last night at ktv zi an challenged panda to a 'duo' ("i do duo with you can?" "we do duo ah we do duo ah!") only to be corrected that its 'duet' not 'duo'.

and i thought he said 'duel'.

i kinda like canto songs.

my dad bought one of those home brewery kits to mark the day today kids, 30 May 2004, because years from now when my career is in tatters and my family an apocolyptic vision of dysfunction and i am lying in a pool of my drunken vomit and the psychiatrist asks me how did i start my alcoholism, this would probably be it.

with the brewery kit, the cost of each bottle of beer works out to about... 70 cents. and it gets cheaper and cheaper the more i brew since the fixed cost of the kit itself is spread over. =) i'm very pleased.

salman was complaining about our squad mates and we were reviewing some of them individually and then we came to X and i said "he's okay what" and salman said "but he has no personality" and then i said "well, at least he doesn't have a bad personality" and that pretty sums up my hopeless optimism.

hansel said Y is an example of 'good character but bad personality' and i one of 'bad character but good personality', meaning no one likes him but he's probably going to heaven, and people do like me, but i'm probably going to hell.

hey, at least the very notion of heaven/hell still isn't a confirmed thing.

to prevent myself falling prey to consumer folly and buying bad things on first impulse just because they look pretty, i used to carry a little notebook around with me and if i saw a book or cd or product or had an idea or semblence of one at least, i'd jot it down and once in a while i'l open my little notebook when i'm home, jump on the super-information highway and cruise amazon.com and similar sites for product reviews just to make sure that its not just a pretty cover/clever title i'm paying for.

the point of my telling you all that, is because i don't carry around that notebook instead. instead, i use the notes function of my mobile. but the other day while browsing around borders with yoon, i felt pretty smart about myself when i took the technological step forward and used my phones voice memo function instead. but now i'm home and free and i used the voice playback function, what i hear is close to what you hear in those movies where the cops talk to each other on the CB radio.

*cackle cackel* -insert garbledegook, mix with a pinch of muffled sounds- *cackle cackle*, and i've no idea what i was saying to myself.

roger that, 10-4

my internet connection conked on me. literally. while surfing on my brothers computer, which is next to the cable modem and main router, the wires started giving off this buzzing hissing noise like a serpentine entity and then like it spat its poisonous bile into the router, all the lights on the router lighted up and then it went 'pop' and then there was silence. a vaccum of an internet-less house. for a moment there, my whole family, or well, me at least, felt very vulnerable. there was no more internet. i repeat, there was no more internet.

well truth be told, it wasn't really so elaborate. the internet connection just died and i don't know why. but that version sounds so much nicer.

... a new toy for this old boy, and his lust for consumer goods has hence forth been sated.

ok so i got NUS archi and i wouldn't say i'm happy as hell or joyously ecstatic. i don't know how i feel now really. i feel like there's a finality and i can now see myself 3, 4, 5 years down the road. call it security or call it claustrophobic. i'll tell you in 3, 4, 5 years time.

some history. my grand-dad wanted to be an architect, and went to AA (Architect's Assoc.) in Uk to study. but after a year or so, he dropped out and switched to law. Cited it as one of the bigger regrets in his life. then his son, my uncle, wanted to be an architect and went to AA and after a year or so dropped out and switched to law. again, same story of regret. and now comes me, third in line. if you want to be fatalistic, difference is i'm not going to AA. (tho i intend to after a few years locally). if you want to be superstitious, then rest assured, third's the charm, so they say. and if you just want my opinion, fret not. i think i'll stick it out. or it'll stick to me, i don't know which. one in the same, i'd like to think.

i tried this new brand of cigs called Viceroy, which is pretty decent for a $7 pack. burns out pretty fast tho. it tastes like a marlboro, which is either saying alot for Viceroy, or doesn't say much for marlboro.

if you've been an observant reader and noted the day and time i'm making this entry, yes, i'm home when i should be in camp. no, i haven't gone AWOL (tho it is tempting) i'm on MC! grin, whee! while doing provost duty (i.e. like a prefect), and the squads all have to report to me, its kinda funny to hear things like
"total strength 40, present strength 34, 2 sentries, 2 MC, 1 AWOL, 1 jail."

