Chaotic Mess of Gray(Grey?) Matter

I think it must’ve been about 10 times that I got on this create-a-blog-entry page, wrote something halfway, then closed the browser without saving. Somehow…. somehow things that I’ve wrote down before seemed… empty. Wrong. I think I found out what was wrong. I had a story to tell. It’s not novel material, I don’t have the time or tenure for it. But it started as a wayward idea, then an itch. Finally it consumes me. I felt I had to tell this story. So what better medium than a blog ey?

Bear with me. This is very different than what I’m used to. This story may take a few entries to conclude.

Martin sat in his study twirling his pen. He twirled and twirled it between his forefinger and thumb until finally he lets the pen drop. This is useless, he mused to himself, since there was no other living soul in the study with him. I’ll never get anything done at this rate. He picked up his half written manuscript in front of him and tossed it in the bin beside him. The paper submission is in two days but he did that anyway. Besides, that’s a print-out. The original is still tucked safely in his computer hard drive, awaiting to be recalled and to be re-edited. And boy what a monumental re-editing effort it would take.

It is perhaps accurate to say that he is annoyed with himself. He was expected to improve a previous student’s theory but even after reading and rechecking all his notes, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He THOUGHT he had it all figured out earlier. Then he tried the experiments. It came out all wrong. Impossible perhaps. Feeling down, he pocketed his lighter and a thinning pack of Marlboro (probably 3-4 ciggarettes left in the pack of twenty) and headed out of his study. Heading towards the door of his apartment, he grabbed his keys and then sauntered out of the door towards the elevators. Living on the 14th floor made him rather reluctant to use the stairs.

Pressing the down button. He waited for the elevator to creakingly make its way to where Martin was. He refrained from lighting a ciggarette yet and looked at the bulletin board beside the elevator. As usual, it was tacked and stapled with advertisements and get rich quick scams. A notice did catch his attention however. It was a new one, for he didn’t see it yesterday.

Seraphim Cafe, we have angels attending!

No doubt the ‘angels’ mentioned on this flyer relates to pretty young girls as waittresses. It’s just across the street it seems. Martin wondered why he haven’t noticed it before.

There was a [ding!] as the elevator reached the floor and opened its doors, with the arrow indicator pointing down. Martin stepped inside and again saw the flyer celotaped on the elevator wall facing him. They must’ve just opened, I supposed it’s no harm to go take a look. It took several seconds before the elevator reached the ground floor. Oddly enough, there was no one else hopping in to go down along the way. Usually when riding an elevator, there’s ALWAYS someone riding in along the way. Especially when you live in a 15 storey apartment building. Martin was scratching his head at this phenomenon but paid no heed to it when another [ding!] announced the elevator’s arrival to the ground floor.

The apartment lobby was shabby in comparison to his own apartment. Then again, Martin took great pains to refurbished his apartment to look civilized when compared to the rest of this old building. It was no mean feat either, considering that you had to make several trips with the elevator to trick out to the interior design of his liking. The old caretaker is there, sitting on a steel foldable chair reading today’s paper. He ignored Martin as usual.

He headed towards the revolving door and the assault of metropolitan noise and smells assaulted him in all directions. Had he the choice (and the money), he would’ve lived on the coutryside. But this apartment is quite cheap and quite near to the university that he was attending. The only kosher is that it’s in the city. The outskirts of the city, yes, but the city nontheless. And there it was.

Right across the street, perhaps a little bit to the right from where he was standing. Seraphim Cafe.

After the traffic light went on his favour and stopped the incoming cars, Martin briskly crossed the street as did numerous other people. Whether they were going in Martin’s direction or opposite, they crossed nontheless. He walked up a bit towards the new cafe (either that or he was very, very unattentive) and was surprised that the windows of the place are heavily tinted. It was like looking at panels of obsidian, protecting this place from harmful outside influence.

