No tag = no motivation to post

Leaving in 5 hours.

See y'all in 2 weeks.

Bitch.

Summertime

Could it be true? I have survived 5 days of not eating out and cooking my own dinner? It really helps that there's lots of meat in the apartment I'm subletting that has to be eaten before it starts to rot. I haven't yet tried those fancy premixed packets though. All I had was fried bacon, ham, minced meat with lots of sauces, chicken floss, fried bacon, some steamed egg. There were some minor mishaps, like when Paul, Joel and I thought that the indo mee was meant to be dry, but was actually with soup. Guess we didn't see that it wrote 'onion chicken' on the plastic. And just how hard is it to fry an egg? Is the trick to put lots of oil on the wok before cracking the egg? My egg stuck to the bottom. It wouldn't have been nice anyway-- I broke the yolk.

ok Things are getting boring here even though I still have lots of shows to watch. Princess Mononoke is damnnnn good. It's a good case against deforestation and I'm sad that the guy and girl didn't get it on at the end. I was surprised that it was so gory; so many decapitated heads and limbs flying everywhere. At first I wanted to buy a book, but decided against it. Noble cause of saving money you see. Anyway in my apartment there's Virginia Woolf's to the lighthouse, but I just know I can't read any classic. Too many words in one sentence. I give up on 100 years of solitude too. Now I'm on page 1 of Susanna Clarke's jonathan strange & mr norrell, but there are 800 pages to go. Let's hope we get to go watch xmen 3 at the mall tonight. One movie a semester, alas.

Did anyone watch the american idol results show? I didn't. All my favorites didn't make it at all. Paris Bennett, Chris Daugtry, Elliot Yamin, even Mandisa fell by the wayside. I didn't like the last two much. Granted, Katherine is really hot, but her performances are boring as hell; she has got zero personality and smiles too much. Taylor has a double chin! He looks like a kopitiam uncle and has spasmatic dance moves. Mandisa blew everyone away during the girls' medley. Now how do I know all this. All thanks to rickey.org. And I finally get what a big deal Prince is. Just watch. That retro big hair! Those two dancers/back up singers on either side! Those hot moves! That falsetto! He has awesome stage presence. Paula was so damn high.

I guess I'm not the only one hooked on youtube. Yeah hardgay's pretty amusing, but till now I still think the first video I ever watched is still matchless.

Ella Fitzgerald sings Summertime. If you even remotely like jazz, you'll orgazzzzz at this. She is so perfect and peerless in phrasing and holding the notes, and you can just see how intense her performance is by the bucket loads of sweat she sheds on stage. Ella Ella Ella. I only wonder how she'll fare if she had lived in this day and age, where american idol is the biggest thing on tv and image makes or breaks you.

++ Where's the sun when there's so much time to suntan? Yonglin has resorted to spraying sunless tan. We think that he's getting desperate.

IMBA

Tonight's lost finale was imba. Although I didn't watch the whole season two, which I thought was too draggy and offered nothing new, I still hoped that something exciting would happen tonight. I was right and wrong. There was the recap episode which just made me ask more questions, and then for the first one and a half hour of the finale, nothing happened. The same old bumming in the hatch, michael turning on them stuff. They even managed to throw in something new like the statue of the foot instead of wrapping loose ends up. But BAM, at the 1:30 mark, something that made it all worthwhile to wait that long. And maybe good enough to make you watch the third season. But that was the climax, because the last thirty minutes just added more question marks, like who are the people in the snowy place. And who really are the others?

HOLIDAY
Used to look forward to school holidays with a mixture of anticipation and dread, because they come with a three part cycle. First I get really happy and take out my toys and go out. Next I get really bored and watch everything on tv. Then I begin to think about the meaning of life and wish for time to stop and school to not start.
But they are still great. I've been, over the past three days, been driving around, going to the mall, having firefly marathons, watching basketball, redoing the blog, going to the gym, the commons, the dairy bar, the bookshops, the grocery store.

