bend me, break me...

i am such a socially inept moron.

this just in.

nicholas tan's father bought himself an iBook?!

i tell you, the world is ending.

prize idiot.

somewhere, someone is or will be sharing the anecdote of "this boy who came into my store and bought the last Motorola RAZR V3 off me, because he lost his first one by leaving it in a cab, and needed to get an identical set to avert another nuclear fallout".

i feel like a prize idiot for this.

i'm at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital Starbucks now, next to my PowerBook is my second Motorola RAZR V3. how screwed up is your family when you need to do that when you lose a thousand-plus-dollar phone? to be honest i'd rather have just stuck with my Ericsson T68m until i had enough to get something else. but my aunt said it's best for me to keep it quiet. so she gave me a thousand to replace the RAZR, which i fully intend to pay back. i'm doing my sums, and with the savings i have it shouldn't take more than a couple of months or any drastic change in lifestyle.

people are going to think i'm some ridiculously rich bastard now.

more ridiculity.

is that a word? who cares.

seems i was right in my statement that the only suitable replacement for a RAZR is another one.
my aunt is getting me another one, if i'm seen with anything less, in-family tongues will wag.

this is just stupid. why did i have to take a fricking cab to school to avoid being late for some fag's speech, anybloodyway?

that was it.

i left my RAZR in a cab while getting to school today.
some fucker has it now. turned the thing off. i can't believe i sat through Marketing for Designers, listening to some fag talk about television marketing when i could have called my phone over and over until someone picked up. or turned it off in my knowledge, anyway.

i can't afford to replace it with another RAZR right now. so i won't replace it at all.

you know what's ridiculous?

this multilayered life, that's what.
right now, in order of what i can hear right away to what i can't hear at all?

05 the book i'm reading, "A Home At The End Of The World"
04 the album playing on my iPod, "Music From The OC: Mix 2"
03 the track playing on my PowerBook that jingwen's using for music, "I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrants, aka the "Friends" theme song
02 dawn consoling joyce and royston
01 joyce and royston's feelings
00 my own feelings

life? is sad.

fricking cold

in the words of my JJC-influenced sister, fuck sia.

royston borrowed my Topman blazer yesterday.
royston borrowed my Topman blazer today.
royston would like to borrow my Topman blazer tomorrow.

i didn't mind it yesterday.
i am fricking cold now because i was going for the blazered t-shirt look this week.
i want to not bring my Topman blazer tomorrow but the Mediacorp guest speaker is tomorrow.

your contact list is full.

no. really?

on meeting strange policemen

not strange, really. just [pleasantly] surprising. about four hours ago i was seated with joyce, royston & jingwen at the Tampines West McDonald's, the four of us contemplating our imminent orders.

then a pair of policemen at the counter caught my eye. then i noticed that one of them had familiar hair, and a familiar back-of-head. then his face double-backed for a bit, and i more or less knew. so i flipped out my RAZR and called him.

it was benjamin low, who else.

i am so wiped out i could fall alseep now and not get up until semester's over. sadly i have Metal Technology later, complete with class test.

i am quite certain.

i am quite certain that if i fall onto my back, or even facedown in fact, on the floor, i will simply lay there and not move any more.

shit, that just sounds just like the "Just" video.

i've finally stopped crying my eyes out.

i packed my life into a cardboard box that my grandpa's diapers came in. i brought the guitar and the vodkas and whatever else i could think of to bring.

i cannot cope any more. please do not contact, talk to, approach, irritate, be incessant with, bother, disturb or otherwise try to get me or my attention unless you've either have had any of the above done to you by me after the time of this post, or you enjoy being ingnored or snubbed.

i promised myself i wouldn't cry over losing the apartment. i didn't, because i never felt anything for it, and leaving it wasn't anything at all. but i lost it when my mother began accusing me for not even caring about the family.

this is coming from the woman who is not going to move out with my siblings and move into their next place with them. the woman who is going to live somewhere else. the woman who is going to leave my siblings by themselves.

that woman may be my mother, but that is all. she sure as hell ain't my parent, and she is fast losing her status of being a loved one.

i'm losing it. really. i don't even know if i want to give up. and i can't even cry any more.

no shit.

friday's the last day. i don't know if i can find the time to head back to get whatever stuff i can get.

also, note to self: forget about the fricking assigment already. you've emailed a PDF, it's only 25%. get over it, stop perfecting it, you have more, if not bigger fish to fry.

no one more good guys

be zen. that's what i've decided.

who the hell am i kidding, though? i'm more or less an Ally McBeal/Lorelai Gilmore/Seth Cohen/Susan Mayer/Micheal Bluth hybrid right now.

"i died today
but i'm still breathing
bleeding, for now
i'm broken

you left me here
capsized and sinking
thinking, right now
there's no more good guys

you left me standing here
alone and colder
i hope that some day soon
the pain, in, side, will, stop

you died today
but you're still breathing
in my mind, that is
there's no more good guys

you left me standing here
alone and colder
i hope that some day soon
the pain, in, side, will, stop

i hoped you'd see me
i hoped you'd understand
or crucify me, for my failings
my cruel ambition, hardly justified

and the pain, in, side, will, stop"

- "No More Good Guys", Skindive

"urgent.. call dad to enter hse.. no key.. v importt.."

get back to lorong chuan flat by 8pm today.. urgent.. call dad to enter hse.. no key.. v importt..

