox. Because after taking that picture I remembered something printed on the side of the inner console.
What was printed was "Foxconn".

My Xbox was part of the 3rd generation. You see, I'm not a TOTAL idiot. I may be a gamer, but I know my machines like the back of my hand(Which is why I routinely dismantle them, like I did my Xbox). I know that the Xbox and PS3 are selling WAY below cost. Microsoft and Sony are actually selling their consoles at a loss. But they make up their losses with the hardware components and contracts with game companies.

The fact is, my version of the Xbox 360 is the Core version, to be precise the Foxconn Core version with the Lite-on disc tray. Which is the cheapest one. Which somehow makes me feel like it was a bigger burden on Microsoft, which must have translated to wage cuts on the labourers. And I admit, I feel terrible.
But I've been feeling terrible about a lot of things recently. Red Dead Redemption made me feel really bad. The ending was so so sad. That's the only way to put it. Just a mood killer. For the entire week.

I even finished the seventh season of 24 and that got me a bit down.

Time for a rude interruption. See this guy\/?

He was sitting right at the edge in the lotus position. I wonder if the quiet Buddhists types would get angry if you pushed them over while in meditation.

If a bear takes a shit in the woods, and no one is there to witness it, how would we know that bears shit?

2010-05-31T20:40:00.005+08:00

That's not a valid questions. Bears generally won't take shit. From anyone. Especially in Red Dead Redemption.
Watch this to understand why it's the best game EVER!

Oh, and i found this new site with nice comics. Link is in the sidebar. Or turn your head side ways and read what's on the picture below.

That's about it I guess. If I go on, it'd be about something emo or something red dead related.

telegram for mister marston

2010-05-31T03:37:00.000+08:00

i think it is cool that my phone actually says battery charging forward slash full forward slash low it is awesome stop some of you may be confused stop you may be asking yourself
why am writing this post like a telegram query

it is because it is a good substitute for lack of proper content stop
which is the most re used excuse i know stop

but hey comma
i am bored stop

let me tell you what i did today colon
played red dead redemption
watched twenty four season seven
and this comma

told you i was bored stop
i put it back together and it will probably still work stop
probably stop

okay i want to tell you about red dead redemption for a moment comma
because it is definitely the best game i have played this year stop

better than alan wake

or splinter cell

attached to this telegram is a regular dash format note

here is that note colon

I was riding along in the desert, when this hitch hiker asks me for assistance. When I approach him on horseback, he suddenly shoves me off my mount and steals it! So I quickly bring out my rifle and use a slo-mo matrix like effect to target his foot. Imagine that, he's about a hundred meters away from me, on a horse that's riding pretty fast, and I bring him down with a single shot.

The bullet hits his ankle and he loses his balance on the horse. He drops off and tries to make a break for it, limping.

I catch up to my horse, then ride it to him and bring out my lasso.
He is moving slowly, so lassoing him is not a problem even on a moving horse.

With my lasso tried around him, he falls over and his hat falls off his head.

I quickly dismount my horse and get closer to him. When I'm directly above him, I bind his hands and legs together, then carry him onto my horse.

It's time for some cowboy justice.

With the horse thief hogtied securely on the back of my horse, we (my horse included) check the map for where the train is. It is close-by. I am happy. Time to try out Jackson's trick.

If I'm going to make it to the train in time, I have to push my horse as fast as it will go. So when it gets tired, I feed it horse pills to get its stamina up.

I could see the exhaust fumes of the train from the tracks I was on. I dismounted and lifted the horse thief. Then dropped him there, on the tracks. He cursed me and made empty threats.

The tracks where I had laid him where running parallel to a road in the middle of a thick forest. I didn't think there'd be any witnesses. Even the people on the train wouldn't see it. =)

Then the train arrived. It was going at full speed. The horse thief exploded to bits when it hit. I still have no idea how Jackson came up with this.

While admiring the whole experience, I suddenly realized 2 things:
1)leaving people on train tracks never gets old in this game
2)there was a growly sound coming from behind me.

It was a grizzly bear.

And it was charging right at me.

I cannot begin to explain how scary it is.

To give you an idea of how it felt,
earlier in the game, I was caught in a valley and had to fight off a dozen cougars.
Cougars are supposed to be the fastest, most dangerous animals in the wild west.
But somehow, because I had the slo-mo power, I felt safe. Sure, I nearly died everytime one of them got to whack me, but I eventually learned their pattern of attack and was able to kill two of them with just a hunting knife. Which I'm quite proud of.

When in the valley, it was night. Pitch black, I could only locate the cougars right before they attacked, but I had my gun drawn the whole time, so I'd be able to shoot as soon as I saw.

That still ought to have been the scariest this game got.

But the grizzly bear brought it to a whole new level. The grizzly is about the size of a van. And probably weighs as much.

The worst part is, they're quite silent even when they charge.

One hit is enough to kill your character. And you can't out run them in a straight line.

So when I heard the growl behind me, I ran straight for my horse. The grizzly missed me by about an inch. Took out my most powerful shot gun since we were at close range

Part of my hands were focused on controlling the horse; getting it to circle around the bear, while the other parts were trying to shoot the damned thing.

It was madness. I shot the thing 5 times in the back and sides before it died.

Just then a random stranger runs past while being chased by a pack of wolves.

I love this game.

The fact is this:

that whole experience was unscripted. It's not a mission, it was just about you doing what you want in a gigantic open world, and having the world react to you in a way that makes you feel both significant(when you outsmart bears) and stupid(when horsethiefs outsmart you).

It is an amazing experience, just exploring the wilderness, hunting, helping out strangers. That's before even talking about the storyline, graphics and gameplay.

Red Dead Redemption is more than a game. It's a chance to be a cowboy!

as a game i put my hand over the flame

2010-05-29T05:52:00.002+08:00

Once again i'm reminded of the things i should never have forgotten.

That what they teach is more to do with fantasy than theory, because if income=output, then my maid would own this house and i'd be on the streets.

And that giving your all hardly matters.
Because it's never enough if you're just not the right person.

A person who's talented at, say, photography, but strives to be an astronaut, will, at best be a lousy astronaut.

that's from a movie, but i can't remember the title because a drinker drinks when his chips are down.

and my chips are down

And, i've been reminded
that betrayal is the only feeling that truly, deeply hurts.

Knocked up and Sold the F**k Out

2010-05-23T18:00:00.010+08:00

About half a year ago, I published my theory on why time seems to be getting.. faster.

Now I give you my

"THEORY OF EVERYTHING BEING PREDETERMINED"

Bear in mind...

not that bear.

*ahem*

Bear in mind that this theory is purely unscientific. It's the sort of thing I bring up just for discussion's sake.

If the first action was the big bang, then every subsequent action is simply a reaction, since matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed.

All science is physics.

The most law-bound field of science is physics.

I'd like to think that, with physics in the middle, all other fields of science form a web around it.

A chain in the science web would be physics->chemistry->biology.

But it's much more complicated than that. Obviously.

Anyway, BECAUSE it's in a web, a field that's farther away from physics (for example, biology) has looser rules than physics itself (it's influenced by the sub rules of many other fields, including chemistry, geography, etc).

It's this unpredictability of rules and outcomes in social sciences that gives the illusion of choice.

The mind is influenced by so much more than genetics and environment. In fact, 'environment' in this context means the books you read, your parents and their parental policies, the parents of your friends and their parent's parental policies, the music you listen to, the God you pray to and the many reasons you pray to that god. The friends you trust and the reasons why you trust those friends. The temperature and climate of the country you live in. See? The list goes on and on.

The word 'environment' doesn't carry enough meaning if it takes into account every element that makes a human excluding genetics.

And you can accurately predict if an individual is going to end up tall, short, fat, angry, etc just by analyzing his or her genetics.

What I'm trying to get at here is that if every little factor into what makes an individual who he/she is, is bound by the rules of physics and the first action that is the big bang, then nothing is a miracle, and everything that is explainable is possible.

Not only that, but let's say you know every little factor about yourself, then you'll know which decision you'll make given a circumstance, wouldn't you?

I know I wouldn't walk up to a woman and ask her out, because given all the factors that contribute to making me, me, that's just not very probable. The decision becomes something else. Something more rule bound than simply being rule bound. It becomes predetermined.

That's as good as an explanation I can squeeze out. I was supposed to do at least 3 essays on this for my other blog, but I don't think it's worth posting there.

Actually, you probably wouldn't have guessed this, but I think a lot of religions aren't complete bull shit. They must be based on something concrete if they've survived thousands of years and spread across the globe so easily.

And this theory I just explained kinda shows how God could have been the big bang that caused everything. But that's just silly. Because we think of human beings to be a reflection of what God is. But we're evolving, becoming different. So if we were to grow a new section of the brain, that would mean we've overtaken God's idea of himself.

I'm not very good at writing. What's worse is that I've gotten worse. See? Two 'worse's in one sentence.

Super Time Lapse!

I have a confession to make. Actually. Many confessions to make.

1) Until late last year, I didn't believe anyone who told me that our current Prime Minister was the son of our second Prime Minister. Then I finally understood why they called him Najib Razak.

A shallow little jackal of a man posing as a hawk.
Conniving opportunist
Lease the blade the gun the bomb in the name of justice.
A violent panacea for what ails the nation
In advancement for the pig.

Retribution or vengeance it matters not which
As long as the pig stays on top of the ladder of bone his father has built.

2) I stopped reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series halfway through book 6. Because I thought the 5th book was as far as fiction should push. Anything past that and I would just be pretending to be interested in Mr.King's world of lamp monsters and axe wielding Nicholson.

SHOUTING AND CURSING ABOUT SOMETHING DOESN'T MAKE IT TRUE, YOU FOOKING ASSHOLES!
Yup. That's bout it.
Not really. There's more. But I can't it here. Or anywhere else. Alcohol!

You know what's worse than not knowing what GT stands for?

Labeling a stock Toyota Unser 1.8 with it. I mean, c'mon. a 1.8 engine from the 90s, with leaf spring suspension. The Unser is basically an MPV with panel van technology. I should know. I crashed in one. While doing a easy left. At 60. Leaf springs *rolls eyes and sighs*

Every so often, Nestle makes a mistake at their Kit Kat production facility and we end up with this:
I swear this happens every year or so. One of the kit kat fingers will be the usual, wafer filled one. The other will be a solid block of chocolate! I love mistakes.

And look, a traffic light that's just made for accidents!

Really, I should have squeezed more out of that last picture.

just removing an enemy

2010-05-18T21:08:00.005+08:00

Somewhere in this blog post, there is a bit of unseeable text. It's unseeable because it's about gaming. And no one comes here to read about games.

You come here for this:

In case you're wondering, that's a board for people to say "good luck" to each other. And I batmanized it. In plain sight.

Also, look at this design flaw:

A light bulb in a bowl. All it took was a little hole in the bowl and a whole lotta insects... died. I'm sorry, I'm not good at rhyming things.

If you can't make out what that is, just imagine a mass graveyard, but for insects.

I was driving along the other day and all of a sudden. JAGUAR! RAWR!

No, really. A nice looking Jaguar popped out of nowhere. I tailed it and provided commentary like David Attenborough. No one else was in my car.

"The jaguar appears to have left its natural habitat of Kuala Lumpur, to flaunt its good looks in Johor Bahru, where all other cars are either Hondas, Toyotas or Malaysian. The jaguar's only competition out here in the highways of Johor Bahru is the rare Singaporean dickhead in his fancy Evo 24 or Subaru Imprezza with one red reflector and one white one(I really hate when cars aren't symmetric) The jaguar driver must be a dickhead as well."

Honestly, I want to know who names Japanese cars. What does imprezza mean? Impressed-ah?
Stupid. Really.

PS. I think I've found a substitute for the Batmobile. Some of you already seen this car before, but not me. I just found out. And tis awesome. Look at it.

It's called the Bowler Nemesis. It's not a Range Rover. It's built using some Range Rover parts, but most of it is custom made by 2 blacksmiths in England. Go watch videos of it. You will want to be batman after that. Or a rally racer.

Rizab. I'm pretty sure that wasn't even Malay until 10 years ago. It just sounds like an old Malay man saying "reserved".

Now, I'm not a bigot.

But I am a racist.

Which is odd, because classically, all racists are bigots. But not all bigots are racist. I'm the opposite.

Being a bigot means stereotyping a race without being reasonable. Being a racist means knowing that there are many races and that evolutionarily speaking, they're all good at what they're meant to be good at, especially physically.

For example,
You won't see that many black people winning swimming competitions at the olympics, and you won't see that many white people winning 100 meter sprints either.

So being a racist in my universe means KNOWING that Michael Phelps will pwn Usain Bolt in the pool, and Usain Bolt will pwn Michael Phelps on the track.

Being a racial bigot means saying that all black men will always run faster than all white men and all white men will always swim faster than all black men.

See? Yes? no. Of course you don't.

That whole body of text was supposed to be the caption for this:

But as you can see, I lost my train of thought. I think it's because I actually stopped mid sentence somewhere and went to play Alan Wake till I finished it.

See, the difference between Dead Space and Alan Wake isn't just cosmetic.

The similarities are endless if you look under the skin.
1)they both involve a relatively weak protagonist against relatively strong enemies
2)they both involve unconventional weapons(mining equipment in Dead Space and a flash light in Alan Wake)
3)they both scare the hell out of most people
4)they both have stories that are more complicated than impressive(Prince of persia's Sands of time was complicated but very impressive)
5)no one I know is going to play either of these games 6)they're both borderline epic games Ok, fine it isn't endless, but they're very similar.

HOWEVER, I must say this. Dead Space is boring. It isn't repetitive, but after 1 or 2 missions, you HAVE to take a break and do something else. In fact, it was one of my first xbox games(I finished it in 2008 on my pc), but never played it through a second time. It's just not fun. Scary, impressive, innovative, but not very entertaining. Alan Wake is a different story. I actually have to force myself to NOT play it. That's how fun it is.

K, I should just go ahead and say that Alan Wake's ending was disappointing.
The story reaches so many climaxes and potential endings(mind you, some of these potential endings were GREAT), but finally settles for something really too ambiguous to be called well written.

There were instances in the game where I heard a line of dialogue that made me pause the game, and, with the sinking feeling in my gut, think "shit, that's a really epic way to end the story", then unpause it and hear Alan's inner monologue go "That didn't happen".

Shit. Really, in this sense, Dead Space was greater than the sum of its parts. Alan Wake wasn't.
At the end of Dead Space, I remember thinking, damn, that may not have been very fun at times, but it was worth rushing through.

At the end of Alan Wake, I remember thinking(bout 2 hours ago), damn, that was a lot of fun, but I wish they didn't just end it on that note.

