11.20.2005

 

[first live set!]

tracklisting of our first live set. pav 2nd room, fri 18 Nov 05, 2300 - 0000

---

Madonna - Hung Up
Armand Van Helden - You Don't Know Me
Moby - Bodyrock (Olav Basoski's Da Hot Funk Da Freek Funk Remix)
Peaches - AA XXX
Digitalism - Zdarlight
Thomas Anderson - Washing Up (Tiga's Na Na Na Na Na Remix)
Ego Express - Knartz IV
Bloc Party - Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)
James Zabiela - Robophobia
Ran Shani - Cool Like That
Eric Prydz - Call On Me (Radio Edit)
Audio Bullys - Shot You Down (Radio Edit)
BT - Running Down The Way Up
Elite Force - Mindfunkpsychedelic
Lee Coombs - Allright All Night
e White Stripes - Blue Orchid (High Contrast Remix)
Pendulum - Slam
e Killers - Mr Brightside (e Thin White Duke Remix)

timestamp: anonymous 04:56 0 comments

10.13.2005

 

[John Peel Day!]

it's been one year since the great man's last broadcast, and there are hundreds of gigs all over the country in honour of the late john peel. was supposed to play the Cuban Boys' commemorative track "The Nation Needs You" - made with snippets of peel on air - at noon, but that happened to be in the middle of a lecture. hrmmm.

it's sad cos all the good gigs around here seem to sell out mysteriously the moment they're announced. needless to say, i'm miffed!!

anyway. in honour of john peel, his favourite track of all time, which is a great song in its own right.

The Undertones - Teenage Kicks

---

Are teenage dreams so hard to beat
Everytime she walks down the street
Another girl in the neighbourhood
Wish she was mine, she looks so good

I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight
Get teenage kicks right through the night

I'm gonna call her on the telephone
Have her over cos i'm all alone
I need excitement oh i need it bad
And its the best i've ever had

I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight
Get teenage kicks right through the night

I wanna hold her wanna hold her tight
Get teenage kicks right through the night

timestamp: anonymous 19:28 0 comments

9.25.2005

 

[i broke out of hibernation to say...]

yeah i know i havent been updating. hasnt been much to update, to be honest. but i broke out of hibernation to say that Pastafarianism rules! Hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster! ^^;

more updates when i feel like it.

timestamp: anonymous 15:37 0 comments

7.31.2005

 

[watch this space]

slipped my mind to update the blog last month, so now you have it, a break in the hitherto unbroken run from june 2002! not really in the mood to post, but if i don't july will slip by without a post too.

the flooble chatterbox has finally given up the ghost, as have my individual post comments service. i'll see if i can activate the internal blogger one, and try and suss out a tagboard or something.

the long-in-the-waiting redesign has fallen through again, so when i say watch this space, i mean that i'll try and come up with some new content, or perhaps a new theme or something to write about.

thats it - ciao!

timestamp: anonymous 04:46 0 comments

5.03.2005

 

[NY state of mind]

just out!

The Dears - 22: The Death of All The Romance

---

I have never cried in anybody's arms
The way that I have often cried in yours
Please be the one to take my tears away
I was 22, I've had my share of views
I just can't steal that happiness from you
But I'll be the one to take your tears away

I can't believe the things you say
tell me, tell me
tell me the lies

Fasting love will lead us all to nowhere
When, when will we learn
I shall avenge the death of all the romance
Until, until I'm gone

I can't believe the things you say
tell me, tell me
tell me the lies
I can't believe the things you say
tell me, tell me
tell me the lies
I can't believe the things you say
tell me, tell me
tell me the lies
tell me the lies
tell me the lies
tell me, tell me the lies

---

nb: omitted repeats of the chorus, verses, etc.

timestamp: anonymous 14:47 0 comments

4.20.2005

 

