you'll find love if love is looking for you

so many times we long to feel embraced, cared for, validated. in fact, we fill our hearts with love poured upon us by external forces, to if i might be so bold as to say, we fill our hearts with the adoration heaped upon by others to fill that gaping wound inside of us.

this sort of love is selfish and self-fulfilling and when the other party stops that flow, our hearts are hungry once again.

in essence, we are in a continual state of need which has led to our mass consumption, of whatever cheaper alternatives we can find to fill the void.

and it is only when our hearts are continually filled, then we can continuously outpour and continually give.

so the question remains, what are you filling your heart with? because that will determine what your heart will give.

Cheeky Sister

My sister just said that this was my ancestor. -_-;

more quiz love, now with videos!

You're a Hyena!

You have quite a sense of humor, though many others find it derisive
rather than appealing. You are perceived as being a coward, but actually have moments
of great bravery and have even stood up to those much larger than yourself. You like
hanging out in groups and are always making a lot of noise. Disney thinks you are an
idiot.


Take the Animal Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

plus i've been on a bit of a neko case craze:

maybe sparrow


hold on, hold on

tracing out the lines of your destruction

i consume. music, rss feeds, blog posts, instant messages, smses, video, newspapers, conversations, everything that appeals to my stimulus.

without my five senses, i am nothing. and i've clogged my arteries with my consumption. trying to fill those nerve endings with something to do, to keep my brain sharp. although sometimes i wonder, just how sharp my brain would be if i wasn't thinking about something else half the time.

today, i made a conscious effort to slow down, and to also consume less, or only when necessary. i had a slower saturday by far. i bothered to have breakfast with my mom today. it's come to this, that if i spend any time other than sunday dinner with a member of my family, i would subconsciously think that i was wasting my time. not today though, we walked to a nearby coffee shop and just ordered a cup of iced milk tea and kaya toast, and just relished the moment. drove her to the market to get some last minute ingredients for her afternoon tea party with her friends and came home.

one thing that struck me, was that it was spontaneous, not time set aside, just go with the flow. don't try to control your life too much.

then, i came home and did the one thing i've been putting off the entire week. rework my pedalbaord for my bass. for the gear initiated, i now run a smaller power board, my bass signal goes through an a/b splitter, one to the tuner, and the other to my mxr dynacomp -> effector 13 torn's speaker -> DNA Logic bass dragger and finally -> mxr m80 bass distortion DI.

i've found that putting the bass dragger after the torn's speaker and before the m-80 to have the best results. and the bass dragger really sounds like shite on it's own. it is fuzz heaven when coupled with the torn's speaker. the bass dragger acts as a very decent boost for the fuzz, and the m-80 distortion channel acts as a very decent boost for the bass dragger's distortion as well. all in all, i'm very happy. once i get a power brick, i'll fit the filter model and other modulation effects, and finally transport them to a pedaltrain 2.

- end gear rant -

and then, i had lunch with a good pal, yh. always good meeting him and talking about misadventures that were and never were.

came home to sleep. by conscious effort too. for someone who needs constant stimulation, sleep is your greatest enemy when you see it as an evil vice that takes you away from doing more productive things. but today, sleep itself was good, to rest when rest is needed. to save some energy for the coming week, and in that sense, maximise your weekend.

dinner later. it was grace's birthday, and saw some more old uni friends. i decided to come home after dinner to chill the rest of saturday away. watched some videos, read my comics, and finding the best time to blog, which is now. when my brain is waning slightly, but also brimming with something to say. to just let that stream of consciousness flow and let loose one final broadcast to the world before bedtime.

What Book Are You?

You're Moby-Dick!

by Herman Melville

You've spent your whole life seeking something grand and elusive. What
this is seems clear to you, but is hopelessly confusing to everyone else. You see it as
a simple hunt, but others have called it a metaphor for just about everything in the
world. Weary of metaphors, you are quite concerned that this quest will be your undoing.
Make sure any ship you board is well-built. Pursuant to your request, people call you
Ishmael.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

brian : i'm actually rather surprised as to how much this pertains to me. the allure of a grand quest, to make good in this life. the elusiveness if it all. maybe i'm just rambling..

Restlessness

Listening to the Deftones really puts me in a jamming sort of mood

why i believe

just a reminder to why i believe, in something that cannot be seen, but rests well within my soul. -)))

keep on writing, you're the only one who can

write! keep writing!

i'm just drawn to the temptation that this blog will one day be turned into my autobiography. or at least a piece of fiction, of the man that was. as such, i'm immensely proud of the words that have been stored on this blog, because perhaps one day they will serve a purpose other than what they are serving now.

if your blog were going to be compiled into a book, what would it be made of? i think that's one ideal i've unknowingly adhered to, one thing that keeps that self-reflexive and not just a record of the daily happenings around the world, but rather, the world through my eyes. and it's reflection of that.

i've done no wrong, and yet i am not without sin.

Speak Cryptic

Saw this piece of awesome street art in Orchard on tuesday night. There's also a story about the street artist on www.culturepush.com

The Stars Align

We spend all our lives apart but just once in our lives, maybe the stars align.

some lunchtime fun

Which Office Moron Are You?
Rum and Monkey: jamming your photocopier one tray at a time.

i took a quiz! everbody should do one too.

Love. Peace. Joy

I don't know. It's the little things that remind us of what our souls are craving for. How it shouldnt be seen as week to believe in what we desire the most. I'm stuck in a traffic jam, writing in my journal and blogging on the go. You can see what i want to express, but you dont see all that i could truly want to say.

Saturday Afternoons Take A Turn

Nothing like a bit of retail therapy and sitting and marble tables to help pass the time

through a red and green lens

right then. girls. attack wombs to the ready. this is about the journalism of attachment.

monstering is ultimately, about giving a shit. it's about giving something back to these bastards. these people whom we somehow let run our goddam lives for us. giving them a taste of what it means to be us.

every law that curbs my basic human freedoms; every lie about the things i care for; every crime committed against me by their politics -- that's what makes me get up and hound these fuckers, and i'll do that until the day i die, or my brain dries up or something.

that's what we achieve. we show them they're accountable. we show them that just as they try to herd us back into cages of quiet mediocrity, we can chase them back to fucking hell with the truth.

it's the journalism of attachment. it's caring about the world you report on. some people say that's bad journalism, that there should be a detached, cold, unbiased view of the world in our news media. and if that's what you want, there are security tapes everywhere that you could watch tapes of.

i want to see humans talking about human life, personally. i want to see people who give a shit about the world. i want... i want to see possessed journalists. yes!

i want to see people like me, rising up with hate, laying about them with fiery eyes and steaming genitalia --

possessed by ancient volcano gods from the polynesian islands, waving vast breasts and impossible penises at the secret chiefs of the world --

-- naked glowing god-journalists brown-trousering the naughty twenty-four hours a day, a new planet earth --

waiter! fresh underwear, seven blankets and a bucket of moist towelettes!
- spider jerusalem #27 pg.15 - 18



and maybe our greatest short-coming is being apathetic. to life, culture, history, love and toward ourselves.

go where you want but i won't be too far

go where you want but i won't be too far
Originally uploaded by folkstar.

Do what you want but I know who you are
Say what you want but I know what you're thinking
Go where you want but I won't be too far
Go where you want and I know where you'll end up

If you fall in love
Fall in love and hold nothing back
I'll fall in love
Fall in love and hold nothing back from you, oh
You oh
You oh
You

Do what you want but I know who you are
Say what you want but I know what you're thinking
If you fall in love
Fall in love and hold nothing back
I'll fall in love
Fall in love and hold nothing back from you, oh
You oh
You oh
You
- copeland, hold nothing back

human 2.0, where do you stand?

our world is changing fast. the act of sex and the concept of love, relationship and marriage seem to be seen as separate topics altogether in today's fragmented, post modern, please yourself generation/society.

and maybe this is where i can't seem to join the dots. is the act of sex merely physical as scientists claim, and are we just victims of the hormones secreted by our pituitary glands? and if this is as science claims it to be, then the whole institution of love, marriage and emotions should have no place in our current, forward-looking society.

and yet, for many of us who choose this liberal lifestyle, we still place a value, or even an emphasis on the whole institution of 'being together' or 'being exclusive' to each other.

are these the vestiges of the old guard with respect to our institutions about love, or have we in accordance to our expanding intelligence, or did we actually short-change ourselves to be fully human by quantifying the myriad of emotions, spirit and soul into mere hormonal imbalances?