It wasn't a low note, it just wasn't a complete note. I don't want a story to be too ambiguous. It needs to amaze me somehow. Maybe that's just me.

I know, I should have disguised that text like the rest.

I have to update my blog, or a hundred thousand people will DIE

2010-05-17T00:12:00.004+08:00

Disappointment.

Nah, that's not the right word for it. It implies that I expected better. Which I didn't. Obviously.

Sorrow's the wrong word too. It's too emo. Loneliness isn't right either. I've always been lonely. Somehow it's more comfortable.

Even when with my best friends, after about 8 hours I NEED to get away. To fart, and strip down to my boxers and lay down on my bed and play with my xbox. Not being alone has too many opportunity costs. Solitude is underpriced. Everyone talks about the importance of being social without realizing the silliness of it all.

What's it all about, this 'being social'? Sure, there's jokes. And booze. And group fun.

But it's just those 3 that hold it all together. Otherwise it's just a whole lot of "I'm better than that guy" or "look at my shiny new toy, it's better than yours".

Thankfully, the jokes, booze and group fun more than compensate for the ego battle.
What was I on about? Oh, yes.

It's not loneliness. We die alone.

It's not mistrust. I only trust myself to do the right thing. All the time. Because in my self obsessed mind, I've never failed. Sure, I've failed tests and exams plenty. But life decisions have always been... good. Even if I suddenly realize I could have done better if I had spent an hour thinking it through, I always scrape through. For that reason, I've never been in a fight, never made an enemy of anyone I've met, never harbored hatred for more than half a day. I'm not perfect, obviously. I've got the worst of both worlds. The attitude of your typical lazy Malaysian and the pride of a German. To the people who know me best, I come off as a person who could epicly pwn if wasn't the mascot for the sin of sloth.

Betrayal? Can't be. This was meant to happen.

Maybe the problem is I've finally found something that I really don't understand and I'm still trying to put it into words.

Ah, I just realized what it feels like.

It's like losing your internet connection.
First you check if the cable's connected. Then you turn the modem on and off. Then the router. Then both. Then you dismantle the whole network connection from phone line to network card and reassemble it only to find you've broken the modem while reassembling it. Then you spend the whole night looking through the cupboards for a spare modem and find nothing.

The rest of the night is spent trying to steal the wifi connection from next door, suddenly trying to make peace with God in an effort to make things work. At last, at 5 am, convinced the internet isn't coming back you go to sleep.

Now, that's all fine, because usually, the next morning something amazing happens and the internet's back on again. My problem is, I'm stuck at 4.59 am. That feeling between giving up and staying up to try again. It's not the internet's fault. I should have turned the modem off when I heard the storm coming. I meant to. But I'm just lazily stupid that way.
In unrelated news, Alan Wake. The game no one has heard about and I've been waiting for for about 5 years is finally out. And it's scary. As Hell.

Dead Space was scary because the monsters genuinely looked eerie. All blood and guts.
And your character was in a mining suit. Not a military suit.
And your weapons were all useless when used conventionally.
And the music and sound was terrifying.

Alan Wake does have some of that.
Your character is a horror writer, like Stephen King.
His main weapon. Is a flashlight. The guns are useless unless used with a flashlight.
And the music is terrifying.
But the monsters aren't. They're just people who're corrupted with darkness. Pretty unscary.

I'll tell you WHY it's scary though.
It's scary because it's so well paced. The game plays out like a tv series. Each chapter begins with "Previously, on Alan Wake", then a highlight reel from the last mission.
And because the characters are so believable, it draws you in more than Dead Space.

But really, the main star is the flashlight, and the scare effect it gives.

You'll have the flashlight on hand everytime it gets dark, and it's so well done, that just the flashlight alone changes the entire atmosphere of the game.

Play this game.

Shark in the Water

2010-05-11T23:00:00.002+08:00

Just in case you still can't see the text after clicking, it reads "Justin Bieber YOU SUCK" and a lot of other insults. For once, Wikipedia was spot on WITHOUT needing any references.

Thank kooks for that pic. Just in case you're wondering, I WAS NOT WIKI-ING the faggot Justin Bieber. It was kua. =P

Ok, back to test driving the new Peugeot 206 Super 2000 on Forza Motorspo- I mean- back to studying. Of course. Cause that's what I'm doing. lol.

The following takes place betwen 5 am and 6 am

2010-05-09T04:58:00.002+08:00

Watching Top Gear and playing Forza 3 has thought me two very important things.

1) If you tune and upgrade a BMW M5 properly, it WILL beat every other car you thought was quick enough

2) You can't drag race a Lotus Exige and a DB9 fairly, but you probably can on a track with tight corners.

The second lesson is the valuable one. Through extrapolation, I've determined that this is true with music. If I were to compare The Grudge with Schism on a regular day, The Grudge would win. Because it's longer, more complex, more dynamic and more interesting.

Today, however, Schism makes a whole lot more sense.

I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away
Mildewed and smoldering. Fundamental differing.
Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us
So
We cannot seem to reach an end crippling our communication.

I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble down
No fault, none to blame it doesn't mean I don't desire to
Point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over.
To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication

The poetry that comes from the squaring off between,
And the circling is worth it.
Finding beauty in the dissonance.

There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall
Away.
Mildewed and smoldering, strangled by our coveting
I've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second
Guessing
Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our
Communication.

Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion

Between supposed lovers.

I know the pieces fit.

I also know that my trials have been over for more than a week, so I should re-de-activate my xbox and get back to studying. Maybe after another episode of 24.

mein kampf

2010-05-05T01:23:00.004+08:00

A demonstration of how lousy phone cameras perform at night.

Here's a nokia's 3.2 taking a picture of the moon on default.

And moments later, same phone, but with night mode engaged.

Honestly. It's bad. The moon looked so good that night (think it was Saturday), but the camera ruined it.

And here's a picture of the prettiest poster I've ever had.

Was caught between this and an Assassin's Creed 2 poster. Both looked so striking(really, this looks better in real life, the nokia camera, AGAIN, makes it uglier than it is). The Assassin's Creed poster was just as crisp and high resolution as this one, but this had a more, nicer blend of greys and silvers. The other was just too red.

Last Friday, after my trials was over, I brought out the vacuum cleaner and dismantled my computer and cleared the computer table. Which wasn't easy.

Because on my computer table there's:
1) a 19 inch screen
2)an xbox
3)the xbox's brick sized power supply
4)a dot matrix printer
5)a PC
6)a hi-fi set from the 90s
7)2 multi plug point thingies.
8)5 power cables(pc, printer, monitor, xbox, hifi)
9)dvi cable for the pc-monitor
10)3.5mm-red/white audio cable for audio splitter
11)audio splitter
12)printer cable
13)mouse with 1 meter long cable
14)keyboard
15)xbox dvi/audio cable

and 2 80w speakers.

now imagine unplugging all of those things and finding some room to put them between the drum set, computer table and study table.

It was all good fun until I remembered that my PC had the habit of killing off the sound card everytime it was adjusted.

It goes like this:
even if I unplug and replug the audio from my soundcard, the whole system will simply not recognize the sound card anymore.

then i'll have to shut down, open the casing and fiddle with the card a bit, start up, uninstall drivers, reinstall and as always, when the sound card's driver is reinstalled, the blue screen pops up and Windows crashes. Then after restarting either everything's back to normal and the sound's working OR I'd have to repeat the cycle until it worked.

And when I opened the PC to vacuum it on friday, the same thing happened. I've been repeating the cycle for 3 days to no avail.

So, this morning when I heard college was canceled, I decided to fix the whole problem by buying something new. It's pretty cool.

It's a USB device that substitutes the soundcard. Just plug it in, and insert the 3.5mm output and voila! SOUND!

should have done that years ago. Each cycle of trying to resolve the sound card problem took about 10 minutes. It usually worked after 3 cycles. And I've hard to fix it at least 12 times this year. Imagine how many hours I could have saved. S

daymn.

I have to seize the day. Or maybe plan the week.

2010-05-04T01:01:00.004+08:00

I remember 2 years ago, there was this racing game. I can't remember what the title was, but it was on Hawaii, and it was pretty decent. There were many cars, and they were all so painstakingly detailed.

I played that game during the peak period of my life. Right before I became an atheist and right after my car accident.

I say it's my peak, because it was the first time I dared open my mind to new music. Before that I would laugh whenever one of my best friends played something heavy or proggy or powermetally. Looking back, I was right to laugh. I was a semipop person back then. I never ever liked pure pop, but to some extent, my music has always been conservative. Sort of. Even today I listen to very easy music. I even consider Lamb of God to be easy music because, even though they play heavier than most bands and the vocalist sings like a banshee with a rusted lung, their songs are almost predictable. I like that predictability. It limits what they do with their art, BUT it improves consistency.

Anyway, there's one band, and one song in particular that I associate with the peak period.

Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons.

It's a song that has it all. Mostly because it's 23 minutes long.
But really, I think it's the most beautiful song I've ever listened to. And I've listened to it plenty.

Most of this listening time came while playing the racing game. The game had missions involving transporting a rare car from one end of Hawaii to the other. Scratching the car was not an option.

What I would do was play A change of Seasons while driving to my destination. It was a very nice time. I may have short term memory loss, but I remember driving in expensive virtual cars on highways that went on forever listening to every detail in that song, savoring every detail of the cars.

I don't know why I'm even talking about this.

I remember the name of that game now. Test Drive Unlimited.

Ugh.

I don't know what to make of magic.
It's confusing, and stupid. But. It's not just entertainment.
It's more than that. If it's real magic, it moves you.
Doesn't make it any less confusing though.
Stupid, lovely magic.

In unrelated news, check out my new engine!

Fine, it's not done yet. But the basic principle is awesome! It MIGHT even work.

Here's how it works. See the first picture? imagine the squiggly line on the bottom is the crankshaft(which rotates), and the two red boxes are the cylinders. The pistons are in those cylinders and are wall hugging. The cylinders are filled to the brim with brake fluid. Not even a tiny bit of air in the cylinders or tubing that connects the cylinders.

Now, when the accelerator is pushed down(forcing liquid into the orange tube), the liquid displaces the first piston(the one on the right). The liquid under the first piston is then pushed out of the cylinder into the space under the second piston in the next cylinder. This forces the second piston up, which forces the second piston upward! The liquid above the second cylinder then is displaced into the bottom of the first cylinder, pushing the first piston back up. The liquid above the first piston then is displaced into the top of the second cylinder. Which pushes the second piston back down.

After that, I stopped drawing. The next tube is missing, but it should be connected from the bottom of the second piston to the top of the first.

Before you science readers start bombarding me with insults, the tubes are one-way valve controlled, like veins. This will prevent backflow of the liquid. And the liquid to be used is brake fluid, because it works the same way. And whenever fluid is displaced, the operation of hydraulic pressure is applied, represented in the diagram by narrow opening(master) and wider outlet(slave) gaps in the cylinder ends.

Since it would be hugely impractical to build a life sized engine to test it, I think I'll spend the next 5 years making a miniature model of it.

Now, if any of you do physics read this and find a flaw in the engine's principle operation(remember, as long as the principle of liquid displacement and the conservation of energy is achieved through manipulation of hydraulic pressure, then according to me it should work. But I'm an arts student now, science has become a myth to me, so I need your help).

And yes, the diagrams are completely stupid and incomplete.

PSA

2010-04-30T00:03:00.002+08:00

Brendan: Hello? I can't hear you.
Subhash: I'm on my hands free and in the toilet, so you'd better do the talking for now.

*awkward silence*

Subhash: Brendan, you're not even talking.
Brendan: Shhh, I'm trying to listen to you pee.

That wasn't even the highlight of the conversation. We actually each took turns playing theist.
First I was a fundamentalist, arguing about men's rights. We played this game, because we were tired of saying. "yes, you're right, why are you telling me this again?" Really, having a discussion about things you already know and agree on is very boring. SO, role playing was in order.

Brendan: Why didn't God create as many men as there are women.
Subhash: Because... erm... see... The same reason there are much more chicken than there are human beings. God has given men the responsibility of farming many chickens, just as He has given us the responsibility of keeping many wives.
Brendan: Well, do you know the ratio of sperm whales to human beings?
Subhash: I'm guessing maybe 1 sperm whale to a billion human beings?
Brendan: Where's your explanation there then?
Subhash: er..... Whales aren't for farming.

We eventually switched roles.

I will not post the conversation here for 2 good reasons.

It might spark religious tension. ooooouu. scary.

And I can't remember what we said.

But we eventually agreed that roleplaying religiousness was a dangerous thing.

In other news, Top Gear is funny!
My maid thought I was crazy when she heard me laughing hard for 3 minutes straight.
I was watching the police car challenge.

That is all. You may return to your lives now.

Sell outs do not have beards.

2010-04-27T02:22:00.003+08:00

Here's what happens everytime a semi major exam comes up.

I don't study. I go into exam ritual mode. Everyone does, and there IS a pattern.
Look at all those people who have blogs but never use them. See how they start blogging whenever it's their finals? See? SEE?

But my exam ritual mode, or ERM for short, starts right here, at my computer.

ERM is as essential to doing a test comfortably as REM is to resting properly.

When I go into ERM, my entire timetable shifts. Two weeks prior to exam week, I notify all the friends I usually hang out with that my exams are coming. I don't tell them I'm studying, because that would be lying. I just say the truth; my exams are in a week, and I'm not allowed out. Or something..... like that, I don't know, ask my friends, they know what I tell them.

After that, I look for a secondary hobby, something I can convince myself of being tired of. Last year, AND this year, I found the perfect hobby to NOT do. Play round with my Xbox. You see, game developers somehow know when exam season is, so they don't release any new games around that time. Mostly.

I know that during exam season LAST year, my non gaming distraction didn't make me study more. It made me drive, drink, experiment, socialize, explore and blog more. Sometimes all at the same time, except blogging and driving at the same time. hmmmm...

maybe next time.

Anyway, my xbox gets the boot this time as well. I handed over the battery packs for the controllers to my sister for safekeeping and am now desperately looking for distractions.

So far, the most entertaining ones have been
1)watching Top Gear episodes for HOURS
2)playing Company of Heroes on my PC with the volume down
3)thinking about the Audi A4
4)reading webcomics
5)thinking about studying

See the improvement? No alcohol related activities on the list! Except maybe a little with no.3

I only studied an hour today. Less than that for the English test I had in the morning.

But that's the amazing thing about exams. Sometimes you go over the notes like a goddamn Nazi and the paper comes and asks you to just write your name down and then you realize you've forgotten to spell. Ok, that only happened ONCE, but the point is, why bother?

After watching about 25 hours worth of Top Gear, the only valid excuse for studying was to eventually own one of those magnificent cars. Then drive it around, until it got old, then get another.

