mudslide

i think some of the greater moments i've experienced in life happened while it was raining. tiger cup at the national stadium, sailing expedition during obs... outdoor event + heavy rain = chance to be an epic moment.

and so on saturday i was well-prepared for the rain at laneway festival. after all, it had been raining for most of the week, although i hoped it would stop as i wasn't too pleased at the prospect of having my shoes destroyed.

the rain had stopped just before we entered fort canning and i even managed to work up a sweat watching my beloved WARPAINT kick off the day's events. 45 minutes of them was way too short a time for me but i think the crowed showed them enough love for them to return again.

ladyhawke was next and when i heard her sing the magic word, i knew that was the end. "saving all you got for a rainy day." and rain it did.

the rain god didn't disappoint as the skies opened up the moment their set was over. out came the ponchos to save the day. the rain came and went for the rest of the day, and before long the grass had turned into a gigantic mud pit.

by night, everything that could be destroyed by the rain and mud had long been destroyed, so everyone couldn't care less. we were up front waiting for foals, right in the middle of the mud pit when i thought wow, i'm wet and cold, my pants and shoes are covered in mud, my feet are soggy as hell, but this feels great!

then came an epic moment. foals were playing an instrumental part and right when they exploded into the climax and made the crowd go wild, the rain suddenly started to fall very heavily.

illuminated by the stage lights, it was quite an amazing sight the behold, and with the crowd going wild and the band spazzing out on stage, it all added up to one bloody epic moment.

the rain god didn't disappoint.

-

i realised i've developed a strong hatred for people (photographers) who go to poor countries and take pictures of the poor people in the streets, especially the poor little beggar children.

WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT? give them your camera and it'll feed them for a long time, much better than taking stupid pictures that make people (girls especially) go awwwww... and their stomach's still empty at the end of the day.

hmv vs torrent

everyone seems to be in such a hurry to get into relationships. omg gotta catch em all before they're gone!

it's like when i go to hmv to buy some cds, there are thousands available so i take a little look around first. maybe the cover catches my eye, or maybe i've heard good things about the artist, if i think i'll like it enough, buy it and take it home.

and when i get home, i listen to the album. hmmm some songs are nice, some aren't that great. take a look at the lyrics booklet. listen to the album for days, weeks, months, before i can say if i love it or not. who knows, maybe it sounds great now but will start to annoy the shit out of me in a while?

perhaps the songs sound great, but when i see the lyrics i think wtf is this thrash? or perhaps they take some time to get used to before they start growing on me and before long i just can't get enough.

some people just listen to a few songs or the hit single and say WOW I LUV THIS ALBUM 4EVA THIS BAND IS THE SHITZ. and then after a while they get sick of it and relegate it to the back of their shelf.

but these days, most prefer to simply download their songs online. entire albums available at the click of a mouse, and what's more, it's completely free! if they don't like it, just delete it! no loss. perfect?

aug

taken 19/8/10, 12:44pm

i think what a lot of people under-estimate is just how much it takes outta you to do nothing all day. it's really quite mentally taxing as i've found out again and again.

like during the first month after i was posted to my station, i was doing 9 hours in the office or 14 hour shifts outside. i thought it was gonna be a good time but always wondered why i felt so damn tired when i went out with my friends after work. after all i've been doing nothing all day!

what you see in the picture is us trying to stay alive for 14+ hours a day, 21 days straight. everyday i would wake up at 6:30am and get home around 9:30pm or later, just in time to sleep for the next day.

before we signed up for this job, we thought it was going to be easy, doing nothing for good money. under-estimation at its worst. it's really easy to forget just how bad it gets.

fortunately though, i got a very cushy posting at a nice big hotel instead of some shitty outdoor thing that would have felt a lot worse i'm sure. but still, never under-estimate.

jul

taken 12/7/10, 9:31pm

if you asked me to sign up for orientation camp during my secondary school or even poly days... it wouldn't happen. i didn't like to talk to people whom i didn't know and i probably didn't care enough about them to want to say anything, and orientation camp was basically everything i didn't like or care for.

so when my friends asked me to sign up for orientation camp, i thought... NAH. "but think about all the chicks," they said. hmmm... ok... i'll just sign up since it's not definite that i'll be selected anyway. at that point it honestly didn't really matter to me if i got in or not.

then as the confirmation date grew closer, i started thinking, hey maybe it won't be so bad after all. and of course, my friends' words rang in my head... "think of all the chicks..."

on the day itself, a lot of the people i knew started getting The Call from early in the morning. "hey i just got The Call! did you get it?" NO. morning soon became afternoon and my hopes faded with each minute passed. oh well, i didn't really want to go anyway, i thought. but think of all the chicks... the voice repeated in my head.

by night, i had given up hope. maybe i just wasn't meant to be with the chicks. maybe it's my fate that i'll meet more chicks with the time i spent outside during the orientation camp. maybe...

