This morning Citizen, the owner of GunZFactor finally came in. He called the possibly-suicidal's internet service provider, who in turn contacted the mother. Despite what some people say about the right to die, I'm not buying into that, especially not for someone who's only lived 17 years. Expecting my ego to fluctuate any time now.

Meanwhile I just finished my first short film and submitted it. Pulled off a decent job despite my team members consisting of an overly quiet guy and a bitch. Back to secondary school days again. Zephyre suggested I go nazi, and I'm glad I did. Nothing against the overweight, but she really did piss me off for all her dated competence and snide remarks. She edited a 30 second video when the target was 90, and took advice from a person who was sleeping throughout class. Just tried to leave her out of the loop and bulldoze through.

Apparently, the director is one of the last few truly dictatorial roles left in modern society. Great.

Letter from the Past

Last emo post on Pfort. After this everything I post on the fort will be something I will try to be proud of.

For storytelling class once I had to write a "Letter to the Past". Something that we had wanted to tell someone really badly at some point of our lives. Probably supposed to smooth the connection between a writer's emotions and his words.

I wrote a letter to Geia, as completely honest as I could possibly make it. I left it on my module's wordpress account, not caring how many marks I got for that assignment. I actually felt better after getting it out. Then today, I found out that Geia discovered the letter and that she has written a letter back.

I didn't read the rest of her letter. Not that I couldn't. I could have.

You know what I do most weekend sun-ups? I sleep in as much as I can. It's not just because of the lost sleep during morning school. Know why I'm so blur even when I'm awake? I'm taking every single opportunity I have to zone out from reality.

But when I was trying to play TF2 today, I couldn't get away from that sick, SICK feeling in my stomach. I even had some really nice kills but I was all burned up inside, full of dead worms. I really wish I was religious right now. I would repent and believe that I've been forgiven and maybe half of this will go away but I know now that I'm going to have to live with this all my life and that one day I will have to look at what Geia wrote me.

So I took a quiz on facebook that says I'm a perfectionist kind of person. Quite true... And with taking all those moral ed lessons in school telling me I'm a very dominant and arrogant character, the same message is beginning to hit home.

Sure, I'm an arrogant guy and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to doing what I think I should be doing. Normally I would brush this off and in fact smile quietly under the facade that somehow, some people in this world understands. Yes, being a perfectionist also makes me rather elite in a sense.

Most of my life's ethos quotes are all to deal with Perfection.

I've been really inspired by Modern School's motto "Perfection cannot be acheived by the weak." and John Wooden's strive for perfection quotes. In fact, I live fueled by the drive to be perfect. None of us are perfect, but its the desire to outdo and the endeavour for perfection that creates new beings and pushes new boundries in us.

It all made perfect sense...

Until I got into a brush with a friend over being too perfectionist. This has nothing to do with the previous pfort discussion on elitism (not the dangerously elitism discussion). It was a quite scuffle with one of my close personal friends who disagreed about what I was striving for in life. Pushing myself to excel in everything wordly. Giant once said, I'm a go-getter. I totally agree. But to what extent am I going to push so hard for excellence and forget about what I stepped on for my great endeavour. 

Even in school, I'm beginning to make a name among the people around me for being arrogant, elite, a perfectionist and someone who wouldn't tolerate nonesense from others. I was never this serious about this in secondary school and I guess being in junior college has changed this in me. 

Its time to stop moving so fast and slow down to rethink. Nothing is wrong with being a perfectionist, but if it strains so much then it obviously means something is wrong.

Rethinking and retracing. But this obviously does not mean I'm not a perfectionist now. And I still despise stupid people and nonesense...

Assholes, and you guys deserve it SOBs.

I went back to my secondary school today and truffled the feathers of some sec 3 gangster wannabe in school. When I left school, he and his small gang were outside waiting for me. Notably, little roy as his boss. Those assholes were such losers.

They were on my cca groud trying to be funny so I asked them to go away. He couldn't understand me. by this time I was damn pissed and had enough. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother talking to animals" I blurted. And I didn't bloody hell regret it. If they can't understand, obviously that makes them animals. 

So this wannabe actually confronted me outside school and asked me to climb the stairs to meet him. I couldn't be bothered and ask him to come down if he wants to talk. He didn't move, but hurled a string of uncouth vulgarities aloud at me. I shook my head and walked the other direction. Eventually he budged and tailed me and confronted me (losers). And confronted me by repeating the same irrelevant points over again on how he's just born a loser and wants people to treat him like a loser. Eventually I decided that it's enough. If I wanted to talk to animals I would have paid money to the zoo. Eventually, I just walked away with those bastards being real losers and repeatint the same string of hokkien vulgarities over and over again.

