No One To Blame But Yourself
Now Playing: Speaks are off. Housemate is using the washing machine which craps out my speakers.
I used to think that people who do bad things would always get away with it and live the good life, making other people miserable. I used to think that these people will always get what they want eventhough they do not deserve it.

I cannot remember if I have blogged it before but please forgive me if I seem to repeat myself. Back in high school I started going out with a girl and it all seem to go along, running its course and all. When my then best friend, Simon started his acts. He tried to break us apart and succeeded. He started off saying things to me like she was not attractive and alot of other bad things about her which I did not care about. I guess failing this, he then went on to her and told her things about me that may or may not have been true. They started going out behind my back but I already knew something was up. I decided to get them both to confess to me about it. Surely enough they did. Being the person I was, I just let things happen the way they were. I had no ill will on both of them for I thought to myself, if she left me for him, he probably was better of a boyfriend than I was. As time went by, their relationship went rough and as a caring friend I tried to help their relatioship whenever either of them talked to me about their problems. In this period of time I was able to see both of their true colors which made me feel glad that it happened the way it did for if Simon did not take her from me, I might have had to put up with what he went through with her. So in a way he screwed himself over. Later on one time, I do not know if it was to try to get to me, he told me he had sex with her. I was disappointed with what they did but hey it was not really any of my business anymore. What really made me upset was that knowing that he was cheating behind her back not with just one girl, but a few girls, one after another. Now this was none of my business at all so I left it at that. You would think a person who cheats behind his girl's back would try to keep a low profile of his activities so that no one will know. Well he was having a good time doing it in front of all our high school mates. One way or another it eventually got to her and she dumped him. As ironic as it was, he, Simon, was not hestitant to blame me for the whole incident. He blamed me for breaking them up, for telling her about him cheating on her. Right, so a person who had no grudges and the desire to help them out did all that? *Sigh* I would have love to receive credit for that, but I did not do anything.

I guess a person who has too much pride, who cannot accept his ego being shattered would always have to blame someone else. Preferably someone who would not retaliate, someone who he thought was weak. I guess that was me. I decided to confront him a long while after that whole incident wanting to discuss it and clear his accusations he had of me. So he agreed with stipulations of "no men, no weapons". I wondered what was that all about, but yeah I agreed. On the day of the meeting, guess what? He showed up with 3 of his friends waiting in the car and he was showing off his swiss army knife. I guess he was trying to intimidate me but it did not work. So he brought all his accusations out and I cleared all of them without effort because believe it or not, I was in fact innocent. When he could not find anymore things to accuse me with, one of his friends came out of the car and started to talk big with me claiming that they are members of a triad and to not mess with them. I really applaud their performance. However I have been studying human reactions and behaviours since I realized my existence and I did not buy their act. Neither of them could even look me in the eye when talking to me. So with a failed attempt, he left threatening me not to mess with him.

Of course this time around I did not leave it at that for I was really angry that he had the guts to arrange a meeting when breaking his own rules. I called up a few friends of my own who could have fixed him up for a price. Just incase he tried to mess with me again. He never did though. I heard from our friends that he was talking big about threatening me and all that.

* * * * *

Recently I heard from one of my best friends from high school that he was no longer friends with Simon as well. Apparently two years back while my friend was in Form 6, he met a girl and he liked the girl and wanted to ask her out. Sure enough Simon found out about this and also did the same thing he did to me; he told the girl nasty things about my friend which led to her rejecting him. Only a few days ago somehow my friend managed to clear things up with the girl and found about what Simon did. The good news is that my friend and the girl are finally together. The even better news according to my friend is that Simon's true colors have finally been noticed by the rest of our high school mates and apparently they are boycotting him. I do not know how much of these are true but I doubt that it was all made up.

I have always said that if he will not change his behaviour, he will lose more than just friends.

Ego and pride is a very dangerous thing to play with.
A good friendship takes a long while to be built and it built well, it will last a lifetime. However it is also very easy to be destroyed by treacherous acts. We should value our friends and treat them like real people. We should treat them how we would wish to be treated. In fact we should treat anyone the same way we would wish anyone to treat us.

