No stop signs, speed limits...

You know those awefully slow trucks driving on the road.

You look to the side mirrors, see the coast is clear.

You change lanes, step on the pedal.

You feel the car slowly accelerating.

And just when you wonder whats wrong with the engine

Theres the unmistakeable shift in gears.

And you feel surge POWWERRRR

And easily overtake that slow trucker.

Awesome shit

Nobody wants him

They just turn their heads

Nobody helps him

Now he has his revenge

And so, I spent my christmas in that kinda way, sitting in the car for 30 minutes waiting for a parking spot listening to Ozzy Osbourne singing Iron Man. Definately very unchristmasish.

Well as far as Im concerned, I spent my christmas day doing things in a very..... odd way.

I got up in the morning to find that an old friend and his family were in my living room, had a good chat with them.

Rushed off for dim sum with my dad's old colleague and his family. And to make things special, that friend and his family are Malay / Muslim. So yea, dim sum was halal. And frankly speaking it didnt taste too bad, though its very obvious when they substituted pork with chicken.

Went off to their house after lunch for more talking. I had a good time telling stories :).

Drove back home while my dad sat in the passenger seat. Thankfully my mum didnt scream or anything while I drove.

Now about driving. As you might know, so far I've only driven 2 kancils, and 1 Lexus ( RX300 model). So today I managed to get behind the wheel of my dads merc E240. The reason why he allowed me to? Because he's collecting his new car, hence this car has been classed as expendable. Frankly, I found it slightly harder to control, I'm not sure if its the individual cars attributes, or Merc Benz cars are just like that. Heres somethings I noticed that differed quite alot from the Lexus.

1. The signalling thing was on the left as opposed to the Lexus' right. Everytime I wanted to change lanes, my right index finger would be flicking away only to remember that the bar is on the left. Felt awkward changing to the left.

2. The accelerator felt harder, much harder then the Lexus. In fact, I cant even press it down smoothly. It felt like I was grinding metal on metal, like some lubrication would be greatly needed. ( I personally suspect that it may be the fact that I was pressing on the accelerator with only the tip of my foot, since I kept my heel close to the brake, ensure I could brake properly should the time come ).

3. Braking felt slightly unresponsive at first, but it brakes more quickly.

4. Not stepping on the accelerator gave a more obvious loss in speed.

5. Steering wheel felt more comfortable :\ .

6. Side view mirrors gave me a better idea of distance. My mums Lexus has somewhat curved side mirrors, meaning you get a better view angle, but the distance is abit off.

7. Merc is much more enjoyable when driving on highway, its sturdy and good.

8. Gear change in Merc is very obvious when putting the pedal to the metal. I like :)

Overall, dads car was what they described, "heavier".

Personally I like mums car for travelling around in the suburbs and all. But dads car is nicer if I was driving on the highway.

Now I wait for tomorrow, where my dad gets his christmas gift.

Hint : AMG, 2.9l . And I get to drive it to Penang.

And probably to KLIA to send myself off.

** And for the uninterested few, I abused the fact that christmas has become a time of commercialisation instead of religion by buying a discounted ( everythings discounted anyway) suit. Now all I need is a vest to replace the crappy one they provided...

And I might even raise a little sand... yeah..

You know, from now on. I shall be giving my blog topics a title coming from a song. Preferably a rock song. Preferably something that has endured the test of time.

But then again, I can feel myself going against my own words.

So anyway, I've been driving a fair bit of late. Not as much as last year, but I've been tackling different roads, and finally been given the freedom to drive at higher speeds without my mum screaming

mainly cause I'm not driving on the little roads anymore.

Seeing how I should be going back to Penang over the long weekend, and my dads new car should arrive sometime midweek, you can easily guess that both of us are more then happy to give it a spin.

Then again, its the holiday season + long holiday = traffic, so I can swipe away any dreams of testing the car's pickup.

A shame.......

eitherway if some dick decides to drive in a manner that involves the new car getting scratch, I'm going to be fucking pissed.




I do hope for good empty stretches of road :)

At the same time here, I would like to give credit to Mr Yap SL ( :D) for giving me a ride in his dad's BMW. Sweet hot car with an impressive interior, and definately a good ride.

Cons? well, dont speed at 140kph when the limits 80kph you nut.
Otherwise it was fun.

Stairway to Pain

I got lazy while typing stuff out.
Brb :)

Im feeling all dizzy, and its not because I smoked pot...

Well ok, I never did smoke pot.

But I'm feeling a tad dizzy/sick now.

Probably will get sick if I sleep late tonight.

