was there more to the lust of life?
if you've been wondering where i've been the past two days.. well, don't. i've just been keeping myself occupied, over the weekend i finally went for a jog with jo, jade cooked dinner on sunday and i wated "you, me and dupree" right just now. so, it's actually been pretty well played out so far.

current things on my mind, are insurance company claiming undisclosed amount from me after i accidentally bumped into someone's hyundai about two weeks back. also deciding if children and the media is a better choice than advanced screen production. which means i'm intending to not do production this semester as a gradable subject. but there just aren't too many people i'm interested in working with this time round. so i might as well take it slow right?

haven't been playing much guitar or bass, but i'll get around to that soon enough.

lusting after the processing power of the apple mac book pro, but as of right now i probably don't need such an extravagance.

till next time.

oh my heavenly stars, john petrucci pwns your ass!!!


haven't laughed so hard in awhile..!

End Of The Freakin' World

End Of The Freakin' World


a fine snap by folkstar.

taken when we were in swan valley. i know it looks quite fake, but i couldnt be arsed to make it look any more 'realistic'.

bolster me with love
blog has been updated. go and see.

five minutes to say what i want to say
i'm sucha lucky bastard but i bitch and whine so much. further extrapolation in the next post if i remember what i want to type about.

little tamagochi found death instead of life
regarding today's mindset, you'd better have a damned good reason to use the words "real", "truth" and "reality".

space saving superstructures


oooooh.. i saw this on the zvex website and now i want one..

don't know if it's particularly useful and all, but the variety seems to make everything spoiled for choice, 8 different channels and levels to fiddle around with! coupled with my doombox, i could take out a small galaxy. (okay, so its ludricous that interplanetary destruction increases exponentially with each new pedal i yearn for..) but yes, i am looking for a tremolo, the curtis overdrive and an envelope filter.

also, the past two days i've been on a dinner spree with puff pastry. yesterday evening, i made mushroom soup from scratch and i had a puff pastry at the top to go with it for dinner. for lunch today, i made some mushroom cheese puffs, and for dinner, bacon aglo olio with a pear puff with reduced pear sauce for dessert. puff pastry has got to be any kitchen's essential must-have! impresses a chimpanzee and so much more!!

jesus walks - kanye west

Yo, We at war
We at war with terrorism, racism, and most of all we at war with ourselves
(Jesus Walks)
God show me the way because the Devil trying to break me down
(Jesus Walks with me) with me, with me, with me [fades]

You know what the Midwest is?
Young & Restless
Where restless (Niggaz) might snatch your necklace
And next these (Niggaz) might jack your Lexus
Somebody tell these (Niggaz) who Kanye West is
I walk through the valley of the Chi where death is
Top floor the view alone will leave you breathless Uhhhh!
Try to catch it Uhhhh! It's kinda hard hard
Getting choked by the detectives yeah yeah now check the method
They be asking us questions, harass and arrest us
Saying "we eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast"
Huh? Yall eat pieces of shit? What's the basis?
We ain't going nowhere but got suits and cases
A trunk full of coke rental car from Avis
My momma used to say only Jesus can save us
Well momma I know I act a fool
But I'll be gone 'til November I got packs to move I Hope

[Hook x2]
(Jesus Walks)
God show me the way because the Devil trying to break me down
(Jesus Walks with me)
The only thing that that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now
(Jesus Walks)
And I don't think there is nothing I can do now to right my wrongs
(Jesus Walks with me)
I want to talk to God but I'm afraid because we ain't spoke in so long

To the hustlas, killers, murderers, drug dealers even the strippers
(Jesus walks with them)
To the victims of Welfare for we living in hell here hell yeah
(Jesus walks with them)
Now hear ye hear ye want to see Thee more clearly
I know he hear me when my feet get weary
Cuz we're the almost nearly extinct
We rappers are role models we rap we don't think
I ain't here to argue about his facial features
Or here to convert atheists into believers
I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers
The way Kathie Lee needed Regis that's the way yall need Jesus
So here go my single dog radio needs this
They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus
That means guns, sex, lies, video tapes
But if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?
Well let this take away from my spins
Which will probably take away from my ends
Then I hope this take away from my sins
And bring the day that I'm dreaming about
Next time I'm in the club everybody screaming out

it always starts out with good intentions. if christians were in power, would we have morality police, or would we still allow people the freedom of choice to choose what they want to do with their lives, whether self-destructive or not, or would we intervene?