We have nobody to blame for our failures but our ownselves. We make our own decisions. We control our own bodies.

A person who blame others is not strong enough to admit his own mistakes.

I'll watch you fall and laugh at you as you writhe in pain.
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Howie Day - She Says
I made porridge today. I am so proud of myself. Of course I had to call my dad and asked him the proper methods so that I would not screw up. It is surprising how I could usually manage to finish a cup of rice, steamed. However when it is made into porridge it seems that it can feed 3 or 4 people. Basically I made too much for myself. Hopefully my other housemates will help finish it.

* * * * *

In other news, once again my human imperfection caused me to actually care about people that would never ever give a rip about it or even want to heed my advise which would have been able to help them greatly in their situation. Even if they thought they knew best for themselves they could have at least say "Thank you for your concerns, however I think that I know better as to how to handle my situation". All I get is being shut off. My natural human reaction would be to beat the crap out of these kind of people for their ungrateful behaviour not to mention rude. However because of the fact that I am a christian, I not only have to restrain myself from doing such things, I have to not be angry and also forgive them.

I tell you the truth. I will be very entertained to see what happens to them.

These are the people whom I will feel even better walking past them when they are on the floor reaching out to anyone to help them up.

See Noel Run
Now Playing: Gunther - The Ding Dong Song
So today I went to university, with great confidence as I had finished my assignment and had everything sorted out. I was the first to present because there were not many of the students that arrived on time.

After the second guy presented his work, he submitted his dvd (which I had done as well) and also a 'data disc' supposedly containing all the resources that was used to create the assignment. That had totally slipped my mind. So I ran out of the classroom, waited for a long while for the next train back to my place, quickly burnt all the data and stuff that was used for the assignment and was worried I would not be able to make it back on time because of the train's "speed". Thankfully my housemate was on his way out and I hitched a ride with him. He has a car see?

So yeah I managed to submit my data disc just right before they collected all the assignments and took off with them.

Homesick?
Now Playing: Big Japan - Rise And Fall of Bill
People wonder why I do not get homesick. They also are quite astonished in a bad way that I do not miss my parents. Well the truth is because growing up, I never really were close to either of them. They were always so involved with their own lives, their jobs and their friends that I pretty much grew up alone. They of course would provide all the necessities however there was never much communication in the house.

To reinforce this, today I called home to just have a chat with my mom about what has been happening with my life. She did not sound interested or even focused at what I was saying, as usual. She was trying to do some work on her computer while I was calling from a different country on the phone.

Usually when my sister calls up, my mom would stop whatever she would be doing and pay attention to her. I tend to always get these kinds of treatment. Well at least the bright side of things is that I am not attached to my parents.

What I do miss though about home is the food and my friends. How can the world go on without knowing the delicious food that Malaysia has to offer? How can they not know and love the nasi lemak, roti canai and char kuay teow?

Oh by the way, I have created a team blogging website along with some of my friends where we can post our opinions and reviews about many various things since we all have different interests and all, I figured we could cover more areas of interest which would then attract a larger range of readers.

Click here to go check it out.

Freaky Dream
Now Playing: Tal Bachman - Aeroplane
Last night I had this really weird dream. I do not know if it was scary or just peculiar.

I dreamt that the bottom half of my set of teeth all came out. It started with one, being loose. I easily pulled it out without feeling any pain however the feeling like when you scratch your nails on a blackboard kicked in. Then slowly one by one all of my bottom teeth became loose and I kept pulling them out one by one, again without pain. My body was telling me to freak out but somehow I just did not. Well that is all I could really remember about the dream.

