the LITTLE things

FIN addendum

2009-12-24T22:55:00.001+11:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ntrvrz/

FIN

2009-11-08T01:39:00.003+11:00

You know how the cliche goes: "every good thing must come to an end". This blog feels like a cliche hence it will end like a cliche. I started this when I finished year 12 so it's sort of appropriate that I should finish this when I finish uni. If you had asked me when I started this in 2005 I wouldn't have guessed that things would turn out like this. One last update? Why the hell not? There isn't much to update anyway.

I finished the last of the exams we'll have to wait and see how I went. In the mean times I have a driving test to pass, a car to buy, a house to rent, and a whole lot of growing-up to do.

That brings me to the reason why this blog will not be updated in the future, it all has to do with what I don't post here. I reread the archive and I felt as if I hadn't done any growing these past 4 years, I did but it was not documented here for reasons that will not be documented here. I started this blog with the intention of documenting everything or at the very least attempting to do so. Since that original intention had been compromised for so long now, what is the use of doing this?

So just like the title of that Michael Jackson documentary, this is it (well at least I had the good taste to not make that the title of this post) boys and girls. Adios Amigos, it had been fun.

P.S. I developed a sort of addiction to shooting pictures with old 35mm film cameras, pictures would be on Flickr somewhere some time in the future.

No. 56

2009-09-20T11:56:00.000+10:00

No. 55

2009-09-19T11:55:00.000+10:00

No. 54

2009-09-18T11:54:00.000+10:00

No. 53

2009-09-17T11:53:00.000+10:00

No. 52

2009-09-16T11:52:00.000+10:00

No. 51

2009-09-15T23:49:00.002+10:00

One month

2009-07-26T21:16:00.002+10:00

I know, I know I was supposed to update this 4 weeks ago. That was when my mid-year holiday started. What can I say? Shit happened that prevented me from posting. I should say that shit happened that ruined my mood for doing anything in general and blogging specifically. Nothing physically prevented me from blogging. I still possess 10 fingers and 10 toes and regretfully one head and one brain. I'll give you a dot point version of the last month:

- Exams finished
- I gained some weight due to lack of physical activities
- I lost some weight due to stress
- Rejections rejections rejections galore
- I lost a family member

Wow, what a bombshell. My grandmother passed away. You'll be surprised how conversations tend to fizzle out when someone's death is mentioned. This will sound callous but I had thought last year that I would be glad when she's gone. There was a lot of "drama" involved in having my grandmother living with us. Her family was so dysfunctional it was not funny. Having her living with us made us prone to "drama" and dysfunction as well. I resented that. Her passing didn't make me feel glad. I felt sad, guilty, melancholy. I was a fucking emo for a whole week after that. I am still a bit emo when I see her pictures and something of hers in the house.

There was a lot of crying. The phone seemed to constantly ring. I went to the funeral service at a church. I hadn't been to a church in a while. I spent the duration of the service pondering on 2 things. The pointlessness of prayers and the lesson one should learn from my grandmother's life. Now assuming that there is a god and he is omniscient why does he need us mere mortals to tell him something he should be aware of already? And if he is not aware how can we humans have the audacity to ask him to change planned events just to suit us? Does god even have a firm plan for the universe?

As to what one (meaning me) should learn from my grandmother's life, I came to these concise points
- don't have children
- if you do have children, don't give them any money
- if you do give them money, be fair
- don't judge

Yup, it was time well spent in the church

What else happened? I found myself inheriting a DSLR from the Alarmist. Yup more photos. Well not really, I'm still debating about continuing with the photos here. I'm still debating about having this blog at all. We'll see.

No. 50: deserted

2009-06-27T13:50:00.000+10:00

No. 49: nails

2009-06-26T13:49:00.000+10:00

No. 48: the meeting place

2009-06-25T13:48:00.000+10:00

No. 47: dexter

2009-06-24T13:46:00.000+10:00

No. 46: lines

2009-06-23T13:45:00.001+10:00

No. 45: still

2009-06-22T13:44:00.000+10:00

No. 44: then rat sees god

2009-06-21T13:42:00.001+10:00

No. 43: rat sees the light

2009-06-20T13:40:00.002+10:00

something to ponder

2009-05-30T23:04:00.000+10:00

Religion - watch more funny videos

may music mix

2009-05-06T20:42:00.000+10:00

hey, I think this will be the shape of things to come. Long periods of no update then really frakking short updates. Anyway, I've been busy with all the usual shit plus uni plus work plus non-paid work. All my free time goes into reading the pile of books I put a picture up a few weeks ago (plus a few other books not in that pile on the side) and watching a few TV shows which I highly recommend watching:
- Better off Ted
- Harper's Island
Seriously. Get in on them. They're new shows so you won't have to download that many episodes. The first show is a comedy, the other is a horror/drama TV series. Trust me they're good.
On with the music. Only one file this time and it's a zip file. Random favourites of mine. Enjoy.
May music mix

imagine submitting this for the pcol assignment

2009-04-17T15:47:00.001+10:00

Unfinished business

2009-04-11T12:42:00.002+10:00

I have a problem, a book problem. Or maybe it's a mental concentration problem. I can't seem to finish reading these books. So the pile kept growing.

No. 42: rantings & ravings

2009-03-28T12:22:00.002+11:00

A tiny snippet of a page of my moleskine from one of my weirder days. I took the picture because I like the phrase "spewing garbage". Maybe the ulterior motive was to tease the Doodler. Maybe.

Note: taken with a Canon PowerShot G9, not my usual crappy Samsung phone.
Question: is Burt the same as Bert?

No. 41: odd one out

2009-03-23T09:51:00.000+11:00

No. 40: the foreseeable economic future

2009-03-22T09:50:00.000+11:00

assignment time

2009-03-21T15:17:00.002+11:00

This is why I want a second monitor

No. 39: almost deserted

2009-03-21T09:46:00.000+11:00

Just in time for your weekend downloads

2009-03-20T10:25:00.001+11:00

2. TWO different mixes since someone is bored somewhere but then that person doesn't have a MP3 player so I don't know how she's gonna listen to this. The first one is the stuff I've been listening to a lot during the last 2 weeks: a lot more pop than rock but not your standard Britney pop. The second one is instrumental music.
Mix 1: the sing along mix
Mix 2: Lyrics are overrated

EDIT: The file extensions are .zip. Add that in at the end before you unzip. Thanks Bert for bringing that issue up.

No. 38: deserted

2009-03-20T09:45:00.000+11:00

thoughts after 2 weeks of uni and other tidbits

2009-03-19T09:53:00.000+11:00

I was looking forward to going back to uni after 3 weeks of placement. After 2 weeks of uni, I can't wait for this whole "best year of your life" to be over. Have you ever thought about all the best years people always tell you to enjoy? Like year 12 and first year of uni? I never seem to be able to discern why they call hellish years the best when I was going through them. They only seem good in retrospect. So right now I think this year sucks major hairy balls infested with lice. Ask me again in 10 years.

I bought another ipod. I know, I've already got 3 ipods and only one set of ears. It was a birthday present, albeit from me to myself. It's the product of one of my usual online shenanigans on eBay. I go into auctions and bid on an item to see how far the snipers are gonna go to buy the item. Most of the time the items went for a few hundred dollars more than my bid. Sometimes I got bitten in the ass. Twice actually. The first time was with my mobile phone. I needed a new phone at the time so I paid for it. The second time was the iPod touch. I didn't need it but I freaking want it. So I bought it. And the iPod touch was freaking awesome! After it's jailbroken that is.

I got a bit addicted to downloading and trying out apps. I've got 2 apps that imitate gun sounds how does that come in handy I don't know. You can use one as a bullet-less Russian roulette but what is the point of that? There's an 3 apps that generate Binaural beats which are supposed to get your brain into different states but if anyone knows how human ears work they would know that we cannot hear those frequency so if the apps work at all it would be because of placebo effect.
Games are fun and addictive which is why I don't have a lot of them. "Denying-pleasure" isn't my middle name but it might as well be.