And that's positive thinking. Honestly, I don't think cars that go 3 miles to the gallon are going to be THAT much fun to drive around.

so, that's not even a valid excuse anymore.

I don't know what is a valid excuse.

Argh.

Who cares about exams anyway.

Who cares if Jason Bieber grew his first pubic hair today? No one. Except maybe Usher.

Who cares about stuff anyway. Once you peak out of the box and realize that just by looking up you're looking at... forever
and that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration,
and that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively,
and that there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream,
and we are the imagination of ourselves
exams do not mean a thing.
Four of those lines are stolen.

Not having a beard anymore means I've been kicked out of the Guevara fan club.

A true revolutionary does not allow the influence of a true bourgeoisie to overcome his ability to grow and keep his beard.

this graph shows how little it matters to be in the Guevara fan club in the first place.

Bam, I'm dead. Zombie Guevara has shot me for being a pseudocommie.

Is there a point to all this? I'd like to think so. I brought up the whole ERM thing didn't I?

I think we all have our own little ERMs. erm...

Mine must be the most exciting though. the standard deviation of my exam marks is SO high, that there is almost no correlation between the number of hours spent studying and the mark.

Here's a head on a stick.
And a man who is posing weirdly.

Tell me a lie with the best of intentions

2010-04-24T21:38:00.005+08:00

I want you all to take a good hard look at this car:

THAT, is an entry level Mercedes Benz C class.

Now notice what happens when you swap logos with the new Toyota Corolla:
They become the same car.
This trend of designing German cars to look Japanese saddens me. I don't think it's worth getting a German car anymore, at least in the lower range. The C class and BMW 3 series really aren't German looking cars. I mean, just look at the rear end of the 3 series:

Now the Honda City:
See the resemblance?
It isn't about outright COPYING here. It's about a loss of passion. It's almost as if the design teams for Merc and BMW just didn't think it was worth the effort.

For a long time, I thought there wasn't any hope left for entry level German cars. Sure, VW still is pretty good, but they're not exactly associated with luxury here in JB(I can't speak for the rest of Malaysia, all I know is that BMW and Mercedes are the most common luxury cars here.)

But then, I noticed something.

I noticed a car.

On the way to college, especially when I'm driving, I end up behind this car. I always let it over take me (and take over me, metaphorically speaking).

The weirdest part is, it's an Audi.

It looks genuinely good. Look at how much better it looks after the facelift.
See? In 2007, it looked Japanese-ish. The shape of the boot was like a 2002 Camry, with the taillights of a 2004 Honda Civic. But the 2008 model is just... jaw droppingly good. It looks like European. And, guess what? It's cheaper than the C class and the BMW entry models.

The smallest engine comes with a turbo, and is just a 1.8.
Which is sexy. Because the road tax is really really low. And there's really something quite nice about the way 1.8T looks on the back. (I should know. I stare at it all the way to college.)

Maybe I don't like the A4 as I think I do. Maybe I only like it because it genuinely looks good. I think it's the best thing I've seen on the road so far. Sure, all those super cars look good, but they're so... untouchable, you know? When you see a Lamborghini pass by, maybe you'll choke on your own saliva for a second, then it passes by and you never think about it again. Then later you'll mention that you saw a Lamborghini on the road to a friend. That's about it.

But the Audi A4 is different. It's not the fastest thing on the road, so most of the time I can kinda stalk it. Which isn't creepy cause the driver isn't a lady. It looks as good as a supercar (in my eyes, at least), and it's really really really cool, even though it has corny LED lights.

Just look at the second photograph of the Audi. See that wide, open front grille? Who does that? Honda doesn't. Toyota doesn't. VolksWagen hints at it sometimes, but no one has actually dared to pull it off.

I think my obsession over this car has nothing to do with the car itself. The Audi A4 is temporary, but what it represents is what I admire in the system. Mercedes and Nokia are the bland, corporate entities of their respective industry. Audi and Apple are the opposite. Yes, they're corporations as well, but at least they're not soulless.

Yes, that's the word I'm looking for.

The A4 has soul. It looks expensive, like it's worth RM235000. (The C Class looks like it's worth a little less than a Camry, which is pretty uncool, considering the Camry is RM80,000 cheaper than the C Class).

It looks efficient. The 1.8T on the A4 makes it look like it's got an engine that's efficient. Big, scar german cars tend to hover around 2.4 - 5 litre engines. 1.8 would have looked stupid and cheap. The 'T' makes it look like it know what it's doing. As far as I can tell, a turbo essentially takes the exhaust fumes that still have a little petrol in it, and stuffs it back into the engine for a little boost.

wait, why am i talking about a goddamn car?

Ughhh..

Because I have a throat infection.

Hey look Sunway has finally realized what it is:
A god damn toilet.

And look again! Gabriel is a fooking prawn from District 9.

What a missed opportunity for lols.

This headache is messing with everything. I should have been studying. Or blogging properly at least.

Instead, this. Blearghh..

Shit, trials already!

Today's post is unique because the title is the blog post and the blog post is the title. Neat eh? Took me 2 hours of sitting down,

2010-04-21T01:10:00.003+08:00

thinking what I should write about to finally come up with that. I usually stick with the policy of not writing till there's something to write about (and trust me, there's only something to write about when there's nothing to do in real life), but I couldn't take it! I had to post SOMETHING. Or risk exploding.

BOOM

The Man who stares at Cboxes

2010-04-19T17:28:00.004+08:00

Is half a post better than no post at all?

What happens when the intoxication of success has evaporated?

I always get excited when I hit that orange Publish Post button. My heart skips a beat.

Then I hit View Blog and just stare at it, half expecting comments to start popping up in the cbox.

And when they do pop up in the cbox(this usually takes more than an hour of staring), I giggle on the inside and read the comment thoroughly.

Then I make a mental note of
1) whether or not to respond
2) whether to respond via my own cbox, their cbox or through sms.
3) possible responses
4) possible counter-responses

Then I'd time it perfectly. Because if I reply too soon, the cbox will become a chatbox, and the person who commented will probably think I'm some sort of freak who stares at his Cbox until new comments appear and probably not visit my blog any more. It's SCIENCE!

Comments on the cbox are like facebook notifications sometimes. When I load up my facebook page and blog, the two things my eyes race for are the notifications and the cbox.

I'm definitely a lot happier when there's comments on posts. I almost never reply to those, because
1)I don't want to damage how nice it looks, I can always go back and visit that comment and see where I went wrong or right. It's delicious and it feels like a private email. Except, classier.
2)I don't know if whoever commented is ever going to reread that post and see my reply.

Cbox comments are a lot better than facebook notifications, and post comments are a nicer than both. Posts on a person's own blog as a response to my post is the best, but that's like winning the lottery.

All these blog/facebook responses count two graphs; the social graph, and the hit/miss graph. They're interlinked.

For the Social graph,
When there's a comment, it shows what the reader thinks of what I just did. It also shows whether or not they understood the content. I'm not an entertainer, but the less entertaining my content is, the less friends I have. The consequence of being a very boring person in person. Think about it, would you have visited my facebook page as often if it were full of boring pictures of myself doing absolutely normal stuff? Hells no. The comments are a way of showing what we think of each other's thoughts I should think. If we're not our own thoughts, then we're nobody and choice is an illusion. But since we're so used to romanticizing the notion that we make our own choices and think our own thoughts, then it makes bloody friggin sense.

Like I was saying, I get excited when there's actual content to publish. Because this adds to the
HIT/MISS graph!

I can't explain what that graph does because it's deeply subconscious. And also it's top secret, so Shoo!

Anyway, a while back, I, Soobs, found a way of battling two things we could do without:
Poverty and Hunger.
With help from my sponsors, we fed 329 starving children for 2 months straight with 2049 volunteered beggars. From the 2nd month on, the severe lack of poor people who participated as foodstuff made us realize that the starving children were substitutes for poor people. They were then volunteered to be fed to each other. And so the number of starving children dropped to 0, with only 1 case of hunger-related death. (the last poor, starving child had no one else to eat =( )

This time around, I'm concerned that water conservation and the rising population of orphans need to be dealt with!

By drinking the blood of orphans, we may be able to reduce both these problems. TADA.

ps. i should have replied to all those cbox comments. Sorry!

=D

2010-04-16T15:19:00.007+08:00

How do you put SO much awesomeness into words? You just can't.

But I can try!

We met this lost looking Philippine guy who looked 20 years old(but was 33 years old. Believe me, we checked his IC)

Yeah, that guy on the left. Oh, and his name is Jose Rizal. If you meet him and he says his name is Nicky, don't believe him. His name is Jose Rizal. I have spoken.

I HAVE SPOKEN!

When we found him, we were outside the hall. Sound check was gwan on inside. So we decided to sneak a peak. That's when I saw Chris Adler for the first time in person(though technically, there was a door and 20 meters between us):

Hope the video worked. Blogger is bad at vids.

We had to stand around for about 1 hour before they started to play. While waiting, the loudspeaker played some other metal songs. It was friggin hilarious when they played ACDC's 'Back in Black'. The whole crowd started singing along.

But after a while, the waiting got tiring. We had been traveling for 2 hours. We got wet in the heaviest, coldest rain ever, and were lost for a full 15 minutes. And we had to sit outside and wait in line for over an hour. When we got in, we were so pumped. The show was supposed to start at 8, but it was dragged for half an hour.

Every time I heard the crowd cheer "LAMB OF GOD! LAMB OF GOD! LAMB OF GOD!", I took a picture.

8:02pm:

8:14pm:
8.30pm:

From then on, it was just pure awesome. Here are some pics of their out-of-this-world light show:

Willy came up to the front to start off Blacken The Cursed Sun. What a fun guy. He kept trying to get the crowd to chant his name, but we were so out of sync, so he just gave up after 15 seconds.

The mosh pit:

The extended intro of Grace. Too bad you can't hear it, lol.

It was just so jam-packed with goodness. Every time one song was over, we'd hear the opening notes for another. The best part was that just about everyone in the pit was a hardcore Lamb of God fan, so we all knew the songs inside and out.

For 2 years, I thought that when they finally saw me, they would know I especially loved their music. That I wasn't some kid who listened to every heavy metal band. And to be honest, I think the fact that I was just a face in the crowd makes me a lot happier. In the crowd, people you've never spoken to before are brothers. Everyone in the crowd loves their music.

I don't know which song I liked best.

In your words was a very nice way to start the show.

Ruin was amazing. Got to hear Chris Adler's Ruin-fill LIVE!

When Laid to Rest started, Gurdave an I totally freaked out.

Blacken the Cursed Sun had beats so awesome, I couldn't tell if it was my heart or the bass drums

I could go on, but I won't. Every song they played was perfect. I could not have asked for a better set list.

The set list(I know the first 2 and last 2 are arranged in order)

In Your Words
Set to Fail
Ruin
Blacken the Cursed Sun
Grace
Now You've Got Something to Die For
Hourglass
Broken Hands
Dead Seeds
Contractor
Vigil
Laid to Rest
Redneck
Black Label

Although Brendan, Gurdave and I got separated early on, we kept bumping into each other(literally and metaphorically) every 5 minutes.

After one of their songs, Brendan eventually wanted to go out for some fresh air.

"Fucker, if they start playing Vigil, I'm gonna run back in"

The moment he said that, we heard the opening notes to Vigil.

RUN!

Ah. What a night.

Broken branches trip me as I speak. Literally and metaphorically

2010-04-11T00:22:00.006+08:00

Karmic circle problem: What happens when you're reborn as a cockroach for being a lousy human being? More importantly, if karma has an effect on every living being, then how do cockroaches 'ascend' to be reborn as humans? Is there a guidebook on how to be a good cockroach?
Remember my policy on asking questions on the net? (shoot, yet another) Well, I googled it up, and turns out there isn't any handbook for cockroaching. So I decided to start things off by publishing my own roach coaching handbook for cockroaches looking to escape the Karmic circle:

My dad is impossible to impress. I don't think it's HIS fault, it's just that I always give up or break down when talking to him, and end up saying really, REALLY stupid things.

On Thursday, we were talking about how climate change will eventually kill off the human race.

And this is what I had to say:
"Is it really THAT big a deal if we all die?"

LOL. I meant that it'd be awesome to be amongst the last humans who EVER lived/died. THAT'S what I meant.

But the way I said it must have came across as absolutely retarded. It is absolutely retarded. Jesus Fucking Christ. Eww. Mental image of Jesus fucking himself. Literally and metaphorically.

Trekking while talking on handsfree is a retarded idea. It does not work. Hence the title of this post(would you believe it's a line from a song? I would) . My shoes are all muddied now. At least my mood's at an absolute high.

My holidays have already started. I didn't realize this until I realized it this afternoon(obviously). I didn't want to wake up past 12pm, because that would mean wasting more than a quarter of the weekend on sleep. But then I smelled something in the air and realized it's the hols! Went back to sleep but was interrupted by a text message. THANKS WEI. Literally and metaph- no wait, that don't make sense.

There are currently NO NEW GAMES my my game bin. The last one was Metro 2033, but that was ages ago. Stuck playing GTA4 and Gears of War 2. I need new stuff. But I also need to do my assignments and study for my trials, which start immediately after my holidays. By analyzing a basic graph of 2 sets of data that I collect biannually(from the two longest strings of holidays that year, which gives an accurate representation for any other short holiday), I can determine how much I'll actually get done this time round.

FINE, I didn't really need that graph, but it's amazing how a bunch of statistics can make you look like an expert at just about anything. Right now I'm an expert at misrepresenting the importance of statistics.

Anyway, the graph predicts that I will do about 3 or 4 things of the 248243 things I've got planned. I will MOST probably:
1) keep most of the puppies alive and healthy
2) be using my phone a lot more. Nokia's aren't completely useless as it turns out
3) do my econs assignment on Sunday, as I work best under pressure
4) be going to watch Lamb of God, it IS the highlight of this week

It's such a weird paradox. In order to do MORE things, I have to plan to do less things. Time to go with the flow I guess.

Ugh. Everything ought to be structured. People keep emphasizing on thinking outside of the box. But the box is there for a reason. It keeps us safe and happy. I like the box. I think I'll stay here a while. The box is awesome. Literally and metaphorically.

Why literally?

Because

I

Semi completed my Leman Russ.

The tank I made outta cardboard boxes.

It's awesome.

What wasn't awesome was the yellow paint job. I practically ruined months of engineering and design with a can of yellow paint in under 2 hours. FML.

I was trying to explain the fundamental difference between Tool and Lamb of God to my brother. But he was kinda busy with some algorithm. What it basically boils down to is this.

Tool is a band of artists, LOG is a band of musicians.

I would probably not have got a ticket if it was Tool performing in Singapore.
There is no point in watching Tool perform live, just like there's no point in watching an artist paint. It's much better to just wait till the masterpiece of music is album ready.