From: Samantha Khoo
12:40pm 1-MAR-05

the bank has taken the Chuan Park unit. duh. what else could it have been.

breaking up the boy

Fuck, it's already march?

thank who?

alvin lim just texted me on getting six points. whatever. another one bites the dust. and, of course, he thanked whoever it was that he worships on his achievement. again, whatever.

my sister got thirteen. she cried a lot. i thought it was a good mark, but then again what do i know/care?

through the Khoo Nosey Parker Network, it was determined after questioning regarding my sister's own results that our cousin kenneth got seventeen. sad.

"our father, who art in heaven
don't take the credit, i'm my own creation
my jealous god, here's some advice for you:
you're not on the list? get to the back of the queue"

- "Girls Guide For Modern Diva", Black Box Recorder

it's gonna take a miracle

i'm sick as a dog. but there's still school later.

finally got down to the last third of A Home At The End Of The World. and it's only three days overdue, in its second renewal [which is the limit the NLB places on number of renewals on one loan].

should sleep.

Microsoft Optical Mouse by S+ARCK

starck_article_mouse
Originally uploaded by aklw.

i finally bought one yesterday. then my aunt decided she loved it, paid me for it, and wants to use it full-time on her PC. and i can't buy another.

also, my brother came over yesterday, and hogged the PC until i decided i was going to give up on trying to make the other PC work with his games and go to bed, whence he decided he wanted to use my PowerBook and i could play The Sims 2 on the with my S+ARCK mouse. of course, i was too pissed off to allow that, so i told him to piss off, and watched some Desperate Housewives and Will & Grace instead. after that, he was fast asleep. then, he woke for no reason. i told him he could use my PowerBook, i was going to play The Sims 2.

of couse, he said he wasn't going to do that, he wanted to sleep. so i got my crap outside and booted the PC. and was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes. i was itching and growing hives everybloodywhere. went to take my itch-control pill and played The Sims 2 until it started to take effect, then went to bed.

this time of year sucks.

torn

and then it comes. after looking up the Acuvue site for some time, downloading documentation and stuff, it hits me.

WHAT ARE YOU, CRAZY? HOW CAN CONTACT LENSES COME WITH A TEAR IN THEM?

anyhoo, i guess i've lost a month of glasseslessness. also, they say never to use tweezers with contact lenses, unless they were made to be used with contacts. and that the right way to remove contacts from a case is to slide the lens out sideways, in contact with the case at all times until completely out. no wonder. though i do know for a fact that the tweezers i have are meant for use with contacts, i suspect they were what tore them.

Well. Yay for me.

There is no way my luck could be this bad.

I decided to try on my new Acuvue Clear contacts today. I noticed the left one had a small tear in it when i was placing it on my finger to try and put it on again. No problem. I just replaced it with my old permanent one, since it was the right one that tore in that pair.

Then i noticed that the right Acuvue had a similar tear in it as well.

So here i am, glasses on, late, and only just getting onto a bus.

why do you love me, it's driving me crazy

i spent the entire afternoon and evening listening to BBC Radio 1 to get a listen of Garbage's first single off their new album, Bleed Like Me, due in April.

the instant the track started, the bitrate dropped once, to transistor-radio quality. then near the final third of the track, it dropped again to transistor-radio-over-a-telephone quality. and plus many many skips in the recording i made.

what the fuck, really. three hours for this? but who i am kidding, i'd still listen to it over and over.

how my week went

lundi:
did not complete day of school

mardi:
did not complete day of school

mercredi:
could not concentrate in class, fumbled assigment

jeudi:
did not complete day of school

vendredi:
probably will not complete day of school

for some reason i'm feeling like a train wreck again. my mother's on my back about my passport, my contact lenses, the fact that i go to lunch with my grandfather when my aunt takes us out for dim sum some samdis--which she assumes to be every samdi, after which i no longer deigned to verbally respond into the telephone until she hung up on me--, that i have a life outside of sitting around and waiting for her to call and demand that i do something or be somewhere. my grandpa has started to defecate himself in situ with more regularity these days, often in the afternoons or whilst in bed, and it's troublesome to have him cleaned up with only one person with him, who also needs to be at the beck and call of my wheelchair-bound aunt, and i've a new addition to my stable of paranoid habits: checking in every now and then to check if he's still--i have no way of saying this tactfully, so i'll just come out and say it--breathing.

also, for the first time in my history of watching it, Gilmore Girls actually made me feel worse after it watched it, as opposed to lightening my spirit and all that jazz. not that i hated the episode. i'd describe how it is so you'd understand, but i don't want to give anything away either, for the Gilmore addict that reads this. so i guess you'll just have to trust me on this.

i bloody hate bill gates

i have just finished spending five hours repairing the Windows 98 Second Edition installation on my aunt's PC.

the Green Spot at Jurong Regional Library's VAT.

They still make this?

day five, part two

i just got back from yet another gluttonous Sunday lunch, courtesy of First Uncle. four people dining, enough food for eight. i feel fat. there was this piece of roasted meat that was almost pure fat, it tasted like soft candy.

"Aw, Luke, wait, come on...

Hey. Please, just, just...

Christopher get out of my way.

Please stop.

Get away from me, Christopher.

I just wanna talk!

Get some coffee, Christopher.

This wasn't the way I wanted it to go down, I wanted to get you alone, I... What're you doing?

I'm going after Luke!"