Sometimes I wonder why we keep these assholes in our schools. Grow up losers. You're not going to live by knocking people's shoulders anymore cos you're no longer in school. grow up, cos I think you need it. I used to pity you for having low IQ, low EQ and coming from a poor family background. I changed my mind. You should commit crimes as soon as you turn legal. So they can throw you into jail and hopefully they give you the rattan early so you grow up quicker. Get a life bitches.

Looks Ain't The Point Here, Mate

To all dear and cherished readers of the Pebblefort (believe me, we really do cherish you, yes, even the anon legion), this post a addresses an issue that frequently pops up every time we forters meet up and happen to discuss fortly-matters (which really is mostly what we talk about).
As you might or might not have noticed, the current colour scheme of the blog has been changing slightly more regularly than before. The reason, is simply because yours truly here has decided to take it upon himself to try and make up for the lack of any apparent cool skin found here.
You might now be wondering that if so, why not just go somewhere and pick one up and then paste it so we no longer have to watch these epilepsy-inducing colours.
Simple. The consensus among all 5 members of the fort believe that the content of the fort far outweigh superficial graphics often depicting emo bitches.


Hence, until one of us decides to pick up some swanky programming knowledge, or really struck a great deal with Miss Inspiration, the fort shall remain so, with a very simple and plain and basic blogger layout, with various colours for fonts and lines etc.


Not satisfied? Look below

Cake

From formerly well-known blogger Calm One, one of his posts:

I'm reading a book after dinner at canteen 1 when I notice a flickering light from the next table, like someone lighting a cigarette.

It turns out that a girl is lighting the 2 candles on a cake, while her boyfriend looks on.

I suspect that that cake is too big for the couple.

When the candles are lit, the girl sings "happy birthday", while her boyfriend looks on.

He blows out the flames.

The girl removes the candles, cuts a piece from the cake, and serves the boyfriend. Then she walks away.

She comes back with a styrofoam food box, and packs the remainder of the cake into the box, while her boyfriend eats the cake.

From where I'm sitting, I can only observe the boyfriend's face. He doesn't look happy at all.

They leave the canteen after they are both done.

Happy birthday.

The words we often say without meaning.

Happy birthday.

The words we often write without thinking.

Happy birthday.

The words we often sing without feeling.

Happy birthday.

Empty words.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My father asked me what birthday cake I wanted, to which I once again gave a noncommital "Anything", the same "Anything" I throw out whenever my parents ask me what fruit I want, what do I want for lunch, for dinner, what do I want for the computer, for snacks, for my birthday. Anything. Hoping it wouldn't be another bunch of SW novels I liked 2 years ago or terrible pirated games (I was pleasantly surprised when I got new speakers, new keyboard, and new DVD drive).

Should I be happy about turning seventeen? If you've been sensitive to the egregious amounts of nostalgia I've pumped out in my last few posts, then you'd know I think it a lot more appropriate to do away with those candles and erect little plastic tombstones on top of my cake instead.

Fuck that. Projects in the pipeline:
Finishing Lunge Clan Movie
A fresh pick of model essays for my English teacher back in secondary school
More short stories and plays on my own initiative
Last GunZ movie compilation I'll ever make (Really)
Lay down more framework for Autistic Sniper and epic game crossover ideas
One more GunZ frag movie (This one will be good! Honest)
Entering contests regarding film, machinima, writing....

More exercise plus some yoga, hopefully. Parkour can wait till next year when I'm fitter.

I was going to make progress on the compilation today, and then go out to Coffee Bean to get Jiasai to serve me a cappuchino in an apron. Instead I set up a blog containing the posting results for our graduating batch of yesteryear. Nostalgia working again. Tomorrow I have to make myself work on the tests and quizzes and school projects coming up...

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

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

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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Torrenting Dark Knight. Gonna watch and have fun tomorrow.

Greed - O Level

Re-creation of what I wrote for my O Level English paper. Obviously it's a whole lot sleeker and shinier than the original, thanks to my shitty memory and perfectionist streak. Major plot occurences have been left unchanged.

------------------------------------------------------

Being an outlaw isn't easy. I have done burglary, small theft, big theft, robbery, armed robbery, been caught in a few gang fights and was even an assassin for a while. I was not too proud of that last one, and quit, but nevertheless I needed money again.

