as september comes to an end, let's take a look back at what i set out to do.

- buy the i pod - organise a protest rally- and get the bjork and interpol cd- learn more chinese songs for karaoke- finish the roll of film- buy stuff from the net- get a new hobby eg spray grafitti- chiong driving- speak in shakespearean english for a day- play wonderwall on the guitar- figure out why my account never tops $4000- have a new friend- suck my cheeks in- download deadwood- stop shaving

i don't think i'll buy the i pod until i buy the apple powerbook next year or at least until christmas. i chionged my driving but it seriously sucks. i completed the last lesson today and my vertical parking is still off kilter and i can't change lane properly either. sadness. and then i read helen's blog in which she said she learnt almost everything in 8 hours.
i stopped shaving for a few days this weekend. i didn't download deadwood; i'm dnlding arrested development instead. it's at 52% and i should be able to watch it before ch5 brings it in next year. i still haven't finished the roll of film because i just realised that it's 36 instead of 24. more chinese songs? haha no. i got the bjork cd, of course. i didn't buy stuff from the net because then my account will never top $4000.

to reward you for partaking in my self indulgence, i have free mp3s up for grabs. !!!.
elliot smith - twilight
U2 - vertigo
right click and save as.
how exclusive is that man.

i am going to lie on bed and read jonathan frazen's the corrections.

i hope that those of you who ran the half marathon had fun running. i didn't do much today and i woke up from my evening nap with a rude shock. shit, today is sunday and it's nearly over and tomorrow is the last day of the long weekend. i don't want the weekend to end. i want it to last forever.

9 poems i found on the fridge, composed by my kid sister with magnetic poetry. kinda cute, like e e cummings. p/s i already took all the kid-unfriendly words like 'breasts', 'lick' and 'moan' and 'suck' to camp and put them up. so.

skys by the diamond rock
pound at wax club
up with essential
but you incubating

she shake beneath a gown
how a cook on finger knife
stop the ache crush
play language no need away
with sweat

picture an ugly bed
those you have head
or chain mean
when we go read as gifts

i rip frantic
but fiddle me their smell
boil of but they can
forest in size of tiny
and none has it

spring rust a delicate trip
only a road about on me
write leave in ship
take it elaborate beat
next fluff pole

chocolate peaches
enormous woman
bleed honey
sweet sea
weak storm
truly sun
and raw moon

goddess is mother
chant is music
day is power
winter is beauty
rose is petal love
rain is time

are them iron-ness
watch float here
put her some part
get your lies

whisper near your arms
shine my cool vision
you do stare at death falls
under a puppy butt

weirdly enough, there is a website devoted to the history of teletext. it shows in diagrams how teletext has evolved throughout the years. i even found singapore's teletext in the around the world section. it's vintage 1991.

maybe it was because i slept really late on friday night. maybe i really am an incompetent driver. anyway i did really poorly today. i mounted the kerbs a few times, i striked the poles down twice and my engine stalled.

today at dinner we found out that we are all plagued by the same spyware problems.. searchmiracle, mysearch, pills etc all these irritating search engines that pop up everytime we open internet explorer. anyway i just ran adaware and those things seem to be gone for now. however there's still something lurking inside which keeps on highlighting words like sex and mba and beds.

so i went to chinablack last night and here's my top ten tips in order to be a respectable dj.

ingredients: a room, lights, alcohol, a too-loud sound system, people willing to shake their booty, big bad bouncers and 1 or 2 hot chicks for good measure.

the recipe:
1. kylie's a dancefloor favourite, so do yourself a favour, play one of her songs every hour, 'in your eyes' is recommended.

2. for guarenteed sing-alongs, play linkin park's 'in the end'. it never fails to get people lip synching and jumping around like they're in the mosh pit.

3. dig up some old classics, like run dmc's 'it's like that' or tori amos' 'professional widow' just so that the older folks won't be left out of the party..

4. for said chicks to do the boogie, try madison avenue's 'don't call me baby' or say, 'i'm horny', because if one keeps chanting 'i'm so horny' one may actually start to believe it's true.

5. if all else fails and things aren't going so well, spin 'get the party started'.

6. of course, do not forget the r&b hits of recent times, y'know, even if you don't know what they're rapping about, but it's sure cool cuz they say 'motherf---in' a lot.

7. play the same song twice, like say 'i see you baby, shaking that ass'. but cut the second time short before people get annoyed.