The other Nuh-guy-an girl had a lot of fun playing Tap Tap Revenge. She's got a thing for games like DDR or Guitar hero. I think I might have a deafness to rhythm or something (i.e. inability to coordinate my fingers which can be some sort of neurological problem). Due to my lack of coordination and/or rhythm I tend to go for puzzles and that sort of games which bring me to this awesomely looking puzzle the Doodler gave me. Thanks Doodler, it kept me occupied for a whole 15 minutes.

What else did I want to talk about? Facebook. I don't advertise the fact that I have a facebook account. It's been there for probably a year. Gathering dust and not friends. It was a result of curiosity. I wanted to know what with this facebook thing people are all crazy about (you know when people are crazy about something when Mel & Koche on Sunrise talk about it incessantly). So I signed up, came to a conclusion that facebook is just another way to ~~get harassed~~ "stay connected to friends and family" online and promptly left it. Unexpectedly in the past week people have been adding me as friend on facebook. Since everytime someone does that an email get sent to my email and I am notified electronically that I am, in fact, not that person's mortal enemy. It would seem impolite to not accept the friendship requests you can add me as friend if you can find me but I appologise in advance for never replying to "poke" or whatever gross/cute/intriguing things that facebookers do.

In response to requests for more posting on this blog, I've succumbed to the new "cool" thing on the internet: Twitter. I think I ranted about microblogging a few years back, I can't remembered what I said exactly but the gist of it was rather negative. So that's me swallowing my words. Yet again. Now there's the quick update on the right hand side of the blog or you can follow it on my Twitter page. It is guaranteed to be updated daily, if not more frequent.

Something I heard in some current affair show on TV last week got me thinking; since when did "dedicated" means "not well trained"? The show was about teachers in special schools. The verbatim quote was "We have a team of dedicated but highly trained teachers". I think I'm just nitpicking.

Oh, before I go, a pic a day is back for a while due to limited interesting pictures. I do need to get out more. But that can wait until after June. Here's something to look forward to, I'll post some interesting music mix in a couple of days.

Adios amigos

No. 37: dread

2009-03-19T09:44:00.000+11:00

No. 36: closer

2009-03-18T09:41:00.000+11:00

No. 35: turn on the bright lights

2009-03-17T09:37:00.001+11:00

No. 34: a church

2009-03-16T09:36:00.001+11:00

No. 33: the faceless crowd

2009-03-15T09:32:00.000+11:00

Premature camera move never looks this good.

Thoughts after 2 weeks

2009-02-22T18:02:00.002+11:00

This blog is becoming more and more like a bulletin board with collections of headlines without elaborations. But really elaborations would take too much effort on my part and would deprive readers of a chance to use their formidable imagination to imagine the worst case scenario. Anyway, on with the thoughts.

- Once you're old and retired and brought down multiple conditions you're fucked
- If you're old, retired, have diabetes you're doubly fucked
- if you're old, retired, have diabetes and have unhealed wounds you're triply fucked
- everyone will eventually die
- I've never seen so many old people
- melanoma kills
- smoking kills
- glioblastoma multiforme is one nasty SOB

That is all

Before some of you go off to some faraway corner of this fire-bait of a state

2009-02-06T22:51:00.003+11:00

This post almost not made it because:
- the contents are almost too self-absorbed and irrelevant
- it almost got named "update". Again. For the umpteenth time.

This post made it because:
- I am bored with anxiousness or anxious with boredom. The true feelings actually oscillate between those very narrow non-extreme.
- I am feeling almost guilty for being a bit of a hermit lately.

My early birthday present. From the Alarmist. The Doodler should thank the Alarmist one day for giving me this Journal since The Doodler will definitely get to read this particular journal. I haven't finished wrecking the first page yet so ask me about it when you see me (if you're gonna see me at all this year).

One night in the middle of the heat wave last week I was outside enjoying the cool night since the inside of my house was fast resembling the inside of a heated oven. I played around with some settings on the camera and this is the product. First attempt at light drawing. And no I wasn't trying to write or draw anything with the flashlight. Just messing around.

Remember that rule I had about not posting pictures of people I know/related to me on here? Well listen to that sound, it's the sound of me swallowing my own words and changing it to not posting pictures featuring identifiable/recognisable parts of people I know/related to. Ready yourself for your picture on this blog pretty soon. With your face blacked out with my "awesome" photoshop skills. Oh, that's a picture of The Other Nuh-Guy-An Girl, the one who is yet to have her name de-identified into a codename here, or the one whose codename is something I can't remember. Or you can refer to her as that underage kid who should thank me more often for sneaking her into over 18's only concerts twice.

So that's it. Have fun at your corner of the dry state. Don't start fires, be it intentionally or unintentionally (by crashing your car into some dry tree). Don't kill each other even if you're fucking mad at them. Come back alive so that you can at least see my hermit ass again.

Maybe.

In case you haven't been completely entertained so far. Here's an Alarmist quote:

I always thought that it's called "The Bald and the Beautiful" instead of "The Bold and the Beautiful"

It's not something that happens everyday

2009-02-05T16:14:00.003+11:00

Elsevier Australia insisted on bestowing Professor-hood to me. I chose my normal title at least 4 times before completing the purchase for the my third pharmacy related book since 2006.

answers

2009-01-27T15:16:00.003+11:00

I despise naming posts "update". It's redundant, generic, unimaginative (unlike this post's title, also I'm not claiming to be imaginative, on the scale of 1 to 10; 1 being completely off the chart un-fraking-imaginative and 10 being psycho-killer imaginative I'm somewhere close to 4.5, bestowing the title "update" on any post would be straying away from average 4.5 towards the black hole of imagination that is 1) and sloppy. However, I despise not naming posts more so "update" the post must be named.

Why the Fraking hell was there no new posts.
Despite the appearance of spontaneity and stream-of-consciousness, posts are all planned as consistent with a (self-rated) score of 4.5 on the (self-made) imagination scale unless they're not planned. I started to write many posts and then they always ended up having one or several of these factors:
- Too personal
- Involved information related to work
- Too boring
- Too crazy
- Too sloppy
So those never see the light of the day. Fact: this post almost ended up not being published because of the last reason. Since I'm in the mood for sharing today, here's picture of 2 pages of my diary entry for today. I had to censored out the boring stuff (black), the work-related stuff (blue) and the personal stuff (red).

See how much I have left after that? Not much. And they don't look too coherent either, a drunken stream-of-consciousness would have been more coherent.
The other reason why I haven't been posting was because I've recently had this bout of compulsive diary writing as evidenced in the above picture. All kind of things ended up in my diary, usually just thoughts and interesting things I overheard, things too personal (to be posted on this blog at least). You might see me write in in one day because it goes everywhere with me.

Where the hell are the one picture per day posts?
I'm no photographer. I don't go out quite enough. I don't like taking picture of people and especially posed pictures. I don't like being in pictures. I don't post pictures with my face or anyone I know personally on this blog (or face-fucking-book either. Fact: there was a post about the evil of Facebook which was deemed too crazy to be published). So there's a limited number of pictures I can procure. Lucky for you since certain people dragged me out of my room, which increasingly looks and feels like a bat cave recently, on several occasions, you're gonna see a few new pictures in the not too distant future. After I've mustered enough patience to do a few touch-ups & sit through the upload process.

Say bye to Bush

2009-01-17T11:26:00.001+11:00

update

2009-01-10T20:12:00.002+11:00

I know, I know, I know, I should have posted something about a month ago. In fact I drafted a post with the intention that I would post it before the end of last year but never really finished the draft. The post was supposed to be a year-end list. I didn't finish it because I ran into a bit of a problem finalising what album/movie/book to put on that list. Looks like the list will never see the light of day, or should I say it would never see the 1's and 0's of the net. Here's something for 09's lists though, I give you the first entry into a whole new category:

"If this is the next fashion trend, I'm gouging my eyes out"

In all seriousness, what the hell did she think she was wearing? Did she simply forgot to put something over the pantyhoes in a very simple case of extreme blonde-ism? Or was it a modern take on The Emperor's new clothes?

