24 December 08

I'd feel guilty about writing over an entry someone else just written, but seeing as TOFU's is really quite short (about the All-American Rejects' new album, hmph, you don't see me blowing a blogpost on an entire album do you? Oh wait, I kinda did) well, fuck him and his mainstream music! I have unparalleled nonconventional taste in the arts! Which is not the point of this entry!

But the cruellest thing you can do to an artist is tell them their work is flawless when it isn't.
- Ben Croshaw

'Yahtzee' Croshaw is the man behind the hit online game reviews Zero Punctuation. He's also Australian, like the Hilltop Hoods! And that guy I was arguing with on Youtube yesterday about Australian gun laws!... Also not what today's theme is (I almost said "letter of the day", there) but I'll throw in some Yahtzee humour at the end because I like his hat.
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Long post ahead.

I can't quite remember the last time I was pumped about Christmas. Huh. If I had to guess who was behind this inane tradition's continuation I'd say it was my mother. (Don't worry, I'll keep the hate-my-family-for-attention short this time.) She's quite Singaporean.

Anyway I forgot where I was going with this... oh yeah, I was going to be all nostalgic about (drum roll) my past, but then I guess all my Christmases have been rather uneventful... So as a better primer for getting off my ass and begin fine-tuning Bridge again, I'm gonna tag the shitload of secondary school photos I uploaded on Facebook a while ago and see what comes up.

Unfortunately, due to the Pebble Fort's constitution (TOFU is noob!) I cannot post them here. I will describe them instead. A lot of these photographs are my own. I can't say I have too strong of an interest in the art of photography, but there is definitely some. Interesting but unsurprising fact: Mikana probably sparked it off. Holding the post of photographer certainly gave me plenty of opportunity to snap away (Wank away would have been more appropriate, but less accurate).

In between getting stone-hard boners for the pretty maiden, I did manage to catch a few things out the corner of my eyes that I snapped anyway... all in all, I did make an honest attempt to do my 'job' and learned a few things. Just me and my father's camera. Impromptu amateur photography.

When I lost my handphone (again) and inherited a newer one with a camera, I obviously went crazy with it. Because of the poor photo quality and shit resolution, and the fact that I was already out of Drama by then, meant that I would no longer have opportunities to shoot Mikana up close, and of course faraway shots with a phone is invariably crap. So I shot other things.

Taking advantage of the quick setup time and relative inconspicuous qualities of the phonecam, I could whip it out anytime I saw something particularly photogenic. I think my favourite one (ego incoming) came from the night study sessions in school. A student, sitting alone at a table. His bag and study things are strewn around him. This is all taken from behind him, but from the back of his head we can see that he's looking at a clique, engrossed in themselves, just a table away. He's just sitting there and watching them, arms and hands down. I dunno what the rest of you will take away from it, now that it's on Facebook, but predominantly it got me thinking about social barriers, because there's a tangible, powerful barrier in that photo.

Was it because the student was obese? Maybe he was just not very likable? Gender? Racial barriers?

I'm sure the Singaporean Tourist Board would jump to overuse the phrase "Racial Harmony", but the fact is that Racial Tolerance would have been more accurate. All the government conspiracies and prejudices discussed in math tuition aside, a great number of cliques I see are still defined by skin colour and sex. You have the Malay girls over there, the Chinese guys over here, Chinese girls, Indian girls, Malay guys, more Chinese guys.... Yeah, there are exceptions (thanks to Lime, we are one of them =).

There was this girl from Thailand who was my classmate this year. There wasn't a clique she could just fall into... so had a Malay guy as a best friend. Of course, she did tell me that back in Thailand, being from an extremely rich family, most people saw her in terms of money... so what, only necessity can overcome petty things like racial and gender barriers? Eh, lets go back to nostalgia.

Got a photo of Giant, Panzerz and the rest of 4/8 chilling outside the classroom by the railing. I wonder why nobody bothers to record these things? Or maybe I just think it is extra special because my own class, 4/4, has really no unity. No pictures of them.

Here's one of TOFU. It's during one of those dreadful barbaric Scout rituals. (Take that!) In this picture TOFU is sitting right in front of the camera, resting his head on his hand and staring off into the distance while a bunch of other Scouts do push-ups behind him. It's like he's wondering "Is there a life for me beyond making little boys cater to my every whim?" while he's looking towards the sky with hope in his eyes. So yeh, quite funneh. I didn't take this one, stole it off TOFU's blog.

There're a few pictures of female friends as well. If the gender equality in Singapore is anything to go by, unless I'm fucking them in the years to come (I'm not THAT rich, so...) I'll probably never see them again after another year or so. I'll also probably never see much of my other secondary school schoolmates again, so I'm really very pleased that I managed to teach one of my classmates Bridge during the chalet, so it didn't feel like I was wasting people's oxygen. Managed to tie this part of my life off pretty nicely actually in comparison to primary school and (gasp!) India.

Another bad tie-off was 6J. I've received invites asking me to attend a gathering. Though it would certainly refresh me with what kinds of stupid things you say when you're in a social group you don't fit into, and help me write Bridge. I guess I'm really behind in terms of social skills. Too much time on the internet anarchy.

Just uploaded the few photos I managed to take of school surroundings before the next set of Sec 4s invaded and rearranged everything. When I finally got round to it with a proper camera, the desks had been moved and everything we had pasted and left behind, except for some wall and desk murals, were gone. What I managed to salvage anyway is up on Facebook.



I suppose its worth mentioning that on in 4/5, one of TOFU's post-it notes on the door was untouched. It read: "Even though we got burned, look at all the things we learned." It's a geeky Portal quote. But then again, I have come some way despite being "burned" many times. I have to admit my position in life isn't too bad and can get a lot better. Tomorrow, Christmas Day, I'm going back to writing.

And here's some of Yahtzee's British humour, straight from fullyramblomatic.com.

When The World Comes Down

All American Rejects like we've never heard them before. Their new album, When The World Comes Down is really, in the words of frontman Tyson Ritter, 'It's nothing like you've ever heard'. All American Reject's last two studio albums, a self titled one and the Move Along album had rock written all over it. They are a little softer in this new album with more acoustic songs on the roster.

If you ask me, I prefer this side of them. There is a whole lot more meaning into their lyrics now and the melody has also got up a notch with the omission of loud sounds... Something PanzerZ would probably find detestable...

I really think this is quite a good album. One of the few albums of the year that has managed to keep me on.

I'm pretty sure hardcore rock guys will not like this new album though.

4 Pebbles out of 5.

-Tofu

Photos that changed the world

(EDIT: the hotlinks have been blocked - you'll have to copy the image address and paste it into your browser to see the pics. Sorry!)

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm_intro.html

Here are some of them:


Tiananmen Square, 1989. The Communist Party dispatched the military to deal with the thousands of protestors in China calling for liberal and democratic reforms. This man stepped in front of a column of tanks, and continued to block the tanks when they tried to drive around him, despite that a day ago the military had been seen to use deadly force against unarmed protestors. He then climbed on top of the lead tank and held a conversation with the commander. Eventually onlookers pulled him aside. The photo became the icon for the unrest in China for people worldwide. The "Tank Man" was never seen again.

This is what is known as lynching. The black men had been accused of raping a white girl. There was a third accused negro, but the girl's uncle stood up for that one.


The US had just begun outlawing racial segregation. Naturally it didn't go down well.


A South Vietnamese police chief executes a suspected Vietcong guerilla captain. Although the photographer saw the executor as a hero, the US public thought differently.

This... is Nagasaki on August 6, 1945.

McCullin, sent to cover a war in Biafra, "lost interest" in photographing soldiers and instead took pictures of what I learned in class as kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency. Bloated bellies is one symptom.

8 months after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt decided that the US was growing complacent, and lifted the ban on photos of US war casualties.