Johnny put his best foot forward and with a sharp crack, the apartment door came off its hinges. He was taking point this time and stepped onto the carpet with his pistol up, grinning from ear to ear. It was only on raids like this that he would smile. I would have blown the lock with a blast from one of the scatterguns we packed -it was a faster method of breaking and entering - but some locals tended to place their valuables just outside the front door.

On the other hand, it tended to give residents more of an advance warning. A shotgun protruded into the right side of my peripheral vision and I leapt forward, catching the business end and forcing it down. Somewhat surprisingly, my left hand managed to wrench it out of the girl's hand - the attacker was a girl - and then I swung the butt of my revolver upwards. It was only a glancing blow but she fell immediately.

Johnny hissed and checked the rest of the rooms. No one else was in. Hastily, my partner tried to replace the broken door and cover the windows, but there were no curtains. There was not much at all. Johnny's grin had faded, but we bound the young, half-conscious girl and scoured the house anyway.

The revolver in my hand was actually my father's. He would probably be spinning in his grave if he knew what I was doing with his lawman's sidearm now. He had a single letter carved into the barrel every so often, aiming to have his pet phrase on it like a signature. He had been proud of himself, my father.

"Greed," he would say to me on one of his rare nights home. "Never take more than you don't need. Corrupts you, turns you into a monster."

Eventually his salary petered out and he only ever got up to "Greed". I snorted at the irony and went back to throwing items into my sack. In the only other room Johnny had a slightly thinner sack. He had been a devoted communist before the Soviet Union fell apart. Johnny's brain had probably suffered the same fate - at times he would spend days on end at the casino, hardly eating. There was irony there too.

There was so little that it made more sense to put all the loot in one sack instead of dividing it between Johnny and me. During the transfer, the young girl started weeping.

"Please..." she whimpered. "We're poor..."

The sack that was holding it all ruptured and spilled out onto the floor. A big bunch of coins mostly, a little bronze-coloured medal, a couple of blunt knives, and a lot of dust.

"My father, please... he's a policeman."

I winced. It was all there, heavy on my shoes. Both of us, my partner and me, looked down at the pickings of the day. Tomorrow we'd be back at the casino, in the drug alley, in the brothel, in the gun shop, then back to this business.

"Please, I be -"

Johnny grabbed the girl and hit her across the head.

"Let's sell you, cunt." He was gripping her breast and pulling her up. "Let's just sell you."

"No, let's go," I heard myself saying. "Leave it and let's move on to the next apartment."

Johnny didn't budge.

"Come on. There's nothing here-"

"The world owes me!" He was suddenly shaking more than the girl was. "I need this. I need -"

Abruptly, he released the girl and stepped out over the ruins of the door. The girl cowered.

After a while, I unholstered my father's revolver, dropped it on the pile of things, and left.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What was added in post-exam:
Additional descriptions
Father's quest to inscribe catchphrase on revolver.
Extra irony
Johnny's use of the word "cunt".
Johnny's shaking.
An explanation of why Johnny didn't just shoot the lock and push open the door.
The sack spilling out the loot and the symbolic meaning that came with it. In the original, the robbers just threw all the stuff into a pile.
This version's portrayal of Johnny is more sympathetic. In the original he started grabbing boobs when the girl revealed her policeman father, instead of being hit with the symbolism first.
More relevance to greed.

What was kept in:
The breast-grabbing. I am sorry to say that this bit made it into the version that I handed up for the O Levels.
"Let's sell you."
The girl's pleading.
The girl's father's occupation, and how Johnny winced at it.
Johnny and his past
Protagonist and Johnny's habit of wasting their ill-earned money on gambling and other pursuits (original version had no explicitly-mentioned drugs, brothels, or gun shops though)
The girl's shotgun and her getting revolver-butted
"The world owes me, mother-fucker!"
The character's extensive experience in the criminal world.
The symbolic meaning of the father's revolver
Protagonist's father being long dead.
Withholding of the protagonist's name.
The ending.

What was left out:
I remember harping on about how lawless the protagonist's lifestyle was, and as a result ended my composition with "I have rules, too." But I guess it was a little off-point, so I took it out.
The father's advice also used to be something about keeping to your principles, but in the middle of the exam I crossed that out and wrote something about greed to be more relevant.
Johnny was portrayed less sympathetically as a slightlty bigger dirtbag in the original incarnation.
My cock

Tastes baaaaaaaaaaaad

blech

First off, what a gay poll. >>>>

SIX genres and you call that a poll? I demand some minority representation. Babies, let me show you my music folder!

Click for larger view.

