"bizarro day, huh?"

sunday:

jenghis's birthday. meet, wait, discuss, cuss, call, enquire, discuss, decide, discuss the location of the nearest cafe cartel, decide all over again, walk to marche, stop at lucky plaza, wait at lucky plaza, find out they already went to marche, holler at them over the Nokia, walk to marche, wait, get seated at a bench, wait, jenghis arrives, i order a diet snapple and matt thinks it's funny, they eat, we leave, they jack jenghis whilst i walk right over to fawwaz's gift-wrapping booth, all beats in place and counted for.

then we parted. half went to pool, fawwaz went back to his booth, matt went home, xuan and kenneth followed me shopping. evenrything was closed or closing. including Kennth Cole. closed. i just stared in through the window for a couple of seconds. then walked towards the Topman at Wisma Atria. and looked for something to buy. everything was either ugly, too cheap, or i didn't need it. in the end i decided on i-love-it-but-don't-need-it. a grey sandblast pinstripe blazer. pretty. and a hundred and twenty-three dollars. i charged it to my MasterCard and enjoyed the richness of it.

then xuan wanted to see a busker doing magic tricks. then xuan wanted a cookie from Coffee Club Express. so we went. and the iced cafe latte was rather good. then i called fawwaz, and we all met up and got onto the NEL and went home.

monday:

woke slightly late for the gallery. got up, showered, did whatever i could with my brother's wet-gloss gel [ew, and yes, i was at home], decided to bring my stuff with me so i can go to my aunt's direct, used the notebook case my aunt gave me, decided to wear the blazer i bought yesterday and stole my father's shoes. they hurt. but i looked good.

went to xuan's aunt's gallery. it was a nice place. too nice to hold mosh. things will break.

then followed fawwaz to The Heeren Shops to exchange Moby's Play for the De-Lovely soundtrack. i've been in town too many times this week. i'm starting to reek of town. yet after getting the exchange done at HMV, what do i do but pop over to Spinelli's for a Latte Spin?

after that, i headed over here. business as usual for a couple of hours. then my mom texts:

"Tomoro I'm doing e trade in of ür phone. which model ü wanted? N i nd ür tis phone n charger too..when ü b back here?"

no advance notice, no "so do you want to trade in your phone", nothing.

she just decides out of the blue that she's going to trade in the phone i've been using, without much of a plan as to what i'm going to use after she trades it in, except for this nugget she reveals when i call her, carefully concealing the fit i'm throwing:

"at the most i get the 6230 lor, because if later next few months you want something else then i can take that phone what. i don't like what siemens, motorola, samsung, sony ericsson one."

"i don't like nokias."

"aiyah, just anyhow use for one two months can one what."

i am not my siblings. i am not my mother or father. when i buy something, it is something i've decided i want to commit to for a while. it goes without saying that i won't buy anything i do not like. just because my brother changes mobile phones three times in the last year doesn't mean i will. i want a Motorola Razr V3. or a Motorola V600. neither of which my mom will let me buy, no matter how long i argue.

and what, i can't buy a Motorola because she doesn't like them, and i can't not buy a Nokia even if i hate them?

so. what happens? i buy the Nokia off my mother. she just wants the money. she's piss-scared that the value of the Nokia 8910 that i'm using now will depreciate further [what a shocker]. are you reading what i've typed? i've been driven to such desperate measures by my mother and my father that i've actually BOUGHT A NOKIA OFF MY MOTHER. and the most Nokian of all Nokias, no less.

so, after all that? my dad calls in the evening. drunk. wanting money from me. i ignore him and call my mother to notify her. she's even more piss-scared that i will give the $140 that's supposed to go to her to him. i hang up on both of them and go to watch TV.

that's it. i don't care how much it costs, but next month when more of my father's money comes in, i'm taking money out to buy a V3. i don't bloody care any more.

overture

The mind plays dirty tricks.

I'm having nightmares again.

a lack of color

I've failed.

These things happen? It's okay? Never mind? See you
in school? It will be okay? Shouldn't you be more
worried about your parents? Take it easy?

No.

I dont know what to do.

mix 2

I'm at HMV now, with jensen. And i've just spent sixty
dollars on three cds. It turns out i also tend to
spend when im in a good mood, though at least its less
than half what i spent on the same number of cds when
i bought stuff in bad mood. Oh. Wait. We might hit the
place at roxy square later.

earphoneless/microphoneless

someone up there must really hate me, because this is my new, permanent, phone: Nokia - Nokia 8910 Phone

irony: my unserviceable Ericsson had an earphone that got so soft i can so longer hear anyone on the other line unless i'm in a library-like place. this Nokia has a microphone that doesn't work.

Nokia: Connecting People
Ericsson: Make Yourself Heard
Aaron: Bloody Pissed Off

"Okay, I know you don't like it, but that is one snazzy phone"
-Lin Hongxuan, 17

paris in new york

i think i'm getting old. i've never quite felt like this, going back by myself, before.

the ties that, unfortunately, bind

they made my grandpa wait over a hour.

for their silly tea ceremony.

OilyMan and ChihuahuaFace.

and nary a red packet.

Digital SLR and DV camera.

dinner tonight at seven PM, Shangri-La Hotel.

like, ew.

the way we were

morning - afternoon:
brunch at Crystal Jade Palace Restaurant, Ngee Ann City

afternoon:
watch The Way We Were and Adam Brody's appearance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien

afternoon - evening:
taking a long look at dax's PC, inclusive one hour of Malcom In The Middle and The Simpsons

evening:
head back here to shower and restore my iPod, whose music filesystem apparently got corrupted

evening-night:
met the guys at rogue. xuan danced. yes, really. you can call me and ask for details if you don't believe me

now:
back here, way too early, tying up the loose ends i left on my PowerBook after rushing out when i was done restoring my iPod

tomorrow morning:
cousin jeffery's wedding tea-ceremony

tomorrow evening:
cousin jeffery's wedding dinner at Shangri-La Hotel

okay. i need some sleep.

the way we were

my PowerBook is stashed under a few pillows, inside my bedroom, because my dad is here.

he decided to come visit.

the second episode, broadcasted, ripped and ready, awaits.

i hate my father.

the firefox has landed

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 has arrived. the entire site damn near went down at launch, i waited nearly five minutes to load the front page. then the download took forever, was five times bigger than it was supposed to be, and i had to re-download it this morning. it looks good, i already know it works excellently, but i prefer Safari. because using Firefox over Safari seems like Apple defection. and Firefox looks good, but it looks good in a iBook/iMac way. not that there's anything wrong with that, but Safari, with it aluminium skin, is more PowerBook/PowerMac. and if i can't have an aluminium phone [see below], i will damn well have an aluminium browser.

psycho aaron is open for business

if wayne turns out to have bought a V3, i will kill myself.

at least, internally.

i can't stand it. I CAN'T FUCKING STAND MY BROTHER HAVING THREE PHONES [COUNT THEM - NOKIA 7250, SONY ERICSSON T610, SONY ERICSSON K700I] IN ONE YEAR WHEN I HAVE HAD THE SAME ONE PHONE FOR THREE YEARS. I CAN'T STAND MY FATHER BEING A FUCKING BASTARD WHO CAN'T AFFORD ANYTHING BUT BUYS EVERYTHING, YET HE DOESN'T INDULGE ME WHEN I WANT A NEW PHONE, WHEN MINE HAS BEEN SUBMERGED THRICE AND HAS A SPEAKERPHONE THAT MAKES EVERYONE SOUND LIKE XUAN WHISPERING INTO THE PHONE BECAUSE THE VOLUME KEY GOT BROKEN OFF WHEN MY MOM HIT ME ON THE HEAD AND I DROPPED THE PHONE. I HATE THAT WAYNE'S GOT THE ONLY PHONE I LOVE NOW, I HATE THAT HE WON'T TELL ME IF IT'S TRUE. I HATE NOT BEING ABLE TO GO OUT WHENEVER I WANT, EVEN IF MY MOTHER LETS ME AND PRACTICALLY WANTS ME TO GO OUT MORE. I HATE FAILING EVERYTHING, I HATE SCHOOL, I HATE MY MASTERCARD WITH THE PRACTICALLY INVAILD SIGNATURE ON THE BACK. I HATE MY AMAZAON SHOPPING CART WITH OVER A HUNDERED US DOLLARS' WORTH OF CDS IN IT. I HATE MY POWERBOOK, I HATE MY WIRELESS MOUSE. I HATE NOT HAVING MY PHONE WITH ME AND HAVING TO USE MY AUNT'S FUCKING NOKIA 3315, BUT NOT WANTING TO GET IT BACK FROM XUAN BECAUSE I NEED A REASON TO GET OUT TO WATCH A FUCKING MOVIE. I HATE EVERYTHING.

i have nothing but hate. if you don't have anything nice to say, FUCK OFF OR GO FUCK YOURSELF.

w00t?

it's official. the word "woot" is now irritating. especially since it originated as "w00t" and has been "corrected" to become a "real word".

iBetter Exchange

iBetter Exchange - Creativex.Creative.Com

riiight.

and this is all that's left

what exactly is, i do not know.

right back where we started from

i feel very, very happy. the last time i felt this happy was, oddly enough, only two hours ago, though that was the first time in over a week, if not more. but. i just watched The Distance. and i feel lightheaded with glee and happiness. there is only one word to describe how i feel now, and that word is "squee". because that's the sound i feel like making, over and over again.

tomorrow, the super mondo party, possibly of my year. at least i'll be able to rewatch this if i freak out and melt down again. which i will try not to.

squee!

cellular

chong chorming: stop using a Nokia.

his Nokia called my mobile just now and left a very long voice message. and when i called back, he said no one did.

okay. whatever.

the distance

the second season of The O.C. is broadcasting in California now. i cannot wait.

isn't it ironic?

Nokia goes after impersonators Sagem and Vitelcom - Engadget

like, totally.

Nokia: Emulating Others

Nokia’s new cameraphones: the 3230 and 6020 - Engadget Cellphones

i'm having trouble finishing my Design Methodology supplementary paper--mostly with finding the two thousand words needed.

so here's a snapshot of two of Nokia's lastest phones, the designs of which i find, shall we say, "interesting". the 6020 resembles a Sony Ericsson T630 with only opaque plastics [i wonder if it comes in black--what a shocker - it does.]. as for the 3230, surely i don't need to tell you what that looks like, do i?

the political compass

The Political Compass

i went and did this again, just to make sure.

