work in progress

working title: song for the lost and homeless

just completed the 2nd verse, thought i'd share. the first 2 verses:

It's a wayward journey
that has no end
We hitch a ride from where-
ever we can
The winding road - oh
seems endless ahead
Sanctuary for the
homeless man
Sanctity to a
helpless friend

Your thumb never strays
from the northern sky
Walking: christmas, st. patrick's
dreams of pumpkin pies
The hymns that you sing for
the scorned and fallen
Sanctuary from an
ill reprise
Sanctity to a
hopeless plight

+listening to: own thoughts

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tired

it's been a long day and i've just reached home. dinner's cold, i don't feel like eating anymore.

i think it's the weather. the rain just dulls everything.

kinda annoyed that alex forgot that he was supposed to have a lesson today. afterall it was him who requested this session because of the test tomorrow. and i had to travel so far at such a screwed up time to fit into his schedule. so, again, he didn't do his homework, neither did he revise the stuff that we were supposed to go through today. not surprisingly it became agonizingly slow and torturous. i can't be bothered anymore, at least andréas was good enough to remember to do his homework, so as a reward i gave him permission to eat straight from a jar of nutella throughout the lesson. i think their dad will freak out if he sees it. oh well...

lately i've had a lot of run-ins with middle aged men with really warped fashion sense. i dunno, i think it's some kinda midlife crisis thing. so while i was on my way back, i saw this uncle, probably 50-ish, with blond highlights. and get this: he was wearing them gigantic red-coloured thick frame glasses, a very flowery dress shirt, and black skinny jeans with those white pointy toed lacoste-style gayboy shoes. i almost went blind.

why can't they just be contented with their age and accept it graciously like all the middle-aged ladies do. how often have you seen balding men with beer bellies in those tiny little porches trying to look cool while they are stuck in traffic.

and i also saw another random guy whose t-shirt says KKJ. coming from a neighbourhood primary school, i can only think of 1 possible combination for that acronym. and erm it isn't exactly a pretty word. what self respecting firm could possibly have allowed for such a ridiculous acronym as KKJ? Koo Koo er... Joke?

i dunno. bleh.


+listening to: endless sacrifice by dream theater

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i cut my hair...

i finally cut my hair.

after months of resistance, the pain of maintaining a full head of long-ish hair, i gave up. partially because i felt it was the reason i fell sick, partially because i just couldn't stand waiting around forever for my hair to dry after taking a shower, and mostly because it's seriously out of control.

so get ready for some pretty heavy cam-whoring antics:


BEFORE

i forgot to take a pic before i cut my hair, i guess it comes pretty close to this

now...


AFTER

apologies for the totally unintentional hazy mirror effect, the one in my room hasn't been cleaned for ages

so there you have it, no more excuses for making my long hair the topic of conversations... gah!!!


+listening to: ice-cream man by van halen

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see ya Mr. Heston

Charlton Heston died today. i think it's about time.

of course most people around my age don't know who the hell he is (or was), and no one really seem to give 2 cent about it.

except... well, he sorta looks familiar, hmm... "where have i seen him before?" some of you might ask. well i'm sure an awful lot of you have seen the documentary Bowling for Columbine. if thou hath not, give thyself a big ol' slap across thy face and repeat after moi: thou shalt go to bittorrent and download it NOW.


so now... does the name ring any bells?

"OOH!" you exclaim. that's right. he's the president of the N.R.A. in the U.S. of A. who went to columbine to hold a major gun rally just 7 days after the shooting took place. the N.R.A. or National Rifle Association frankly has very little to do with rifles per se. it generally promotes gun ownership. yep, that includes your assult weapon types too: those PARAs you got in your basement, uh huh, those are included. some Kalashnikovs stowed away in your daughter's room? sure, those too. oh i see you've got some Carbines hanging on the wall, looking good eh... what? you've got bazookas as well? sweet.

you see my logic now? i'd like to think it's pretty irrefutable. gun violence simply will not stop if you've got an organisation full of rednecks who just love to see things get all shot up. or people for that matter. and to make matters worse. they have a renowned oscar winning ex-movie star rooting for their "cause"? gee, charlton must have had some real anger issues as a kid.

so, i guess see you in hell then Mr. Heston.


+listening to: jeremy by pearl jam

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down with the sickness

i knew something was going awry when i woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. something tells me it is not right.

and true enough when i woke up this morning, i thought armageddon was here early. imagine a monkey sitting on your head pounding away non-stop while you are stuck in one of those tea-cup rides in the amusement park, except this one apparently doesn't end. that's exactly how i'm feeling now, also coupled with a slight fever and the ever present cough.


so in a bid to cleanse my body (and soul), i decided to go downstairs to get something to eat since both my cousins are sleeping in. off i headed to the NTUC to get some comfort food/drink.

by the time i was at the checkout counter, there was this old aunty who's apparently just finished her saturday morning grocery shopping. so being a little ticked off i sort of dumped everything on the counter. quite obviously, she checked out what i've bought: a loaf of plain pandan bread, a huge bottle of nin jiom syrup to help with the cough, some panadol extra and a bottle of angus o'neil's ginger beer (i've always had ginger beer when i'm sick, and btw i swear by angus o'neil's, it tastes way better than the ones bundaberg puts out).

for some reason i've yet to be able to explain, she gave me this extremely displeasing look, almost like i've committed one of the original sins or something. and that if i uttered just one more word or bought just one more item i'd be cast straight to hell.

ok i admit that maybe the angus o'neil's bottle isn't the prettiest around, it does have an unkind resemblance to those bottles of rat poison they show on tv. and okay nin jiom and pandan bread doesn't really go together. but come on, it's not as if i can make a molotov cocktail out of a bottle of angus o'neil's? or a biological WMD with a couple of panadol pills, a bottle of nin jiom and some pandan leaf flavoured carbohydrate? give me a break. was it really necessary to go bin laden on me?

maybe she thinks i'm hiding mas selamat under my shirt or down my trouser legs? maybe my hair looks like an active contagion of a scourge of some lethal pandemic virus? it must be my hair then. this whole sickness must have something to do with it. i shall go for a haircut next week.