-Lorelai Gilmore to Christopher Hayden, just before Marylin Gilmore finds her for the photo shoot.

day five

the flat just recovered from bursting wide open with unexpected guests. my first uncle and aunt-in-law had just arrived less than half an hour ago for their weekly lunch with my grandfather, and my grandfather's sister and some members of her family arrived to visit, re: the lunar new year.

two more ang paos, i guess it isn't all bad. but i was playing The Sims 2. and i was just managing to get Mary-Sue Pleasant to recover from discovering her husband making out with the maid, and the subsequent, very messy divorce after [he asked the maid to move in, she broke up with him which forces him out the house, leaving the maid behing to contend with her]. now do take note that i didn't start anything. when i loaded the Pleasant family's game Daniel was already in love with the maid, and though still married to Mary-Sue, nothing more than friends with his wife. i just handled it in the best way i know, from observing the Khoo life.

"There you are!
[to photographer] I've got her!
You cannot keep a roomful of Anglo-Saxons waiting for cake this long. They start to form more clubs.
[to photographer] Take her, take her, take her!"

-Marilyn Gilmore, to Lorelai Gilmore as she finds her for the wedding party's photo shoot

to lorelai on her one hundredth episode.

Gilmore Girls 0513 Wedding Bell Blues

Direct from TWoP, the recaplet for the episode 0513:

Hundredth-episode shenanigans get rolling when Luke and Lorelai go a few more rounds in the diner about his going or not going to Richard and Emily's big, rich-people vow renewal. He, of course, bows to the iron Gilmore will, and agrees to attend -- a decision he will later regret. As Lorelai and Rory prepare for their carbfest, Cop Rock marathon, hee, Emily calls with a trumped-up excuse to visit, and the Girls realize they're supposed to be throwing a bachelorette party for a sixty-year-old woman who has already been married for forty years. After rounding up all the ladies in Stars Hollow and getting Emily a snoot full of rum and Cokes (rums and Coke?), everybody drags ass into the wedding facility the next day, slungover but happy. Well, everybody's happy but Luke, who feels uncomfortable because the elder Gilmores are making him feel uncomfortable because they are jerks. Christopher shows up at the soiree (late, of course), and the awkward part of our evening begins. Luke is just about to rise above the whole thing when all hell breaks loose: Rory has oozed off into an anteroom with that Backstreet Boy she has such a crush on and is on the verge of hittin' it when Lorelai, Christopher, and Luke walk in and insert their own mess into her private moment. The drama boils until Christopher shouts out that everybody knows, just like Emily told him, that this thing with Luke and Lorelai was only temporary. Luke swiftly exits. Lorelai? Gets real mad. She rages out just in time for a family picture and brilliantly and viciously declares her relationship with Emily to be over. Finally.

best. episode. ever. well, one of the best, anyway. sure, it was almost definitely written to be as such because it was the hundredth episode, and... i'm rambling. and, hey, no-one's making you read this blog, so you'll just have to put up with it.

"You and me? We're done."
-Lorelai Gilmore to her mother, Emily Gilmore, as a photo is taken of the wedding party in the last scene of the episode

i can only ask one thing: why did i put off watching it for so long?

chinese new year ...

... was/is so bad, i'd like to opt for pretending it never happened/is not happening.

i'd like to elaborate, but it figures that my muse comes to me when my brother has just decided he's ready to stop hogging the wintel box outside playing Gunbound/Maple Story/R.O.S.E. long enough for us to go to my aunt's place so that he can hog the Xbox there, even though he has one at home, leaving me in the exact situation i am in now: with nothing to amuse myself with.

so. i must get ready to go. have to be at Tanah Merah station in an hour, now that my brother has agreed to start to get ready to go, and i've made the rendezvous arrangements. i want to bring my PowerBook there, but i'd have to interrupt a couple of downloads. such is the irony of life. depriving myself of entertainment because i'm downloading even more.

trouble in paradise

it appears that the "K750i" uses a different connector for charging/audio/data. any mobile phone user worth his salt would know that Ericsson has been using the same connector on all its phones since the T28 series. unless what i saw was the audio/data connector only, with the power connector somewhere else, it would appear that the Sony has eaten the Ericsson, and there goes yet another vestige of Ericsson-ness: almost universal accessories.

tsk tsk tsk

mrbrown: Chinese New Year Eve last minute rituals

i've noticed two things from the photograph attached to this post.

one is that the Nokia 6630 is as unattractive from random angles as imagined.

two is that mr brown uses Sony MDR EX71-SLs with his 4G iPod that looked like a 1G/2G iPod at first glance because of the humongous transparent case around it, like the ones i bought and lost the medium-sized eartips and discovered that the large-sized ones fit better.

three is simply a personal opinion. driving whilst listening to an iPod with noise-insulating in-ear earphones?

"It's Veeery Dangerous!" - MTV Asia Promo

le nouveau Sony Ericsson "K750i"

The K750i, Sony Ericsson’s new two megapixel cameraphone - Engadget

i would buy this if the Motorola Razr V3 didn't exist. it looks T610 good, and has all the good bits of the K700i without the bad bits [the lack of a crystalized keypad, to begin with, is a VERY welcome omission here], and some more better bits thrown in as well [2.0 megapixel camera, multi-LED flash, Memory Stick Duo slot, to name a few]

i'm glad to see that Sony Ericsson hasn't lost the plot. but final report card is: great improvement, but can do better.

it's [dis?]heartening to see that cameras in phones have caught up to the resolutions of the pre-golden age of digital cameras. the Olympus Camedia C2020-Zoom that my brother broke was 2.1 megapixels. we'll see when this phone comes out. in the unlikely case that i've tired of my Razr by then, and i read things i like about it and little i don't, i might switch back.