Economic Left/Right: -2.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.64

in other news, Bush won, i missed the deadline for the Color re-sub, feel like shit, had a two-thousand word essay in front of me but got nothing into Microsoft Word, even by five AM, woke today at four-plus PM, and have sat around in bewildered confusion since.

also, does anyone else also feel that today's Straits Times front page article is rather Bush-biased? i only skimmed it, because one cannot look at a photograph like that for any extended period of time without developing a medical condition of some sort, but that's the vibe i got. from several seconds' skimming.

aren't the balls getting a little heavy, Singapore?

welcome to stepford

The Play Pen for My Thoughts: The Trophy Wife

i'm sorry, but, ondine? this just sounds really, if pretentiously, cool.

in other news: it appers W is winning. sad.

duosyllabic phrases

i have finished my Communicating Design Ideas re-submission paper, which is due in nine-and-a-half hours.

i feel like i spent a year writing it, it was so hard to really concentrate.

i need to go to sleep, now, possibly listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

if you really love me, you'll let me go home

the last time i went to xuan's, two Saturdays ago, i stuck my neck out. i told my first aunt i was going to celebrate three friends' birthdays, and i would be back late that night.

of course, i stayed over and came back the next afternoon. wiped out from matt's drinks and depressed, i took a shower and asked when my first aunt would arrive for dinner, because i wanted to take a nap. rosemarie said she didn't know, but i could just go ahead and lie down.

i woke up past seven PM. i found a text message on my phone from my second aunt, telling me to explain to first aunt that it rained heavily that night, and my friend's mom told me to stay the night, so i called back here and asked if i should, to which my second aunt told me i should, none of which was true. my aunt was already there, and she mildly berated me for not telling her that i wasn't coming back here that same night.

later on she spoke with my aunt-of-sorts and it was decided that if i was going to stay out past midnight or stay over elsewhere, either she or my mom should know, "in case anything should happen to me". my aunt-of-sorts came over to my room after and told me what happened, then also told me she'd called here from Malaysia five times that morning and afternoon, reminding rosemarie that my first aunt would be here, at five-thirty, for dinner. i don't know what the implications of her choosing not to tell me that when i asked her were, but i chose to just let it go. no point dragging up even more ugliness. that was nuclear fallout one.

the in-between was me finding out i'd failed six of my seven modules and being assigned six re-submissions; also, though no one told me until Saturday, my father came back.

last Saturday i decided to sod it all and arrange to go to rouge. out of everyone i asked--wayne, jensen, matt and xuan--only jensen didn't decline or cancel. so jensen and i went alone. it was a pretty good time, slightly marred by the notice of my father's return courtesy of my mother, until jensen's parents decided to go out and get him. after an odd time of events i ended up meeting his parents and having supper with me, talking about school, L.A., Las Vegas, Disneyland, cancer, old age, and many other things i can no longer remember. then, because jensen lived in Serangoon, his parents gave me a lift back to Chuan Park. i'd called Geylang and told them already, to which my aunt-of-sorts questioned the wiseness of going home when my father was there.

the next day my mom, my two sisters, my brother and i went to a sort-of housewarming at my grandparents-in-law's place in Toa Payoh. they moved out from my first uncle-in-law's after a huge argument/fight. my grandfather has had his foot amputated since i last saw him in hospital, and was in a wheelchair. my grandparents-in-law now live alone.

the same morning my dad came over here and spoke loudly of how late i got back the night before, when he didn't see me coming back at all, and i wouldn't even have entertained the idea of going back if jensen's parents weren't offereing a lift.

at five PM my aunt-of-sorts called, asked about where i was, told me my aunt was coming back for dinner, but it should be okay, i should go back to Chuan Park and come back to Geylang tomorrow. we got back home pretty late that night, my father smoking in the living room.

today i come back here, caught in and soaked to the skin by the all-out thunderstorm, to Geylang. it appears my first aunt was questioning my absence last night, when she came back from dinner after coming back from Milan. she also questioned the wiseness of leaving the house when my re-submission period wasn't over yet. now that i'm here, i'll see her when she comes over for dinner tonight.

having read all that, though, you still won't know how i feel at this exact moment until you've spent the time to steam-iron a shirt, shower, dress, head out, and then have to rush all the way through a thunderstorm, to keep up appearances.

i'm fucking sick of living here.

"i just want to go home
the novelty has worn off, we are
not amused any more
if you really love me
you'll let me go home

i just want to escape
i'm stuck in a Kodak moment
with people in the future, albeit
if you really love me
won't you let me go home?

i just want to go home

i ran all the way home"

- "I Ran All The Way Home", Black Box Recorder

The Sims 2 for Mac is coming soon

The Sims 2 for Mac is coming soon - Joystiq

thank you, thank you, thank you, but i'm broke!

the poor little rich attention whore is back

i've actually been posting to drafts the past few days. ones and zeros make up most of my life.

my MasterCard arrived. it's probably been around for a some time, just that no one's checked the mail in a while.

i signed it kind of, well, off. the first pen i used i did with a flourish, but it lacked ink. crucial factor in pens. the second pen i used had too thin a nib, and i was a bit frazzled from ruining my MasterCard, and the signature is wobbly. and doesn't cover the faint signature from the first signing.

sigh. and i was so excited. never mind that i have only thirty dollars in my account. after all, we are the poor little rich family, and i am the poor little rich boy.

"sucks to be you!"

ever had you face really burn up? not to the point of extreme pain and wanting to slice your cheeks off, but enough for you to want to die?

yeah. sucks to be me.

nokia: connecting who, exactly?

this month on Crimewatch:

Nokia: Connecting Theives!

it's like a Nokia commercial gone wrong. or right. one guy on a Nokia Wireless Headset HDW-2 buglarizes a flat while his lookout is connected to him on her Nokia Dual Headset HDD-1.

say goodbye to aaron khoo

ever since i moved my blog here, i've tried to keep the title of each blog entry to either the title or part of the lyric of a song. because i was no longer typing out the title, date and time fields of each blog entry, i didn't really want to spend time deciding on and putting aside a seperate field for whatever song i was listening to or had listened to that day. so i compensated by making it the title. not that anyone noticed or gave a shit. not that i asked anyone either, but i don't really think anyone did anyway.

i'm sort-of closing this blog. if i ever post again it will definitely be here. but last night when yet another part of my sky collasped on me i realized that what most people would call a friend and bitch about, or go to school, find a friend and bitch about, i post on to my blog. it's not like i don't want it to be on my blog or anything, if anyone here knows me you'd know that i firmly believe that all dirty laundry should be aired. loudly, and in the wide open. but for some strange reason i've had an epiphany that my blog shouldn't be its first stop.

i don't know if it's socially normal or acceptable to have someone on call to just bitch with. i don't really know anything about social norms. but whatever. my social circle's going to disappear from my sight soon, anyway.

this'll teach me to decide to want to call at half-past twelve.

Gilmore Girls: Season 5, Episode 1; Say Goodbye To Daisy Miller

so pack a change of clothes, 'cause it's time to move on

can you imagine no:
love?
pride?
deep-fried chicken?
your best friend always sticking up for you, even when i know you're wrong?

can you imagine no:
first dance?
freeze-dried romance?
five-hour phone conversation?
the best soy latte you've ever had,

and me?

i wanted to take a shot at a five-hour phone conversation today. but after being mildly berated i didn't really feel like trying anymore.

why didn't she just tell me that my first aunt was going to come over at five-thirty?

"i remember when the days were long
and the nights when the living room was on the lawn"

could have been listening to Photobooth after the train doors closed; i felt miserable while riding the train from Aljunied down to Kallang and walking back to my aunt's.

but had i known that it was all just going to go to heck like it did, i probably would've just let the bus do its thing.

it's a monstertrucker

life in mono: Popagandhi Warehouse (Bedroom) Sale

so, my two purchases from the above arrived today [which reminds me: must confirm receipt], and it was mildly disappointing because Daisies Of The Galaxy was the edited version. which means track seven is "It's A Monstertrucker" instead of the original "It's A Motherfucker".

it irritates me to no end, but i'm forcing myself to push it aside because i'll mostly be listening to it on my iPod anyway, and i can just go source a download of the original and slip it in place.

plus, aaron. remember that it was eight dollars. HMV wanted over forty dollars for it, even if it was the original, unedited version.

and all at once i knew, i knew at once

so. i am probably never going to wear that jersey again.

punk debutante

My Very Own Glob {Curiosa Felicitas}: Pay it all over the place

hee.

i didn't want anything more to do with the outside world

i hate the government. they are outside the block now, drilling/hacking holes on the outside wall of the lift shafts, and then filling them up again. according to the notice posted at places in the estate, it's called "repair". fuck off. what kind of repair is filling up holes you've just made in the wall?

i hate hate hate the fucking noise being made by the fucking construction workers who are working for the fucking government.

and before i go, another thing to gripe about. it took me six months, but suddenly i've realized living here [at my aunt's] "somewhat" restricts me. back with my immediate family, my mom would decide that i was going and chase me out the house whenever i told her i was undecided about going out somewhere with friends. like pool, or xuan's house, watching other people get wasted. i don't like going out, and she knows it, and she's worried i'll become even more introverted. not that she knows what that word means. but can i help it if i don't want anything more to do with the outside world?

you should have seen her last week when i told her i was thinking about going to Zouk, but thought it wasn't my kind of place. she told me that she didn't like it much either, but i SHOULD go so i could find out if it really didn't like it, how would i know unless i went?

now, though, even planning to meet patrick to buy the Sony MDR-EX71S in-ear earphones off him needs to be contrived and secretive and frustrating and troublesome, on more levels than one.

and now, i need to get ready to go. because therapy for my grandpa begins in forty-five minutes at the hospital.

i take my twist with a shout

so the Killers have invaded iTunes. only a matter of time, what with The O.C. taking them on. wonder how long before the Walkmen arrive on the scene.

also, the Cardigans have released an iTunes Originals album. which i cannot buy unless i have a billing address that's in the States [or somewhere in well-known Europe, but tracks are more expensive to Europeans, i think]. i want it. but i literally cannnot buy it. why, oh, why.