this is where i see some food for thought. to the scientist, seeing is believing. he has seen hormones being secreted, he records and publishes his findings in scientific journals. however, we don't see our own hormones, and we don't particularly see which hormones are released when we 'feel a certain way'. so aren't we believing the religion of science the same way we've always been believing religion? the evolution, is that in some scientific circles, man has become god himself.

in our quest to quantify ourselves as humans, or mere living things, a bunch of cells that reacts to external stimuli and internal hormonal systems.. we've lost sight of the 'soul factor', the consciousness that sort of makes us human, the one thing we haven't been able to replicate in artificial intelligence just yet. that innate, self-reflexive, self-awareness.

and so to round it all off, is the act of sex, merely just an act, if not, why has it been tied in to a concept of marriage in so many different cultures? cultures so diverse and far apart, all have some form of marriage/union, and also some form of adultery.

and if our cravings for love, acceptance, validation and relationships are really just much ado about hormones, then why do we, even more so in our current 'live-for-yourself' generation, place so much value and emphasis on relationships of any kind? why do we still feed that constant desire to be loved, to make meaning of our emotions, and yet.. we devalue the very shards of our soul that keep us human?

the future is the age of the androgynous cyborg, where we are unlearning our own human condition. where the conservative are the confused, and the current confused, are seen as the enlightened messiahs.

i don't know how much longer i'll last, because it fucken scares me more than anything else.

Patriotism Post Mortem

Found this on the bus to work this morning. Simple twist in messaging subverts the status quo. Oh, why cant we see more singaporeans react to their surroundings like this?

a brave stance

sometimes i wished i didn't know the things i knew
that within these four walls
i could be safe
and you would leave me alone
you stupid little world
always trying to tell me what to do
what to see, and what to say
because now you've got me all scared
and i'm the only one brave enough
to say how damn scared i am of what you're capable of

you say blog, i say soul narrative

in continuation with our current series about brian finding his place again in the blogosphere, i now present in more tangible terms what blogging means to me.

it's a form of narrative for us life-bloggers who blog for cathartic purposes, maybe i'll term it soul-casting or my soul narrative. it won't allow you to read my mind, but at least i'm able to put down in words the things festering in my brain, and my heart-condition. in words that only mean something to you, and not for anyone else.

it's a flawed way of communication, which is a bit of the anti-thesis to blogging, or someone who works in the communications industry. but it keeps me sane, and also proud of the fact that i exist somewhere in the vast universe of the internet.

i'm not saying you'll know me after reading this blog, but you might understand me a little better, what i'm about, what makes me tick, and then hopefully you can start peddling me your wares and i'll consume like the consumer i am. if this voice is not relevant to you or doesn't mean anything to you, then i believe i've done my job, because i've been able to take something intrinsic and unquantifiable, and put it up for all to see on the web, and by speaking, i assert my right to live, or rather my right to blog.

so you say blog, but i say soul naratting, who knows if it'll become a trend or not, but i'm exorcising the demons in my head that say i need to speak the voice of our status quo to be popular. no, we don't have to be popular, we just have to be relevant to the ones that matter, even if your captive audience is yourself.

meaningless dashboard drivel

a friend told me this morning that the green of this blog didn't suit me, that the purple it was before was more me. i find that rather true, and what i also find, is that i may have been wanting to make this blog something it's not.

as mentioned in the previous post, i may have wanted to make this blog something of an 'authority' about all things new media, or public relations, or social media. while still holding on to what made the original harmless?bananas! special. but it just wasn't working out, i think i was trying too hard, and this blog actually lost abit of the spark that it had started with.

that spark was its voice. my voice.

its a bit of an unquantifiable, this voice, and what makes certain blogs more special than the others. it's not just language and grammar, it's a sort of personality that takes shape and evolves, like its almost talking to you like a real person. anyone can present information on a factual basis, but not everybody can converse, and not everybody converses like me, or like you.

this blog may never see the numbers that mr brown, or xiaxue or jeremiah owyang attract, or even be a source or point of authority about certain social issues, but i think i'm also learning to let go, and put these grandiose thoughts away, and just focus on what originally made me happy about blogging. just being able to share, the things that keep me human, and not merely a statistic.

and so.. it's been a long drawn process, working in the communications industry, the pressures of being a pro-blogger because we believe that more is better, or bigger is better, but i can't harden myself that way, i know this blog of mine ain't meant to be hardsell. and i believe you come back for more, because there is something intrinsic that we feel as if we know each other -)

things you learn while you're single

you listen, you take in the sights and the sounds, you communicate with a white space that doesn't talk back at you and sometimes, you become overly cryptic.

