<thought />

This post is more than a tad late, but hey, what can you do about it? Thats me :P

Friday night was Lystra's gig with a band from church. She got invited to play the rhythm guitar for them, roughly a week before they were to play a gig at a church members birthday party. During this period of time, we actually managed to experience most forms of public transport.

On thursday, due to a band practice over at a jamming studio, we took the jeep (local form of public transport) without dying/getting mugged/getting lost which I consider a bonus. We were with the other band members though so I guess we were pretty safe. I wonder what will happen though if we took it ourselves. Probably one of the above things will happen so yeah. Anyway, their jamming went pretty decently. The vocalist showed off his previously unknown (to me and Lys anyway) talent for screaming which was pretty cool and the musicians polished their act more. I actually got to play the bass a couple of times cause their bassist wasn't there but I probably just looked like a poseur.

So friday was the actual day for the gig. We met up with the band at church so that they could get last minute practice in before they played the gig. Among their lineup of songs is Hellsong by Sum41 and one of the funnier moments of the night was when the band actually contemplated practicing hellsong in the sanctuary. In front of two pastors. They turned to each other and asked each other, "Do you want to practice..", their question actually trailing off before they mentioned the actual title. I guess you had to be there to appreciate the irony.

After the practice they packed up their gear and we were off to head to the gig. The pub they were playing in was somewhere near paco park and we were quite a ways away from there, so again we got to experience the marvels of Philippine's public transport system. Since we couldn't get a taxi or a FX and it was getting pretty near the starting time of the party the band decided we should take a bus there instead. Hurrah. It's quite a different experience than taking a bus in Singapore, I can assure you. For one thing, they still have bus conductors to go around collecting the bus fare, and if you're small enough you probably can fall out of the bus through the window. Lystra was actually too scared to sit by the window and forced me to take the window seat. Heh heh.

Unfortunately, halfway through the bus ride, we got caught in a traffic jam. After maybe half an hour or so of sitting in the bus while it was practically at a standstill, we finally had enough and took to the oldest form of transport known to mankind: we walked! Walking turned out to be much much faster than vehicular traffic. It was different I guess. Usually the places we're out walking about in the evening would be at really nice places like Eastwood, but that night we were just walking on a main road. It was a very different experience and it turns out I really am quite suicidal when it comes to crossing streets. I crossed the street in front of a tricycle and the driver shouted at me, something about running me over or something to that effect. Hah. Bite me.

So after walking, we went on to take a FX. Basically a FX is like a mass taxi. The vehicle is some sort of van-like thing and a few people would ride it along its route, getting off at their convenience. It's main advantage over the jeep (jeepneys kinda work the same way) is that its airconditioned so its a more comfortable ride. It was kinda packed though. So with that I end my chronicle of how we got to the gig. Basically we just walked the rest of the way and a guy met us to bring us to the pub.

So now we're at the pub. As the band walks in, people shout something along the lines of, "Now the party can start"! Hmm, this is so going to make Lystras ego get oh so big. Sigh. The pub wasn't really that great but eh, it was adequate for the party I guess. Lots of comfy chairs so Lystra couldn't hog all of them. There were actually, ahem, hostesses in the pub, but they were mostly ignored and they kept out of the way. I guess it was still too early for them to do their, err "work".

Amongst the bands who played only their band, Corny-something, had a punk rock sound. The rest were either alternative or pop. Before the band actually went up on stage, one of them (I think it was Don, their vocalist) suggested the B word. Booze. So they actually performed in a buzzed state. At least they didn't start really drinking until after they performed their set. When they went up to perform, the band was introduced as a band from church (which was funny/embarrassing considering the drinking) and Lystra was said to be imported from singapore. Ha ha. Anyway despite being buzzed, the band performed pretty well. Amongst the band who performed that night, they were the only ones who had a punk rock sound so thet distinguished them from the other bands. Their performance was well recieved, even recieving shouts for more after they had finished their set.

Afterwards, we just sat around talking, having beer (freeflow!!!) and just watching the other acts. It was a blast and we got to know the band members better, who were really quite fun to hang out with. Got pretty buzzed with all that beer too. Had maybe 4 bottles or something. Most of the attendees of the party left at around 12 and we decided to head home too, but not before the band was actually invited to hold more gigs in that pub by the owner. Good exposure for the band I guess.

Anyhoo, pictures of jamming/gig

Found something interesting while I was self-googling. My blog is worth B$2,458.98. I feel so rich. Well, comparitively anyway. Most of the blogs I've linked to (Thomas, Regan, Words With a Payload, ) aren't worth as much as mine. Take in mind though that the valuation attached to my blog is just a concept and has no real fiscal worth, so I'm not really sure why I'm celebrating over this. The only blog that blogshare has connected me to which has a higher valuation than mine is Leon's blog, which is worth B$2,922.82, and that's without anyone even touching his stock.

If you haven't figured it out yet (huzzah for being condescending), BlogShares is a virtual stock market game with blogs as the commodity being traded. Though I never really got into it (and don't really understand it), virtual stock markets are a interesting things. There has been research that shows virtual stock market games have a predictive power. I heard about it a long time ago but I forgot all about it. It's a very interesting concept since it attaches value to something intangible. I suppose it reflects the status of a blog in the (gag) "blogosphere". The higher the readership of a blog, the higher it's value.

But right now, I'm more interested in it as a tool for evaluating blog connectivity. Blogshare seems to connect blogs to each other by looking at the links that are posted in the blogs. It then shows the links that go out of and into a blog. It seems to me that it could be a really hacky way of implementing trackback. An interesting thing I've found is this Gary LaPointe person who seems to have linked to my blog. I've actually come across him before in my self googling sessions when his site would appear in the results (not sure of the search terms), and I've always wondered why the heck he comes up. Now I know, he just linked up to my blog. Now, the question is why he did that and how he found me. I don't think he's in any of the communities I lurk in.

Hrmm, gotta wonder about the person who played around with my stock though. He bought stocks in my blog on the 1st of November and then sold it all by the 7th (my posts that time), but I don't think I wrote anything really that good to make my stock go up. I'm guessing he was just trying to pump up the price of my blog or something so he could make a small profit. So he probably didn't read my blog at all. Heh.

Ah well. Value of other people's blogs may go up or down now since Regan decided to use his economic eductaion powers for evil and play around with BlogShares. Other Virtual Stock Market games in which you could trade concepts.

• Hollywood Stock Exchange
• Foresight Exchange
• TerrorXchange

Looking through my christmas list again, I feel its too expensive really, so here's revision 2 of my Christmas Wish List. Less expensive I suppose and easier to procure. I don't think HL2 is even available for purchase here.

• Good music. Something along the lines of classical stuff. Something along the lines of Vienna Teng I suppose. Although you can surprise me too and get me something else if you think I would like it.

• Something caffiene related. Not necessarily coffee, but strange exotic caffiene related paraphanelia. Could be some sort of energy drink, a shirt that relates to coffee, caffiene soap, ANYTHING!

• Something geeky. I want something to wear my geekiness on my sleeve. Literally. Think stuff like ThinkGeek apparel. Stuff so obnoxiously geeky only geeks will get it.

• Board games? Kinda on the expensive side but board games are really fun things to play.

• Messenger bag. As much as I heart my current one, its really kinda on the large side. Maybe something more along the lines of this. In size anyway, not that bag specifically.

• Clothing. Clothing would still be good. I once joked with Lystra that socks would be good (I only have white socks!), but no, no socks please. Or underware (sic). In fact, underwear would be quite a disturbing present to get.

• Books. Suffering from a dearth of reading materials now.

