Human Like A House

At times like these I'm at my lowest ebb

Yes, Robert Hughes from 1980, then 2004 followed by John Berger from 1967 and lastly the Face of Boe - rumoured to be many eons old. I don't know how it occurred to me but somehow watching too much narratives by these people (other than Boe since it is really just a face) seemed to be the cause of bringing this up.

Having recently been awarded my driving license, I took my first solo trip across the atlantic this afternoon (it was really just going to school alone) and I returned unscathed (which explains yet another horrid post). Parking the car was horrible, often relying on chance empty lots upfront before moving to the intended rear one and taking near a galactic time day to get the car positioned right. At least no stamped metal were deformed in the process. Inspiring is an afternoon ride when traffic density is much lower and I have put together a road trips playlist just to suit the occasion with not too distracting music. Yes, I'm thinking of On Days Like These by Matt Monro. I suppose paddle shifting will do in place of a Miura...

Now I can confide in you
If I cry to set the mood oh please could you cry too

Happy New Year - Camera Obscura

The lyrics was meant for a somewhat cruel act I performed upon someone from the past. Like the song suggests - if I went on anymore, the threat of breakdown into a nervous wreck would be imminent. Yes, I really am softer than my face would suggest, or rather the face as a metaphor for outlook. Ghosts of the past should be left alone unless the situation demands a need to act otherwise.

Labels: Random Rubbish

"This is a page from my diary
The fifteenth day of November.

While I deal with the ever present paranoia of possibly that this entire online endeavor might be lost to failing SCSI drives and inadequate contingency back-up, fabulous sounding songs from my speakers which just broke in have summoned every single urge I have to have my collection of songs sheened in the glory of virtual algorithms. But no - it's troublesome and the law might catch up on me so you can only take my word for it regarding the beauty of these songs. It seems that the trip down to my place by Mr. Semi-Virtuoso wasn't quite the wasteful - an introduction of Volodos' various pieces of Horowitz's transcriptions puts the technical wizardry of contemporary pianists to shame.

As of writing and settling on the title, an apparent gust of ghostly wind blew by the side of what is left of my face - I raise my voice metaphorically asking the question, 'where the hell were you when I needed you?'

Yes, a literal pun was intended.

Friends, acquaintances and we sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year's Eve as though it is some sort of solace to misgivings and disappointments dealt out by people we know - acquaintances. What we know to be friends, like fairness, has been utterly skewed and distorted beyond actual truthfulness. Basically, this is how things generally work in the friend-acquaintance way. Acquaintances are people you meet, therefore it commonly carries a notion of utilities and provision. Friends belong to a somewhat elevated level of acquaintance in that an individual's presence has been taken into account during a person's planning or scheming of things i.e. invitation to a leisurely supper etc. and the activities schemed tend to fall under the category to those with networking traits, atypical of acquaintance activities like invitation to a company ball or a game of golf. In short - acquaintances are just passer-bys, idiots and bastards to the faint hearted who consistently get made use of, not more than stepping stones that can be as easily thrown away as they are hard to lift. The analogy of the stepping stone presents itself to be consistent - we don't bring acquaintances to places real and non-tangible close to our psychologically misplaced heart. Of course there are a variety of reasons why one might not be able to distinguish them, like the everyday pacifist or a clouded mind. To the former I propose a quick read of The Prince by Machiavelli, Leviathan by Hobbes for an understanding of how life is brutish and short and perhaps Darwin's On Natural Selection. The pacifist should then along with the deluded latter consider on paper how the friend-acquaintance populace have influenced their lives starting with basic needs for survival like food, water and shelter followed by more secondary survival instruments like jobs, qualifications, investments etc.

By then, you should be swimming in a pool of all clear. Might I recommend a quick listen of Oniyama's No Fiction by the right side (play with the arrows of the music box) as a reminder against delusion?

In other news, the BBC News Magazine has brought out a fine selection of how do online avatars partake in consummation and why the Kalashnikov is the preferred pirate weapon of choice. Seriously - online sex?