Lady Gaga also makes it to my list of "If I have to hear that tune one more time I'm punching my eardrums out" (I of course would do no such thing since that fucking "Just Dance" song gets played literally every 15 minutes on the radio every night I work).

You'll see new post when I find something interesting to post about.

Not a loser, just bored. A very incomprehensive list of what I've been up to.

2008-12-06T14:43:00.003+11:00

So I might have lost it a little lately. What's with the daily picture shit right? Well, blame it on temporary insanity. It's stopped at day 32 anyway. There's a limited number of picture a person can take and post up. So what's the dealio with those you might ask. Just my way of not updating my blog when I update my blog. I might be a hypocrite sometimes but posting a picture everyday when I previously claimed to be too lazy to post everyday is not one of those instances of hypocrisy. Nope, I posted every one of those pictures last month and schedule them to appear everyday and voila, a post a day.

So what's up lately? Nothing much I didn't read as much as I thought I would, I actually studied for a bit. I surprised myself there because I don't do any studying during any of my holidays except for that one holiday before year 12 when I finished the year 12 maths textbook during the holiday and spent the whole year of maths classes doing pretty much nothing.

I watched a lot of US shows than I thought I would. The downside of downloading and watching a lot of shows is the monthly download limits. Everyone should watch Dexter if they haven't done so already. It's really funny, trust me, I know funny since I'm not funny at all.

What else have I done? I saw that new James Bond movie which I would advise everyone to not see and wait for the DVD release. Maybe I am temporarily mentally retarded but I don't understand the point of that movie. I don't understand why James Bond had to pout through the whole movie. Is he gonna take down that "secret" organisation in the next movie or what?

I also attempted to watch Date Movie after a glowing recommendation from my sister, not the Alarmist (what did I call her again?), she has a similar taste to mine when it comes to movies so I went ahead with it. Big fracking huge mistake. I thought the worst movie I have ever seen was Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever but Date Movie was a new low. I stopped watching after 10 minutes. I'm glad I didn't pay to see that movie.

Still on the topic of movies, I finally finished watching Requiem for a dream. I started watching that at the end of last year. It's not a particularly long movie it's just that I have other things to do. It's a great movie about drugs and addiction. I reckon all school kids should be shown this movie if not for the usual message of "and that is why you don't do drugs, drugs = bad, blah blah blah" then for the awesome soundtrack/score. If I have kids I'll show them this for sure. But then the best way of preventing kids from experimenting with drugs is to not have kids in the first place.

There you have it. Until next time. Adios amigos.

Day 32: trying out macro

2008-12-01T10:48:00.000+11:00

Day 31: utitled #4

2008-11-30T10:47:00.000+11:00

Day 29: look tough, they might let you go

2008-11-29T10:44:00.000+11:00

Day 28: "clean"

2008-11-28T10:43:00.000+11:00

Day 27: no idea what this picture is about

2008-11-27T10:42:00.000+11:00

Day 26: where's charlie?

2008-11-26T10:41:00.000+11:00

Day 25: bad weather

2008-11-25T10:32:00.000+11:00

Day 24: fascade #2

2008-11-24T10:34:00.000+11:00

More left-over from that Ballarat trip

Day 23: you should look up more #3

2008-11-23T10:33:00.000+11:00

Day 22: fascade

2008-11-22T10:31:00.000+11:00

Left over from Ballarat

Day 21: you should look up more #2

2008-11-21T10:30:00.000+11:00

A very short list of things that made me lol'ed lately

2008-11-20T20:45:00.002+11:00

Youtube comments. I never really saw the point of having a commenting system on Youtube until the day that my videos loaded so slowly that I had nothing better to read than the comments. Now I read the comments just for the comedic values they hold. Where else to you expect to see people calling other people "imbecile"? Oh, read this from the bottom up
Manbra? Menssire? Whatever you call them, they're lol-worthy.

Arrested Development. That show is hilarious, the Pencil Chewer was right.

This

Day 20: track fire

2008-11-20T10:27:00.000+11:00

Day 19: up right

2008-11-19T10:26:00.000+11:00

Day 18: untitled #3

2008-11-18T10:00:00.001+11:00

Day 17: forward!

2008-11-17T09:01:00.000+11:00

Day 16: rain

2008-11-16T09:00:00.000+11:00

Day 15: man's will

2008-11-15T20:57:00.001+11:00

Day 14: special needs

2008-11-14T08:54:00.001+11:00

Day 13: waiting #2

2008-11-13T20:46:00.003+11:00

Day 12: What'cha lookin' at punk?

2008-11-12T14:29:00.003+11:00

Day 11: untitled #2

2008-11-11T14:14:00.000+11:00

Day 10: untitled #1

2008-11-10T20:58:00.001+11:00

It's actually called "quick, before those crazy people realize that you're taking picture of them" but that is just too not funny.

Day 9: pact like sardines

2008-11-09T13:27:00.001+11:00

Day 8: Waiting

2008-11-08T13:00:00.000+11:00

Day 7: Tall

2008-11-07T22:13:00.001+11:00

The Alarmist Quote of the day

2008-11-06T21:27:00.002+11:00

This is too funny to wait until after Monday. I hope no Aboriginal people is offended, in her defence, she was looking at the picture via thumbnail view.

Day 6: you should look up sometimes

2008-11-06T20:47:00.001+11:00

Day 5: insignificance

2008-11-05T00:42:00.003+11:00

Day 4: Sit down, Stand up

2008-11-04T17:57:00.005+11:00

Day 3: I wanted to walk though the empty streets and feel something constant under my feet

2008-11-03T14:48:00.003+11:00

Yet another pretentious reference to another "obscure" band. See if you can find it.

Day 2: new york cares

2008-11-02T15:48:00.003+11:00

I was gonna call this "turn on the bright lights" but then that isn't quite obscure enough so.

Day 1: shaky camera

2008-11-01T23:33:00.002+11:00

sssadf aer adfadf or the "I don't know what to call this post" post

2008-10-20T00:42:00.003+11:00

As promised, more pictures. By now you would have realised that I don't like taking pictures of myself using my own camera or using anyone's cameras for that matter. If I ever decide to upload pictures onto my facebook account (I wonder if it's still there as I type this, I heard somewhere that you can't delete whatever you put up there once it's up there) you won't see me in it for sure.

I took a whole bunch of pictures during the trip but they're pretty much pictures of scenery and inanimate objects. Some looked pretty cool actually, once I've learned some photoshop chops I'll upload the results.

I probably won't be updating for a while unless I feel like procrastinating. Until then, enjoy the following tune. The title describes what I feel right now, just remove the "ex" from the last word and substitute "tudying" in.

PS. Pinkerton is a freaking good album.

What happened in Ballarat, the lessons learned

2008-10-14T14:54:00.005+11:00

Here I go getting the story on record as vague as I can. For the tell-all version, you'll have to find my other blog which I doubt you can so you're gonna have to make do with this version.

On the scale of unpleasantness writing a blog post right now is slightly a little less unpleasant than studying. On the same scale of unpleasantness, I don't know where the whole 3 weeks of Ballarat would be. It depends on what side of the bed I get up on each day. My feelings regarding those 3 weeks range from rather bleak to "hey it's over" (which is such a cop-out kind of feeling).

The worst of it was finding out what you thought about a certain situation/place/person was fucking spot-on. Somehow confirmation of what was in my head, the absolute worst thing that I thought could happen, actually made it worst. I tend to think in a sort of worst-case scenarios so when slightly less-bad scenarios happen I can at least say to myself "well, at least it's not the worst thing that can happen". I thought if the worst-case scenarios ever become reality I would say, in my usual outwardly nonchalance, to myself "hey, you've lived through the worst, there's nothing worse", except, maybe, that happening again.