As he twisted the elaborate door knob and headed inside, he discovered his assumption was correct.

to be continued

A lot of things happened when I’m not blogging, I wish I could write everything down in detail, but by procrastinating I forgot most of the eloquent details (actually, I’m just lazy). So here’s stuff in a nutshell:

• Ignored my ex’s wedding. I hope never to see the couple EVER. (evil)
• Played in TTT pre-release, got muh dragon peeps. (cool)
• Got a Drakhun. (cool)
• Watched Pirates 3 on the second day with very good seats without lining up for hours. (awesome)
• Upgraded the looks on my guitar by changing the chrome knobs with golden plastic ones and even the switch hat to a strat’s. (cool, picture will be up when I’m done)
• Finished my seminar paper on time. (good)
• Helped a few people with their problems, hopefully they’re good with what they do afterwards. (good)
• Got FREE FOOD FROM FRIENDS for TWO days in a row! (excellent!)
• Forgot 90% of my KMNS alumni as I was browsing the Friendster group recently. (bad, I think)

Sometimes I wonder if memories are worth keeping around if they’re going to lead to hurtful memories one day. I dunno. A lot of things are creeping in my head at the moment. I need to free up some space to make sure I don’t bonk myself with my Masters.

On the subject of my guitar, I’m planning to turn my RM540 Squier Telecaster guitar into a RM9,500 Gibson Les Paul…. well, not exactly, but close. It’d cost me not more than 3 times my guitar but i’ll be RM7,000-8,000 cheaper then my intended goal in the end. Not bad ey? The golden knobs already look awesome on the Tele…. with a black pickguard, it’ll look smashing. I’ll post a pic when it’s done, don’t fret. I even have plans to paint a Dragon Clan mon in gold on the black pickguard, making it an L5R geek fanhood Tele. Blonde, black, gold and chrome. Not too shabby for a colour scheme.

Adios. I remembered that I actually have to do work Niihaha

This is a song that we grew up to laugh with.

This is a song that exposed us to the word “kiasu” in primary school. (well, those of my age anyway)

Why U So Like Dat Ah?

Enjoy :3

A queer thing happened i today’s conversation with a friend of mine.

Friend: I’m going to GenCon next year.
Me: Eh?
Friend: Yep, I have it all planned out.
Me:… How much do you estimate it’ll cost to go?
Friend: About 6K if you’re going alone.

note: actual conversation varies. I can’t actually remember every word

Really. It’s a once in a lifetime oppurtunity, that’s to be sure. But….. I dunno. I’d lie if I said I’m not tempted. But the thing is can I actually afford to go? Hmm… issues….

I’d feel a lot better if I’m a millionaire or something.

Note: GenCon is an annual gaming convention held in California (methinks). Next year is super special for anyone playing Legend of the Five Rings, and that’s what made me twitch.

Gao.

I had a great day yesterday. I was tired, drove for nearly 2 1/2 hours, very sleepy and disoriented by the time I got back to college.

But I wouldn’t give anything to change any of those because the resultants of those effects are majorly good (you can tell by the apparent use of bad grammar). Yeah….

Well, now that that’s out of the way, I can proceed with what I think of being older is like. When you first reach 20, you’ll say:

“OMG! My ‘one’ at the beginning of my age is disappearing! I’m gonna be sooo old!”

Notice, that upon reaching 20, the reality is you don’t really change all that much. We’re all still kinda raw and, to put it bluntly, still stupid. 21 is where you start to pick up facts about life. But how about 25? There are 2 camps of thoughts for those who reach 25:

Camp A: “OMG! I’m halfway to 30! Just yesterday I was so young…”

Camp B: “It’s my what day?”

When you get older the significance of a birthday began to have less and less implication. It’s just another day. The only difference is that there’s a digit chage, because turning 25 isn’t as exciting as, say, turning 21 (”I can vote now! Yay!”) or 18 (”I can go to 18SX/PL/SG movies! Yay!”). Because we reached a stage where we can do whatever we want legally in this country already.

Dreadfully boring isn’t it? Perhaps. But that still doesn’t change the fact that I had a great birthday

You know while growing up, there are a few bands/artists that we SWORE we had no affections of, but if word got out it’ll ruin our not-so-great-image then. Well, I’m coming out of my closet, here’s a list of the bands and artists that I would never admit to even associate with back in my schooling days:

List of bands/singers that I like but was too ashamed to admit back in school:

10) Bee Gees
9) Milli Vanilli (even after they were uncovered as lip synching spoofs) Boyzone

Ok, it gets hard after this…

7) Amy Mastura
6) Five
5) Dr. Bombay
4) Aqua
3) S-Club Seven
2) Freshies

And the number 1 honour of the band I would’ve NEVER have admitted to is….

1) Spice Girls

Have fun people Btw, does anyone have an mp3 of “Why You So Like That Ah?” a nostalgia bug just hit me recently.