The shirt I'm wearing now has a depiction of naked boobies and a guy who looks like he's playing with his single ball. Disturbing. I only realized it while I was brushing my teeth and glanced at the mirror. I don't usually look at the mirror. Scares me too much. Share the pain.

I have also quite possibly stumbled upon the greatest song for geeks/nerds (take your pick, but I stand behind my claim that geek>nerd). Why Do You Have So Much Fun Without Me". The song is so liberally littered with geek-isms. Such lines as, "I'm writing code at home on friday night" and "I stay up late on IRC" just endear this song to my geekiness. Although the song itself is of the electronica genre which I don't quite like, this song is staying on my playlist purely because of the lyrics.

Short post today cause I don't really have anything else to say. Oh wait. Link just posted by Tom on IRC. Harvard Sucks. I remember someone at school mentioning they wanted to go to Harvard (whether it was serious or not is up in the air) so this goes up here, even if none of them ever really come here.

The title is weird, I could as easily have made that "police issue", but the image of G.I. Angst is just too deliciously ludicrious to pass up. Imagine some sort of ripped emo guy, hair combed over his eyes with thick black plastic spectacle frames. Grenades strapped on a bandolier and packing serious heat, ready to kick Unamerican Butt. G.I. Angst! He'll probably bore the enemies (Cobra Commando yo!) he fights with his constant whining though. Much like the angsty whining I'm about to deliver here. (cue evil laugh) Bwahahaha. Haha. Ha. Irunno, I'm beginning to think G.I. Angst sounds more at home with the bad guys.

The angsting is for later, now we make stupid little observations.

Didn't mention it in my last post but it was raining for pretty much the whole day yesterday. It was a light rain but it was constant downpour. As I've mentioned before rain makes me happy. There's something about the smell of the air and the play of the raindrops on the skin that just gets to me. However in the morning I came to learn that source of that constant rainfall was a typhoon that hit hard, causing flashfloods and hundreds of deaths. Two observations I can take from this. I'm so disconnected from local news that it's not really funny. Actually, I'm quite disconnected from current affairs in general, which is really a bad thing. One should always know what's happening in the world around him. Secondly, isn't it kind of morbid to think that the rainfall that made me happy was, at the same time, also killing people? It's grimly poetic in a wierd sort of way.

I seem to have a penchant for idolizing assholes, at least on the internet anyway where they are far removed from me. Maddox, Fr057m0urn3, Tucker Max. I relish their writing for some reason or other. I mean, in real life I'd probably hate these people if they exhibited their asshole-ness so openly but when separated from these people by the barrier of annonyminity the internet provides, I just have to laugh at their exploits. I know it's quite juveneille but there you go. I'm a bloody hypocrite. Actually, I have a theory that in every person, there is an inner asshole just waiting to get out and rip someone a new one. It's just that we're too bloody nice and just reign the asshole-ic tendencies in. Speaking of a-hole's, hi RGR :P

I suppose there are ways to express your tendency to be an asshole in a much more creative ways other than constant swearing/putdowns or outright bashing. One example that leaps to mind is my favourite comedy musician, Tom Lehrer. His songs, to me, seem to be words of a grade-A bastard cleverly wrapped up in nicer forms.

I won something at school. Woop de bleepin' do. It was just an English essay thing, nothing that big but I got P500 for winning it so I guess that's good. To celebrate, I went down to Starbucks to have a White Chocolate Mocha. Whee! Well actually, that P500 went to paying my sister back money I owe her, so I guess it all evens out. There's also a certificate for it though I don't place much importance on it. I don't really buy into the cult of pieces of paper defining the worth/potential of a person. Although the certificate might come in handy for when I finally apply for some other college.

Okay, angst time. Skip this paragraph if you don't want to read about my patheticness. Still here? Okay, someone tell me how the smeg do you get over someone? Cause I don't think I am. I was just too distracted by a percieved vibe of go-away-I-dont-want-you-here from her to do my work in class properly. It just made me way too restless, I'd even go so far as to describe a slight heartache. The nausea was dispelled though soon enough. I think whatever feelings I have for her border on selfishness. I'm not sure if I really do care for her.

My Christmas wish list:

1. Halflife 2
2. A new mouse. 2 button mouse'age is killing me.
3. Clothes, cause I do need new clothes
4. Plane ticket(s) to Singapore :(
5. Oh, and a girlfriend. <angst />

I'll be getting broadband soon as the parental units have finally decided to sign up for broadband. W00t! Maybe I can consider that as a Christmas present, although broadband is really more of a necessity nowadays.

New experience for this post: you know how in supermarkets they'd have these little stall things that let people sample product for the express purpose of enticing them to buy, buy ,buy. Ever had alcohol sampling? Seeing as how we had a lot of time to kill before Chubby and friend turned up, me and Lystra decided to walk around the supermarket in boredom. In the "Spirits & Liquor" section, there were two of these stalls set up. One encouraging you to buy Gilbey's gin and the other hawking Baileys. Needless to say, we tried both. Baileys is quite a good drink. File this under "things you'll never experience in Singapore" I suppose.

The past week I didn't attend school becasue I was under the impression that they were having some sort of sports fest which I was loathe to participate in, hence the school skipping. Turns out though, that the sports week was moved forward. My only remark about this is SNAFU. Situation Normal. All F***ed Up. I never really participated much in sports days even back in Singapore. I developed the habit of skipping sports days from primary school, when my mom just dismissed sports days as a waste of time and let us (me and my sister) stay home. It's habit forming skipping school events :) The only one I ever really attended was my Sec. 5 sports day which was meh.

The result of not going to school for a week though, is the development of absurd sleeping patterns. As much fun as waking up at 1-2 in the afternoon can be, the reprecussions when school comes back can be bad. Especially when the day you resume school starts at 8 in the morning. Heck, it's currently 4:47 am as I type this out and I probably have to go to school at 7. Can you say w00t? Meh so so so fecked up tomorrow.

Self reflection. You know how people say, "if you can imagine it, you can do it"? I don't know about it. In my mind I can imagine myself being not mute in real life conversations. However, when it comes down to real life conversations, my brain seems to disengage and people are left talking to a slackjawed mute. I need to do something about my quietness in real life really. Sometimes I feel as if I'm two different persons online and offline.

On the music front, found another band to feed my addiction to emo music. Arco. The vocals just sound so forlorn and longing, accompanied by subtle instrumentals. Go download em if you like emo music. I've listened to all five of those songs about three times now. Three times and counting :)

The Parental Silliness Clause. When one or both of the parental units commit an act of silliness, you are allowed to keep the change from the food that you've bought for them.

The journey we take to finding our truths is a strange one. The paths we'll go down as we attempt to find our identities will be strange and unmarked, with no real way of knowing what is ahead of us. They'll never ever be clearly marked and the signs only serve to confuse us more.

And perhaps we'll never even find our truth, our identity in life. Perhaps we'll just meander along a path and settle down upon it, never really going down other paths. Maybe instead of finding the way that is for us, we'll just let the road wear us out, grind us down till we fit the road instead of the road fitting ourselves. Maybe we'll find ourselves content to live life in the halflight, the twilight, forgetting our dreams of feeling the sunlight.

And what if even when we do encounter the sun, the truth, we'll not recognize it for what it is so blinded are we by the dark that the even the light seems to just be darkness to our eyes. I know I have yet to find my path in life, and I'm just not being helped by the signs. A man sitting on a peak, two books on his lap. One espousing living life simply, the other telling him to do everything. A movie on love that seems so true to you yet on careful consideration, it goes against the very things that you profess to believe in. A song telling you that feelings shouldn't be thought when you know they should be carefully considered.