On the brightside, I've just been notified theres a paintball thingy being held by some friends. its gonna be this weekend and its gonna be sweet.

Why?
Because I get to dodge bullets, listen to them whiz past my head.

And I get to dish out some love.

This is what happens if you see me running towards you while you have your gun sighted on me.

I WILL SHOOT AT POINT BLANK.

*Sorry Victor :)

Yawn.

Heres what I did today.
Attended the PC Fair today.

Picked up a 360GB Seagate External HD for RM255
Picked up a laptop fan (now I havent pushed my laptop to more extreme parts, but after a whole nights use, the laptop feels lukewarm, not blazing hot. Maybe the fan does actually work!)
Picked up a new set of headphones.

And along typing this I forgot what else I wanted to say. However in order to meet my quota....

I miss Melbournes tap water. As most of you know, Melbourne's tap water is drinkable. I could just take a cup, put it under the tap and drink the water right from the tap and I'll be perfectly fine.

Unlike back here where not installing filters in your house is considered suicide. So yea, just to get a stupid cup of water involves me walking all the way to the kitchen. What a lazy slob I am.

*because my headache compels me to go to bed, I shall. Good night.

And happy birthday Warren. I know you never come here because you dont know it exists, but the hell....

Blisters

Since I mentioned it right before, I'll like to continue abit more on it, seeing how I havent blogged about kendo for ages.

Now right.
For some odd reason, I decided to use my bokuto instead of shinai for suburi yesterday.
These are the reasons I can think of that fit the criteria for "excuse".

1. I wanted to use something with a proper cutting edge / hasuji (I think thats the term). So instead of cutting with a shinai, I wanted to use the bokuto to see if my dou, sayumen cuts were actually cutting in a straight line down, instead of some deviation where the cut doesnt quite go through cleanly.

2. I thought the bokuto might be heavier, and thus something better to build endurance.

3. I wanted to try something different.

4. I wanted to use an oval grip, instead of the round grip the shinais provide. Needless to say, the oval grip proved much much more snug then I last remembered when I borrowed someones oval hilt (kobangata) shinai.



And heres what I noticed :

1. Cuts felt very different. I can only think of 2 reaons.
--the length of the bokuto is very different from the shinai, hence as I cut and tenouchi, there is less force being carried by the tip of the shinai. Think of Moments of Force being r x F with r being radius multipled by force.

Thus, you can see that the moment felt at the end of the object would be greater if radius was increased.
So yes, in a sense, it actually felt LIGHTER making cuts with the bokuto. But was that all the case? Well... Im not sure really......
but I think over time my arms got tired from the actual weight of the thing.........

---Or I was just merely being very tensed after being away from kendo for so long.

2. Hasuji thing was a good thing to experiment with. I felt that my sayumen had more "accuracy" to it. As in I now actually know where and what I'm cutting. Hopefully this would translate into better kirikaeshi.

3. I got a shitload of blisters.

Well, actually I got blisters at places where they should occur, thats ok. BUT, I also gained 2 blisters on my right hand, on the fingers. Which isnt right, because my grip dictates that that should NEVER happen.

So whats wrong?
I noticed after 200 or so suburis, my hands get really sweaty. Tricky thing with the bokuto was, since its just made out of wood, the hilt is pretty much water resistant. Unlike the leather tsuka of the shinai which is somewhat rough, and presumably absorbs water/sweat/blood, the tsuka of the bokuto absolutely fails to do the above. This means that after a period, I find my grip becoming slightly slippery. I suppose at this point my grip goes wrong, and I end up with blisters that shouldnt have occured.


Conclusion : I did that yesterday, I got tired. I noticed that I was really out of shape, and gotten fatter :( .
What really made me abit uncomfortable was at one point my legs started getting tired. Heck, I'm seriously out of shape !! I could pull off something like this during any point of the semester this year, and now when I'm bloody free, I bloody find myself being bloody pathetic. :\

didnt get to do more suburi today since I wasnt at home for the whole day.



** Oh, and FYI, I've been taking up my shinai and bokuto to bed .... well I leave it by the bedside. Of late the security around my place has gone from bad to worse, crime has gone up and the community decided its time to put up checkpoints and all.
If my house were to be broken in, fat chance I'll let someone beat me up with my own shinai.
Anyway, its nice taking it down each morning with the Imperial March song in my head as I head outside to do a lousy job of suburi ( well, only a few, usually under 100)


Aim : Do a thousand without stop by 2 weeks time.
Then again I shouldnt be finding excuses.

Summer

Truth be told, I'll be pretty sad when I leave for Melb on the 2nd of Jan

seeing how I've got so many people I cant get to meet.