Oh, and I forgot the Mandalorian warchants near the top left. Kandosii! =D

Right now I'm listening to quite a lot of K-pop band Epik High, plus bits of the instrumental soundtrack of Heroes of Might & Magic III. The good thing about songs sung in foreign language is that you can pretend that they mean something really profound whereas for English pop you have to suffer the full brunt of their emo shit.

HOMM III music sounds like top-notch stuff someone paid a professional composer and an orchestra to create. About as good as the story behind the games, which makes it formidably epic.
Tatalian Theme
Stronghold
These are the few that are immediately likeable. The rest just grow on you during the game. Ah, HOMM III... good times.


Epik High mixes English lyrics with Korean ones, and has epik music videos to match:





Mainstream sucks! BE DIFFERENT!! IT'S COOL TO BE DIFFERENT

---------------------------------------------------------

TOFU gave me some free cognac in a essence of chicken bottle last month. Lol. I hear he got grilled by his mother when she found out.

I laughed, and thanks to karma my father found my little cognac store. I was expecting him to have a "man-to-man talk" about alcohol, but instead he asked me if he should buy more essence of chicken for me.

Gosh.

Obviously, being flustered and having absolutely no idea whether Essence of Chicken would really be beneficial, I gave a noncommital answer. And so thanks to commercial-love syndrome, he bought a 12-pack of Essence of Chicken anyway. Wat?

Okay, the packaging says it's got an unique flavour, and it can be served chilled or warm. Today I finally decide to indulge my good ol' dad and come to the breakfast table with one little bottle. Hmm, is that going to be enough? Maybe I should get moar. Instead I get a backup plan: a warm mug of coffee. Mmmm.

How do I open this thing? There's this metal brace ringed around the gorram lid. I try using my fingernails(or my cock) but damn I fear for my fingers(and cock), digging into thin aluminium flaps. I clap my hands and a spoon falls out of the air to my rescue (well okay, it was in the kitchen). I pull out the metal ring. The packaging's next instruction says to leave the ring around the neck and use it to push out the lid. Shit.

Thanks to spoon power, I get the ring where it's supposed to be. However, all manner of pushing up against the ring results in a big steaming pile of nothing. So I say

"FUCK IT" (Drawing my cock from it's holster...)

And fingernail it open. Surprise! The lucsious, smooth, dark golden treasures met the light... utterly exposed to my scantily-clad self (shirt, shorts, panties and a GLOWING ERECTION (no bra)). Sticking little bro in and then drinking it would be like drinking our of my own cock (lol) so I decide to down half first. Parting my tender lips, I tilt my lithe form back and prepare to let it dribble down my... tongue. Yeah. A cool liquid, less chilling than I thought it would be, brushes against my lips and proceeds to invade me. It carresses my - oh, OH SH - HOLY FUCKING SHIT OH SHIT AHHH AHHH SHIT FUCK OH AHHH COFFEE AHHH COFFEE COFFEE I NEED COFEEE

gulp gulp gulp

... I feel like I've just been raped.

I poured the Essence of Chicken into my sink. Got eleven left. Anybody want them? For free? D=

Just for a bit more squick(read: cockthrobbing), in case you're unfazed(not excited enough), look up "wakamezake". Have fun! ;D *fondles cognac mischievously*

Drama Club (Plus concluding statements to Ego debate)

fine. you win this argument. congratulations on evading everything i threw at you. pop the champagne. pop the cherries. whatever. it still does not change the fact that my opinion of you has not changed. in fact, i really failed to get your inside joke with tofu, which you have posted in the form of the conversation excerpt. in fact, that was where i really thought you had the ego problems. so forgive me if i couldn't get your humor because i am so superficial and maybe because i do not take literature, history and may not be as good is SS as you. so go ahead. snub me now. show the whole world how you have successfully managed to pwn my ass in this argument. go on. i know you are tempted to. fuel your ego. maybe it will allow you to win Mikana. but really, she deserves better.

-Giant


Let me drop in a last few counters to Giant's end-off before I get to what I really want to type about in this post.


30.
Me evading everything you've thrown at me? That's pretty ironic, considering I've met everything you've put on the table head-on, complete with examples to push my point. You?

as for points 1,3,6-9,14, i really don't give a rat's ass about them. you want me to address them, then please, undress them first.
- These are your own words. And FYI, I'm on the offensive, you're routing out of the discussion. And I'm the evading one, eh?

We're all guilty of hypocrisy at some point or another, but the least we can do is to admit where we became assholes.


31.
So if my conversation with TOFU could support your accusation, why not explain how it displays my ego problems?

Two possibilities:
A. You're making up a faux point to save "your own half-boiled balls."
B. You have a valid point (but you don't bother to elaborate? Don't bother to bring it up earlier? Does that make sense to any of you?)