where's my MasterCard? i cannot wait two business weeks, damn it. and what, exactly, is two business weeks? Amazon stands to earn a lot off me once i get that MasterCard, and i want my CDs. now. even though it'll still take a week for them to arrive after i place my order. i've already given up making a list and deleted it because if i make a list i'll remember exactly what i want to order when i can order, and that will leave a very, very, very huge dent in bank account.

in other consumerist/materialistic/superficial news, i have decided to go to the Clarks store at United Square tomorrow to look for shoes that might fill up the hole that the pair of Kenneth Cole "Debt Free" loafers have left in my heart. look below for a link to see what those shoes look like, because those are a fine pair of shoes.

rich

Apple - iBook G4

Apple: i do not think it's funny that you update the iBook line so that it's more or less now a PowerBook in sheep's clothing, minus some add-ons most people won't need. the next PowerBook had better be the PowerBook G5. i don't think i could live with not having the fastest 12" PowerBook G4.

i'd've linked you to the main Apple page, which is all about the new iBook right now, but i didn't want to create a main link which would break later on and have people clicking on it and wondering what the new U2-edition iPod/60GB iPod with color screen and photo-sharing capabilities/updated PowerBook G4/PowerBook G5/whatever Apple decides to make me want next have to do with the updated iBooks. though if they next replace it with an updated PowerBook G4/new PowerBook G5 it would have relavance, but that would not be necessary as it would have its own post and rant to go with it.

anyway, if you really want to see the iBook on the main Apple page, it can't be too difficult to type "www.apple.com" into your browser, can it?

mad world

but one example of the sad state junior college students are in:

Romanticism: Ah, sweet freedom

waltz #1

An ant just crawled across the bottom left corner of my Palm Tungsten T. What the heck was it doing in/on my Palm?

Anyway. I just got back into bed from getting out of bed just to flip open my PowerBook and watch episode four of the fifth season of Gilmore Girls. Lorelai Gilmore is one amazing woman.

It's frustrating how some things change so much you no longer recognize them, some things won't ever change, and other things change so often you've learnt to recognize the change instead. Of course, none of you are going to understand this. I have too much too say and too little patience to work with the stylus on the ridiculously grippy screen protector for any extended period of time. palmOne really needs to come out with a Tungsten-series PDA that has a built-in keyboard, WiFi, doesn't look fugly like the Tungsten C, retains Bluetooth, and goes back to the slider form factor.

wet to set in one minute flat.

"Hey! You do not harass the voters. This is not Florida."

i love everything. i love to be around money

Kenneth Cole Online Store

god, i have extremely expensive taste. the only pair of shoes i want to buy, and they're three hundred singapore dollars [converted from the US online store's USD price, which means they may cost even more here]? wowzee wowza. and the name of the shoe's Debt Free. wait two weeks. if you still want them, then you can start thinking of ways to get them. it's a very good thing that i don't have a credit card, because they would be mine by now if i had one.

- "Andrew Ridgley", Black Box Recorder

drag your blanket blindly

Another reason to loathe Nokias: My last blog entry got chewed up, for no good reason. It was incredibly long, taking into consideration the fact that it was thumbed out on the abhorrent keypad of a Nokia 8310. Will this post escape this screen? Lets find out...

how to fight loneliness

I'm home again. I don't know why. I'm typing this out on my sister's mobile phone. It is a Nokia. Clearly, i am desperate. The Sims 2 CD-ROMs are with my brother. He is at my aunt's. I was supposed to be at dax's now, on the pretext of having sent my sister home from my aunt's and it being too late to catch a bus back. Matt's parents weren't keen on him bringing booze over to dax's, whatever that understatement's supposed to mean, so it was off, since i left all my cash at my aunt's and have fifteen dollars left in my bank account. I need to, want to drink, because the sky is falling again, and i'm falling with it. The bank's taking us to court. And after we're made homeless and penniless by this apartment of my dad's, the other one which we've only paid twenty percent of will be waiting in the wings, lawsuit waiting.

good i feel bad

I want to go back.

caught by the river

Can't sleep. I keep thinking about mimosas (the drink, not the plant, and i'm quite sure I've spelt it wrong) because i wanted to get one but ended up with a screwdriver. Ten points to whoever can guess why i wanted a mimosa. Must sleep. Busy day tomorrow. Can't sleep. Can't sleep. Must sleep.

we've had enough

So i'm lying on my back now, at xuan's house, listening to dax and xuan talk about secondary school. I've spent most of my available cash and bank balance today, on food, wine and, almost, song. I suddenly like clubbing. I found yet another place to check out for shoes. My Ericsson wants me to stop.

dice

Does this work? If you're reading this, then it must, i guess.

Who needs moblogs when you have a GPRS-enabled Ericsson T68m that will do email as well? Blogger, Ericsson and Palm are my heroes. For now.

I'm at home. There is no internet access. my iPod is plugged into the Panasonic CD Stereo System. I just finished playing The Sims 2 on the home Dell Dimension 8250 [which needs, by the way, more RAM & a better GPU. Sadly it will only take the rare and expensive RDRAM variety, and a good GPU costs lots], and now am writing this on my Palm Tungsten T, connected to the internet courtesy of my brother's Sony Ericsson T618. Why not my own Ericsson T68m? Because that bugger owes me. Big-time.

I should go to bed. May have to go out twice tomorrow before i head back to my aunt's.

- "Dice (featuring Beth Orton)", Finley Quaye

clint eastwood

as if the Hummer H1 & H2 weren't enough, what's left of the world's oil and the air in Los Angeles is now positively cowering in fear: the Hummer H3 has been found. ew.

Hummer H3 unwrapped

and after looking it up a bit, it appears Hummer is pitching this H3 as a mid-sized SUV, to compete with SUVs like the Cadillac SRX and BMW X3.

right. when the X3 would fit inside the SRX, and the SRX would fit inside the H3.

urban complex

you know what's depressing? looking at this:

Academic Affairs Office

- "Urban Complex", Maxis, from the SimCity 3000 Soundtrack

photobooth

i don't know why i'm thinking so much about this now, to the point of obsession. I got out of bed a hour ago, to watch the pilot of The O.C., because i said i would yesterday but forgot, and immediately after i finished watching it and went back to bed, i was thinking about the instances when i really thought that i was, if not "cool", then at least not an utterly depressed [and possibly repressed], complete social retard.

And one time that stood out was the day the 2003 "O" Level Examination results came out. I wore my Levi's jeans and a brown Esprit short-sleeved shirt printed with a snowboarder motif. Total value: easily eclisped two hundred dollars.

It wasn't the results themselves [but i did get an A1 in english language, frankly all i wanted, even if the rest of my grades were dismal], and what i wore was only a part of it. Cause after the whole shindig in school matt, xuan, jiun, someone i've forgotten and i went to the Cafe Cartel along East Coast Road and had lunch. We talked about results, they talked about junior colleges, matt told me i should try for Law & Management, i noticed that Gilmore Girls was showing on the television sets they had inside Cafe Cartel,

After lunch we [matt, xuan & i] made plans to meet at Somerset later for a gig that was playing at The Third Place. I had no idea where that was, and i'd never been to a gig before.
all i knew was that i wanted to go.

But it was hours away. And if i had to go home and be alone to wait it out i know that i wouldn't be able to make myself leave the house again. So i thought of places to crash. School was out, matt's was out, i decided to head into the city by myself and see if there was any of my interest to be held there.

I ended up mooching about library@orchard, a subway stop down from Somerset. When five o'clock came i headed down to Somerset and met up with matt. finding out xuan was going to be late, we headed to the Burger King across the road from the station, where i bought a large iced lemon tea, we chatted, and matt played Billards on my Palm.

When we found out xuan was going to head there on his own [his jam session with some people i didn't know ended late], we headed off in search of the bus service he told us to take, crossing two roads to get to the bus-stop on the other side of Somerset station. we couldn't find it. decided that it was probably to be found a stop downstream, so matt and i trudged through the foliage on the side of the road to get to the bus-stop down the road. you weren't supposed to be walking there, and i can just imagine the numbers of drivers, headlights dazzling the bushes, wondering that the two teenage boy making their way along the road, half on the dirt, half on asphalt, were trying to do. besides trying to maintain my balance on the dirt and trying to to fall, i was also looking up the bus service on the internet, on my Ericsson. i kept getting an error message saying that the service was not found, and i told matt, "if we get there, and it's not there, we're taking a cab."

matt was all, "really?", and when we got to the bus-stop and found that the service wasn't available there, i dragged him to the Wisma Atria cab-stand to wait for a cab. i remember seeing a Lexus ES300, matt saying that "it's a fucking Camry!", and i said something that must have sounded inane to him about how the Toyota Camry and Lexus ES300 are basically the same car underneath their skins, save for the engines, and then we got into a cab. the was the whole thing about how "Outram" should be pronounced, both matt and i thought OUtram, but it was only when, in exasperation, i tried OUTram that the taxi driver understood me. and then he though matt and i were japanese or korean tourists. ew.

then it was getting there [i paid for the cab ride, not that i minded, just in case anyone out there thinks i shouldn've paid for a cab ride i suggested, i did, okay?] the gigs, my nosebleed in the middle, leaving, walking a distance to Great World City, eating at the McDonald's there that was about to close, taking a cab ride, dropping matt off at City Hall, dropping me off at Chuan Park, and then the cab making a u-turn in Serangoon Avenue Three, receeding into the distance with xuan in it, signalling the end of the evening.

everything from arriving at The Third Place onwards was better fleshed out in the original blog post i made, which i am going to dig out and post here just because it's special. i just wanted to make a note to remember it, and look where that went. oh, and yeah. that bus service that xuan told us to take that night? terminated a long time ago.

found it, and posted it. click on the title of this post to access it, alternatively click here.

"I remember when the days were long
And the nights when the living room was on the lawn

Constant quarreling, the childish fits
And our clothes in a pile on the ottoman

All the slander and double speak were only foolish attempts to show you did not mean
Anything, but the blatant proof was your lips touching mine in the photobooth

And as the summer's ending
The cold air will push your hard heart away
You were so condescending

And this is all that's left
Scraping paper to document
I've packed a change of clothes and it's time to move on.