I'm very sorry I had to axe some things, but then...

perhaps some people mean more to me.
perhaps time wasnt very on our side.
or perhaps I just didnt want to see you for some reason.

Then again.... I think I made up the latter.

But yea, its shit sad how I only get to meet up with certain people like once, and not a dozen times.
But hey, I dont want to get bored of your company!
I want to leave it there, so when I come back next year, its gonna be fcking epic.

So yea ....

much love all!
Sorry I couldnt come for the trip :(
Sorry Ben, sorry s5

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going shopping later for PC parts.

I think I've definately shopped alot more this year, then all my previous years combined
*make that shopped during this holidays alone.

**On the sober side note, I decided to pick up my bokken and do 500 suburi after a long lapse of not doing any kendo at all, apart from the occasional fumikomi + shinai-less men cut. Lets just say I've got blisters on the magnitude I havent seen since my beginners course. Must be loosing my touch on grip.

I only passed ESD2

:(

I truly cry my hearts out.
2008 2 316101 Introductory Macroeconomics H2A
2008 2 610102 Chemistry 2 H2A
2008 2 620155 Calculus 2 H1
2008 2 800002 Engineering Systems Design 2 P (61)


oh well at least I clinched a H1... barely clinched it.

So question is, " the bottle of beer that I drunk an hour ago. Was it for celebration, or for mourning?"

You know you're in shit when....

You realise you totally neglected bringing back anything remotely formal to wear.

:(

How do I now attend functions!

Doublespeak

I like participating in thoughtcrime.
It is doubleplus good.

By saying that 2+2 =5
I am saying that I eagerly follow Big Brother unopposed.

All of these makes no sense.
That doesnt matter, newspeak doesnt anyway.

Oh how I missed 1984 and its funny words :)

I need a sniffer dog

I've checked out pretty much every major bookstore around the area, and I couldnt find a single store that stocked The Bottom Billion.

This is ridiculous!
Looks like I'll have to order it myself.

*In the hunt for a single copy of the above, I've gotten 6 other books under the excuse of collateral damage / fulfilling the budgets needs.

So yes, unlike some peeps who have to work/ internship (in which I would very much like to do myself), I shall spend my time reading.

Well at least its been raining last night and this morning and I've finished my 2nd book already. Time to tackle Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy. Its a tad thicker then most books I've been reading of late so this shall be interesting.


**Have yet to find a book that drew me in

ASL

Despite what you might think

its actually BLOODEH FUN!

seriously....

Oh and Im refering to sign language, not Age/Sex/Location


W :O W

Over the past 2 weeks I've had

-1 xray
-1 MRI
-1 ass ultrasound
-a bunch of medical consultations
-hours of waiting at the hospital
-2 eye examinations
-1 retinal examination
-1 pupil distilation for retinal examination which falls under 1 eye examination
-1 dental examination
-and avoided getting my wisdom tooth plucked out.


Over the past 10 days actually.
Medical students, you will make money off people like me in the future!

Culture differences? Or ........

have all the 1-[4-ethoxy-3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methyl-7-oxo-3-propyl-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-dpyrimidin-5-yl)phenylsulfonyl]-4-methylpiperazine citrate chemicals in the lab air affect my fellow peers sexual urges.

Long story cut short.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/12/05/1228257304915.html

Needless to say, as I was preparing myself for a cheap-man's round of L4D (Left for Dead), my dad came rushing into my room clutching the newspaper. TheStar also reported this research, however, their article noticably lacked alot of the data and statistics provided by the Australian papers.

My scientificness is most unamused by the lack of data!

But somehow I do somewhat snigger and agree with the whole experiment, assignments, and library time line.
Or maybe its just a case of my personal time management.
Maybe I shouldnt be giggling over tossing mates out of containers over some online game and go clubbing instead.

Or perhaps Im much much more satisfied sitting down and starting my attempt to finish my copy of Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy.

* This article would probably make me as uncool as I already am.
** I dont know why, but my dad seems reaally worried about me being a science student now.

*** Oh and did I tell you guys about the time the doctor asked me if I wanted to get my sperm sampled and quality tested? No? Next time then

You know something's wrong when.....

you catch yourself watching the same video over and over for say....the 8th time?



In the time it took me to write this, I've heard the song for the 12th time.

Arg :(

Bass

Music doesnt sound the same with sub woofers.
Then again if I were to really want to experience the true effects, I would have to bend under cramp myself under my desk to feel the vibrations.


Now I'm just using my ol laptops speakers who do a pretty horrible job :(

Direction

Cool I've found a new hole to dig. More music to explore.
Hello Blue Oyster Cult :)