the morning after

and my phone looks much worse in the morning light. it's funny how this only happens when i hold on to my phone too tightly. but you know me, i'd be too terrified to keep a loose grip on it.

the bits where i dabbed on the silver paint from my old paint pen looks ultra-bright and obvious, like the putty you fill into dents and dings on your car without the coat of paint. and i don't have that coat of paint.

when i dropped it i had a heart attack, heartbreak and swearing fit all at the same time. it seemed to have been flung out of my hand, and after it landed it appeared to skid on the rough tile for a bit. sadly this time i wasn't flipping it shut, so impact was achieved whilst the phone was open, and previously protected and pristine bits were exposed and ravaged.

shopping list

black or deep-blue inked rollerball or felt-tipped writing pen
A4 sketchbook
better silver-pigmented paint pen in shade that perfectly matches my Razr (yes i dropped it yet again)
inkjet or laser printer transparencies
"one plus one is one" by badly drawn boy
"twentysomething" by jamie cullum
"pointless nostalgic" by jamie cullum

now the last two i weren't even going to consider. i once swore i would never buy music that was advertized on television, after which i promptly went online to download Green Day's "American Idiot", which i didn't really like at all and have listen to less times than there are fingers on one hand since.

but trying to find the tracks is a bother. i can't invest that kind of time in downloading the same song thrice to acquire non-dodgy rips and surfing Amazon for track listings and artwork, only to find that you're copied information for the American version of a particular album, which isn't the one sold here and isn't the one which i want information and artwork from.

yeesh. it's too much effort. i'm just desperate for music i want to listen to. people who obtain their music soley through pirating must either be really desperate to get stuff for free, or enjoy testing their patience. so i can either spend some money now, or wait a few weeks, when it's fiscally sounder.

... and a peaceful moring to you.

i've just realized that the Chinese greet each other "peaceful morning" in the, well, mornings.

and, also, "peaceful evening" in the evenings.

why, when that is rarely the case?

today's coffee: three scoops granulated beans, two scoops sugar, two scoops condensed milk [two scoops condensed milk being the result of not knowing that there was no normal milk before adding the sugar.]

yes, it was vile. but it got me going. i still didn't feel any kick, but at least i no longer feel like my eyelids are made of rarified lead. man this week is going to suck big time if each morning is going to start with an unco-operative grandpa [my aunt-of-sorts went back to malaysia for lunar new year, and now it's just me and rosemarie, who has my second aunt to contend with as well].

may everything you do have ten thousand meanings.

hilary fluff

hilary duff once had her own television show.

hilary duff once had her own movie.

hilary duff once had a singing carrer.

now all hilary duff can do is guest star on "Joan Of Arcadia".

the honeymoon is over

the first computer-based class in which i cannot use my Macintosh instead of the school's computers has come along, and it is the Digital Drafting component of Design Drafting. because it uses this piece of software called:

Rhinocerous(R)
NURBS modelling for Windows

and its

Training Manual
Level 1

is two hundred and fifty-five pages long.

this is going to be such fun.

and the specs of the wintel box i have to use?

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4
3.06 GHz
1.00 GB of RAM

nVidia Quadro FX 500
128 MB of RAM
1600 x 1200 pixels @ 75 Hz [self-set, original resolution was 1024 x 768 pixels, ew]

now i'm going to dinner, and in about half an hour, after i meet the guy whose brother's selling me a stick of RAM, my PowerBook's memory will have tripled.

GodPods, holy golf balls and JCUK

what the hell is this?

BBC NEWS | UK | Northern Ireland | GodPods, holy golf balls and JCUK

02-02-05_2223.jpg

Love for sale?

The first airport in Asia to launch Curious - Britney Spears, a new fragrance

Who says we have nothing to be proud of?

i know, i know.

yes, i should have gone to bed at eleven like i was going to. but i just had to try and see if i could get any more work done, didn't i?

well, what now? it's twelve thirty, and i have no more work done.

today is a right mess. have seven hours' sleep left to clock, and that is provided i fall right asleep after [here i would like to be as poetic as i can get, and say "fall right asleep after i put my PowerBook to sleep", but i'm downloading something and am not going to sleep, so here's what's taking its place] i close my eyelids.

0800 Wake. Decide if want to attend WEBP--factor in fact that have missed last term's term test and have yet to submit interim submission

0900 Arrive at school for WEBP/Arrive at Jurong Regional Library to play hookey

1200 Leave WEBP class/Leave Jurong Regional Library

1210 Head for grandparents-in-law's place to visit them/Head for Marine Parade to collect RAM for PowerBook/Head for Victoria School to return Mac OS X Panther to mr liong

1600 Must have acheived at least two of above by now, else day is considered failure. Should now complete final task from above/Get back ID from xuan for Thumper tonight

1800 Arrive back here/Have dinner?/Lie about evening plans and pray nothing comes/came up?/Say you're going out, and go?

2030 Leave for Thumper/Get held up and stew at home

refreshingly, i've already long decided that i do want to go to the Live & Loud "official media launch" at Thumper. this is a good change, and possibly a good sign. now let's see how that all goes to by my sketchy and movable plan.

at My Very Own Glob {Curiosa Felicitas}: Even fewer reasons not to own a Mac,

mb said...
I like the fact that the new Powerbooks support 2-finger action.