But LOG is a different story. Their live performances are just bursting with energy. And I can feel that energy just watching it on DVD or on youtube. Tool sounds messy live. Their arrangement on stage is weird (The singer stands against the background, the drummer faces a weird angle sometimes, the guitarist and bassist stand alone in front of the stage). They sound ok, I guess, but it's just pointless listening to them live if there's no way to express amazement because their music is so well thought out, and deserves more than just moshing and screaming. It deserves to be listened to while meditating. It deserves to be analyzed, broken down and deciphered. Because Tool's music isn't straight forward. It's not even close to touching mainstream even if they do have one or two billboard hits, 3 Grammy wins, 4 nominations, and over 9 million albums sold.

And their music evolves. Most bands start sounding more mainstream over time. Even Lamb of God's music has gotten more listenable to. Tool's gets more structured, but more complex at the same time. It's amazing. It's difficult to get into Tool. Almost as difficult as getting into Lamb of God(Tool sounds nothing like metal, while LOG sounds exactly like it).

Why am I talking about this? It's 5 am and I'm sleepy, mildy drunk and happy!

Women have a way of... complicating things

2010-04-04T15:13:00.004+08:00

My pa was sending me to college last week when a car zoomed past, crisscrossing lanes without slowing down.
"Look at the way these young fuckers drive."
"Well, it's a Toyota."
"Ya, so?"
"Maybe the accelerator is jammed?"

Too bad I'm not doing law.

Ugh, eghh.

I have a question; why isn't 'ugh' underlined as a spelling error if 'eghh' is?

I have to start jotting down notes on what to blog about again. I used to do this back when I was a decent blogger.

You know what's weird. A week after finishing Metro 2033, a game based on life in the Moscow Metro system in a post apocalyptic world, two people blow themselves up in that same subway system. Metro 2010 kinda sucks doesn't it? Wow, that was bad. Remind me not to exploit situations in which people die for cheap lols.

Hector's a dad again.
Ugly, muddy newborn puppies.

1 stillborn.
It's sad really. We've been waiting for her to give birth for the past 3 weeks. I was THIS close to kicking the bitch into labor. I usually stay up till about 2am to see if she's started digging up holes. I think she gave birth around 5-ish. And she did it in the mud, so all her pups were dirty. There were 7 at first. 2 white pups, 5 blacks. 1 black was a dead at birth(we guess, because it was dead when we found it around 6-7 am), the other(only male) died within 24 hours.

I don't know how it died. All the pups were when I checked before I went to sleep. In the morning, it was cold and stiff. *sigh*. At least there's the rest of em.

I've been playing Grand Theft Auto IV a lot. The story is sad for both endings(played once before on my pc). Can't decide which ending is worse though. But either way it's the game play that counts. And boy, is it a heck of a lot cooler to play on xbox. mostly because on PC, the thing crashed half the time.

But also, there's they ultra realistic physics.

two examples of explosive damage near a car:
there was an explosion next to it, the whole chasis is bent out of shape!
Threw a grenade and it exploded in mid air, causing the car to crumple like this:
But sometimes, the in game physics gets a bit confusing. Like when I blew a grenade up next to this car, and it crumpled so neatly:
the whole number plate evaporated. lols.

k bad post buybuy

2+2=5=pure genius

2010-04-03T00:33:00.004+08:00

There's something about yesterday. I can't quite pinpoint what it was. I used to think it was so funny when people like John Frusciante crumble under the pressure of being a bit more pop then they thought they were. I kinda get it now.

It's like selling your soul. Well, at least there's a chance to buy it back in fixed installments. Later maybe.

But that's just not it. There's more to it.

It's the taste of blood in my mouth, from my lungs and throat for being stupid. It's not just blood, it's mucus and saliva. And it's a retarded side effect.
It's also the fingernails I promised myself to not bite. They're all bit now. Fuck, I'm biting them everytime I stop writing. Bitch. *bite*

It's also the pain in my neck and back. From a year of sitting on a chair that's been broken for 2 years.

It's the music I promised myself not to play. And the people I knew would I should have been distant to. I should have just stuck to being batman, instead of sticking my Marxist thumbs into everyone else's lifepies. Blog knows I'm not good at the follow through.

I think EVERYONE I know knows I'm not good at follow throughs. I'm probably better than most at starting things, but then I just shuffle my feet and shrug and do something else.

If it's a joke, the punchline will kill, but after the laughter there's that stupid awkward silence.
If it's a game, after completing, there's a review in my head that comes out wrong when I type it out.(I still can't describe Company of Heroes after nearly 4 years)
If it's a theory or thought or blog post, I won't write it till I'm bored, and after I do, I'm very bad at replying comments or expressing my joy whenever I see new comments in the cbox.
If it's a tank, it'll take about 2 days for 90% of the work to be done and then 2 months for the rest of the 10%.

It's NOT laziness. It's NOT procrastination. I know what I'm good at and WHEN I'm good at. There has to be some degree of interest, only then do I permit myself to do something. It's silly, I know. And it doesn't work. Goddamit.Goddamit, I think being reduced to blogging about one's self is the worst kind of punishment. I hope that someday I'll leave this stupid karmic blogging circle to join the Gods of blogging who can write meterlong posts about everything but themselves. I yearn to crucify the ego.

It's guilt, it's the burden of responsibility, it's the result of being spaced out for a year, then caged in. And being unable to express a thing to even the closest of friends.

In short,For a person with enough sense to know the repercussions of little things, I'm pretty fucking STUPID.

Hey look, Facebook without its skin:

Goddamit, worst post ever.

There's always room in life for this

2010-03-28T03:20:00.005+08:00

Third time in. This is the best Saturday I've had in years. I woke up smiling, because I was so certain it was a Sunday when my eyes were closed. I only realized "holy shit it's a saturday!" in that fraction of a second before I was 100% awake.

Hung out with Gurdave. Was so convinced it was 12pm, till I checked my phone. 4pm. WTH.
But it was a good hang. A very good hang. As always, Gurdave made me feel like a fucking capitalist with his stories of communist action in KL. Keep up the good work, man.

"a smoke in times of rest is a great companion to the solitary soldier."
Considering Che Guevara was a certified physician, that's a pretty dumb thing to say.

A drink is much cheaper, much safer, much more fun, and less addictive. Plus, tobacco smells like shite.

Ughh. I need to get angry again. Otherwise I can't blog properly. When people are satisfied, they have no incentive to impress. But the moment they're happy, they just wanna sit back and enjoy it. Fuck that, that's irresponsible. In my time of need, this blog and all my readers were there. Only a goddamn capitalist would leave it in my position. I must keep reminding myself of this. Note: comments double as reminders, you know?

And it's a Prog Blog, so I CAN, technically change my style of writing once in a while.

Or not. Let's talk about my evening.

For no reason at all, I put down my xbox controller, put on a pair of pants, grabbed the remote controller & cellphone, and walked out the door. I was still kinda unsober at the time. I only realized that my pants had only ONE good pocket after about 5 minutes of walking. Shrugged, didnt matter anyway. Passed the grocery store. Waved to the nice guy who works there. My grandpa always talks to that nice guy who works there. But I cannae understand a word he says, so I just wave and smile. But I ALWAYS wave and smile.

walk walk walk wlak typo sorry walk walk.

walked some more, thinking and walking, but mostly walking. Suddenly, this jeep passes by and someone's waving at me. I half wave back(you know, I can't remember if I actually waved back. hmm. *shrugs*). Continued walking. A bunch of kids ahead, and elderly indian woman behind. How do I suddenly drop into the ravine without looking like a nut case?

Shrugs in my mind. Drops down into the ravine like a nut case. Third time in. That's a line from a Tool song but I literally entered the ravine for the third time. First time going in without proper pockets though.

I dunnae why I was so confident, but I practically RAN the first 100 meters. Jumping across the stream without thinking twice, walking through tall grass without checking for snakes first. OK, i probably know why I was so confident, but still. I did actually land my entire foot in the stream. Muck all over. Shrugs again. It's just muck. My cell phone and gate control were dry. That's all that mattered anyway. Dry electronics. Stumbled again climbing uphill on all fours. Both hands mucky. Wipe it dry! Wiped.

And then.

Lay down on the grass.

Smiling like a total dick head.

Pure bliss. Dunnae why. Know why.

Time to send a message. Time to take a pic.

No words to describe. Only guppies. Thousands of guppies, swimming against the current. Hey, damn, those ARE words to describe. Not really. Maybe. Why am I talking like a Salarian? This is is silly.

Thousands of guppies. Count 'em and weep. Just cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there. That's also a lyric.

After a while, I realized I was sitting on an ant hill. Packed up and left. But it was still early. So I walked all the way to the Chinese temple. There were cops/security guards parked up front. Tried to be batman by sneaking under the tunnel.

Tunnel was too wet. Batman-imitation fail. Had to walk on the surface. I walked really casual-like. Whistling and pretending to be a lost tourist.

Shrugged once more and jumped back into the second section. Never walked this path before. Was interesting. As I walked, I looked around.

I found and broke a branch off to be used as a traveling stick. Then I saw a tortoise staring at me from the stream. I stared back at it. We stared, the tortoise and me. I suddenly remembered a Nickelodeon show from years back. Some African woman was reading a story about 'Clever Tortoise'.

She kept saying it weird. She kept saying tortoise as towr toys. I remember laughing at first, then getting angry cause she may have been right. Maybe she was. Maybe it is pronounced towr toys and not tor tis. Shrugs.

I ran towards the towr toys with my traveling stick. I don't know why I did this. I just ran towards it. Suddenly it submerged. Gone. For a full 5 minutes, we played a game. I scanned the length of the stream for clever towr toys and clever towr toys held its breath. I left. Clever towr toys had won. But it probably never knew. It probably held its breath for an hour, then died, leaving a capsized towr toys shell to float in the stream forevermore. Shrugs.

Last year, when I did my first graveyard run, I sat on the far bank and took pics. I thought I'd have to be NUTS to be walking where I was walking. And just where was I walking today? Why, the same place I predicted would have to be NUTS to be walking on last year! Confused? I'm not. I'm NUTS. Fine, picture here:
There was a tour bus full of Koreans or Japanese. They were all staring at me while I leaped here and there with my traveling stick. It was glorious. Showing all those tourists what the next generation of Malaysian looked like before the locals got a taste.

What was next, home? NO! Hutan Bandar! Threw away my traveling stick, and walked in like I was a regular. Saw a guy on the phone who looked a lot like Lee Kuan Yew. Almost said HI! But he was on the phone, so that would have been rude.
I walked HB till I found my favourite exit. The same exit I used in that old adventure.

After HB, I walked home. I ALMOST cut across THIS:

Yes, that's a 50 foot drop.
And no, I'm not mad. I didn't do that. Instead, I went home and wrote a blog post without caring to check for typos, errors in grammar or errors in tenses. Because that's what I do.

We are accidents waiting to happen

2010-03-26T16:33:00.008+08:00

I was tempted to blog last night. And the night before. And the night BEFORE. But goddamit, I had stuff to do. No really.

I've gone through my weekly content production possibilities frontier and have come to some startling(not really) conclusions.
Capitalist economies aren't a lie. They work, even on the net. If content was a genuine resource, then it all makes sense. When there's high demand, Facebook and Blogger compete for the scarce content. Usually facebook wins, because according to my supply-demand graph, FB has higher returns. And so blogger limps on with the sad, misplaced weekly post. Loyal readers don't get their fair share and everyone's unhappy. Even me. Because, as temporary as the profits of writing on blogger are, they're real. I know most of my readers, and they influence my writing style as I influence them.

Facebook has no soul. It's the MTV of the internet. It's the McDonald's of social networking. It's newspaper's headlines. I've failed to realize this. The ONLY thing FB is genuinely good at is photos, and that's where most of my content goes.

ok, nuff bitching about facebook. I've not blogged in a while because I've been through a really weird, weird week. That's what effed with my Production Possibilities Frontier. I had all these things lined up. All of a sudden, there's a boom, so EVEN MORE content is planned. Then I go to college and realize I'm already a week behind on homework, have 2 econs test, and an assignment due. Facebook's fault I tell you!

But not to worry. Everything's sorta stabilized now. Time to pick up the pace.

And now, CONTENT!

Last Friday, I had to present my topic for English B. The class was at 8.30. Not the best time o' the day for me. So I took every precaution to make sure I did it right. Even slept early the night before. When I woke up, it was 8.50. Already 20 minutes late, getting ready took 10 minutes and driving there took another 15. Got there, all dressed like a friggin capitalist DOG(ironic, because my topic was very Communist) at 9.15. Just in time, my presentation needed to be less than 15 minutes long ANYWAY.

I guess it worked. I held everyone's attention for about 2 minutes. World fucking record for a communist speaker. People usually start throwing eggs past the 30 second mark if there aren't armed guards making sure they don't.

Also, my house is under going some much needed renovations. It's kinda sad though, there's always a point at which the bathroom looks like it was raped. All those memories of warm baths, flushed down the toilet. Metaphorically speaking.

Also, here's a customary carcass:
I think I've grown a heart though. This baby bird couldn't have been a day old. It was sad. I came home, and saw it motionless on the porch floor. Its mother was probably trying to transport it, but dropped it accidentally. As you can see, neck's broken, and a lot of internal bleeding. I gave it a proper burial, though. The saddest part was when a bird suddenly swooped across the porch, chirping wildly. Had to be the parent.

I don't ALWAYS lace my drinks with alcohol.

2010-03-23T21:53:00.002+08:00

I only do that when there's an absolute need! But there is no need! What am I doing! I should be asleep! no really. I tried sleeping, but failed. completely.

Sorry, dear readers. If you've ever been struck by malaria, writer's block, and heavy duty =Ds, you'll know why I haven't posted anything of particular interest. So just WAIT goddamit, I'll be back when everything cools down.

P.S. My dog's gonna explode into a million puppies very soon. Anyone interested in almost 100% pure labradors should say Aye like a pirate in the cbox. Say Nay like a pirate if you're not interested. Say "oi, DVD, oi" in the cbox like a holiday plaza DVD pirate in the cbox if you have nothing to say

Obama has a powerful voice.

2010-03-21T04:16:00.003+08:00

This week was pretty awesome. I'm pretty sure I've mastered the art of time travel, because the last time I wrote on this blog I said, "I feel like writing next Sunday". Five minutes later, here I am, writing again. I do, however, remember almost every detail of what really happened in that five minutes. And for five minutes, a lot of things did happen. Yes, that is how I time travel. It's confusing at first, but in a bite sized explanation, here's how it goes.