MY PHONE STARTED TO VIBRATE. *INCOMING CALL*

my fate was sealed.

disturbed

i was at a family gathering when someone passed me a baby to carry, no idea who the baby was but i had the feeling that it was my nephew. after a moment, i thought i heard the baby say "thank you."

haha that was funny... how did his baby-talk manage to sound like real words? then i heard him say something again, and i wanted to call everyone over to hear it. but before i could do that, the baby started talking FOR REAL.

"thank you for helping me see the world. i asked god to let me see the world before i die, and through you i've done that. now it's time for me to go."

and then the baby stated to vomit a black thing, kinda like cartman in southpark. i understood that when i carried the baby, my experiences were passed to him, and as such he 'saw' the world through my eyes.

i started to cry because i didn't want the baby to die. but there was nothing i could do as everyone crowded around me as the baby was dying in my arms.

i woke up because i was crying too hard in my dream, so i don't know what happened to that freaky baby in the end.

jun

taken 14/6/10, 9:04pm

june was all about the world cup, and fittingly so, this was taken in a bar while watching a match. when it was all over, i found it to be quite anti-climatic, or rather, it didn't even build up to anywhere near a climax.

it was just... a month of soccer. i mean, it was fun and all, but really nothing special. i don't know if it's because this world cup really sucked or if it's just me. or maybe that's just the way it is? as you grow older and broaden your horizons, it takes more stimulus to make you feel.

there's also this nagging feeling that it's lacking a proper conclusion, because right after the finals i left to attend my school's orientation camp. i stayed there for the next 3 days and completely missed out on all the post-world cup hoo-ha. i came home and the seas were calm, and besides, after 3 days i didn't really give a shit anymore.

may

taken 17/5/10, 2:09pm

looking back, riding a bike probably wasn't the safest thing to do during our trip, especially not with a guy who's only been on a bike once, and another who's only halfway through his riding lessons. no, actually i think we already knew that back then, but we just decided to fuck it and carry on.

it is often after such decisions that events start to unfold into 2 very different and drastic outcomes. either YAY, we're so glad that we did it, or OH FUCK, what have we done, with perhaps a (our?) funeral being the worst place to say the latter.

through a fair bit of fortune, our adventure ended up somewhere in the middle. not quite unscathed, but not enough to turn into a disaster. but as i used to say, it's fun as long as you don't die, and no funerals were attended as a result of this.

true story

judging from the facebook comments i see from the guys studying in brisbane, i'd never imagined the floods were that bad until i watched the australian news channel last night. and oh my, IT WAS BAD.

there were literally entire houses (with occupants) being washed away by the floods, the military wanted to destroy some floating restaurants before they broke loose and started crashing into things. the entire CBD was shut down, electricity cut, it was a disaster.

all i see on fb is people worrying about where their cars are parked since they're back for the holidays and can't save the cars from the evil floodwaters, and then once they realise their cars are safe, they start to lol here and lol there. and there are those who wanna head down into the CBD to gawk at the floods, and are considering moving elsewhere to study because brisbane is gonna take quite some time to recover.

these people are just a transient group with no loyalty nor connection to the place. when shit happens, they just lol here and there, and then think of fucking off to better lands... which made me think of my own country. filled with a large population of foreigners and migrants, if anything happens we can rest assured that they'll all disappear and we can pick of the pieces by ourselves.

damn bitch

sometimes when i'm in a dream, i become aware of it and try to control my dreams, also known as lucid dreaming. usually there are 2 outcomes.

1. i move about my dreams within my own control but following the flow of the dream, until i forget that i'm dreaming and the dreamworld takes over again.

2. i try to control the dreamworld and create my own stuff, but at this point my brain realises that something is wrong, like i'm not supposed to be there and i get kicked out. actually i think it's more like my brain gets overworked and wakes up, so i have to keep part of my brain 'asleep' to continue dreaming, while the 'awake' part explores.

last night midway through a dream i suddenly became VERY aware, and for the first time ever, i started doing some reality tests, including looking at my watch (it looked like a mottled mess) and observing my surroundings (they would change slightly every time i turned away).

so yay, i'm dreaming! what's next? then i remembered that i cannot overly-control my dreams or else i'd wake up, so i tried to just explore my dream world without altering things. anyway i tried doing some mind-control on people but it kinda failed badly, so i really don't know how much i could control things even if i wanted.

at first i was in some kind of old school building, which later evolved into a high-rise apartment block of sorts (like a huge multi-leveled cage), and i was climbing around outside, looking through the metal bars at the people sleeping. the rest of the surroundings were pitch black.