[long overdue]

it feels like forever since i last posted, and in many ways, it is. (thanks if you're one of the few who do come back.) to be honest i don't know what i've been doing since the holidays started - heck, make that since the year started. last term went by in a haze. the holidays - the past 4 weeks, anyway - i've spent either aimlessly surfing the web (all sorts of stuff, from gizmodo to gamics and tons of RPG-related fiction (Living Spycraft, a modern day espionage-themed one, and Legend of the Five Rings, one loosely based on japan in the age of the samurai, both from the Alderac Entertainment Group - anybody interested in joining a play-by-web distance Living Spycraft game let me know, im strangely interested in being a GM), playing all manner of computer games (mainly Evil Genius - i can heartily reassure you that i am neither - and Aldon's Crossing, a brilliant RPG for the Palm (did i mention i made the switch to a second-hand tungsten e? on the day that the E2 was officially announced, no less), catching up on last december's movies (especially Napoleon Dynamite which seems to only have made it big in the UK, though i may be wrong. i adore it to pieces), generally living in isolation, venturing out of the country on two trips (been back from sweden for a week, don't have the inclination to upload the photos yet. close to 200MB i suspect, and i did take them at 2 megapixel, to maximise the number of photos. what can i say, i was there for a week.), read everything except work, and generally avoiding anything that remotely looks like work. i'm really going to regret that.

anyway in the process of not doing work today, i plowed through Bill Bryson's fantastic A Short History of Nearly Everything and John Boyne's The Congress of Rough Riders in one sitting today! well not quite one sitting. but today, nonetheless. first, A Short History of Nearly Everything is a brilliant and engaging survey of science from the big bang to human origins to quantum mechanics and everything else in between. unfortunately it also skims over some of the more important experiments and theories in a wide variety of fields in favour of accessibility - not really a serious flaw, if it can spark mass interest in science - but a suggested reading list in addition to, if not instead of, a bibliography would have been much better imho.

and as for The Congress of Rough Riders, well, that's what prompted the whole post, after so long, in the first place. it's interesting, the ideas are fresh, though it's not by far one of the best-written fiction books i've read (Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy is STILL my current vote). it's the themes that got me thinking - i seem to be doing that on a full time basis now, as long as im not sleeping or playing computer games! - about family, ancestry, identity and all that. i'm not going to go all out lit here (i'm not sure if i can pull off the pretence, and in any case i never liked to get technical, even if i could) so relax. as succintly as i can, the story's about Buffalo Bill, the wild west scout and showman extraordinaire, and two generations of his descendants - mainly the born-in-the-70s William Cody (yes, named after his titular great-grandfather) and how his father, who never managed to make much of his own life, kept feeding William stories of his great-grandfather. okay that makes it sound really boring - it's not - but then again i'm summarizing the main plot device to make my own point. i read it, and suddenly realised that i don't know much about my grandparents, much less my ancestors. sure, i know a few stories they've told me, but that can't possibly be all. and it dawned on me that we're all not getting any younger, and i won't be home for extended periods of time till after this decade is done (estimated long-term return is 2012, folks, and even then i've kind of lost count) - i won't be back, and who knows how much more time there is to share these experiences? my grandma said something to that effect many many times, but it's only really stirring emotions now. worst of all, i can't even phrase a proper question in mandarin, much less teochew, to ask them to tell me their stories. earlier this month, a friend (another international student) commented on how good my english was compared to some of the other internationals (esp when it comes to essays, i might add) and i replied that it was because english was my first language. i don't want to be melodramatic, but that episode suddenly came back, and i'm none too proud that i can't formulate a proper question in my other supposed first language, my 'mother tongue' (which is a bit of a misnomer really, since i communicate with my parents only in english). to be fair the language thing has always bothered me. more on that later. but i was really moved at the prospect of losing some part of my family history, my ancestry - god that sounds so archaic - no. real people who i am close to and mean a lot to me, but whom i never really was able to find out a lot about - who am i kidding. i didn't feel compelled to talk to them every opportunity i got, and i certainly wasn't all that curious about their lives. they're still here, thank goodness, and i intend to set some things right when i get back in june. maybe scrap holiday plans and spend some more time just at home. goodness knows thats all my family has ever wanted, and i never felt compelled to provide.





