Tuesday, April 29, 2003

ian tai - acoustica live [aka] cool songs recorded crappily
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confirmed songs:-
1) walking
2) can we leave this party [funkyhippopotamus loop mix]
3) everything will pass
4) red dawn sky
5) embrace
6) lavender
7) the girl that got away

soon to come:-
- untitled song about a hot chick who exudes sexuality
- untitled song about a man who cannot die
- untitled song about brimming insecurities

this album shall be distributed freely. once i get it burned. whenever.

note: songs 6 and 7 were sung under duress. my throat was [and still is] very dry. you have been cautioned. but you'll never know.

Monday, April 28, 2003

mmm. this gets more interesting all the time. since my dad's been back, i've had [arguably] proper food, and i haven't spent any money whatsoever [besides the RM 20+ that i had to fork out to pay for my parents' bill at starbucks], so...it's not so bad. not if you count the constant motherly nagging that my father gives, or the fact that i don't really have time to even study [the horror] with him around. which reminds me...the stats exam could be at any time. dammit. i'm not ready. there, i said it.

Saturday, April 26, 2003

it's already been a day with him here but i already can't stand it. excellent, don't you think? he didn't bring back the cds, even though i'd told him after my mom came back...great, again. he'll be here for three weeks...i have no idea how i'm even going to cope. he was lecturing me about how i shouldn't wake up so late because i'm a student...like that's even his right.

he's just like my mother. except that he's around.

Monday, April 21, 2003

in a move that most people wouldn't bother considering, i'm downloading the counting crows' cover of big yellow taxi, as well as the original. just for fun, i suppose. i don't really know if cover versions ever do their originals justice [unless it's cake's version of "i will survive"], but i've always believed that cover versions were meant to be done for fun, as opposed to being a band's bread and butter [unless you're boyzone or westlife]. u2 have done umpteen cover versions, but they've all been rawdy, or they've lacked the inclination towards the serious that their predecessors had. and sometimes, i guess that's what it takes. so when i hear vanessa carlton doing her thing on the cover [and that's a terrible choice of a featured artist, she is], it just makes me think about how fun, wild, controversial and special music was way back then. the 80's were fun, the 70's were frivilous, but the 60's were the time when music and a generation came together to get their stories told.

i'm not here to thread on nostalgia. i bumped into this classmate of mine with her boyfriend in carrefour just now...i don't know her name, and we didn't acknowledge each other, but...i keep on bumping into people in carrefour. people my age...it's weird. i would've expected myself to be the guy who'd be doing his thing, having fun in carrefour, shopping...she totally ruined it for me. the other day i was there when i bought the dark angel game, i also bumped into this girl i do know...she was with her friends, and it just annoyed me. i like carrefour because i can have a sort of anonymity; no one knows me, except that i look cool yet new-age male sensitive, holding on to my basket and checking up on prices. these people have ruined what i think about myself when i walk into carrefour, because in a way, they know who i am. it sounds strange, but...

shopping habits aside, today was a good day. i had my advanced stats first test pushed back by a week, meaning that i can still enjoy next friday night...doing nothing. it's just typical. i was so pumped up about having the exam on saturday...and now to learn that it's going to be held on next friday. shambles. i guess that when you make a commitment to work hard, you should keep on it...i usually only find my commitment about a week before any deadline. call me a laggard, cry me a river, but i think that humans perform better under pressure. which was a brilliant queen/david bowie collaboration, may i add. kudos to vanilla ice for sampling the main bassline...brickbats to him for existing. not really...at least he paved the way for white rappers...such as...

eminem. i saw 8 mile. it's not an overly fantastic movie, but i'd suggest that you see it anyway. yes, it sorta is based on his life, but the movie's fun...especially kim basinger. i know her role was meant to be serious, but it looked like fun for her, really...brittany murphy makes the perfect vamp. oh, well.

anyway, the mic kept on going off and coming back again in stats. i sorta respect dr. ben, but it's just annoying in how he won't just get off the mic and speak from the diaphragm. it's not like anybody's going to listen, but at least he'd try, no? the whole issue on whether or not people who try to change things against overwhelming odds was brought up again after seeing that. i don't know why...i guess having lunch with my mother on a sunday at hartz really does raise questions about the existential balance of life on earth.

hallelujah.