THE ANSWER
1. First characters need to buy genitals
2. They control their characters' movements using the keyboard and mouse
3. Male characters can get aroused and have intercourse with female ones, but graphic depictions are very rudimentary

Hmm, so the traditionally accepted most valuable 'item' of a person is virginity and it goes poof in an instant. Moral issues aside - do we really want to see Macs doing that to PCs? That was kinda fuzzy so I shall put it this way - it's like asking do I need a Donkey to put an Ass into? Doesn't make much sense eh? I thought so. I decided to bring that up due to a slyly surreal part from Persepolis (which I was reading today) about a girl from a 'good' family and a political prisoner - she gets the privilege to go into his cell and tells him, 'let's make a baby.' Maybe being born without genitals and having to buy them might not seem all that shrewd and silly - somehow it implicates an assumed financial capability to bring up a child.

The actual 'families' bit of this post wasn't related to blood ties but the Happy Families LP cover by Blancmange whose, Waves was previously featured in a couple of posts back. It seems oddly happy, reminding me of old card games like Donkey or Old Maid.

This is a page from my diary,
What happened that day I don't remember."

This post was really written last night, I just thought it would be nice to delay publication just to fit in with the lyrics of O Pamela by The Wake. Nouvelle Vague fans would immediately see how the missing page of the diary is related to waves.

I suppose idiosyncratic would be a more appropriate tag for posts like this coupled with the occasional randomness.

Labels: Random Rubbish

And today's Guardian Everyday Design Classic is the typeface, TImes New Roman, writes Jonathan Glancey:

Times New Roman is a rather puritanical typeface. It's easy to imagine its individual letters dressed in sober Cromwellian garb. Baskerville is a Cavalier among types while Perpetua, something of a young goddess. As far as any typeface can be, Times New Roman is timeless. It is the serif equivalent, perhaps of a modern sans-serif type like Helvetica: clean, clear, regular and precise – a highly usable and more than satisfactory working tool.

What we do we remember, what we see we forget - at least that is how the saying goes, therefore what of things we use? They either fade into part of the non-thetic consciousness or go down the drain of ignorance. Based on empirical data, achieving either of the above seems to be the epitome of everyday design.

Labels: Random Rubbish

Good minions are so hard to find these days. In light of the economic downturn, there should be a surge in quantity of wannabe employees out in the job market but the surge in quantity comes at a price of quality. It seem that Mafia bosses have head hunted them away long ago and literally too - the non-compliant get sold to be turned into shrunken heads somewhere in the deep Amazon rain-forests...

I requested a photo of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond in a single photo to fake a 'I was there' glory shot in this miserable little squat. Look what I got instead not a single guy but a Cardboard Clarkson. While my minion's identity had to be kept secret to secure further dealings as a freelanced in the black market, my selection of Guy Fawkes as a cover aptly strikes a chord with the failed blowing up the Houses of Parliament. Indeed I have my reservations about the true nature of his guilt and a couple of conspiracy theories of two, burning effigies of him just seem to translate to villainous hatred for incompetent wimps. The lack of a telephoto lense isn't quite an excuse in this shoot or get shot world.

On a lighter note, Cardboard Clarkson was really taken at the studio shoot of Top Gear. Yes, they're back - for real.

Labels: Random Rubbish

A line from the Tractatus Logicio-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, his only book-length writing completed when he was a soldier and POW during WWI (I'm so going to read this book during conscription). I was recommended The Oxford Murders (2008) by Dad after he caught it on a flight home. Highly recommended to any philosophy/mathematical logic buff. Originally a novel by Argentine mathematician and writer, Guillermo Martínez, revolves around a series of murders that follows a logical sequence left behind by the perpetrator. If you need one justification to watch it - the witty dialogue and academic idiosyncrasies that forms the basis of the story-line.


Martin: I believe in the number Pi ... The essence of nature is mathematical, there is a hidden meaning beneath reality. Things are organized following a model, a scheme a logical series. Even a tiny snowflake fits in a numerical basis in it structure. Therefore if we manage to discover the secret meaning of numbers, we will discover the the secret meaning of reality.