These are the streets of Athens, Greece. The smoke is coming from smoke grenades. This isn't one of the 27 photos provided in the link above; it was taken eleven days ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Greek_riots

Musical Education.

Who fucking needs lyrics you got got these bad boys in your ipods. But before I go any further, I think I need to tell you to listen to the entire thing. You may find it a little slow..but hey, everyone said The Godfather was a slow and boring movie didn't they. Patience is a virtue.

These aren't songs. They're marvelous compositions of music

Godspeed you! Black Emperor


Storm

Moya

Blaise Bailey Finnigan III A.K.A behemoth of musical genius.(the original is 17:45) The creator of this vid wanted to make a DBZ amv without putting the usual bland metal or mainstream rock plaguing many such videos. And I say he did a pretty good job. It builds up to a large cresendo with the Super Saiyans and all.


Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. I wouldn't even dare say its indie rock. There are too many "wannabe British" American "indie" bands nowadays. Its Post-rock or maybe even Prog-rock.

but I'm not discounting mainstream music here, by using a Jeremy clarksonesque analogy( if you ever watched top gear you'd understand), mainstream music, is like fried chicken wings. Tasty, yes but unhealthy and the you'd eventually get sick of the oil and fat. On the other end of the spectrum is the sophistication of...caviar. Exquisite, an acquired taste of sorts. Now I'd daresay prog-rock is caviar, with peanut butter. A taste even harder to acquire but a lasting aftertaste that sticks to you...a genre Which coincidentally also includes Muse.

-Panzerz

Culture (and the lack of it)

School's been out for a pretty long time. It is starting to get a little odd. A moment we're all studying like crazy and mugging 24/7 for months. Then suddenly everything stops and a sudden void comes in. I quiver knowing that come Feburary, I'm going to get started with school again. Think of how difficult it is going to be to adapt. And imagine my time in Junior College starts, its going to be a hectic rush to finish the whole 2 years alive and make it into a university. That two years is going to be shot. A lot have been said about JC being the most fun time of your life, and the A levels, ironically often touted as the worst exams of your live.

I've been often trying to seek out what made my 4 years in secondary school so sour. For some reason or another, I don't like my secondary school. When I hear people talk about their secondary school with such pride, I get a bit jealous and wonder why I can't have that. Ego issues perhaps. I finally narrowed down the reason. I think its because of my school's lack of culture. There is no strong belonging and identity. In the name, the students, the school itself. I'd admit, I'm not one to embrace these things readily and I'm one of the anti peeps in school. But whathehell. Lets just say I want to move on... I honestly think this matter with school pride is a matter of honour and ego for me as well. EGO EGO

I've been doing more thinking about my JC routes for the past week or so. I realised I really don't want to enter PJC because I fear its going to be deja vu all over again. The same kind of culture (or lack of it) but in a different building. I don't want to hang out with the same bunch of folks again. Which would likely be the case... Welcome to sterotypical night.

Socks for all.

I really hope my results will justify my efforts I put into the examinations. And most of all, I hope my new school won't be a pain in my ass. I'm arrogant, but you'd prefer me to ignorance.

I hate ignorant people



- Tofu, peace out

My Classmate Dad

I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.
Tony Campolo

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My Classmate Dad is the show that my sister was watching on TV while I was eating. Premise is: Boy magically switches bodies with his father. Being a local production, I don't even need to look at it to guess how depthless it is. Incidentally, Warcraft machinima Tales of the Past III disappointed me for the same reason.

So I began wondering how much potential there was actually in that premise, what kind of things the noobs at Okto would never even consider.

A lot, actually.

What might really happen? On the son's side: For one thing, his relationship with his mother is now... well seriously strained. Son gets scared to even hug his mother anymore; what happens if the hug leads into a kiss? Or worse? His mother is going to feel like all the love has gone out of her marriage, like her husband isn't the same person anymore - and he isn't.

What else? Okay, work. Suddenly the son has to work and provide for the family, maintain his job with only secondary school qualifications. His whole life changes - doesn't even sleep in the same bed, when he goes out, he goes out with people he doesn't know. His social circle is comprised of people who are miles ahead of him in everything! Let's not even get started on the responsibilities - someone is taking advantage of your children. Your father can't help (because he's a kid and gets no respect), so you're going to have to stand your ground against someone who is much older than you are. Someone gets sick? YOU bring her to the hospital. And all your old friends - they're your father's friends now. You try to talk to them and they'll just draw away. You can't make friends with them, because obviously a grown man who makes friends with children is a dangerous pedo. That girl you were eyeing from before? Who you thought might have liked you too? Forget it. Romance from now on is limited to your mother.


Dad, on the other hand, finds his new life full of temptations. Should he upstage everyone in class with his university-level knowledge? Suddenly, Dad is the popular nerd. He's mature. It's almost like he's an uni-grad! It's a bit rough fitting in - but as long as you LOOK like a highly intelligent and knowledgeable teenager, people will think you are. This kid can hold his own in a conversation with adults. This is like a whole second chance, an entirely new life! Young again! All that free time! All these young girls around - that's a big temptation right there. Let's say he gives in.

Which leads us to the fascinating destruction of the family.

At first father and son grow closer, due to them having to help each other by fitting into their new lives (You learn work politics, your father relearns Chem and learns leetspeak). They sure as hell understand each other a lot better now. They have to interact a lot more. Maybe the son even does well at the job he is more than ten years too young for. Your father tells you what to do - that's all fine, right? He knows best.

Then one day you leave work early to fetch Dad from school. It's graduation day. You walk into the school gates. The guard reminds you that you're a "visitor", so you have to go get a visitor's pass. The school staff don't recognize you. Tom, Dick, and Harry walk by, telling a joke. You laugh at it. Tom and Dick notice and bid good afternoon to you.

Then they walk quickly away, continuing to chatter.

You see that girl you were really good friends with last time. You want to talk to her, but you can't. That's not the kicker. The kicker is when you see your father, in you, walk up to her and take her in his arms. They are close. Then they disappear behind a pillar and you can't see them any longer.


Yep, your ol' Dad is screwing that girl you had a close relationship with just months ago. While you're stuck with mummy. Oh, and speaking of that relationship? It's going bad. VERY bad.

Your mother has an extra-marital affair and you don't know what to do. How do you preserve the marriage like that? You can't kiss and make up with your mother. Your own MOTHER. You can't. Can you? Can you?

In desperation, you tell her what's been going on. Oh, so you and our son switched bodies? YEAH RIGHT. It's probably work stress (which incidentally you aren't doing too well at), you should rest more. Go on, go take a nap on the sofa while I go to Richard's house behind your back and get fucked by him in the ass.

Oh wait, you still have your trump card! Your own father.

Dad, help me. Help me prove to Mummy that I'm you and you're me. I hate my life. Make it end, let's go back!

Well son... I like being you. Go fuck yourself.

You're the one with the muscles. You pick your father up, in his - your body, and try to shake your stolen childhood out of it. You shake him so hard. So awfully hard, and painful.

Mummy comes in. She sees everything. She takes the kids, piles into a taxi and calls her lawyer.

Divorce time. You don't even know the first thing about legal proceedings. Your mother is now your ex-wife, and you have to fight her for custody of your sister and your treacherous father. Surreal, isn't it?

The case against you: You're acting like an irresponsible teenager at work. You fail at work. You're shit with friends. You're addicted to your own son's computer games. You keep calling your wife "Mummy". Fuck, you got rough with your own son. You're like an immature teenager in a man's body! And you are, they roar at you. YOU ARE!

Your father goes up to testify: Oh god, you've been stalking your son's girlfriend too? We can't have pedophiles in polite society, and definitely not beating up your bright son, who is showing such great potential at school! That's the last straw! Burn in hell with the faggots! Or more precisely, in a counselling room while Mummy and Richard take their smart kids to their new life.

You're living off government obligations in a 2-room flat. Give him a bit of time, your counsellor says. It'll all come back to him and he can return to work. But it doesn't. Nothing ever comes back to you.