i wanted to give this much thought, i wanted to make this something readable, but i also realise that if i don't type this from my heart, if i do not spend myself on this space here, i will become like every other blogger i know, where we talk about topline headstuff, things that make us feel good about ourselves, that shed light on a topic, or a dark period in our lives. but i'm sorry, if i think with my brain too much, this blog starts becoming contrived, because my intellect isn't all there is to me, but the world and the spaces i move in, only seem concerned with that. i sell my brain for money, and it puts decent food on the table. but i don't spend my heart, and it festers like a pool of boiling garden slugs, not the most palatable catchphrase i've come up with i'll give it that.

so what did i mean when i started typing the title?

being single isn't a bad thing. even after all the hollywood narratives of finding love in the most unlikely places, or how many couples you see holding hands in vivo-city, being single isn't a bad thing. if anything, you also realise love isn't overrated. don't get me wrong, i'm not a bitter, cynical man (if i choose not to be), but if anything, you have that lousy feeling, because you're basing your emotions on what somebody else makes you feel. how somebody else validates you, and loves you back. and why is this important? because we are impossibly broken people, and we know the places where we can't love ourselves. the mistakes we've made, the flaws in our physical attributes, the times we've failed, the ones we've ignored. when someone showers their affection on you, maybe we aren't so messed up?

lies. and truths.

you have to accept these things, these shortcomings, and come back to the path, to the road only you can take. accept yourself, don't look for another broken person to fix you. is there a way to get fixed?

a savior's love. and this is how Christ demonstrated his love for us, while we were still sinners, Christ died for our sins - Romans 5:8

i'm still being fixed, because i keep breaking myself in new places.

love isn't just for those of us in relationships, if anything, individuals like ourselves are just as deserving of it. be it with God, our families, our friends, and in time, our spouses.

i leave you now with spider jerusalem:

two days in the whirlwind have left me shipwrecked and abandoned. even the stuff i've been shooting in order to, Holmes-like, keep my interest in the world alive is failing me now. i've played the game like a good little whore, snarled and cursed on cue, done the work and banged out the columns. i'll let myself sleep soon, and hope to hell the world doesn't seem so goddamn fractured when i wake up. Having said that, i also hope i wake to find half this city committed suicide in my honour -

Make Chauvanist Pig Supermarket

Hehe, funny things you see on the east coast of Singapore

Heaven is medium rare steak

Aston's medium rare prime ribeye steak with onion rings and grilled vegetables. My dinner for saturday. It's been awhile.. You and me :)

nothing but a big giant mess

there's only a few minutes left before my brain goes into a total meltdown. what can i say in this short window of time before everything around me goes black?

i don't know if i'm particularly looking forward to the future, some people see it as bleak, and some see it as hopeful. i don't know what i want to choose, if i have to choose any. can i just make that choice when the future finally arrives, and then i'll deal with it?

but yes, apart from being utterly cryptic, i just don't really know what i can share about. but stay tuned to this channel, because i'm being very inspired by what i read on transmetropolitan, and i wonder just how much typing like this will survive. whether a part of me will always stay relevant to you?

life. it's a story, and it's a blog

it's a warm night, the air is still and the fan isn't doing much good. i'm reading transmetropolitan and listening to thursday, while chatting to a few friends on msn.

it was a good sunday, i managed to squeeze in lunch and dinner with my folks while having band practice and meeting vinz for coffee after dinner.

yesterday, i hung out with yh, attended a client's birthday gathering and then adjourned to blue jazz for a good night with friends.

it's so hard to keep being inspired, inspiration is like a sort of drug, or the 'high' you get when you're obviously on something. when you know you've typed a good post, and there's that enormous satisfaction, or when you've had an awesome time jamming, when everything just works, when you've written that new lyric or riff, or perhaps the joy that comes from meeting people, when you feel validated and loved, or when you drive yourself to the ground, but you come out alive, that elation of life.

these activities that spawn inspiration, are the addiction, and inspiration is the drug. the stuff that lifts you out from the mundaneness of just living, just breathing.