Right, enough with the halfbaked philosophy. I watched The Incredibles today instead of going to school. Can Pixar do no wrong? Visually, it's amazing. Sometimes it almost looked like they were filming incredibly lifelike puppets, so much so that I sometimes thought of the Thunderbirds. The writing was also top-notch. It's a story about people being persecuted for being special, about people that just want to make the world a better place, a story about a family bonding together. Throw in clever jokes about hero/villian stereotypes, geniunely funny moments and well developed characters with great dialogue and you got movie gold. Here's to Pixar and may they continue kicking all sorts of ass.

Tuesday. We were walking, The girl and I. Not alone, yet we were walking beside each other. Inadvertently our hands slipped into each others, an innocent happenstance. It was just a fleeting moment. I was puzzled by the sudden warmth in my hand and just as suddenly as it happened, we withdrew our hands. Or she withdrew her hands. I wasn't quite sure what I did except continue walking as if nothing happened and it passes without mention from either of us. Yeah it means nothing, just felt the need to write it down.

Later in the cinema, another show of social incompetence. We're walking down a dark flight of steps and I offer my hand out to steady her, but being the social genius I am, I never say anything. I mean, she eventually takes my hand but only after she says something about it. Hurrah for being too shy for my own good.

This posts is too long overdue. I just can't bring myself to write as much nowadays. Maybe I'm scared of stumbling over the truth in my writing. When I write, I have this lofty goal of teasing out, at the very least, an infestimal amount of truth. Of achieving clarity of thought, to open my eyes to what is real, gain some insight. Okay, so maybe most of my posts just serve to journal what has been happening in my life and don't really have any deep meaningful insights but still, at its something to strive for right?

Politics

So guess who's been voted into a into a position of questionable importance. No, not the Canuckian prime minister (although that is admittedlly a post of questionable importance). I've just been voted the most smexy person in school. No, that is a sad faced lie too *sobs*. Actually, I've just been elected to hold the office of External Vice President of the (future) Pasig chapter of the Junior Philippines Computer Society. Hmm.. actually, after checking the HTML of their website.. now I'm not sure.. font tags! table layouts! spacer gif's! Heaven help me if my head doesn't asplode. Come on... we're in 2004 already and a website by purported "Computer Professionals" has HTML that is not up to the best web practices? Scandalous I say.

Right, now where was I before I got sidetracked? Yeah so I'm now the External VP of my school's chapter of JPCS. There's actually two VP positions, an Internal VP and an External VP. I'm not quite sure what the difference is actually, all I know is that the internal VP is somehow higher in rank than me. Don't ask me how it works, I was quite lost during the whole voting process. It was so strange and formal to me. It was all "motion this" and "second that"; "the floor is open" (ahhh! I'm falling in!) and "the floor is closed" (it is dark, you are likely to be eaten by the floor).

How did I even get myself into this mess you ask? Blame it all on people who nominated me (looks at B2) and who voted for me (looks at sis's bf). I was perfectly fine with sitting through that meeting and doodling in my notebook, except they had to nominate me. Argh. And the thing is the people in B2 have considerable influence among the people there, so they managed to get other people to vote for me too. At least I didn't become the internal VP. Sounds like too much work. Hmm, come to think of it, if they were actually more politically minded, they might have just put me up there to have someone in power.. hmmm.. I can see all the bribery going on now.. mwehehehehe *gleefully rubs hands together*

Dreams

I'm supposed to be over her right? I'm supposed to be out of my state of limerence, to move on from her and find somebody else. So why did I dream of her the other night? Earlier in the night, while I was out drinking with Lystra and her BF, Lystra teases my refusal to drink tea by saying, "You want to be drunk cause you're thinking about her right?". In my semi-alcoholated state I protest with "No, seriously, I'm over her". When I think about it now, it sounded more like I was trying to convince myself rather than Lystra that I was over the girl.

As I slept fitfully that night, I had a dream about her. We were sitting alone in at a table. I guess it was a restaurant, I couldn't really be sure, I can't remember now. I sat across her and somehow I told her. I told her how I felt about her, how I liked her, or had liked her rather. In my dream I was also supposed to be over her by then. So I also told her that my feelings for her had waned. I can't tell you if she said anything or not for my memory of the dream is really a blur, but I remembered she stood from the table and walked away without explanation, leaving me to sit there by myself. I suppose I must have watched her as she walked away. At least thats what I would have done if I was me. But some time later, she came back and sat beside me. I think we ended up talking, which somehow led to cuddling or something. Erm. Yeah. I'm inclined to think it's all a product of alcohol, my loneliness and seeing my sis and her bf, but I don't know. I don't dream a frequently so dreams are somewhat special to me. What do you think? Do dreams hold hidden meanings, or are they just constructs of escape, fashioned by our minds wishful thinking? Personally I'm inclined to think the latter.

Misc.

School was kinda interesting last week. Low points and high points but at least I didn't have to sit through classes wondering what the hell I'm doing there not learning anything. Last week was foundation week which is, I guess, to celebrate the foundation of the school although I don't see whats there to celebrate about. Crap crap crap crap school. I seriously don't think I will learn anything there that is going to be relevant or applicable to the field that I want to go into. I'm wondering whether to quit school now like Lystra, except I haven't really found another school to go to yet. Or maybe I could actually start working on a plan for that business idea that I have buzzing around in my head. Ah well, better stop before I go off tangent.

During foundation week, they converted a few of the classrooms into booths. There was a wedding booth, which looked a lot like a vegas chapel if you ask me. It was pink and had hearts all over, quite cheesy and gaudy. Really made me think of a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Also had a karaoke booth where I pretty much spent most of the time cause there was nothing else to do. Don't worry, I didn't sing. There should probably be a multilateral treaty signed by all countries that makes me singing a crime. I bet it would be the first (and only) time when the UN process would actually work quickly, but I digress. There was a karaoke booth (or as they like to call it here, videoke) and people sang. That's all that can be said. Well, she sang and I'm reminded of what a lovely voice she has.

Besides the booths, I was made to do an introduction to PHP. Eugh. I hate. Public. Speaking. It went as well as a seminar in which the attendees didn't really want to be there could go I suppose. I was hoping for a smaller turn out really, but meh. Oh well. I just plowed through my material, which I had stayed up until 4:30 am to prepare. Somehow the profs seem to have the impression that it went well. Ah well, at least I got a lunch out of it and err a plaque of appreciation, which my parents seem to want to display in the living room. Personally, I'm trying to think up of creative ways to destroy it but so far, all I can think of requires a gun and one of those disc throwing things.

The dating game part of the foundation week was fun though. Lystra's BF, who I shall refer to as Chubby was made to take part in it. He's supposed to be one of the three mystery men in the game. It was.. illuminating, to say the least. Illuminating and hilarious. His replies to the questions asked are GOLD! Girl (who was hot btw): "How would you pick me up in a club?". Chubby: "Hi, I'm... boy". Doubleyou. Tee. Eff?!?! The boy is stupid in a nice kind of way I guess. But seriously... "Hi I'm boy"?

I'm currently in the process of coming up with a new design for my blog. It's gonna be a fun ickle design, or at least bright anyway. Watch for it soon!

Everything that is beautiful does not last in this world. All we hope for is to hold onto the memory of that beauty and then to reflect it into the darkness and sparesness of the world.

Had no transport available to me today so I had to take the taxi to and from school. It was a very.. interesting experience.

On the journey to school, the taxi driver was lethargic, to say the least. The traffic was pretty bad on the way to school and I noticed that the driver seemed to be slow to start moving after stopping and would only move after the angry blaring horns of the cars behind us prompted him to. During one of these stops, I looked over at the driver to see what was going on.