Lesson learned no. 1: do not ever try to confirm the worst.

If you know me, I'm not a big fan of confrontations. I don't go looking for them, I ignore them if they pop up, I even go as far as accepting responsibility even if it isn't actually my fault. All in the name of keeping the peace. On a good day when I'm puffed full of my own importance I would say I was being noble. On a bad day I would say I was being a coward. On a normal day I would not acknowledge that I have two rather polarised positions on the same issue, which, unsurprisingly and ironically enough, brings us back to my avoidance of confrontations even self-confrontations.

Lesson learned no. 2: be less noble or grow a spine, start looking out for your own interests instead of other people's.

This is kinda related to lesson no. 1 and 2 for that matter, I had a recent conversation with a friend whereupon the questions "When did you realise that a certain situation/person can be like that? Didn't you already suspect that something like that can happen?" were asked. My replies to those would be "a long time ago" and "yeah". What I thought was only my opinion and people's opinions can differ greatly. Fuck it, even my own opinions on the same thing can differ greatly. I usually shelf my opinion until someone else voiced a similar view. I don't know why I need to validate my own opinion that way. Maybe it's because I'm not quite comfortable with feelings that are not the norm. Or maybe I just don't want to think the worst of every situation/person, I'm already cynical, I don't need to be more cynical.

Lesson learned no. 3: what you feel is absolutely perfect even if it's not the norm.

In regards to the lessons learned, I think that the whole trip was quite illuminating, how else are you gonna learn if you don't make a mess of it? The same cannot be said for lesson no. 4 which I did learn in those 3 weeks.

Lesson learned no. 4: I don't think I've been doing number 2 correctly.

There, I hope this post explains something or maybe nothing, I know it doesn't really tell you what happened and there's the whole introspective self-centred ramblings going on (introverts are self-centred I tell ya, all the things that are wrong have got to have something to do with them) but that's all you're gonna get here.

this is later and here are some more pictures

2008-10-08T00:11:00.005+11:00

Those are the pictures of the Wendouree lake in Ballarat. It used to have a lot of water but now it doesn't have as much (unlike Jenny from the block, she used to have little now she has a lot). When I saw that there was a lake on the map I got excited since it looked pretty big. I actually took the pictures in a reversed, I took the third picture first. That was my first look at the lake. Rather underwhelming. The second picture was taken a day after a whole day of raining. The first picture was from almost the other side of the lake.

I think I'm gonna drag these pictures out over several posts, mainly because I need to apply a lot of wit to them to transform them from same old boring pictures to ...um wit-filled, funny pictures. See if you can spot a Death Cab reference there. That's pretty obvious, if you can't you:

a. Have no idea what the heck Death Cab is or who they are (i.e. your music knowledge sucks).
b. Maybe know who they are but have never heard that song (which is quite unlikely because that song is probably their best song)
c. Can't read English good (if so, what the heck are you doing reading my blog?)
d. Are blind thus you can't see the picture (if so, you're missing out).
e. All of the above
f. Are still reading this and probably wondering why are there 6 options to choose from, aren't multiple choice questions usually give a maximum of 5 options?

3 weeks and this is all you get??!!!

2008-10-03T17:01:00.003+10:00

I know, as a reader of my blog I would be outraged too. But assignments to do, things to hand in, exams to study for, etc. and don't forget, table to sort out. More pictures later I guess.

A few things before I'm gone

2008-09-06T12:53:00.002+10:00

I'll try to post something in the next 3 weeks. Don't hold your breath though, I won't be responsible for anyone dying because of such act, I barely post regularly when I have internet access 24/7 so no internet access might equate no posting at all.

What's up lately? Nothing much, I've finally finished all the nagging assignments/assessments. I bought a few books (three) with the intention of reading them in the next 3 weeks but ended up reading them last week when I had a mini semester break. I guess I won't be reading anything besides lecture notes in the next 3 weeks then.

That's it I think. Here's some music to make this post look better cosmetically. Someone asked me lately if I listen to any music at all since I don't know any of the artists they were talking to me about. My answer: Of course I listen to music, I just don't listen to the top40 music. The person went on to say something about my taste being obscure. The way that person said "obscure" made you think "obscure" equates "shit". So here's all I'm gonna say to that person: obscure is freaking good. Here're some obscure good shit that have been rocking my world at the moment.

Until the next time amigos. Hopefully soon.

WTF indeed

2008-08-22T15:39:00.004+10:00

I assume the picture above would be the standard reaction everytime you visit my blog just to see that I haven't updated it. I was like that too, inside. I've been doing a lot of thinking, what usually runs through my head was "wtf is wrong with me?". It's just a phase I hope. If it's not a phase, there's always antidepressants which I've learned to love and ultimately hate recently. There's no better way to turn a person against a particular thing, in this case: antidepressants, than making said person do an extended assignment on said thing.

So what else I've been doing lately? I started reading again. It started because I was bored one day and decided to visit my favourite secondhand bookshop. There the promises of being thrilled by the "multi-layered secrets of The Eight" got the better of me. I wasn't thrilled by that book. The thought that stuck with me after finished that book was "That is it?". I expected too much out of it and was disappointed. Don't ever read "The Eights" by Katherine Neville. It's a waste of time especially if you have read the Da Vinci Code.

Since I wasted time reading a disappointing book already I read another in hope of getting at least some excitement into my life because, gosh, all the excitement of antidepressants, neurosis and CNS disorders are not ever enough. So I read "The hotel New Hampshire" and I was charmed. To be honest, after coming off of a really bad book you're easily charmed by anything. Don't let that deters you from reading it though. It's a great book, I've already lined up 2 more books from the same author to read in the upcoming "internship" period.

I'm trying my best to not be my usual cynical self, so I'm gonna just say that the "internship" would definitely be a learning experience. I'll definitely tell you about it once that is done with.

OK, what's more to say? The Olympics. Do you watch it? I watched it when I have dinner and breakfast and all I can say is that I effing hate the Sunrise people, especially Mel. Leave it to that woman to say the lamest, most cliche statements ever. Mostly it's along the line of "you must be so proud" to people who had just won gold or silver or bronze. Of course they're proud, why do you need to spell it out?

I must admit that was unfair to go off on the Sunrise people like that. I've just realised that I only hate that show because they're always so cheerful. Somehow their cheerfulness seems really artificial to me. Just like the kind of artificial cheerfulness I put on for work. Pencil-Chewer said something along the line of Pharmacists are the guardians of the stupid and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm being cynical again.

Back to the Olympics, I had a great time watching Softball the other night with my little sister. Not because we enjoy watching sports, it's because we're trying to guess which of the players are gay. They all look pretty gay to me. Cliche, I know but some cliche are true.

Alright, I think that this is quite enough to get some of you off my back about updating. I'm gonna leave you something that I'm slightly addicted to at the moment. It's a podcast called RadioLab. Seriously fascinating stuff, listen to it on your upcoming "learning experience".

Promise I'll update soon.

Also, go download the new Bloc Party's album. It's really different, in a good way.

what might be wrong with me

2008-07-19T21:04:00.001+10:00

People who are introverted and who have anxious tendencies may be more likely to develop a depressive disorder. Such people often lack the social skills to adjust to life pressures.

So once upon a time there was this person...

2008-06-29T13:33:00.002+10:00

...who wanted nothing but to be alone and be completely selfish and not talk to anybody for a few days at least. As fate would have it, the person obviously did not get what he/she wanted. First there was a friend who the person had not seen for six year who turned up out of the blue, albeit the friend did announce her sudden miraculous appearance 2-3 days in advance. Then there were half a dozen of friends who had not seen the person's parents for nigh 30 years. So between entertaining the friend from 6 years ago and entertaining the parents' friends from 30 years ago and working a job that the person doesn't even know that he/she likes or not, the person has not had any quality time alone. End of story.