32.
I have no idea what's your SS mark.

33.
I hold to the opinion that History and Lit gives me better analytical skills, but does not necessarily put them above someone else who did not take History and Lit. Just wanted to make that clear.

34.
I'm bothering to snub you, and tell you to grow some balls, because I think you need them, and I think you deserve my honest opinion instead of a sugarcoated thumbs-up. The spite, I suspect, is coming mostly from your side. (Yes, mostly.)

35.
Mikana, what Mikana deserves, and my feelings toward Mikana are irrelevant to the argument. (But not to the second half of my post, heh)


36.
In a MSN conversation with Panzer yesterday:
Nosedigger (On sporadic wireless) says
The argument was never about winning
Nosedigger (On sporadic wireless) says
Not for me anyway

I also hold to this.


37.
And for the record, I "win" when you stop fuming like a child and take what I say seriously. That's my victory condition.

So I think you win, Giant, and I lose.


Now on to the Drama Club, and Mikana.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

This morning I woke up and went to school early. Saw Mikana hanging around. She was wearing that familiar black Drama shirt. That was funny. We'd already stepped down, what, in March? Yeah, March. So I wondered if there was Drama today. I wondered what Drama was doing right now.

Then I wondered about going back.


The Drama Club... was not fulfilling for me. It flopped. Nah, both of us flopped. We were both floppy. The whole club, was floppy. People didn't gel as a whole (or even resembling a whole). Most people who joined were either looking for me-time or slack-time. Even people who had a passion for Drama; they were self-centred and... fuck it, let me come right out and say it: they were stupid. We were spending more time playing idiotic games than doing anything related to drama. Without the teachers to go to bat for us we would have collapsed entirely.

But I think it held some importance in my life for a while. Dwindled, yes, generally bad times, yes, but... it was a part of me, or maybe I hoped it was, and now it's gone and I'm sorry things didn't turn out better. Here's to the memories of the Drama Club members. *sniff sniff*


Real names withheld.

Ms Z:
I expect one day I've write something longer in remembrance. What can I say? She tried to be there. Didn't say all the right things all the time, but shared our joys (or tried to) and caught us out on our shit. Maybe she deserved better.

Mrs J (formerly Ms Ib):
Surprisingly, can't think of so much. Maybe TOFU's opinion of her really struck a chord with me. But yeah, he jokes were kool, and she was there now and then.

YW (instructor): You're a noob. GTFO

HP (instructor): He was a nice guy. Got us through the Drama Production. How did we repay him? We replaced him so we could get our Silver for SYF. Ms Z implied he wasn't happy about it and felt betrayed. I feel sad, and I feel guilty.

Shar (instructor): She was hard. She was scary. She did business. She was effective, and she clicked. Sometimes I got mad at her for a snub, or a scolding, but I deserved them, and we owe SYF 2007's Silver Award to her. She didn't just build us back from the ground up (I remember she got SX to tape a bamboo pole to my back because I couldn't stand ramrod straight enough, and then she made me hold up a chair and say my lines) she wrote the fucking script. She was good.

Now on to the kids.

JJ: First began talking to her in Sec 2. She just out of the blue deduced who Mikana was and we began to joke. We would talk about the most insane crap. Whenever we were stuck together for some reason or another, we would bullshit, with her buddy giggling alongside. Sometimes we get serious. Mostly bullshit though. So much bullshit that after a while of flexing my imagination with her I'd get tired.
This year for Drama Camp I hung around with her. It was a refreshing change from sticking with the other guys. I actually enjoyed this year's camp thanks to her. Good times.

SZX: I remember when I first met this guy, we had enmity. Yeah, we were being branches of a tree, right, and I was busy watching Mikana got pissed when he kept bossing my branches around. I remember one exchange where we clashed over the number of push ups we could do. LOL. But he turned out to be friendly. We still see each other in a corridor and bump each other.