Girlfriend!? Pssh...
Now Playing: Youth Group - Forever Young
If there is one thing I cannot stand about people's girlfriends, it is how annoying they can get. My friend's (and housemate) girlfriend had been ringing the our house's landline like few times a day, EVERYDAY until recently when they made up. From what I saw, my friend was avoiding his girlfriend. I do not know why, it is really none of my business. Yesterday, all of a sudden she was knocking on my door. I do not know how on earth she got in the house hence I did not expect to open my room door to see her. She straight out asked me if I saw my friend that entire day or if he came home. All I said was I was in _my_ own room the entire day and would not have known if he was around. I really felt like telling her off. These series of events were not the only annoying thing she has ever done. She is very loud in most things she does. I can often hear her making whiny noises like a spoilt little girl would make when she wanted something she could not have. She also walks around the apartment dragging her feet and stomping on stairs, which is pretty much audible from the whole apartment even with my door closed. She also likes to close doors rather hard. She is a girl. I assume that girls would be gentler and more graceful in things that they do. About the walking heavily on stairs, I'll be honest. She's not slim, however I would think I am way fatter and/or heavier than her but yet I still manage to walk around the house and on the stairs rather silently.

Guys, make sure the girl you go after are mature to a certain level. You might think that a girl acting all cute and immature might be enjoyable at the courting stage but believe me, its there to stay and you will be stuck with it.

* * * * *

Speaking of girl issues, a person from the past emerged again. She was somebody I did not really like for many level of reasons. She messaged me stating that it has been a long while since we communicated. I retorted by wondering why. She then suggested that we put our past behind us. I replied with 'ok'. That is exactly what I did.

I do not know if I can be labelled as a bitter person. The thing is, these people that I do not like to associate with, have this impression that I am angry with them like I hold a grudge or a spiteful feeling towards them. In truth I just do not want to know them or be known to deal with them not because I am angry/grudging/spiteful. It is because I just do not see any point interacting with these people that are of no significance to me. It is just like when a guy goes into a lavatory. He sees one guy at one end of a row of urinals. So he goes to the opposite far end of that row of urinals. He does not do it because he hates the guy who is already there. He does it because it is only natural that we would appreciate our own space.

You know what I hate though? People who want to make amends with me when I sense there are ulterior motives behind it. The motive I really hate the most is so that person can have less enemies. Less people that do not hate them. They will come up to me and go like "hey, lets forget what happened between us". Oh but I have, in fact I did better! I had forgotten all about you! Until you showed up. You know what is worse than that? People who want you to not hate them, so they can feel better about themselves especially if they use religion as their excuse. They want you to forgive them, in hopes their god would be pleased with them. Now I am not saying that it is a bad thing. However they way they ask is like asking people to sign autographs on their book, the more they autographs they get, the more popular they will be. They do not really care or give any thoughts to the people who sign it. All they know is the more they get, the more they will look impressive. This is exactly how those people that try to make amends with people that hate them are to me. They do not really care about what they did to me, nor what I feel. They just want me to forgive them and not hate them so they can feel holier about themselves.

If any of you reading this are like what I wrote, do yourself a favor and not consider me your 'friend' anymore. I take the meaning of a friend very seriously. If you say you have many friends, like friends whom some people have tens of thousands in places like friendster.com, I would like to see if those people actually be there for you when you are in deep trouble.

Good Thinking?
Well... I just read an article on The Star newspaper website about TM Nut (laugh?) having some promotional event trying to get _more_ yes thats right, I said MORE people to sign up for broadband by showing them all the wonders you could do with fast internet connection. They said they were going to use music as one of their methods of persuasion.

Seriously? There are actually people in Malaysia who have not already heard or read a bit about broadband capabilities? Not even parents from their kids?

Well what I am really agitated by this is that it is not as though we do not have enough people using TM Nut's broadband, clogging up with their hardcore downloading, but to bring more of these people in? Come on! Fix the problems of clogged up bandwidth first, THEN think about getting more people. Like getting a bigger ship before bringing in more passengers?

The article also stated that there are currently approximately 500,000 broadband suscribers in Malaysia. I can guarantee you most the users from these subscription would be the younger generation. I think that more ISP companies should exist in order to have competition in order to make these competitors strive to be the best. Malaysians have been introduced broadband; Streamyx and so far it is the only Internet Service Provider that gives really reasonable prices making them the only realistic option for average home users thus somewhat having no real competitors. When Streamyx goes down, due to some technical issues, most of us would be screwed. I'm not surprised if some of these users would have withdrawal symptoms and go crazy without fast internet access.

Let us have more choices of good competitive ISPs please!

