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Friday, November 27th, 2009

gwennie

11:52a 2 weeks and going strong... i think Tis' just as well that i found nothing that i (really very) wanna buy from the blogshops for 2 weeks and it wasn't even self-imposed! current mood: groggy current music: With or Without You - U2

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bigblackheart

2:59a so much for what is it? the autumn sun? the nightly drinks? the idleness of not caring? don't want the sun to disappear into darkness at four in the afternoon. don't want the pseudo warmth the drinks bring in the ever descending cold. don't want the comforting completeness in detachment from the material world. someone turn the lights off, or i'm doomed.

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gwennie

9:27a You know what i'm talking about With what was announced in the TV news last night and appeared in the papers today, there is no love nor monetary loss should i take myself out and make a move come next year eh. current mood: groggy

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Thursday, November 26th, 2009

gwennie

11:58p Fried seafood overload We were contemplating where to have dinner and with our first choice (Sushi Tei) and second choice (Marche) with long queues, i thought of Brotzeit since i've never been there before and Jon was keen to try it. Seriously, he has a more or at least an equivalent level of pickiness when it comes to taste paletes but then again he argued that he's leaving in a week's time and i should just give in. Say until like that, what else can i say? But as we were heading down, The Queen and Mangosteen dawned upon me and since i have been wanting to try, Brotzeit didn't stand a chance. Thankfully, we were there somewhat earlier before 7 and we got a proper seat alfresco. Despite ordering only nibbles (not mains), it was still too much for the two of us. From top to bottom: Samui Beer Battered Onion Rings with Thai Chilli Sauce, Mixed Seafood Deli Board, Fish & Chips with Curry Tartare Sauce Since i've got a $10 voucher having paid by DBS card, i'm gonna drag the colleague back again for the mini burgers, chix wings and mashed potato next =p current mood: tired

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bigblackheart

1:03a you're not one of them one of my favourite films as a kid was superman. we had a vhs copy of it, and so i watched it over and over again, and would be jumping around whenever the big action scenes played out. however, whenever the film gets to the fortress of solitude scene, i'd sit still and almost go into a trance watching it. in recent years, youtube enabled me to revisit that scene anytime i want to. of course, i could have gotten a copy of it and just ripped that scene out, but i just didn't. lately, i've been watching that scene quite often. after these two years of film school, i realised what got me into the scene. however, i'll ignore that analysis and just go by feeling and say that the scene sets the mind into an almost meditative state, and i don't mean the obvious trip montage either. instead, i refer to the part when jor-el starts talking in the beginning. sometimes, when i get stuck in my tasks, that's one of the scenes i might watch, and more often than not, things would unravel in my mind and i could move on. also, there's one line i will never forget: "even though you're raised as a human being, you're not one of them."

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Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

bigblackheart

5:25p pointy ears vs pointy teeth so i just arrived in school, sitting in my studio, and slurping my chicken soup. made my arrival known via gmail chat, so we can get on with the project plan. within five minutes, it turned to this. why did i come to school today again?

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gwennie

11:19p As i withold my drool... Why does Okto have to schedule cooking shows at night? Even coconut (something which i usually avoid) bread looks appearing and have me drooling some, which is not exactly a good idea considering that it is late at night after all. Maybe i should just go find a cute chef and propose marriage instead. [ETA]: Removing ham skin is quite a disgusting scene. current mood: blah

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gwennie

7:00p SO.Easy is not as it should be. Complications arose and my Lotus Notes are being migrated as this is being typed out now (at home). Without MSN, i gotta get back (and used) to using ebuddy and other internet based programme supporting the IM. In addition, i need to get acquainted and used to the Windows Vista interface and the new MS Office software. Yes i know i would have long gotten used to it had i installed it inside scruffy but i witheld it and am so a laggard now at that. Then again, Windows 7 is out so Vista isn't any advanced either but at least we are up-to-date now and on par with most of the gahmen organisations. Tomorrow's the first day i'm getting hands-on to the new OS so wish me luck that i get used to it just fine and quickly, since i didn't manage to attend any of the briefing sessions for it. current mood: quixotic