MONEY
I have such bad luck with money that I wish I had a financial planner. I cannot believe I lost my card.

VENUS
The skin in progress in here. Now YOU have a chance to contribute to its final look. Should it remain plain like Morris', or get more wacky disco colors? I do think the look is heading in this direction.

ARCHITECTURE
Although I'm so over starchitects, I still love Zaha Hadid. The phaeno center is just another example of her fluid futuristicism but good enough that I would orgas if I ever get to step foot in it.

ORGAS
This website happens to touch on the modern architecture of all three cities I'm going to. I am very psyched.

VIDEO OF THE DAY
It's so easy to shock the world by hanging on a cross.

We have a theory that winter lasts for 8 months of the year here. The temperature started dropping in october and now that it's may, it's still 8 degrees at night. That's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 months. This is revenge for last year's drought. But seriously, good things only last for 4 months. The bridge that takes us from campus to college town was only open for a while before they closed it again for repairs.

{high}

ok ok it's 3am and my roommate has just started to pack his stuff an hour ago. I think he has five times as much stuff I have,.. I think he's going to have to stay up all night. But he's been the ultimate procrastinator, playing nhl hockey on xbox and talking cock all day. I was done in about 4 hours, give or take the breaks I took. ok I'm a jerk for not helping some people move their stuff but went to party instead. I never said I was a nice guy.

I need speakers with really good bass. Cheap ones too. And did I say that I've weaned off my dependence for an ipod? I just think that apple products are not meant to last. My friend's powerbook crashed after 8 months and the apple people are too caught up in bureaucracy to fix it. My ipod has been giving me problems since forever and I've only been using the ear phones to jack into my laptop. But ever since I gotten back the habit of working in my bed, I've left the laptop on my bed when I sleep. It really helps that I don't turn about in my sleep. But anyway I must have pressed on the earphones too hard, cuz one of them shattered and everything's exposed, including the magnets.
The apple store in nyc opened. It's underground and fronted by a glass cube. It's open twenty four hours a week and I'm sure apple fans everywhere will congregate at that place and worship steve job's feet. Me, I'm more interested that madonna's tour is starting tomorrow in LA. I just can't keep myself from the spoilers. After all, I need to know when to take the pictures and videos. But what I've seen and read have been really exciting.

I'm turning desperate come next semester. I had enough of couple crap. But really, I'm just not extremely into anyone.

the chernobyl legacy. Heartbreaking photo essay on the aftereffects of chernobyl. Also on that page is a slide show on the lourve. I'm getting excited about the lourve. I'm going to spend a whole day there wandering through the museum. I'm pretty much getting to be a musuem freak. And I've only done moma and the met.

Next week is slacking week. I'm gonna sort out all my mp3s in my computer. I'd really hate the feeling of not having a song I like.

Marissa died? I couldn't care less.

I'm going to sleep now.

I realized I haven't emphasized the distance I have to walk to and from school everyday. My dorm is on the left most corner in the distance, somewhere before the two taller blocks. The engineering quad is about 5cm to the right of the right edge of the picture. But I'm not complaining.

{intermission}

This layout has been here for over a year now; it's about time to change it. I remember the first one had a white background with red trimmings, and then I changed it to something I don't recall, and then this. Too bad retro is over.

Next to my 203 textbook, my econ text has the 2nd most-likely-to-crack-you-up examples. Here's one, it says
Abercrombie's factory produces a toxic waste bypreoduct. If abercrombie dumps it in the river, he causes damage to Fitch, a fisherman located downstream...if Abercrombie and Fitch cannot communicate with one another, will Abercrombie operate with or without a filter?
I kid you not and don't get me started on the one about bill gates picking up a 100 dollar bill on the sidewalk.

People do those survey things all the time but I never did. I'd rather write my own questions and answer them.