blogging can, or has turned into a sort of discipline for me. i'm not as inspired as i was before, because life is really quite busy for me these days. outside of work and during work. as i was driving home with thomas after band practice, he pointed out how i was always rushing from place to place, person to person, commitment after commitment.

as he first told me that, i was put on the defensive, i internalised it within me that i wasn't like that, that if i didn't do these things, things would fall apart, move apart, extend beyond my reach, and i would lose them.

i never thought i'd say it, but i had become a bit of a control freak, if not, a control freak.

when things were beyond my reach, maybe i'd work extra hard to make it work. buy a new bass, listen to more music, practice a 'lil more, call a friend out, meet up with anybody and everybody, blog a little more, read a little more, process a little more. and in the end, i do everything in minute little pieces.

i had become a mirror of fractal shards.

and so.. i'm slowly learning, to.. slow down. again. i used to slow down, in a strangely quickened pace. i'd set aside my 'slow time' and after that, like being hit by a drug, i'd go out and expend all that new found energy. but literally, to do one thing a day.. it's gonna take a lot of courage, a lot of effort, to strangely enough, do less things in one day.

me do personality test - what dinobot are you?

WHAT KIND OF DINOBOT ARE YOU?

Provided by www.melovegrimlock.com

hahahahhaha, i think it does fit me somewhat.. the competitive side and my driver's personality. some of you might recall this incident called the 'pretzel fit'. snarl is cute! me love grimlock!!!

me grimlock don't need brain, me grimlock smash brain! - grimlock

The Spirit That Guides Us

i discovered this band about three years back, was crazy about them, lost their music in the great hard drive crash of 2006 and totally forgot about them till now. and omigosh, how i love the lyrics..



Agnes
What if I cut my wrist just because You made me like this.
I want You to show me what love is.
What if the fifth car would take us anywhere but far away.
I want You to drive me home tonight.

We've got absolutely nothing in common.
Except for the fact that we're stuck in this place.
We're completely God forsaken.
And I have not truck with with You or Your grace.
Homophobice explanations dragging me around and around again.
Stroboscopice expectations dragging me around and around again.

What if I have no friends just because You named me Agnès.
I wish I was someone else some where else any where but far from here.
I wish I was someone else some where else any where but far from here.

Homophobice explanations dragging me around and around again.
Stroboscopice expectations dragging me around anfd around again.
We've got absolutely nothing in common.
Except for the fact that we're stuck in this place.
We're completely God forsaken.
And I have not truck with with You or Your grace.

You don't care about my feelings my emotions don't mean anything to You.
What love's for You ain't love for me.
I can't love You like You love me

Agnes means pure, and holy in Greek



Real Life Motion Picture Soundtrack
Can I save your life. Lift you up to the sky.
How far is heaven. Let's go tonight.

Don't give up on me hanging there.
Don't you die on me please keep breathing.
'Cause it's a lie that your better of dead.
This is not a movie no happy endings here.

If you are not there I don't want to go I'd stick by your side and follow you back home.
I'd give up forever I'd trade in my life just to be with you.
Just to be with you just to be with you.

Don't give up on me hanging there.
Don't you die on me please keep breathing.
'Cause it's a lie that yor better of dead.
This is not a movie no happy endings here.

You are a car crash, train accident
It's inevitable.
The kingdom is at hand.
Hey Randell are you well where would you be.
Please Randell can you tell are you gonna be fine.

'Cause it's a lie that your better of dead.
This is not a movie no happy endings here.
No happy endings here.
No happy endings here.

Mercury Rev live @ Esplanade 2nd August 2007

The set:
1. That Funny Bird
2. You're My Queen
3. Lorelai
4. Tonight It Shows
5. Tides Of The Moon
6. New Song - Snowflake?
7. Holes
8. Opus 40 into That Funny Bird (coda)
9. You Gotta Serve Somebody (Dylan)
10. The Dark Is Rising
11. New Song 2 - So Powerless?
12. Diamonds

Encore:
1. Goddess On A Highway
2. Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp


if anybody knows what the two new songs are, feel free to let me know -) and if you have a review of the gig, by all means, link it back here, i'll be doing mine later in the day. but in essence, it was an awesome gig, they played a lot of my favourite songs, the visuals were quite spectacular and the band was full on! plus, i got my spiffy notebook signed on! woooooooot!

The Cure Singapore Indoor Stadium 1st August 2007

I'm at the fucken Cure concert! -slits wrists-