Cup your mouth to compress the sound
Skinny dipping with the kids from a nearby town

And everything that I said was true
As the flashes blinded us in the photobooth

Well I lost track and then those words were said
You took the wheel and you steered us into my bed

And soon we woke and I walked you home
And it was pretty clear that it was hardly love

And as the summer's ending
The cold air will rush your hard heart away
You were so condescending

And this is all that's left
Scraping paper to document
I've packed a change of clothes and it's time to move on

And as the summer's ending
The cold air will rush your hard heart away
You were so condescending
As the alcohol drained the days

And as the summer's ending
The cold air will rush your hard heart away
You were so condescending

And this is all that's left
The empty bottles, spent cigarettes
So pack a change of clothes, 'cause its time to move on"

- "Photobooth", Death Cab For Cutie

hidden track

so. i've gotten all the way to Tuesday, May 13th, 2003. but i have yet to do anything about the last time i was home.

time for bed.

falls apart

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

cool. though what use i have for linking the five people who read my blog to some random site that i am reading at the moment i clicked "BlogThis!", i do not know.

okay. now back to transferring my old archives here, and reliving my old life, to see if this current bit is any better than the old ones.

the taste of ink

to the guy who wrote the Hyundai Tuscon ad:

i think that, if the guy driving the Tuscon had refilled the ice-cube tray and replaced it in the refrigerator before leaving, the ice would have been ready by the time he returned from wherever he drove to to find an icicle for his drink.

plus, icicles? you don't know where the water that formed it's been. ew!

bad Hyundai. bad, bad Hyundai.

california

i'm so behind.

can i even be considered to be behind if i only found out about it at a time when i would already be behind if i started on it right away, anyway?

but, whatever. see, someone [i cannot remember who it was, or even where i read it] came up with the idea to watch an episode of The O.C. for each of the twenty-seven days left running up to the season two premiere.

there are only twenty-four days left. i'm behind. but i've got other shows i've not watched yet, like four episodes of Everwood, one-and-a-half episodes of Lost, one episode of Will & Grace, and one not-yet-downloaded episode of Desparate Housewives.

and this's leaving aside the multitude of real-life problems i have yet to handle yet. but considering i wanted to kill myself over the weekend, i think i'll take this week off. now if only my mom, dad, plus various countless unmentionables, would let me.

the best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, i want money

i have yet to collect my thoughts about the last few days, because i didn't have the time, or the internet connection [i was home again], but before it expires, quick, quick, go read this:

Chinese national awarded $1m in suit against S'porean - OCT 8, 2004

the Mr Khoo in the article is my third uncle. hi-la-ri-ous.

just shut your mouth

i had to go home over the weekend.

'nuff said.

god bless t.v.

i need to watch something that's light, dark, romantic and destructive.

thank god i own a copy of Jeux d'enfants. i am still pissed as hell that it won't play in my PowerBook, but i will be watching it again tomorrow when i get back.

right now, as a placebo, i need to watch myself some television. something that'll either make me cry my heart our, or laugh out loud. or warm my heart so much wish i was living that life instead.

because right now i feel like i'm falling off the side of a building [but, please, not like that Evanescence promo video], and i i'm thinking and hoping that the someone i want to catch me is there to the point where i'm dreaming, and it feels like it's going to be okay, because i am being caught by that someone.

and then i reach the sidewalk. no one's there.

my little corner of the world

i want the soundtrack to the Gilmore Girls, Our Little Corner Of The World: Music From The Gilmore Girls, so badly that i need it now. must have it. because i know that someone else buying it for me is a complete, utter, so-not-going-to-happen thing, i'm going to have to find and buy it myself. but it's not available anywhere i've looked. not that i've looked all that hard, but something as good as this should be widely available. at least until i buy it.

i might ship it off Amazon if i get desperate. HMV will probably charge me an obscene amount of money to import it [imports are already $40+, and those are the imports they brought in of their own accord], plus i can get Daisies From The Galaxy at the same time, probably [and hopefully] for less, too. i think i am getting desperate already. but i don't have a credit card! sigh.

also: when are Music From The OC: Mix 2 and Mix 3, the Chrismukkah compilation, arriving? i want them now. i want to listen to Maybe This Christmas now. i don't want to have to wait until chirstmas. why should i listen to it only during christmas? so what if i want to listen to a christmas song OUTSIDE of christmas?

this post brought to you by the lastest antics of my "parents": my dad reporting my mom's holding his passport to the police and landing themsleves in Family Court.

the difference is you

if there was ever such a thing as an unfortunate chain of events, yesterday [Sunday] would have been one.

RetroSpect DayView for Sunday, September 26th, 2004:

1118 woke up for weekly visitation by First Uncle & Family

1130 got cleaned up, had breakfast

1145 greeted First Uncle and First Aunt-In-Law upon their arrival retreat to room

1205 poked my head out of room door in confusion at the staggered depature of my First Uncle and my First Aunt-In-Law. they left within a minute of each other, my First Aunt-In-Law staying to deliver a few parting words first

1215 we sit down to lunch, turned into an excess due to the departure of two expected guests, interrupted by a telephone call that began the fall-out from the argument that occured several minutes before 1205 [details on that scandal in another post, if at all, because this isn't the bit of the day that really hit me hard]

1230 telephone call from mom and dad, within spitting distance of each other only because my mom confiscated my dad's passport and won't let him leave until he "settles everything". mammoth task for a useless man. they wanted me to go back as some twisted sort of mediator. not only did i not want to go, but the logistics simply didn't work out [again, more another time, if at all, because the worst is yet to come]

1330 second aunt and rosemarie leave for second aunt's Buddhism class

1345 Priscilla [my third cousin under my first uncle] pops over, asking if my second aunt is in, then if rosemarie was in, after i told her my second aunt wasn't in. like, hello? how's my second aunt supposed to go anywhere without rosemarie?

1355 Priscilla leaves, leaving behind thirty dollars and a three-hundred dollar check from Joanne, my seventh [i think] cousin's wife. this is related to the 1205 argument earlier. it's a long, lengthy scandal and deserves its own post, if i ever write it

1410 rosemarie returns, after some quips about the scandal, she takes a nap and i go back to my PowerBook

1645 after getting my granddad out of bed [we put him to bed before rosemarie left at one-thirty], rosemarie heads off to get second aunt back from class

1700 rosemarie and second aunt return. i shower and leave for Raffles Place

1800 arrive at Raffles Place Interchange, half an hour in advance. poke around the concourse and deicide to go aboveground and scope the place out first

1815 call xuan to point out to him that the place we were going to is located inside an office building, and office buildings are not open on Sundays

1826 xuan texts back to say to get to City Hall ASAP

1827 i fail to text back the message "Don't asap someone who arrived half an hour in advance.", because my prepaid card's credit balance was below the minimun required to send texts

1830 i meet alvin chow and patrick at the Raffles Place Interchange Basement Three platform

1845 arrive at City Hall Interchange. dax and shiming are already there. xuan is nowhere to be seen

1930 after mildly telling xuan off, including the content of the message i couldn't send and a reminder that i was the one who went to find out in advance if the place was open, the dismal showing moves and arrives at Suntec City Movenpick Marché, where someone pulls out some FHM Top 100 Girls Next Door special and almost everyone starts ogling their goodies, making inane and asinine comments.

2030 at xuan's insistence, we move to Suntec City Cedele Depot for cake

2100 leave Suntec City for City Hall Interchange. patrick takes the bus, xuan's on a different line, dax, wayne, shiming, alvin and i are on the East-West Line

2120 train pulls into Kallang Station. i do not get off, intending to while the night away at the airport

2150 i get off with dax at Tampines Station, and trawl for a movie to watch

2230 i give up, and pile dax and i into a cab headed for Orchard Cineleisure

2245 ten dollars later, we arrive at Cineleisure. deciding not to risk trying to get into Saved! [an M18 film], i got tickets for Dodgeball instead

2350 after applying for Internet Banking, going to Cheers! to get weird ice-cream and drinks, and other attempts at wasting time, we are seated for the movie

epilogue: dax's mom's threatening texts to my phone [his Nokia conked out] was funnier than the movie. i didn't even really laugh. we got a cab ride back to Kallang and dax decided to wander until public transport resumed operations

Expense Report for Sunday, September 26th, 2004:

$43.30 - bill for dinner at Movenpick Marché, inclusive of the Rosti with Mushroom Ragout that xuan wanted to share
$11.50 bill for dessert at Cedele Depot, inclusive of the two dollars i had to top-up for xuan's Carrot Cake
$10.00 cab fare from Tampines Mall to Orchard Cineleisure
$17.50 tickets to Dodgeball
$05.00 drinks and weird ice-dream at Cheers!
$07.80 cab fare from Orchard Cineleisure to Kallang

$95.10 total for the day

well. at least i didn't spend $120 on CDs again.

actually, come to think about it, it's actually too bad i didn't take that money and buy CDs with it instead.

one day i will have spent enough on cabs [especially on cabs when the Midnight Surcharge is in effect] to have been able to buy an old Saab cabriolet with what was spent.

sparks

that night when i went to "Mamma Mia!" on opening night was the first time i've seen my mom in weeks. and she was nice to us. no unpleasantless that was directed right at us. i appreciated it.

but remember me saying that i came back from it emotionally drained?

she's betting on soccer again. big-time. studying teams, matches, and getting pissed-off at the people she's in it with, and at least one [i assume small-time] bookie. which can only mean that she sees this as her final salvation. the only thing short of a miracle [read: her husband managing to take care of the family, financially-speaking or otherwise] that will save everything as it is.

i, all of seventeen years old, spent a lot of time in the car [a friend's Nissan Sunny] conflicted about what was the best way to gently convince her this wasn't a solution. but unless i was prepared to damage my ability to function for the rest of the week more so than it already was, doing that was not a good idea. why destroy a perfectly nice evening?

why indeed. so i went with it. pretending it didn't notice anything. not that there was any chance in hell i wouldn't have noticed it. she wasn't even trying to hide it anyway. it was nice having a meal your mom provided for you. it's been ages since i last had that. kids everywhere have meals provided for by their parents all the time, directly or indirectly, whether their mom rushed home from work, took a quick shower and prepared food and fruits for you and your friend who came over to take a look at your PC, hired a maid to do it for them, took their kids out to a McDonald's as a treat, or drove them out to Lawry's for steak.

there are a number of parallels between my life and the ongoing plot in Gilmore Girls now. which is why it made me want to cry when i watched it all the way through to the new season premiere, and why i re-watch it over and over again.

my prepaid card ran out of credit on Friday. i spent it all trying to contact my sisters because i was supposed to meet them. in the end i got played out all the way from the airport to Sengkang to Bugis Junction. in the end i went back here and waited for them to come to me instead.

my Ericsson's now set to accept calls from no-one. to the caller it rings once then gets a busy tone, but i don't hear or notice anything more than (Busy Tone - Bernard Anybody) flashing on the screen.