To my amazement he was nodding off in front of the wheel, his head angled down, eyes closed. I only realize now that this should have put me into panicohmygodimgonnadie mode, but at that time, I was only bemused by this fact. Quite worrying about what that says about my outlook on life. Happily (or unhappily, depending on what you think of me) I made it to my destination alive and in one piece. Come to think of it, I ought to have given the driver an extra 50 and told him to get himself some coffee.

The driver of the taxi I took to my house though was quite the opposite. He was ANGRY. By my count, he shouted out in anger to two people enroute (even lowering his window to facilitate the shouting) in addition to the curses he muttered at the traffic. The curses to the traffic I could understand, but was it really necessary to roll down his window to shout?

Public transport. Where every trip is a new adventure.

One of the things about intelligence gathering is that it needs to be analysed properly before being acted upon. I did not properly analyse the intel gathered and thus am quite stupid for worrying over it. Further intel gathered disproves earlier analysis.

Today at school I hanged out with my female classmates and someone brought along some lovey dovey stories printed out from the 'net. Your standard guy likes girl, guy never tells girl, guy dies before telling girl fare. Pretty predictable and cheesy, ending with exhortations of not puting off telling the one you love/like that you like her/him.

Shouldn't have bothered me much at all except for her presence. And another person saying how I should take heed of the lesson.

So that whole thing devolves into asking people about their crushes. And when asked about mine I say yes I have a crush, I just don't want to reveal her name. So jokingly they name the people around the table. And when it gets to her she says in jest, "If you're crushing me, I'll crushing you".

Uhm so... yeah...

Right, Lystra just dyed her hair but I'm beginning to suspect there's strange bimbofication chemicals that the manufacturers put into these things. Insidious chemicals full of intelligence killing "stuff" (I was trying to look up some sort of scientific explanation but meh) that seep into your cerebral cortex, turning you into some sort of zombie bimbo.

I think zombie bimbos would be quite awesomeness.

Sister was being quite a bimbo today, obsessing about her hair and generally talking like a bimbo so yeah. Maybe zombie bimbos wouldn't be quite awesome if you had to deal with them without killing them. *grudgingly puts shotgun away*

In other quite unrelated news, I unabashedly declare that 2005 will be quite the awesomeness year. Why? Three reasons. Firstly, C&H complete collection book 1; secondly, C&H complete collection book 2; and thirdly, C&H complete collection book 3. As you can tell, I'm pretty much psyched about this, so yeah. It will own so so so so much. I must begin saving up money for this, cause it will cost a dear USD $150. At current exchange rates, that works out to 8,450.25 pesos or SGD $249.39 or NZD $214.90. Geep!

I love Calvin & Hobbes so much. Back in Anderson, the school library had copies of C&H comics and I just loved reading those. I am quite embarassed for dishonouring the work of Bill Watterson however. The family car has one of those quite stupid decals of Calvin pissing on the fuel cap.

Oh, and for fans of both the Fight Club and Calvin and Hobbes. Be sure to read this essay that compares the Fight Club to C&H. Quite an illuminating article that juxtaposes the worlds of C&H and the Fight Club by making Fight Club a continuation of Calvin and Hobbes. A must read.

Oh, and I dyed my hair a really dark brown (chocolate according to the label). I would have picked good old black if I had a choice but the store didn't have black and it doesn't look that brown anyway.

PS: Dyed my hair cause I have too much grey hairs, not cause of vanity!

Scout report from the front:

SigInt indicating target has someone else in her sights. High command requires HumInt for better situational awareness before proceeding. Advise of strategical team to destroy target duly noted. Morale has been dampened by this piece of intelligence.

Ugh, and my subconcious sucks, for the past two days I've had strange dreams about her.

How my night went:

1. Buzzed
2. Really light headed
3. Stoned
4. Sober
5. Buzzed
6. WTF!
7. Asshole

Ten...

I bought her the present and after much angst gave it to her. I have no idea how she feels about it.

Nine...

She saw the comic in my file and read it aloud. So cute. Still she doesn't know.

Eight...

The cure... refused

Seven...

Her cell phone. Before I lost mine, I would still send her messages, even when I knew she'll never read them. Or maybe I sent messages because I knew she will never read them.

Six...

The longing...

Five...

I doubt she's even read it.

Four...

Why do I like her? I was asked that. I have reasons but I wonder if they're enough.

Three...

If I do not at least tell her, it will be another regret.

Two...

The high..

One...

"Things are easier when you don't feel anything." I'm tempted to draw back to the shadows.

Eleven. I am too scared to proceed. I really do not want to leave this part of my life with another regret. But my feelings.. I do not know what they are right now. In some moments I like her, in others my heart is cold. Her presence in my life has made me all confused. I attempt to take refuge in intellect but.. matters of the heart is such an irrational thing. Simplistic songs of love with cheesy lyrics... her existence makes me listen to them in new light. Irrational.

On my way to school today, a westlife song was playing on the radio. When I reached school, I had to duck into the restroom for a break down. Its strange that I would break down to a boyband song.

It just reminded me so much of my friends back in Singapore, of Heng Boon in particular. I will always have memories of him singing westlife songs raucously, of the bowling alley high fives, of his lan jiao song.

Now apparently he's seen the light of good music and has turned to acoustic guitars. Heh. A reason that I really regret losing my handphone is the messages from my friends that I've lost. I remember Boon's parting SMS to me. Lyrics of a westlife song. Damn shit :)

Thomas it seems has recieved his summoning letter for NS. Thats four lp'ers down. Sigh. I wish I could be serving NS. At least it would mean I am still back in Singapore with my friends.

Also, I saw Hesters MSN nick. Damn I miss Sentosa. I miss getting sunburnt, tired and buried on those beaches.

I'm ready to give up
Beauty
Ravish the ugly whore
Life

Truth holds no more tragedies
We're all to blame
Weep not for your heroes
They're all fucked

Damnit, if I write anymore of this tripe, I'm liable to start slitting wrists/throats. Not necessarily my own either.

What do you do when your muse has abandoned you? When your inspiration has dried up. I almost cried as I recalled the beauty of imagination:

As Every tells the story of Evermor: "When he was a child, Dr. Evermor witnessed a massive electrical storm with his father, a Presbyterian minister. Asked where lightning came from, his father told Evermor that such awesome power could come only from God. From that day on, Evermor dedicated his life to constructing an antigravity machine and spacecraft that would catapult him from the phoniness of this world to the ultimate truth and power of the next.

"Dr. Evermor believes that if he can ever figure out a way to combine magnetic force and electrical energy, he can propel himself through the heavens on a magnetic lightning force beam," Every said. "That glass ball inside the copper egg is his space ship. There's also an antigravity machine (made from an early X-ray machine), a teahouse for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to observe the event, a telescope for bystanders to watch as Evermor flies off to his meeting with God, and a listening machine that will transmit Evermor's message back to Earth when he arrives at his ultimate destination."

I cannot invoke the muse anymore to write of things such as that. The everyday brings fleeting glimpses to beauty/tragedy yet I cannot bring myself to tap it, use it. I feel abandoned, alone.

How do you bring back inspiration? I've starved mine for far too long. I shall pretend this is a want ad in the newspaper.

Wanted: Muse. Old/New. Must be able to inspire broken spirit, imagination.

I'm not drunk, just buzzed. Went out to Eastwood tonight for dinner and coffee with the cousins and their family. As always, fun, but for the nth time in a row (I cannot recall right now), they gang up on me and turn the coffee conversation to my non-existent love life. Argh!