Dr. Seldom: The beauty and harmony of a snowflake - how sweet. A butterfly who flutters its wings and produces a hurricane in America. We've been hearing about that damn butterfly for a decade, but who has been able to predict a single hurricane? Nobody! Tell me something? Where is the beauty and harmony in cancer? What makes a cell suddenly decide to turn into a killer metastasis and destroy the rest of the cells in a healthy body. Does anybody know? No! Because we'd rather thing of snowflakes and butterflies. Pain? War? Why? Because we need to think that life has meaning - that everything is governed by logic and not by mere chance. If I write 2, then 4, then 6, then we feel good because know the next comes 8 - we can foresee it, we're not in the hands of destiny. Unfortunately however, this has nothing to do with truth. Don't you agree? This is only fear. Sad? There you go.

In yet another Britain related event, we have Camera Obscura's concert at the Esplanade Concert Hall this evening which I just returned from.


Despite the lossy and bad cellphone picture, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the change from slugging in front of a pair of '2.02' speakers to a live performance by one of my favorite bands. Too bad that in the world of digital media and refusal to be tied down by physical bulk in this land constrained state, I press forth for an autograph by the band. The sticks and shirts bearing a somewhat visually incoherent motif to the band's site puts me away even considering joining the hyena packed queue to get some stuff. The audience (I would really like to call it crowd) was somewhat rowdy and the stench of alcohol could be detected lingering in the air despite getting blown away once the amps got fired up. Overall, if you overlook what sounded like a badly placed subwoofer of a 2.1 system due to the nature of our seating it was a good show =) Though I have to say, Carey was kinda left out when there were no parts for her for quite some time. Why weren't the iconic xylophone in a blue plastic box played by her? I was happy that Super Trooper was played as this concert was almost a signal of closure for me - the orange-yellow glow of the lighting when the song was performed and what could be felt as twinkling stars in the night sky throughout the rest of the show brings to mind ABBA's Fernando cover. It was about the time when the happening started and took its toll that I began listening to the band's song.

Hopefully, trying harder finally means something as an underachiever all this time.

Update: Videos from the concert are available in Youtube graininess (as opposed to greatness). Highlights include If Look Could Kill when the audience went wild, new songs like French Navy and I Told A Lie and Carey's one minute of keyboard fame on Lloyd I'm Ready to be Heartbroken while Tracyanne slipped a little on the lyrics =)

Labels: Random Rubbish

Saturday Night Live fans - you might have enjoyed the bad rapping (0:50 onwards) but if you think that eskimos, moose shooting and hoods were a Palin directed attack, it just shows your lack of interest in affairs of the French world. Anyone familiar with comic genius Michael Youhn would put on a baraclava.

Labels: Random Rubbish

"A runny nose is the one true nemesis of a well-thought out study plan - and it makes you look stupid too."

The pseudo-flu symptom was yesterday's thing but just for keepsakes. Speaking of keepsakes, a recent switch flick on the TV remote brought back Hasselhoff from the past in the form of Baywatch, and yes those giant assets of Pamela Anderson that looked ever so ridiculous. Now that the wheels of fortunes have turned, Hasselhoff have in his company a couple of ridiculously crude yet humorous asset acts to judge in America's Got Talent. Perhaps not quite the Hawaiian sun but sunny afternoon re-runs of sun-kissed Californian tan brings to mind Sweet Valley High (the series into just screams of Cranberry goodness) and its latest reincarnation Gossip Girl - without the Sunnydale goodness of Buffy of course (there were a couple of werewolf-vampire incidents in SVU).

"Yeah, I have that same Sweet Valley High Book," said Mars as Devlin tries to convince her that a teacher seduced her (the character of Gossip Girl herself was voiced by Mars, Kirsten Bell). Sweet memories from the 80s huh? Does anyone ever noticed how well sculpted those bodies from Baywatch as compared to the botox laden hags of Desperate Housewives? High school hunks and It girls eh - I have an unspoken grudge against them but 50 years down the road when Lucian Freud portrait look-a-likes start turning up at gatherings it might have been wiser to start off life as an old miser growing young.

How nice to Wiki and Youtube stuff from the post just to find illuminated write-ups of things you didn't catch and/or understand when the world of before had a serious on the demand information database shortage. Now, who can remember that 90s series about this speedboat blistering with high-tech goodness like visual camouflage and transforming outer shell? No it wasn't Viper, that was about a car and it was a Knight Rider ripoff.