Bernard Anybody [i use either Somebody or Anybody as filler for people whose surnames i do not know. obviously the usage of either will tell you how i feel about the person or what they mean to me. and for those who find this oddly familiar it's pinched off The Sims: Superstar, where they use Somebody and Anybody to differentiate between, respectively, celebrities and nobodies] is the group leader of my ComDI project group. they wanted to meet Saturday to work on the project. they notified me Friday. since i had no credit or desire to go, or in fact desire to respond, i left it at that. Bernard Anybody called seven times, and Zubair Anybody called thrice. they can all go to hell for all care. there's no way i can pass this module no matter how hard i slave over the project anyway, so they can go it alone, and present their unpresentable work, or lack thereof. i'll wait for the re-sub.

the whole accept-calls-from-no-one thing is a bit inconvenient, though. i'm not comfortable at all doing telephone voice conversations. phone calls are akward for me. oddly enough, more so when i actually know the person and he's not a faceless entity whose job description involves taking my call and speaking to me. so in order to arrange and find out about dinner with my friends later today, i had to call xuan up and ask.

had to do it thrice today. i think i'm getting better at it. though it still remains that i don't know how to act on the phone when i comes to some people [for either good or bad reasons, depending on the person in question].

i'm looking forward to dinner tomorrow. though how i will look backward on it afterwards remains to be seen.

Agenda View: Sunday, September 26th, 2004

1100 First Uncle & Family's visit [weekly recurring event]

1900 dinner at Fig & Olive Café <24 Raffles Place, #02-02 Clifford Centre> w/ friends

daddy lost everything

today i:

skipped Color class [to be honest i have no idea whether i really did, because i didn't get any response of any sort from the, um, module-mate i texted]

woke at twelve because i stayed up watching Gilmore Girls

left for the Botanic Gardens by cab

spent half an hour looking for benny [my P&FDr lecturer] and, after that, over an hour roaming the place, taking photos

left for home by cab

watched another two episodes of Gilmore Girls

downloaded two episodes of the new season of Everwood [which i'm not sure why i did, i never really watched Everwood to begin with]

talked to my aunt about my father and his passport being taken away

texted my mother about her taking my father's passport

talked to my aunt more about my father and his passport

talked to my aunt about "Mamma Mia!" [she saw it in Britain years ago]

made a mental note to text my mother tomorrow, to remind her that what she's done is crimminal [and i mean it literally, not just because it's robbing countless people of their sanity by keeping Albert Khoo in the country]

watched the break-hiatus episode of The O.C. on Singaporean televison, Season One, Episode Seventeen, "The Rivals"

marvelled at how our censors wouldn't even allow the scene of Danny mock-humping a classmate through [seriously. what is there to shield our young, impressionable teenagers from? let's hope that our kids don't go to secondary schools, because kids pull crap like that all the time in there]

watched the first episode of the third season [the new season] of Everwood, up to the opening credits, because i read that they'd changed and it was better than before

hated the new opening credits, liked the old ones much better

also hated Ephram's new hair, um, style [because it grew out into a center-part and haircut implies that it got shorter, which is exactly the opposite of what happened]

decided to reconsider starting to watch Everwood, though i probably will still compulsively download every new episode as it comes out, because i already have the first two in the season

which reminds me, i need to buy markers so that i can label the plethora of CDs i am going to burn. in additon to other things i need to buy, like a pair of compasses, and such.

here i go again

so, in order of appearance, What I Have Done Since I Blogged This Morning, "This Morning" Being The Morning Of September 22nd, 2004:

01 brought my grandfather [and, of course, my sort-of-aunt and rosemarie] to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for his physiotheraphy appointment

02 handled his transfer to Geriatric Physiotheraphy

03 texted my excuse to my ComDI group leader from Burger King Novena Square [my grandad likes french fries dipped in coffee]

04 came back and completed about a third of my long overdue Color portfolio

05 showered, dressed and left for "Mamma Mia!" [opening night!] at the Esplanade

06 arrived an hour in advance [as i think is only right] and waited forty-five minutes for my sisters [whose cab fare i had to pay] and mother

07 watched the first half of "Mamma Mia!", and loved it

08 pretended i was at a Newport Beach society event during intermission [it helped that my sisters were looking like Marissa Cooper and Summer Roberts tonight]

09 watched the second half of "Mamma Mia!", and loved it

10 had supper at this place in Geylang called [direct Mandarin-to-English translation] Ever Peace Eating House

11 got dropped off back here

12 watched the last twenty minutes of "The Amazing Race", Season Five, Two-Hour Finale Special

13 changed for bed

14 checked on my Gilmore Girls torrents and organized PowerBook's files

15 watched an episode of the Gilmore Girls that made me cry ["The Incredible Shrinking Lorelais", Episode Fourteen, Season Four]

16 watched an episode of the Gilmore Girls that made me smile, then feel sorry for Emily Gilmore ["Scene In A Mall", Episode Fifteen, Season Four]

17 felt so emotionally drained that i blogged mechanically just so i had a record of what went on, so that i can recap, once again, with emotion, at a later time

why am i emotionally drained? let's just say that "The Incredible Shrinking Lorelais" wasn't the first time i wanted to cry today. let's also say that that first time happened after "Mamma Mia!".

more, later, if i can summon the emotional capacity. it's all falling apart. but i have to mantain control.

Agenda View: Thursday, September 23rd, 2004

0900 Color lecture at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

1500 P&FDr lecture at the Singapore Botanical Gardens

i'm skipping my first class, if it's even on this week, and hopefully getting some more, if not all, of the Color portfolio done.

else, even better, i'll spend the morning wallowing in more Gilmore goodness. i need it.

london bridge is falling down

i was snoozing, and right outside my window [my aunt's place is a corridor unit] these contractors set up shop, knocking and banging things together, speaking with the verbal capacity of a bunch of teenage hooligans [read: colorful language peppered with obscenities in the Hokkien dialect].

then i went to clean up and get breakfast, and they start singing/whislting London Bridge Is Falling Down.

igonring for a moment that there is no London Bridge, how confidence-inspiring is it when the contractors working on the lift-lobby right next to your flat are singing a song of a collasping structure? what the hell kind of construction worker sings that while he works?

so after i'm done with breakfast and come back to my PowerBook to check on a few things, they start banging loudly against the wall i'm right next to, scaring the heck out of me [i let my guard down at home. at school someone can jump down a flight of stairs, seemingly appearing out of nowhere--the staircase is hidden, but its presence is known, hence one does not expect anyone to come leaping out of it and i don't even stop walking]. there are really old people living in this estate. lots of them, in fact. like my grandfather, ninety-four years old and has an appointment at the hospital at eleven AM, but no way through the mess they've made of the lift lobby in his wheelchair.

and now, a wonderful constant grinding sound. nice score.

mamma mia

Agenda View: Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004

0900 meeting with CreTh group for Project Two - Salomé at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

1100 grandfather's physiotheraphy appointment at Tan Tock Seng Hospital

1500 FoDev lecture at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

1800 meeting with ComDI group for Project Two - The Language Of Color at Temasek Polytechnic DES Studio

2000 opening night of "Mamma Mia!" at the Esplanade - Theaters On The Bay

in an ideal world, i should be able to voice-command either my Palm or my PowerBook to "cancel my first, third, and fourth appointments" and be done with it. but no such yet, so i will have to come up with an excuse.

life is unfair. kill yourself or get over it

i just got my first PowerBook scratch. fuck. and all this because i was going from the studio to the library because two of my ComDI group members took up roost opposite me.

up town top ranking

school wasn't much good today.

the noobsie covention wasn't much good on Sunday.

i have nothing much to report, but that's because i don't want to report anything.

my time online seems much more pleasant than my life offline. sigh. what to do.

right back where we started from

tomorrow: noobsies convention at The Bayshore, just because one of my cousins' sons has turned three.

these people are the same that have insulted basically everyone living here [my aunt's] on Friday, when Priscilla [my third cousin] mentioned something about her son [Nicholas, takes Multimedia & Infocomms Technology at Nanyang Polytechnic] needs only a hundred dollars a month as expenses, and how come first aunt is giving him two-hundred fifty?

this led to my second aunt defending me on the phone, leading to Priscilla activating the family gossip/slander network, leading to an entirely ugly incident. my aunt-of-sorts revealed to me that they're after my first aunt's favor, which by the looks of how much i've getting and the very fact that i'm living here, is supposedly in the palm of my hand according to their imaginations. amongst the things that they're after range from petty things like thousand-dollar stock dividends to being in her will for her CPF assets.

in a heated discussion of my cousins my aunt-of-sorts spat out this hilarious retort:

Next time, just tell her:

"Priscilla, congratulations on having such a great son like Nicky! Our Aaron is so useless, we give him two-hundred-fifty a month and see no change from it!