They had to leave early though, so my sister and I went to grab a couple of drinks. Eh, bier is s'okay. I personally don't see why people rave on about it. Although tiredness + alcohol has made my typing go kinda wonky now. I was about to type "Yousing" into IRC instead of "Using", so yeah.

I've had Vienna Teng's CD on constant loop for the second or third day already and it's still a joy to listen to.

<angst related to previous post not going here/>

I just had an impromptu chat on MSN with my old secondary/high school classmates from Sec 5/1. It was fun talking cock with them. Brought back memories of the chaos of that class. I've linked to Leon's blog. I'll add more as I find others (I think). Maybe I shall start Operation Reunite and try to contact as many people I can remember from my life back in Singapore.

Leon mentioned the story of Back to Philippines. I have a story/post churning in my head about coming back to philippines. We'll see what becomes of that. Basic idea though, is my recollections of the landings.

I'm hesitating with the present buying. I shouldn't be, but I am. I'm going to quote Vienna Teng songs throughout this post. "I've no intention of confessing today/I need to make distance a while/but miles don't make your image fade and they don't erase this secret smile".

The gift giving presents a tricky tactical challenge. Her birthday falls on the same day as another classmate. It would be tricky to give her a present but not the other. Hmm... I might need to have a pow wow with the strategerical team.

I wish I wasn't so "torpe" (which reminds me, still haven't found that song). The other guy is still making moves on her, despite her discouragements. He declared a surprise for her on her birthday. If anything, I'll probably do things quietly. "Overcome me baby/All I'm asking is to be alive for once"

Tomorrow is going to be my deadline for buying a present. In addition, I still got a letter to write, comics to finish colouring and a model to UVW map.

P.S.: Jante passed this link on to me over IRC. Caffiene Withrdrawal May Become Official Disorder. Awesomeness.

This deserves it's own post I feel. Over at the NS forums, someone made a post about going to a Vienna Teng concert. My curiousity was aroused since one of the titles of her songs is "Gravity", the same name as the beautiful song used in the credits of Wolfs Rain.

It turns out it isn't the song I was thinking of, but still an incredible song! A very very pleasant find. Go grab her songs. Now! Especially if you love great vocals and great lyrics.

I'm blown away by the beauty of her lyrics. They're poetic, beautiful and evoke such strong imagery. I could listen to her songs all day. In fact, that's what I've been doing today :P

My recommendations, get Gravity and Between (zip files). Heck, get everything from Waking Hour, but those are my two favourite tracks available for download.

Well look love
They've given up believing
They've turned aside our stories of the gentle fall

<edit/>

I've *gasp* bought myself her CD! I didn't go and pirate it as per usual! :o It just demonstrates the power of the internet in marketing your products. I would probably have never heard of her otherwise, but thanks to her website and, more importantly, the MP3's up on them I got hooked onto her music and I went and bought her music. I got the Waking Hour, mostly cause of the quality of the samples on her website.

Felt unaccountably pissed off today. It started in the morning, an unexplained swell of darkness erupted when I stepped into school. I have these moods sometimes, just general undirected anger seeping out of whatever hole I hide my feelings in. These moods tend to be a bit overwhelming for me, a rush of anger that's directed to nothing and nobody in particular.

This is why you should never piss us quiet ones off. We have a vast store of bottled up anger, lying in wait, ready to be unleashed.

I welcome it though. I embrace the black feelings of hatred toward people. I love the urge I have to hurt people that are being stupid. I enjoy the idle contemplation I have to hurt myself. "I wanted to hurt something pretty"

I'm over it now though. It dissipated as I walked away from school. I just hate my school I guess. It doesn't challenge me. It's not really teaching me much. I really need to get out of here. Hmm.. I just researched transferring to Atteneo. The application period for the next year has been over for a few months already. Crap!

Walking around the mall has been made much less fun. There is a North Face apparel store that had these manequinns with their arms up in the air. It amused me much to stop right in front of the manequinns and mimic their position. Now the staff seems to have put their arms in a more conventional position. Bleh. I wonder if my actions had anything to do with that.

Another joy they removed from malling: there's this retaurant with a salad bar, and over their salad bar is a sign that says "Endless Helpings". The "pings" part however, seems to have droppped off and now it says "Endless Hel". You can never underestimate the comedic value of seeing a salad bar that extols it's virtue of being an endless hell.

On a side note, Her birthday is coming up. I need to get her a present already. This is a huge hint to her identity if any of my classmates are reading this, but meh.

Yes, title is in German. I think the only good thing that has come out of German lessons for me is the ability to be silly in a language other than English. Of course, "Mein leiben" actually comes from Wolfenstein 3D and I have no real idea of what it means other than:

1. It sounds funny
2. Germans say it when they get shot (I should try it on Phib someday)

Right, nicht bier (or b13r, if you're going the megatokyo+l33t+german route). I was supposed to go out with cousins and sister to go drink a few tonight, meh, not happening it seems.

It will be a new experience to me, I haven't really drunk bier. Wine yus, alcoholated drinks, yus, but not bier. Yeah, I'm 19 and I still haven't gotten proper drunk. So what! I wonder how I will be when I'm pish drunk though.

Here in the Philippines, there's a ripoff of the German Oktoberfest. Irunno, as far as I can tell, it looks like stupid commercialism, just a way for San Miguel to sell more beer. And they have a really irritating jingle too. Bleh.

And since we're on the topic of German stuff, here's a random stupid animation I found through IRC. Hitler Melon!. Yeah, it may be offensive to some just cause, you know, Hitler's there, but meh.

Behind my school, there is a row of food places. Within that place, there are at least two coffee places, one of which is a Starbucks. Please join me in rejoicing for finding new ways to spend money on my caffiene addiction. Although to be honest, Starbucks kinda sucks and has a name and logo that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Unless.. Starbucks was founded by Captain Starbucks, the worlds foremost coffee transportation sea captain who was saved from drowning by a sea maiden when his coffee bearing frigate, the SS Decaf capsized. The sea maiden then foretold of a chain of coffee places with her face on it. That attention loving wench.

I think I'm just as bad as smokers now. I'm addicted to caffeine kinda bad. Outside my school, the smokers sit outside smoking. I sit with a cup of coffee. And it's not even the good kind of coffee. Buy cheap for the hit :/ Ah well, whatever.

Yesterday there was an earthquake here. I was doing my homework in the living room when I started wondering why I was having this really bad dizzy spell. Then I realized that the ground was shaking back and forth. It wasn't a very shaky earthquake. It was more like a very insistent rocking back and forth. Strange enough to say, it was an enjoyable experience, much like that first blackout. It's something you'll never experience back in Singapore.

Ironically enough, I had discovery channel on the television and the show that was on was about great earthquakes.

October 1 has passed with nary a rant about it from me. What was october 1? It marked my half a year here, 6 months away from the life and friends I had built up in Singapore.

I am still wondering where home is. I remember years ago, during Singapores National Day, the newspaper had this article on a Filipino family that had lived in Singapore long enough that they considered it their home. I had always imagined my life would be something like that. That I would consider Singapore my home. I had imagined that I would go through that rite of passage that every Singaporean male would go through, NS. I had imagined finding someone I love in Singapore.

Now I can't go back. I've spent most of my life in Singapore, I've grown to love it. Yet I cannot truly return. When I left Singapore, I was already supposed to be enlisted into NS. Only my educational deferrment was keeping me out of NS. Leaving Singapore is seen as not fulfilling that obligation/duty/whatever. It makes me invalid for any permits into Singapore. Maybe I can visit it, but It's just not the same.

So now, if I can't go back, where is home?

I had this thought today. You're thought processes are dictated by the language in which you think. I don't think in tagalog, heck I can't think in tagalog. Am I less filipino because of it?