So yeah, that was the past week. My parents had some friends over, and in the usual cheap Asian style, we did not go to a restaurant. Apparently you can't "talk" in a restaurant, or in a coffee shop. You can only "talk" at home. I'll tell you what you can also do at home after having a dinner party: Clean up. That's really fun. Especially when you use a lot of non-disposable plates and glasses. We can have an after-party-clean-up party. Which sadly none of the guests can take part in. That's what I don't like about parties besides the talking: The clean up. I don't know what I'll be like in the future but I'm sure as hell that if I have a 30-year reunion party it would be in a restaurant.

About the friend from 6 years ago. She stayed with us for a few days and since officially she is my friend I got to hang out with her. The funny thing was her mum was my mum's friend back in highschool. So half of our genetic make-ups have been friends since before we were born. Our dads didn't know each other. So I got to spend a few days catching up with all happenings over the last 6 years. That's always been a personal favourite activity of mine. Apparently another friend of mine is getting married, gosh they marry early in Vietnam. We went to the art gallery and a few other places. We took pictures of ourselves (yet another favourite activity of mine, gosh I wonder why I hate last week so much). We spent a lot of awkward moment of silence together. Yeah that was "awesome".

Seriously now, it was, for me, an awkward situation. I did not keep in touch with my old old friends. We didn't have anything in common. I tried to be interested in what was happening to them but they're in a different country and everything was far from relevant or even interesting for me. They were busy most of the time so eventually I stopped trying to be interested and we stopped emailing. The one question that I got asked quite often during her brief stay with us was "If you don't use Facebook, what do you do with your time?". And the honest answer to that would be "I spent my time not trying to talk to people who I haven't talked to for years or "friends" who I don't even know I have".

The main problem I have with Facebook is that it forces me to talk to people I don't want to talk to. I'm basically a nice person and if someone, anyone sent me a message I feel obliged to reply. (A side note to the Crazy Lecture Note Doodler: Blogger messed up and didn't notify me about your comment which was why I didn't reply but this whole post is basically a very long answer to your question). It bothers me when I have to block people on MSN or Facespace. The simple solution to all of that is just not using MSN or Facebook. Besides, I think Facebook kinda ruins the whole 10 or 20 year reunion thing. If everyone's on Facebook the reunion party's gonna be redundant. What the hell do you talk about then?

My friend left on Thursday, I thought I would have the whole Friday to myself. But no, as it turned out I had to cover for somebody at work. Initially it was from 9am to 1pm. It stretched out to be from nine to five. Then we went over to my cousin's, because we haven't done so in a long time. Then on Saturday I went to a birthday party. Then I thought I would have some serious quality time alone today, on Sunday, which, as it turned out, I don't. This whole holiday's turning into a big fat joke.

There, we're up-to-date with what's been happening to me. Here's a nice song for you all to enjoy. I'm off to find some quality time alone, which I doubt I would find.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jon3xjdzut1

2 songs

2008-06-21T01:22:00.003+10:00

No it's not over yet. In the mean time, here's something to listen to. I've been playing these songs a lot lately. Favourite songs of the month and they're not from Death Cab or Coldplay either.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qhfzwdvebpy
http://www.mediafire.com/?muvymgb0doo

Talking about Coldplay, I assume everyone's heard their new album already. I don't listen to the radio but I think they'll all playing nothing but Coldplay from now until next year. I had a funny listening relationship with Coldplay. I like their albums but after listening to any of their albums all the way through for about 5 times, I don't like them anymore. I'm actually quite glad that I didn't buy the album when it came out last week. And why didn't I get the album last week? I was stuck at home studying. Wow, the bright side of actually studying.

That's it for today, go download the 2 tracks. Seriously, they're good.

Not done with exams yet but...

2008-06-18T21:45:00.003+10:00

I feel the need to say FUCK.
No, the exams haven't been smooth. They've been a steady, albeit rocky, downhill slope. Which was totally fine with me because I've been sustaining my positivity on the fact that next Monday after I've done my last exam, after I've dragged my exam-weary self home from work that night I would have 2 weeks all to myself. Yeah, I've planned everything out, I'll be at home, mostly except for a few parties, listening to 30+ gig of music I've been downloading in the past 6 weeks and reading a few books I've been meaning to read. And now I've just found out that even that simple wish to be totally antisocial and self-absorbed will absolutely not be fulfilled. Fucked! Indeed.

You know the drill, I'll be back once June's gone

2008-06-01T15:40:00.002+10:00

The sad, sad affair of exam cramming. I'll be back some time this month with the same old boring rants. In the mean time here's a video that blew my mind at 2 am this morning. It might look like nothing extraordinary to you but for someone who doesn't know how to play an instrument and who was up way past their normal bedtime it was amazing.

things you should definitely download

2008-05-11T01:15:00.002+10:00

I'll keep this short. Download this. Also, Coldplay's got a new album coming out pretty soon, you can listen to one new song from their myspace. Alright, I'm gonna go into a exam studying mode from now until mid-June.

weird things I've been doing recently

2008-04-30T00:50:00.005+10:00

Yo, I was gonna post something that I thought was an awesome blog idea when I was writing it in my diary but then something got lost in the transition process from paper to digital and it reads like an emo kid rambling so that plan was scratched until I can de-emolified that post that is.

OK weird things I've realised recently:

I'm addicted to Flickr.com. It all started after posting that picture of the contents of my bag a while ago. It's quite a rage in Flickr.com. It's actually awesome. Take a look at this. Read all the notes. Isn't that awesome? Ok, maybe not, it's a bad example. Just search for something along the line of "what's in my bag" in flickr and you'll be on your way to an obsession. I got over the bag contents obsession a few days ago after I substituted one addiction for another (harm reduction in action yay!) by getting myself addicted to pictures of people's desks.

Which brings me to the picture at the beginning of the post. Why did I post it? Well, when you have nothing to post, anything is posting-material. That and I thought my table was messy enough to be cool. What can you do with that picture? Well, at the very least you can play "I spy" with it. I'll get you started, try to find
1. A handheld gaming device
2. All 3 of my ipods.

What's next. I've recently discovered my ability to stay up really late. It's got nothing to do with ability actually. It's got a lot to do with flickr addiction/obsession and being too tired and too lazy to move myself from my desk to my bed (wow that almost rhyme) which is literally 2 metres away.

How can you be too lazy to go to bed you might ask. Well, I have rituals I have to do before going to bed or else I'd feel weird in bed. Rituals like doing 30 crunches and then apply all the moisturising stuff so that my skin stay hydrated and then there's the eye-drops so that my only pair of eyes would be hydrated. The weather really fracks me up lately.

All in all that would take a few minutes but when you're too tired a few minutes doing that seem like a few hours. And then I have to choose the music I'd drift to sleep to (one of the perks of having 3 ipods and have recently overcome my fear of running out of battery: one ipod stays on my bed side table/stand/drawer all the time). Pre-bed is an exhausting business I tell ya. Right this moment, I'm delaying going to bed because I'm extremely warm at my table and my bed is probably extremely cold, that and the dreaded pre-bed rituals.

Last weird thing, I'm reading again and guess what I'm reading? A travel guide for Southern France. Why is that weird? Well, for one: I have no intention of visiting France, Southern or Northern or Eastern or Western for that matter, in the near future. And two: the guide book was published in 1926 (fact: it's actually older than my parents, almost as old as my grandmother). I got it from a secondhand bookstore because I liked the feel of the book. It's got a very bible-like feel to it (Let's just say I'm an appreciator of good paper in books) without being a bible. I find that it has a calmative effect on me when I read the "guides".

NIN service announcement and other goodies

2008-04-25T23:34:00.005+10:00

New single downloads available on nin.com. Go download it, you only have to leave an email address to get the link for the free download. Not instrumental. There's a cryptic message in the comment of the ID3 tag of the song though. If you don't know what I'm babbling about and/or can't be bother checking the comment out and/or don't give a frack, the comment says "Go to www.nin.com May 5". Looks like NIN's gonna have a new album out. I mean yet another album out.