Nicky is so good, he can manage on a hundred a month! One day Lee Kuan Yew will make him his Finance Minister!"

i laughed my way to the floor with that one. i feel strangely bemused and enthralled by my status within the family now. it's like i'm ryan atwood, and these noobsies feel threatened by my moving right into their breathing space.

i'm tired, so i won't elaborate any further [even though i would love to. it's like living in a television drama, except it's not as fun to watch, because you're not watching it. you're living it. and not in a good way, like if i were to be living an O.C. life], but just to record my thoughts:

i downloaded the O.C. special, Obsess Completely, and i am loving it, fully intend to buy Mix 2 and MUST buy Mix 3 [a Chrismukkah compilation], and am stoked about the second season of The O.C. due to premiere on November 4th [so much so that i wish my birthday was then instead. it's like a huge birthday present, exactly one month early], BUT what on earth is the O.C. Insider thing.

it's like one of those Barbie/Archie/Kathy Keene [okay, so i read a lot of Archie, but never Kathy Keene, they were under the same publisher and cross-advertized. as for Barbie my sisters had a lot of Barbie stuff--but thankfully not a membership] clubs or something where you pay a subscription and get a newsletter and access to special stuff and what not. it sounds so lame and really cheapens my whole thing for The O.C. it is so blatantly a money-making endeavor that makes josh schwartz's self-deprecating comment about how they were always ready to make a quick buck on The O.C. no longer funny or endearing, but instead off-putting.

color me put-off. i'm going to pretend i never saw that/never see that when i re-watch Obsess Completely. i have a sneaking suspicion that they are going [in fact, i dare say they won't possibly pass the chance up] to plug O.C. Insider on the next, and last, O.C. special before the next season.

i can just imagine summer roberts going, "O.C. Insider? Eww."

cantelopps

i took a cab to school again. it could be argued that it was in the interest of being on time, since i awoke from my coma only at seven-forty, but i can't pull that again because every week i bust my arse trying to get to school on time on Friday only to have the nonsensical bunches of the group turn up at least an hour late.

no, i wanted to convert the forty-five minute nuisance that would be a train ride to Bedok and a bus out from there into a sedating, calming, zen-like fifteen-minute float into Tampines with my iPod in a Toyota Crown.

lecturer's here. eta later.

number one crush

"I would die for you
I would die for you
I've been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you're mine

I will cry for you
I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear

I will pray for you
I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you

See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time that I am talking
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored

I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
And tear it apart

I will lie for you
Beg and steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You're just like me

Violate all the love that I'm missing
Throw away all the pain that I'm living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored

I would die for you
I would kill for you
I will steal for you
I'd do time for you
I will wait for you
I'd make room for you
I'd sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be part of you
'Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you"

- "#1 Crush", Garbage

british racing green

my FoDev lecture lasted a grand total of five minutes, from three-fifteen to three-twenty.

wow.

eta: my lecture was supposed to be from three to six.

the art of driving

i think it's only getting worse when i contemplate going to school in yesterday's white t-shirt and boardshorts, because i really can't be bothered to get changed.

it gets worse when i realize that at least half of the students there dress like that everyday, anyway.

where's my shirt?

we are not amused anymore

it's late, but i still can't sleep and am waiting for my hair to dry, so i might as well stop putting off the exposition of what happened last weekend.

FRIDAY

after the shit-fest that was CreTh lecture [i rushed a PowerPoint presentation DURING lecture for my group's presentation, PowerBook and CanoScan in tow--yes, the CanoScan is a scanner. an actual scanner. i brought my scanner to school with me--and fingers on my Apple Wireless Mouse, clicking like a dervish, only to have Eugene Chen and Alex, group members who have contributed nothing thus far, insist on presenting it. they took over my PowerBook while i was in the toilet. idiot Eugene was fumbling stupidly with the plugs and remotes and mouse and adaptor, and i shook my head at the door as i stepped in a fixed it all up. they massacred the presentation, not the audience or the lecturer. they had no idea what was coming up when, or even what was already on the screen, and just shat all over it. the lecturer gave us full marks for the presentation anyway, because he could see the effort put into the presentation--specifically the PowerPoint slides--as no other group went to the same lengths. however he thought an Ernest--an actual group member, but NOT the one that slogged for the presentation--did all that work, and i was positively foaming at the mouth by then], my father returns.

woah. that was one long expository set of parenthesis.

yes. so he comes back from Papua New Guinea, notices that his twelve-thousand-dollar television set is missing, along with the rest of his liquor [most of it, especially the really good, expensive stuff, had been moved out long ago]. he gets pissed, kicks down the bathroom door and confronts my mother. note that my mother was showering whilst he was kicking the door down. so he shouted at her, [i assume] slapped her about, then kicked her out of the house.

how do i know all this, when i don't live at home?

my brother called, scared shitless. after he was done, my sister took over. evidently my father had too little blood in his alcohol/nicotine system. and you wonder why i don't like people who smoke or drink?

so i did what i could to assure him that it's okay, same for my sister, and then hung up to warn my maid not to go home if she could help it, and called my mom. no answer. when she called back later she related the whole thing back to me, without saying anything about whether she was slapped about [my mother may be, for the most part, shameless, but you don't bring up your own husband slapping you about just to get sympathy], and said that she was going to stay at her sister's.

SATURDAY

i woke up, heard my cousin's voice, thought it was okay to step out and clean myself up, opened the door and saw rosemarie wildly, urgently and desperately gesticulating to me that my father was here, mouthing rather dramatically the words "YOUR FATHER!" and pointing towards the kitchen.

i closed to door as quietly as i could, locked it shut, and went back to bed to listen to Eels, Garbage and Cake on my iPod until they were gone. too long a time. it was way past two in the afternoon, that's all i can remember. wasted time.

SUNDAY

first uncle's weekly visit, with my first aunt-in-law, this time also with my adulteress first cousin [she's not married, her boyfriend is. no one but a small handful of people in my family know, though]. similarly wasted time. though he did give me twenty dollars in more guilt money, though, so i guess it wasn't entirely wasted.

taking stock:

we owe half a million dollars to United Overseas Bank, who is giving us three months, with monthly payments of ten thousand dollars, before they kick our sorry arses out our door;
we also owe enough in maintenance fees to our condominium's MCST for them to be threatening us with a ten-thousand-dollar penalty if we do not pay up soon;
the Singapore Power people just dropped by today to, in my sister's words, demand payment, but my dad wasn't at home, he was here, sucking up/stalking me.

life is unfair. kill yourself, or get over it.

when i wonder what could make the needle jump the groove

i've just gotten home.

staying til late in the studio is a nice alternative to mooching about in the city, for the purpose of avoiding my father.

i think i might do it again.

music stations always play the same song

what kind of airhead thing is that to say? to follow a traffic report of a stranded car on one of the many expressways here, Jamie Yeo says that it reminds her that it's time to service her car, and as a shout out to everyone who needs to have their cars serviced but haven't, she reminds them to get them serviced.

and this follows a reminder earlier to keep your traffic-light primping to three seconds or so, because the lights always catch her by suprise.

so explain to me why anyone listens to radio?

no one ever died from wanting too much

take your pick, Ally McBeal. would you rather:

A) be pleased that you were asked to help keep an eye on his stuff?

or

B) be upset that you weren't asked to join them for dinner?

tick-tock. your happiness is at stake.

child psychologists

i walked out of ModMa lecture. not in a dramatic, gather-my-things-pissily-and-stalk-off-whilst-lecturer-looks-at-me-quizzically way, more of a gather-things-in-advance-and-leave-whilst-lecturer-is-demonstrating-the-sanding-machine-and-not-looking-at-me-and-stalk-off-under-quizzical-looks-from-coursemates way.

i don't know what's wrong anymore. i am failing this semseter. there are at least seven jobs due in two weeks. and, failing to make it in two weeks or the re-sub twelve days after that, i will have to repeat the semester. which, right now, i would rather drop out than do.

life is unfair. kill yourself, or get over it

so, i'm really steeping in the guilt now.

and Sigur Rós has lots of stuff up for download. i've always known of them, but never bothered to really go check them out until i came across them in trevor's iPod [which, incidentally, is a first-generation model]. he listens to Muse and Black Box Recorder, amongst other acts i can no longer remember but can remember that were cool, and i thought, might as well, since Amazon had two tracks up for download. which is, in retrospect, laughable because the Sigur Rós site has loads more to get. but it's past midnight, i tire, and i have lectures tomorrow.

oh, and i also wanted to buy this great Canterbury shirt today whilst at The Heeren Shops. strange how i can stop myself from buying an eighty-dollar shirt but will spend a hundred and twelve on compact discs.

they even tried bribery. i could have anything i wanted, as long as i said it out loud

wowzee wowza.

i am at the Starbucks right next to California, where i spent five-sixty-five on a Lemon Passion Ice-Shaken Tea.

i came from HMV at The Heeren Shops, where i spent a hundred and twelve dollars on CDs.

i should stop going out alone.

i didn't want anything more to do with the outside world

i am calm. i am confident. i am serene [but not in the sense that i am Serene, my mother]. above all, i am Zen [and, again, not in the sense that i am a shoddily-done iPod imitation]. i am more Zen than Julien Janvier's father, who imagines that his wife was killed by his son, because his son was bewitched by Sophie Kowalski and her games.

i have just spoken to my ComDI lecturer about what happenes when i fail this module [notice i said "when", not "if"], and i have a second shot at passing in the re-sub, after the results come out. i didn't know i have results, considering that i don't have examintions. well now my aunt is going to know how i crashed and burned. in any case. i have the re-sub. i will kill myself trying to pass in the resub, even if i have to re-sub all seven modules.

i have given up on the group i have for ComDI. i have told them as much, and i don't really care if they get pissed off because i will no longer have to see them after this module ends. i am still in it because, actually, i don't why i'm still in it. i cannot pass, no longer how brilliant i make this presentation by dragging the other members onboard by their fingernails. so what am i in it for? to prove that i can do it? because the group will bomb without me and my PowerPoint/Word/language/presentation skills?

why? for gold, god, or glory?

am i on the wrong track?

and, yet again, i'm avoiding the details of the weekend. i do not know why. i want to record the many levels of disgust i had to go through reach today, but i'm either too tired or i feel i can live with the linen being as dirty as it is for now. next weekedn ought to be a hoot on around the same level as last week, though, so must prod me to update for the weekend before the weekend.

right now i'm seated in the PID studio. nothing new, except that i'm one half hour early for lecture, and have opted to come here instead of waiting for lecture outside the room, or at the library. and i'm exactly across the room from where i normally seat, because i am sick of pretending that i am a normal, unbalanced human being.

"Happy people scare me. They are chemically unbalanced."
- Shirley Manson

i am sick of being next to the staircase, next to the lecture area behind the lockers, next to way most people walk into the studio, forcing myself to greet everyone that comes though in a non-sardonic, positive manner, smiling and laughing occasionally, etcetera.

I AM SICK OF IT.

so i've moved to the table where people go to only to eat, or sit by themselves. occasionally the two other PowerBook users take up roost here, but as long as they don't bother me or force me to act like i'm on twenty levels of Prozac, i can not mind their presence.

somebody get me out of here, i'm tearing up myself

what i'm eating right now:

one piece of Quality Street Orange Crunch chocolate

one piece of Dove Milk Chocolate With Hazelnuts & Fruits [the fruit in this instance being orange]

one huge bowl of Post Honey Bunches Of Oats With Strawberries

[five minutes later]

what i'm eating right now:

one more piece of Quality Street Orange Crunch chocolate

one piece of Quality Street Orange Cream chocolate

two more pieces of Dove Milk Chocolate With Hazelnuts & Fruits [also orange]

two more bowls of Post Honey Bunches Of Oats With Strawberries [technically only one more, but this bowl is twice the size of the first]

it figured that the instant i wrap up my digital coversations [my brother, my sister, my maid, my mother, matt], close my PowerBook, set my iPod for charging whilst lulling me to sleep and switch off the lights, i get the most compelling hunger pangs in recent memory.

so right now Post, Dove, Quality Street and Apple are rocking my world. i am bingeing. i am upset. i am hungry. i am angry. i am angsty. i am brooding. i am pissed off. i am disheartened. i am tired. i am sick. i am sleepy. i am cranky.

but somewhere in this shaking/shivering [either from the hunger or from the sugar] mess is a very, very lonely seventeen-year-old.

i ain't happy, i'm feeling glad, i got sunshine, in a bag, i'm useless, but not for long, the future, is coming on

so, as i was getting my mobile out of my bag after lecture ended just now, i wondered to myself: "what the hell are you checking for text messages for? there aren't any, and you know it."

yeah, why do i?

bow down to me

so here i am, in the PID studio. the malays are in seated at a clump of six desks, the chinese are all over the place, the two PowerBook users are across the room from each other [there's me, slumped on a desk against the staircase--do not mistake this for Harry Potter-esque, i am NOT under the staircase--and there's He Whose Name I Think Is Joel. i do not like HWNITIJ. not in that explict if-you-talk-to-me-i-will-not-respond way, but in that i do not actively seek him out for conversation [in any case i don't actively seek anyone out for conversation]. he smokes. half the time when he's just entered a room i get this whiff of cigarettes off his backdraft. most people say they cannot detect it--to which i ask if they've lost all ability to smell--but i guess my nose is just hyper-sensitive. plus the way my father smokes i am surely fine-tuned to that smell if anything. he recently asked me for a copy of Microsoft Office Mac 2004 and Adobe Photoshop 7 for Mac. i hesitated to help him out, but my brain had already sent the command to say "sure". i used the excuse that i ran out of CD-Rs over the weekend, and today i forgot my FireWire cable for transferring the program off my iPod. to be honest i really forgot, the guy brought his PowerBook to school today [something he apparently doesn't do everyday, and why should i feel anything since i bring mine to school everyday] but i guess it was on purpose subconciously.

accidentally on purpose, i guess.

back to the first topic i brought up. yes. it's a block party here [and you know how i am at parties], and the racial divide is clearer than ever. i don't know why this matters at all [in fact, i don't know why this matters to me] but i thought i'd post it anyway, if only as a cover for my need to bitch about the PowerBooks, FireWire cable, iPod, HWNITIJ, Office & Photoshop, smoke and cigarettes.

until the sun comes up over santa monica boulevard

how i wish i had a gun:

U2 5-Pocket Classics dark gray pants: $34.50

2004/2005 Fall/Winter collection Springfield white-pinstripe maroon business shirt: $69

Giacoma Puccini matt-black metal-rimmed glasses: $195

Apple 15GB iPod: $198

Ericsson T68m: $288

Palm Tungsten T: $568

Apple 12" PowerBook G4: $2841

Knowing your day sucked and wanting to shoot yourself: Priceless

There are some things in life money can buy. For everything else, there's a fully-loaded Glock.

today just full-on, flat-out, fucking sucked.

death of a french whore

no, no, no, no, no.

i spent the last weekend chasing my ComDI group for work, even though i'm not their leader, because last week we did nothing for our presentation. this week there is another presentation.

last week one group blew everyone-but-i's socks off with their RELATIVELY well-designed and pulled-off presentation.

my socks should have been blown off, but i feel i could have easily done better, even if my group have NOTHING last week.

now, after chasing one person, another, and a malay girl [she's not in my group, class, or even course, and i do not know WHY THE HELL our group's only copy of the presentation is with her] who i didn't know until after i started chasing them, i have an eleven slide presentation meant to cover for last week's lack of a presentation, and this week's FINAL, VIDEO-TAPED presentation as well.

ELEVEN SLIDES. that one group's presentation last week was much longer than that. and needless to say, better and much more well-designed.

i have a whole fuck-ton to bitch about, but i have to get cracking on the makeover of the presentation now.

in order to quell my feverent desire to throw everything [PowerBook, iPod, Wireless Mouse, Tungsten T, T68m, bag, contents, possibly myself] out the window just to obtain that one second of absolut peace and calm and zen before the "oh shit" sets in, i am going to delude myself into worrying about superfical things, so that my mind is sutiably distracted whilst keeping its need for constant worry satisfied.

this Springfield shirt i bought on Saturday is one size too big, my hair is a Beatles-esque mess, i want to go to the Heeren Shops' Mambo store to look at shoes but have no one to go with, and i strangely don't dare to ask anyone at all, let alone anyone i actually want to go with, and shit shit shit my presentation and this semester's work is gone out the fucking window.

one more cup of coffee. won't hurt anyone.

you've got a great car

just a couple of days ago, i was lamenting about how i'm no longer in an educational institution that takes you to the airport for a class.

now, here i am at the airport's Starbucks, having finished my class here today, blogging on my PowerBook, which is connected to my Ericsson via Bluetooth, which is in turn connected to the Internet via GSM/GPRS. you would technically say that i wasn't taken here for the class, we were simply told to arrive at three at Terminal 2's The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, but i was late, waiting for an email, and the lecturer passed by my desk in the studio as i was packing.

five minutes later, i was in his Bertone X1/9, its engine growling behind me, seated about fifteen centimeters off the ground, headed for the airport.

so. damn. cool.

plus. he's a car guy. and five minutes into MX-5s and MR2s and Saab 900S Convertibles and getting parts of the Internet, i was sure that i didn't want to buy a new car as my first car. in fact, it's possible i don't ever want to buy a new car. nothing compares to something like an old Peugeot 306 Cabriolet or an Alfasud. or a Bertone X1/9.

new cars are, for the most bit, bland. few new models strike any chord with me at all.

maybe the next time Perpective & Freehand Drawing is being held off-campus i'll hang around my desk until it's too late to make it on time via public transport, but is the perfect time to leave and arrive on time by car.

that wouldn't be nice, though, would it.

the red and purple, blue and gray

so i'm sitting in color class, waiting for james [the lecturer] to tell me how much my test and previous assigment sucks, and iChat Rendezvous [Rendezvous is an Apple technology that allows you to chat with Macs on the same network as you are on, wireless or otherwise], and this guy called Macrus Lee signs onto Rendezvous.

his Mac is called "DeAtHG4".

for the love of god. this is clearly someone who uses a Mac only and only because it's cool. "DeAtHG4"? i feel ashamed to be using a Mac now, though logic dictates i shouldn't since only Mac uses will be able to see that his Mac is called "DeAtHG4". unless he's publicly sharing his files on the network. wait. let me check.

urgh. he is. but thankfully his share is listed as "MARCUS".

"DeAtHG4". really. unless he's using one of the school's PowerMacs, he must be using a PowerBook. hopefully not of the same series as mine. just two days ago i wished more people would sign onto [or, in some cases, even know about] Rendezvous, and now i wish less did.

and how long more is james going to take. i have only my assigment and my test. other people have entire portfolios and color journals to go through! i want to get this over with so i can plug in my PowerBook! i have only one hour and thirty-six minutes on my PowerBook's battery left!

counting numbered days

teachers' day is a terror.

a total of eight people turned up for Model Making class [class size: twenty-five] on Tuesday. wasted time.

in unrelated news, i've just discovered that i've been telling my grandfather's age wrong. he was born in 1910. that makes him ninety-four.

on a related note: why do people say "ripe" in reference to old age? it implies a fruit on a tree branch, ready to be picked or going to drop off onto the ground. hardly what most people want implied in old age.

but then again most people use "ripe" in reference to the age of someone who's already died. i think.

so much to plunder that i think i'll sleep instead

you'd think the feisty little bitch could be a little more polite, considering we're being charged one hundred and fifty dollars a pop for each of her cheap little letters:

Dear Aaron,

I have already responded to Mdm Serene Lim's letter. Please note that I will not entertain any email(s) or corrrespondence from you as you are obviously not one of the borrowers.


Regards
Genevieve Sim

yeah, and would you have any "corrrespondence" at all if i wasn't bothered to send you anything? my mother won't write her own letters [probably because she knows as well as i do that her grasp of the english language is strictly informal/casual/conversational only] and you don't leave anything but a return email address and fax number. what do you want? besides, i'm not prepared to send back anything with a higher gsm [unit for paper weightage, grams per square meter] or dpi [unit for printout quality/density, dots per inch] than your photocopied literary masterpieces, and i don't print on cheap paper or send out personalized xeroxes.

let's hope genevieve is in the shamelessly vain habit of googling herself every now and then. i've no need for more legal trouble in the face of the very reason why i have to email this genevieve sim anyway, so this isn't being sent directly to genevievesim@khattarwong.com but if she hasn't responded to my mother and deciedes to be just as prissy when i ask her why, i might just let her have it. stress relief has to come from and go somewhere, after all. though if i can make it biting and yet not inappropriate i will be basking in a glow for hours.

i'm a seventeen-year-old, you're an adult working in a law firm. here's a little advice, direct from me to you: grow up. and learn how to spell. [maybe she's a paralegal, though i hear they only accept people with at least an A2 grade in the english language into Law & Management at Temasek Polytechnic]

maybe this christmas

i just came back up from getting some stuff out of my third uncle's Mercedes-Benz, and i really surprised myself when i realized, as i was walking back with rosemarie [my aunt's maid], that i did the whole smile-and-greet-him-he's-your-relative thing without so much as thinking about it.

it was scary. five seconds before i was telling rosemarie how Batman is not fat and Fatman is not a bat [our name for my third uncle behind his back is Fatman], then it was smile [for a different, non-unlikely-superhero-names reason], greet, listen, nod, comply, leave.

of course, five seconds later i was in the lift with rosemarie, talking about the people who were in his car [him, his chinese wife, his chinese wife's niece, and his maid. incidentally, this is his second wife], his car itself [this dark green third-generation Mercedes-Benz E200, the original "Mickey Mouse" model--speaking of which, why is it called the "Mickey Mouse"? there are four headlights on it and it looks nothing like Mickey Mouse], and did his wife get contact lenses?

when it becomes automatic like that it can either be invaluably convenient [later on it'll probably become emotionally scarring, but who cares? we all live for the now] or just plain scary. all i thought, though, was that i'll never be able to use the line "i'll go put on my face" [from The Best Chrismukkah Ever--episode thirteen of season one of The O.C.--which i am watching out the corner of my eye as i type this] for situations like this. and i so wanted to.