Ok, that came out wrong.
3:40 PM

kids, listen to big brother aaron...

... don't check your email just before you go to bed.

From: devnews@sonyericsson.com
Subject: Sony Ericsson Developer World News - January 2005
Date: February 01, 2005 09:39:09 PM GMT+08:00
To: aklw@yahoo.com.sg

Themes Creator for Mac

A number of Apple Mac developers have requested that Sony Ericsson provide some of its popular content development tools for use with Mac OS. Their wishes have finally come true! Sony Ericsson has published Themes Creator 1.60 for Mac OS X. Also supporting the Sony Ericsson V800, the Sony Ericsson Themes Creator 1.60 (including Developers' Guidelines and Release Notes) is available here >>

... continued, but irrelevant to my grief, hence not reproduced.

great. after i buy a Motorola, you decide to sweeten the Sony Ericsson experience that little bit more. granted, not enough to make me choose a, say, S700i, over my Razr V3 even if i hadn't bought a new phone yet, but still enough to make me smack my forehead. sure, extremely superficial, but i always liked the ability to custom create or download a limitless selection of themes for my old Ericsson. and now that i can do my own with my Mac instead of through some clunky online interface that breaks all the time, well. you know how i feel. and if you don't, tough.

however, that was not all. my indonesian friend, who has gone back to indonesia to await the 2004 GCE 'A' Level results, recently bought a BMW 330Ci, customized it, and entered it in an auto show. he didn't win, and not even because the car he honestly thought was better than his anyway [a Mercedes-Benz CL500] won, but because a Nissan 350Z. i have nothing against that car, i would love one, but i would much rather the BMW or ever the CL500 over a 350Z.

back to the whole don't-check-your-email-just-before-you-go-to-bed thing. he's just sent me pictures of his BMW and the CL500. now i don't know whether to feel sympathetic over his non-win, or wildly envious that he's entered HIS BMW 330Ci in auto shows when i can't even run Need For Speed: Underground on any of the PCs here. the saddest thing is that i abhor modified cars. a little bit of customization is fine. but when the car starts not to resemble its original self, then, well, what can i say. you might as well be driving a Honda Civic, Toyota Vios or Subaru Impreza.

shit. six hours left on the clock.

All this could have been avoided.

I hate it when people buy clothes for me, and get me things that aren't generically good-looking basics or things that they know that i'll love and that i actually love. My aunt was supposed to meet me after school at Expo because she wanted to go to the John Little warehouse sale. She went without me because she was impatient. I now have three shirts that make me look about thirty years older.

fuck fuck fuck

Crap i've lost the pair of silicone tips for my Sony in-ear ear phones. Now i either have to hope the small or large sized ones fit as well/better, or go buy a set of all three sizes from Sony.

Another post from within Wood Technology

My word. Following the lecturer's train of thought is like taking the mrt system through orchard, yishun and woodlands to get to jurong east. I can no longer be bothered.

down, two, three, up.

i'm back onto the PowerBook. couldn't wait the twenty-four hours i wanted to. nothing seems wrong, except for this [see hyperlink below]. this, is very, very, very, very, very, very wrong.

Apple - PowerBook G4

the new PowerBook G4s are out. mine is obsolete. the new ones have faster processors, more built-in memory, faster and bigger hard drives which come with fall-protection sensors, trackpads with scrolling capabilites, option for 8x DVD-writing drives, AND a two-to-four hundred dollar price reduction.

i want to kick something. anything. who's got something for me to kick.

no PSP for now

so. i have enough money. i know a good shop which has imported/is importing PSPs from Japan. but Gran Turismo 4 Mobile isn't released yet. it's supposed to hit japan in Spring '05.

oh well.

The Wet PowerBook

i just accidentally dumped some chilled water onto my PowerBook. it kept running, which i took as a good sign, so switched it off, disconnected the power, popped the battery out, and now am putting it upside down to let any water that may have leaked in out.

now i have no music to listen to.

i am never buying a new BMW seven-series.

because the current model is going to be superceded before i can afford one, and the new post-facelift one? is very ugly. [click on this post's title to link to Autoblog's post about it.]

will the next-generation seven-series look better than the current one? looking at the direction they're headed, i seriously doubt that.

"... and we can go back to being ashamed."

holy fuck, it's 2005?

not that i've not noticed the changeover. it's just never really set in until i noticed the buzz surrounding the 2005 Academy Awards hit the front page of MSN.com, where i was just redirected.

i just went: huh. 2005 Academy Awards? what a queer number.

maybe i've been too blasé about new years. it's just another day, to me. for other people it's wildly ominous, even though it really means something to few people [birthdays, anniversaries, misc/etc]. i don't care too much for the fanfare.

for me, though, i think 2005 will hold special meaning. maybe i've been watching and listening to and reading too much sadness, but i think that, 2005 will be the end.

de ce qui? je ne sais pas.

also:

i'm reading very slowly these days. i don't mean i sit for four hours with it and barely scrape through four pages, i mean i rarely get to sit with a book for more than forty minutes before i'm interrupted. no more loans for now, then.

update update update

apparently Nokia phones still star in Alias--except that the bad guys are the ones using them now. the good guys [Sydney and Vaughn, specifically] use Motorolas.

a home at the end of the world, page 45

... It was the kind of reckless overnight friendship particular to those who are young, lonely and ambitious. ...

at the 'kfc' clone in/near aljunied

Oh, i don't think we're in the city any more, are we.