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Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

bigblackheart

10:52p uroboric i've been getting a dose of metal recently. and just hours ago, ming and i started talking about j-rock. inevitably, dir en grey would get mentioned – sometimes for the wrong reasons. so while mister ming has gone to sleep, i'm left here with a couple of hours left before bedtime. and what do i do? carry on alone and listen to more metal. now, i'm listening to arguably my favourite metal band of all time – cynic. cynic first came into my world on one idle afternoon after school. i remember i was really bored and so i went to visit the music shop. lo and behold, this compilation tape called out to me from some dark corner, so i parted with my precious pocket money. one of the best spending of pocket money ever; but the tape deteriorated into really bad shape and it also eventually 'disappeared', to put it nicely. i was impressed by many of the tracks, but i was completely overwhelmed by cynic's track, mystically known as uroboric forms. come on, turn it up. if you want the 'CD-quality' version of that same recording, it's here, but sonically, the former is how i remember uroboric forms most favourably, because i first heard it on a tape. cynic recorded it again for their debut album, but to me, the performance on the demo is still the ultimate version of uroboric forms. the album version lost some of its magic, i think. then again, i was listening to the demo version too much before the album came out, so maybe i'm just too attached to it. hmm. uroboric forms. proper chaos. chaos in control. a demon who has realised its full capacity and knows it's more than a demon. like god. my friends and i were listening to a lot of brutal metal that time, but after having heard cynic, i began craving for other types of brutality. those days, if you saw me smiling when my ears are plugged, it was very likely i was listening to cynic. funnily, i eventually ended up listening to some old nintendo soundtracks, because i realised that they had a lot in common with what cynic was doing. and yes, it explains why some of my very old demo stuff sound the way they do too. there! ever since then, when asked what my favourite metal track is, i'd always say uroboric forms. the sad thing was that i could only find a few people who appreciated cynic then – most people (metal fans) would just not understand when i play cynic to them. "listen to this! jazz creamed in metal! the groove! the chaos!" but they would be disinterested. :\ nonetheless, a few friends were enough for us to try our hands at jamming metal like that. in no way did we attempt to cover uroboric forms, but the essence of it was deep in us. sometimes, at impromptu jams, we would look up at one another and go: "that's some cynic vibes there man!" and yes, one of my dreams is still to see cynic 'live'. maybe in february. *fingers crossed* by the way, if you're still paying attention, try this: listen to uroboric forms once or twice. then, play it again and again on headphones, and pay attention to one instrument with each pass. then, note down how many times you have muttered "jesus" in awe. if your score is more than ten, you owe it to yourself to download this, because if jesus played metal, that's how it would sound like. if you make it to the last track, be patient – the gates will open at the very end. and oh, here's their myspace.

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gwennie

9:45p No hard feelings, Lotus Notes Come tomorrow, i may not have MSN IM programme freely installed for use but at least i'm gonna have MS Outlook back. current mood: thankful

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kuroki

2:45p it doesnt apply to everybody I have been solus at work for a very long time, my frontliner colleagues even joked about how i have the luxury to work on 2 computers, have 2 telephone lines and that i have the entire storeroom space all to myself. And because my boss only drops by once a while to check on my stuff i am pretty much on my own. In another words.. i rule my own time and space. Sadly, people who knows me know that i dont even utilise my break time at all. in fact, for most of the time, i will dabao and eat in.. and i almost immediately resume working after that. There is one good thing though, is that i have no restrictions on when i can go for my smoke breaks-- but its not like i hit the smoking point often also. As it is boring to smoke alone, i will ask fellow smokers to join me as well. but I had totally forgotten and am glad that a close colleague indirectly pointed out how other colleagues who dont smoke will view the ones joining me as an opportunity for themselves to eat snake. I shall be more careful with the frequencies and the timings when jioing people in the future.