I have recently developed an annoying habit of recommending music to other people. It usually doesn't go over well. Case in point: Indian Bread didn't like Tegan and Sara which makes me sad.

At the very least one of my recommendations didn't fall on deaf ears. Bert likes Russian Circles, YAY!. Here're something along that vein that I might have forgotten to give to Bert on Wednesday. All legal Myspace stuff. You know where and how to get them.
Long distance calling
Johnnytwentythree

I've not given up on Indian Bread yet, you're not getting off that easy, here's something you should like.

Questions that beg for sarcastic answer

2008-04-20T22:16:00.004+10:00

I don't know if it's just my sarcastic nature or that people generally ask me lots of questions that they don't need to ask me. If I take a while to answer your question it can be because of a few reasons (in increasing frequency order):

I know the answer but I take time to answer it because that's what job interview books advise. Really, it makes you look more thoughtful and articulate. Try it sometime but be aware that you should not take too long to answer basic questions like "What's 2+2?". Taking a few seconds to answer that will make you look dumb. Unless you can come up with some philosophical view on why 4 is the answer.
I know that I know the answer but I can't remember what the answer is. Hence the pause before the answer is the time for the cogs in my brain to turn to compute the answer for you. Example: "What's the side effects of Enalapril?". I have to go through all the steps that are affected by ACE inhibitors to arrive at hyperkalaemia.
I don't know the answer hence I need time to make one up and appear legitimate at the same time. Example: "why did the Chinese build the great wall of China?". To keep the rabbits out of course.
And last but not least the questions to which the answers are so obvious and yet the other person just had to ask me anyway. The pause before the answer is the time I take to roll my imagined/internal eyes, hold back a sarcastic answer and answer the question.

A few questions that beg for a sarcastic comment that I've got recently:

"Should I lie down if my nose bleeds?"
Obviously we have a nose-bleeds virgin here. No you stand as up right as you can until all 5L of your blood is drained through your nose.

"You got a haircut? Is it shorter?"
No it's actually longer. I don't get why people call it a "hair cut" when it's actually makes your hair longer. Ironic isn't it?

"Are we going to eat it?" (regarding a birthday cake for Bert)
No, we're gonna put candles on it, light it up, sing the song and watch it decomposes on the table.

"Why don't you post on your blog more regularly?"
Because I have nothing to do at home, nothing at all so I use all my time to sleep and can't possibly blog.

This is why "be less sarcastic" is on my new year's resolution. It's actually on top of the resolution I set for myself everyday.

I investigate the contents of my bag

2008-04-09T20:57:00.002+10:00

Last Friday I realised something was definitely wrong with my backpack. Friday is the day I have only 2 lectures. Somehow my bag was the same weight as what I remember my backpack from the time in high school when I was still motivated enough to bring text books to school. So I set out to find out why my bag was that heavy. And I took a picture of that too.

I found out why my bag was heavy. It's because I have several fears. From looking at the above picture you'd probably work out my first fear already. Anyhow, if you haven't here's a list.

Fear of running out of battery (FOROOB). Yes I do use all three of my iPods everyday. I have at least 2 of them in my bag everyday. On Friday I had all three of them. Even though they don't weigh much they did contribute the the weight of the whole pack.
Fear of losing my purse/wallet/whatever you call what you use to store cards and other stuff (let's abbreviate that to FOL). I have 3 purses/wallets. One is for train tickets, one is for bank cards that I use regularly and the last one is for card that I don't use regularly but still feel the need to bring with me because in addition to the first two fears I also suffer from Fear of missing out (FOMO) which I will discuss in the next dot point. I actually have another card thing to hold library cards and uni stuff. Don't laugh at my FOL. What if one day you lose whatever you use to hold all your cards plus money plus ticket because you manage to lose the thing that holds all of those? At least if/when I lose one of my purses/wallets/card holders I won't lose everything. It's a real lack of endogenous opiates (in this case Enkephalin) in the Periaqueductal Grey Area (obviously I took time out from deciphering my pharmacology notes to write this post) to get new cards from anywhere.
And FOMO. This one is the biggest contributor to the weight. Why? Because of this I just had to bring about 5 times the amount of notes that I could possibly had time to reread while waiting for my lecture at 12.30. Because of this I had to bring 10 times the number of pens that I could ever use.

So in my attempt to reduce the weight of my bag today. I left the mp3 players and 1 ipod at home together with a bunch of notes and pens and other unnecessary stuff. Turned out I also left my USB drive at home and of all days today was the day I wanted to download some lectures at uni to bring home. See why I have FOMO? You'll never know when you need these stuff.
Before you bother to ask (if you bother at all) I'll just answer the few questions that you might have.

Q: Why do you have a bottle of Coumadin in your bag?
A: It's used to store moisturiser. Bringing the whole tub of moisturiser in my bag just seems too extreme. You'll never need that much moisturiser.

Q: Why do you have 2 pairs of headphones?
A: One pair is for the car ride with my Mum in the morning, it's easier for her to talk to me with the ear buds. One pair is for the train ride home, it's easier for me to ignore other people's conversations with the over the ear headphones.

Q: Why do you have 2 sets of keys?
A: I forgot that I have one set in my bag because it's always buried under other stuff in my bag.

Q: Why do you have 2 mp3 players in addition to the ipods?
A: They have voice recording. One is bigger in capacity than the other. One doesn't need cord to connect to a computer which I also use as a plan B/emergency USB drive (which I promptly left home today with the plan A drive as well)

Q: what are the batteries for?
A: the mp3 players plus because I have FOROOB.

Anymore questions?

Just to cover every questions

2008-04-01T20:46:00.002+11:00

Snapped by the Floorober ages ago.

A very quick update (unless it turns out differently or unless I severely overestimated your reading speed)

2008-03-31T23:42:00.002+11:00

The Alarmist moved back home, full-time. Readers probably would rejoice because chances are she's gonna say something funny anyday now. She actually said something funny last week but I have been developing selective amnesia when it comes to anything that doesn't have anything to do with my new Macbook or The Floorober's new Nintendo DS lite. So what I've been trying to say is that I've got a lot of stuff on my little brain and can't remember what the Alarmist said that was so damn funny the other day. Chances are I dreamt that all up and she didn't say anything funny. I guess you all will have to wait until I remember what happened.

I bought a new laptop. It's a Macbook. Why I bought it? Well there are a few reasons actually:

I don't want to use Windows Vista
I want a cheap laptop (surprisingly the Macbook is actually quite cheap, but add the word Air in and you'll get a seriously overpriced laptop)http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
I get a free iPod with my laptop. I'm all for free iPods because seriously "2 iPods are not enough".

I just hope that I don't get iScrewed again. What can I say about my new laptop? I freaking love it. The Mac OS takes a little time to get used to. I still think that iTunes is weird but I've developed an appreciation for it. It's just that I'm used to organising my music folders manually and not trusting any software enough with organising it the way that I want.

So I've been spending a lot of time with my new laptop, and some of the time with the Floorober's Nintendo DS lite. She bought a mod chip so we've been playing quite a lot of games despite my almost hatred for games. I still don't get those Nintendo games. My absolute favourite at the moment is Mario Kart and it's the only game that I play. I tried those brain training games. I just don't think that those games do much for your brain. They claim to be measuring your "brain age", absolute bollocks. I tried 2 of those games on the same day and the first one said that I had the brain age of someone in their 20s, the other game said I have the brain age of a 78-year old. Discrepancy much?

What I'm extremely excited about this week is the fact that the last season of Battlestar Galactica is finally being shown. Do you know how exciting that is? Finally the last Cylon will be revealed!