Meanwhile your father is a prodigy. Knowing full well the importance of youth, he studies hard - it's a cakewalk compared to his old job. High qualifications on the way. Smart and mature friends and girlfriends. Bright, no, shining future.

And one night, your father brings his new girlfriend to his new home. Richard and Mary aren't around... or so he thinks. She appears suddenly, but instead of rebuking him for bringing girls home, she just smiles and gives him a knowing wink. Does your father ever feel guilty?

Mary whispers, "She seems nice. Just make sure that it's the right person before you commit to anything."

Yes. Yes indeed.

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Orcish hordes and magic wizard schools aren't fantasy writing, THAT^ is your FUCKING fantasy writing. LRN2WRITEFANTASY


Yeaaaaah. Bridge beta reading has been delayed for more polishing. Insomnia and sleep problems again.

The Hard Road

why can't Nick or Disney make more shows... that ACTUALLY deal w/ teenage life instead of making them secret pop stars or living in some stupid hotel?
Random insight found on the internet

These long nights are the death of me,
But its alright, Its my legacy.
What a Great Night by Hilltop Hoods

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Didn't do much for Bridge today. Was sorting out nominations for this:

Like last year, I (or possibly one of my friends) will be making a compilation video showing off the creative products of GZF's community. It's basically an extended trailer of the stuff we have done in here. If you're lost, here are links to part 1 and part 2 of last year's GunZ Frag Movie Compilation.
This year, however, I'm expanding my scope... I will also include compilations of OTHER GunZ movies we have made, including tutorials and storylined features.

It's a bit like making extended commercials, only the aim here is to entertain and pay tribute rather than make money. It's nice; a little record of the little legacy left behind by the players of a game that was never intended to be as imaginative as it turned out to be.

Legacy. Because the great and famous are never remembered for the kinds of people they are.

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Speaking of legacies, Australian Hip Hop group Hilltop Hoods have managed to successfully combine hip hop music with orchestra. Check out The Hard Road Restrung and What a Great Night Restrung. Second one is pretty catchy, both are a bit hard to follow at first (lyrics provided in youtube descriptions), but the thing I really like about The Hard Road is that it doesn't skimp on lyrics like a lot of other pop songs I've heard. And the lyrics are good.

We used to thrash boosted cars till the engine would fail,
If I never had bailed maybe I'd be dead or in jail,
And man I got no one else to blame,
I thank my family and music for keeping me sane,
But that's the breaks right, Started working late nights,
Never seein daylight, gettin paid like a slave might,
And I've done too many years to miss this for my missus,
To have to tell my son he nearly never existed.
The Hard Road Restrung

School of Interdisciplinary Studies

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay

I've been prodding myself into working on Bridge for a while (by now I'm going to have to tell the truth about my laziness to Ms Z so that she doesn't expect a novel or a masterpiece). I've noticed that I've had more problems stopping than starting. When I really get into a story, or even into my homework, I can really latch on. Sometimes I can even focus properly. But I never do the things that I need to do because I'm always dipping into something else; I tell myself it's just for a little while, but of course it isn't. I was gonna build up to something that disproved my procrastination, but huh. I guess I am a procrastinating faggot after all.

The last two days I've managed to force myself into the basement in the latter part of the afternoons. Half a cup of coffee in the late morning, half a cup mid-afternoon. The first cup always goes to waste. To help myself wake up (the past few weeks I've been waking up at 10), I play some GunZ/TF2 right after the coffee. But of course I find problems stopping. Then there's GZF, ubercharged, Facebook, TVtropes... ARGH TVtropes.

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Today I got in some good shit. You'll see it this weekend. Anyway, although I want to start sleeping earlier again, I'm online now, because I'm giving the Fedac time to work. (Fedac's a suppressant for my nose that also makes me drowsy). I'm looking at Ngee Ann's Interdisciplinary Studies. I figure that after a while pwning noobs at filmmaking might get boring (look at me, I'm making empty promises again).

Sports & Wellness This module helps you to learn a sport as a recreational activity to keep you fit and healthy. Team building and collaboration skills are developed as you network with other students. There are a total of 19 sports electives to choose from: Aerobics, Badminton, Basketball, Cheerleading, Dance Movement, Dancesport, Flag Football, Hip Hop, Life Saving / Swimming, Netball, Orienteering, Street soccer, Soccer, Softball, Tennis, Touch Rugby, Volleyball, Wellness Programme and Yoga.

I want Parkour, why no parkour?. Parkour is practical. Wondering if I should try Lifesaving/Swimming, I haven't swam for a long time, and lifesaving is practical. Otherwise... Wellness Programme? They're probably going to teach me F&N and primary school exercises again.

Creativity & Applied Thinking Skills
This module sharpens your analytical, critical and creative thinking skills to help you develop a more open and inquiring mind. You will be asked to challenge assumptions and apply these skills to find solutions to real-world problems. In CATS, your senses will be awakened and you will acquire a mindset to constantly seek innovative means to improve our living environment.

Let me see: I grief, I troll, I moderate forums, I support LGBT rights, I support religious rights, I'm not religious, I'm a writer, I actually know how to USE the internet, I plan to dive into an autistic forum and then create a feature-length machinima with an autistic character. On a game designed for nothing but killing people with shotguns.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Though it might be vaguely interesting to see who actually benefits from these courses.

Individual & the Community
What social values do you hold as an individual? What role do you play in your family and community? Embark on a journey of discovery and become a social investigator. You will choose from the social service sectors, arts, sports, or the environment to conduct fieldwork, collaborating with a relevant non-profit organisation.

This is moral education. Nuff' said.

Communication Toolkit
This module provides an integrated platform for you to sharpen your written and oral communication skills. You will also learn library research skills to research your chosen topics of interest for your writing and speaking assignments.

This might be interesting, but it sounds kinda... small. Library research skills? How much can you learn about the bloody library? Unless it's the internet, in which case I doubt they have a lot to teach me.

General English
This module is for you if you are an international student and need help with your oral and written English. For example, you will learn to handle everyday situations that you may encounter both on and off campus. To accommodate that, classes are interactive and very much 'hands-on'.

No.

Life Management Skills (For BA students) This module explores the behavioural processes that help you cultivate healthy relationships with family, friends, colleagues and the business community. You will apply relevant life management techniques to simulated real-life situations to handle anger, fear and conflicts.

I need this sort of stuff, but I doubt a polytechnic course will be the best teacher for that.

Exploring Contemporary Issues (For FMS and PCS students)
Do we wander through our lives without taking a second look at what is worthwhile? Exploring Contemporary Issues will engage you in critical thinking—analysis, attention, awareness and independent judgment—with the aim of developing quality thinking and the ability to articulate your thoughts. You will do so by gaining insights into the current issues that are prevalent in our social, political and creative landscapes today. Welcome to the thinking world!

They promise me independent judgement, I'd better not get some moral ed crock. This looks like where I'm going.

The above are just "Level One" IS modules, so it's not much of a surprise that the Level Twos are more interesting, especially:

Enhanced Spoken English
This module is for international students who want greater opportunities to improve their English language skills. In this module, you will build on your oral skills through a number of individual and group presentations.

Understanding Relationships: Love and Sexuality
This module enables students to gain an in-depth understanding of the fundamentals of human relationships and to acquire relational skills for effective living. The aim is to provide students with an overview of theories and concepts of human relations and enable them to understand key areas of human relationships, romantic attachments and family life. Students learn the dynamics and intricacies of diverse relations and the practical skills to manage these effectively.

Introduction to Social Psychology
Why do people conform? How does prejudice arise? Why don't people help one another in an accident? How powerful are self-fulfilling prophecies? How do we perceive people? Social psychological concepts help us explain human behaviour even where that behaviour is seemingly irrational. By understanding social psychology, you will be empowered to make sense of the social situations that you encounter daily and be more equipped to manage social relations in your private and work life.

Exploring Photography
This is a hands-on module that covers basic photography skills. You will be taught technical and aesthetic basics, including camera functions, compositions, optical properties, lighting and the decisive moments. You will plan and shoot photographs and critique your own and other students’ work. Students must come to class with a digital camera of their own.

Starting a Business
This module explores essential strategies to identify business opportunities. You will examine the ways in which a business is established, consider factors that affect the market and produce a business plan based on a market research. The module is not open to students who have taken it in their first year of study.

(And everything about business actually, I have a feeling it could get fascinating)

Practical Research Methods
This module will expose you to the basic processes and principles applied in social research. You will learn how to design a research project, collect information, analyse the data collected and apply research skills to uncover norms, values, attitudes and customs. As consumers are part of the fabric of social life, you can also employ your understanding of research techniques to develop a basic market survey.

And I'm not going to talk about the Level 3 ones, because they're becoming really specialized and I'm becoming really sleepy. Suffice to say there's an entire module dedicated to how to apply Sun Tzu's Art of War to real life.

And Sun Tzu knows a little bit more about fightin' than you do, pal, BECAUSE HE INVENTED IT.

Now that the dust has settled, I'd like to ramble here for a bit. Been a while since I've actually posted anything here, and I have a feeling that I might find myself saying that again the next time I make another post. Jeez I have all the time in the world to type, but never really got to doing it. Procrastination I suppose.

So let's start off. What has Lime been doing while on his hiatus away from making posts?

1. Games

Been playing a butt-load of games that's for sure. Literally downloaded tons of online games and got pissed because most of them either sucked bad or made my laptop totally crash when i started up the game. Shite. Shaiya was fun, for a while. Till I realised I actually hated games in which all I need to do to attack was click a single button. Pfft. Wolf Team was fun for a while too. Wouldn't mind playing it casually, but seriously why have all the online FPS games turned to the renting system for their in-game items? Seriously. Shite. Shite shite shite! Takes the fun away from the casual gamer man... *Shite what happened to meh Golden AK47!?"

Then there's the real PC games. Got a crack of Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and completed it in a day. NOT FUN. Yeah I know there's the online multiplayer part which has been praised by Gamespot and all, but my version's a crack. No hope of trying that out. But luckily the single-player campaign is a tad replayable, only if you like shooting people over and over again while looking for cover of course.

Played Hitman: Blood Money too. Haven't finished it yet, because I'm not really playing the game intensively and for these kind of games usually I always search for a little help *hint guide hint* so yeah.

Of course I also do play PSP games (I never seem to run out of anything to play eh?) and have been downloading a lot of them when I belatedly discovered the wonders of Bit Torrent. Played Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam VS Gundam, DJ Max: Clazziquai Edition, Patapon 2, Tekken: Dark ressurection (ok technically a re-playing) and more. Really handy when you're on the road during a holiday trip.

2. Music

Been downloading songs too, by the album-load. The Killer's new album? Phail. Only two good songs. Sad sad sad. Hunted for album artowrk to fill in the gaps of my iTunes' cover flow, though I'm not even near Tofu's level.

3. Books

Yep, reading. I really recommend the Temeraire series if you're looking for a fantasy series. Great plot and characters, and did I mention there are dragons in the book? Talking ones. Yup. Fantasy after all *shrugs shoulders*.

So there ya go. This should be enough reading to last you till my next post, by my standards of course. Till next time fellas.

Lime.

Douchefaggery

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [Gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything!
Rick Santorum (Sen. R-PA)

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I've a feeling I'm going to take a long time to type this blog post again. Last nights' was two hours, pacing around, putting my back into it. Didn't sleep till 3. I'm still staying up late. Nighttime used to be really scary for me. It still is, but only when I go to sleep. Why is that? Most of my waking hours are spent on the computer, which is perpetually connected to the internet. See where I'm going? That may be one of the reasons I can't sleep in my bed. When I'm that physically comfortable, I wander casually into fantasizing about the good stuff. Then, automatically, I kind of start examining on a realer level. That's pretty scary, actually, when you don't have an omnipresent, omniloving diety to give you hugs. I wonder if it'd be worth it to go into a religious place of worship again, not to gather info, but to experience the belief, if only for a fleeting moment, that someone always has your back, no matter what.

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I was also scared into delaying the development of Bridge. I'm only up to second draft now - snail speed, considering my resources (two weeeks, now extended to January). I'd always thought it'd be nice to write full-time. Think about it: holing yourself up in your house for weeks on end. That has to have some cost.

Anyway, I garnered three valuable responses from people who could give me detailed feedback on second draft. I figure they can best describe the major flaws of Bridge, and the sooner I find those flaws the sooner I burn them. It's just that it's difficult to hole myself up and still be happy enough to even attempt writing. So sometime next week I'll release drafts to randoms on my MSN contact list (who have shitty literary experience, pfeh).

Speaking of that, don't bother with Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the movie, OR the tv series. I watched the premiere of one episode today and I couldn't finish. No skill, no charm, no humour, no polish, no ingenuity, no intelligence, let's not even start on awesome and heartwarming; it's at the other end of the spectrum. In fact I actually got offended by its piss poor portrayal of war, politics and especially soldiers. Karen Traviss either sold her soul to the devil or managed a Jesus-level miracle when she offered to write books based on the series. And it claims to be PG13. Whoever said that should be shot. In the head. With a rifle.

"Nice cock, sir."

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After this point I risk losing my readers if I go on (nothing really that engaging to talk about), but at night I think about my past and sometimes I remember them, and every second I don't record an event, or idea, or decision, I risk losing it forever (I'm THAT forgetful).

Polytechnic. Ngee Ann Polytechnic finally sent a letter that confirmed my successful DPA application a second time, and an indemnity form for a preparatory programme. I'll be able to do some modules ahead of schedule, some interdisciplinary ones. It's from 14 Jan to 13 March (though it doubt it's very intensive). Field trips, industry visits (if I get to the guy who manages Okto/Kids Central I will bring extra ammo), orientation programma, CCA visits (None of them look very inviting tbh), and an overseas leadership camp. Very cute.

I've been wondering about poly life and what to expect. Don't really know actually. I don't want to dig through retarded, jaundiced, superficial blogposts to find out, so I set goals instead. I want friends. This time, I want the type that sticks. Because if I don't get friends and set up a network of local contacts now... I suspect I never will.

You know, before I even clarified my stand on sexual rights to myself, I've been... joking about sexual deviancy since primary school. Not serious. Just a game. No consequences. Still, sometimes, when someone I've implied something particularly deviant to grimaces in response, I mull over how serious they are.

If anyone asks at the polytechnic, I'm bi-romantic. People will read it as homo, gay, bisexual, anal sex - exactly. It's a filter. A people filter. I thought about coming out as bisexual instead, but that'd be a lie. This isn't. And I'll make sure that no one is going to mistake it for a joke.


Oh, and I'm interested in taking up parkour as a hobby someday.

Full of it

My sexuality is my own sexuality. It doesn't belong to anybody. Not to my government, not to my brother, my sister, my family. No.
Ashraf Zanati, in the documentary Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World; Zanati was one of The Cairo 52, a group of men imprisoned for homosexuality in Egypt


Personally I think there's more than a fair probability that most of the people we get to talk to, actually qualify for douchebaggery. Including me. Let's see what's on Wikipedia's disaster list today.

Let's not bother too much with the details (since we'll prolly forget that anyway) but:

Zimbabwean cholera outbreak - Five days ago, the inhabitants of Zimbabwe's capital city lost the privilege of piped water. The rainy season had washed feces into their water supply. Over ten thousand natives have got cholera, and only three out of four major hospitals are still operating.

Nov 08 Mumbai Attacks - Terrorists launched a series of coordinated bombings across the Indian city Mumbai, taking the lives of 188 and injuring 300.