Is home where your family is? In Singapore, the only family I had is my immediate family and an aunt. My friends would go and see their aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins. I sometimes felt left out. Here in the Philippines, I get to see them. It's a great feeling. Theres something different about family I guess.

And if any of my SG friends are reading this, Tom, Delon, Heng Boon, Edison, Justin. You guys are like the brothers I never had.

P.S: C8H10N4O2 = chemical formula of caffeine

In all probabilities, this will be the last post I make on Blackbird.

Blackbird is what I call my current PC. Blackbird as in the SR-71. It's what I named her when I first got her. Although I've been calling her piece-of-shit for a long time now.

A eulogy for Blackbird.

Hey, I didn't say it would be a good eulogy.

Enter the new system. To continue with the airplane names, I christen the new rig Bone/Lancer, for the bomber plane B-1B Lancer.

When I get back from setting her up, I'll post her vital statistics. Btw: case comes with a window!

Bleh, migration from Blackbird to B-1B has hit some snags. The external hard drive I'm supposed to be transferring my files in just refuse to work, and I can't seem to find my crossover Cat-5. Oh well. Posting this in B-1B and boy is she a sweet ride!

• 3Ghz P4
• 1024 MB of ram
• Inno3D GeForce FX5200 128mb
• Dual 120GB Harddisks
• LITE-ON 52x 32x 52x + 16x CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive

Meh, haven't been able to write a proper post, although there are things I really want to say. To make up for not having new content in quite a while, I shall make with the silly links!

Scientists find coffee really is addictive. No, really? You think? Found the cure for cancer then have we? I'm not quite sure what to say to this really. I do so love my coffee, but I don't think I'm seriously addicted to it yet. Give it time I suppose :D Seriously though, kinda useless research there..

Speaking of useless research (see how I segue so smoothly from that to this? huh? huh?!), how about them Ig Noble awardees eh? To honour the best in Science and humanity in general, we have the Nobel prizes but what about the offbeat kooky research! How do we recognize the scientists who have put in such effort into discovering that herrings communicate with each other by farting? Or the great humanists that have assembled a nudist library?

Halflife 2: A Link to the Past. Way. Too. Cute. Wouldn't it be funnier though if Link got Gordons beard? I tell you, midgets with beards: way too funny. Or scary. Or scarily funny.

In other game character related news, GameFAQs is holding another character face off and the final survivors, the ones that have clawed their way to the top bracket are Cloud (whiny spiky hair dude of FF7 fame) and Link, who should require no introduction at all. If he does, you have failed at life. I think the choice in this very important election is quite clear, and if you're not convinced, please let me point you to this well written post about why you should vote Link for 2004.

Watch this space for a new webcomic. Though my involvement in it is kinda small, I'm just doing the colouring for Auntie Janet cause he sucks too much. The actual hair colours I came up with for the characters are actually much weirder than the final one, mostly cause Jan-tor didn't give me any specific colour scheme that he wanted so I went all CGNU on it. Here's the first colour scheme I did up for him (hope you don't mind me posting this up here janet):

I actually find the pink hair quite fetching for the Sarah, but meh. Jay (yes Mia, Jay) does look like a bimbo with blonde hair though. And yeah, it's not the best colouring evar, but whatever. Also, telling people that you colour a webcomic sounds like you use crayons or something.

And now, I shall go back to memorizing conversion factors between the Imperial and Metric measuring systems. Seriously, the world should murder the imperial system with a spoon already and switch to metric. Then we wouldn't have problems like AIDS or wastes of money like the Mars climate orbiter. Quite possibly I shall make a proper post by today, but don't expect anything.

Okay.. this isn't the actual post I had in mind for breaking the angst cycle on my blog, but uhmm.. NADD took over and made me lazy in writing it (if you're reading this Tom, "Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!").

First up, an interesting find from the Natural Selection Forums. If you're reading my blog, it's likely that you're a geek/nerd (take your pick) and if you're a nerd, you're likely to be a afflicted with Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. Some symptoms of NADD: insane amount of multi-tasking (tabbed programs, ie: firefox, just feeds this), control freakishness over computer setting (looks at Edison) and inability to focus BUT when you do get focused, you get insanely focused.

I can attest to the last symptom. I have so many project left unfinished cause of me losing interest in it, but the projects that I have managed to complete usually had me going at it for long periods of time with zeal and focus.

It's not all that bad though. For some jobs, like programming, having NADD can be a good thing. Another thing geeks may have is autism or, more likely, it's more milder form, Asperger's syndrome. Here's a good read on it over at Wired, and there's even an Autism Quotient Test you can take to see how Autistic you might be. It's not a defenitive diagnosis tool, but it's there for you. I think I scored around the upper side of the mid 20's when I took it the other time.

On a different note, a redeeming thing I find about the malls around my school, where I'm pretty much forced to hang out in, is that they have art galleries! I find myself spending time alone by myself in these malls, and the art galleries just make me happy.

Walking around the galleries, looking at the paintings, I find that it's an intensely personal activity. I can spend time gazing at a painting without being forced to move along 'cause the person I'm with is bored. I can spend time analyzing it, seeing how it affects me, what I like about it, how it makes me feel. Generally though, at least one art gallery would only have what I call "hang-em-ups", paintings that don't really evoke any feelings and are there just to decorate the house.

I've also come to the conclusion that if you're going to go to a coffee place, you have to bring along a good book OR good company. Sitting alone in a coffee place just drinking coffee is the lose. Also, Starbucks mochas in Shang taste really really plasticky and must be avoided at all cost. Go to Coffee Beanery, Mocha Blends or Figaros for your coffee fix instead (Figaros also smells especially delicious).

Oh, and weird/funny incident at school today. I was climbing the stairs behind these two girls on my way to class (at this point, I'm wondering if one of them would fall down cause she was wearing heels. Hey, I have weird thoughts) when I notice they're giggling and that one of them glanced back towards me. I'm weirded out but in my head I just go "okaaay" and just shrug it off.

So we head to the same floor and I was walking past them as they went into a classroom when one of them says to the other in a loud voice, "You want to know his name?" (in tagalog). In the classroom, you could hear the other girl protesting which amused me somewhat. Not really flattered, I'm not flattered easily, but it was funny in a way. As I walked away, the first girl called out to me and asked me to introduce myself to the other girl.

I kinda knew the one who called me cause, well, she's quite chio, not my type though. Just cause it's funny to make people slightly uncomfortable, I turned around, went into the classroom and poked my head in to say hi. I even went as far as to extending my hand for a handshake (they have something about handshakes here...) but it wasn't reciprocated. Walked away from that incident quite amused but with a slight ding to my ego as, while I was going away, I heard the girl saying something about "Not my type!" in a pretty loud voice. Not in a mean way though, but still.. mah ego!

Gotta wonder though.. is this karmaic payback for the Neil incident?

Countdown: 2 days to Half

P.S.: Marmite sucks.

P.P.S.: Peanut butter owns your face, especially the crunchy kind.

Wow. Look, another post on feelings. Don't worry, I'll make it short, just wanted to thank Paully for the advice he gave me.

paully_slag@hotmail.com wrote:

bleh.. that is nothing! just don't get too serious too fast. She is way too young.

I think his advice is just what I needed to hear. I've been agonizing over my feelings too much, taking it too seriously. Thanks you red-bearded bastage!

Edit, cause I didn't want to make a new post. This is now in my school file.

Megatokyo, strip 613

18th September 2004

I'll remember this date for now. Some dates possess a beauty to them. Yesterday was September 17. It's not a date that I'd call beautiful. 18th September. There's something to the way it comes off your lips. The tone, the meter, Eight'eenth of Sept'emb'uhr.