brand disloyalty

i really should be asleep now, but:

i've just remembered the pattern i'd discerned when it came to product placement on Alias:

CIA computers: Gateway
CIA cell phones: Nokia
CIA vehicles: when of any interest, Ford Motor Company

Evil computers: Dell
Evil cell phones: Sony Ericsson
Evil vehicles: similarily, Ford Motor Company

however:

APO computers: Apple PowerBook G4s [so far]
APO video call phone: Motorola cannot-for-the-life-of-me-remember-what-model-number 3G fixed line video call phone

and, also:

Sydney's work computer: Apple PowerBook G4
Sydney's home computer: Apple iMac G4
Sydney's cell phone: [currently] Motorola Razr V3
Sydney's portable music player: Apple 3G iPod

the über-razr

halfway through the second epsiode of the fourth season of Alias, i was a bit miffed. APO has PowerBooks galore, albeit with red stickers covering the Apple logo on the back of the screens, as opposed to the myriad uncovered Dell logos that abound in various episodes of Alias [which confuses me, because i also saw plenty of Gateway logos previously]. and so i was mentally bemoaning the promotional consideration given by Nokia [seen the past seasons? a Nokia in practically every episode], which would probably leave out any chance of my über-cool phone being featured.

and then, there it was. in epsidode four--when Sydney enters a restricted research area within the hospital she's "volunteering at with Oxfam"--she snaps open a Motorola Razr V3 to take photos with. and then she does it again. and then she's talking on it, back to APO.

and the weirdly cool thing is that it was just yesterday that i finished creating a set of Alias-themed wallpaper and ringing tone for my Razr.

i have no words. whatever happened to Nokia?

Happy Birthday To You.

And many happy returns.

season one, episode twenty

song 2, and you look so fine.

yesterday was my grandfather's birthday party. enough said. i took some photos with my Razr, one of which will follow this post, uploaded off my phone when i go to bed.

my dad's been bringing people to view the Chuan Park apartment. you can tell it's all going to pot if even he's given up on keeping the place. also, news from New Guinea. the buyer of my father's holdings there has backed out. so. we're in a right pickle now, aren't we.

Whoo hoo!
When I feel heavy metal
Whoo hoo!
And I'm pins and I'm needles
Whoo hoo!
Well I lie and I'm easy
All of the time and I'm never sure why I need you
Pleased to meet ya

maybe it's singapore.

the msn messenger service just crashed. i was curious enough to find out what happened that i booted my aunt's wintel. appears to be a typical outage. limited to where is unknown, though i did need to reload a whole lot just to get a "Server Busy" message, and a lot more before i got a partially loaded status page informing me that they were "experiencing some technical difficulties", and that i "might have some problems signing in."

right.

soggy Trix

breakfast is a bowl of soggy Trix cereal. because someone forgot to reseal the package of cereal within the box after opening it for the first time. ugh. Trix. i don't think any of it was non-artificial at any point of time.

Mini Mee.

There's no hot water. Now have to boil some. Also, have now realized why weight gain is so prevalent back here, this place is candyland. Boxes and boxes of fudge-covered oreos, chocolate chip cookies, m&ms, chips, and much, much more.

therein lies the question:

empty seat, or cut-rate?

Magnesium, Part III

Also, note to self: do not gulp coffee in one hand and glance at messages in the other, and then try to flip phone shut with same hand that has sweat, oil and coffee on it. Will end in mini-disaster.

So magnesium ain't that tough after all.

Though considering how far it dropped and the coarse surface it landed on, it did rather well. One small major scratch and several tiny minor ones. Just paint chipping, actually. Repairable with the right colors.

This just in.

This turned up, just now, in the PowerPoint presentation (which, incidentally, took half an hour to load) that featured in the first half of my Wood Technology class today. It is the most disgustingly ridiculous briefcase i have ever laid my eyes on.

it's arrested development.

scaff 16.01.2005 14.47.03
next up! a story about a little girl, lost in this urbanised world looking for her mummy! now this crazy little girl is going around calling people "mama", and yes, even males....

... which reminds me of ...

"now, the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who has no choice, but to keep them all together. it's arrested development."

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

my brother left an hour ago, for Chuan Park. with the Xbox. my mother wanted it back there. which means she is going to sell it. i just laid down forty for a second controller for it. i cannot be bothered enough to go back there just to get/play the Xbox [not much of a surprise since i can't even be bothered to go back there to play the excellent The Sims 2], so what am i going to do with ONE [1] controller?

he also left with more CD-Rs with episodes of Lost and The O.C. on them. i'd better get them back.

my dad just extorted twenty dollars off me, through the disbelief that his son [me] has only thirty dollars left. so, now, i have ten dollars and some change. and eight-odd dollars in the bank that i can't withdraw.

also, i thought this deserved a post of its own, but i cannot be bothered to create another one just for it, so:

the phone bill for the month of mosh? was $157.

mosh has officially cost me three hundred dollars. so not worth it.

one last escape

before i face up to sunday. Alias or The O.C.?

what am i doing here?

i feel insulted.

14-01-05_1941.jpg

Dinner Avoidance, Part II

14-01-05_1908.jpg

Dinner Avoidance, Part I

14-01-05_1621.jpg

A sign directing people to kerrisdale, the development where the unit my mom and dad bought as an "investment" is located. We've only paid the initial installment. The next, and rest of the installments are due starting sometime soon this year.

What is up with people today?

No one is answering any of my calls.

Fratenization.