You can't change the speed of time, but you can change your experience of time. Just like you can't change how bright the sun is, but you can change how much of light you see by squinting your eyes. And it's as simple as that. The only silly part is, no one thinks it's a superpower(no one ever thinks I have super powers), and I can only travel forward in time. Goddamit.

Well. Ok. That wasn't bite sized. Why am I writing like this? Jesus! I feel like a like a computer. Ever since I grew my beard, people have been just waiting for me to break character. I didn't notice this until my brother visited. We were having a chat about something, and he told me something that got me excited. So I went, "really?" and then I did a spongebob squeal, and continued on with what I had to say.

Then he said, "It's really hard not to take you seriously with that beard."

I then realized that never was a very serious person. I can write as though I'm serious, but it's all an act, to make sure people take me seriously. This beard makes me look like I want to be taken seriously all the time. It's doing wonders for my social life. People expect a terrorist/neo-nazi/communist dictator to speak out, but they get plain old Soobshit. Except if it's with the circle of people that I only talk serious with. When I talk with them, I really am a communist dictator. Sorta.

Maybe that's because I really hope serious people take me seriously. Or maybe it's that super awesome Alice White Cabernet Sauvignon I had earlier. Dunnae. Alice White wine is pretty much the most consistently good wine I've ever tasted. I hope my dad doesn't get something else next month.

Sheesh, I was gonna say something, but I totally lost it. I know, cliche. But bear with me. Bear. Rawr.

Ok, nevermind.

I usually end up at the end of the week with at least 10 pics to blog about. Having pictures helps a lot, you know? Just a single picture can help start off a post. Otherwise I just end up talking boring stuff. Like right now. So I may as well insert one before I lose one of youz.

Everytime it rains, they warn people:
Worst part: I checked both sides of the sign, and both stickmen were headless. Lols.

And another picture I just took:

I know. It's crazy. Take me back 2 years and I'd just have a heart attack if I knew I'd someday be able to go see a Lamb of God concert. Having the ticket in my room just makes up for the mess on the table.

When someone asks what I want to do when I grow up. I usually just say "I want to be Batman." It's a solid answer. You want me to dream BIG, well I that's as big as I can dream. But it's bullshit. I don't want to be batman. I want to be the lazy ass overweight guy who fantasizes about being batman until I retire at age 50.

I think I've finally more or less decided on a real ambition though.

There's two main branches I could sorta go into.
I either join the rat race, or expand my mind a little bit.
But seeing as money's tight, I think I'll probably join the rat race.

I know, that's almost not a legit ambition, but I assure you, the details are all in my head. I even talk about it to some people.

There's this game, Metro 2033. It's by some unknown Russian developer and based on some Russian novel. Just another one of those post apocalyptic shooters. But it's more of a survival/horror. I swear I nearly crapped my pants when they asked me to go explore the surface of Moscow(most of the game is based in the Metro tunnels). This fear was so real.

Everytime I go trek through the woods or trespass an abandoned house, there's this fear. It's a step higher than the fear I feel when watching a scary movie or on the night before exam results are released but probably a few steps lower than being threatened at gunpoint or being kidnapped. It's this fear, I think, that should be used in frightening people. It's the fear I get when I hear something shuffle in the dark corner of a house, or when I feel something breathing down my neck. And THAT, is the sort of fear that's in Metro 2033. Even though the game feels very unpolished. Which kinda ruins the experience for me.

Till later today!/tomorrow!
(honestly, there's so much more to talk about, but I probably riddled the post with enough typos and grammatical errors to get the language nazis vomiting

Soob's Day Out

2010-03-14T16:00:00.002+08:00

Hello Mein Kampfgruppe Lehr!
1st thing's first, thankee sais and sairesses for parody week. It was so effing lols, at least in the first 5 days. After that everyone was kinda just waiting for parody week to end so they could go back blogging like they usually do. Or maybe that was just me.

That one week and a half weeks of blogging like other people was weird. I actually changed (in real life) for a while.
I'm quite sure my rate-of-making friends went up by 300% during the course of parody week. Probably a lot to do with not thinking about stuff to blog about all the time.

I cannae remember if I told anyone on this blog yet, but Battlefield Bad Company 2 is FOOKING awesome! It's out for all platforms except the Wii, because Nintendo doesn't understand what NEXT-GEN gaming means.

If NextGen gaming meant swinging your arms around like an asshole, I would kill Santa. Luckily only Nintendoits think that way. Santa, you live.

Seriously, I like sitting down and using my controller to play games. Just today I discovered 3 new positions to lie down in while playing Far Cry 2. The only time I expect to break a sweat is when I run downstairs to get a friggin snack when loading a game.

Bad Company 2 was solid, but it's no modern Warfare 2. They sometimes made fun of MW2 in Bad Company 2.

When the team discovers some secret objective and are discussing if they should tell HQ or go in themselves, one of the teammates says, "Sarge, don't tell Command, they'll just send some wimpy spec ops team with heart beat monitors".
[From when Soap and Roach infiltrate the airbase in the mission Cliffhanger with heartbeat monitors.]

And when racing with your team on quad-bikes, one guy says "if this was a snowmobile race, I'd surely beat you". Then the other teammate says, "you kidding? Snowmobiles are for sissies"
[From the snowmobile escape in that same Cliffhanger mission]

Ughh, enough about games.

LOL, not. Dante's Inferno. Now that's a tough one. No, the game was easy. I just find it really tough deciding on whether or not I liked it. The only button mashing game that I really, really liked was The Return of The King. But Dante's Inferno was not bad I guess.

But it's as if they tried to squeeze in some form of nudity or violence in almost every cut scene.
And check this out:
You see, in Dante's Inferno, you descend hell, level by level. And at one point, Dante meets babies that died unbaptized. And for some reasons these babies have blades for forearms. Freaky. Don't worry, as the image suggests, I absolved as many babies as I could.

Ok, enough about games. I wanna talk about things I wanna talk about. (duh?)

I've started walking aimlessly again. Back then, I would just walk and walk till I found something of interest, like an old abandoned house or a graveyard, or a narrow pass. Then I'd go right in.

It's not that I'm some stupid emo kid who thinks hanging out with ghosts is cool or anything. When I go into any of these weird places, I always
1) have my phone in hand, in case I need to call the police(if there are drug addicts), ghostbusters, or batman.
2) talk myself through it, like narrating a documentary. It's like I'm on the Discovery Channel and there's a camera attached to the front of my shirt. This somehow calms me down. Maybe because people don't die doing documentaries. *shrugs*. Superstitious of me, i know.

Also, I think the reason why I do these stupid treks is because I've been stuck indoors my whole life. And also because when I die, I'd like the pool of blood my body's soaking in to be endorphin and adrenaline rich! I don't wanna die doing homework, that's lame. I'd rather die of a snake bite, or by being crushed by collapsing ceilings. Something that'll give the undertaker nightmares. Because I don't think my parents like the idea of hanging my dead body from a tree.

Anywhossel,
I tried twice this week, to start off that spark. Before I do something stupid, I stare the empty house/graveyard for about 30 seconds, then some spark of stupidity sets my blood on fire and I just jump in. On Friday, I stood in front of the best adventure I e'er had. I really mean it. That house was THE scariest, darkest looking one I've ever been through, and the backyard was a load of fun to trek though. So yeah, I stood in front of it on Friday for 2 whole minutes. 3 cars passed me by, the drivers must have thought I was a nut case(I was holding a staff and staring at the house without moving). In the end I just walked home. As boring as that.

Well, it wasn't totally boring. About 15 minutes later, I was playing with my dogs, when my dad opened the gates to drive in. Hector, the bigger, male dog, darted out and nearly got squished by my dad's car. Missed it by | T H A T | much. I just grabbed the other bitch(btw she's pregnant, more puppies! YAY). Needless to say, I got the adrenaline rush that I needed. Ran like Usain Bolt for 100 metres before I found Hector sniffing someone's garbage. I beat the shit out of him( I know it doesn't help him learn) then dragged him home.

Yeah, that was on Friday. Saturday was much much better. I swear I had no intention of doing anything but walk. But when I reached the Petronas station(near Hutan Bandar and the Tamil school), I just couldn't resist. There was this giant drain/poop river that (I think I took pictures of from the other end HERE(look for the picture that reminds you of the Shire), when I visited that Chinese graveyard) looked so trekable.

I swear it was the best adventure ever. I slid down a slope, then put my phone in my pocket, and jumped down into the cemented drainage area. Then I thought, "I should take a picture of this". Felt my pockets. SHIT PHONE'S MISSING. Had to climb up using my hands and grab it off the ledge. Lesson learned, place phone inside pocket with a zipper.

Got a few pics. A few of them were for the scenery(which was beautiful), but the rest were just for remembrance sake. And I also wanna show you how godawesome this trek was.

After about 30 meters, I found some pretty interesting stuff. I used to think that PC/Xbox games had levels that seemed toooo linear. Meaning all you had to do was just follow a path that JUST SO HAPPENED to lead you the right way. Guess what, this pass was exactly like that!

Whenever my way was blocked by some protruding ledge, there was some obvious way of crossing the stream. Mind you, it was obvious to find, but not easy to cross. I crossed the stream about 6 times. The first was pretty scary It was only about a meter wide, but the other side was a steady slope. Meaning the once I crossed, I had to climb up a hill.

It was so fail. I leaped across, and realized the slope was mucky(it had rained earlier). So I had to climb on all fours for about 3 meters, then slide back down onto flat ground. My hands were all covered in mud, and when I landed, mud splattered all over the place. And all over my shoes. Which I use for college and all my other adventures.

But I found this cool looking cave, which I think I may be able to use as a REAL batcave entrance when I grow up.

The trek went smoothly for the next 10 meters. The school down the road was having sports day, so there was a lot of cheering. That meant that if I screamed for help, no one would hear. Awesome.

This is what the typical stream crossing looked like.

That was if I got lucky. Sometimes it ended up just being a lone rock to step across. Please remember that I'm probably twice your size and half as fit as any of you. And I also have gigantic feet, so tippy-toeing on rocks doesn't work.

Eventually, I got to an epic looking stream crossing. 2 logs running almost parallel to each other across the stream.

Halfway crossing picture. I was very lucky the logs didn't decide to dislodge when I took this pic.

Gross stuff in the river:
More gross stuff:

The most dangerous crossing was this one. Sure it LOOKS safe, but this picture was taken AFTER crossing. I came from the far end. jump to the rock(which suddenly shifted under my weight, jump once more onto the grassy island(that I took the picture on). The grassy island was only about 5 cm wide(even though it looks much broader in the pic, it was the surface on top that mattered.)

Ahh, the best part. The epic looking ruined tree+ruined sewage tank. My heart was racing at this point. It looked as though a level designer made this for some game. It was perfect.
With my foot planted on the perfectly placed brick slab, I pushed my body weight onto the sewage tank will my feet walked around it. That's the best description anyone could have given.
After half a minute of maneuvering, I ended up in the tank. Was cool, but I had to figure a way out. As you can see from the pic below, climbing out was out of the question. That tank was about 6 feet wide and tall, with no hand grips. So I was stuck there for a while.

Then I experimented and decided to climb onto the tree, the same way one would mount a kitchen counter : ass first. The tree was solid, so I just sat there for a while, finally able to admire the view.
and take another useless pic.
There were two perfectly placed logs(again!) that led me right out onto higher ground. There I finally was able to take a clear picture of what I had trekked through. See the unnatural looking green of the Petronas station? Well, that's where I started, the grey/discolored wall was where I began my descent, and the tank/log was where I came back up. Took me a full hour to traverse.
Took a full 2 minutes to walk back to the Petronas using the sidewalk.

Parody We... Yo, imma let you finish, but Kua did one of the best parodies of all time, ALL time. shrugs

2010-03-12T20:52:00.005+08:00

Parody Week : Gabs (for real)

2010-03-10T20:16:00.006+08:00

This week has turned out to be almost preternatural. And neither the weather nor parody week is at fault, but may have been part of the problem, since they weren't part of the solution. Wait a minute. If I actually take the time to write a post that people are just going to forget in a month's time, then what's the point in blogging? I don't think I should even stop to think of any real content anymore. Blahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblahblah blahblah blahblahblah .

(lol, I actually considered writing like Gabs, but one sentence took 3 hours, so screw that)

Two times in. I've been struck dumb by a voice that Speaks from deep Beneath the endless waters

Twice as clear as heaven, Twice as loud as reason. Deep and rich like silt on a riverbed And just as never ending

The currents mouth below me, opens up around me. Suggests and beckons all while swallowing. Surrounds and drowns and wipes me away

Because that's what we all remember him doing on his blog the last time we checked.

Parody week : LCY

2010-03-07T22:45:00.001+08:00

Right, I'm supposed to do a parody of Sanjay, but photoshop-ing biceps onto pictures of me might take a while. I think doing an LCY to fill the gap will have to suffice. (Deep breath. Okay, go)

First off,

CBOX REPLIES:
Eu Vin, thanks! And yeah, I can't believe I didn't take note of that! Wonder if he knows about the shift button.

I had to take some time off blogging because I felt guilty for not doing well for my econs test. Yeah, remember the one I talked about a while ago? I wasn't joking, I really didn't study. In fact, cumulative study hours for this semester in Sunway stands at about 40 minutes. And 39 of those minutes were just finishing up math homework.

Wake up call. Do more econs.

As usual, me and Gurdave hit Fridays. We do this from time to time, if you haven't noticed.

What I love about the burgers at Fridays is just the burst of flavor in every bite. With a Friday's burger, there's the tenderness of the buns, then the fresh tomato and pickles, leading up to the inch and a half of pure beef with that unmistakable mild saltiness of colby cheese, followed by the crispy bacon slices. Then back to the buns to wrap things up. Even as it's being chewed, the flavors tease the tongue individually or as other blends.

Final bill almost always comes up to about 30 per person.
Not quite sure about the rest of the food there, but the burgers are almost, ALMOST worth it.

For a long time I thought that Chuan Yang and I blog the same way, just that he used bigger words and I used sillier content. I guess I was wrong. Which is why this parody is a complete FAIL.

Parody week is coming to a close. Thanks to everyone who participated, we all had a few lols. I think I still have one or two parodies to complete before I return to my normal self.

signing off,
subhash

Parodie Woche : Adolf Hitler

2010-03-05T15:36:00.004+08:00

Translate HERE

Guten Tag meine Leser. Heute hatte ich ein nettes Mittagessen von Rindfleisch Cheeseburger mit dem Satan, Gurdave. Es war so großartig, fühlte Ich mag die Tötung eines Juden. In der Tat, machte ich mir sicher, dass die Juden, die meine Burger zu einer Gaskammer geschickt gemacht werden, nach der Kastration, natürlich.