3 reasons why I love Easter, why I don't like computer games and other unrelated topics

2008-03-24T21:51:00.006+11:00

First off, the reasons why I love Easter:

Uni holiday
Double pay (if you work on Easter Friday and Monday)
Sleep (this is a derivative reason due to the fact that it's uni holiday but "2 reasons why I love Easter" doesn't sound as good as "3 reasons why I love Easter")

Apart from all those reasons, there's nothing to make Easter more special than my birthday which was the National Sorry Day if you have to know. Why does it have to be special just because it's an important day to one of the main religions of the world?

I spent Friday at work contemplating whether Jesus should be called a zombie or a vampire. After some thinking I arrived at zombie, to be a vampire you have to do all sort of mutual blood drinking between the vampire and the one that would be turned into a vampire and other metaphysical bullshit according to Buffy the vampire slayer. But then didn't he offer his blood and his flesh, metaphorically speaking, to his disciples in the last supper? Does that count as reverse vampirism? Whatever, who cares? We don't even know if Jesus did come back. And by "know" I mean some scientific proof other than the well documented "scientific" facts from the world-renounced, "reason-friendly", thousand-year-old, beloved tome that is the Bible.

I've always wondered, but not intrigued and frankly too lazy to find out, about the deal with Easter bunnies and Easter eggs. What the heck does that have to do with a man dying on a cross and then coming back to life three days later? Well, now I know after reading this rather informative post. Think of it as recommended reading of the day.

The Floorober bought a Nintendo DS lite last week even after all my efforts in dissuading her from such foolish, time-wasting, antisocial and juvenile past-time. Oh we do play Halo occasionally, I have not problems with video games except for one which I will be discussing later. It's just that with Xbox we can't play it all day since we'd be in front of the TV all day and that is a pain, literally. The Nintendo DS removed the literal pain out of equation which means she will be playing all the time. Not good when you have parents who don't have the patience to nag and who would subsequently developed rather high-pitch yells once nagging fails. Also that's not good when you have to share the room with the nag-ee. Triply not good when you're already irritated because your lecture notes contradict themselves within the same slide and you're trying to decide which statement is true after emailing the lecturer to no avail while your parents try to use the high-pitch nagging technique on their unfazed, rather thick-skinned and patience-challenging other child. It always ends with me joining force with the parents. Triple the high-pitch yelling does do it for the nag-ee, but I always end up being more irritated.

Anyhow, the Floorober got the Nintendo DS lite and is waiting for some mod chip to play illegal copies of games to arrive. In the mean time I use the old Gameboy advance cartridges to try the DS out. After a few minutes of playing Mario Gallery (or whatever the hell the name of that game is) I remembered why I never liked those games or playing games a lot. They make me anxious. Every time I lost a life I felt like my heart stopped for a millisecond. Curiously enough, I feel that way before exams and before I find out my exam results. "Surprisingly" enough, I don't like exams. This is probably why I like puzzles more than the games that only require hand-eye coordination.

The Alarmist is back for the holiday, she said something rather funny today which I'm pretty sure was funny at the time but I can't remember now so I reckon it wasn't that funny. So, no Alarmist quotes.

The Drama Queen (DQ for short, that's my grandmother if you haven't read or have read but subsequently have forgotten this) had another drama session recently when she went on a hunger strike after my dad telling her not to water a chili plant to the point of drowning it and then cover it with cardboard so that not any sunlight can get to the plant. If there is an equivalent organisation to RSCPA but for plants they would have stormed our house and gently uproot the poor chili plant to put up for adoption in some other household. Or if that chili plant can magically grow legs and move, it would have uprooted itself to get away from the DQ's "tender" care many moons ago. Anyway, after her one-day hunger strike, the DQ resumed eating food but refused any nutritious food. When asked why, she said she did so so that she can die sooner. If you know my grandmother, she's a hard-core Catholic devout, what she is talking about is very close to suicide, and suicide in Catholics' book is the highway to hell. My mum pointed that out to her, she's been eating proper food again but who knows when she's gonna pull that one out again?

Since the Alarmist's back for the one-week holiday, the DQ has taken up waking up the Alarmist at various time of the day to tell the Alarmist that she should go eat. Strange thing is I think the DQ needs to eat more than the Alarmist.

What I'm really excited about at the moment is buying a new laptop. I'm finally too sick of my slow-ass old laptop. I was gonna buy a Vista laptop but then all I've heard about Vista is bad news so this might be a good time to jump out of a might-be sinking ship (that I haven't gotten onto yet so I shouldn't be worried about but being me, I was worried anyway) that is Vista. It was either OS X or Ubuntu or buying a Vista laptop and wipe it clean then install XP on it. The Linux and the Windows options sound like a lot of work that I won't want to do so OS X is the way to go. As a lot of reviews have been saying about OS X, if you like iTunes you'll love OS X. Here's my problem: I freaking hate iTunes. I hate its ass ever since I got my first iPod in 2004. We'll see how it'll turn out. If I end up hating OS X there's always running XP on Boot camp on the new Macbook.

a stream of sleepy conciousness which sometimes don't actually flow very well

2008-03-18T23:53:00.006+11:00

I'm sleepy, I'm tired, I'm bored, I tried to blog but ended up just typing whatever comes to my head. Some of this might make sense, some might not, some might even be completely random. Strictly for when you're not sleepy but are bored and would read whatever I churn out.

More reasons why I haven't been blogging regularly:

The place where I work at is short on staff at the moment.
I'm a slave to the wage. Plus I get to look all knowledgeable and shit when telling people what are actually in Panadeine which they could have read out themselves had they had a proper look at the packaging.

New year's resolution that has successfully been unresolved: Stop drinking coffee. I tried to create a loophole for myself when I phrased that resolution. The resolution straight out of my diary is:

5/ Stop drinking coffee regularly.

First I started to drink coffee again, irregularly. Then I crossed that resolution out completely. Note to self: caffeine is the only thing that can get you through a day with at least 4 lectures.

An untimely update on the Alarmist: she moved semi-out since last week. She's crashing at her friend's flat for the weekdays and comes home for the weekends. So now I see even less of her since I work almost every single day on weekends.

On a related note to the Alarmist moving semi-out. My parents didn't cry over it, my little sister didn't cry over it, I didn't cry over it but boy did my grandmother cry. She cried about it for 2 days straight.

Freddo moments (a.k.a: Misheard/misremembered by the Alarmist):
I expect this to be a very short-lived or short addition to this already ailing blog since the Alarmist moved semi-out. The Alarmist tends to remember things incorrectly and sometime hilariously. Those moments were coined "Freddo" moments by my other sister who I have yet to find an annoying enough trait to label her with. She uses the floor as a wardrobe more often than I like but calling her the Floorober is .... fucking cool! I think I've just found a name for the "Other Nguyen girl" (sorry about that lame play on "The other boleyn girl", I'm sleepy, this is supposed to be a chaotic post which might or might not capture what goes on in my sleepy head).
Back to Freddo moments, the Floorober coined the Alarmist's funny misremembered moments that because she once called Frodo Freddo. On with the Freddo moments / Alarmist quotes then:

I want that song "Maybe maybe maybe", do you have it, can you put it on my ipod?
She was referring to a song called "Perhaps perhaps perhaps" by CAKE

I also want that album by that band "The shaved head of Natalie Portman"
Of course she was talking about a band whose name is "Natalie Portman's shaved head" (off topic: freaking cool synthpop band one of my favourite last month)

And let's not forget what "What's eating Gilbert Grapes" is remembered as in her brain (possibly in the frontal cortex, mesolimbic system, A10 dopaminergic neurones with their cell bodies in the ventral tegmental area - see how seamlessly pharmacology can be applied in real life? I wonder how people can live without pharmacology knowledge!) as "What's eating Gilbert's Grapes".

A few parting words on Facebook. That's a piss-poor place to stalk people who, like me, don't use it. I have a Facebook account, find it if you really want to, it's just a wee-little-bit abandoned since I created it. My main gripe with Facebook is that I lose touch with people for a reason and Facebook manages to provide the people that I don't want to keep in touch with an effortless route to "poke" me had they know that I have a Facebook account.