Colonel Eggs: Hah! This guy. From day one he was trying to be the Drama Club's little leader. Giving orders and the like, spewing out glib lines worthy of a Power Ranger. Ms Z exploded on him a few times. Annoying fag; ego the size of an asteroid. Heh. He was chasing Mikana for the first few years. Heard he asked to go steady with her, and got rejected. Was nice to her. One time both he and her were both doing an impromptu puppet show, and the Colonel "accidentally" let his puppet uh, "fall" on hers, to put it lightly. It was obvious what he meant, and it was gutsy. I loled. Nice one man. Was always hanging around the group of guys who were into card and handheld games, trying to fit in. Generally wasn't well liked, though he tried to be. After the Drama Production in 2006 HP organized a session where we gave each other private/anonymous apology or thank-you notes. Colonel Eggs had originally been in the Production, as the male lead of a play featuring a romance between his character and Mikana's. It got cut. He was relegated to a relatively minor backstage position. He got railed at. The only one who didn't get an apology or thank-you note. He cried, he really cried, and I felt really shitty for riding his ass so much. I even made a stupid comment because I thought he was faking at first. He wasn't. (Ms Z brought him out to talk him down).
He was rather violent, too. Kicked me a lot because I teased him about Mikana and his mental capabilities a lot.
I'll miss his dumb ass. Dumb, but a bad guy? No, Colonel Eggs is not a bad guy.


Andk:
In the Drama Production, things got heaty for me. An alumnus was supervising my ass and criticizing it like hell. It got to me. Not being able to confide in anyone about how I felt then also got to me. One time I almost walked out on show day. Another time, I shouted at Andk. I can't remember what, but it wasn't his fault, and he sent me an apology. I shouldn't have got it; I should have been note-less with Colonel Eggs. The another day he walked right past without recognizing me. He's changed. He hasn't come to Drama for more than a year.

Mikana:
God, she looked real ugly when she had her pigtails. After she ditched them she was real hot. Tried to surreptitiously take photos of her from Sec 3 to Sec 4. In fact yesterday I was scouring the blogs of old Drama members looking for her. Was on speaking terms. Not much else. But barring her physical appeal, she was a kind one. Always being damn nice to people. Connected well with the drama people. Was nice to Colonel Eggs when no one else would, waited for people she wasn't friends with. Whenever I had to sit next to her I'd get nervous. Once I tried to get out of it. Another time I bumped myself on the head in front of her. And dug my nose. She spoke Mandarin. We were on different worlds, in a different clique, same as many others.
Wasn't an attention seeker, that's for sure.
Sometimes Mikana was the reason I came to Drama. Sometimes it was just distracting.
Would I have wanted her to be my friend? Well, I don't know enough about her to decide, so I'd say no; might have messed me up the same way Geia messed me up.


HY:
Never seemed particularly smart or stupid, always chatting about Grandsazers and playing PSP, but he was a nice guy in the same way Mikana was a nice girl. Shame he ended up being G's best bud.

G:
Complete dumbass and faggot. Just like Colonel Eggs in his early days, except he didn't get better. He continued to laugh and crack idiotic shit while Colonel Eggs was tearing up. What a fag.

Rtrdarts:
Another senior. Friendly person. Remarkably liberal. Not much else.

Thimc:
Was an asshole to me and others, many times. However I suspect his life's quite shitty. Forgiven.

Prcption:
Senior. This guy was epic. Had the most talent. Drew much praise. On my old blog, I posted an entry about how Drama was separated into isolated cliques and people were getting neglected. Soon after I saw this guy making an effort to connect with the juniors and isolated people. He came back to Drama often in his O Level year even after he stepped down. He didn't do so well for his O Levels. I can't remember how well he did after that.
Funny guy. Voice did not break.

Ab: Took over Prcption as head fag. Logical choice. Was the only one headstrong enough. Showed people like me and Thimc pity and talked to us. Tried to get a real friendship with her, but found that you can't build much on a foundation of pity.

YJ: This guy was hiliarious, and so underrated. His deadpan was awesome. I heard he's doing well in studies; good for him.

XN: Gave me a swiss roll because she was concerned about me during Drama Production. Stupid, but yeah, I appreciated that.

Eliot, Jac, Sergeant(not Panzer the Sergeant), Mase, Rth and whoever else I forgot but still gave a damn about:
Sorry I'm not going to be around to give a damn about you any more. I'm serious.

A lot of the new kids I can't really connect with, particularly some new Sec 1s. But I did my best to connect, and I'm happy, at least, to say that I have people who recognize me across all levels plus the alumni. There was one guy who remembered that I had slept on his sleeping bag, which elicited a major scolding for me. I guess that isn't so bad. Some of them still recognize and wave to me.


So did I go back to Drama today? Turns out there wasn't any session today. Maybe Mikana felt nostalgic or something.

But would I have gone back?

In my final weeks and months in Drama, things got tiresome. It was stupider than ever. We weren't doing anything real. I would have ponned if not for NYAA. Oh wait, there was something else, wasn't there? Mikana. There, I said it: I grew out of Drama and began to go only for the chance to ogle Mikana. Drama lost the magic that might have only ever have existed in my head.