and if we did intervene, how do we intervene? is it through welfare and aid, spending tax payers money on improvong wellfare and the quality of life for all, or does it come from "cleaning up with streets of decay and all?"

alas, if there is no love in either response, it also defeats the purpose of having christian values.

i'm probably convinced enough that if a government had christian values, it would be responsible to God to present the country of influence given to such a party, to make it pleasing in God's eyes. but where there is God's righteous judgement, there is also God's love. can we really incacerate people who live a different moral lifestyle? it was a mistake in the past, it might also be a mistake today. and who's to say what is what today anyway? i'm not using post modernism as a way to get out of this bind, it tears me up, but people are also entitled to how they want to live their lives as well. not unless in a democracy, the majority of the people actually want things a certain way.. i don't know.. politics and religion or values are strange things indeed.

my life has become moving pictures
moments after napkin man and mark passed through the departure gates, for a period of forty eight hours give and take, my mood took a turn for the worse. i couldn't really explain it, but i figure it might have something to do with this being my last semester in perth. perhaps some of it stemmed from this feeling of "being pushed to the side" because, y'know.. like aging soccer players, sometimes you get fielded less. of course that also means that people might wanna spend more time with you, but feeling a certain way is independent of being treated a certain way.

could this be it? well, it wasn't really the be all end all. having your last semester looming before you puts a lot of things into perspective and blurs a whole bunch of others. this is my final semester to actually strive and get decent grades, grades that i should have been getting a long time ago.. but my ego gets in the way of that. it also pushes you out of your seat, to perhaps get the things you've always wanted the past few years you've been in perth, but were to afraid to get.

does it put me in a posture of reckless abandon, where i wanna do anything and everything? well, i just want to do everything. i might have just decided to do another production unit this semester, it's scary because it isn't anything i've ever tried before, it's production design and planning intensive, but it's such a challenge i really wouldn't mind trying and actually help take it off the ground. does it leave me room to pursue the ghost? and does it allow me room to pursue God? or shouldn't that have been my first concern?

and then i read a verse from John 14:1-4

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

i'd been meaning to read John 14 again for a while now, and just now when i finally got round to doing it, it really spoke to me. more than a feeling i hope, but it's almost as if, it were intended to bolster me that this world is just a passing through, that God knows my troubles, concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, anything you could think of, takes all that into consideration, and even though he shows me how fleeting it all is, he's gonna take care of me (and you) for this life, and it's guranteed a hundred percent that he's gone to prepare the next life for us when we depart this world even.

it bolsters me, in that, i know when i finally do grow up, it will be what he has in store for me, and that yes, as long as i walk close to him, i can always look to him no matter what. or even if i do wonder, and stray, he's always close to me, but we get so insensitive to him instead.

partying at the brink of sanity
look out for these new djs comin' your way



dj beatmastermark

dj napture

taking all the kitty kats home for the long stretch

not always the golden boy

not always the golden boy


a fine snap by folkstar.

i just thought this was funny

if heaven's word were against us all
hmmmm, one of those thoughts entered me today.. basically i was just wondering how if and when something good happens to us, the 'christian' us would go something like "praise God!" or equivalent.. but maybe for those of us who don't see things that way.. it really is a bout of "good luck" or "strange coincidence" and "lucky chance".

it got me thinking because.. it kinda begs the question of just how real is God in your life? the concept of God is baffling for the unbeliever, may i even suggest that it is somewhat insulting to think that perhaps we are not the masters of our own fates?

of course, this would be rather insulting for a God who created the heavens, the earth and everything else in between. and rather insulting for the master of the universe and all the beauty within.. that we would act so full of ourselves, so sure of our fates and destiny, of where we stood in this world.

oh.. if only the trancience of our lives would be more real, then perhaps we would find ourselves chasing less the fleetingness of the temporal, and pour more of our hearts in the everlasting.