You start with Hoff, you end with Hoff on a high note.
(Knight Rider > Baywatch)

Labels: One Liners, Random Rubbish, Rant

Man writes things to do in Handy Dandy notebook.
Man does things written in Handy Dandy notebook.
Man becomes a handyman and turns dandy after a wash up.
That is how a Handy Dandy Man is born.

Yea, that random verse aside, today's downpour was one heck of a nuisance (though I thoroughly enjoyed it on the trip back on the bike other than the bit whereby rainwater gets in the way of sight so I would consider the unsavory portion the aftermath). What resulted from it was faded brake pads, brake pad compound strained rims, crap covered tires, drip-dirt marks, drenched apparel and bag; thus loads of cleaning to do. So after an hour or so of wheel maintenance and brakes tuning, I'm more or less convinced that I need disc brakes - a 6.8 km journey in the rain kills up so much of the brake lever travel that anymore and I would have to get the levers to touch the handlebars and not go any slower.

I'm thinking 180 mm rotor front and 160 mm back since most of the braking is accounted for by the front wheel. It's recommended that a heavy rider should go with discs brakes - I become one with the gear to survive school. But of course the trade-off is that replacing the hubs isn't enough - you need stronger rims and spokes especially so it looks set that a new wheel set is the way to go. Of course some clever guy amongst you would say point out that all these upgrades will offset the cost of the bike already. Hmm, think of the bike that I've bought to be a tuner car sort of thing (Mitsubishi Lancer, Subara Impreza, the list goes on) and I bought the bike well knowing that the frame would have a high upgrade potential (though not the top of the line that's why I'm only stopping/upping at Deore level components) and getting entry level components on the bike would guarantee some fun and hassle-free ride time while I accumulate enough resources to jump ship, well in this case I stay on the ship and dump out the outboard motor or something. Heh.

Looking forward to the Camera Obscura concert on the 29th this month. While that seems like quite a long while and immense amount of cramming away, there is Apple's 14 October Special Event to look forward to at 10 pm (HK/SIN +8GMT). Everyone knows that it's gonna be a Macbook/Macbook Pro product refreshment. The thrill of new products being somewhat a Mac zealot with Jonathan Ive on design and controversial port removals never fails to stir up the most revolutionary of emotions.

At this time of the year, I'm reminded of this time of the year last year (sorry for the slight confusion) and there's one song to nail it all - Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now by child singer duo Patience and Prudence (at least that is the one I've just added to the 'Evening' playlist), not to mention how apt 'patience' and 'prudence' is as adjectives.

Ahh, finally - slavery to a 13" screen and clickety-yak Macbook keys gone. I feel like a fascist lord sitting on a throne training my eyes in front of a 19" widescreen display and the Deathadder staff. Of course, at the flick of a few buttons on the Lycosa, a post like this gets churned out - though I have to admit that 'few' is an understatement.

So if you really love me
Say yes, but if you don't dear, confess
And please don't tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

- Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Doris Day

And of course, I need a less contrived set-up to work on the phone renders. Oh gee, an $80 phone voucher just arrived in the mailer. Last month it was a $50 one but they're only valid for Sony Ericsson and Samsung phones. I was looking forward to having my first Nokia in the age of colour screens but the designs are well.... let's just leave it that and I need to get my iPhone killer moving. Maybe sticking to yet another Samsung doesn't seem all that bad knowing the limitation of latency issues on phones by the other vendor ('there's a lot load, but it's worth the wait' on their home page reiterates my point).

Labels: Random Rubbish

It's morning and whoever said that Decarissimo (by Astor Piazolla) was a song for the night only is very much a senseless idiot. I still remember that open air concert on evening Bueno Aires being broadcasted (or rather recorded and sold) to the world.