PS languages - i've known they were my achilles heel for ever and ever. anybody who's ever seen my room, or looked at my spending habits knows that i intend to learn as many languages as i possibly can.. without being particularly commited to any. i just buy the stuff and watch it languish in some shelf gathering dust. that's true of the teach yourself french kit (2CDs and book), norwegian (oslo), spanish (ibiza) and portugese of brazil (brazilian music, you know?) book in my room in college at this very moment. and strangely enough, now that i no longer NEED to do mandarin, im compelled to bring myself up to scratch in it. i DID buy a wen yan wen textbook (um, formal/"high" mandarin..?) the last time i was in shanghai. i just haven't got around to reading it yet - which is another one of my gripes. i seem to flit from interest to interest without so much as a second's pause in between. i don't really think i'll ever go back to fencing or kendo training ever again, in all honesty.

PPS i don't care if i sound preachy. it's my soapbox. and for the record, it's not meant to be. it's true that i've been roused out of my hermitlike existence for the past month by what i just read and thought about. it's one of those things that you know you just have to do.

timestamp: anonymous 01:43 0 comments

4.05.2005

 

[this blog is not dead]

this blog is not dead.

i'm just feeling antisocial, and there isn't very much happening in my life at the moment, and although i am thinking a lot (and slacking far too much for my own good) these don't translate well to electronic ink. (in other words, im playing too much Evil Genius and not doing any work at all. which is bad, considering that half the 'holiday' is over already).

been to copenhagen and back. it's nice, if you haven't already seen the pix then email me / IM / whatever and i'll send you a snapfish invite to go see. leaving for sweden in 24h, for a week - god knows how i'll ever get any work done. (and i've already been behind for all of last term, goodness knows what i was doing)

sometimes i just hate myself. dont you?

timestamp: anonymous 02:10 0 comments

2.26.2005

 

maintenance post for feb. been really busy, my life's been turned upside down a few times already (not in a good way!) and i still haven't kept up with what's happening this term, so this will be a super short post.

lain low for the past week or so with gastric flu, and i never realised i'd miss milk so badly - esp now that the weather is getting cold (low zeros/subzeros), right at the tail end of winter (what gives?!) and hot chocolate is the most satisfying thing you can possibly have.

seriously overspent on music - at HMV and on ebay - this month and am not sure how i'll balance the books.

uhh no time for ruminations and stuff, not in the mood for it either.

peace out.

timestamp: anonymous 04:45 0 comments

1.29.2005

 

[nothing doing]

2nd weekend of term and my life's all out of whack - been pulling 2 - 3h days since term started and am on verge of keeling over. just woke up from a much needed 12h rest, but in the meantime everybody's so far ahead of me already, i tell you it's scary.

decks have arrived, haven't broken them out yet cos i just don't have the time!

am seriously overbudget thanks to my new-found ebay habit.

De La Soul - Say No Go

---

POS:
Now let's get right on down to the skit
A baby is brought into a world of pits
And if it could've talked that soon
In the delivery room
It would've asked the nurse for a hit
The reason for this?
The mother is a jerk
Excuse me, Junkie
Which brought the work of the old
Into a new light
What a way
But this what a way
Has been a way of today
Anyway
Push couldn't shove me to understand a path to a basehead
Consumer should erase it in the first wave
But second wave forms believers
And believers will walk to it then even talk to it and say...
(You got the body now you want my soul)
Nah, can't have none of that, tell 'em what to say Mase...
SAY NO GO
DOVE:
Nah, no my brother
No my sister
Try to get hip to this
Word, word to the mother
I'll tell the truth so bear my witness
Fly like birds of a feather
Drugs are like Pleather
You don't wanna wear it
No need to ask that question, just don't mention
You know what the answer is...
POS:
Now I never fancied Nancy
But the statement she made held a plate of weight
I even stressed it to Wade
DOVE:
Did he take any heed?
POS:
Nah, the boy was hooked, you could've phrased the word 'Base'
And the kid just shook
In his fashion class once an A now an F
The rock rules him now
The only designs left
Were once clothes made for Oshkosh
Has converted to nothing but stonewash