Nach dem Mittagessen, ging mir und Satan in den Garten von Eden, Alkohol zu kaufen. Leider, so wie im Jahre 1945, wurden wir von den Alliierten vereitelt. Nämlich meine Mutter, die mich gebeten, sie nach Hause zu holen. Nun, ich frustriert, und so habe ich einen Plan formuliert. Dieser Plan ist dem Codenamen Operation Fuckenajibeendeass. Wie Sie vermutet haben, ist es um mich des Premierministers anal Jungfräulichkeit zu zerstören mit einem Baseballschläger. Er hat es verdient.

Die Operation wird mit dem Kauf eines festen Stahl Baseballschläger beginnen, mit dem engeren Spitze mit einem Durchmesser von 4 cm. Ich bin zuversichtlich, dass unsere PM shit hat kuh Mist für ein 4 cm breit Fledermaus in den ass. Fuck off, ISA, kann man nicht sprechen deutsch hahaha.

Laut lachen! Ich habe gerade die Übersetzung und es ist episch! und sie sagen deutsche Volk hat keinen Sinn für Humor!

Anynazisell, ich bin über diese schlecht parodiert post leid. Ich glaube, ich bin zu viel von einem kommunistischen zu einem zornigen, Zahnbürste-Schnurrbart Deutsch. Ich hoffe, Sie genießen es so weit. Der nächste Eintrag wird entweder LCY oder Sanjay. je nachdem, wie viel Zeit ich habe. Vielen Dank und "feuchte Träume über den Weltkrieg 3.

nachträglich Ich bin noch am Leben. Argentinien ist sehr nett.

Parody Week : Fann

2010-03-01T22:33:00.011+08:00

Today I was faced with the difficult challenge of picking a blog to parody. I took an hour off thinking about which blog to do, then decided to check the poll(honestly, anyone with a brain would have done this first=/). When I saw that Fann had a vote more than Sanjay, I decided that doing a Fannjay *cough* parody(just imagine photos of me flexing between lengthy paragraphs) was to be thrown out of the window.

*cough*

I'm sure you all hope your votes count for something, and if you don't, well, it's high time you did. Votes do mean something to me, even if they just happen to represent the desires of the majority that will probably just be ignored by, oh, I'd rather not say who ignores the votes in our country. It's not like I'd give up the chance to drive an Aston Martin just to spend a lifetime in a jail cell for speaking my mind about my own country.

*cough*

Anyway, while planning out an elaborate post to confuse people, talk current issues, pretend most things don't matter and not take sides on fundamental arguments, it struck me that I have an econs test tomorrow. Last night I asked my econs teacher (on facebook of all places) if there was a test on Monday. He didn't see the message, but messaged me in the morning asking if I knew when the test was. Hmph... Forgetful teachers. Throw them into the Pacific Ocean!

"Hey, Sub-hesh(they really call me that in class=/), what does IMF stand for"

"Umm....(thinks for a moment).... Interacial Mother F**ker?"

And that's pretty much how most of my econs classes are nowadays. There's no more of that in-class omniscience that used to make it seem easy. I guess micro and macro are indeed miles apart. Back then it was always about wanting to know more, just to stump every one else in debates. Now it's just excuse after excuse for not hitting the books.

Well, I must have seemed like a real egoist to my classmates back in the first semester. I imagine not much has changed in the way they feel. I don't mean sound like I know something they don't, it's just that I'd rather not lose. Losing is easy. But losing well is another story. From what I recall of my childhood, I've never been a very good loser.

I was always a good eater though XD

*cough blood*

Ah, I'm glad there's always that sparkle of hope in the form of humour at the end of the day, and not just the ha-ha kind, but the burst out laughing kind. You know, when you think it can't get any worse, then something absolutely funny happens and everything else is forgotten. I don't understand how anyone can standing being miserable for more than 5 minutes. Even if there isn't humour to be found, there's always ice-cream!

*cough*

Hey, I am capable of writing short posts(but only when it's just a parody).

*cough*(i'm just kidding, you only *cough* 10% of the time. Which, considering you've been blogging for 5 years now, should add up to about 6 months worth of posts of coughing?=/)

Cheers!

P.S.
Just ignore all the grammatical and spelling mistakes, I'm not a robot.

Parody Week : Gurdave

2010-02-28T15:20:00.003+08:00

Why is it that every time I ask a religious person about dinosaurs, they avoid the key issue: that the bible, for all its historical citations, lacks even the slightest acknowledgment of the magnificent cold blooded god-zillas(pardon the pun) that once roamed our earth.

Believing that bible history is factual is lunacy. It's as silly as believing that

-werewolves
-witches
-vampires
-compassionate capitalists

exist as well.

Mankind has romanticized with the ideas of religion for far too long. In their defence, they would say that atheism is just as bad as any other religion.

The photo explains more than I would ever be able to with any amount of grandiose words. So what then?? Any sane religious person(made that one up), would avoid the questions that their respective(but not necessarily respectable) moiety of faith tends to bring up, and instead bring up questions like

Well, I say we'll figure it out as we collectively lose our faith in God in an imperceptible yet unavoidable manner. Proponents of religion of coarse, will bring up the many advantages of being religious, while ignoring the fact that the many fields of science have progressively improved our way of life in a way no religion ever could.

This parody would have worked out much better with longer paragraphs, permission from the gurdave, more time spent on dicitonary.com, and of coarse more typos ;)

Parody Week : Julz

2010-02-27T15:03:00.007+08:00

Remember. The guard's a total bitch, so he's in charge.
Well, here it goes. Round the roller coaster. ALL the way round.
With. A. Vengeance.

Decade old plastic mess. Plastic and cold hard turnips.
That's right, gold and yellow turnips.
We listen and obey. Yet stand in line, led to the slaughter.
All guts and glory, but a slave to sad lettuce leaves.

They said 2009 was a sweaty old bitch that disguised itself as a year.
We were all too thankful that the old bitch was sweaty cause she was running.
Really fast.

I beg to differ, it was a fun year.

Says my liver.

Who are we kidding. This isn't ours. Not even theirs.
Give it back and away. As long as there's time to.
And a surplus.

I hope I got the message across.

It's hard cause this isn't usually my style.

And I have no clue how Julz does this x)

Was that the right smiley?
RIGHT. SMILEY. ?.
XP

Parody Week : Gabs

2010-02-27T00:44:00.003+08:00

Parody Week began 3 days ago for this blog. It's just that Gabs' style of blogging has a lot to do with procrastinating.

I'm just kidding, real parody week starts tomorrow, or quite possibly today, since it's already 12.50am

Hello, mein Kampfgruppe!

2010-02-24T21:08:00.002+08:00

Parody Week time.
In case I forgot to send the link to your cbox(I didn't send the links to some on my blog roll cuz I got lazy/shy), you are all invited to do parodies of any other blog you've read. It can even be a parody of the stereotypical nerd blog or lala blog or whatever. More details on the pages above the blog ^title^ up there.

That is all. Sign up in the cbox so that peeps visit your blog often to check on the parodies. It starts whenever you're ready.

Imperialism is disguising itself as Capitalism

2010-02-22T22:56:00.002+08:00

This is what happens when you mess with my dogs

You stupid fucking lizard. It's no wonder the dinosaurs couldn't survive.

Oh No it's Saturday

2010-02-19T23:48:00.010+08:00

Ok, I get it, no one comes here to solve prime number puzzles. Lesson learned.

Some people say that Marxists have no feelings,
We have feelings.
Some people say that I'm not a Marxist,
That hurts my feelings

The holidays have been boring. Yesterday was a semi-exception. I cannae remember what happened exactly, but I'm pretty sure Gabs and I went exploring that old abandoned house.

The stairs were all broken but the 2nd floor was worth the risk climbing up. Even though there was nothing up there. Wait, what?

Nevermind.

There were also giant, effing spiders.

3 of em. But I only got a pic of one.

And right underneath the spiders were a bunch of wallets(like 7 of em), and a bunch of Indonesian ID cards. Probably some druggies musta mugged some Indon workers. Makes me wonder though; were the spiders there when they tossed the wallets?

Some of the things that happened yesterday, probably didn't. Like leading a Communist Guerilla party to victory(I'm pretty sure that part was a dream), but taking a piss in a broken toilet, that really did happen.

And I did ride in the back of a pic up. Finally, I can tick that off my to-do list.

And the homemade Leman Russ went through a radical redesign. From your end it just looks like a bunch of scrap glued together, but I think there's some genuine progress here, considering I'm doing both plates at the same time and they're damn near identical.

Ok, fine, it IS butt ugly. But it would look much worse if it was an origami leman russ.

Just got Bioshock 2 and the movie Che. Both are quite awesome.
And Mass Effect 2 gets 9/10 from me. It's a good game.

Don't watch Wolfman.

2010-02-15T21:40:00.005+08:00

Wolfman was just like Transformers 2: The only that was interesting was the transformation.

A few things have happened this week that have left a hole in my heart and head, so this is all I have;
1) a double poem prime number puzzle
2)some random screen shots
3)my favorite part of my favorite conversation this week



HERE ARE THE KEYS:

    2      3      5      7     11     13     17     19     23     29
   31     37     41     43     47     53     59     61     67     71
   73

HERE IS THE PUZZLE:

Cry when a desperate man eats lies,
only then, if he continues, murders and executions become
a large part of his life.
Of all the lousy, misplaced visions that the world accepts as works of brilliance,
these over budgeted ones are
definitely the worst.
In these pale last years of art, the deaths shown frequently in
modern cinema, which entice men to forget
life, and instead miscall beauty, will condemn their pathetic lives.

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

Because of this effing facebook game:

everywhere I go, I want to join colours together. Even in class, if I see an Indian sitting next to a chinese person, my mind replaces him for the chinese guy sitting a row ahead. It's nuts. Everything must be arranged according to colour.

The first program I wrote this year:

"Brendan : There's so many people suffering. So if God was good and fair, why did he allow all this to happen?

Subhash : Nowhere in the bible does it say that God was smart. "

Day 3 of Modern Warfare 2 deprevation. I shouldn't be alive.

2010-02-15T02:54:00.003+08:00

Omigod. It's been 3 days since the IW_NET error message first popped up. It's uncurable I tell you. We're DOOMED. Abandon your posts, abandon your homes, abandon all hope!

I'm only half serious, lol. Only Kua and I are seriously effected. And I've got Mass Effect 2, which is turning out to be one of the better Role-Playing Games out there. Unlike Dragon Age, which I still think was pretty lame.

I dunno, maybe it's because I keep comparing games to other games who I think have reached a sorta peak. When there's a game involving sword hack & slash, I compare it to the combat system in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic:

And if it's a third person shooter, I compare it to Gears of War 2. Which was perfect:

(There are chainsaws attached to those guns)

Mass Effect 2 is pretty good, story wise. It's not the sort of story you can digest by lying down and shooting aliens in the face. You have to participate, and make your own decisions. And there's actual feedback.

That's it. All I've gotten done these past few days is games.

I predict only 10 of you will understand the butt of this joke

2010-02-11T00:49:00.002+08:00

This is a little treat to my remaining blog readers. Facebookers will only get to see it on cny day. I'm a kind god

Completely unneeded post

2010-02-10T00:20:00.002+08:00

I have to pass up 15 pages on "Capitalism does more harm than good" by tomorrow.
I'm at page 5, and have been working all day(I know, I should have started last month, lol).

"We're not too sure with the intel on this one":

The awesome final moments of every Modern Warfare match, recorded to humiliate the last killed person:

That's the view from the missile, by the way.

S.S.D.D

2010-02-08T00:37:00.003+08:00

Facebook is making the blogosphere even more useless with every passing day. Well, it's ok I guess, as long as it makes Twitter useless at the same rate. It was bound to happen, I guess. Blogs have the most content, but are too stiff. Twitter has too little content, but is easy. Facebook has all the pros and non of the cons. Except it wipes memories clean with a constantly updated news reel. Nothing lasts for ever on facebook.

I say this for two reasons:
-facebook is suckin away all my potentially good blog content
-in the last month, I've been on facebook for at least 40% of my hours spent awake.

Which is pretty effing sick.

I think if I could express emotion I would be crying over the fact that the two Ians(Jul and non-jul) are leaving for that oversized desert island down south. Oh well. I don't wanna be all corny but that's life, I guess. Now I have only Kuks to talk about modern warfare2=(

The weekend was afsome as you can probably tell by the facebook pics. Gossip was spread(guys can be little bitches when it comes to rumors as well) and beer was drank... drunk? pftt, I don't effing know. I don't think I've ever been drunk twice in one day before, but there's a first time for everything, I guess.

I broke a sweat playing LOG for the first time this year. at this rate I'll die of a heart attack before I'm old enough to vote. Which isn't very disappointing considering votes are the mask of democracy over a tyrannical face. ooohh deep. whateva

And I also recieved the best news ever(for this year)! LAMB OF GOD TICKET PURCHASED! booyeah! Now to figure out how to get back home after the concert. It's on a thursday night. In Singapore. FML. Well, some parts of it.

I wonder if Modern Warfare 2 will ever finally be beyond repair, and if I my superpower is being able to fix games on my own PC. It's both a gift and a curse. On one hand, I get to play any game I want on my ancient PC(even if it makes my PC chug and give out steam), but I also have to try(and constantly fail at) fixing everything else. EVERYTHING. I mean it.

Oh, shite. It's monday again.

I wish the homeless couldn't swim

2010-02-03T01:01:00.006+08:00

Julian is the worst gangster. Ever. His drive by skills are top notch(he managed to hit ian's car with some biscuits from the passenger seat of euch's). BUT, when we found one of the biscuits:

lodged in the rear wiper, he picked it up and ate it. eww. Gangsta fail.

There was a dead lizard in my room. It was so sad. Up to the point where I had to drop it into the toilet. The dead body was just hanging on there. Dangling by one of it's legs(or hands, I dunno).

The thing about my brain is that it only works when there's an incentive. The son of a bitch just sits in my head and comes up with excuses to not blog or not study or not write or not be witty or not be sociable, leaving my body on autopilot. This can be very troublesome.

People operate on the inside but cannot observe anything other than what's on the outside. Even if i'm cracking the funniest joke in my mind, i'm just a quiet guy sitting there to everyone else.

It sucks. It makes me look antisocial whenever i'm just shy. Or disgusted when i'm just not being brave. Or boring when i'm just plain bored. I blame my inability to conquer my deep seeded belief that nothing worth doing needs to be done until last minute. In other words, i'm lazy, but I'll always be able to come up with an excuse that makes me look unlazy, and you won't even know it.

I was going somewhere with this.

Nevermind, I'll post something worth saying when I remember what it was that I was gonna say

Happy New Month! Right?

2010-01-31T23:03:00.005+08:00

Wrong. Turns out no one celebrates new months like they do new years. Even though it's understood that there's only one February 2010, and it'll be over faster than 2010 itself. Duh.