8. but if you want them to sing-along and wave their hands like the 70s never left (see 2.), put on 'can't take my eyes of you'. turn the sound down at 'i love you baby!' so that clubbers may shout their lungs out and get sore throats.

9. a dash of retro never hurts.

10. if the police decides to visit the joint, turn on the lights, tell everyone that 'the cops are here to do a routine spot check' and so 'chill, man, chill'.

wow. i just realised i've been writing this blog for more than one year liao. really don't know if that magazine thing is going to work out.

fans of nu-funk-soul rejoice! there are about 3 new albums coming out soon! there's jill scott's beautifully human which is confirm good one. for one, her lyrics are incredibly poetic, eg. 'you love me from my hair follicles to my toe nails'. she also has the requisite afro and what the hell is sharon au doing on the covers of 8days ad nausuem?! there is such a dearth of local stars. then there's nikka costa and joss stone, one of whom will ve probably good while the other will probably get mixed reviews. that always happens; the nu-funk-soul genre only gets one star a year. one can trace the ancestory all the way to erykah badu. joss stone has a new single playing all over the radio now. nikka costa had me buying her debut cd in '01 on the strength of this picture:

.-.. . --. --. - ....
this could well reach the pit of journalistic honesty, but i got my mum to buy me the calvin klein underwear today. it cost like $35. i gotta get more!! too much info, i hear ya say!

i know there's something wrong when i begin to think that 5k is a short distance to run and 10k is actually fun.

today was superbly uneventful. i only have two movies to offer. being john malkovich and xiu xiu the sent down girl. xiu xiu is this show that's set in a hut in the grasslands of china most of time. this girl is sent there to learn how to ride horses, but ends up sleeping with men to get back to chengdu. joan chen, the director, must have been on a tight budget. i wish i could make a movie about how boys in singapore get sent away to the army. daniel said that maybe there are confinees who get rounded up to build mrt trains.

i can't think of any slogan to put on a tshirt. i need help!

"when in doubt, put to safe! better safe than semi."-old bmt proverbs.

i'm a little embarassed to say that after about 8 months, i've finally completed neal stephenson's 927 page tome quicksilver. i gotta admit, the first half was rather dry and i could only go a few pages at a time. besides, there was a cast of characters with the likes of isaac newton and samuel pepys. so i took a break from reading it. but after i got back to it, it was bloody exhilarating. it was political conspiracy thriller set in 17th century england, france and netherlands. it was funny, witty, sexual, complicated at the same time. now i wonder if i should take the time to read the sequel too.

this week was a rollercoaster ride. my mood index [-40pts] went roughly like this..
MON +80 no guard duty for this 4ntm. yipee.
TUE +20 took over 4ntm in a rush. last minute realised had no torch light and toggle rope. slacked for rest of day.
WED -100 shot by arrows left, right and centre. don't like to have responsibilities.
-40 dodgeball. enuff said.
+30 had 10 dollar 10 min haircut. cool machine which sucked up the small bits of hair.
THU +60 didn't have to go to IMT. slept till 9am.
-150 despite my cries of 'cannot cannot', csm decided that i should run 21k instead of 12k.
FRI -50 took over lousy vehicles. no time to clean weapon.
+150 announced that all of us didn't have to run the half marathon at all. yipee. could book out tonight instead of going to east coast straight on sat.
-40 cut my finger with jackknife while making board. bled all over the toilet and corridor. utterly horrified.
******
strange strange. my cruel intentions download is stuck at 69%.
since today's life featured keane, i would like to add this part of a 2.8/10 review of hopes and fears from pitchfork..

"I'll happily admit if I turn out to have been wrong-- and only time will tell-- but Keane sound like they'll be the last in a long line of British bands who've grown tired of miming Radiohead and now simply aim for the much more imitable sound of Coldplay. I say "last" because Keane's debut album, Hopes and Fears, is so miserably and calculatedly maudlin that it almost seems capable of killing the trend started by Travis and passed like a relay baton to Starsailor and, eventually, Snow Patrol. Coldplaya-hatas will loathe Keane; most others will just be insulted. Inexplicably, the band was recently shortlisted for the Mercury Prize."