Two things that've just hit me:

the VAT at jurong library stands for Verging All Teens, i've just remembered, and;

the correct response to: "Why are you fratenizing with him?" was: "Because you won't fratenize with me."

the immediate future of personal computing

mini
Originally uploaded by aklw.

right here, right now. the Apple Mac mini.

i would buy one, even though i have no real use for one, having my PowerBook.

your excuse that "Macs are too expensive" is no longer vaild.

this machine will replace your current system and use your current monitor and keyboard and mouse, and whatever else.

you can climb out of your Windows now.

Cafe latte

I need to drink coffee more. I just did that before class started, as opposed to what i normally do, which is go out during break when i'm nodding off in class and buy a canned latte from the machine. But now that i've done it beforehand, it makes a world of difference.

i don't know if this is an effect of the coffee, but i feel even my phone feels thinner and lighter.

wood technology

two malay girls were standing right next to me, talking about masturbation and the subsequent "putting his sperm inside."

they have since left.

today's class is killer. i arrived twenty minutes late, because i got into a cab headed for school at nine, but even now at ten AM i realize i have missed nothing. in the time i was here i heard him mention people with eleven thumbs and ask questions to which the answers everyone should know from paying attention to last week's class, or even glancing at their text, but no one could answer. which left me disinterestedly muttering my answer, and him moving on to repeat all of last week's work. and then there's break, which is now. and then, the continuing of the repeat telecast.

MediaCorp is abhorrent

i just heard the main theme of Good Bye Lenin! being used in that ad again. i am going now to look, and it had better be some free-for-all classical piece. if it's an original part of Good Bye Lenin!'s soundtrack, and they specially licensed it for use in their two-bit ad, i have nothing left to say. really. what else is left when a middling singaporean chinese television station uses music from a german film about the fall of communism in germany to promote itself?

ETA: it's a generic classical piece, titled "Summer '78". i still have nothing to say.

a home at the end of the world

three seventeen AM on a Monday morning, and i don't give a fuck, because i've just finished the most beautiful film i'm seen this year.

that's not saying much, i know. but you know how picky i am with what i watch, so even if my declaration above doesn't say much, this should.

email

is email a lost art? my email address is listed every bloody time you open an MSN Messenger Service window with me. if you can't get a response out of me on the service and have a PowerPoint presenation for my review, EMAIL IT TO ME. don't request a file transfer, because I AM NOT THERE AND CANNOT ACCEPT IT. if you email it to me, i will receive it without any action on my part.

i can only imagine the hell my JC friends have to go through for PW, especially with the denser species of students found in JCs.

never settle

The Play Pen for My Thoughts: Quality Control

why can't everyone just understand, accept and embrace this concept of getting what you pay for?

holy awkward.

and i had the phone pulled out on its extension cord, too.

yes, all boats.

after reading all the blogs that i read, and reading some blogs and i don't read, and wondering what happened to a few that either upped and left or never updated again, i oddly enough come to the decision that my life screws up far too often. maybe i'm coming across as a psychotic neurotic here, but the last few days were killer. and here i was just going to talk about them, but i decided against it. walking on eggshells again.

Modest Mouse is not an attractive band. putting them on The O.C. was like putting Rooney on The O.C., it gives rise to the opinion that they should be left to the soundtrack. and i'm getting a bit sick of the live bands being featured on The O.C. this season, in all of its seven so-far-broadcast episodes, with the advent of The Bait Shop, we've had The Walkmen, The Killers, and Modest Mouse. overkill.

maybe i help people too much. maybe that's it. maybe i care too much.

but how much is too much, or not enough?

please consider this my two weeks notice.

Perry's Bible Fellowship - Billy The Bunny

i know no one's going to believe me, but when i was a kid, i used to think the same thing, reading all those kiddie stories. what happens to the farmer when all his food's been eaten by bunnies?

chose to re-watch Two Weeks Notice over Charlie's Angels and I Am Sam, on recommendation from dax, because "two weeks notice is funny, and you are sad now". i gave up when it hit the end of the first disc though, because it was a shot-in-the-theater copy and i couldn't be bothered to watch more graniness and blurredness, besides the story started getting too familiar. if only it were a DVD copy. maybe i should have chosen I Am Sam, for its killer soundtrack of Beatles covers. i would've watched the copy of Being John Malchovich i taped when it aired on Channel i, before they went off the air. but it was one AM, and i didn't want to leave bed.

my life does not rock.

hush, i also like garbage.

and i guess i shouldn't be saying "bonne nuit" any more.

eat a happy dog.

i'm getting that depressed feeling of despair again. and i don't exactly know why.

i don't like it when JCs are in session. when that happens my daily existence just becomes my grandfather, my aunts, commuting to school, being at school, commuting back, rinse, repeat, dry.

but i just went out to dinner with jensen, dax and xuan. so, even if some sods didn't come, the above doesn't apply. for now.

so what's getting me down?

i think i know. i think i just don't want to say, for various reasons, one of which is the fear of ruining things.

SSL

Gmail shouldn't use secure sockets layer if they can't get it right.

tomorrow never dies, surrender.

tomorrow never dies, sadly.

what is this note?

or is it just garbled nonsense?

Sodding prat.

i've only worn my Kenneth Cole Reaction Stamp Of Approval loafers to school thrice, and now that i've started wearing my Kenneth Cole Reaction Praco II quasi-sneakers to school instead, some idiot has decided to wear a pair of cheap leather loafers as his school shoes.

05-01-05_1812.jpg

Ew.