2008 Jos Riots - Somewhere in Nigeria, riots have erupted, injuring 400 and killing almost as many. Religious/political conflict. Burn.

2008 Santa Catarina Floods - State Governor predicted deaths around the 50 mark. Instead, 162 confirmed deaths and 78000 people have needed to evacuate their homes.


So yeah, when a tsunami strikes Phuket and our neighbours we cry, send a couple chinooks to help, send them our used clothes and sit down to tea and listen to heroic stories about Indonesian troops saving a mother and her children. Then we go back to playing Call of Duty 4 and back to work, back to fraternizing with our buddies over MSN, doing our maths assignment, giving out maths assignments, writing, going to the movies to watch a movie about vampires and cuddly love, and maybe yeah, I'm saying these things in part to lash out at those of you who haven't talked to me, who were good butt buddies and now you're all silent, yeah, maybe that's what I'm doing. But you know what? While we're worrying about that Zimbabwe is still taking cholera up the ass, shit is still happening in Iraq and the Middle East, and we STILL don't know what the fuck's going on in the DPRK!

At least I was honest, right, about how I have a selfish ulterior motive. And yeah. I've been sitting at home. Watching JLU episodes. ENJOYING them. While people are dying out there I'm sitting here enjoying my fucking self (JLU is still a pretty nice cartoon). But you know how I'm going to be able to sleep after this? Because even if my mind is relentlessly scared that I have a flaw somewhere in my reasoning, I know that at the end of it all if I'm screwed up, someone can point it out and I'll try again. Because I try, at the end of the day, to be honest to myself. Yeah, I wouldn't give it a third thought to get up on stage and say yes, I'm a douchebag. I was shooting computer-generated terrorists while real ones were blowing the shit out of niggers in India.

It's not the deaths, not our selfishness that bothers me the most. It's the LIES. Not that there's anything wrong with telling people that you're a Christian when say, you prayed for Heath Ledger's soul and didn't give a shit about the North Koreans, you can keep up your pretty image. Make yourself look nice and normal. I'm FINE with that. I'm FINE with you not caring. I'm FINE when you shed obligatory tears. When you're full of it. Full of double-standardized bullshit about loving the world. I'm totally fine. It's when you say those things and you MEAN IT, that's when I get sick. When you cry for your dog and MEAN IT, I get sick. When you cry for the suicide of a pop star, your boyfriend, some unlucky murder victim, the victims of Phuket, and then NOT acknowledge to YOURSELF that you don't give a flying shit about niggers/chinks/foreigners ten thousand miles away and continue to spew stuff about how your deity loves everyone and how you're doing good, and when I look in your eyes and I see you actually believe it, well that's when I want to pull out a 12-gauge shotgun. FUUUUUUUUUUCK you.

So! To give this post more substance than me letting off steam to my treasured buds TOFU, Giant, Zephy-kun, Panzer and Lime, let's talk about the progress of my other projects. I've completed the 2nd draft of Bridge, got some feedba- oh fuck that, some time ago I read about an American teenager. Apparently he thought about what was going on in Iraq, and without his parents knowing, he took a plane to Baghdad. He was what...? Seventeen? I'll be seventeen in February. Yeah.


In our Sec 2 geography textbook, they said that in modern times the world was becoming smaller. They were right on more than one level.

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Torrenting Dark Knight. Gonna watch and have fun tomorrow.

Two interesting dreams

One wedding cake designer I called said, 'We specialize in elaborate beautiful white flowers all over the cake.' I warned her, 'I should tell you, this is for two men.'
There was a slight pause and she said, 'I can put little baseball players all over it?'
Mark Harris

Love knows no gender.
Hugh Goldring


(Non-LGBT post ahead, for people who are squeamish or just adverse to gay jokes.)
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First one: Okay, the story is a little hazy, but basically my protagonists are two shaolin monks gone rogue for a certain quest. I'm watching the whole thing in cinematic format. The two monks approach a curtain, and as they do, a load of monks appear out of thin air around them, levitating. Our protagonists let out exclamations of "This is impossible!" And double-time it backwards to a safe spot.

So once they think they're safe, they begin discussing their next move. One of the rogue monks says, "I know what we must do. We must hunt down every individual shaolin monk before we can continue!"

In a determined voice, his partner in rogue-monk-stuff agrees. "We must find and kill EVERY SINGLE SHAOLIN MONK IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!"

Then, a whole ****load of shaolin monks step out of the shadows in front of them, exactly the amount they asked for, and one of them says, "You rang?"

One of the rogue monks then rather weirdly requests that the top monk, Shen Li or something like that, come forward to fight them. He does, brandishing a huge-ass sword. Then the rogue monks assault him both at once. They win. Then the rest of the world's monks descend upon them in a big orgasmic orgy.

Fapfapfap.

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The other dream was totally different. Me and my sister are sitting on opposite side of a large wooden box. Behind us are my parents, who are arguing, or doing something and failing at it - I can't remember much except that the end is coming very very soon.

So I have my handphone, and rather casually for someone who's about to die, play Mandy Moore's Top Of The World. My sister asks if that's the last song I'm ever playing. I answer no. We sit there together, handphone on the box, us beside it, listening quietly.

The song finishes, and I play Epik High's Umbrella. I state that this is the last song. Umbrella is a truly amazing in that though it's 90% Korean lyrics, the sad lament of the song filters through just fine. And it's amazing. And sad, not just on that level, but on a more personally relevant one.

I think the dream comes apart after that.


PS: Got the translation of Umbrella at last. It's about a buttload of loneliness, and two people who used to be like umbrellas over each other's heads, as shields from "the cold world". Depending on how you see it, the song can also be about relationships as an enjoyable distraction from reality, an "umbrella" if you will. But the umbrella becomes "big and awkward", so yeah, I guess it's very appropriate for my upcoming SYF play as well.
Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E7UGPQswL8

I'm sorry

Here is MY tiger lily

Like we known each other forever and time flies by
at the sound of your voice
its close to paradise
with the end surely near

and if i could only stop the car and hold on to you
and never let go
I'll never let go

as we round the corner to your house I turned to you and said
i'll be going through withdrawal of you for these few nights we have spent
and i want to speak these words but i guess, I didn't hold my tongue
to accept that someday somehow, it would be our words that will hang through

and I, i shouldn't have spoken these words
'cause i, i made it really worse
and I, i don't want to speak these words
but i made things really worse

why did that night had to happen
why don't we hit restart,
and let me do it again

we'll skip the mediums
if i had it my way i'll turn the clock around
and not runaway
just me and I

and I, i shouldn't have spoken these words
'cause i, i really made things worse
and I, i shouldn't have spoken those words
'cause i, all i did was made things really worse

but i, i don't want to make things any worse...

Return to Drama

Sure as shit didn't see this coming. Though I should have... I guess if you don't make use of your skills you can forget they exist.

Though I've already said my final goodbyes, it seems that circumstances have thrown me back into the Drama Club. It's SYF time again, plus a whole new can o' worms.

It's been interesting reading and hearing about the rest of my schoolmates (or is it former schoolmates now) going back to school, back to CCA, and to help with stuff like twinning. Dawned on me today that I'll prolly be going back regularly to help with Drama's SYF prep. It's gonna be like old times, but its not. It's going to be so different, in the same room, in the same school, that it's almost mocking.

This year's SYF is going to be nothing like last year's. I'm such an integral piece of Drama's SYF effort this year that it's not even funny. Today they had me participating in a drama game (those that the school uses to waste time at 80% of drama sessions). I felt so out of place, not just because of what I was there for, but because it didn't feel like many people were there.

No JJ
No Prcption
No Shar - I would totally value her shit
No Mikana, no kick
No Colonel Eggs. I'm serious.

At least Eliot and HY were around when I went up in front of everyone and told them what Bridge was all about. I'll have to help with auditions, but before that I have to go finish draft one of the script by Wednesday. It's so symbolism and subtext heavy that I'm intimidated by my own concepts.