ok, i was wrong. yesterday i did find a working television in the platoon sergeant office (those sneaky bastards) after all at around 7 so i watched the singapore hit awards. the reason why groups like energy is so gawdammn popular dawned on me. it's near superhuman to jump around so vigorously and still be able to hold a tune. on the other hand, S.H.E. had way off dancing (think jc orientation dance) and the possum cat song sucks. minus points to stephanie sun for showing all her bad acne. faye wong actually came (!) and was typically cool. i love tian kong. nicole ritchie would have 'loves it'. do you love it?

this is an ode to radiohead so don't read it if you don't like radiohead.
this morning was a great morning. i got out of camp at 8 and popped radiohead's kid a into my discman. i've only ever listened to this cd once before. this morning, being a great morning, it completely moved me. it transported me. track one, and a company of soldiers was walking down the street that leads to the main road. at the bus stop, a cyclist wearing a neon yellow bodysuit hurtled down the road at top speed. track three, on the bus, and everything seemed to be slowing down. cars, trees, the sign that says 'aviation lights ahead'. everything was bluer than blue. the billowing cumulus clouds moving, not moving, a white wisp merging with another. i was awake with nascent consciousness. track five, i felt like i was trapped in a surreal vanilla sky moment. a space time continuum. if i could only feel this warm and fuzzy forever. track six, and i thought, when was the last time you stared at the sun in the eye? i did, and i shunned, but it was ok, cuz everything was in its right place.

i am extremely bored. i'm stuck in camp and there's nothing to do. there aren't any dvds here except for some lousy chinese movies the likes of 'running out of time 2'. if i'm bored enough i might even watch infernal affairs 2. the tv antenna doesn't work either so i can't watch one tree hill and i can't watch the jin qu jiang show later either. or even scream 3! after 3 days of staying at home i rediscovered the joys of telly watching. there was buffy's very last episode. not very impressive, but sure did bring back good old memories. fear factor was nasty. newly weds was popcorn friendly entertainment. yes yes and durian king was pure genius. no sarcasm, really.
in addition i thought the xiaxue blog is quite funny, and very self promotional. and if you're as bored as me you can go check out the cool chocolate bar-shaped and pebble-shaped phones here.

Harold & Kumar- i would never in my life imagine that somebody would make a movie about two guys in search of a good burger. a very very good show to laugh yourself silly.

GUESS THE CELEBRITIES!!

(answers: the friends gang, madonna circa music, the matrix gang, power rangers, the queen mother, the scooby doo gang, southpark, the white stripes, erykah badu, the buena vista social club, fidel castro, the clintons, the darkness, missy elliot, fight club, nicole kidman, the osbournes, audrey hepburn. from flip flop flyin)

army open house is over! that was 5 days of sleeping at 12 and waking at 5. really didn't know so many people wanted to come, even students from china and even some angmos. it was practically a tourist attraction. i dicovered that the safti library was a good place to sleep and read political books. i read about che guavera and the joke about how he became the head of cuba's national bank-- fidel castro: is there an economist in here? che, hearing 'communist', raised his hand... there was the live safari ride where my friends and i were entertained by a mother and son's comments. they were like,"is that all?".. "are the soldiers real? they look like statues".. (after the tank fired for a while) "we got tricked again".. and there were many freebies to collect but i couldn't be bothered. saw many people too. but missed out on some too. also saw zoe tay, dasmond koh, fiona xie, felicia chin and vincent ng and witnessed their ch8 brand of humour. but zoe was funny, she was like kym ng-irate housewife-school teacher and even made a guy camo his face to win the nokia phone.

now watching ch8 variety shows, like the one with irene ang being a maid and the one where belinda lee finds the prettiest girls and guys in schools. cannot make it.
i was on the train today when i thought, why does the idea of slotting the mrt fare card thru the gate machine seem so foreign and ancient even though the ex link card came not too long ago. think i'm getting old.

what's been good..
googled olinda cho and found neville's blog. so what i'm gonna do is olinda cho olinda cho rox. haha.
my abstaining from uttering vulgarities for one week.. not exactly working though
paris hilton looking horrible at the mtv video music awards, check out 8 days you'll know what i mean.
some genius came up with the idea of wrapping a hotdog in waffle...it's sweet and salty at the same time.
franz ferdinand has won the mercury music prize.
an adorable 5 year old girl at the open house. so cute! and i'm not a paedophile ok..
what sucks..
the absolute tragedy that was beslan. there's so much palpable anguish that my heart aches for those kids. damn terrorists. i hope they burn in hell.