I dunno. Everything's moving too fast. Years used to last whole years. Now they go by like weekends. I know that I've already formed the general formula for why this happens(here), but it's kinda like technology; understanding it just makes it even harder to believe.

Stone age - bronze age - iron age - ancient historical age - middle ages - early modern age - modern and finally post modern. I can only hope, that after the information age comes the uber delicious and long awaited saus age.

Plants Vs Zombies had a disappointing end. Everything leading up to the end was pretty enjoyable and almost laugh out loud-able. But the ending was just in bad taste:

Twas an outro with a pop song.

I got a comment recently(not a cbox comment, but a genuine post comment for "Grrrr")

It was in Chinese. Which was weird. Thought it was some practical joke.

IT WAS. Either that or Google has finally failed me.
The guys name was Chinese New Year.
Lol. Maybe it's some secret code.

Chatter without some cold biting, nothing fragrant plum aroma.... hmmm...

wait... Mao Zedong? Is that you? Shit. First you're dead, and now you're nuts.

Oh, and Gears of War 2 is has an underrated Horde mode. It's just like Nazi Zombies, but it's a lot more fair since there's room to maneuver.

Hey, I updated.

2010-01-30T00:39:00.012+08:00

These were two rats from last week(or the week before last, cannae remember, this month has moved by too quick).

I freed one of the rats, the other one died of a heart attack in the cage. I wrote a poem about the experience of freeing rats instead of drowning them. But then it was gay, so I burned the poem and ate the ashes. Then I rewrote it somewhere no one will get to see it, and in a less gay form, in case someone actually does.

Jackson is now a semi woman. I should have taken a picture. the back half of him is woman like, at least. heh. Please no kill me, i surrender.

And in case you're wondering if Army Of Two:The 40th Day is a good game(I know none of you were wondering that, but you've got no choice but to read this next part, so play along), then you should be warned, it's kinda gay.

The game's about two mercenaries who are trapped in Shanghai. For some invalid reason, Shanghai suddenly gets blown to bits by missiles. It's your typical Michael Bay senseless summermovie stuff. And since you play ignoble mercenaries, there's some pretty assholic stuff to do. One of them is mock-surrender. Come out with your hands up, but pull out your pistol and gun everyone down right before you kneel down.

I was playing with my brother(really, the only good reason to play this game is to pass time with someone, singleplayer is pretty dull) when I explored another of the ignoble mercenary tactics : feigning death. This essentially makes your character play dead so that your partner can draw their attention.

By the way, feigning death over the corpse of your enemy is a combination of necrophilia and homosexuality. Too bad you don't get an achievement award for figuring out =(

(it was much clearer on screen than on the shitfuck-designed nokia camera)

Oh, and my fellow Warhammerheads(that's what we shall Warhammer 40k fans shall be known as from now on. I have spoken!), the Leman Russ is under construction:

Those are just the first three layers. I've made two sets(for both sides of the tank) Each layer gives it a 3D effect rather than just painting on details in 2D. Thinking of redoing the last layer(The first two were computer printed and cut out from good quality cardboard, the 3rd was hand drawn and cut out of cheap cardboard, there's such a thing as cheap cardboard okay).

And now I present to you, the reason no one takes my movie-ratings seriously, Soobs' Unmathematical Theorem for use in Rating Movies:

Final score=
[(special effects(-,0-10)+Sound effects(-,0-10))/budget(1-2)] + [direction(0-10)*originality of direction(0-1)] + [acting(0-10)*casting(0-1)/star power(1-10)] + [immediate final rating(0-10) - initial expectation(0-10)] + [((originality(0-10) + plausibility(0-10) + depth(0-10) + enjoyability(0-10))/4) times by (comparison to others in genre(1-3))] + [benchmark setter (0-10)] + [awesomeness (0-10)]

For each sub category, assign a value.

If category 1 is not included(movie without special effects), then:

Final score/90 times by 100

Lol, yes it works, and it's relatively how I rate the movies I watch. And no, it's not science, so it doesn't really work in real life.

Gabs, you son of a Gan, if you're reading this, I'm still waiting for your review of Avatar.

Grrrr..

2010-01-26T00:19:00.003+08:00

Barbers can sell you a month of humiliation for less than 10 bucks. This, I discovered by accident. They should have warning signs for this sort of thing.

Eastern Front mod.... needs another week or so of patch-downloading. So, I won't know if it's good or even playable for a while.

I think there's something genuinely wrong with whoever's running Streamyx. It's like they've forgotten the incentives that capitalism's supposed to be based around. Isn't it supposed to be : if everyone pays you, then you have lotsa money, then you keep us paying by spending some of that money on upgrading equipment instead of buying SOLID GOLD TELEPHONES for your OVERPAID CEOs. That's what I think they're doing. Malaysian BROADband --isn't. It's narrow, and it's clogged. It's not even utilizing high speed cables. We're using technology from the silver age of the telephone.

I'm just saying, it's not nice to cheat people.

In non complaint related news, I have armed my miniature soldiers! Well not yet, but soon!

Yesterday I began planning on my non secret project(which I shall reveal in due time). But before I start with this one, I gotssta finish the last one(I'm slow to finish but I'm quick to start). Which is why I got all the miniature weapons out and painted. They're the smallest, and hardest parts to do, so naturally I tried to do them last minute. Turned out ok I guess, still have minor details to fill in, then I can place them on my soldiers.

Oh yeah, and the non secret project is to design, make parts for, assemble, paint and showcase a Leman Russ Tank from the Warhammer 40000 universe. I wanted to do a dreadnought, but realized it had too many curvy parts for me to assemble out of cardboard.

The Tank will be in 1/35 scale(same scale as most of my minature tanks, but it'll probably be larger than the Tiger II judging by the pics). I've yet to decide which Imperial Guard regiment it belongs to(meaning which colour scheme), whether it'll be single and double tracked, or have the sponson bolter turrets because I've seen so many combinations of these things in examples.

Being great is not so good

2010-01-23T03:43:00.006+08:00

Tyranny does not end with this death. The names change, but it's always the same anarchy that takes over the system, no matter how perfect it sounds on paper. In case you don't understand my retarded rhetoric, someone very important to the traditions of the state passed away recently, and it makes no difference. The least he could have done was hold on a little longer. Till Sunday at least, then we'd get Monday off.

Lol, being driven to prison for practicing freedom of speech might be fun. Might even build character (I probably need some character building).

There's this movie, most of you've probably heard of it but have never actually watched it. It's called The Men Who Stare at Goats. Be warned, there's just as much special effects as there is action, but it's packed with the sort of comedy you'd expect from real life. The weird part is that they clearly state that "More of this is true than you would believe" at the beginning of the film. George Clooney acting as a hippy-super-soldier, who can kill a goat by staring at it. Not the best super power, but it beats dressing up like a billionaire bat.

Oh, and Company of Heroes : Eastern Front mod has fucked my life.

I spent all my free time on Thursday refreshing the site, waiting for it to be released.

It was released round 12am.

I clicked the link and realized it was 600MB big and it was being transfered at less than 20kbps.

Sound bad? Not yet, there's more.

So I left it to download overnight. I woke up round 7am and checked it out. about 75% done.

FUCK, right? No, wait.

So I decided to leave it to download over-college.

When I got back at 1pm, my computer was unpluged.

FML? Please stand by.

So I turned on my PC and checked. It wasn't done. Shite.

Re-downloaded, PC crashed while closing a game. Download interupted at 30%.

Ok, now it kinda sucks.

So, yeah, 2nd night of overnight downloading the friggin mod. It had better been worth the hurt.

*update
just woke up. post was saved as a draft. mod downloaded. time to see if it works or if it's just a well marketed virus

Dear Nokia Corporation, Learn to how to make a friggin phone. PLEASE.

2010-01-20T01:00:00.005+08:00

That is all I have to say to Nokia. It's disgusting to have to deal with one. Not only does Nokia not know how to do things like cameras, music players, sliding mechanisms, and loudspeakers, but they also have no idea how to make a phone without defects. It's almost as if EVERY Nokia produced was a beta test, with the exception of the Nokia N85...then again, it feels like a toy and has hard-to-press-buttons. Just this morning my phone's internal clock decided to reset itself. Not to 12am, like most clocks reset to, but somewhere round 10am. ridiculous. Nearly missed college.

I'm having trouble deciding if Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik (the first half is the band, the second half is the album name in case you're living in MTV-land) is a regular studio album or a best-of collection. I love every single song on that album, which is weird, considering I have something against at least 1 song on every album I've ever listened to. Even the weakest track(in my opinion), The Greeting Song has one of the coolest intro riffs and pre-chorus vocal melodies, even though he's just saying nonsense as usual(Who, you talking to, talk to me you).

The lyrics of Under The Bridge make more sense to me if I pretend he's talking about a Honda City, and not literally 'city'.

Oh, and I learned to play the drums on a keyboard. Cannae believe I have to do that live. And I have to play pop songs. POP SONGS! Arghhh189ohqofwbadfoaopkgpweand3kdkjnsgfdkgd;sdfg

This week I've had some pretty bad ideas. Like suggesting to my econs teacher that the governments should have given the bailout funds to the people instead of the firms. In my head it made sense: if you give me money, I'm most likely to spend it within 24 hours on something I need/want. And if this happens with 60% of the people you gave the bailout money to, the firms who have the products we need get that money, not the CEOs and maybe the firms that aren't really needed can really die off, and then that lovely capitalist utopia everyone has in their heads will be real. yay.

Apparently there's a hole in that plan of mine. A lot to do with who gets the government's money and how to determine who gets how much. I say lolz I dunno u'ze a honky mofo.

Speaking of government, if ours wants to modify their current petrol subsidizing scheme, I can think of a dozen things that could go wrong. And only half of them are political. =D

Here's one:
If I'm certified to buy petrol at 1.80 per litre(example) but my neighbour(example) is allowed to buy it at 2.00 per litre(example), then all I have to do is keep pouring full tanks and siphon out the petrol into his car and sell it to him for 1.90 per liter. He'll save 10 cents, I'll make 10 cents, the government looses 20.. I think. See, bad idea(example). And black markets--aren't. racist bitches.

In Company Of Heroes, there is nothing that can compare to being rescued by a tank.
Except if you're playing as the Germans and come in with two Tiger tanks, then that takes the cake.
I'm sorry. No one likes that game. Or at least not as much as I do.
Everyone says it's too hard.
But isn't that the point?
It's a strategy game, not a game about spamming troops(unless that's your strategy,lol).
And by
the

way;

The

Russian

Mod

IS

ALMOST

OUT!

L

I

N

K

Just a couple o' days left!

Narcicissm Necessary

2010-01-17T01:42:00.003+08:00

God dammit, it looks like our numbered days of enjoying pirated mw2 online have reached the number 0(totally unpoetic use of words, i know).

I guess it's pointless crying like a woman for that which i couldn't fix like a repairman.(also very unpoetic, sorry).

In my unhumble opinion, this whole business of cracking games is very uncapitalist. I understand the position of the game developers; i'd hate it too, if people used my goods or services without paying me. The thing is, there's only one price. Their price. There isn't much of a supply-demand graph for pricing games. That's fine, i guess. But not employing some form of tiered pricing is ridiculous.

when i buy an rm15 game, i know that i get:
1)basic packaging
2)the game(offline only)
3)the ability to install it in multiple pcs

when i buy an rm170 game, i get:
1)awesome packaging
2)the complete game
3)technical support/warranties
4)a hole in my wallet

so, why would i wanna pay 10 times as much to get just a handful of almost unnoteworthy benefits?

No reason at all unless the game's played online. Otherwise there's no incentive to pay that much.

And it's not that we WANT to rob the game developers, most of the time, they're like unsung artists. I actually would rather pay that 15 bucks to the developers than the pirates and piraters, who's only art is saying, "dvd, oi, friend, dvd" in the most annoying way possible.

So, if i ever got to burn the capitalist agenda, i would only target the stupidity involved in its profit maximizing scheme that either fails or has severe consequences(mcdonalds making people fat and stupid).

Here's a suggestion; strip down the game to its core instead of piling stuff on. I dont need a beautiful box with detailed instructions as much as i need just the game in a plastic bag. I would gladly pay a legitimate rm50 for
just the original modern warfare 2 dvd instead of the rm45 for 3 pirated dvds.

The Unobvious

2010-01-15T17:00:00.003+08:00

OH.
Shit:

The red guys are Julian's men. The green and white guys are Euch's and mine. We got fucked.

And in case it looks weird, that's 500 Greeks and Romans on a bridge. And they're not there to make friends.

And the Greeks lost.

D'you know what I find odd? We live in a system that permits people to drive a year before they're permitted to consume alcohol. Then THREE years after that, they're allowed to decide to vote on who sets these sorts of rules. LOL.

We're expected to master of driving skills before we control our drinking habits; it should be the other way around.

I've been listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' old album BloodSugarSexMagik and it's bloody awesome. Sure, the vocals has improved since BSSM, but the lyrics and the energy in the old album is just... good. Very good.

My favourite track (favourite because of my twisted logic, whereby a pop-format song that contains intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus must be judged by juxtaposing the catchyness of the chorus with the catchyness of the verse section. If the chorus is more catchy than the verse, then it is a LOUSY song as most pop songs are listened to only for their catchy choruses. It's blasphemy, songs aren't based on a chorus, the chorus is supposed to capture the theme of the song. And yes, the brackets are closing NOW), The Power of Equality is quite good. I'm sorry, I can't think of any fancy words to describe things nowadays. Anyway, consider these lines:

Red, black or white
This is my fight
Come on courage, let's be heard
Turn feelings into words

I think Red here represents the Anthony Keidis' Red indian heritage, black represents the funk-rap that was the style of RHCP back in the day, and white represent his Caucasian half. So he kinda works for all of em.

The rest of the lyrics are pretty straightforward, but I put em here because I think they're the best I've seen by RHCP.

Right or wrong
My song is strong
You don't like it?
Get along

Say what I want
Do what I can
Death to the message
Of the Ku Klux Klan

Blackest anger
Whitest fear
Can you hear me
Am I clear

My lilly white ass
Is tickled pink
When I listen to the music
That makes me think

Well, sorta. The new stuff keeps to the tradition of no-4-lines make sense when taken apart(not present in this song, strangely), but the new stuff is just too random to feel like there was a real energy behind it.

Also, Gabs came over today with his oversized Digital keyboard and his spaceage hair. I can tell ya one thing. Playing drums on the keyboard doesn't make you talented, it makes you sore.

.........Modern Warfare 2 is almost out of service. Gotta say though, it was a good run.

What else..