and the funny thing is that we don't earn the everlasting, the price has already been paid, paid in full, and all that's left is for us to believe that there is an everlasting..

three days of the final moments of our lives



the first morning we touched down, mark stood next to a tree with no leaves and calmly exclaimed that these would be our "last few days on the earth."





all that was left to taste was the burnt charred smell of cooking flesh. sandwiching them with whatever meager resources we could scavange, we had a feast made for kings amongst peasants.





sweet honey swirled together in a swirl, to show us with wide open eyes the extent of our misery





i looked up for some sort of response, and some sort of hope, cursing and pleading all at once, without anything left in me, all i could find was the shelter for the night





but amazingly enough, down poured the heavens with nectar from the gods, which parted the sea of our senses and we escaped to a higher freedom.

and this is my short picture story of our lives in sunny yet wintery 'ol perth.

show me all your bones
another text only post, maybe because i'm too lazy to upload my pictures even though i'm back to the next best thing to butter sugared toast. broadband internet! yes! even though i celebrate the awesome-ness of high speed internet freedom, life is not all as it seems, life is not yet perfect, still incomplete and plenty more that needs help from above.

we discovered this dirt cheap cd shop that makes me wonder if its a twilight zone sorta thing where it won't be there tomorrow, but as for me and my family, i bought a jill scott cd and a chill out cd. rather pleased, and pleased is the word -)

really great to have friends here, drinking beer and all.. alas, till tomorrow!

visual arts, styles, the likes and all that
wow, can't believe that in a few hours time i'll actually be on a plane back to perth where i'll be spending the next four to six months. there have been many things on my mind, namely second guessing whether or not i should leave perth and come back to singapore after everything, or actually find some overseas experience. also, whether or not i should take the job as cinematographer for my advanced screen module or just do a theory based unit which will give me more time to perhaps pursue more personal goals. namely the ghost of Anna Karina, various documentary ideas i want to shoot about my church and life in perth, or perhaps give more time to the video ministry and missions rehearsal..

the buffet is full, but i don't know if i can finish everything.. plus i really would like to do super duper well and hand in all my work on time for a change this semeste..

but first things first, napkin man and the chengster are both hopping on a plane trip with me for a one week whirlwind chill outter in perth, promises lots of beer, food, talking, laughing, farting and driving.. i'm actually looking forward to it.

thanks to everyone who've i've spent time with in spore! you know who you are and you really made my trip back worthwhile! loving you in the Lord, always -)

vertov was a man, merely a man
and to what may i owe the honour to this chance meeting? oh man, its like i never even had a holiday, working and meeting folk after in the evening, and finally, its my last day in spore! tomorrow evening i fly back to perth, perhaps for the last time? it's my final semester already and i'm just wondering what's in store. i must confess, i haven't made an effort to sit down to just pray or read the bible, and basically take some time out to figure out just where God fits in with all this. in fact, that's the problem, fitting God in. it should be, we being fit in to God's plan, something i must say my proud mind and heart are constantly not thinking of. it's always me! me! me! first, and then God second in anything else i do.. i do wonder where it all leads to, and even if it leads to anywhere in the first place. i suppose it does, but it's a mighty long time..

all the songs we used to sing as kids
here's my theory: pretty girls now who only put their self-worth in their looks end up aging very ungracefully because they constantly try to improve themselves to match up to their past glory. which means that we've never really let go of the past and don't advance into the present with confidence and resolve.

confident girls who don't put that much emphasis on their looks tend to be far more appealing.

there've been a lack of updates, but only because it's a drag to come home late at night, and then having to dial up the modem. so i decided to pass on the last few days, but the other blog has been updated somewhat, i reckon it looks kinda moody. perhaps a reflection of something within me, some facet of life.

it has begun
the ghost of Anna Karina has just begun to take shape. if you didnt know what it was.. well, it's something very exciting.

you're so hardcore
ever feel that sometimes you're so hardline to your beliefs that it almost becomes too much of a reason to live? despite our stances, all is meaningless if it weren't for salvation. throughout my short stay in singapore, i find that the challenge which has become more and more apparent, is not to do the church, but to live in the victory of a redeemed life. i've had to deal with many things, both internal and external, but at the end of the day, all i want is that the robes of salvation be enough joy for me.