For those who are bored

2008-03-09T11:34:00.004+11:00

So I've been getting complaints about no new posts on my blog from the Doodler. My response was there's nothing to blog about. Why? Here are the reasons:

I refuse to blog about work.
There's nothing to blog about uni since the Doodler is there most of the time and wouldn't miss anything.
Uni is dull and nothing much happened except for some "drama" that is blown way out of proportion which doesn't even worth thinking about let alone blogging about.
Nothing new on the Alarmist, it's actually quite strange, I haven't had a proper conversation with the Alarmist for a few days now. She gets out of the house early for her uni when I usually am still in bed. I get home late when she's studying. Thus, no amusing Alarmist quote.

When the Doodler complained about my blog I thought it was some kind of compliment. Inside I was thinking "yay, someone actually likes reading my blog!" but no, the Doodler was just bored and would read anything. So here are a few things you can read/look at if you're that bored:

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks. If you know me I'm quite sarcastic which I've been toning down. I even made a new year resolution for it. Resolution number 10: be less sarcastic (I don't know why but that resolution just sounds so sarcastic). Anyhow, all the sarcasm is bottled up everyday and it had to be released somehow and that is where this blog comes in. It's hilarious sometimes.
My last.fm profile. Here's some shameless self-promotion. Sort of. Last.fm is a place where you can stalk people's music listening habit. It's updated in real-time so if you stalk my profile often enough you'd probably catch me listening to something you'd consider embarrassing. Aside from stalking potential, last.fm is the best way to find new bands to listen to so get on it people.
My rateyourmusic.com profile. More shameless self-promotion. Since you're bored you're gonna read anything right? This is just a place to store a list of all the albums I've listened to and have rated recently. A handy website since I download and listen to a lot of music and I cannot possibly remember all the good stuff I've downloaded.

There, hope those will keep you entertained until something good actually happens.

things you can do with an ipod

2008-02-24T13:20:00.002+11:00

Those mofos at Apple keep changing the ipod, I really don't know what you can do with them anymore, I heard you can make toast with them, I also heard that you can rape someone with an ipod. Don't know about the toast making ability of ipods but I have proof of the rape-committing ability of ipods straight from a mother of a victim.

I know it's a misspelling of "rapt" but that is funny. What can be funnier? Well misspelling the Rapture into the Rapedture would be funny considering what the Rapture is actually about.

In other news, I'm going to a concert tomorrow, I'm ~~rapt~~ raped with excitement.

on the lack of a meaningful post last week

2008-02-20T19:56:00.003+11:00

Considering last week was the week that my birthday this year was in, I should have posted something more meaningful than the PG-rated version of "2 girls, 1 cup" video. That video of the chimp (monkey?) is so similar to the "2 girls, 1 cup" thing, except for the X-rated video had 2 girls whereas the PG-rated thing has only 1 chimp of unknown gender to me.

I didn't even comment on the Sorry speech and all that followed, which I will be doing now. I would like to thank Kevin Rudd for turning the usual rather meaningless day before Valentine's day into the "Historic National Sorry Day" from now on. Thanks a lot, all the people that were born on the 13th of February can now respond to the question "When is your birthday?" with "Sorry day" instead of "The Day before Valentine's day".

Seriously though, I think Kevin Rudd saying sorry to the Aborigines was the right thing to do, it was done with what I hope to be good intentions. Let's hope we all learn something and move on. If we haven't, well, the forty something compensation claims probably will. On Brendan Nelson, well I haven't decided what he is, a man who stood by what he believes or an incredible stubborn idiot. Whatever he is, I don't think he's gonna win any election.

Back to the topic, I didn't post anything meaningful last week because I didn't feel like it was a special week/day. I wasn't excited about my birthday at all, if anything I felt a bit nervous, uneasy and sad. Trust me, it's normal, I feel like that every birthday which is why I don't ever celebrate my birthday.

I've just reread that last paragraph and realised that I didn't described what I felt quite correctly. I wasn't exactly sad, I was something else I can't quite find a word to describe. Lucky for me some talented person/people probably felt the same way about their 24th birthday. Give it a listen.

Twenty four

______________________________________________________________
Surprise, surprise they wouldn't wanna watch
Another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults

positively gross

2008-02-13T12:57:00.000+11:00

In which nothing much happened

2008-02-12T19:53:00.000+11:00

I just felt compelled to post another post so that my post count can go up to 333, only half evil.

OK, so what's going on? Been working, the amazing thing that happened when I started working was that I lost all impulse to buy things. When I don't have money I want to buy lots of things, when I do I don't wanna buy anything. All in all it's a good thing.

How's work? Well, it's work, I spent most of the time in competition with the customers to see who's gonna be the first to say "Hi, how are you?". It's ridiculous really because they always say "I'm well thank you" then proceed to tell me they have this horrible migraine that kept them from sleeping. What kind of "well" is that? How about me? I'm well thank you, well, apart from losing all of what little motivation I have to do anything productive I'm very well.

So what I really feel about my job is that it can do with a lot, a LOT of excitement. I don't hate it, especially after I've seen this picture.

So You Think Your Job Stinks

Yup, there definitely are worse jobs.

Something quite hilarious did happen to me, albeit not on the job, someone called me a "faggot" the other day. That was interesting, I've never in my life expected to be called a faggot. Who would call someone they don't know, whom they have never seen before in their live, names, that can't even be applied since last time I checked I don't have a Y chromosome? You know the answer: stupid freaking idiotic idiots. Pardon the redundancy, I wanted to express the frantic eye-rolling-inducing effect these idiots had on me. At the time I wanted to give them the finger, but I didn't, I'm just ~~chicken~~ civilised like that. I had a good laugh afterward though. Idiots.

How's your holiday going so far? I guess since you take time to read this you're probably bored out of your brain right? I can understand, if I had other things better to do I wouldn't read this anyway. Good news for you is that since you've made it this far down the post, here's a little something something for you: another ten-song mix. You know the drill, download and unrar. How was the last mix? I know a whopping number of people downloaded it. Three to be exact. Count that, 3, you can count it on one hand! (sorry about the sarcasm, I've been reigning it in at work so now it just busted out when I'm off work).

Download

And last but not least, funny quote of the week (the Alarmist thought it was funny).
You know why you should not buy a MacBook? Because you're not gonna be able to cope and you're gonna have to ask me to help you and I won't have time to do that.
- Me dispensing wisdom on laptop choices to the Alarmist.
________________________________________________
I used to dream about saving the world
Now I just dream about the holidays

a few favourite tunes from January

2008-02-03T13:42:00.000+11:00

I feel freaking tired, I only worked for 25 hours last week (most of those at night) but it felt like I worked for 40 hours. How people with full-time jobs manage to blog regularly and articulately I have no idea. Maybe they don't have a life outside of blogging and working.

Off topic: The strangest thing happened to me this week, I can't sleep in anymore. I always get up at 6.30 in the morning even if I went to bed at 1. What's the point of being on holiday when you can't freaking sleep in?

Back on topic, the rest of the time that I don't work I spent online downloading music, listening to the shit load of music I downloaded, deleting the ones I don't like and making lists of albums I should buy when they're released. Oh, and I managed to start reading 5 books while waiting for the downloads. So here's a 10 songs from a few bands that I started to listen to during January in a .rar file (use 7-zip to unrar, it's free).

Download and listen. I'm serious, it takes ages for me to upload so you people better download, it's only 26MB. No computer virus had been intentionally included.

Also, download the following songs completely free and legal from Barsuk.com. I would have included it in the file but then it'd be wasted effort.
Chris Walla - Sing Again
Nada Surf - See these bones

Funny thought of the day: what we learn from American History X is that prison anal rape cures racism.

____________________________________________
Sometimes when you're going down you're going down no matter what.
So find the deepest well you can and climb on it and wait it out.