DOVE:
Now hopping in a barrel is a barrel of fun
But don't hop in if you want to be down, son
'Cause that could mean down and out as an action
What does it lead to?
Dum-da-dum-dum
People say what have I done for all my years
My tears show my hard-earned work
I heard shoving is worse than pushing
But I'd rather know a shover than a pusher
'Cause a pusher's a jerk
SAY NO GO
POS:
Believe it or not the plot forms a fee more that charity
But the course doesn't coincide with the ride of insanity
Is it a chant that slants the soul to fill for it?
I know it's the border that flaunts the order to kill for it
DOVE:
Standing, scheming on a young one
Taking his time, eight-ball for a cool pool player
Racked it all, tried to break, miscued
Got beat by the boy in blue
Next day you're out by the spot once more
Looking hard for a crack in the hole
I ask what's the fix for the ill stuff
Word to the Dero
The answer should have been no
POS:
Run me a score from the Funky Four Plus One More
(It's the joint!)
Rewind that back
This is the age for a new stage of fiend
Watch how the junkies scream
It's the crack
Plain is plain it should explain it from the start
Behind the ideals of cranking up the heart
Now the base claim's shot over every part
SAY NO GO
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT
SAY NO GO
SAY NO GO

timestamp: anonymous 23:03 0 comments

1.09.2005

 

[radio]

thanks to the Dec ish of DJ Mag, i've discovered the wonders of MonkeyRadio - dont worry, the site isn't updated but the music works fine - playing my kind of stuff; downtempo, trip-hop, whatever you call it. it just rocks.

and for those of you back home, do tune in to Lush 99.5, they don't have online streaming yet, but this is a station i didn't expect to see sprout at home, from mediacorp no less, so soon. downtempo but more jazzy and less beats than MonkeyRadio. it's still wonderful, and my radio's locked on to 99.5 whenever i'm home.. nice that they gave X'Ho a job there, too.

Cibo Matto - Sunday Pt 1

---

The bomb in my heart is beating me a B note
Maybe my ear dirt is cheating on me, yo
'Cuz missin' you on Sunday morning, I need somethin' new
It's Sunday morning
But nothing helps me... I'm just waiting for the milkman to come

I can't find it, I can't find it

Why do I feel so lonely? I don't know how to compromise
You are my one and only. What can I find 'til the moon rises?

I feel dizzy, you're so damn sleazy, I know you'll say "I was busy"
Baby, take me out, it's been rained out so I run to the bank to get my cash
And check our savings of love out but it's closed on Sunday
What can I say? I feel blue the rain starts soaking my shoes
We're losing glue I can't find a clue, I'm knocking on the door
Somebody is dancing on the floor, then I know the score, I can't take it no more

The Knicks winnin' can't even make me high, cuttin' coupons for nothing makes me sigh

I can't find it, it's been on my mind, I've been trying to find it day and night

---

this just rocks. couldn't stand it, had to post it.

timestamp: anonymous 14:58 0 comments

1.05.2005

 

[there she goes, my beautiful world]

for as long as i've lived, i've been waging a losing battle, always fighting ferverently to preserve whatever's left of my innocent, wide-eyed view of the world. i've been questioned about it before - some people just can't understand why i refuse to act my age. but innocence is something once lost, can never be regained.

as if the boxing day tragedy and the kidnapping and subsequent murder (?) of a little girl back home wasn't bad enough (i only found out after i got home, hadn't been reading ST for a long time and therefore was really shocked), today, on the news, i hear about a girl, 20something, who went missing HERE on NYE. and worse, she sent text messages asking for help, then her phone died, and now there are posters all over town with her face on it.

and now, talking to my friends, i realise that cam isn't as safe as i'd thought it was - apparently some fresher's dad was socked while he was walking outside the biggest pub in town. (i assume it was a completely random incident.) and there's stuff about the night stabber, and .. well i think i'll just stop here. it's shocking, because it's just a picturesque small town, it's the last thing you'd associate with crime. maybe things are different in town and where i am - people leave their bikes unlocked on the racks outside, and nothing happens - this would never happen in town, i presume.

still, it's an unwelcome - and sobering - reminder that the world can still be a very harsh place.

won't re-list Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' "There She Goes, My Beautiful World", cos i did so not too long ago.

timestamp: anonymous 23:41 0 comments

1.02.2005

 

[i *heart* huckabees]

before you know it it's 2005 already! wanted to do a midnight post but was busy packing my bags for the 0900 flight back to cam - besides, posting on NYE is a bit sad. speaking of sad, though, the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster has really dampened the festive mood, plus the incessant rain over the past week or so meant that i had to cancel NYE plans. pity, though, considering that it might be the last NYE i spend in sgp for a while. was looking forward to catching electrico at the esplanade, and/or going to CHIJMES for their salsa / latin-house party. but nobody would really be in the mood, not after everything that's happened.