The latest Honda City is pretty awesome. The whole time, Fong was like, "I still think the Waja is more powerful." Then I asked him to hit the semi-manual gearbox... It killed everything on the road. And lucky it was HIM driving, not me(I tend to close my eyes when I get scared). I don't think I've ever had that much of adrenaline and fear pumped in less than 4 seconds.

For it's 4th year, Company of Heroes has amazed me. It's a brilliant, intelligent, loud, awe-inspiring, difficult game that, for some reason hasn't caught on. Most people argue it's too difficult or has too few units. That's never been an issue for me. I'm not boasting. I'm serious, I LOVE the fact that it's too difficult. Because any game can have an opponent A.I. just operate at the speed of a computer, but in Company of Heroes, the computer thinks like a human. A smart one too. It feels natural; the flanking, the variation of tactics, the targeted sabotages. It's just unbelievable. I play the game often because that feeling that comes when the opponent is finally dead after 2 hours of constant battling is awesome.

Ok, since the blogging mood's back, I guess I won't have a problem continuing this tomorrow when my spine recovers from moving this 16 ton piano.

Drawn outside the lines of reason

2010-01-11T01:20:00.009+08:00

Today's Dawn of War match was by far the best. Ever. Even better than those matches with LCY(sorry man, this one was truly epic).

That's why. Lol. Except, Julian was playing as Chaos. Naturally, he chose to paint his army in PINK.

I think it's pretty awesome that McDonald's, Nike, and Coke, to name a few, have inspired religions to stamp a good ol' TM on their respective brands. I could almost swear to have noticed the similarities of the actions taken by Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria and locally practiced religions. Maybe it's just me, or maybe something's just wrong.

I mean, if you're gonna act important, better stop acting stupid. This is a critical point for the old ways. Any moment now, people are going to realize that the old ways don't work. They may have in the past, but the constant fucking up is doing the human race some pretty serious damage. Be it big business and their psychopathic, greedy nature or any given religion with their focus on being as clan-like as possible.

In short, if you can't do something right, step down before you fuck everything else up.

It makes sense. I think. I don't think I'm important enough to be considered a threat to the state(mind you, I'm not threatening the state. My threats are mostly directed to McDonald's). I just feel guilty for all this free entertainment!

By the way, A Perfect Circle has a brilliant song called "Pet". It's awesome, and it comes highly recommended. Steal this song, watch/hear it on youtube, or not.

In an unrelated note, I think these lyrics don't belong on this blog, but are pretty awesome. Read each verse(or chorus) and you'll probably see what I mean.

Sometimes, for a moment of bliss
And the passion, we're craving
There's a message we miss
Sometimes when the spirits left alone
We must believe in something
To find if we've grown

Tragic reflex, shattered calm
Static progress, senses gone
Numb awareness, final psalm

Swept away with the tide
Through the holes in my hands
Crown of thorns at my side
Drawing lines in the sand

Sometimes, if you're perfectly still
You can hear the virgin weeping
For the savior of your will
Sometimes, your castles in the air
And the fantasies you're seeking

Are the crosses you bear

Sacred conflict, blessed prize
Weeping crosses, stainless eyes
Desperate addict, faith disguised

Swept away with the tide
Through the holes in my hands
Crown of thorns at my side
Drawing lines in the sand

We fabricate our demons
Invite them into our homes
Have supper with the aliens
And fight the war alone
We conjure up our skeletons
Enlist the den of thieves
Frightened from our closets
Then sewn upon our sleeves

In the stream of consciousness
There is a river crying
Living comes much easier

Once we admit
We're dying

Sometimes, in the wreckage of our wake
There's a bitterness we harbor
And hate for hatred's sake
Sometime we dig an early grave
And crucify our instincts
For the hope we couldn't save

Sometimes a view from sinless eyes
Centers our perspective
And pacifies our cries
Sometimes the anguish we survive
And the mysteries we nurture
Are the fabrics of our lives

Swept away with the tide
Through the holes in my hands
Crown of thorns at my side
Drawing lines in the sand

I'm not very good at lyrical interpretation, but I'm pretty sure the chorus has something to do with Christ. The rest of the song speaks of the use of religion. It's not a brutal song. it's actually a really peaceful-sounding Dream Theater song. One of the few listenable ones. The rest have time signatures unrecognizable to man.

The cod old days

2010-01-07T23:03:00.005+08:00

The first week of the second semester is done and there's been 10 pages worth of homework for maths.

Econs B has us with a new teacher. Which could be a bad thing. The subject itself seems less evil than Econs A, but is at least 5 times more confusing.

Com Science is decent and English is confusing. But we have to write a research paper on ANY topic. I'm thinking, "The effects of capitalism on 3rd-world countries" or something a little easier if I can't find my "Upside Down" book. If I lent it to any of you reading this, I kinda need it back. ASAP.

In Call of Duty 6/Modern Warfare 2 news,

it stopped working this afternoon(08/01/10). HOWEVER, I didn't notice this because I slept off waiting for Steam to join me to a game. Julian woke me up and told me about it, and then I realized maybe something was wrong. Usually it takes less than 30 seconds to get players in, this time I was asleep for 5 hours and when I woke up it still hadn't connected.

Now before I tell you how to fix this issue, remember that just like the one before, I didn't follow the instructions, but I was able to repair it or get through by sheer luck. This is what I did (it works, but I don't know if it's the right way)

I downloaded this 13mb file,

http://www.mediafire.com/?mfnuiy1mf3l

Once downloaded, keep opening the subfolders inside till it's

"cod.mw2.mp.cracked.7z\en\zero gear\Server"

Then transfer everything inside that folder into this one

"D:\Activision\Modern Warfare 2\1.0.172 patch Dont Use it Now"

Then fron the "1.0.172 patch Don't Use it Now" folder I copied everything and pasted into

D:\Activision\Modern Warfare 2

but this DID NOT WORK

So I got another crack from here:

http://hotfile.com/dl/23259820/903f264/Parovoz_crack.rar.html

Explore the subfolders till you get to

"Parovoz%20crack.rar\Parovoz crack\1.0.172 patch"

Copy the two files/folders inside and paste 'em in

"D:\Activision\Modern Warfare 2"

*remember, some of you have Modern Warfare 2 installed in C drive or E or F drive, just find out where it is and paste it there.

also, i recommend just doing step two, the part in red text. but if that doesn't work then start from step one, in any case, do not skip step two if you do step one.

also, I haven't tested the game for more than 1 minute, so the "2 minute kick issue" may still be a problem. If it is, I'll post another solution.

_______________________________________________________________

I think COD is a pretty nice game. It may not seem like the right place to LOL, but sometime I just can't help it.

_______________________________________________________________

9 kill streak achieved, I call in a Pave Low helicopter.

Ghost : Friendly Pave Low inbound.

Pave Low comes in and slaughters the entire enemy team.

Soob : Lol, guys. Friendly Pave Low--isn't.

*pave lows are GIGANTIC helicopters that can do and take a lot of damage.
________________________________________________________________

Host migration time.

Sending blocks - 100%

Finding best host.

Picking new host.

Reconnecting to new host.

Game starting in 5 seconds.

Game starts.

Soob : Lol guys, finding best nose. picking new nose.

________________________________________________________________

the new host gets complaints.

player : fucking laggy la wei

host : how laggy? Should I leave or you guys can tahan

Soob : It's so fucking laggy, all i've been able to do is shoot down the UAVs you keep calling in.

________________________________________________________________

Halfway through playing a match.

Soob : Boomer!

Gunsgunsguns

2010-01-05T22:38:00.004+08:00

At the Paintball match, I found Soap MacTavish and his nightvision goggles. Pretty awesome. But for some reason I'm the only person who reacted like the guy in the Heineken walk-fridge ad when I saw this.

Not much to blog about. The only things to do now is COD6 and College.

2000 kills in 20 hours.
That's 100 kills an hour on average.
That's 5 kills every 3 minutes
That's right, I used a calculator.

Last night I stayed up till 3am trying to "silence" my BB gun. I used every resource available; cotton wool, springs, bits of string, tac, and tape, but... well... I guess I'm just not Leonardo Da Vinci okay.

Nearly patented it before I realized it actually did more harm than silence. Seriously, the gun casing is cracking thanks to the overstuffed-with-cotton barrel. Instead of going TACK, it's going TAM. Which is way louder than TACK. FUCK MY INABILITY TO DO ANYTHING RIGHT!

Your vocabulary is an insult to my lack of intelligence.

2010-01-03T03:09:00.005+08:00

Paintball match today. Like I predicted, full physical recovery, 6 weeks, full psychological recovery 6 months. Well, not really. Maybe for Sanjay(shot in the forehead, swelled up after bleedout) , Ian(shot twice in the kidney), Julian(shot in the neck, looked really really painful) and Euch(shot in the arm twice, both shots within an inch of each other).

We didn't play in the regular place cause it was closing early and the rain was starting. Played in the ridiculously overpriced Danga City Mall one(350 bucks for 2000 bullets? Bulleshiteze)

I got shot very close to the crotch. Lucky. All other hits were to the helmet and one on my elbow.

I think I have to retrain my system to sleep early. Otherwise blog posts get THIS bad.

I have come curiously close to the end, down,
Beneath my self indulgent pitiful hole.
Defeated I
Concede and
Move closer. I may find comfort here
I may find peace within the emptiness. How pitiful.

It's calling me

And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping.
The moon tells me a secret:
"My confidant. As full and bright as I am,
this light is not my own
A million light reflections pass over me"

The source is bright and endless.
She resuscitates the hopeless
Without her we are lifeless satellites drifting.

And as I pull my head out
I am without one doubt
Don't want to be down here
Soothing my narcissism I
Must crucify the ego
Before it's far too late
I pray the light lifts me out

Before I pine away.

So crucify the ego
Before it's far too late
To leave behind this place so
Negative and blind and cynical

And you will come to find
That we are all one mind
Capable of
All that's imagined and
all conceivable

Just let the light touch you
And let the words spill through
Just let them pass right through,
Bringing out our hope and reason.

Before we pine away.

Not my favourite song, but the best lyrics I've ever heard. Especially since the song is almost un-Tool-like.

I know I shouldn't be posting lyrics on this blog. Posting lyrics is probably just as bad as posting a comic strip(or reblogging). It's almost lazy, except for the whole process of formatting.

So from tomorrow onwards, all things lazy and more diary oriented will be shoved into the Junk Yard, so that it doesn't end up unused.

Also, goodbye Gurdave and Brendan(if you're reading this).

Counting bodies like sheep

2010-01-01T15:06:00.002+08:00

Here's how it goes; I blog, you pay. How do you pay? Depending on how I blog! I blog well, you follow. I blog ok, you comment. I blog bad, you use a fake ID and spam my cbox. I blog uninteresting and you just sit back and read. But if you don't pay, then I'll find you and make you squeal! I know the squealers when I sense them reading without payment. Trust me I know. GAO. Coach. =D

New Year. I have a new year's resolution: 2 mega pixels (1024x728).

Let's talk about last year for a bit.

I had a resolution last year. It was fulfilled early, and I ended up with 10 months of resolutionless life. Which was boring. So this years resolution is Acta non Verba. Which can either have something to do with me playing the new Battlefield Bad Company game OR being more of a doer than a sayer. We all have secret resolutions, don't we? Especially when we say I don't believe in New Year's resolutions.

Last year was pretty awright. It wasn't anticlimatic as I had expected in March. It kinda restarted every 4 months. Yeah. Every 4 months was like a new year to me. I learned, experienced, traveled, lived, lied, feared, loved, not cared more in 2009 than I did my whole life. Maybe that's why it felt like 3 years in one. It felt like more than just some year.

I probably even watched more movies in 2009 than in my whole life. Sheesh y'all.

hny

2010-01-01T02:30:00.002+08:00

Eureka!

2009-12-28T17:40:00.003+08:00

Download and install Steam. Create an account. Sign in.
Download and install Zero Gear Demo ( http://store.steampowered.com/app/18800/)
That might take about half an hour or more.

After Zero Gear Demo is 100% downloaded,
go to the folder containing it, most likely
C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\zero gear

In here you'll find an icon that says "ZeroGear" and is 1kb(size). Right-click this icon and select "edit".

A notepad file will appear.
erase everything inside and type this instead:

C: cd\
cd Program Files\Activision\Modern Warfare 2
START iw4mp.exe

That may vary depending on where your game is installed in.

Next, download this:
http://www.multiupload.com/NTQPWD0B7O

extract it into the right folder(where your MW2 is installed, typically :
Program Files\Activision\Modern Warfare 2)

Then start the Zero Gear Demo through Steam. Should work like a charm.

*all credit goes to the helpful people on the interwebs. God bless your communistic vision.

gledelig jul

2009-12-27T01:29:00.006+08:00

Presenting,
WHY I'M NOT LEONARDO DA VINCI
by Subhash Nair.

My BB gun wasn't working. So I dismantled it, and actually retooled it to arm itself when a paintbrush was pushed down the muzzle, just like an ancient musket.

It was all PERFECT.

Until the second test shot.

Boom.

It took a while, but I managed to get all 30 fragments of the firing mechanism and gun barrel. Hot damn. For a moment, I thought I'd be able to pull off an actual improvisation. I couldn't even make things with Lego as a child. Alas. Explosion. Thank no one that I didn't aim that thing at someone.

I also experienced my first REAL Christmas. I mean, the turkey, the gifts, the non-snow. Also the spirit of sharing. Hey, I didn't say I took part, I just watched, and was genuinely effected by all of it. Being in the right place at the right time with the right people also helped.

I also tried out the Wii for a good 3 hours. As interesting as the whole concept of motion tracking is, real gamers like sitting down and clicking buttons. Breaking a sweat is for the outdoors.

Assassin's Creed 2 is a semi beautiful game. It's perfect in almost everyway except for the unpolished story and bad close-up graphics. The first game was somehow more interesting. But It's a really good sequel. Best single player game of 2009.

Avatar, in my less than humble opinion was absolute rubbish. The 2 ways a person could enjoy Avatar is
1)by pretending it's more than what it is
2)by appreciating the effort put into it.

It's true, James Cameron and his gang of film-making-money-laden-technology-oozing-camera-wielding-Pocahontas-theme-plagiarizing people really poured their hearts into this. But to what end? The 'aliens' were simply Blue colored Red Indians(I mean their cultures were too similar for it to really be 'alien').

The graphics were top notch, but at 3 hours long, I'd much rather be asleep or out watching Zombieland.

Sherlock Holmes however was pretty darn impressive. Won't spoil it for ya, it's worth the watch.

This Christmas, everyone should send Batman a gift. Poor lonely guy.

p.s. Christmas does not suck. Mcdonalds sucks.

Impaled on its axis, the world around me lays down to die

2009-12-22T22:34:00.002+08:00