Top 3 concerts to catch before I die
1. Emmylou Harris
2. Radiohead
3. Tori Amos

3 random things on my desk
1. A shot glass
2. a ben and jerry's toy truck
3. las vegas dice

Things I wish I were
1. more friendlier, less tau, this fucking kills me
2. more interesting
3. good at more things
4. a piano player

3 favorite dance songs
1. gold digger/tipsy/the whistle song/stay fly/get low/run it
can't decide which one to choose so I dumped them all in
2. Intenso project - Get it on.. it's a house track from MOS that noone here would play; it's what they'd call deep soul groove. Kinda hot video.
3. Cascada - everytime we touch. Never thought I'd like techno but I'd make an exception for this one

4 random vintage! songs
1. 2pac - to live and die in LA. super Vintage!
2. daft punk - one more Time
3. madonna - Live to tell
4. hanson - Yearbook

3 body parts I'd do plastic surgery on
1. the eyes, definitely the eyes
2. jawbones
3. cheekbones
4. sternum

3 places TO GO off the top of my head
1. angel falls in venezuela, but then it's only accessible by helicopter
2. Alaska
3. ok maybe I said that I didn't want to do those hiking outdoorsy trips for a bit, but I'm kind of wanting to see some nature now. Perhaps should have gone to yellowstone.

2 reasons why I'm worried
1. I don't know what's going on in econ
2. my birthday is next
3. I don't think I have enough money to last till september
4. In the last episode of house I watched, the guy doctor was so estranged from his father that his father didn't even tell him that he had cancer. I just felt sad.
5. I see the same 50 people online all the time.
6. Going from freshman to junior just seems wrong.

random link (for geeks)

Day 3 of exams.

The biggest news today wasn't that Floridians are afraid of alligator attacks or that Jodie Foster quoted enimem at the uPenn commencement, it's that Thom Yorke is going to release a solo album. It's about time man. Word has it that one of the songs black swan will play over the credits of Richard Linklater's a scanner darkly. .. I've been looking forward to that film, not least because it is based on another Philip k Dick short stories. Those stories make good films. .. And noone told me that radiohead was on tour right now, and now all the tickets are sold out. Of course, I can't afford to go to any more concerts, but the timing would have been perfect. They're at the theater at madison square garden on june 13, the day I return from europe. I would have gone with all my baggage in tow.

Ok I'm getting worried about my budgeting. I hate it when secret bills pop out of nowhere, like when the bursar charged $150 for the machine design class. I guess that pays for the toothbrush I had to dissect. I was surprised noone picked the Phillip Starck toothbrush; that must cost at least 150 bucks.

I have two more finals left but I'm essentially done. Must say I didn't learn that much from econ 101. After that I'd be busy packing up and moving out. .. to a single room.. I would really miss dc++. I need some way to watch next monday's 24 finale, which is building up to a tremendous climax. The president gets what he deserves, the terrorists get blown to bits and Jack Bauer saves the day. And Prison Break, I saw the last minute of today's episode and it was an overhead shot of a few of them running away. Much better than unravelling the mystery of Lost.

But seriously, I'd miss the dorm life (kinda) when I move out.

surprise link of the day

In my brainspace there is a place reserved for pondering on two particular eternal questions--
1. Wtf is britney spears thinking? Getting pregnant again after barely giving birth?
2. WTF is dubai doing?

Yea we all know this place is way over the top-- a couple of phallus shaped manmade islands, a ski resort in the desert, the world's tallest building, but there's new schizz that's completely insane. They are going to out-vegas vegas with a 10km long hotel strip, including a creatively named asia-asia hotel, the world's biggest. Oh look,

there are gigantic replicas of the tallest buildings in asia, including the burj dubai of dubai. Part of me wants them to do it, because only they can pull it off and just to see the finished project would be dumbfounding, if not hilarous. There would be great irony if these arab people also build a replica of the world trade center.

Day 2 of exams.

OMG fourier series. I bet late last night most people who took math today were still up figuring out what the whole chapter was about. Either that or they have already given up. Apparently today there were people sitting at their seat with arms folded, waiting for time to pass. I've never been to an exam feeling so overwhelmed and under prepared. Noone knew how to do the last few questions and I just want to be above the mean.