* * * * *

I was watching television over dinner last night, at around 12am. See my friend offered to buy back nasi lemak for me from near where he studies. I was in my room, wondering when the heck he would return home until around 12am, he knocked on my room door and ask me why I was not hungry yet. That guy came home and I did not even realize it. See that is one of the problems living in a double storey apartment. So I actually was in my room from evening till 12am thinking of when he would actually come back. So yeah I had my dinner at 12am and while eating I was watching the television. There was this old man playing his guitar bossanova style which really caught my attention, because I love bossanova and still dying, trying to learn how to master it. He performed quite well. His name is Earl Okin. I did some googling on him and found out that he took some modern day songs and turned them into bossanova style as well and they were quite entertaining although not properly fitted I must admit. However it was still great altogether.

FFS
Mood:  irritated
Words cannot even begin to describe the anger that I feel right now.

I just received an email from the subject convenor of one of my subjects; Media Theory, DVD & Compositing. Her name is Pippa Wischer. She has real short hair and for some strange reason her body is huge and out of proportion to her head. My friend said she looked like a dyke. Well a little history first to explain why I am angry after reading the email I received.

During my presentations for Multimedia Project 1 and 2, she was one of the examiners. Both these times, she only had bad things to say about our work. In the first presentation, she said that the logo on the website (which we were working on) was ugly. What she did not know was that the logo was our client's logo and not ours and that we were not asked to change the logo in anyway. The second presentation she said that my design for the website, which basically was chrome-like, like those expensive hi-fi sets were more suited for men aged 40 and above. The website we were working on was for a radio club. Excuse me but my team members were the ones who did our research and based on the research this was what we came up with. Had I known that our hard work of research did not mean shit compared ot what she had to say on the day of presentation, I would have gone right up to her and asked her what she would like.

I failed a subject which she was incharge of last semester as well. It was called Interactive Multimedia. It was one of the many 'first ever' subjects to be unleashed upon us unknowing students. The reason why it sounds bad was because the system they had for 'teaching' us was horrible. There was a time during that semester I emailed her asking her about my marks and what they meant, because there was not any details. The reply I got from her was stupid and also somewhat rude/arrogant. I was asking if my marks that I had meant that I passed or failed. Her reply was something in the lines of "you got X marks, means you got X marks."

I've read her replies to other students on the forums and to me, she was not really nice. She had some attitude in all her replies. She also is not very clear or specific when she says things which causes alot of students to ask more questions. To her we're retarded or something. I don't know.

So anyway, since I failed the subject last semester, I had to retake it but since that subject is only offered every second half of each year, I had to take some other subject of equal value which in this case is Media Theory, DVD & Compositing. Guess what!? She's the convenor of it too! It is also a 'first ever' subject! Why do they keep having all these new subjects I will never know.

So anyways about this email, it was a feedback for my storyboard, shotlist and script. We're suppose to create a short film and had to submit those three, along with our raw footage. I assumed that we had to submit the raw footage in because they wanted to see what we were doing. However, through the feedback I got, obviously she did not go through my raw footage and her judging was based purely on my documents.

This is what she wrote

"Script – not in proper format.

Shot list – in scene order, not shooting order. Could be reorganized into a more useable grid. Information is good though.

Storyboard – why didn’t you use the templates from week 2? It would be much easier to see what is happening in your storyboards if you had. The drawings are very poor and need to be much more careful and contain much more detail. The written explanation of things more difficult to show graphically should be underneath the drawings of each of the frames, so the explanation works with the graphic interpretation of the shot. Action within the frame, camera movement, lighting, etc. should be shown graphically within each shot/frame. And definitely not enough shots to tell the story well. All are midshots or wide angles, which keep the audience at a distance. Did you want the audience to engage with the character or not? Why are you shooting so far away from the action of the scene?

Story – cyclic stories can be a good way of intriguing your audience. However, while the basic hook is good, the audience will want to know more about it. There is no character development here, and as such, the audience isn’t likely to care if the character is committing suicide every 5 minutes. So let your audience into the character, and the cycle of life/death will be much more scary and involving.

You could set this up a number of ways; when he awakes, go through the confusion of waking up when he didn’t expect to. Have him read the letter which explains it, or do a flashback to show the reason for his despondency. You need to let the audience into the story somehow, and if it isn’t through the thoughts and actions of the main character, you have a problem."

5/8 for Script
2/10 for Storyboard
5/5 for Shotlist

She said my drawing was poor. I'm sorry that my drawing sucks. I do not deny that. So I guess people who cannot draw nicely to her liking will get low marks. I also guess that it is my fault for not being able to visualize the details in each frame exactly the way it would appear on screen. She commented heavily on the storyboard. Which now leads me to question why did she insist that we hand in our raw footage as well? It did not serve any purpose. I assumed it was to help her understand better what we were trying to do but I guess not. I may sound a defensive here but hey I believe I am entitled to justify myself and not let people step all over me like I have no self worth.

I hate design subjects, whatever you do, it will always be disliked by the one who assess your work. This happened to me in other subjects as well. I definitely do not want a career in what I have studied.

Word of advice, do not ever go to Swinburne University of Technology, and study any Multimedia related subjects.

Easter Sunday
Well... its 25 minutes past midnight so I guess it's post-easter Sunday.

I just came from the television room, which also is the dining room. I put the television room where we can watch it from the dining table.

So anyways, I was watching Passion of the Christ. They aired it on public television here! Isn't that great!? There were no censored parts and also no commercials. Which was kind of a problem because I had to make a trip to the bathroom at one point.

I have not watched this movie before because admittedly I was afraid to watch it especially after hearing news of some lady who had a heart attack while watching the film and of people who were so emotional watching the film, like crying and stuff. Yeah well today I finally faced my fears and sat down and actually watched it. It was rather gory for my taste. Note, violent is something different. Bugs Bunny cartoons are violent. This is gory, where details caused by violent acts are clearly visible which cause feelings of disgust. Surprisingly it is not the worst I have seen and well although I did winced when the main actor got tortured. You know like how all males feel the psychological pain when they see a fellow brother get hit where the sun don't shine? I don't know... To me it was just another movie. I am not trying to belittle the story, just the movie. I acknowledge that what happened in the movie are similar to what happened in the Bible but it does not mean that I have to cry and/or dwell in what happened over two thousand years ago. If its anything it reminded me of the the price that was paid for all of us and our sins which I am forever grateful.

Good Friday 2006!
Now Playing: Petra Haden & Bill Friselll - Yellow
Well its Good Friday again and it rains again!
I do not know about other parts of the world, but in my entire life's experience, it always rains on Good Friday. My mom told me that when Jesus died on the cross, it rained as well. Well so far in Malaysia and in Australia, it has been raining every Good Friday. So... I don't know.

I'm on holiday but then I have an assignment to do; editing the video I recorded. I do not wish to go into details about it as I am certain no matter what I do, the subject convenor will never be pleased. It has happened before with other subjects.

I have been playing an online game called Lineage 2. Some of you would know that is quite an old game. However I have long been trying to play on a private server and it had not been achieved until recently.
I decided to go with a fake identity; pretending to be a girl in game in hopes that I could get guys to buy me stuff. Hey it worked. Alot! Until...

I met this girl in game. At first impressions she was this nice person who was so generous and kind and just fun to be with. The more I spent time with her in game the more I was attracted to her personality. One fine day, she showed her pictures which was what launched everything off. I had some feelings for her.

Two days ago I could not take it anymore. I could not go on any longer with this fake identity being dishonest to her. So I told her the truth of who I was and all. I had a pretty good feeling she would have gone mad over this and never would have spoken to me again but hey it was totally the opposite of what I anticipated and deserved. She was all cool about it and even wanted to get to know the real me. Ironically we became even better friends.

Today she suggested that I should write a song about her. Which I did. It tooke me around half an hour to come up with the song. I admit not much time was put into it but I don't know. I did it anyway. Although not one of my proudest efforts, she said that she liked it which made me happy.

She has a boyfriend though, which kind of makes things a whole lot difficult for me. As if living on the other side of Earth was not bad enough for me. I do not want to give up though. I'll just take a number and get in line I guess.

See lyrics for Mr. Big - To Be With You. Better yet, go listen to it if you can.