When I went back to Drama Camp this year, I was part of a group of seniors and people my age. We needed to put up a small skit. Call it ego, but they were just too unmotivated and dumb to do anything really artistic. I wanted to take things a step further. They just wanted to go with the usual toilet humour. They listened to my profound idea and didn't make an attempt to do much. Or they just didn't understand (think Mikana was one of 'em). It doesn't matter. They weren't wrong. It showed me Drama is my childhood, and will not evolve with me. As the years pass I'll be an alien.

It's not cool. But the year Mikana and JJ stop going back to Drama Camp is the year I stop. Got to move on when it stops being worth it. I remember them, though. See, swapping my webmaster position for a photographer role was worth it.

I owe my introduction into the playwriting world to Ms Z.

Debunking Ego accusations: Because it's size was too epic for comment box.

Giant said...

is it just me or is that ego speaking?

August 30, 2008 11:49 AM

Nosedigger said...

Explain plz

August 30, 2008 5:59 PM

Giant said...

no actually, i'd rather not.

August 30, 2008 7:14 PM

Nosedigger said...

What is it with this mentality that I can't handle anything but jokes? Is it because of India? What, my 'faggot' comments got to you? Who's the sensitive one then?

August 30, 2008 7:16 PM

Giant said...

on the contrary, i firmly believe that you can handle jokes, and anything else you wish to do. i am merely displeased by your strangely oversized ego that seems to be pushing people around. certain comments of yours could be some personal joke of yours, but i'm afraid i do not possess psychic powers, hence pardon me if i do not share your joke. pwn my ass? bring it.

August 30, 2008 7:46 PM

Nosedigger said...

Whoa, don't leave it at "certain comments of yours" like some sort of wuss. Specify all the shit you have with me. YOU bring it.

August 30, 2008 7:48 PM

Giant said...

your post "Benedict as PREDATOR". you wrote "And the rest of you - The Pebble Fuckers, Thaksin's daughter and Anwar's coffee boy! ALL YOU FUCKS! All your base will belong to ME!

PREPARE TO GET PWNED MOTHERFRAKKERS!!!!!!!!!111oneoneeleventyNINETHOUSAAAAAAAAND"

care to explain please?

Dear Giant,

Being a writer yourself, you should have some literary experience and thus know that most prominent writers never use CAPITAL LETTERS for serious emphasis; it's almost always italics. The only time you see capital letters being used for this purpose is from the scripts of amateurs or the internet. Or when italics are unavailable.

Except in the comment box, italics are available for blogspot.

And before you jump to an assumption, non-capitalised does not necessarily confirm a non-joke, nor vice-versa.



And now to do this wall of text case-by-case:

1.
Benedict as PREDATOR
Benedict looking for girls on the internet. I don't know how you missed this, but the voice of the cameraman - was clearly tongue-in-cheek. The manner in which I showed people was the same. It's not meant to make people disgusted at Benedict or defame him. For proof:
Whereas TOFU, and I suspect, quite a number of people were deriding Benedict's slow mental capacity, I eventually turned around and decided to put a stop to it on (mainly) a personal level.
How many times have I mentioned that I watch porn and alluded to taking pictures of Mikana? If that isn't a glaring double standard, and in turn an obvious indication of the joking tone of the video...

And I haven't even begun on how 'predator' is another obvious exaggeration, which does not even depend on whether the video is legit.


2.
Pebble Fuckers
Obviously you don't consider me as part of the Pebble Fort authors, since I myself am a "Pebble Fucker".
It's a obvious joke, dammit.

3.
Thaksin's daughter
Referring to someone from our school, random reference (Ask TOFU).


4.
Anwar's coffee boy
So you guys can use it as a joke to harass our buddy but I can't use it to say I'm going to beat him?


5.
ALL YOU FUCKS
THIS IS NOT IN CAPITAL LETTERS LOLOL


6.
All your base will belong to ME!
Besides from making no sense whatsoever besides to internet pedestrians (and I don't mean the noobs that frequent Singapore sites and blogspot only), it's another in-joke (Ask Panzer). Even if you took it seriously, I have no idea what sort of offensive material you read into it.