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Monday, November 23rd, 2009

bigblackheart

11:42p objectified finally found the time to watch objectified. enjoyed it. as a film, it is quite well done, i think. it brought back many questions that i stopped thinking about – whether for better or for worse, i'm unsure, though i'd think it's likely for worse. also, it brought me through a memory lane. i remember when i got my first computer when i was eight, one thing that bothered me was why it had to be so inhuman in the way it was presented to the user. fast forward to seven years later and i was just starting to make websites out of curiosity. the person who taught me the basics was this managing director of an IT company, and he gave me web space on his company's server for me to fool around with, which would have otherwise been unaffordable for an idle student. one goal i had was to make the website usable by anybody, even by my parents. that means that not only does it have to have that emotional connection, it should only have visual cues that matter. eventually, i started making spare money doing odd design jobs like that. a few years later, the kind of design that i was doing became known as interactive design in the real world – in other words, design of interfaces. unknowingly then, i had channeled that little inclination into my presentations in school at that time. i had utmost confidence in communicating any idea in a presentation – as long as i had powerpoint. in fact, i was almost always disgusted by my own lecturers' slides, which are often non-emotive and are often losing too many ideas with every slide that followed. out of arrogance, i'd make sure my own presentations would make theirs look like shit, just to show that i am better than they are – yes, i am cringing deeply now. eventually, it got to a point where i was making money preparing powerpoint presentations for people who need to impress but just do not have what it takes – time, learning, IT, etc. don't get me wrong though, i wasn't making money off my schoolmates. if you were ever my schoolmate, you'd know i'll never ever do anyone's school work for money. instead, the people who were willing to pay were CEOs and directors of companies – the folks with more money than time. i was also sometimes asked to read their notes and rewrite them. eventually, through word of mouth, i got passed around. some of the gigs were really fun. one of my favourites was for the director of walt disney asia, and it was a presentation that involved a lot of visuals of cartoon characters – anime ones included. with that kind of material to work with, who wouldn't be in bliss? thinking back, i find it funny that their requests were secondary to my mood and my desire to make money. if i got bored and wanted to play instead of staying home after school to do their presentation, i'd say that i'd prefer to do my thing instead. delightfully, i got a pay bump once to override my laziness. tempting, i know, but i had never misused that! as life is, things got into a full circle, and i landed an internship at a web design company. yay, i thought. what i liked about the company was that it was very design-oriented. before, i would contemplate working with others to get some freelance money flowing, but almost always, my ideology on web design differed with theirs, so it was hard to convince myself to do it. then there's the other school of kids, who believe that as long as it looks beautiful, it was good design. i wasn't humble enough to not laugh at their superficiality. i wanted nothing to do with them. their designs were simply self-centred ejaculation! nobody paid you to make flat braille! there has to be both form and meaning! how hard is that..? wow. i actually got worked up. haha. anyway, back at the web design company, i could work on flash content and actually had some creative control over them. flash was a pretty new thing at that time, and because i had meddled around with it at home before, i could get my hands pretty deep into it and my boss started to hand flash assignments to me. however, i really hate flash now. the bloated piece of shit has lost its meaning. HTML 5 is the future! on top of that, this company allowed me the freedom to come and go any time i liked, as long as i know the work was done for the day. i could work here for real, i thought. alas, as with everything with me, i lost interest in interactive design. it wasn't fun anymore. the projects started to feel like the same old thing. everybody wanted the same thing. one of the last straws was this horrible movie poster that i had done as a freelancer. fun to work on, but there was just so much that was out of my control, and of course, i wasn't happy with the result. it feels like no one cares about good design as long as the product can be sold. yikes. on top of that, i foresaw that this whole web stuff would be a cutthroat business. another kid like me will pop up somewhere and will do it for cheap. he doesn't have to be as good as i am – just cheaper. still, i'm glad for that strand of exposure. i suspect i am not as vehement about things like that anymore though. if it sucks, i just won't bother to look or care. why fuss myself with it? unless it bears a meaning that i am dying to peruse – in other words, beta stuff. although i say at the beginning of this post that it may be for worse that i stopped asking these questions, there is the better reason, or at least i hope it is. simply, harmony with others. i may lose some of what i used to stand for, but hey, people around me are happier.

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