Met Jac (new instructor) today. Was okay. Didn't have Shar's special edge. Now I'm getting nostalgic. Remembering those few days of gayness in the Play Den (the Gay Den?) doing Drama Production. That place really had an unforgettable atmosphere - whenever I think of theatre or acting in general, or Drama days past, I recall that place.

That cool, black walled room, with seats hugging the little staging area, the dark box where the lighting and sound guys sat and oversaw it all. The high bank of lights that we draped colourful things all over, and hit my head on in front of Mikana once when it was lowered. That place doubled as a museum; you could feel the life in there. Even though I didn't have a very good time there (I came close to walking out on the Production, and not to impress Mikana) I really left some of me behind in the Play Den.

Dinners backstage in styrofoam boxes. Dining at the stairwell. Getting a thorough dressing-down from YW after every rehearsal. HY, the pro behind the lights. HP teaching Mikana the ins and outs of her character. Big performance number 1. HP's cheerful warmup face as opposed to YW's sullen one. Big group photo, I let myself be blocked out of view (yeah). Mikana. And of course, almost walking out. Big Performance number 2. Jason Mraz's You and I Both.

The only place where darkness was possibility.

But now, I really feel like I have something to do. I'm writing for real now.

Pants and Wangs

To relieve all our fucking boredom,


This is what you get when you replace "wand" with "wang" in Harry Potter:


"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.
"Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wang in half an' everything

A magic wang... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.

"Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wang. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wang for charm work."
"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wang. Eleven inches. "

Harry took the wang. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wang above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls

"Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry's wang, tapped the lock, and whispered, 'Alohomora!"

The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wang had still been in his hand when he'd jumped - it had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.

He bent down and pulled his wang out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.

He ran onto the field as you fell, waved his wang, and you sort of slowed down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wang at the dementors. Shot silver stuff at them.


"Yes," Harry said, gripping his wang very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind on flying, but something else kept intruding.... Any second now, he might hear his mother again... but he shouldn't think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn't want to... or did he?
O_______O
Something silver-white, something enormous, erupted from the end of his wang

Then, with a sigh, he raised his wang and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

'Get - off - me!' Harry gasped. For a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncles sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wang.



This is what you get when you replace certain words in Star Wars with "pants".

I find your lack of pants disturbing.

I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.

You came in those pants? You're braver than I thought.
The Force is strong in your pants.

Chewie and me got into a lot of pants more heavily guarded than this.

Search your pants Luke, you know it to be true

He was seduced by the dark side of the pants Phew! And I thought pants smelled bad... on ... the outside...!

Hokey religions and ancient pants are no match for a good blaster at your side Leia: I love pants. Han: I know.

The pants will be with you, always.

I've got a bad feeling in my pants about this.

There will be no pants, young Jedi. I shall enjoy watching you die.
Fear will keep the other systems in line--fear of these pants.
The odds of succesfully navigating a pants field are ...
Yeah, I just got a funny feeling. Like I'm never gonna see my pants again.

Yahoo! You're all clear kid. Now let's blow these pants and go home!

Great, Chewie ... always thinking with your pants'
Commander, tear these pants apart until you've found those plans.
The shield is still up ... all pants pull up!
Be mindful of your pants Anakin. They'll betray you.
May the pants be with you
The pants are down! Commence attack on the Death Star's main reactor!
Yousa tinken yousa people ganna wear pants???
Only now...in my pants...do you understand.

The great Jabba the Hutt will now listen to your pants

I used to bullseye womp rats in my pants back home.

Nearly there... Nearly there... Just pants off for a few more seconds!

Hay what kind of pants are you trying to pull!

Emperor: You have paid the price for your lack of pants! Chewie, jam his pants! Luke, help me take my pants off...

Your pants, we don't want their kind in here, they'll have to wait outside
Don't try to frighten us with your scorcerer's pants, Lord Vader

Through the pants, things you will see!

Great pants kid! Don't get cocky!
So, you have a twin sister! Your pants have now betrayed her too.
Your father wanted you to have pants when you were old enough.
Look sir, pants!

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your pants.

Bury your pants deep down, Luke. They could be made to serve the emperor.

The more you tighten your pants, the more star systems will slip through...

It's your father's pants. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight.
Jabba please take these pants as a token of friendship
It's against my programming to wear pants.
I felt a great disturbance in my pants.

Dont worry kid I got your pants

See through pants, we can
This little one's not worth the effort. Now come, let me get you some pants.

So long ago, when all we had was our love. No politics, no plotting, no pants.

You don't know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate your pants.
It appears you are to be the main course at a banquet in my pants.
Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's pants
Will somebody please get this walking carpet out of my pants!

"Your overconfidence is your weakness." "Your faith in your pants is yours!" Tell that to Jabba. If you're lucky he might only take your pants.

I have brought peace, justice, safety, and security to my new pants
Han'll have those pants down - we've gotta give him more time!

Use the Pants, Luke! You are part of the rebel alliance, and a traitor. Take her pants! That's funny... the pants don't look as bad from out here.

"Don't do that, my pants are dirty." "My pants are dirty, too."
Clear your minds, and find Obi-Wan's wayward pants we will...
Lock the door. And hope they don't have pants.
It's over, Anakin. I have the pants.
I want them alive. No pants.
Chewie, shes hurt, get pants!
The pants will be down in moments, sir, you can begin your landing
I see you have constructed new pants. Your skills are complete.
He has no time for smugglers who drop their pants first sign of Imperials
For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of pants

I sense the conflict within you. Let go of your pants!

We have no time for pants, Commander.
That blast came from the pants! That thing's operational!

The last time I felt it was in the pants of my old master.

I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of our pants forever

A disturbance in the pants. I have not felt this since near my old master...
I think you just can't bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your pants.
In the Sarlacc's pants you will find a new definition of pain and suffering
You are unwise to lower your pants.


Sources:
http://bash.org/?111338
http://www.keepersoflists.org/index.php?lid=1906

An Era Long Past

I visited my great-grandmother this afternoon, with my older brother, dad and grandmother. that is right, my GREAT-grandmother. i shall keep my emotions to my personal blog.

but the real topic i want to raise, is that my great-grandma is 98 years old, and will be 99 next April or so. in other words, she was born in 1910 or so. can you imagine that. before WW2, WW1 even. she is truly a link to a past. i hope and pray for her speedy recovery, and yes, i do have faith in that. perhaps, when she is much better, and my mastery of the hokkien dialect is better, i may ask her to tell me some stories of her childhood. but for now, recover well.

Something to do

Besides trolling and griefing.

Seems like the script I've been asked to write for the Drama Club is not small change.

This year, there will be several things to consider:

- Drama Club is aiming for a Gold Award for next year's SYF. Gold. ****ing Gold.

- I've only ever finished one full-length script that was "acclaimed". I hated it. The rest includes half-developed concepts and Underemergency.

- All characters in my play will be people at least one year older than I am. I suspect I may have trouble creating sincere characters that aren't all copies of myself.

- I checked with Ms Z, and no, I'm not being brought in because I'm alumni or because I'm on good terms with the teacher, or because I won 600 bucks last time. I'm being brought in because all the other proposed scripts Ms Z have received have been both expensive and not up to standard. There was one story a theatre company dangled in front of her about an emo boy, who wants to kill himself, until he finds a pretty girl, but then something bad happens, so he kills himself anyway. I guess that does sound pretty fuckin' bad.

- My play focuses heavily on subtext, symbolism, and indirect suggestion to tell the story. Last SYF's play was like this too, and we had some good actors and actresses, but even then many of the cast members (including myself) weren't quite mature enough to grasp the text at a deeper level. To put it lightly, I don't find much to be optimistic about - few in the Drama Club I know have any kind of "edge" to them. But then again people change, so I'll have to go to drama practices again to check them out. That'll be nostalgic to say the least.