7.
PREPARE TO GET PWNED MOTHERFRAKKERS!!!!!!!!!111oneoneeleventyNINETHOUSAAAAAAAAND

There are more than enough indications of being less-than-serious in this "statement". But yes, I do want to pwn as much as I can. Link me to your explanation how this is more offensive than "One down"? Is it because of the lang- O DEAR THE LANGUAGE

8.
As a whole
Simple logic: If I had a large ego, I would believe that there would be no need for me to work harder. What, you think theat post was sarcastic in proclaiming that I would work harder and try to get marks to rival the best (real-life identities of the nicknames Anwar's coffee boy, Thaksin's daughter, Mikana, not to mention ourselves as the Pebble Fuckers, aren't exactly getting seven F9s)? The post, if you read into it at a deeper level is (ironically) a simple "I gotta work harder". Even at face value it says more or less the same thing, and as proven above, the face has been made over-satirical so that you either take it as a joke or you go read the subtext, which in light of the fact that the subtext says "I suck, I need to work harder" makes your accusation of ego absolutely ludicrous.

9.
And to drive home the nail in the coffin, I posted that conversation I had with TOFU, which gave you another easy interpretative route to follow: I was "drunk" and it was all satire.

10.
Coincidentally I just realized I can use HTML to insert italics in the comment box. Damn.

11.
And (yes, I am aiming for overkill) just in case this is on your mind (or you're withholding it for backup argumentative ammo), I do think Predator and Prey Part 2 stinks. It lacked imagination, lacked believability, lacked deft and depth, and was worse than free porn. It was shit. But most importantly, this is a professional opinion and has nothing to do with you personally.

12. In conclusion,
EGO EGO EGO EGO YOU ALL SUCK AT A MATHS BLA BLA BLA

14. There is no thirteen.

15. ?????

16. Profit!!!

Yours sincerely,
A big faggot

Unbranded - 28/8

So my father just handed me an unbranded box, and guess what was inside? An... an iPod?

How much did it cost?

$48.

Nope, it's as unbranded on the inside as on the outside. Features seem pretty lame. The only thing that interests me remotely is the 4GB space, which I can use as a large thumbdrive. Perhaps to keep my playlist and Mikana in cold storage, should my SATA hard disk ever die on me.

So why did my father buy such a piece of trash?

1. He thought it was a good deal. (Maybe, lol)
2. Out of parental obligation
3. He wanted to buy my love

I would be asking these questions even if I had received a real iPod (not that I want one), or something I really wanted (a laptop). I want to be impartial on these things.

Today I had my Lit exam. All was well. There was this question that asked me to identify a character who had been caught up in material pursuits. (Unrelated: While everyone probably took the easy path and picked Paper for their story, I grabbed Elaine from Evening Under Frangipani. More "special kid" marks for me.)

Then it was off to the hall, to watch a concert that had been organized for Teacher's Day. It was compulsory. Probably to make sure that the work that went on behind the scenes was duly appreciated. But why a concert in the first place?

1. Need to appreciate teachers
2. Tradition (touchy touchy)
3. Part of MOE's effort to keep teachers happy and contributing by making them feel appreciated.



Yeah, we do need No.3. I'm an amoral guy. I have no moral problems with this. But although I don't believe in conventional good and evil, I have, like I said before in India, certain preferences.

I just feel disgusted at how appreciation for the men of women of the education system is reduced to a bunch of girls dancing in shorts to pop music. I can't see the link. You're wasting my time with bull shit. Now this is very important: I don't give a shit if the teachers enjoyed it or not. I just think that if I was a teacher, I wouldn't need (or want) to be patronized like this. You appreciate me? Fine. Sure. Appreciate me. Whenever you want.

But don't come to me on Teacher's Day and give me a fucking card because you're obligated to. That' empty. That's bullshit. That's lying.


But what do I know? In practical terms, we probably need a gazillion white lies to keep our infrastructure running. Keep the weak-willed and poorly-motivated knowing that they are doing good. Stuff like that. That's how Stalin did it, that's how big brother does it, and... it's worked out pretty well so far.

And while I'm on a roll, I would like to dedicate this rant to Miss Aza. Yes, I know it is ironic considering what I'm ranting about. But the dedication isn't because of the occasion. It's because its long overdue.

Thanks Miss Aza, for your sincere efforts. I don't think I should be your best student.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TOFU came up with what he thought was a great idea for the beginning of a play.

A bum is sitting on a bench, idling. A man enters and sits beside the bum.

Then he leans over and asks the bum,

"Hey - do you know the meaning of love?"


At first, yes, cool. But on hindsight, not really.
This does not have the makings of a good play; the makings of a good beginning, maybe, but good play?

I could cite a hundred and one reasons (no I can't) why not, but the one that strikes me now is how, through a play, a facade, a great pretend-show, writers and directors try to convey very real and relevant meanings to their audiences.

We don't die the same person that we were when we were born.


That said, what is the meaning of love? Maybe if I steal enough pics of Mikana at cross-country tomorrow I'll find out.