I'll remember you, for now.

Whats so special about you? (as I type this, it's now officially 19th of September, 00:00) You were a Saturday, a school day, a rainy day, a hazy day. A day that almost broke my heart.

You started off clothed in haze, a noxious grey veil that concealed your beauty, that engulfed the city. A day perfect for misery when the air you breath ends your life.

And later, when I was feeling morose, when I was feeling down, from the heavens you sent the unselfish lover. You made me smile as I watched her fall, as I watched her dance, as she washed away the clinging veil that hid your beatiful face. Rain makes me smile so much, so much emotions get uncovered. I remembered my other her, while the rain fell. I had so much I wanted her to know, so much I wanted to know about her. She made me happy.

Then I saw her again. Expectations converse. Sometimes I feel like my love/like for her has waned, simmered. When you think about the person you want, you have all these expectations. You project it to the person you fall for and unfairly you expect them to be That One, the ideal that you created in your mind. Expectations converse. Talking to her makes me realize that she isn't this image, that shes reality, not my imagination.

It almost cured me.

And I was almost ready to take the cure. To give up, to start forgetting. As I watched her go, I contemplated the cure. To take it would have set my world right. To take it would have meant to creep back into the shadows of loneliness. It would have meant coldness, moroseness, but it would have set my world right. No longer would my heart take flight when I'm around her. No longer would her presence befuddle my mind. No longer would I smile over the little things about her. Back to the Emptiness that defined my world.

But in a moment of serendipity I realize, that is her beauty. She is not from a fantasy. She is from reality. I love/like her for who she is, not what I think she is. Reality swingback.

PS: I know I promised something about my last post about her...

If you're still seeing the old layout, click here to load up the new one.

Ignore the crappy attempt at a french joke (redux, deux. retrois, trois. get it? sigh nevermind). <thought/>'s 3rd redesign is up baby! This version isn't the final yet, but I've been itching to post my new design for quite a bit now. Hmm... lesse.. first Mia redesigns, then Lystra and now me! I see a pattern here. Does my family redesign in phases?

I dub this stylesheet Clean, and as always you can choose which style you prefer to view the page in under Alternate Stylesheets, all the way down in the navigation bar. And what is it with the blue blogbar? It seems to be able to blend in with all of my stylesheets.

Tweaks I need to make on the design:

• I need to tweak the whitespacing. Right now, clean seems to suffer from crowdedness of text. Text needs to be further apart to make reading it less of a pain.

• More graphics. You can never have enough graphics in your webpage! I am trying for a minimalist approach to Clean, but it could use a little icon or two here and there.

• Colo(u)r tweaks. I sorta like the not-quite-black main text color I'm using, but it does make the design look too soft. And I'm not quite happy with the hover color for the menu text.

I didn't make much changes to the underlying XHTML. Just a few new hooks for when I finally get around to enhancing the page with javascript, and to show the comment count in the archive pages. Oh, and just to show off a neat new thing I added to the stylesheet.

Look at the purty quotation mark! Isn't it pretty! I find myself using <blockquote> quite a bit so I thought it would be nice to spruce it's presentation up some

And ColorWhore is such a neat site. It's like a free color inspiration book! And some of the colours run in a series that inspires me. I can definitely see some colour schemes I want to use in future designs there.

Geeks rule. We have our own olympiads to celebrate each countries best geeks. It's kind of fitting. Geeks sound so much like greeks eh? [Sidenote: etymological root of geek is kinda bad compared to nerd].

Man I wish I could be smart enough to take part in the programmer olympiads. The people you get to meet there must be incredibly mentally stimulating. Philippines is probably too poor to field a team though.. heh.

Wonder if these olympiads will ever garner attention like the atheletic olympics. Heck, even the special olympics get some attention..

Here's a cool little meme by Mia. List down all the names people know you by. Mine will be really really short I bet.

If you call me...

• Jeiel (correctly pronounced). You either know me or have a knack for pronouncing people's names correctly. My name is so weird to read that I've been resigned to people mercilessly slaughtering it all my life. You could also be Regan, the only online friend I have that calls me by my proper name.

• Jail/Jeh-ee-el/(insert mangling of my name of your choice). You're attempting to read out my name and failing badly. I can tell by the way you're scrunching up your face as you puzzle over how to pronounce my name that you're about to call me and I'm readying myself to correct you. If you're smart you'll ask how to pronounce it. If not you'll just steamroll over it to get it over and done with.

• Jei-eel. You're my primary school maths teacher Mr. Goh Tiak Hee. I hate you.

• Yo !@#$. Either you really hate me, or you're one of my close friends from Singapore. It's probably the latter since I don't know enough people to get them to hate me yet. Oh and YO DAMN SHIT!

• ZeroByte. You know me from one of the forums I frequent. Fastfood, Natural Selection, TAF. Take your pick. Prolly only well known in TAF and Fastfood though. You could also know me from deviantART or the pixelation forums. If you're from the pixelation forums, you should be thanking me for click-to-zoom! Actually if you call me ZeroByte, you could be almost anyone who knows me online. It's my primary online identity. IRC, Forums, etc.

• Ancient One. You're an old timer from the Brainchild Design forums, the first forum I was ever active in. You were part of the community when I was one of the more popular guys in that forum. Somehow through all these years you still remember me. And possibly Bloodat (I forget his original name) and Baraka.

• Hun. You're Bunny bint! My online granma! Although you call everybody hun really... You need to get your blog back online Michelle! If you're reading this, take care of yourself in the UK granma!

• ZB. You're from #abandongames or #danwa. You're a lazy bastard and shorten my nick ZeroByte into ZB. You also probably call me other names... but.. they're unmentionable. This is a PG-13 blog damnit!

• Kuy/Kor. You're Lystra. You want something from me or just want to annoy me with more stories of your boys. Love ya ;)

• Lystra's bodyguard. You're a friend of Lystra, probably calling me that cause I had to go with her before my parents allowed her to go. Being the big brother means you're the KJ (killjoy, learned new slang terms today). Or you could also be one of the guys from my class in AMA. I just want you to know I hate you all.

• Kuya Je. You're either Mi or Jo (Joren needs his journal Mia!). I'm stil kinda weirded out by people other than Lystra calling me kuya, but I love you guys :) You guys are the best. It's incredible that we can still click together like that after all those years.

• Genius. You're one of my former NYP classmates from DIT0316. I miss you guys muchos! You call me that cause I'm the class nerd and you want to ask for my help :D I didn't mind though as long as you were learning something.

• Oi. A classmate from B1 cause I still haven't introduced myself. :P

• ChemiKhazi. You're playing Natural Selection with me. You're probably Singaporean and you're probably talking cock over the voice comm. If I'm playing commander, you're probably pissed at me. If I'm a Gorge you're probably pissed at me too! I miss playing NS and I miss the SG servers.

• Marine Na Bei. You're playing Counter-Strike with me. That was kinda fun till it got stupid. Oh well.

• [LoTC] God of Lag. You're the L^P mofo's playing Warcraft 3 with me. You're also probably bitching about the lag I blessed the battles with. I so love my PC.

• Coconut. (new) You're my cousins and Lystra when I came back to Philippines for a vacation. You sang the whole coconut song as a way to tease me. "A coconut nut is a big big nut...". Yeah.

If you can add anymore names for me, go ahead and leave it in the comments.

These past few days/week have been quite unkind to my mental state. I had gotten so nervous I was having moodswings. One moment I'd feel unaccountably peaceful, another and I'm brooding. I put it down to the issues I've been having with my feelings for a certain girl. Thinking too much about things. Argh.

