Intermission: Happy Chinese New Year From The Criminal Files Of The FBI

Now, I know the comic's not finished yet. But so far the only part of page three I've drawn is... a pool table. So in part one of a three-part series of intermissions, here's the lowdown on my family's reunion dinner.

So things started out, like every year. Boring.

Adults have their dinner...

Kids experience Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones goodness.

You are playing... Quake III. Lightning gun! BZZZT!!!

Burnout Revenge. Like playing golf. Golf with cars.

!Caution! the iPod's surround sound quality may cause you to believe you can sing as well as your favorite artist, or that everyone can hear same the beautiful music you can. Generally speaking, this is NOT THE CASE. Becoming too immersed in the iPod's magic may cause people to harbor resentful feelings for you, and in some cases may even cause them to hit you.

Half empty, half full or "Who gives a damn? Coke!"

I vaugely remember someone telling me that ice cream was no substitute for a relationship. Shows what they know. Oh, Mini Magnum. You light my fire.

Everything was cool until the murder.

It didn't stop there. No one knew how the victims met their fates, but some suspected poison.

One of the victims had been spotted earlier in this photograph, chewing on something experts believe was drugs. What kind of drugs? Crowbars.

Running short on crowbars, the deceased had to ask for money, first from his father, then his grandmother. He drew blanks both times.

Under the effects of chronic depression, he was later seen on the swings.

He was later reported in a sighting battling imaginary Agents matrix-style. (Click on the link. If you don't, you may yet live to regret it.)

While foul play was initially believed to be the cause of the victim's death, it was later revealed that the following overheard conversation could have factored in suicide.

"That's my daddy."
"No, that man only thinks he's your daddy."

Still, popular theory mantains that both victims were murdered, by a mysterious woman in brown. She was first sighted in this photograph, though obviously not a part of the family holding the celebrations.

After all, what kind of person uses a laptop to shut themselves off from a family reunion dinner? Answer: a murderer.

Observe, if you will, the following series of unfortunate events. This footage was retrieved from a concealed security camera at 2210 hours. Imaginary dialogue has been inserted, but it purports to generate a purely hypothetical view of the situation. You are free to draw your own conclusions.

"Evans! Stop that! Don't make me come over there!"

"Up yours, woman."

"That was amazingly MTV. And rude! Where did you learn to talk like that?"
"I got it from your dad. He was talking to your mom."

"That crosses the line. Gimme that tissue! I think I'm gonna have a BF!"
"What's a BF?"

"A bitch fit!"

"What ever, lady. You couldn't handle it."

Half an hour later, the deceased was dead.

Coincidence? The FBI think otherwise. But they want to be sure. They want you, faithful readers, to have the final say on the case. So tell us. What really happened that fateful CNY night? Leave a comment and tell us what you think!

You can make a difference.

A final, baffling addition to the case: neither of the previous stated possibilities explain the suspicious actions of this man.

21/01/2006, Part II

So this comic took way longer to finish than I thought it would. Two more pages! It'll be faster though, since I've got holidays now. Again, click on the images to see the full version.

Um... here I am doing... various things.

If you can identify all the people in panel three, you are good.

The TV on the wall was actually showing MTV Cribs, but World's Funniest Accidental Deaths would be an awesome show.

End of page two. Comments are appreciated, even if you have nothing good to say.

So in the past few days, shit went down. I don't think I'll ever be short on blogging material again, but today had to be the climax of the whole month. And it's not over yet. It's been a strange day.

So Dexter told us a story about a town with a problem. To specify, a whale problem. The whale was forty five-foot, eight tons and very dead.

This is the word from Dave Barry on the Infamous Exploding Whale.

The Farside comes to life in Oregon.

I am absolutely not making this incident up; in fact I have it all on videotape. The tape is from a local TV news show in Oregon, which sent a reporter out to cover the removal of a 45-foot, eight-ton dead whale that washed up on the beach. The responsibility for getting rid of the carcass was placed on the Oregon State Highway Division, apparently on the theory that highways and whales are very similar in the sense of being large objects.

So anyway, the highway engineers hit upon the plan -- remember, I am not making this up -- of blowing up the whale with dynamite. The thinking is that the whale would be blown into small pieces, which would be eaten by seagulls, and that would be that. A textbook whale removal.

So they moved the spectators back up the beach, put a half-ton of dynamite next to the whale and set it off. I am probably not guilty of understatement when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the most wonderful event in the history of the universe. First you see the whale carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you hear the happy spectators shouting "Yayy!" and "Whee!" Then, suddenly, the crowd's tone changes. You hear a new sound like "splud." You hear a woman's voice shouting "Here come pieces of...MY GOD!" Something smears the camera lens.

Later, the reporter explains: "The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere." One piece caved in the roof of a car parked more than a quarter of a mile away. Remaining on the beach were several rotting whale sectors the size of condominium units. There was no sign of the seagulls who had no doubt permanently relocated to Brazil.

This is a very sobering videotape. Here at the institute we watch it often, especially at parties. But this is no time for gaiety. This is a time to get hold of the folks at the Oregon State Highway Division and ask them, when they get done cleaning up the beaches, to give us an estimate on the US Capitol.