Our professor has a facebook group. Here are some notable quotes:

- "And after that hubububu... you know you just... ummmmm. uh uh uh yeah so.. it's that simple. Yes........ bubu."
- "Every guy can be friends with every girl, then the birth rate is P squared, but they are probably not human."
- "Doomsay... What is this? I never heard of it, is that the opposite of extinction?"
- "People are dying with constant speed."
- "This is the logistic equation... and it's called logistic because uh bub it's logical."
- "Birth in minus birth out."
- "...then there will be alligators everywhere."
- "The function will blow up in a finite time."
- "Partial fractions? What's that? Is that like adding fractions?"
- "The wave equation smells like the heat equation, but it isn't. it is of a different flavor."
- "Do you understand what I am saying or is it like a foreign language?"
- "Surely you know what a matrix is. You know the box with the numbers in it?"
- "You can smell for sure one solution. One is for free but the other is not."
- "...and now, we can find WHO is x..."

Best Quote Ever:
"I have office hours until 4...plus infinity."

I am going to eat ben and jerry's and watch prison break and not write my paper until it's 11pm.

Day 1 of exams.

A few days ago, I was distracted from studying by kitsch magazine, which is one of the many student run magazines. It was actually a good read, and had an article about lucid dreaming, which is basically knowing that you're in a dream and having the power to manipulate events. I've been convinced that I am capable of lucid dreaming. Sometimes I have a mental conversation before I sleep so as to decide on the dream. Usually I am someone else, 200 years in the future, travelling in a very cool vehicle. Think blade runner meets minority report. Or other times when I or other people get injured in my dreams I am able to tell myself that it isn't real and not get worked up over it. According to the article, the best way to achieve control over your dream is to write it down every morning, if you can remember it.

---

Slope day is even cooler than dragon day because practically everyone in the school is there sitting, lying or standing on the slope. The beer line was insane, though. The worst idea ever. They made us walk through zig zaging lines about 15 times, it's like running a marathon. Oh, times that by 5 because they only gave one cup each time.



Ben Folds rocked the house. Never been that big a fan, but he did all the songs I liked. Annie waits, Fred Jones pt 2, Army, Brick etc. He was also very good at getting the crowd to sing along to certain bits. The cover of Dr Dre's bitches ain't shit was very funny too. But he made my day with the encore: 1 angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces. Favorite BFF song ever!


Hairstyles I should get

I'm so unbelievably behind time right now, but I have to write some stuff before I forget them. I don't see how I depress people. Haha. Actually something like this might: I'm going to europe in summer.. Athens, Paris and London.
But look at both sides of the coin: I don't know what I'll be doing just because everyone there is having exams. After this I'm going to take a break from expensive far away trips.

In summary,
1. The quest to see Madonna
Check out my seat, this is what $60 is worth..
It's like almost behind the stage, but I'm happy because it's still 1/4 the distance between the stage and the other far end of madison square garden. ok next,




2. Stephen Colbert rocks!! He was invited to the white house correspondent's dinner and his performance totally roasted bush, even as he sits just two seats away. Bush was looking rather displeased, the audience had their mouths agape and you could cut the tension with a knife. He also criticized the media for pandering to the administration. This is Must Watch video.
Sample quote:
"So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it."

3. I learnt how to bartend over the weekend. The biggest lesson was how to estimate the number of ounces you're free pouring. An extra dry martini is 3 oz of vodka? Why would anyone want to drink that?

4. Things to note
After I found out that there was an arrow in Fedex's logo, it is all I that I notice now. It's so subtle that I've never noticed it but it practically stares at me now.
Similarly, after I heard that the area outside the gannett health center smells of s****, I can't help but sniff for it whenever I walk past.

I don't know why I censored that. Maybe it makes the blog look less plebeian.


ok it bloody reeks of semen.

5. Meryl Streep is going to be fantastic in the devil wears prada.

6. Slope day on friday! Drunken revelry! Ben Folds and Talib Kweli!

7. I'm already forgetting stuff. Time to start cranking..