speaking of 'written speakin', you know, when there's a conversation in a book.
"i think you have me wrong!"
"why? i didn't do anything to deserve this?! Immersed in this malevolent machavillean milieu, the rancid ravaging renaissance of the rain swirled like the Yin and the Yang, the energies which dictate Life, the Beginning and the End, much mimicking the Gods of old, with their heinous holiness, with wisps of Fate casting Man about His own pathetic quagmire. Ran I did, like mythical Mercury, swerving round the pedestrian bends of Olympus, as i wondered if the Universe ever possessed a crossroads, with the celestial cilia of the ecumenical empyrean body acting as lethal lights of Loki, lying lingering."
"blablablablabla"
"but blablbablablabblablblablbal"
"however, blalalalalalalalbablblalb"
... and it goes on and on and its soon i lose track of whos saying what and i'll have to back track and count alternate speech baubles to figure it out and its just very irritating. which is why sometimes, a comic is so much better.

i've been bitten by the sudden bug of consumer theraphy. i've a longing to spend my money, and the sad thing is i don't know what to buy! iPod? what about the battery dying in a few years leaving me with just a pretty white shell? clothes? nah. i've enough. (cant believe i said it.) handphone? just bought one last week. so how?! any suggestions? and no, i'm not buying anyone anything. this is purely selfish because i am selfish and why deny it. grin.

don't be a gong kia. learn a new language.

i would be very sad if i were the producer of Troy. Millions of dollars, months of filming and prior to that probably a hell of a lot of heart went into conceptualization, for a stunning epic* of such imaginative girth and when its finally released, it seems the biggest fanfare about the whole project is the fact that the men are in skirts. i'm starting to get The Fountainhead more. you should read it, it'll make you hate the world.

*personally, i've never watched it

the first thing on i would like to do is to kill Simple Plan. solely because of their song 'Perfect'. you know what i'm talking about. its just whining whining whining. whining in itself isn't that bad, if you're whining about something thats worth whining about. but 'perfect' just whines about... whining! and some of the lunkheads in my squad has acquired a taste for that song, forever having it on the tip of their tongue. if i fathered a child who sang that to me, i'd kick his sorry ass.

and no i'm not whining. i'm complaining.

am i a wallflower? a part of me wants to be one.

i've been very bratty lately about NS and being in the police. i keep thinking if i were in OCS instead of OCT i'd be having a hell lot more fun, which brings to mind a conversation i had with dao rong in BMT. i don't know if i've blogged this before, but here goes anyway.

we were talking about which company was better, which posting was the better posting and all that. then i said a common adage, of how the 'grass is always greener on the other side' and we started arguing, nicely of course. then he asked- "so, then where is the so called other side then??". i thought for a bit.

"the side we're not on" checkmate. and that pretty sums up that truism.

while adding songs to my iTunes, i glanced at the song countlist and i had 1234 songs. i like moments like these, like when you glance at your watch and its 11:11 or the date is 04/04 or 05/05 or oh oh better yet its 4:44am/pm on 04/04/04. it feels more special. it makes the moment seem more preordained or something, i can't really put a finger on it.

i really love what they're doing with music, 'breaking down' all these genres like hiphop fusing rock and jazz creeping into ska and all that, but god almighty its tough keeping an organized iTunes library! i've no idea what to classify somethings as at times.

last night after watching Kill Bill Vol.2 (which is very good btw), i departed from lido to walk to taka to meet isaac&gang. it was 7-ish, i had a cigarette kissing my lips, the air had a chill in it, and then i bought a $2 hotdog from the roadside stand (you know, the one next to wisma). and as i walked the streets, it felt different. the air was sparkling, crisper. i felt free there, all alone like i was in a bubble that was part of but not of the crowd. 'for a moment, i felt infinite', and there's nothing else that can describe the feeling. i hope you feel it sometime too.

Kill Bill is just fucking gorgeous. i loved loved loved loved and adored the ending. ok i concede. Quentin is the king of cool. i watched reservoir and wasn't really bought over by the hype. then pulp fiction. and now this. and i'm hooked man oh man. all's't left is Jackie Brown for a complete Tarantino immersion. i hope they teach him in film schools, and not just talk about classic masters like hitchcock.

i've a morbid fascination.

now that i'm in tha PA, theres no more M16s, but theres still the pistol. you know when people describe the feeling of power or awe when they hold the gun? its no lie. call it spiritual if you will. its like a baptism, and i suddenly have to power to take life and destroy at no more than the pull of a finger. is that how a god would feel like? "by the power vested in me, i pronounce you... dead."

and i want to know how it feels to have a bullet tear and tunnel through flesh. what would it be like? the moment before. the moment of impact. the moment of realization. the gun possseses my hand and i've to will it not to point the gun at myself or anyone else. its scary sometimes.

don't think me mad or insane please. i'm just being frank.