paperdolls and brown dogs
living on my own for much of the last three years means that i don't particularly appreciate my mother after coming back from dinner to ask her usual "what's going on in the movie" questions when my sister and i are just trying to enjoy the movie at home. and then proceeding to nag at me from dropping some crumbs on the floor. i mean, i'm just trying to relax but she's trying to get my attention with all this. its tiring.. and to make it worse, i always feel guilty if i'm not patient with my mother, because it scares me into thinking that it's going to be how i'm going to treat my wife in the futrue. now i know my wife isn't going to be my mother, but it just makes me feel guilty, but it also makes it more real that its natural for children to leave the wings of their parents, and make their own nests. you can't stay with them forever, but neither should you neglect them. capiche?

an old friend

an old friend


a fine snap by folkstar.

today i met an old friend.
in other news, a particular girl keeps entering my thoughts, but its such a way out idea that you wonder if it'll even work. also i got my results back, and i guess they were fair, going by the amount of work i handed up on time and overall effort in the course. i'm just glad i passed and got through to the next round. one more semester to graduation, and one more week before i return to perth and terrorise its denizens!

where have all the cowgirls gone?
saturday. today was my good bud thomas's graduation ceremony, and he invited galvin and i to attend it in a show of support. i'm glad i made it down, it was one of those priceless moments of the joy someone feels when they've accoumplished something. really happy for him! tonight i'm meeting some old friends, but i'm feeling sooo sleepy. even coffee can't keep me awake..

A Taste Of Things To Come

A Taste Of Things To Come


a fine snap by folkstar.

i've been thinking of going under the moniker "the ghost of Anna Karina" (tgoAK) next semester and produce my first demo. what can we expect? well, whatever i can get my hands on.. i'm not that good, but going with whatever limited knowledge i have of things, and collaborations with other individuals i hope we can create something that is full of dialogue and memories. you see, it's going to be a sort of memento for the folks in perth, a feast of sight and sound and also for capturing the various conversations i've had with whoever i've had in perth. tentative release date? february 2007. maybe a 5 song EP can be available before i go to the Hong Kong Mission trip, wanting to collaborate with Jeremy and use that as a fundraiser for the mission trip. yes.. a taste of things to come.

flying fingers first
funny thing happened as i was driving along the AYE. i think singaporean drivers have it all wrong, because as usual, when you indicate, nobody gives way to you. so anyway, this is what happened. taxi indicated to want to come into my lane, me being the aussie trained driver, promptly gave him way to enter ito my lane. mind you, the gap was rather big for him to just take the lane comfortably, but he waited there like a pooh-bor!!! i mean, like how much obvious do you need it to be? finally, it is my conclusion that as a singaporean driver, when he indicated, he expected me to speed up and not allow him to pass as protocol, so that he could cut unnervingly into the poor sod behind me. and thus causing an 10-car pile up along the AYE.

residual wasting away of the concious longing for love
how can i say this best? i saw you get married and now it haunts me for the rest of my life.

holding on to your every word
i'm not taking things personally, but if you gave me a reason to live, i would hold on to your every word.

orbital pattern baldness

orbital pattern baldness


a fine snap by folkstar.

once in my life, can we bring everything close to the fire and feel the heat of passion consume us all? and when everything burns away, there will be nothing left to burn, like fuel for the flames we are alive only when we are being used. the best time to feel alive is when someone else is burning us up and making us less and less, so that they can be more and more.

i want to
make a list of all the things i want to do. but that's so narcissistic. if everybody needs a hobby, i don't particularly know what mine is anymore. the problem with insercurity, is that you want to jump on the rush of any other thing you can find to better your life with, or whatever you think is gonna jumpstart your life. i'm in some sort of a effects pedal fever now, but i'm more or less almost there as well. so far, this holiday i've spent