"Maybe this Christmas will mean something more
Maybe this year
Love will appear
Deeper than ever before

And maybe forgiveness will ask us to call
Someone we love
Someone we’ve lost
For reasons we can’t quite recall

Mmm, maybe this Christmas"

- "Maybe This Christmas", Ron Sexsmith

it's saturday morning

everything points to today being Monday: my remembering that yesterday was Sunday, my PowerBook showing the "Mon" label before the time at the top-right-hand corner of the screen, if i switched on my Palm to check it would tell me that it's Monday, and i have a class at twelve. [also: the datestamp above will show that it's Monday]

so how come i feel like it's Saturday morning?

"it's saturday morning
and who's gonna play with me
six in the morning baby
i got a long long day ahead of me"

- "Saturday Morning", Eels

i woke up to my aunt telling me to hurry up and wake up, my first aunt was coming over for lunch, besides i'd already slept over ten hours, i should have repaid most of not all of my sleep debt by now [these aren't exact words, even/especially if you translate then back into mandarin, i took the liberty of making the speech appear more expository. though there wasn't a chance in hell that i'd repaid any of my sleep debt]

notice that nothing in the above paragraph gave the impression that i was roused because of school.

so in my contrived mind i immediately thought: no school today?

and whilst she was telling me it was ten-thirty already, and i should have slept enough by then [again: not true], i was thinking: yeah, i would have been forced out of bed earlier if i had school. [i need to leave the house an hour in advance, as in physically leave, and my Monday class is at twelve]

so i thought maybe there wasn't class today. maybe i'd been listened to and my feverent, desperate wishes for an endless weekend had been heard. so i ventured off my bed, cleaned up, sipped a mug of tea, and opened my PowerBook. yep. Monday. i'm going to be late for class.

i'm still waiting for that one day where i actually look forward to going to school, the one day where i know i'll be alright.

however, now i have officially eaten into five minutes and fifty-seven seconds of my getting-to-school time, and i have to drag myself away from my PowerBook and get ready to leave, even though i should have been ready and leaving by now. it never works out.

i'll go put on my face now.

popular mechanics for broken hearts could help me now

i do not feel great.

it's six-ten in the morning.

i have to be back at my aunt's by ten am, to be in time for my first uncle and family visiting at eleven.

after that i need to stop over at licheng's around three to get my second aunt's data and hard-disk drive back.

right now, i am sitting on hongxuan's patio, composing this entry and myself on my PowerBook.

and i'm thinking, after one night of waiting, indesicion, more waiting, following people into Pastamania and then forming a mutiny into Whatafish [cheaper food, on par in taste, less crowded, less waiting, more sense], not having value in my ez-link card and attempting to top it up at the machine next to the Parkway Parade bus-stop, being cajoled out of it because our bus had arrived, getting off the bus and putting my jacket on because i was sick of carrying it around, walking to hongxuan's, waiting, watching, trying to talk, failing [in talking about anything important, anyway], watching over, sitting next to vomit on the roadside with the producer of the vomit lying on his back on the same road, watching over people, bringing them up to hongxuan's bedroom, clearing what must be at least two dozen bottles and cans, shifting lawn furniture back, picking up garbage, watching more technicolor burping, smelling an air-conditioned room with the scent of puke wafting around endlessly, moving all my stuff downstairs even though i am hot, sticky and sweaty and uncomfortable:

i have to decide on living without friends.

i'd say i've to make new friends, but i'm not inclined to. in fact i downright am against the idea of repeated social akwardness, unfamiliarity and the whole getting-to-know-you-getting-to-know-all-about-you crap. i'm too fucking old for this shit.

i'm also too fucking old to be hounding other people down, to sleep, lie down, vomit in the right places, etc. or clean up after people.

it's not even my house--because my own house is being repossessed by the bank, to whom my mother and father owe half a million singapore dollars.

and i have to sit around listening to how someone else doesn't deserve his lot, about what he did to deserve whatever happened to him, when i'm being forced into being seventy at seventeen?

no thanks.

i can hear the buses on the main road. i forgot how early the bus services start, in part because i no longer have to wake at unearthly hours to get to school. i'm thinking i should just take off, go home, sleep for two hours, wake up, put my face on, face my relations for three hours, go crash licheng's for the hard disk and data, then go back to my aunt's and possibly sleep the weekend away.

i think i will. should i leave a message?

and to think i came because hongxuan said it would be good for me, and matt told me i should go.

i'll text-message matt, then pack up and leave. though if hongxuan's parents find me gone it wouldn't be nice. i wouldn't go so far as to say they'd be worried, but it wouldn't be nice.

who'd notice? i'm leaving. and the next time i need a break from the real world and need to pretend, i'll watch The O.C. like i've been doing for the past fortnight or so.

we got more bounce in california than all y'all combined

there is, according to the flight information plasma screen at the platform of CG2, a flight out to LAX at four this afternoon. can't remember which airline though. but just imagine...

the magic of air travel and the reality of not being able to afford it.

these are the words of the popstars

several [actually quite a number of] teen-aged girls have invaded the viewing mall. i had no idea what was going on, until the tapping on the glass and mild shrieking and the cameras and the mandarin. must be some teen idol or another.

just at the same time as my iPod got to the end of the playlist and stopped.

hello sunshine

some kids from a kindergarten just flooded the Terminal One Viewing Mall. and believe it or not for once i don't mind the sudden infusion of under-eighteens-outnumbering-over-eighteens. it makes me long for the carefree days of kindergarten, where i didn't know anything about what my father did for a living, where he spent his money and what we had or didn't have. when school involved nothing more than drawing, coloring, playing, field trips [though as far as my memory works i can't really tell if Newton Kindergarten ever brought me to the airport] and naps and snacks and my mother picking me up in the BMW.

where are all the defining moments in my life which are supposed to change me profoundly? i feel like i grew all the way up long before i even began secondary school [i suspect it was primary two, but that seems far too early to mature so quickly] and haven't changed a single bit since.

california, here we come

orange county/obviously crack

1010 AM: your attention please. there will be a fire drill for airport staff in three minutes' time. passengers and members of the public are advised not to be alarmed.

1300 Singapore FLC 97

may i have your attention please.

i need to stop this going-to-the-airport-for-no-good-reason thing.

and who would've thunk that it'd take less time to get to the airport than it does to get to school?

let's take stock.

my home's being repossessed, my mother's sold her car, we owe half a million to UOB in a home loan and unpaid credit card charges, i suck at school and whatever it is that is expected of me there, my grandfather's keeping me awake all times of the day, i'm living off my aunt, my mother wants to abandon my siblings--leave them with my aunt and take off.

nice. and let's not forget i am in a crazy obsession with The O.C. i've downloaded season one because the DVD set won't be out until October, and that's the US, Region One release. imagine how long more for the Singapore, Region Three release. sadly three episodes have so bad audio sync that it is practically impossible for me to watch them. hopefully that can be painlessly fixed, in a way that doesn't involve re-downloading them. but the rest of the season i have downloaded and watched over and over and over again. i am addicted to TV, in spite of [or, rather, probably because of] the fact that it isn't on TV itself.

see, the torrents fetched me The O.C. in Pure Digital Television format. glorious high-definition widescreen.

speaking of widescreen. my 37" Sharp Aquos LCD TV is no more. well, at least no more with us, moved to my aunt's for safekeeping, but if i can't watch it whenever i please it's as good as no more in my opinion.

back to The O.C. what's not to like? and the music. oh, my, the music. all i've been listening to for the past few days has mostly been from the playlist i dedicated to music from The O.C. in fact i went to HMV and bought The O.C. Mix 1 [i also bought Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco, and it took me ages to actually start listening to it. though i must say it's been a great cure for my insomnia.] even though i'd already downloaded an unofficial copy, with more songs than the original.

i've decided that California is now somewhere i want to move to. seems odd when my other two choices are London and Sweden. i want to move to Hermosa Beach [if you know your O.C. you'll know why it's Hermosa Beach and not Newport Beach] or Los Angeles.

but as much as i would like to move to Cupertino, California and work for Apple i doubt very much that will actually happen. i suck at my course. i am not a craftsman. i simply cannot perform the required for two of my diploma core subjects. i've been seriously considering changing courses, possibly to Visual Communication. but i decided i should find out as much as i can about what the course is like before i jump into it and discover that the water's still too deep.

i went out with my sister Samaria, my maid Lelanie, my aunt Jacqueline and her boyfriend Samuel on saturday night to see a midnight screening of The Stepford Wives, and as i sat the the table eating dinner with them and flooding them with inane conversation i realized i was suffering from verbal diarrhea. i thought back and came to the conclusion that i hadn't been speaking to anyone outside of my three aunts, the maid that lives with them and my grandfather for over a week. i don't include my "colleagues", simply because i don't see them that much, and often have nothing to say to them.

but i am sick and tired. of what exactly, i do not know. i don't feel like going out, going to school, going home [or what is still but soon may not be my home], writing the letter to UOB's lawyers, pretending to be fine for my aunts, ignoring phone calls and text messages, waking up, living, breathing.

all i want is my O.C. i think it's sad that my best friends' names are Ryan Atwood and Sethula Cohen. but i also think that it's better than not having best friends at all. of course the next best thing is to find an alternative. but i don't want the next best thing. i want the best thing. Joshua Schwartz, will you please please hire me?

madness. if i post this i will never live it down.