I recently procured a new car, a sweet orange/red Myvi. Yeah, it’s simply cool…..

Until you try to bring it to JB before the first service. Driving at 80km/h on the highway is a NIGHTMARE! You don’t know what ultra slow speed can do to our mind. The road seemed… static, unmoving. It’s like swimming on the open sea, not knowing whether you’re progressing or not. What’s supposed to be a 4hr trip turned out to be 6, plus the stop and sleep along the way. What’s worse is that even a heavy leaden lorry goes by you when you’re struggling to maintain 80 to keep within the break-in limit.

But then again, driving at such speed does have it’s perks. You notice scenery on the roadside and for the first time notice houses on the curb, the new hill being levelled, etc, etc. Plus you get to train your already weak vocal chords in the car alone. Driving alone can make you do…. funny things

But there’s been changes lately, I admit. And all for the better. After the marriage msg from my ex, things have been looking up. Also the pace of progress is going along nicely, whether it’s research related or personal related. Also the recent old acquaintance recollection on friendster lately on my behalf is a new stimp. 6 months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed to even log on, more so to even bother going here.

Yep, things change.

Funny thing is, you notice you’re more tolerable (or is this spelled with two l’s?) towards nearly anything when you have to suffer 80km/h for 6 hours on the open highway I sure dread going home for my birthday with that speed again…. *shudder*

My website is still FAR from complete, so I better get back to work on it for a bit.

My mac is finally alive, thank goodness! Now I can continue doing other stuff at a more faster pace. But being without my laptop did teach me to cultivate very VERY good habits:

a) Go to lab early. Yep, since I was in need of a digital fix before, my lab attending habits have been to be the earliest on the scene. Pretty invigorating actually.

b) Enjoy games. Never have I enjoyed playing games on my big clunky PC as I had when my laptop went AWOL. Oh, CnC3 rawks!

c) Lessen online addiction. Hey it would be your therapy too if you don’t have an outlet to go online with.

And a few other stuff, like more time for the guitar, etc. etc. But I had fun without my trusted mac. Seriously. There’s more to life than being a “digirati” and slaving yourself to schedules on the net. (webcomic updates) So where will I go from here? I don’t know. But it’s going to be forward.

p/s: I haven’t blogged on my laptop for a while so my keyboard sense is still undergoing orientation. Excuse the haphazard blog entry.

Okay, pretty strange day. In no chronological order:

Chapter One:
The finals of my one and only paper ended in disaster… well not quite… but imagined disaster. Whatever I read prior to entering the examination hall turned out to be totally the opposite of what I spotted! Imagine entering a swordfight naked and armed with a stick facing a knight in full armour. Yeah, it was THAT horrific.

So I had to do a MacGuyver and… well… improvise. I hacked the chapters in my head and slapped in whatever that fits. It. Was. Ugly. And to make things worse:

Somebody went out earlier than I did! Gah I’m miffed. To everyone that I tortured during my university days of exiting the exam hall early, here’s a late apology (not really apologetic though, I DID have fun and I still do).

Here’s crossing my fingers and hoping it’ll fly.

Chapter Two:
I have no qualms about new people trying to get to know me. But for love of… please do tell me your NAME! 4 hours or so prior to my finals, an sms came through from my "previous admirer". Okay…… I’m still cool at that point. I asked who? And it was rejected.

Seriously, the whole "anonymous owner of phone number xxxxxxx" is definitely not going to get on my good side. Ever. Names carry power, and one of those power is to connect, to know. An anomaly such as this is abnormal to say the least.

Sigh

Not that I’ll care much anyway. I already have something else to preoccupy my mind at the moment. This distraction is in a way quite damaging to the subject in question in Chapter One. Nah… not really. Just making a mountain out of a molehill because I feel like it.

I need some serious food tonight. I wonder where I haven’t been to yet on this side of the nation to go eat? Hmmm….

Ok, let me recount the thing I’ve been going through today. Well….. there’s only one thing to recount:     my website is driving me nuts!!!!! gahoooo!!!!! gyabo!

Gah. To add insult to injury my eyes hurt with an anonymous particle that flew in it, creating an angry red look even though I’m not angry at all. Looks like I have to pay attenstion which record codes to retrieve and incorporate it with my own website design.

Oh and everyone is crazy about this hippo I got off deviant art: