they don't care about us
this is awe-inspiring, chekkit here!

gracious host of leavened bread
you're young only once, you wanna achieve all these things before a certain age. wot if you don't, are you a washout then? funny, how everything pressures you into wot you ought to be. and then the longer you live, the more you live to regret.

leodi once said life's too short for regrets.

the things we learn about, think about, believe in and experience. make or break you. but then, maybe its never too late as well. mebbe its just us that believe we have a useby date. perhaps. i don't know. just feeling a tad unaccomplished today.

we'll collect our lives on dinner plates
well, here i am again, post-camp. i guess the word "post-camp" is on everybodys' lips, simply because it was such a great impact. but the reality of it is that our lives go on in the world we live in. the world we are familiar with. out of the little bubble we arrive, collecting our lives back from the counter.

still, i can't help but feel a difference in the air. something different in the way we breathe, this world we are just passing thru. was just talking to yh and how transient this moving back and forth from different places is. its strange, all these different experiences, all under the same watchful eye of the sun. how insignificantly we plod along with our daily lives. would an impact in our lives really mean a trickle in the ocean?

but yeah, camp was really good. can't help but praise God for it all. it was truely amazing, and even that would be an understatement. if you see me in real life, i'll tell you about it. but i think we shall leave this blog with just that note -)

i'm going back to spore this saturday, it feels so strange, so sudden. dunno wot i'll do. guess more jamming is on the way -) been talking to thom about some improvised idea. could could work. we'll see you soon.

fired hiatus
hey folks, i'll be at church camp from here till the 28th. so check back later! so excited!

blam!

powerful men wear suits
it has come to my attention that those in power would want to exude that power. they dress successfully, they drive in powerful chariots, and flaunt their wealth and power in the face of you and me. what sets the standard for success, wot have our hands created that are idols made of gold silver platinium and precious stones. we want the world and we want it now.

who will speak up aganist such establishments, against idol worship. the crazy prophets that know not of these? that are not drawn to the powers this world has to offer? the foolish men in sackcloth and suffer for no rhyme or reason. that in the ways of the world they have lost everything?

when you have nothing left to lose, the only thing that can stop you from being true is to die. the man that has nothing left to lose, has no shard of respect left for himself, is a monster unleashed upon the peoples. every once in a while, we need to be hit on our heads with a sledgehammer, then people will sit up and take notice.

perhaps when you have nothing left to lose, then you are truely free. when you have been broken down, then you will truely be your existence.

buildings collapse all around us
if i told you that God is real, would you believe me? probably not, why should you? not unless God proved to you himself that he was real. the thing now is, are you looking for God? between a god and God, who are you seeking, who is your soul searching for? wot lies beyond these mortal constructs that offer revelation more than explaination? are we blinded by the mountains in our lives that our lives are all we see? to be able to worry about excess is excess in itself. i know i'm lucky, i know he has blessed me richly in order to share these things with you. claim wot is yours today and reach across the universe and back to touch a glimpse of heaven, and perhaps our lives could change.

sun shining down
peivn had to bring arielle to church today. if you don't know her, she's the little girl that peivn babysits. peivn is also my housemate. ah well, so we borrowed arielle's dad's car, which is a mazda 323, but its an auto! and after driving my car for over a year now, with sticky transmissions, an auto car is really a luxury. it makes me joyous and smiley -) also, arielle is very cute.. and if that doesn't make you paternal. well, mebbe its just me. haha.. though i doubt i'll be settling down anytime soon. but it was just a thought, having a family and all. will i meet someone that would inspire me so to really start a family with her? a part and parcel of life perhaps, and a slice of the cake we must.

yelping dogs in the gutter
wow, havent updated in awhile. too fast the days have gone by, just this saturday i got up at 930 and everything hasn't ended until now. band practice and camp committee meeting took up the bulk of the day, and just buying nasi lemak this morning took up the time. well, it's nice to have your days planned out like that, but it doesn't leave you much time for yourself. but still i'm thankful. lately as i've been surfing thru blogs and profiles, spying on different individuals, i'm just thinking how easy beautiful people just get away with everything. people rarely second guess them because their popular opinion is sacred, and there is power in numbers. it would be folly to be the lonely goth against popular chirps. if somehow or another, social status is important to you. well, i suppose most of us have fallen into that trap before, we all want to be beautiful, even in our destruction, we stylise so much of it.

i'm completing my quota
tagged by napkin man on the 27th of may.

1. Total number of films I own on DVD/video:
three films: charlie's angel II, hedwig and the angry inch and pleasure+pain, a ben harper documentary. gotta coupla dvds of concerts though, do they count?

2. The last film I bought:
i think it should have been pleasure+pain when i visited sydney recently.

3. Last film I watched:
Star Wars III: Revenge Of The Sith
it was on the big screen, i suppose that's wot you mean right?

4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:
a) Black Hawk Down - a very humanistic look despite being a dramatisation of war. but it means a lot to me because i've been a soldier before, and even though i'm anti-war, i know that i will be on that battlefield if my country calls upon me. its a strange mix of wanting to be there and not having a choice. and because i don't have a choice somewhat, it always gives me a flipside against the anti-war idealists who've never been in a situation where their liberties were taken from them and talk holier than thou about anti-war sentiments when they've never been in the trenches. we forget that the soldiers killing and dying out there are the same as us, wot would they go thru? eric banahad this line: when i go home, people ask me why i do it, why do i keep going back? but what they'll never understand is that once the first bullet flies, its about you and the brother next to you.

b) transformers the movie - optimus prime died, he actually gave his life up for his friends. greater love is he who gives up his life for someone else.

c) robocop - having to struggle with being a human before and is now a machine, we actually feel more for a machine than our human counterparts sometimes. a touching tale of someone who's lost himself and is trying to find some way to make sense of it all, and also having to constantly deny himself.

d) terminator 2 - where all other men had failed, this machine became the boy's father and taught him everything it knew.

e)trolley girl - the first film i ever made with four other special friends.

5. Tag five people and have them put this in their journal:
- this one is dying with me.

got tagged by bruce again! haha, just for you

1. Total amount of music on your computer?
according to windows media player, 19gigs. 196H31M31S

2. CD you last bought?
can't remember.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
joe henry's fuse.

4. 5 songs you often listen to, or which mean a lot to you?
a)Fumbling Toward Ecstacy - Sarah McLachlan
i'll probably wait at the aisle to this song. the refrain goes "i won't fear love". brave indeed, for someone who's put his heart on the tracks too often.

b)Safe With Me - Joe Henry
he has the smokiest and most endearing voice on the planet, and someday i hope to be able to say the same words to the one.

c)Before The Throne Of God - Sonicflood
the sonicflood version is an updated rendition of this timeless hymn.
"..because the sinless saviour died,
my sinful soul is counted free
for God the just is satisfied
to look on him and pardon me
to look on him and pardon me.."

d)Monheim - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
wot introduced me to the fantasial world of post-rock. this gripping piece will sear thru your soul and convert you as it lifts you up to new heights and plunges you to new depths.

e)Return Of The Space Cowboy - Jamiroquai
the best jamiroquai song of all time, and coincidentally is also a heck of an album. these grooves will defintely get your toes tapping, and its a pretty quiet song, and yet it manages to retain all that soulful flavour.

- this one is dying with me as well. not unless you wanna do it yourself.

the recovery council (which is actually a band name. but it just looks so good in html)
right now i'm wondering, wot it would be to be a different person. to be a responsible person. to not do things on a whim and fancy, to believe in working for the future than taking things as they come. would i be any different? would the way i see this world be different. it probably shall, but that isn't the important thing, wot's really on my mind is how far away it all seems, and yet the end is near all at the same time. i guess i'm finding myself in the shite, and trusting God for the deliverence of my grades. you heard it here first, i'm fading fast and it's nearly dawn.

there's something i always should have told you
if you lock yourself in long enough, you'll notice the world around you go dark. if you have a light, you can turn it on, or you could wait for the sun to rise again. but wot if the sun doesn't rise, if tomorrow doesn't deliver it's promises. wot would you do then? you/i would find the nearest white wall and crack my skull over it. i would take you, and you would take i, and we would find ourselvessplattering our brains all over the white canvas. bone is strangely fragile, bits of brain strangely sticky, like a burst watermelon, this is the end. and that's wot you feel like doing, that is all.

definitions of meteor showers
our world is crumbling and we look bewildered as if it were meant to be forever.

blueprints for life
life's slowly catching up with all of us. i guess there's a set plan in order to fit in with the rest of the world. i guess even as special as we all try to make ourselves, we're all still trying to fit in.

wot have i envisioned for myself? to be able to work, support my family and my craft. be able to tithe in church, still have friends to go for drinks now and then. a healthy lifestyle, good kids, a good wife, maybe pay off a car and a 4-5 room flat. then comes the insurance policies, the images to upkeep, the CPF.. etc

wot i'm trying to summarise is that, when you really break it down, wot do all these things mean? back when i was younger, i could live with reckless abandon and be a rebel against these set rules. but as i grow older, and the responsibility mounts, and i must carve out my own image in the stone of life, the pressure to conform is actually a lot stronger. we no longer live in the daydreams and are subject to reality.

or are we? it is in our dreams that reality exists, and the reality is that only our dreams exist.

in some form or another, we all have our goals, perceptions on life, moral standards. if we're all dancing on the same stage, playing out our thoughts, then it is the stage that is reality, an empty plane of existence. a canvas where we can do wot we will, percieve wot we will.

and so the status quo becomes a set of constructed rules, even our basic primal instincts and urges, where if starved, we die. where death isn't the opposite of life, but part of life.

our plane and level of existence, we cannot seek to comprehend wot lies beyond the veil of reality. where reality is a dream we all sleep in, and wot exists outside of reality, outside of existence is infintely beyond human comprehension. because we believe in wot we see, and that is our shortcoming.

to simply exist cannot be enough, or can it? i for one, don't accept that i am the result of a cosmic joke or accident. we all find some reason to continue, not just for the lifespan we have on this earth, but perhaps when we become a part of the unseen reality, then there will finally be some objectivity.

"when the doors of perception are cleansed, then things will appear as they truely are". william blake

"there are things known, and there are things unknown. And in between them are the doors." jim morrison

i don't want to just exist, for as long as i am alive, i will, with the strength of God continue to experience life as it was truely meant to be lived. look upon each day as a second chance to get it right, another day of surprise and wonder. a new thing to learn everyday, even when the chips are down and you don't fit in. none of us ever really do anyway, and this post never had any absolutes. i'm just like all of you, as you are all different from me and cannot go where i have gone.

serpantine thoughts
i think when you feel a need to take a break from christianity, is when you've been running on your own strength instead of God's.

however, i guess it's realising it all sometimes. i defintely feel that way sometimes, that after a prolonged church-going life, sometimes i miss out on the activities this world has to offer. and when my carnal nature takes over, that's when the thoughts creep in, that i can take a break for one second, one minute, one hour, one day, one month, one year, one lifetime.

the thing is, we as Christians never ever do take a break, because we're not working out of character, but rather working from character. which is why i say, running on your own strength. once you start running on your own salvation, you start dictating when you've had enough, when you've earned yourself a fair go. but we've been bought at a price of someone else's life, so who stakes the claim to the value over our heads now?

so i guess we do try, by george do we try. but try as we might, we can never save ourselves -) its a pleasant thought, that salvation is free.

and when we start getting tired, we know that he is our peace, our joy, that his yoke is light for he is gracious and humble.

the sun hides behind its clouds
when there's so much more that you need to say but somehow find yourself being blocked by things far bigger than you could ever imagine. today kind of came and went, just got back from fleet studios for some full on jamming. as much as i like music, band practice is hard work as well. it drains you of your creative spirit, something that one needs to constantly be replenished if not we just run dry, run on empty.

i guess in a creative field, we have to constantly stay inspired if our work is to mean anything and not be mindless drones on canvas. me, i'm just tired.

the fever strikes back
please check these links out. sometimes i wonder whether you check the stuff i link up. its really hillarious! though i admit, somewhat geeky.

vader on the beat

this song is about jets

my backpack's got jets
i'm boba the fett
i bounty hunt for jabba the hut
to finance the rent

i chill in deep space
a mask is over my face..

baba's brief brush with the law
my thoughts after last night's gig are varied. but then again, they usually always are. it was alright for me only, we tried out the new look with shirts and waistcoats. pretty hillarious, i've never worn anything out of character before actually i think. well, except for speedos last time perhaps. *soz for putting that thought on you* anyhows, for some reason, i just wasn't feeling the vibe. it was a gig, but i just wasn't catching it. the people that were there were all the 'off-center-ish' looking sorta people. everyone's unique in the same way. kinda like you go to far east plaza or zouk, and almost everyone has that same look or vibe. not that its a good or bad thing, more so was that it affected me in that i just felt so watered down. in some sense, the need to impress got the better of me, and as such you can't convey that honesty across the stage?

so there i was, having to wonder if they thought our music was any good, but in the end i just didn't have fun rocking up and doing things recklessly. sometimes when you see people behaving off-center onstage, you can kind of sense whether they're faking it or really feeling it. but then again, while i think we played a pretty flaccid set compared to the rest of the bands, i wonder if people judge us on our image because for some reason we were just standing there. all in all, i just kind of blame myself for not being honest about the performance amongst a whole host of other things.

got much respect for bands like insidium who really personified wot i hoped to convey thru our performance. well, i guess like most experiments you gotta keep doing it again until you get it right.

and so yesterday rounded off really strangely when as i was driving home, i stumbled into a road block not knowing it was one. basically there was still space for a car to go through and no one was stopping me. only when i realised my error and tried driving out of the roadblock that a copper starts shouting at me, almost scolding me asking me if i knew wot i had done. obviously i was quite blur, and man was i terrified to have pissed a copper off. didn't even know why.

so well, he was pretty mean at first acting all tough, and i was like.. oh man.. he's gonna do me in, checking for safety standards on my car and all. i was praying pretty much, that God would grant me favour with the authorities and all, because i never sought to disobey anything, just stumbled upon it.

anyhow, the guy lightened up after awhile, and was telling me all these minute details about my car that i would have to get changed for a compliance check before the 22nd of this month. well, i'm just glad things didn't escalate into something harsh. in some sense after he stopped me, he was just doing his job (why he didnt do his job and stopped me before or make the barrier more visible *shrug*) he said he let me off without and infringement of the road block and i believe him, because he could have done that, that is afterall wot i did. and he didn't give me a breathalyser, plus my liscence expires today! hahaha, all safe. i probably would have passed the breathalyser, only had two beers and waited an hour before driving off, but you can never be too shure with these things.

soo man, i've been accosted, and now i've had a brush with the law. should just settle down here! hahaha.

trawling the streets of wot's left
strangely, i've been sleeping really early of late. and waking up really early as well. if i fall asleep at 1130, i'll get up at 0630. and i can't go back to bed. the effects of feeling older than you are perhaps. so wot's the deal? i don't know. i kind of want to hurry back to spore to see wot it has to offer me. the story of my life now seems to be that there's some imminent date of expiary where if i don't get things sorted out by then, everything i know will du ba boom. and i don't particularly enjoy living with that sorta anxiety. life should be cruise control as far as i'm concerned, but then again.. there it goes. gotta grow up to tackle the responsibilities and consequences of your life.

fare thee well
i'm still here by the way. just been a tad busy, coming back tired. and there's really no point telling you about a day where nothing much really happened, or i was basically just busy doing stuff. stuff that wouldn't interest two seals on an antartic ice-cap. but still, i'd like to imagine.

coupla things to look forward to, playing a gig at Mojo's this wednesday at nine-thirty in the evening. so that's always good, kinda looking forward to that one. well, goodnight from my side, eye-lids aren't really working at this collective hour.

wot a way to brighten your mornings
hu is the new leader of china?


and a nut job animation on politics

well, it shure got me started on the day!

and i will write till my fingernails fall off
just feeling very unmotivated and lazy lately. how much hardship must i eat before i realise that everything's not gonna be served on a silver platter to me? because everything is almost as it should be, and it freaking scares me. no, everything is not as it should be, and that's wot really is scaring me. i just told someone over the chat program that i'm finding it difficult to take pride in my work. who knows if that's wot's brewing? i do alright in groups, i finish my quota because it affects the other person. but when it affects me, it's like i'm not bothered. it's like i can't be bothered with wot happens to me. can't even take ownership of my own life. guess i'm running away from responsibility, the legions of reality that are slowly catching up to my dreamstate and somehow i'm unable to let go. i wanna know that in the end everything is harmless, that somewhere in between it's all harmless, but it's not. because everyone is pleased with me, but i'm not pleased with me. it's somewhere in between, and my heart's not really where it should be, looking out for the body it's supposed to take care of. who knows? who knew? wretched smiles.

don't even know why i'm smiling in this snap, not that it's a big hoo-ha to get my hair cut.