- There'll be an instructor to do major directing, but there will still need to be a student director. I fear that that may necessarily become my role as well. I still don't know if this will clash with polytechnic commitments.

- I have no experience with a writer-director relationship. Last time, our old instructor Sharon doubled as playwright and director. Not to mention this director is a full-fledged adult, maybe in the business. There's a big gulf there. What if she can't see things from my way, and vice-versa?

- I also have reason to believe that this instructor may not be so happy about me writing the script. I'm a largely untested sixteen-year old. All she has for reassurance is my 600 bucks, my Lit grade, and Ms Z's praise. Ms Z's rejected scripts from professional writers and entire companies in favour of my unwritten concept. Hell, even I was afraid Ms Z was being biased.

- Gold. Just that fucking GOLD.


First draft out by Wednesday. After a few more revisions, you guys can read it and tell me what you think. Not that you have to, but I need beta readers. Games like Half-Life 2 are made with legions of playtesters coming in and letting the developers harvest their reactions. So beta readers, that I can trust to be impartial and disinterested, will be an invaluable asset to me.

Then there's the BBC Radio Playwriting Competition. Yep. Definitely playing for keeps now.


Anyway, went to a Drama BBQ today. Primarily to begin getting familar with the members again, since I'm going to have to rely on them next year to bring home the Gold. Z and Jacob were there telling us about their horrible lives, lol. JJ was there too, so it was cool. =D

Griefing

So now I'm at STOMP. Long time since I left that community... left it last year if I'm not wrong. Couldn't handle the dumb. But now I have learned how to troll, so dumb people potentially represent a source of entertainment as well as frustration.

Trolling/Griefing - Pissing people off for jollies.

Strange thing for me to do, given that I'm a moderator (and I take modding seriously). Still, I insert little bits of bait here and there when dealing with really blur fish. Ironic, that I regularly infract people for something I do myself (abeit mostly outside of GZF).

Was griefing the Left 4 Dead demo with my fellow GZF troll Casval Zem Daikun. It was actually a hell of a lot funnier than I thought.

L4D is a simple co-op multiplayer game. 4-person teams against a zombie apocalypse (it's a lot funner than it sounds, the creators of Half-Life and TF2 made this). In the first stage we would take a quick short cut off a roof top and cut ahead to an easily defensible spot, so that our fellows would have to blast through the house with half the normal firepower. People who tried to follow us with the same shortcut would often end up dangling off the edge, with minutes ticking down before they fell to their death, while Casval and me stood by and giggled.

There was a section right outside the checkpoint safehouse that was an open street. Putting a bullet in a car would trigger the car alarm and alert a zombie horde, so whenever Casval reached it, he fired into the car and did a runner for the exit. To top it off, he dropped a molotov cocktail as he went, creating a wall of fire between the other players and the exit.

Oh, the molotovs were a weapon for evil. When our fellows were surrounded by a pack of hungry zombies we would just lob it at the lot of them. When we were nearing the end of a stage, Casval always ran ahead to plop a molotov in the face of whoever came up the last staircase. Then he sniped them from the safehouse with a sniper rifle. They fell down, writhing and calling for help while slowly dying from the flames. Casval closed the door and waits for them to die, at which time the criteria "all living players in the safehouse" is fulfilled and the people Casval killed are treated to a victory screen with death music.

Both of us would also run ahead to a stage of the level where the boss monster appeared, then run the hell back and lock ourselves in the spawn. As the trailer said, "If it's not one of us, kill it!" So anyone caught trying to come back into the relative safety of the spawn room that wasn't us would be shot with a shotgun and left for dead outside. The boss monster needs a lot of firepower to kill, so...

Weirdly enough, when me or Casval did this to each other (suddenly incapacitate each other) it also turned out extra hiliarous. I guess it was because we weren't taking things seriously. Which was cool.

And now I'm at STOMP, trollin and rollin. Too bad I've just been informed that I have to work on another script and meet a deadline... on the other hand... wooh0oO!11 my 1st profesionel dedline!!!

Old

Working at my parents' shop has both its pro and cons, but more of those for other posts. i just finished Jack Kerouac's 'On the road'. i dig it. the book is old, the life it described is old. the slang is old.

my hairstyle, reminiscent of a flattop, or a buzz cut, coupled with polo tee, made me look too old. people came, stopped, ask me if i had just finished my National Service. yesterday, it was still me and my supposed poly life. i look old, old, old.

today, a girl came into the shop. a warm summer breeze, uplifting, fresh, sweet. she smiled, she passed me her receipt. i took it, and began rummaging through the countless other bags looking for her bag. i found it, i handed it to her. she smiled. she glanced at me, she chirped, "thanks, bye!". it felt good. i felt good.
it was love, love, love. i want love. i want security, i want an anchor through life's many storms. i am old, old, century old.

after that, i sat outside, reading 'On the Road', observing people going by. a kindly Malay old lady dropped by while on her marketing routine, a maid and granddaughter in tow. granddaughter was a dear, helping her grandmother, assisting in translating, for i knew naught Malay. i attended to them, they finished their purchase. they walked off. into the distance they went, fading into the distance. i am reminded of the many elderly folk i have encountered in my childhood years around the area. i felt sad, i empathized, they are old, time has been robbed off them.
i am reminded again, of why i believed strongly in community work, in helping them, in big government, so these people have a better chance of survival in the urban jungle. they are old, so will we. i fear.

Moar Mitadake High

Lol I just had two funny games on MH. Normal mode is bset. I hope this will convince the rest of you guys to play with me....


First game, as a girl, I went into a girl's bathroom. Not long after, this boy came in and started to punch me. I put on my robe and wizard hat. I pull out a baseball bat and clobber him with it for daring to enter a female bathroom and beat up a chick (later on, the player confessed that he had been trying to rape me in the bathroom). He runs straight into one of the cubicles and closes the door.

I pull out my axe and begin chopping.

The door comes down and I wade straight in and slice him twice with the axe, before switching back to bat. He goes unconscious. After a bit of knifey-knifey, he's dead. On top of the toilet bowl. I came.

There is nothing on his body except a lot of blood. (The player also later told me that this was his first time playing MH.) I close the cubicle door, then close the other cubicle doors to continue the pattern.

I get out and am walking down the hall when another boy offers his help. I agree to barricade ourselves in a room. Both of us go in a classroom. I sit on the desk relating my near-rape experience while he puts up desks against the door. A girl comes by and opens the door. She is told that we're barricading ourselves in and leaves. My barricade partner tells her to go away, then notes in an annoyed tone that she left the door open. I go to see if I can reach the door from behind the barrier of desks, then the boy surprises me with a spray can, turning my temporarily blind, and draws an Alondite, a powerful anime sword.

He begins chopping. When I come to, I pull out my baseball bat and fight back.

The weakness of the high-damage Alondite is this: Using such a large sword uses up a lot of energy that is used for running, as well as making it more likely for you to get knocked over. My attacker got in three strikes before I downed him with a single hit from my baseball bat. Knifey-knifey. He gets up again and resumes his Alondite assault. I cut it short again with my bat, then KNIFEY KNIFEY. He dies and I pick up his Alondite.

A girl runs by the classroom and sees the body (the door was still open). She's like "OMG" and I'm like "HELPPP" We pull aside the barricade of desks.

"You killed him!" She says. She cuts me down with three billhook strikes. D=

After my death, another player is revealed to have seen her going into the classroom me and the original Alondite holder died in. He finds the bodies, and begins a long skirmish with her all over the school (using MY baseball bat). Eventually he locks her in a room. Yay, my killer is captured! But wait... a pink haired girl listens to the pleas for help and axes the door down. She steps out of her prison, faces her savior, and...

The game runs out of time and ends. It turns out the girl that killed me and got locked in a room was the real murderer, and was about to pull a billhook on the pink-haired girl.

Oh, and they also found the body of my newbie rapist in the toilet. lol

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Second game, two players suicided next to each other. Another player sprayed a cross beside them and I mumbled prayers over their bodies.

And then when I was in a kitchen, a boy with a long symbolic wooden sword (a Bokken) comes in and asks me if he can be of any help. He's investigating the murder of the teacher in the school and he requests to do a full body search to see if I have any bloody weapons. Full body search. Sexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxual tension. He gives me a Bokken and I follow him around the school searching for clues. Once I even barricaded myself in a room with him, though since I was eating lunch I had no time to hit on him.

In the end the killer, a redheaded girl, confesses, and the immediate reaction of a fellow player was to kill her back. Obviously, having already said prayers over suicide victims, It would be much more in character for me to not advocate death. So I went in hot pursuit of the player that was trying to kill the killer, swinging my bokken (nonlethal weapon).

Eventually I find the killer in the kitchen going crazy in a corner, and leave two schoolmates to guard her. I go back and find my handsome detective partner. When we get back to the kitchen, the killer overcomes her captors with a couple of spray cans. She gets past me and my partner with the same tactic. Thus begins a mad rush to capture the killer and the killer's would-be killer. Then the game host commends us on the epic ending and ends the game on account of time constraints.




Play some MH with me guys....

Bridge

I learned finally how to play Bridge (the local Singaporean version) and Texas Hold'em. One of my classmates (well, former classmates now) tried to teach me how to ride a bicycle too, but I was too much of a pussy. In short, the class chalet was good. According to Wikipedia this version of Bridge is nearly absent from the internet and completely so outside of Singapore. So I guess it was the right choice to sacrifice two nights' sleep for some good ol' card gaming, because I have a feeling today is the last time I'll be seeing many faces.

When I got home, I played the Left 4 Dead demo instead of sleeping, because it turned out be be near impossible to sleep in stark daylight, with both remembered and imagined conversation ringing in my head. When I get really tired in bed it happens. I start to believe people I know are talking to me. Sometimes I'm fogged up enough to answer.

Anyway, I have stuff to do. Foremost on the list is the Kunai Clan Movie (the project files are being gay, I might have to restart the entire editing), GunZ machinima project (scheduled to develop over the next year), and the BBC Radio playwriting competition (due in March). And I feel like writing 30-minute short stories for my English teacher (sorry, former English teacher) to use as sample essays. It makes me hard to know that my legacy shall live on besides the likes of P. Victor.

Many of my classmates are going for job interviews. Frankly I don't want a job on my own plate, regardless of whether I have time for it. But regardless of that (not wanting a job), I'm not sure I can juggle my current projects and a job.

Even so, there seems to have been a plot twist. I've been offered my first writing job by my old teacher at the Drama Club. She says she'll shell out money for a script for next year's Singapore Youth Festival. She has actually already been asking for this script for a long time, but now that I've graduated, she seems to think payment is in order, despite that I was and still am willing to do it for free.

So now my childhood is gone. It's really going out like a candle. Secondary School just ended. I have quite possibly seen the last of the Drama Club and 2/7 I know. I'm beginning to have to work for real. I can never complain that the subject I'm studying is useless to my life now.

On the twelth, the school OM noted that I would never ever get to sleep in the canteen again. I also went up to our old classrooms with my camera, but they've all changed after the new Sec 4s went through them. I can't turn around and crap stuff with people sitting behind me. I can't walk past 4/6 and ogle Mikana. I can't believe that I let my last lessons in school pass by without any sort of ceremony that wasn't Graduation Day. And now I have so few pictures of my time here - it's not enough. Is this all just going to fade from me? I feel like I've just burned my bridge.


Karen Traviss says that the good thing about being a writer is that when shit happens, you just put it in your book and sell it.

After exams

I'm sure it is. After tomorrow's Chinese B (which I don't plan to try very hard at, if you catch my drift), it'll be all over for us. I remember making that post about pwning Mikana with 6 As but I guess I was blowing air after all. If I didn't have my DPA to fall back on I would probably have been screwed. But on a lighter note, let me introduce better alternatives to gaming (I'm looking at YOU, Lime-o).

Did I say better alternatives to gaming? My bad. I meant better gaming alternatives.


1. Mitadake High
http://www.byond.com/games/DevourerOfSouls/MitadakeHigh

You don't want to know what she's got underneath.

Mitadake High is a simple 2D online game. It's 100% free, as the game is attached to a website and not a company. Graphics are nothing to marvel at - it's the wide-open, possibility-rich environment that's the attraction.

In MH's default map and normal mode, all the players spawn in a high school building. All the players will be informed via intercom that a teacher has been found dead. The school is under lock down, and you have to survive until the time limit is up, except for one player. That player is designated the killer, and his objective is to be the last one standing. Everyone gets to loot the school's rooms for - you guessed it - improvised weapons. These weapons range from the standard slew of kitchen knives and baseball bats, to slightly weirder ones like tasers and syringes full of sedative, not to mention several anime-inspired weapons, which includes the Alondite and Death Note.

What stops you from loading up with sharp ends, then killing everyone in sight (all players can do whatever the killer can do)? Role-play. MH in normal mode is a RP game, which means everyone is supposed to get into character and act like real teenagers trapped in a school (or a real killer). So everyone is free to form relationships with each other (as well as *ahem*), team up, then betray each other in a stunning twist. The mystery of good RPs is apparently exciting for both the survivors and the killer. Plus there's a Death Note mode which is quite popular. I'll just drop some samples here...

it's very easy to knock someone out with a nonlethal weapon in a standup fight, as swinging a weapon around depletes your energy. Then, when they're out cold, knifey-knifey.

Caught someone by surprise, dragged the body into the freezer and told everyone the killer was in there. I ended up locking eight people in there and they went crazy and killed each other. With the taser ready, I opened the door, tased the survivor and hacked away.

Special mention goes to any time you're sneaking around, trying to find a weapon to defend yourself with, and suddenly you hear the (very loud) axe hitting a locked door....

The Boy With Sunglasses unzips his pants.
The Blue Haired Boy drinks the tea slowly watching the boy with sunglasses.

Right when the Blue Haired Boy was about to leave the courtyard; he dropped dead. (I started to giggle, IRL. xD) I laughed, as one by one they simply collapsed to the floor, until I'd heard 14 thuds; and the game had ended.

It was me and Kira left, I didn't have a pen so I KOed him (we were fighting over who should be the god of the new world) stole the Death Note, stabbed him, wrote his name in his own blood, and put the DN back on his body and just stood there and watched him die from behind a barrier of desks. (The game allows you to drag and rearrange furniture and bodies)

It was just me and kira left. He gives me the Death Note saying " Will you please sign my year book?" Of course I take it and run off. I was eyes in this game so I ran and planned on writing his name. I open it, flip a few pages, and see my name written there. Then heart attack.

...locked in the freezer. Was in there for about five minutes, and then I shouted, "MY FRIED CHICKEN IS GETTING COLD IN HERE!" 5 people, 2 girls and 3 guys, rushed in the freezer and beat me to death.

Found a 2nd deathnote, locked myself in the boys bathroom as someone outside the bathroom started shouting names of the people chasing her. I start writing names then notice she said my name. Start panicking under fear of the real kira hearing these names too, i start writing faster. Forty seconds later, I died, so did kira...got each other

I pretend to be a sweet little innocent girl. I get on the computer and have two guys be my bodyguards. I look through the roster, announcing as I match up names to some of the people I met. In the end, I said I had to use the bathroom, circled around where they were (They were waiting for me in front of the principal's office), and lock myself in the teacher's lounge. I laugh to myself, shout.. or say? "You're being cut from the play." then I write down the two boy's names in my Death Note and I've won.


One of these days the PForters should get together and play some MH.

http://www.byond.com/games/DevourerOfSouls/MitadakeHigh