Saturday, April 19, 2003

the SARS scare still hits at home. my grandfather had to follow the trend by getting sick [though i'm sure that he was feigning being ill], while for the past two weeks, at least two people have been out with something at the same time. worrying. more and more kids [but ot their parents] have been seen with masks...but if you want them to wear masks, wouldn't it be easier by not letting them go out? doesn't the risk of infection run lower if you don't bother going out...thereby diverting the risk away?

people.

the safest places to go would be the places that people tend to flock to...petaling street would be my first choice since no one goes there now. i've used the quote a lot [at the wrong times], but the closer you are to danger, the further away you are from harm. brilliant, to say the least. so as the war draws to a close [we hope] and the world catches on...i'd like to say a prayer for the ones who think they're safe by wearing a mask. you can only reduce the risk...the beast it still out there.

good luck.
mountain dew slurpees are great. the best; i've only been to one 7-11 with it, but it's a godsend, really. buy it today. vital for life.
one has to wonder about gasoline. we don't really know what goes into it, nor do we really care. you've got your v-power, mobil one, primax...and they all claim to offer you the same engine-cleansing, speed inducing therapeutic driving experience that'd make your car feel like it was brand new. i drive a decade old iswara which has a failing [new] suspension, shakes a lot and tends to handle strangely once in a while at immensely slow speeds. bollocks to what your gas can do for my car; what can it do for me? it's quite distressing that the government is continuously lifting its subsidization on gasoline...it's going to get worse, according to justin. ever argue with a man who has his own gas station. rm 10 could get me 8 litres once...now it gets me less than 7.5. it's not looking particularly bright. i've got a formula in mind:-

increased petrol prices = decreased driving + decreased amount of nights out

therefore

curbing all probably social activities of the malaysian public.

it's definitely a government plot. definitely. the desire to cut short of totally discourage malaysian leisure time; no extended hang-out time, no slacking, no lacking, no hacking. so bring it, i suppose. there's nothing that we can do...though i think that a petrol price increase will hamper my social life/circle.

juice doesn't come cheap.

Monday, April 14, 2003

spent the night at si wan's house...no, not in that way. i was there with justin, rishen and chris...we had dinner in klang at this place called uncle joe's which was playing all these quasi-classic forgotten boyband/girlband hits from groups like girl thing, point break and...erm...classic nsync. the food there was okay, though we were thinking about hartz before that. well, not really...but anyway; the whole point was, it just goes to show you how incredibly fickle pop music can be. or how young impressionable teens can be...with a total lack of image consistency and a good marketing force behind you, you could become yesterday's news very, very quickly...and you'll not bounce back to the cover page for a while, if not ever again. where are those groups now? do we even care? it makes me wonder just what exactly a band [a proper rock 'n roll band] needs to stay? that's probably why the 80's were more fun...and those bands who survived that decade, they're still here as well.

anyway, si wan's house was fun. we just watched astro while her mom kept on asking her questions in cantonese which justin, chris and i probably understood. asking your daughter if she drove back, if we drove her, if we drove her back and anything else a parent could do...it was quite fun. though i still wonder what the %%#@$ i was doing there. oh, well. got a rubber band off her...it's going to be the return of the quasi-ponytail.

i haven't started the assignment yet. bother.

Saturday, April 12, 2003

"handbags and gladrags" by the stereophonics. the song deserves a spin, really.
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Ever see a blind man cross the road
Trying to make the other side
Ever see a young girl growing old
Trying to make herself a bride


So what becomes of you my love
When they have finally stripped you of
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy you


Once I was a young man
And all I thought I had to do was smile
Well you are still a young girl
And you bought everything in style


So once you think you're in you're out
'Cos you don't mean a single thing without
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy you


Sing a song of six-pence for your sake
And take a bottle full of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds in a cake
And bake them all in a pie


They told me you missed school today
So what I suggest you just throw them all away
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy you

Thursday, April 10, 2003

need a spiritual ninja?

sometimes you need something to let yourself break away from the lack of spontaniety in life. living each day the same way, weaving in and out of the quickly passing hours as if they're not there...it's not the way that life is supposed to be.

sadly, i still live like that.

imagine if we felt that life wasn't so clockwork...that it was more fun and fulfilled than whatever it is we have today. we don't stay at home all the time, moping around and mulling around for something to do...we just go out, be proactive and grab the bull by its horns [and its balls, since we're going all the way].

want to sky dive? pull the cord.

want to bungee jump? jump off a bridge.

of course, if i had the funds and resources to allow me to live my life like some kind of quasi-daredevil/thrillseeker [are you xander cage?], i wouldn't be here, would i? i'd be globetrotting in my private jet with my beautiful yer sophisticated supermodel fiance and we'd be having the time of our lives...everyday.

but the beauty in all of the boredom would probably be that we appreciate the different better. road trips to nowhere, getting lost in haunted areas...things like that sound stupid, but they have to be done. it's imperative that something different be done in order to ensure that our lives aren't going to be wasted in front of the tv playing video games for the whole day [uh-oh...].

do something different today. it doesn't have to be brilliant, but just roll with it. don't think about where you're going to be...just think about what you're going to do.
like a virgin,
touched for the very first time!
like a virgin,
when your heart beats next to mine!

(no, i'm not obsessed about a particular something right now).

bless madonna. it's hard to tell what pop music would've been without her. she has lasting power. she's outlived michael jackson commercially, and she's the true Mother of Reinvention. why'm i writing this?

lord...i don't really know.

it's sort of a tonic to how insane life has become in a matter of minutes. right now i'm downloading some queen songs, after watching a queen special on mtv. retrospective? you betcha. the past is gone, but it's certainly not dead. live it, i guess...because you never know when it'd run out. and no, i don't believe in time travelling to the past...simply because the past doesn't exist. not in terms of quantum physics...there is no past to move to, since time is always moving...it'd be possible to move forward, but not backwards...you can't go back to whatever happened a second ago to change it. it just wouldn't work out...in my own layman theory, i don't think that it's possible to go back...and who would want to? things happen for a reason...but they're not fated. i want to make that clear.

anyway...that's all for now.

boredom has reached a whole new level.

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

y'know. my uncle didn't even say "thank you".
what moral fiber are you made up of? li vern was basically discussing about the moral dilemmas that could be faced by those in a war...and the underlying question is, is war right? i might be quick off my pedal and all, but i still have to say that i don't believe in it...there're better ways and better means to handle things, and i don't think the spilling of blood on both sides is the answer. honestly. look at it now; you've got casualties on both sides, and although the war might be obviously one-sided, even the "good guys" are going off in the most ridiculous ways...through their own people and equipment. but that's not what we're here for, i suppose. is war a good thing? in some ways, maybe. it [usually] quickly resolves any "problems" that've arised, and it sends a clear message about who not to screw with. but the underlying sentiment that goes along with war...is that really worth it? i'm not saying that everybody hates the americans, and it's pretty clear that some people do advocate the usage of force, but there're also those who don't think that it's necessary. 10 years ago, it might've been a good idea. the gulf war was fought in black and white...but it's amazing what a decade of escalation can do for people around the world. maybe [parts of] humanity have evolved up; or maybe we're just sick of it all, i don't know. at least there's still hope. barely.

the day you stop showing compassion for the enemy is the day you become the enemy.

Monday, April 07, 2003

right now, i'd just like to talk about people who don't give a shit. well, specifically, my uncle, for one, who takes good care of the car, no doubt, with the exception of some obvious grievances that i have. namely, the fact that my car is nicely parked outside justin's house and isn't going anywhere right now. after hanging out at justin's last night, i decided to head home. so, he went back in, i started the car...to nothing. i started the car again...to nothing. though the car got locked and the alarm went off. tried. repeated. tried. repeated. in the end, justin hypothesized that it was the car's battery that was wonky [the fact that the battery indicator on the dash was coming on was just a coincidence], and the fact that the car couldn't really start all that well before that should've been a telling sign that it wasn't a good idea to go out. yes, i know, i'm brilliant...and it probably really is my fault for not heeding the warning. if i knew that there was a warning to heed. ignorance is bliss. anyway, i was given a lift home, and i told my uncle about it, who [even though he was feeling groggy through eating some flu medication] seemed quite indifferent about it; as if he knew that it was going to happen sooner or later, and that he expected me to do something about it anyway. sure, the car was in my hands...but...in all honesty, he's the best person to know when something's going to go wrong. he could've just told me that going out would've been a bad idea, and that the battery was wonky and i probably would've listened to him for sure [i usually do, surprisingly]. oh, well. i guess we'll wait and see.

and speaking of people who can't give a shit, where the %%$#@! is my father? idiot dad of mine hasn't replied to my email yet...not to mention the fact that he hasn't come home. which he was meant to 2 days ago. not that i'm complaining or anything, but...geez. i hope he gets those cds. yes, i'm a selfish prick. so be it.

okay. i'm a bit cooled down now. my uncle's sick with a bad cough/cold, so he'd prefer to stay at home and cook as opposed to going out and buying lunch. so...that takes care of that. mmmph. and of all the people who don't give a shit, there's me; assignment due on friday. progress: 0%. or 1%, if you count a title page, an empty contents page and a page with a subtitle of "introduction". brilliant, if you ask me. mmph. stomach pangs.

that's all for now, kids.

Sunday, April 06, 2003

where's daddy? no one seems to know. my mom called earlier in the evening, asking for him. upon hearing that he hadn't come back yet, she told me to call her when he did. as if. some people just don't get the point of having irritated sons. oh, well.

in total, i've sorta gotten four songs done...though one track has been described as "weed music", i think that basically classifies all the other songs quite well. from native american rhythmics, to a latin-tinged country ballad [or at least something that tries to be], i can't see how i'm going to lose. all i need is three good songs [which i don't have] and my not quite paradise ep can be released. once i get a cd burner and more friends.

the whole sars outbreak has got me in hysteria. for the last few days, i've been exhibiting at least one symptom per day. i've had a cough, cold, cough, cold, dry throat and diarrhoea [i can't spell the word since i don't use it much], all on separate days. it's been quite worrying, but so far, i'm still standing, and your humble narrator shall [hopefully] continue weaving his tales for you to read.

it's 4:40 in the morning now. i'd usually be recording weed music, but for now, i'll try to be normal and just sleep. roll over, beethoven...this dog is in the hay.

Thursday, April 03, 2003

i've just uploaded two songs to mp3.com and they've been submitted for approval...when they're done and ready for distribution, you can bet i'm going to tell each and every one of you to take them. i'm proud of them, really. all done by me, a guitar and some percussion. ahhhh...nothing like a mini-home studio.

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

when i think about it, i feel that i have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old. i get impatient easily, i'm oversensitive at times, i get jealous easily and i annoy the hell out of people. and, like everyone else, i usually find out these things about myself from myself being retrospective...and i don't do anything to change them. yea, the emotional maturity of a 12 year old...while most guys my age would be comfortable with who and what and why they are, i still think that i could use a lot of work. but when does a boy become a man, anyway? from what i've learnt and seen, most boys never really do grow up...which could either be a good or bad thing, depending on how you're looking at it. to me, my dad's a perfect example of a boy not growing up...or not growing up fast enough.

but what are the criteria that you have to fulfill to be a "man"? and what defines a "man" today? things have changed...men can't really be the sole breadwinners of the family now, nor can they be chauvinists [unless you're robbie williams or a rock star], and some even stay at home to change the diapers. the new-age, sensitive guy is all the rage [and i'm proud to state that in a strange way, i personify him], where quick wit, dry humour and an open ear [good looks wouldn't hurt] rule the day. but there can't be any one type of man that's universally loved by all of the opposite gender, can there? women are to men what men are to women...can't live with them, and when you do, you probably rot away and degenerate.

me? i like staying the way i am...which is 6, not 12, sorry. some say that i don't take things seriously enough. these last few days/weeks have probably given off more proof of that than ever before, but what's the point of not enjoying life if there's a life to enjoy? there's so much going for us outside, that we can probably reach out and experience a bit, only to know that there's a lot more coming. i know that you can't have fun all the time, and that one day, what was once a heart of gold-plated goodness will become a heart of solid-gold. which sounds good, really, but i guess i can wait for the corporate greed to take over. i still want to be where i am in my mind...19.

i'm here to live, dammit. that much, i can attest to.

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

everything will pass
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you're still singing the same old songs
talking about how you're always wrong
i don't want to see where you come from
everything will pass


your angels will catch you in the deep
they won't tell the secrets that you keep
hold on to what it is you seek
everything will pass


no one's ever seen you fall
and you won't start if you jump it all
and all you'd have to do is call
everything will pass


the refuge that you take in here
will keep you sheltered until it clears
so you can wipe away your tears
everything will pass
well, i picked up my mom from kl sentral...i intended to pick her up from klia, but i overslept by about an hour...she called me and asked where i was and all. anyway, the first thing i saw was the fact that she had developed some fashion sense...she had this cool black leather jacket on, and it matched her pants, so she looked almost like a datin. it was so cool. pity about the car i drive, otherwise the porter who helped her with her five pieces of big luggage would have been very impressed; but alas, i guess that there'll be no time for that. upon arriving the neighbourhood, she dropped off her stuff at a friend's place and came back to the house and emptied her room of any valuables or important documents. something i've dubbed "operation: clean sweep" has just passed through its first phase. even my uncle is in on everything...he wants her room key to clean up the room in anticipation of my father's [short-lived] long-awaited arrival.

bollocks.

she didn't give as hard a time as i thought she would have upon learning of the fact that i didn't pay her bills, didn't get her car properly fixed and totally almost didn't do anything that she'd requested for. not that shabby, but once the realization of what i didn't do sinks in, i guess i'm going to get it. and about my freedom? well, i'm not too sure. i'm still going out tonight. probably because i can. it's only dinner, anyway. i don't know...my life has become exciting again. still the same old rut, but...once my dad comes back, sparks are really going to fly, and that's when the fun begins. funny. my life as a soap opera.