05-01-05_1742.jpg

Another typical day in this weirdo school called Nanyang Junior College.

The scourge of The JC Student.

They're everywhere, they're everywhere!

money mind

i'm halfway through doing the figures for december and my dad's last remittance, and the numbers are worrying. i don't feel like tallying any more. that there's no money left over doesn't even begin to describe it. i want to cut him off the next time another remittance comes in [possibly the last] but how can i? without any money left, he's putting on the biggest show. what will happen when there's money and i refuse to hand it to him?

a couple of my cards have stopped working properly. i'm just going pretend that i didn't notice, and hope that it goes away. maybe it's a sign of bigger things to come.

oops. break is over, and class is commencing again. sigh. back to the gulag.

JCs are so lame

my sister [samantha] and i once discussed the new Jurong Regional Library, and on the way there yesterday [i only remembered that i didn't have school today, unlike all my poor JC-going friends who start a new school year yesterday, after i left the house and got onto the Kallang station platform, so i headed west] my bus from Boon Lay [yes, i know now that it's walking distance for Jurong East station] passed Jurong JC, and i texted my sister, who was at her first day there. the back-and-forth of texts lasted well into me settling into the painfully hip VAT [no, not Value Added Tax, though the real name escapes me now i do know that the A and T stand for "all" and "teens", respectively], reading Jennifer Government, and me telling her that she should really check this place out, because it was fantastic, and her telling me she knows.

of course.. studied there a few times.. mm.. sigh.. i cant get the jurong spirit.. i dont want it.. haha..
From: Samantha Khoo
2:21pm 3-JAN-05

to which i told her that JCs were so lame.

starting to feel that tt its v true.. i just wanna study and get out of here..
From: Samantha Khoo
2:32pm 3-JAN-05

and i told her, good, good attitude. that's how i feel one should feel about schools.

yes, i do. what is the point in wasting your passion on your school? the Victorian Spirit, anyone? a school is where you beg an education off. it's a part of you simply because you were assigned or accepted there. it didn't give birth to you, it is not tied by blood to you, it has little affiliation to you. and yet you choose to affiliate yourself to it, to what? bask in its glory and hope it rubs off?

play a sport because you enjoy it. win because you want to. don't do it because it would bring glory to your school. that is as about as pointless as you can get.

now, in the states, you go to a school because it is in your district, because it is your district school. they don't spend weeks looking for a school and lobby for a couple more weeks to get in. you cannot go to any other school, excepting private schools. that is how it should be done. you go to the school in your neighbourhood. they don't compete over entering "prestige" schools. all schools are equal.

fawwaz travels from Sengkang to Serangoon for school. my sister travels from Serangoon to Jurong for school. xuan travels from Serangoon to Bouna Vista for school. matt travels from Aljunied to Bishan for school. i travel from Kallang to Tampines [i still do not see why it is pronounced tamPENIS] for school. i believe the only person i know who does not need to leave her district to get to school is rong. kids across the island wake at five AM to be in school, just in time, over two hours later. that is not how one should spend one's life.

poor file management

i've just realized that i accidentally deleted several hundred megabytes of files i wanted some time ago, because they were accidentally dragged into a folder that contained stuff i didn't want to keep.

i think i'm going to go back to reading the book i took out.

Duh.

The text says: "Pls DO NOT click *Renew all items* or ALL your items will be renewed!"

Yes, i am really in jurong, aren't i?

two oh oh five.

remember how, last year, i said mosh04 rocked?

i lied. i mean, could there be any other reason for that? i might not have known it when i said it, but now i am confident that i was lying.

now, should you hear me say anything nice or positive about mosh05, you can also rest in the same confidence that i am lying through my teeth. because it was well and truly bad. some people beg to differ, and while i accept and thank you for [most of] your kind words, i still personally felt it stank something awful.

mosh04 started with a band that did Muse covers. mosh05 finished with a band that did Muse covers. i'm taking it as a sign that mosh has gone on for as long as it comfortably can, even if serendipity kicks me in the arse ever so often, disregarding the belief and faith i put into it.

the second day of the new year is already turning into a crap shoot. i want to go watch The Incredibles one last time before it ends it run here and the DVDs flood the market, but i haven't been able to garner much enthusiasm [be it from myself or from waz] towards getting out and watching it. i'm supposed to head out and get my hair cut with jensen later at three, too. don't even know if i want to get my hair cut. was thinking of letting it grow out, again.

time's up. first uncle and aunt-in-law are here [it's already noon].

wonders of wonders

i just heard the word "fucked" on singapore television.

long john silver's

i'm fricking hungry, and dinner will be ready soon, but all i want to eat is long john silver's food.

in 2004, ...

i learned that no matter how close a fit two people seem, it doesn't neccessarily mean that means a great friendship or relationship can or will occur out of it. in fact, it could be just the close fit, or some/certain aspects of it, anyway, that create issues.

so, this year, i'm not going to try any more.

so this is the new year

so this is the new year
and i don't feel any different
the clanking of crystal
explosions off in the distance, in the distance...

so this is the new year
and i have no resolutions
for self assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions

so everybody put your best suit or dress on
let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one

i wish the world was flat like the old days
then i could travel just by folding a map
no more airplanes or speed trains or freeways
there'd be no distance that can hold us back

there'd be no distance that could hold us back
there'd be no distance that could hold us back

so this is the new year
so this is the new year
so this is the new year
so this is the new year

- "The New Year", Death Cab For Cutie