Thursday, January 12, 2006

Not observant enough..........

This is a picture taken during the ACTS games back in August/September. Volleyball competition I think. I was going round taking pictures of people, and I saw little Jonathan sitting alone. Tried very hard to get him to smile to take a picture but he refused to which I found all so puzzling. Only after the picture did I notice what he was pointing at and why he wasn't smiling....LOL. Silly me.


I think it hurts a bit ;P Just a little.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

12pm

10am....
11am....
12pm....

I woke up from my 9 hour nap. Looked dark in the room. Lifted up my hand and pulled the curtain away a bit. Hmm, not too bright either. Stupid London weather. Sat up, checked the clock. 12:02pm. Laid back in my bed for a while. Thought through yesterdays events.

.......arsenal won 2-1 at cardiff.......my new cd came....eeeK! there was football yesterday??!! That meant yesterday was saturday. WHICH MEANS TODAY IS SUNDAY!!! WHICH ALSO MEANS THAT I OVERSLEPT AND MISSED CHURCH!!!!!!

And the world was dead silent for a moment.

Arghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BLRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupidstupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid

Sigh. The folly of me.

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

Woke up yesterday morning and greeted the sight of an amazon.co.uk package at my door. Yay! My CD is finally here. And it was:



Paul Gilbert's Live in Tokyo Acoustic Samurai album. Cost me 10.50 pounds. Including delivery and VAT. Which after an subconcious mental conversion of the currencies leads to the grand amount of RM70+/-. So it better be good.

And it was good. I actually heard one song of this album, his acoustic version of Abba's Dancing Queen. And man it rocked. Which was the reason that possessed me to go and buy the entire album. Even though I've not heard much of Paul Gilbert's stuff before, save for a few clips of his guitar clinics (which btw, is absolutely amazing).

This album seriously rocks. In an acoustic kind of way. A must have for guitarist I guess. Man who needs to play electric guitars when you can play acoustics like this guy.



Oh wait he's holding an electric guitar. So yeah we still need electrics for that maddening solos. Which is already maddening in itself but more maddening when he does it on acoustic guitar.

Speaking of acoustic guitars. There's been one which I have been contemplating for a long time. OK maybe not that long, but its been a couple of months now more or less. Weighing up reasons and different alternatives:

1. Buy now:

Cons:
  • Financially not secure enough yet. Even if I used the taxpayer's money which has been given to me I'd prolly be able to buy it but there's no certainty that I won't starve to that before end May. Now we don't want to uncover no skeletons hugging on to a guitar 5 months from now in my room.
  • Buying now means have to carry back home. Which leave's me with the problem of having 2 hands for 2 guitars in cases and not forgetting my luggage. Siao. And there's no guarantee that the wood is suited for tropical climate. Not to mention then after that I have to carry back two guitars to London.
  • No time to play. Already have have electric guitar is like having one girl. Takes up most of your time. And even that when the courseworks were pouring in like the Malaysian monsoon rain it was neglected. Another guitar? Lu mai siao.
Pros:
  • But then buying now means I get to hold it in my hands now. Feel it, play it, make some music/noise with it. Priceless. Something which makes the "buy now" alternative most appealing.
  • I get to give Paul Gilbert's acoustic songs a go!! WHEE! (note I just said "give a go", not play like him :p )
2. Buy back home in Malaysia.

Pros:
  • Definately cheaper than buying here. Buy RM 400 at least. And they can throw in freebies too. Like a guitar case. With cables. And a couple of picks. Which you are unlikely to get if you buy in London. And I have a car which I can put it in and not have to lug it back all the way in the bus instead.
  • I have the time to play. Cos i'll be free in the summer and have nothing to do for 4 months but play Paul Gilbert's Dancing Queen. And i'll probably be able to play it properly then.
  • I would be able to buy it without having the fear of starving to death. Mama cooking at home. No worries.
Cons:
  • I might not have any money left to buy then. All spent eating ikan bakar at alai.
  • Even if got money, probably can't get the model in Malaysia. Have to go to Singapore to find. Which in itself will sky rocket the cost to bits.
  • My dad will think I'm too rich and not give me any pocket money.
Don't buy at all:

Pros:
  • No need to worry about money, time and all that stuff above.
Cons:
  • NO ACOUSTIC GUITAR!!!! booo hooo.
Anyway this is the baby I've been looking at:


Sigh. Decisions decisions.

What to do?

Anyways it's time for lunch.

And I blame Civilization IV for me forgetting today is Sunday. BLEH!

Saturday, January 07, 2006

It's alive!!!!


Happy New Year folks! Peace to all of you!

Woohoo! Dust off the cobwebs, take out that vacumn, time to bring this blog back to life again. Laziness is the ultimate danger to a blog i tell you. Not flaming, not hacking, but laziness. But anyways it's time for an update.

First and foremost, belated seasons greetings. Super belated merry christmas and belated happy new year to everyone. 2006 is here, and its a new year, time to make your resolutions if you're a resolution making person. Funny thing as i spent some time thinking of what happened to 2005, you know, the annual review kind of thing, i realised: dang i can't remember the resolutions i made at the beginning of 2005. Bummer. Out of the window went the annual review.

But anyways looking back again on 2005, it has been a pretty good and happy year for me (of course you gotta forget about the forgotten resolutions).

I spent yesterday reading this guy's blog: http://kennysia.com/ If you haven't read it yet, go read it, i bet you'll laugh your teeth out. But then again one man's meat is another man's poison. BUT WAIT! Don't go till you finish reading this. I'll make it worth your while. (I'll lie to get people to read my ramblings....muahahhaha)

I seem to have forgotten what I want to say.

Anyways, i went skiing in france just before Christmas, and it was one of the best holidays ever. Skiing's the thing. If any of you have the opportunity to try it out, go do it. And here's a great site to get you relatively cheap skiing. I recommend them. 2 thumbs up. The place is great, the food is great, the instructors are mad, and the cost is very affordable even for students (studying in UK on taxpayer's money, that is). It's a non profit organisation btw.

And anyway here is some of the pictures:




Posing for the camera on the last day of skiing. This place was La Flegere, 1894m above sea level, plenty lots of beautiful snow. And also killer cliffs. Awesome. From left to right: Kuok How, Rubin, Me, Alvin, Muz, Chia Wei


Sunset in the alps, while we were waiting for the cable car to bring us back down.


And this was up in La Flegere, while we were chilling out eating lunch in the snow.


The sun shining down on the town of Argentiere. A frozen river.


The sight which greeted us when we opened our room window. Pretty pretty.

So that was the ski trip in pictures for you. (say thanks to the malaysian taxpayers) Unfortunately I could not get any shots of us actually skiing cause none of us were good enough skiiers or cameramen to take pictures of other skiing at the same time without crashing into someone or something.

Funny how you meet people. When we were there, we bumped into a huge group of malaysians from cambridge. Like 20 of them. A lot. A freaking lot. Malaysians were taking over the place. It was mad. Haha. And by some freak accident, we met another BNM Scholar (short form for using-malaysian-taxpayer's-money-to-go-skiing-scholar). Rubin. Also known as Robin Hood to the ski instructors. Real funny guy. I got this theory that most BNM scholars are mad. Either mad scholars ( that is those who study real hard) or mad mental (ie bonkers). I think Rubin falls into the latter. And I think I'm in it too.

Anyways i think thats all for now. I wanted to blog a bit more but I can't get blogger's pictures to come out where I want them to when I upload them, and then it involves a lot of cutting and pasting which is too much trouble and not worth it. Anyone has a better way of uploading pics, let me know.

Have fun!