What he had neglected to mention was that the whole incident occured more than 35 years ago. The exact date was November 12, 1970. He also said that someone had been killed by a flaming chunk of whale meat. He never told us there was a video, either.

Tonight you will dream of flaming chunks of whale blubber raining down on your homes.

21/01/2006

See, Eliot. While I was waiting for yours I went and drew my own comic.

Some people have told me Kelana Jaya station has no such scenery. So what?

That's my phone, right there. This comic has a soundtrack, you know. I'll release it when all four pages are done.

Yeah, that's me. And if you're wondering who the other two are, don't.

Panel six pays tribute to one of my favorite scenes from Sam and Fuzzy, if you know enough about the comic to notice it.

I don't think Google had webcomics in mind when they created Blogspot. Never mind, I'll find a way around that. For now, click on any image to go to the full page at the ever trusty ImageShack. So, this is page one of a three-page feature which I call, "What I Did Last Saturday". Just kidding. But I'm open to title suggestions. Updates, as soon as I can. Probably one page on Wednesday and another on Saturday.

Welcome To The Dark Side

It was today when first I noticed it. I might have suspected it some time ago, but I didn't really figure it out until this morning.

I'm losing color.

Maybe there's a more refined way to put it, but for the moment that's all I can think of. I should explain it, though. What I really mean is, I'm a lot less fun now than I was three weeks ago. Over the past few weeks, since the New Year, I've become positively gray. At first I thought I was growing up, or I attributed it to my growing infatuation with her, and I shrugged it off. But now I think that I'm becoming boring. Which is something the old me would never have allowed.

The new me doesn't crack jokes, can't carry a conversation, ignores his friends, sits quietly all the time without saying a word, can't concentrate in class and falls asleep everywhere. It's a problem. I've become twitchy and subdued, my attention span has dropped to an all time low, verbally I'm a klutz. Nothing makes me happy anymore except for my music and anti-depressants like sugar and chocolate and ice cream. But none of these are permanent fixes. I've been hitting hot and cold on everyone, and no one's said anything but I think I'm starting to creep some people out.

Of course, as soon as I found out I knew I would have to change it. Nothing is worth what I'm doing to myself, not even her. There's no point in winning her heart if I lose myself on the way. And there's no way I can accomplish the former in my current state. So I knew what I had to do. Everything the old me used to do. Play video games. Stop thinking all the time. Blow off steam in the van. Draw.

So I had my fun. Ignored consequences. I screamed, "Learn to drive, grandma!" at a ginormous flatbed truck that could have squashed us flat or crushed us completely at whim. Especially seeing how it was right behind us for about five minutes while we were stuck in a jam.

I threw a bag of sticks and sauce off the side of an overhead bridge onto the busy road below as we stopped for traffic lights. There were cars all around us, and they were watching. With disapproving looks.

"Hey, why drive so fast? Is your mom pregnant?" - Kevin

I stole a test tube; I stole an ice cream; I wrote secret messages with double meanings under one of the tables in the computer lab; I played drum solos on all the tables in the homework room; I counted the cars that overtook our van on the road home, thinking rude thoughts at each one as the passed. Thinking hard. And in the Physics lab Azfar and Sanjay and I ran little wooden toy cars off a ramp and into our stomachs. The whole experience was like something out of MTV Whatever Things.

"So there was this six-hour movie about an eight-year old boy who was drinking and smoking and womanizing. So his dad sent him to the army to make him a man. It didn't work, and all he learned to do there was write poetry with his own blood! So he comes back home and falls in love with this maid, but she's already engaged and his parents don't approve (the staple for all Bollywood movies). And at the end of a massive fight scene he rescues her on an elephant and they escape down a secret underground passage." - Dexter.

So now that I'm finally out for the weekend, I know I resolved to blog about the parties I had last weekend, but all I've done since I got back was relax. Play some games, draw a couple of things and put the iPod to use. Play tennis, go swimming, forget all about school for a while. Forget about school? I wish.

Tomorrow I've got an Interact thing at school. I hear it's an interview. Membership is pretty terrifying. The very first thing they did when we joined was warn us about how we would be cut at a moment's notice. If we skipped out on club activites for any reason short of a nuclear fallout; if we missed two meetings in a row; if they bloody well felt like it they could fire us whenever they liked. So we've got stuff we have to do, like teach tuition to little kids. Dunno about all that, we haven't started anything much yet. They did say they were gonna cut at least ten of us by the first week, which probably means tomorrow. Hold me, I'm scared.

On a lighter note, Sam and Fuzzy starts a new storyline on Monday! I'm guessing this one picks up from where Empire left off, after a whole month of what could be considered essentially filler. Woohoo! Sam and Fuzzy is my all-time favorite webcomic, for me it tops even the likes of Penny Arcade and Scary Go Round. I have always loved all the characters, and now they're finally in a brand new setting, and doing pretty well from the looks of it. It's like the start of season two! Which is always the cause for excitement. Sam Logan rocks my world.

Filler: Star Wars!