2 bypass w/loop: $237
A/B switcher: $50
Ritter bag: $43
Tuner: $22.50

in the works are my MXR M-80, M-102, Shure SM-57, Curtis Overdrive pedal. i've decided to give the SLR camera a miss, because i'm not intending to do any production units next semester, i intend to work more with the church's Adobe After Effects and recording my own demos, jog a bit more, do my work regularly and really try to nail down my last semester.

the thing is, are these the plans the Lord has for me? it always starts with good intentions, but what should be at the front of my head is always at the back of my head, and that's clearing all these with God. we all want to change the world, or change our lives or our circumstances. and we always think we can do it on our own strength, but its only when we land a brick wall in our faces that we find ourselves turning back to God. in the moments of our absolute weakness do we usually realise our frailty, and how much grace that God has that he takes us back into his fold, regardless of how we treated him before.

you could be real
there's a force, equal and opposite reaction that works against us all. judgement day is when that force restablishes itself and we weigh out all we're supposed to weigh out. sorry, this isn't meant to be cryptic, but i'm just feeling kind of "blergh" for the time being. perhaps its the last vestiges of my life before looking for a job, earning a stable cash flow and start thinking of settling down or actually contributing to society in a more productive way.

you read about plans, people tell you about their plans, we talk about our plans, it's rather scary that we're starting to set our futures in the stone of our ways, our catered needs, our personalities and our customised niches. we're constantly trying to better ourselves or our situations, or trying to have as much fun as we can in our mindless lives because hey, all we have is now.

while all we have is now, if we could as human beings survey just for awhile, where we stood in the grand scheme of things, i don't know if we would be doing all we would be doing, neither would obeying a 'god' to the full stop of a false legalism be any way to truely better our situation.

the thing is, is there a better situation? to put it plainly, perhaps im only constantly coming back to the "saved" and "unsaved" dielemma. we spend all of our strength trying to crawl out of any holes we may have dug or mountains we have to climb, when quite contrary, Jesus has already died for all our sins, rose from the dead and conquered death, sin and the evil things of the world. this begs the question, do we believe that or not?

and really believe it. i have to constantly work out my salvation, according to the will of God. there is a hard and fast rule and there isn't. we believe in God to be saved or not, simple as that, but with salvation does not come the creature comforts of this life, or for worrying thoughts and insercurities to suddenly disappear. its not always that the heavens open with revelation for our weary souls, but rather, if we are truely seeking or in accordance to the grace God himself would show us, he will reveal things in their due time.

and its so hard! and sometimes you and i get so lost and caught up in our own worlds, i wonder if we realise we need to look beyond the fronts of our noses. but perhaps i should stop preaching and actually survey just whether i walk the talk that i seem to expouse.

mail order goodness

mail order goodness


a fine snap by folkstar.

oooooooooooh.. look what came in the mail today -) so so so happy!!! the t-shirt and buttons i ordered from downhill battle finally came in the mail today. dammn, i am so punk rock!

on the way back home from dinner, my sister said something that really sturck me. "Jesus spoke in the simplest ways with regards to doing the most difficult things, and did them."

something to think about, 'specially for me, the types who like to think about certain things too many times it drives us up the walls, or get our kicks from intellectualising problems and solutions.

ladytron
so i got a ritter bass bag and ibanez stage tuner at the swee lee sale today for 65 buckeroos. rather pleased, that's all going into my live rig. also confirmed a deal with ark for a second hand A/B switcher so i can use it for my tuner. so perhaps my tentative guitar pedalboard will look something like this:

guitar -> A/B switcher -> Ibanez LU10

Blue Ark Dual Bypass Loop (Loop 1) -> Boss DS1 Distortion -> Pro Co Vintage Rat -> (Loop 2 w/ Feedback Loop) -> MXR 6-Band EQ -> MXR M102 Dynacomp -> Arion SCHZ Stereo Chorus -> Boss PH2 Phaser -> Boss DD5 Digital Delay -> Line 6 Echo Park

and perhaps with a slight reworking for my bass pedalboard. the only other pedal i've got is a Yamaha NE-1, i suppose i'll plan to make my pedalboard a lot smaller than my guitar one. maybe not so experimental. i mean.. a feedback loop with my bass? hahahahahahahahaha.. total sonic annihilation!