Finally, today she came to school. Just seeing her made my day, but it also put things back in perspective. I'm definitely not head over heels in love, but I am attracted to her.

Is it bad that my attraction isn't the heart thudding kind? I don't know if I can call it a deep attraction either. Matters of the heart are so not my specialty. I can say and will say that she makes me smile. That being near her makes me happy.

We talked as friends today. We both had a break in between classes and we just talked to kill the time (there's a story behind this too but I don't want to over analyze. maybe if you asked me. maybe). It was fun, finding out little things about her. [Sidenote: I didn't have to employ the Regan ploy] She's nicer than I realize, also we're kinda similar but not. Found out that I use the same shampoo as her. Never noticed that even though I loved the scent of her hair. Almost kinda like a shampoo commercial when I caught a whiff of it the first time XD. Little beautys abound in her :) (ugh sappy).

Also, she put my mind at ease about the whole non-replied SMS thing. Turns out she's just not getting them. Some phone/SIM thing (unimportant now). I'm happy now. Stability achieved. I'm content. At least I know we're still friends. Can it develop further? I don't know. For now I'll go with Plan A and not get freaked out into going for Plan B.

I'll try to make this my last post solely about her. Hopefully now I can move on to writing about things other than her. Which is probably a good idea cause I might actually link her to this someday...

I just feel the need to make a music recommendation post. I've just recently had a few bands introduced to me that make me really really happy. A whole different genre from the ones I recommended in my last music recommendations.

First up, we have Love Me Butch. This recommendation comes by way of P3k. They're Malaysian rockers and damn do I love them. Rocking, JTFU-ing, moshing-in-your-room music. At times brooding, but always kicking your ass with their music. Get The Protector at least, if you just wanna rock. For a slower sound, go with It's Over In Space. Never Ending Tunnel is a ass-kicking combination of harsh rock and sweet slow vocals.

• The Protector
• Never Ending Tunnel
• It's Over in Space
• Freefall

For punk rock, I don't think you can go wrong with Pilot to Gunner. Rapid 'choons, much like machine gunners. Not exactly uplifting but hey, they make me happy that's all I need to know. On second thought, go read 3hive's review. I don't think I do them justice. Oh and Lystra, the song that I woke you up with is It's So Good To Be Here In Paris. The songs available are just samplers. So now I think I have another band to my imaginary CD wishlist.

• Barrio Superstar
• We Got Games At High Speed
• It's So Good To Be Here in Paris

Bloc Party demonstrates 3hive's impeccable taste really (they were on the 3hive five once). The rock this group has put out. Damn. Bloody. Good. Irunno. Again I'm at a loss on how to describe their greatness. It's not a kick-ass-jump-up rock, but it feels like what rock ought to be. There's a purity to their rock. Or maybe that's just my anglophile-side kicking in. They sound like Brit rockers (well cause they are... ehh). Anyway, get all of their downloadable songs. You won't regret it. If not, at least toss a coin and download either Staying Fat or Banquet

• Banquet
• Staying Fat
• She's Hearing Voices

Okay, maybe the title shouldn't be so melodramatic. I'll just weep for the Singaporeans who put their blogs in Blogger. The "Next Blog" button on the blogbar is such an amazing tool for finding blogs. I found quite a few great blogs (for living vicariously through :D) but my journey through the jungle that is blogspot was not without dangers.

I cannot believe how many Singaporeans have blogs and I equally cannot believe how many of them make me want to take a tire iron to the authors faces. Or maybe just to mine, to end my misery.

So without further ado, here's the blogs that I've found so far that are worthy of reading.

• Deus Ex Machina: Singaporean Blog. Intelligently Angsty, Funnily Insulting. Kinda reminds me of Tom in real life. Tom's blog is so sedate compared to his real self.

• Kitabkhana: Fascinatingly intelligent. I think. I haven't actually read much of it, but a quick glance through the posts make me think that reading it would be quite enjoyable.

• No longer studying abroad Peter Krupa: Quite a chin scratching title for a blog. Not because it's intelligent, just cause it's strange. The writer has some genuinely funny writing, but I do so wish I could write about love/like as eloquently or at least as coherently as he does in Going to Plan B

I'll probably find a few more blogs that I like through the "Next Blog" button, and a whole boat load of blogs that'll make me despair for humanity. I'll post any more gems I find at a later time. And of course, feel free to check out the blogs I've linked up too. I guarantee that none of them are mind numbingly stupid.

Do me a favour though. If you don't see me online in the next few days, look for a news article about somebody who bludgeoned himself to death in front of a computer while reading a website.

Most likely aforementioned website will be written in AlTeRnAtE cApZ and would have had you click at least 5 javascript alerts before you can enter the site (I'm serious about the javascript alerts too).

Talking to Regan, reading his blog. I really ought to start reading up philosophy texts. Quite a few of the people I consider important in my life or influential to me do the whole philosophy thing. It's intimidating, but it kinda attracts me (no Tom, not that way you gay bastard) in the intellectual sense.

Irunno, I have the yearning to expand my mind beyond the technical things I dabble in. I just don't seem to have the drive to actually go out and find these books. Maybe a library (school library sucks). Hmm. Or I could go bug my cousins about lending me one of the plethora of philo books they seem to have.

Meep. I can't stop myself from putting down all this crap into my blog. Oh well. I suppose it would be a nice way to look back when all this passes.

A couple of songs that I found appropriate to what I'm feeling right now. Lifehouse's Breathing and Voh's Pull it Off. Although Breathing is kinda stalker freaky in the lyrics.

I wish she would stop sending me forwards and reply to something. At the very least, tell me if I'm bothering her. Tell me to go away, stop it, fuck off, whatever. I... I don't know. At least I would know how she feels. At least I would know to start forgetting... (or maybe that should be to start trying more? meh)

I hope she comes to school next week. At least I'll get to see her and uhm, ask her if it annoys her/disturbs her/makes her want to get a restraining order on me. Irunno. Or maybe I'll stop being so damn oblique and ask her outright, or tell her outright. Bleh. I've contemplated calling her up but it just feels wrong to do that. Idunno why either.

Okay, enough of this crap. I still can't sort it out but whatever. Cross it when I come to the bridge.

Anyway, went out in the rain again today. Damn I love it. I give todays rain two thumbs up. It had everything. A great build up, suspense, action. Woo.

I went out to sit by myself before the rain properly began, to think about things and to be alone. I didn't have to wait long before it started. The drizzle started, riding the high wind, getting whipped into icy darts that hit you with force, like kisses from an ice queen.

I step out of the cover of the carport into the rain itself. A mad exhilirating rush. The wind, the rain. They envelope me in their mad, twisting, passionate dance. The rain being carried by the wind. Sigh. It was so so cold but it made me feel alive. I love the elements :)

Later in the evening, as far as I can remember, the first blackout I'd experienced here! That was kind of a surprise. One moment I'm watching Dark Angel, drooling over Jessica Alba (so hawt) the next I'm sitting alone in the darkness, wondering wtf happened. It was kinda fun in the new experience kind of way. The whole subdivision was plunged into darkness. No streetlights, no nothing. We just sat around the living room, hunkered down with the rest of the family carrying flashlights.

During the blackout (which couldn't have lasted for more than an hour, maybe it was around 45 minutes), I sent her part of the lyrics (whoops, back to this) to Lifehouse - Breathing.

'Cause I'm hanging on every word you say

And even if you don't want to speak tonight

It's alright, alright with me

See? Stalker-ish lyrics. At least I didn't send her the next part which was about.. sitting outside her door.. and listening to her breathing.. yeah. Maybe a bad choice of song.