"So if there's global warming and the North Pole melts, where does Santa Claus go?" - Sanjay

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I do have lots of stuff to blog about. But no time.

Every day, I reach home at around X o'clock (the value of X varies wildly depending on the day's events). I then fall asleep and wake up at dinnertime. No snide remarks. This nap is essential. I need it to help put off my inevitable system burnout. After dinner I do my homework until midnight. So the fact that I'm on MSN this whole time may have something to do with the lateness of the hour when I finish, but I refuse to cast blame until I see facts.

"Hey malau. Sit down." - Moore

Ahem.

Anyway, in the short few days since I last posted, I went dancing at Maisarah's party, swimming at Edward's party, discovered exactly how shot through with holes the schools new games system is, survived a terrifying preliminary hazing by the Interact Club and took the LRT to Kelana Jaya station. Wild, huh?

"When my neck is on the line, your necks are on the line. When my head gets cut off, you all die. I'm using the word die a lot today, huh? I mean it." - Thomas

I plan to cover all those events over the weekend. But right now, I don't have the material or the energy. So instead,

Star Wars: Empire at War

So I went to GameSpot today. I saw the countdown banner marking down the seconds until the release of the demo, and I thought at once, I must have this thing.


Tonight I will go online at one in the morning. I will start the download and tomorrow, the galaxy will be mine.

Minimum Requirements:

• CPU: Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz
• Operating System: Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Ram: 256MB
• Graphics Card: 32 MB graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) capability
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible, PCI or Onboard Audio Device
• Internet: 56kbps or faster connection (required for multiplayer only)

This game so far looks gorgeous. Check out the screenshots. I mean really.


Here's hoping there are no Gungans.

"Wind sucks. I hate wind." - Clarissa

It's been a pretty good day.

Moore's Law

Moore's Law: The number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every 18 months.

This is not going to be an intelligent discussion. Today's post will have nothing to do with the above Moore's law. Why? Simply because Gordon E. Moore is the wrong Moore.

Moore Moore Moore Moore.

The right Moore has been mentioned before in my posts. At the time he was trying to power-bully the Science students of 4C. Like so. I mentioned at the time that he was funny. I did not mention that he was possibly the most straight up awesome teacher ever. Well, I didn't know.

So on Friday we heard it from the 4K guys. The following could be considered dramatic reenactment. But not overly dramatic, since the original screenplay was whack enough.

Dexter: So Moore comes in late, right? He's always late.
Eliot: Always!
Dexter: I think he does it on purpose. He walks so damn slowly, once he was in the parking lot, and it took him like ten minutes to get up the stairs.
Eliot: Sometimes we have to send to the monitor to the staffroom to get him, and he's sleeping.
Dexter: So he came in late - about ten minutes, he's always ten minutes late - and he said he didn't want to do any work so he wouldn't give us homework if we didn't tell our parents. So we all said okay, we got a free period and he took a nap!
Eliot: It was all like, "Do you guys feel like doing any work? I don't feel like doing any work. I'll make you a deal. If you promise - swear to God - to not tell your parents about it, I won't give you any homework." So he looks at me and says, "All right, Eliot?" And I'm like, "Uh... yes sir." And he goes, "You hesitated. That means you are lying!" He says stuff like that all the time. So I always hesitate when he asks questions. Then he drops off to sleep. How cool is that?

So I say that that's awesome, and ask them what subject he teaches.

Dexter: Modern Maths. He teaches for like ten minutes then lets us off, all the time! How many sums have you done for homework, since school started?
Pia: I got like ten today, in total something like... I'm not sure.
Dexter: About thirty or more, right? Get this, we have eight.
Pia: Eight today, or...?

And I tell her he means eight all told.

Pia: No way! I hate you guys!
Eliot: It's so cool, we've only done like eight or twelve sums and we get free lessons all the time. You know what he said the other day? He was late - as usual - so our monitor went to fetch him.
Pia: Wait, who's your monitor?
Dexter: Kai Xin's our monitor.
Eliot: Right, so Kai Xin went to get him, and when he came to class he was all, "Why did you send her to get me? I was sleeping. Don't be so smart next time. I wanted a nap, do you realize you could've had a whole free period?" Then he turns to Hari and he says, "Hari! Did you tell her to come and get me?" And Hari's all, "No, sir." And he goes, "She says you did." and Kai Xin's like sitting there and smiling.

Heheh. So I'm thinking that they're really far behind in their work, and I say so.

Eliot: I think we are, cause we haven't even finished chapter one yet.

Chapter one?

Eliot: It is chapter one. Chapter two, that's Add Math.
Dexter: Modern Maths starts from chapter one, Add Maths starts from chapter two.
Eliot: You got your maths mixed up.

Never you mind.

Pia: Standard forms, right? But we haven't finished chapter one either.
Eliot: Hah! Moore rocks!
Dexter: Remember his second lesson? His golden rule?
Eliot: Oh yeah! It was -

This and the accompanying statement is strictly non-canon. But I would like to take a moment to say that this is the real Moore's law, as is referred to in the title.

Eliot: From the moment I enter the class, there is no one here but you and me.
Dexter: So he told us that, and then Nicholas Yong comes in.
Eliot: And he didn't hear any of that.
Dexter: So Moore goes to him and asks him, "Who's sitting next to you?"
Eliot: And it's Jie Hwa, so he says, "Jie Hwa, sir." And Moore's like shaking his head and going, "No, no." Then, "Jie Hwa, who's sitting next to you?" "No one, sir." "Good. So when are you going to teach your friend the rules?" "After class, sir." "Why not now?" "Because he doesn't exist, sir." "Good boy, Jie Hwa."

Man, that's like hilarious.

Dexter: So after that he turns to the class and says, "Give Jie Hwa a clap." And Nicholas says, "I thought he's not there sir?" And Moore goes, "Don't try to be clever with me."

How cool is that? Next year, if I get a chance I wanna be in his class. Maybe write a letter to the school requesting the Moore Experience.

Bring It On

Keith Urban - I Wanna Be Your Everything

So I tried juggling, I tried the piano, I threw cards at my desk for about an hour, I went for tennis, played twenty minutes of air guitar, cheated at solitaire, I even did my homework, nothing works... which means it can only be loooove.

I wanna be the wind that fills your sails and
be the hand that lifts your veil
be the moon that moves your tide
the sun comin up in your eyes
be the wheel that never rusts
be the spark that lights you up
all that you've been dreaming of and more
so much more
I wanna be your everything

Stuff keeps happening, but for some reason I'm no longer as happy as I used to be over every little thing we did together. Is that because I'm getting over simple infatuation, or because something's not right and I know it? Oh, these questions without answers. The Magic Eight Ball no longer tells me what I want to hear. Fact, from starting out as extremely positive, it now deals in nothing but downers like My Sources Say No, Not In This Lifetime and Jump Off A Bridge. I kinda realised some time back I only listen to the advice it gives when it gives the advice that I wanted to hear. This should probably teach me a lesson or two about human nature, but all I can think about right now is how a Magic Hate Ball would be a runaway hit for the emo kids of today. Probably knock up the national suicide rate quite a bit too.

"Magic Hate Ball, is death really the answer?" Shut Up And Die Already

Yes, I know that's from Penny Arcade. It's just so clever.

Frankie Vallie - Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You

So anyway, school is sort of stress un-stress. On one hand, I'm never short of work to do. But on the other hand, I created most of that work for myself through procrastination and my perfectionist drive. The eight days since school opened have been pretty eventful. But like I said before, I hardly notice anymore. Which is a shame, cause that way I forfeit lots of useful blogging material.

I love you baby
and if it's quite all right
I need you baby
to warm the lonely nights
I love you baby
trust in me when I say
Oh pretty baby
don't bring me down I pray
Oh pretty baby
now that I've found you stay
And let me love you baby
let me love you

I never used to know the words to this song, and whenever I sang it with anyone we would all cut off at the same point and break into laughter. Hey, check this thing out.

Demon Bound - shakugan no shana roxxors says:

Did you know that Freud said that a boy that fell off a horse and broke his legs was afraid of horses because of penis envy?

creative visualization - http://pandamomium.blogspot.com/ says:
shouldnt he be afraid because he broke his legs?

creative visualization - http://pandamomium.blogspot.com/ says:
unless the horse slammed his wang against said legs to fracture them

Demon Bound - shakugan no shana roxxors says:
actually

Demon Bound - shakugan no shana roxxors says:
he said that he was intimidated by the wang size

Demon Bound - shakugan no shana roxxors says:
of the horse

creative visualization - http://pandamomium.blogspot.com/ says:
what does breaking his legs have to do with the story then?

Demon Bound - shakugan no shana roxxors says:
its just to show Freud is crazy

And this from supposedly one of the greatest psychological minds in history.

Fall Out Boy - Grand Theft Autumn

So, whatever else is going down, I can remember at least that I recently joined the Interact Club... and English Literature class. Including games on Tuesday, this means I'll be in school until about five three days a week. A week of five.

Where is your boy tonight?
I hope he is a gentleman
and maybe he won't find out what I know
you were the last good thing
about this part of town

So I don't have actual stories for you, instead you get cheap-ass quotes. This probably won't mean much to anyone but me, but the backstory on these is hilarious.

"So... why is it that whenever I see you and her together, she's giving you money?" - Eliot

"I can't wait to hear her pronounce cytoplasm." - Kevin

"Fake noobs against fake noobs... what a classic." – GunBound

There were more, but my memory's been on the fritz lately. When I remember. Now for some dialogue.

YowHwui: Hey, those plant cells look like a well developed pair of chest muscles.
Kevin: I dare you to go up there, rip off your shirt and say, "Yo Madam! Check out these plant cells!"

Oasis - Bittersweet Symphony

To finish, here is a description of a vivid man-versus-bear hand to paw fight. It was in one of my testimonials, from a man we will now call Nicholas See, bearsbane.

water sports??
i HAVE wrestled a bear before ok??
it was a sun bear, it was young, it was as tall as me, and it was a girl... and it had long nails that was scratching my back like crazy!!!
and i fed it honey after i won!!!
yeah man!!! I WRESTLED A BEAR AND WON!!!
i had it in a stronghold around the neck and i brought the beast down onto the ground!!
YEAH MAN!!!!
no seriously.... i did...

I don't know what to believe. Is it possible to get mauled by a bear and still have the strength to take it down? And where in the world do they allow fifteen year olds to wrestle bears?

Cause it's a bittersweet symphony that's life
try to make ends meet
you're a slave to the money then you die
I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
you know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah
no change, I can change, I can change, I can change,
but I'm here in my mould , I am here in my mould
but I'm a million different people from one day to the next
I can't change my mould, no no, no no no

Touch rain, people.

Link Reviews

After several seconds of hard consideration, I decided it was about damn time I put up some links, to other blogs at least. An act of desperation to boost ratings? Perhaps.

Flamori/Jonathan Tan Peak Sheng - Relatively veteran, this self-proclaimed cynic seemingly has nothing better to do than ruthlessly track down and convert every stray thought in his head into a rant that screams for change. His topics are pretty wide-ranging, if you can read his stuff for more than three minutes without wondering what the kid has against proof-reading. Then again, his commited atrocities against the English language are usually nothing short of hilarious. His site name is mispelled, and he once called the late pope John Paul III, but past the surface is a pretty insightful... no, morbidly fascinating... well, there are photographs.

alien_child/Pia Dhaliwal - Almost a year in the blogging circle, her site design and posts are never short on content. Her experience shows in the site's inspired design and the colourful pictures that accompany every post. A huge anime fan, her posts usually revolve around such. I haven't been reading into her previous posts, so I can only tell you what I see on the surface. But it looks good.

Tan Yee Hou - With a wicked cool cosmetic, loads of dialogue and... there's loads of dialogue. Which I find to be pretty hilarious in itself, but at this point I realise that with ten days blogging experience I am by no means a webblog connoisseur. In any case, a blog owner who steals video cameras on impulse is a person you should be watching.

Tan Yee Wei - At this point you might begin to suspect, that these two are related, which is doubly true, they are related to me. Snippets of this and that has some truly beautiful photographs revealing everyday objects in all their crowning glory. It is also undeniably intelligent, with no shortage of entries either. While reading this blog I realised I did little actual reading, spending more time on the proverbial pictures worth (n) thousand words, the value of n being the number of photographs displayed.

DerangedSanity/Jason Chow Jun Whye - There's a pretty good chance I spelt his name wrong. Jason's blog... well, it's Jason. People, did you expect any less? He's not light with his words, he discusses articles I can't begin to spell, and well, basically, I can't understand a word he's saying. Not through casual reading anyway. Still, if you're looking for a fifteen year old whose blog that makes reading a mental exercise, or God forbid - English, you know where to go.

untitle/Eliot Lee - A comic blog with no comics. Well, this could be because he hasn't had time to get properly started, but I suspect it's because he is a lazy tool. Still, if he decides to surprise us all and actually starts a comic line, it will be a good thing since Eliot is a brilliant artist.

aslongasiamalive/Sabrina Low - Pure blog. One hundred percent public diary with all the trimming. Okay, so I don't know what I'm talking about, but I had to link this. This is, after all a list of blogs, and hers is such. Don't let my lack of a useful review fool you, there's lots of... stuff. Stuff! Okay, I am officially out of ideas. But click link anyway. There's a list you need to read, and try it yourself.

chocaddict/Tan Wen Juin - One of the Xanga crew, but this one's special because it kinda... has... one of my drawings... in a little corner somewhere. Hey, you see how many blogs you can get familiar with during the first week of school. I'm going to put every blog listed here on my regular reading list I swear. There is also a quiz that seems more suited for stalkers or Longshot than any sane person.

SeReNe_ChaN11/Serene Chan Sze Hua - Don't exactly know her blog is here, but when I was looking for a couple of blogs to wrap up this post with, I stumbled upon SeReNe_ChaN11 and heard an old song I used to love, which turned out to be Train's Drops of Jupiter. While that alone would have been enough (proving once and for all exactly how much I know about blogging), she also has a not exactly unique way of expressing her thoughts, possibly trying to kill us all by writing an entire entry without a single full stop or even paragraphs.

And thus, the celebration of Skull Pandamonium's tenth day is ended, and still I have no idea why it takes me so long to write a single entry. That's probably the kind of thing that comes with experience. And readers. So post like you mean it. Here are some generic comments you can use:

• Your blog entry today was most insightful. Thank you for those enlightening words, the memories of which I will carry within me in a secret garden in a sunlit corner of my mind where I will never again visit save in sleep.
• Hey, just letting you know there was some great stuff up there. I reallly enjoyed looking at it. Not that I read any of it of course. Stuff!
• I was very offended by your blog, Skull Pandamonium. In my eyes you have single-handedly destroyed blogging forever. How does it feel to be clearly history's greatest monster? I hope you're happy now, you shameless parasite.
  
• This is me dropping by to say hi/fuck you. Nice blog/words cannot describe how much I hated it. I agree/violently disagree with your views on [topic]. Have a nice day/engage in the act of coitus with yourself. Cordially yours, [name].
  

Listing

I think we all remember, as last year drew to a close we were all writing lists. Like an epidemic. Everyone was writing lists, all I want for Christmas, resolutions for the new year, the best of the 2005 for every medium conceivable and so forth. I too, wrote a list. This is... yeah... my I Must Have This Thing award list, which could be considered a sort of obsessive extension of the regular Christmas list. In no particular order,

1. A shiny new computer, jammed to the brim with the most cutting-edge technology money can buy. Double OS Windows and Macintosh, insanely expensive peripherals that would make any computer nerd cry, fully immersive surround sound, the casemod that launched a thousand ships.
2. My own pool table. This is something that should be on everyone's wish lists.
3. An arcade machine. One of the good ones though, something with full motion detectors.
4. A massive, wall-mounted iPod with a 60 inch screen. The clickwheel, of course, stays small enough to be manageable.
5. Comic books. Every existing and future volume in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, as well as the Clone Wars series.
   
6. Every next generation console known to man, including but not restricted to, the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Revolution. Also every breakthrough game ever released for Xbox versions 2 though 359.
7. Clothes. Rooms and rooms of clothes of every imaginable fashion and design, enough for anyone to play supermodel in for months.
   
8. A double-storey penthouse to put all that stuff in, where else but the most expensive location in the whole city which would be... what? The Twin Towers skybridge? Sounds like a plan.
9. Superpowers. Anything from flight to energy redistribution to teleportation, super speed, telepathy, probability manipulation and back again. Maybe reality warping would be the best.
10. Her. And in retrospect, that's all I really need.
    

My blog is starting to look like something out of a candy store. Thoughts?

January Highlights

Well, I had to return the OC. Too bad, cause I never finished watching it. I'm gonna see if I can find some way to borrow it from Wen when I get the chance, cause eight episodes short of a complete season is no way to live. Not knowing what happens to Ryan Atwood and Seth Cohen's gonna be bad enough. But what's worse is that Azfar told me that Marissa Cooper and Anna Stern become lesbians later on, which is perhaps outrageous enough to be true. Which means of course I must... have... this thing.

So things are going pretty well. What are my January highlights, exactly? Without a doubt, the celebrations that will fill my days this weekend are going to be - to use my mot de choix - awesome. Yeah, french. If trying to add a touch of class to a blog entry with a totally unrelated phrase from a foreign language is wrong, I don't want to be right. Anyway, the celebrations.

On one hand we have Edward, having this great thing going in his beautiful house, with a great guest list that I helped write. He's leaving for Australia and possibly this could be his last chance to see certain people in a while. Certain people who mean something to him. So he's got a pool and a huge basement and a wall projector and a sound system and a piano and a huge open space that looks pretty good for dancing, and with the right food and drink that's pretty much all you need for the ultimate house party.

On the other hand, we have Maisarah, throwing a bash in a hotel, where I heard she reserved an entire two floors or something. She's leaving for Australia and possibly this could be her last chance to see maybe a full third of the form, keeping Hallmark in the green as far as sales are concerned. So far I've heard rumors about an indoor pool, and ballroom dancing. Well as far as I know it's gonna be the most expensive party I've attended outside of wedding dinners, and no matter what they have for us it's gonna rock hard.

Anyway, I'll be back with my Top Ten I Must Have This Thing list.

Orange County

I know I said I would get around to writing that first week report, but this'll only take a second. Unfortunately, watching seven and twenty episodes of The OC will not. That's right, I now have possession of the entire first season, but only for the weekend. I wasn't sure I would be up to it. I wasn't even sure if The OC was going to be something I liked.


Eight episodes later, I'm not sure I could handle not finishing the season before I return the bag on Monday. The OC has everything I ever wanted in a series, and though after watching half an episode of One Tree Hill I thought that all American soaps and dramedies in general would be similarly drab, I really found myself drawn into the world of the Newport Beach community. Dramedy. It's a word. Look it up.

Anyway, now my two favorite shows ever are based in Orange County California. What does that mean? Probably that I will have to visit Newport Beach and Balboa Island some day. The other series? If you even have to ask... it's Arrested Development. Cue ukulele. I have to go.

First Week In Review

It was kinda inevitable that I was going to do this, but right now I just feel lazy. But then again too much happened this week for me to not write about it.

I'll do it later.

Wildfire

You can all post comments now.

I just realised there was a sort of thing preventing non-users from posting. It's gone now. So now y'all can leave your comments and stuff. That is, assuming anyone ever wanted to.

Infograph

Created this back in November, as part of a project that never went down. In case you didn't know, it's inspired by the infographs on the Onion website. I cannot recommend these guys highly enough.

Also, did anyone miss yesterday's Penny Arcade? Got to be one of my favorites.

If you happen across an opponent who has run out of ammo, you may "do them executioner style".

Jumping The Shark

This isn't going to be too long since I suspect I may be sick.

But whatever it is, four days and six entries after I started this blog it feels like I'm doing this for myself. Which I am, but it would be nice to see some comments once in a while.

So, yesterday... I forgot. Don't wanna think too hard right now. Oh yeah... in the van on the way home we kicked Brian's bag onto the road, and I stuck one of the straps into the door so it got dragged along for maybe half a minute before we stopped laughing long enough to tell him what was going on. Then he came round to my house, to get the red tint out of his hair. Well, I tried. Really I did. But even after loading on the black dye, every time he stepped out into the sunlight all I could say was "oh shit".

So I had to do my own after he left, slathered it on and left it there for about half an hour. Then I had to get my school books... saw Serene and Ai Ching at the bookstore, Ai Ching said something about Edward(?). Now that I think about it, she told me to remember to remind her about something... today... which I forgot about. Reminds me, memo to self: call Dexter to get iPod cables back.

Today, Moore gave us a sort of talk where he cast his eye around the class and pronounced to us that we were doomed. He also said that Sheng Yap had dug his own grave by coming to Pure Science, that Mahadi didn't look nuts like a Malay, Amani looked Indian and Farrah looked like a who-knows-what.

"So..." Stopping at my desk, he glanced at my name tag. "... Jun Ian.You know what? You don't look like a good Science student. But I think you would do very well in Arts."

At this moment I am clearly thinking that there is no way he is going to fsck with my head and get away with it, so I tell him as much.

"I always prefer English subjects."

"You don't like English subjects?"

"No, I like them better. And since Science is all English, well..." I trail off at the look on his face. The look is enlightenment.

"Ohoh!" The sudden realization in his eyes is almost funny. "Ah... now I see the lure." A self-satisfied smile crawls onto his face, like a final piece of jigsaw puzzle had finally fallen into place. "The Science subjects are in English, and the Arts subjects are in Bahasa... that's right. Didn't notice that before. Clever boy."

He then promises to tell Mr Peter about it, and makes for the door, stopping only to bully Mahadi. Funny guy.

School Stars

Y'all know, today could have been an awesome day. Three point five, maybe four stars? See, since around October last year I made up a sort of rating system for days. It's not a thing that I use all the time, but only on really great days, to see just how great they really were.

I add half a star for every good thing that happened, and sometimes a whole star if it was really special. I think the night I invented the system I got like four point five or something, a score I haven't been able to top yet. I haven't even decided on a maximum score, or if there should even be one, but five stars is likely to be the most perfect kind of day I could ever experience.

So today I joined 4C. It's got a kick-ass classroom. There's a stage and a piano and disco lights and everything. It's pretty much the best classroom the school has to offer. The only problem would be the paper thin walls - not even real walls anyway. I should explain. How do I put this nicely...? My school is run by cheap, cost-cutting bastards.

It's true. There's no real hall for performances and such, just about five of the six Form Four classes in row, with foldable walls. A partition, if you will. These partitions do not close properly. So anyone sitting near the gaps in the walls can watch their neighbouring class at work. I guess this could also be perceived as a plus, I think it's pretty cool, but it gets annoying when your physics teacher speaks in whispers and next door 4K seems to be having a rave of sorts.

Today was a bit messed up, as I had hoped, cause everyone was getting sorted out and the teachers were having a field day chewing us out.

Continue tomorrow, I gotta go.

Blast From The Past

That post down there? Don't know why I put it up. I wrote it about a month back, funny to see how much a person can change in just a few weeks. Maybe it isn't apparent to you, but it means a lot to me.

What's changed, huh? I no longer care as much about 'one of the biggest chances I ever let slip through my fingers', since I've already seen things to make me feel that it probably wasn't that special anyway.

Emotional growth aside, I finished Resident Evil 4. Turns out that Leon Kennedy could run, after all. I think I'm going to play Assignment Ada or something for a while.

12/8/2005

I went ice skating today. At the Pyramid itself, no less. I never found it to be a difficult thing, though I never particularly enjoyed the activity either. For all of an hour I maintained my dignity and balance, but I was still in a constant state of pain most unforgiving. Ice skating requires a great deal of effort from amateurs, and by the end of it all I was pretty much exhausted. Hey, you try circling the ring on skates for a solid hour.

The Pyramid was crowded today, or so it seemed to me. Not being a frequent visitor I have no idea what is considered standard fare there. Despite the crowding, the fine people at Pyramid Ice decided to empty the rink for cleaning at peak hour, then let the few hundred skaters back in one at a time. A lone employee of indeterminate gender crouched by the narrow gates, inspecting skates. He/she (seriously) would make sure the laces were done right, and those who failed were sent back up through the gates, prolonging the evitable delay. I was one of the first in line, but I think the entire process took like half an hour. Brilliance.

Going round after round in the rink, you start to recognize interesting people. Today there was a group of femmes decked out in Christmas hats. Well, not only Christmas hats. But it reminded me that I should be getting mine out.

I had one of those moments today. You know what I mean. A moment when you meet the gaze of a stranger, and something just clicks. You know there’s a connection but you don’t know why, and you’re sure as anything that they know it too. Then the moment is lost, and life goes on. The strangest part of all is the feeling that the stranger you touched came very close to being an important part of your life, but there’s no clue how or why. It’s like a glimpse through the looking glass at the life fate could have given you.

It’s like that James Blunt song. Probably says it better than I never could.

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Fucking high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

Of all the times I’ve connected with the one I’ve never met, only once did I make something real of it. Okay, so she asked for my phone number. And wrote me a letter. Still, in the end I managed to screw it up in a way that shouldn’t have been possible, and we just drifted apart as I stood by and watched it happen.

There was so little I understood back then. It could have been easy to ride off into the sunset at the happy ending, but instead I blew it completely. Then again, we can never know for sure how things might have turned out, victims of circumstance that we are; it could have been better but it also could have been worse. Though I seriously doubt it. Maybe someday I’ll reveal more about one of the biggest chances I ever let slip through my fingers.

At the Pyramid game store today, I watched a boy flip right part Resident Evil, the entire Prince of Persia series, Brothers in Arms, Call of Duty and Navy Seals to purchase a copy of 50 Cent: Bulletproof. For some reason I could see it coming as soon as he hit the page, possibly before the notion even entered his head. Warning bells erupted like fireworks in my head as a silent scream issued from the part of my mind that was closest to sanity. I genuinely wanted to tell him not to buy the game, but for some reason I didn’t. Maybe I knew deep down that it wasn’t worth the effort, or that he was the kind of kid who wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about my opinion and get it anyway. Or something.

As long as we’re on the topic of games: Resident Evil 4. The game looks brilliant, and definitely has enough it to keep me on the edge of my seat. I haven’t got the hang of the controls yet, so far all I can do in combat is stab blindly at the sky and shoot the feet of villagers until they get close enough to eat my brains. Still, there’s something about a man who stoically refuses to move any faster than a crippled turtle even in the face of dynamite-wielding zombies that’s simultaneously mortifying and fascinating. At the same time.

Hallucinogen Extrapolation

Here's some news: initially I was planning to call this place Hallucinogen Extrapolation! The only site on the whole internet with that name but Hallucinogen Extrapolation doesn't really mean anything. At the time I even wrote a paragraph on it.

Some of you might venture to ask what Hallucinogen Extrapolation means. Is it a name of some cult from a book? An indie rock band from the future? A badly translated remake of an obscure Japanese side-scroller featuring the adventures of Peter Porker, the spectacular Spider-Ham? No, Hallucinogen Extrapolation is, in its own way, so much more than all of those things, so very much more grand, to the point where you can actually hear a kind of theme song in your ears when you say the words, and epic in every sense. What Hallucinogen Extrapolation - I'll tell you tomorrow. For now, what I can tell you is that it is definitely not an extragalactic force of psychic space police.


...right. When I think about it, Skull Pandamonium is only slightly better, but it does mean a lot more to me than Hallucinogen Extrapolation.

So this probably means conclusions drawn under the influence of pot. Pandamonium, on the other hand...


...doesn't seem to be a word at all. Meh, whatever.

Obligatory Formality

At the urging of those who said I should, and in defiance of those who didn't, I have created a blog.

So this, right here is my first post. It is also the first day of the new year. To commemorate this occasion of dubious significance, you might expect a celebration of some sort, an inspiring mission statement of my broader objectives, or at least a few words. Well, no. That is, there will be no instances of merrymaking, nor will there be commandments, but of words, there will be plenty.

This whole New Year deal, are you supposed to somehow know when it happens? I actually feel slightly different, but it's not like anything special has happened. Sure, today was a busy day, what else is new?

Last night's celebration was hardly exceptional. No fireworks, no computers, no close friends. Just a scooter, and some wine mixed with coke, and disguised as such. I got a few leftover Christmas presents, they seem to be getting worse as I grow older. This year, I got a stationary set, a pen, a pair of shirts, and a book. I am devoutly thankful that I get to pick out some of my own presents.

Okay, I was lying earlier. Something special did happen today. I'll tell you about that some other time.

Sugar, you made my day. Heh.

Anyway, this morning I finally had the dream I was waiting for. As usual, I could tell where most of the parts were coming from. For example,

• a long overdue gathering,
• my cousin's hair (dyed candy yellow at the fringe),
• a few words in a conversation about how an old friend was getting taller,
• a few words in a conversation about how an old friend still looked the same,
• getting jumped in the mall by a boy screaming profanities,
• all my friends from Outward Bound,
• a discussion about stalkers,
• a life-sized Monopoly set, and
• dinosaurs

could only lead to one thing. A mad gathering in a college setting of everyone I ever met in my life. Of course, the dream changed some of them in strange ways. There was a friend who had a clone of himself from 2002, a friend who had grown to the point of pretty much requiring his own area code, and another with hair dyed candy yellow at the fringe. Of course, there was a lot more to that dream, but it's always difficult to remember details. I know how it ended, though. A chase by dinosaurs, through a roundabout desert setting where we had to roll dice to move. And of course, her.

She was the whole reason why this particular dream was the one I had been waiting for. Every other time I met someone in a setting far from reality it was always great, but it was never her. But not this time. I'm going to explain all of this one day, I promise. For now, all I can say is that with the start of school just a day away, things are going to pick up real quick.

This is Skull Pandamonium.