i've never managed to have controlled flight in my dreams before. i only manage to jump great distances, kinda like when you play cs and you lower the gravity. so there i was, jumping and climbing around the grilled walls of the building and there wasn't much to do because of the bars and the people were asleep anyway.

then at one unit, the woman inside suddenly woke up and quickly crawled over to the 'window.' hmmm, i thought, then suddenly she screamed and went through the metal bars and came after ME like the fucking witch in L4D! FUUUUUUUCK this ain't supposed to be happening in MY dream!

i quickly jumped away from the window but she jumped towards me too. while we were both suspended in mid-air, i thought of my options before she got to me. i could either try my damn best to imagine her out of my dream, or i could just wake the fuck up immediately.

i briefly considered the first option, before i remembered that i'm not really that good at controlling my dreams and more likely than not she's gonna get me. so i closed my eyes and jerked myself out of the dream. luckily it worked, or should i say luckily i didn't bring her out of my dream into my bedroom, or else i'd really be fucked.

apr

taken 21/4/10, 2:02am

i narrowly avoided some sabotage attempts to get me drunk by some people i'd only just met, made some new friends, made some enemies, drank a whole bunch of stuff, and emerged unscathed with my reputation relatively intact. and that puke is not mine.

mar

taken 30/3/10, 1:58pm

this is my colleague whom i often talk about. for some completely unknown reason, he decided to wash his hair in the toilet basin that day. i then convinced him to slick his hair back to channel some chow yun fat in the god of gamblers.



after that we paraded him around the office for a bit of laughs before he decided that the hairstyle looked great on him and said he'll come to work like that from that day onwards.

other classic moments include the time when he said "the cat calling the kettle jack" while grumbling to my other colleague about something (as always). we all laughed our asses off and wrote it on the white board. he wanted to change it but didn't know what the correct idiom was.

and of course there were the times when we tried to re-enact man vs wild around the office.

feb

taken 3/2/10, 10:56pm

this was big night out 2010. saosin (erm...), rise against (wish i started listening to them earlier) and muse (wow).

prior to the event, i heard of people who were going there ONLY to watch saosin, which i thought was rather giggle-worthy. i went there to watch muse and also partly because i didn't have anything better to do.

we were at pen b, which was cheaper and further back, separated from the front crowd by a fence and a large expanse of empty space which made me feel pretty stupid. it just didn't feel right to be so far away from the action.

and then saosin come out... and my opinion of them remained unchanged. i got bored and started some random moshing but their songs weren't really good for that. in fact, i don't know what are their songs good for.

rise against next, i hadn't really listened to them much and so couldn't really get full enjoyment, but they were good enough. did more random moshing to pass the time, only this time it worked.

after that we waited an eternity before the fancy-ass stage lights and background turned on. we knew what was coming next... MUSE. it was great, even the annoying (but cool, admittedly) lasers were great, perhaps the only downside was that the giant confetti-filled balls didn't make it past the wide expanse of open space to us at the back.

i really don't know how they manage to be so awesome so consistently, but no one was complaining and the crowd probably out-sung the band most of the time. it was a great night, but at the end i still felt stupid for being so far away.

jan

let's take a look at the year in photos, one for each month.


taken 1/1/10, 11:35am

first day of the new year and i had one of the biggest hangovers ever. the night before i was celebrating my friend's birthday, and the night seemed quite promising up till the point where i fell asleep and never woke up, probably around 1am.

it was also the first time i've suffered from alcohol-induced memory loss. my friends say someone jumped on me while i was sleeping and i puked all over the place, but i have zero recollection of that, although it's just as well that i don't remember.

and of course, having a coke by the pool is one of the better things to do while having the mother of all hangovers.

top 5 songs, 2010

it's been quite a while, but let's round up the year with the next few posts.

5. sick muse - metric
i feel that the year was rather dry music-wise, but this was one great song from one great album. i think this song was part of a flawless live acoustic set i watched online but i can't seem to find it again for the life of me.

4. resistance - muse
listened to this song ad infinitum in the office, and then saw them perform it live... it could be wrong could be wrong but it should've been right. muse somehow managed to get it right and hit the mainstream HARD, despite the weirdness of their music.

3. summer stars - via audio
if you've been around you'd know why.

2. runaway - kanye west
first saw the music video/short film plastered all over the net, saw it once but didn't give it much thought except that the girl had great boobs. a while later i watched the video part for this song. then i watched it again. and again.

1. elephants - warpaint
i was watching some surfing clip and this song was playing in the background. the clip was fine enough, but what really caught my attention was the song. thank goodness they included it in their credits or else i'd have a hell of a time trying to find it... warpaint, what can i say? gonna see them live by the end of the month.

honourable mention
1901 - phoenix
the passenger - stars