it IS interesting that the public healthcare conglomerates (i dont know what the correct term to use is, but neither do i want to mention their names!) only sent teams of 3-5 doctors to aid in the rescue/recovery, while the private healthcare groups have sent teams of 25 doctors (with a few more planned, i believe) - depending on your viewpoint that could either mean that public sector doctors are very harried taking care of the local population already and really can't spare much time to help, lest their caseloads explode, or simply that the private sector has a bigger heart. true that doctors who have gone private are at liberty to set their own schedules, but they too have patients and schedules to manage. yet why is there such a disproportionate response to the disaster?

still connected, in a really roundabout way - caught 75% of The Motorcycle Diaries on the plane - you know, the film about Che Guevara, who took a break in the last semester of medical schol to go on a road trip to the other side of South America with his buddy to visit a leper colony. the film stopped just at they arrived at the colony.. thus far it's a bit one-sided in its heroic, can-do-no-wrong depiction of Che Guevara, but then again, it's based on something he supposedly wrote (correct me if im wrong), so no big surprise there. don't get me wrong, it's not a bad film, it does raise questions, but it does seem a little preachy.

I *heart* Huckabees is an absolute TREAT. it's by the same director behind Three Kings, that Gulf War show that was really good but drew more attention for its depiction of violence (i still remember the scene about how a bullet goes through flesh) ; it's not a serious movie, though - it's more like Confessions of A Dangeous Mind in that it's really satirical, but it's more laugh out loud than Confessions. everything comes together really well, and believe it or not, it's a philosophical movie!

last review, because i spent most of the journey catching up on sleep. watched We Don't Live Here Anymore - loosely based on two short stories, We Don't Live Here Anymore and Adultery. it's one of those marraige-breaking-down movies, though it's quite well acted IMHO and clearly illustrates what's going through each character's heads. been thinking quite a bit about these things recently, ever since i blazed through The Unbearable Lightness of Being before my flight - PS it's a brilliant book; philosophical fiction - and i must admit the thought of being stuck in a loveless marraige with kids and not knowing what to do chills me to the core. (moot point, who wouldnt?)

the single biggest advantage of paying rent over the holidays is the fact that everything remains in your room, instead of being spread all over the place in various (locked, hopefully) cupboards, plus i have a ready stash of food in the room - an important consideration since i arrived on the evening of jan 1.

sadly, though, i realise that i can't really figure out how to use a can opener. to my credit, it's not a normal can opener - instead of inserting it horizontally and cutting the circumference of the lid, this one goes horizontal and slices the whole lid AND rim off. and if youre wondering, i eventually gave up and dug through all my boxes for the instruction manual. what fun..

ok that's it. evidently im not in a blogging mood; i'm just posting because quite a lot has happened. blogging for the sake of blogging, i'm afraid.

Sugababes - New Year

---

Sitting here stressing at 2:30am
About how fast the year can go
I wonder where it went
If we start all over again, would it really work
I know that you could be, could be, coming back to me

Mesmorised, but of thoughts of fear
Traumatised, I'm so scared to feel
Wanna stop thinking gotta get to sleep
Gotta wake up fresh, get on my feet
Push the thought of you away
Do it today

I'm older than my years
Drowing in my tears
Surrounded by the fear
Since you went away, a year ago
At Christmas

You locked away your secrets
Kept them away from me
I only came to say goodbye, now you finally see
You wanna start all over again, make it work this time
But I don't wanna end up feeling far away from fine

I memorised, what you said to me
So surprised, it was hell to be
So frustrated with the way we were
Not a single word could make it work
Now look at us today
We blew it away

I'm older than my years
Drowing in my tears
Surrounded by the fear
Since you went away, a year ago
At Christmas

---

PS just discovered through IMDB (the internet movie database) that there's a TON of i *heart* huckabees websites. try this questionnaire out.. would you believe i'm a solitary casanova? ^^;

timestamp: anonymous 22:52 0 comments