+listening to: down with the sickness by disturbed

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boot shopping & music

okay so the o' cleats have given up on me. well not completely, but everytime i tried to fill the gap between the outsole and the shank with glue, it only made the gap even larger. i guess its life's coming to an end, after all it's been a year already. most boots of mine last about half a year.

so out of necessity i had to go to queensway to shop for some spanking new boots. i was pretty shocked by their outdated inventory. and it's not just a couple of the shops, the problem seemed universal to all the shops there. most of them are still stocked to the brim with last season's stuff. new boots that came out at the end of last year were pretty rare sights.

i was equally shocked to see weston stocking predator rugby's and almost the entire range of adidas rugby boots. i was so tempted to just grab a pair of predator rugby's and head home. but i just couldn't stand the styling of the new predator powerswerve, it's gotta be one of the ghastliest looking incarnations in the entire history of predators. the bloke who designed this horrendous looking thing must have lost his marbles.

so i settled for a pair of adiPure's. not for the faint hearted. in fact i think most people would think it looks really "dated". well it was supposed to have modern performance with classic looks, i just wanted something comfortable, low key and relatively cheap. besides i'm getting sick of predators, been wearing them since i could remember so it's about time for a change.


also, i haven't been playing music for a while and tomorrow there's gonna be the first real jam since last year if i remember correctly. i just hope that i haven't lost all my chops. all i have been doing lately is just strumming aimlessly and trying to come up with something musical.

anyways i doubt there will be anything inspiring tomorrow. the setlist speaks of different kinds of music from what i'm into normally. i shall just go with an open mind.


and er a little fashion tip to the old uncle i saw on the bus with bleached hair (dressed in black n' white striped top and maroon corduroy pants, sporting a purple velvet belt with a gold buckle): next time best leave the maroon cords and purple velvet at home. it makes you look kinda... erm transie?


+listening to: evacuation by pearl jam

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we can solve it? really?

i'm not a person who assumes a clear-cut stand over political issues at the blink of an eye. i don't like being force-fed ideas. in fact i'm skeptical towards most of such "campaigns", anti-global warming included.

i'm not anti-global warming per se (though i still do my bid to conserve the environment), neither am i an advocate of wasting away precious energy resources. for that you have to look to petrol-heads like jeremy clarkson on top gear going "POWERRRRR" every other episode. he ought to have a conspiracy theory or two of his own about what global warming is all about.

now al gore, the former US vice president and author of an inconvenient truth (i've seen the movie, which proves my point), and his nonprofit climate group have begun what they say will be a three-year $300 million advertising blitz to recruit 10 million advocates to seek laws and policies that can cut greenhouse gases. check out their initiative at http://wecansolveit.org.


while i applaud their spirit to change the world, i think $300 million dollars over a period of 3 years is simply too little, too late, and for too short a time. guess how much pepsi or coke spends annually on promoting their brand name in hopes of swaying the population towards each of their own product? over $1 billion EACH. they call it "brand preference". that is the kind of money you need to have even the slightest impact on people's awareness.


just imagine what kind of money and effort is needed to suddenly influence the population to become environmentally conscious. personally i have my doubts. but then again what do i know? the last time i checked i had the intelligence of a 6-year-old and the intuition of a door knob. so i guess nothing is impossible as adidas would put it. i didn't think people were gonna really turn off their lights during Earth Hour, neither did i expect to see people wear green for the Live Earth weekend. both happened, in fact i saw some kid in green from head to toe (yea that includes shoes) on a bus.

and finally on a totally unrelated note: have you often been feeling tired lately? or experiencing temporary blurry vision? maybe it's time to get your eyes checked. xD




+listening to: any fule kno that by deep purple

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pièce de résistance

tourney season's finally started!

no. not turkey season, tourNey season. the time of year when thousands of people of all shapes and sizes decide in unison that they've had enough of whatever shit they were in and just took to running around in some quite enormous pools of mud all around the country trying to murder each other, i kid you not.

some would agree that only sex ranks better (in fact some say it's better than sex), others would simply stare at you like you've just arrived from pluto in a gigantic penis shaped spaceship. all a bit mad quite frankly.

so after tuition today i ran down to saint andrews school to watch the boys play. imagine the first thing that i saw when i arrived there was some player from the other school being stretchered off the field - i couldn't be happier.

even though the boys lost, i think they played outstandingly well. it was really just unlucky, especially that second try that never was. but it's the experience that ultimately counts, they were the clear winners in my books even though the scoreline might say differently.

well since i'm keeping with the theme of rugby for today, here's something that is immensely humorous:

it's a series of videos from this site called Alternative Rugby Commentary. check it out for the signature kiwi style subtle humour at full tilt.

sorry if some of the non rugby-heads can't seem to grasp what the video's talking about. well, um too bad i guess. for the rest of you nut-jobs out there who do have an idea, right on!


+listening to: back in black by AC/DC

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