The study period is not just a pain in the ass - it is a form of progressive and passive sufferance of sorts like getting locked up in a jail cell (without the Jailhouse Rock). Oh yea and Google is giving me all sorts of problems at 8 am in the morning. Congratulations on the habitual reliance on the internet - now you're suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

Recent solo-biking trips in the evening has brought me to the grounds of the Marina Bay area whereby the Singapore Grand Prix has recently ended. While the roads are open and my usual leisure ride grounds returned, the lighting fixtures, fencing and stands have not been completely dismantled and taken down. On the sidewalk with cars on the right separated from you by the tall fences, even the most sluggish taxi sounded and felt like a freaking race car. This reminds me of the scene on an episode of Dr. Who whereby the inhabitants of Future Earth have been continually driving in a lock down zone for the past 15 years due to an external virus contamination. Hamsters by the Bay sounds good if developers are running out of ideas to name roads. Then there was the wrong-turn trip that brought me to the APL-Shigeru Ban paper tube-container 'Athenian Temple' and the construction sites of the new Integrated Resorts (IRs, otherwise known as gambling and bedding areas). The Greek Temple, I felt did not quite do justice to Ban's works with paper tube structures unlike the highly insightful article in Verb Crisis. IR-wonderland was a visual spectacle of flying dust and truckload of foreign workers getting shipped away. Listening to classical favourites by Thaikovsky and others just doesn't seem to fit the mood of that area despite me being rather shabbily dressed and finally my bike and iPod adds on to the wine glass in McDonalds phenomena of awkwardness. But hey - I don't give a damn and so didn't they.

To the workers, we are just people getting around in the way of life. In other words, we're like hamsters in a tubing network finding the cheese. I know hamsters don't eat cheese but the stuff they eat just can't seem to occur to me at this point.

Hamsters carrying cages around are so like us with our bags and handbags. The linked Flickr pool is a collection of bags emptied and their contents showcased to all. Intriguing really, peeping into the lives of people from the items they carry, providing subtile little clues to personality traits etc. If you're not the type to analyse details, welcome to the end of the post. Common items include the Moleskine, iPod, Messenger Bag and Macs!? Obviously the pool provides a very much skewed impression of what people REALLY carry in their bags but the thrill is like that involved when reading a forbidden diary. Of course the 'REALLY' bit was a response to other similar pools that had 'semi-curated' layouts of the most posh and cool items to show off to the rest of the world connected by the Internet and compliant browsers. That, I shall leave out of the picture.

Personal belongings brings to mind a familiar phenomenology frequently coined by Alvar Aalto - Patina, a certain quality/aspect of ageing involving usage that brings about a certain aesthetic beauty. Featured in Things magazine is a blog post by Russell Davies on the subject, in which I draw reference to the 'what is in your bag' question also featured on Things and sincerity of the Flickr posts.

Oh, Google just die already. Frustrating problems on the internet leaves no traces of patina.

Labels: Random Rubbish

The Macbook/Apple Keyboard (current) keys are thrash really. At least the Apple Keyboard has its typing surface slated at an angle but the Macbook is flat which makes the keys feel slanted when typing as though you are throwing it off-centre every time you trigger a key. In other news, Razer has released a 'mirror' edition of the Lycosa (a gleen shiny surface like that of the Optimus Maximus) and two other keyboards known as the Arctosa in black and Silver. Oh yes and you can see that I'm one of the few who got the first word while the guys are Razer were uploading and testing links on the main site. Wait a go me! -.- Right, while Emoji might be coming to the iPhone I should stop myself from sounding too much like a Starfire and more like Raven from Teen Titans. The Arctosa really is just a Lycosa shell without illumination and Das Keyboard style black keys or silver for the non-typist wannabes. One word stares in my face: Rip-off.



Meanwhile, I've developed a fetish with the NZXT Avatar and NZXT Whisper and Hush tower cases. The cases themselves is begging me to return to Windows/Hackintosh once more. The slim profile of the Avatar is attractive and at a 2600 dpi optical peak, the 800 dpi of Logitech's MX Air and Revolution just seem all too weak considering my 1800 dpi Deathadder. Laser sensors just aren't as stable as you'd like them to be - they don't work everywhere and are twitchy if it goes any higher than the 2000 cap.

I need a new phone, but due to certain conscription restrictions, the choice of a non-camera phone really narrows it down to one model to rule them all - the Nokia E51 Non-Camera. While I await the penance of the enlistment notice, I visited the cellphone shop the other day and is appalled for the second time at how unattractive Nokia phones are once more. To make matters worse, competitior brands are very much worst off with bad user interface and intuitiveness. That is bad news to me, a victim of mass consumerism. Thus, as a while-studying side project, I shall attempt at imagining a new phone - an iPhone killer, but really the lack of tactile feedback turns on the Blackberry as the Swiss Army Knife of do-it-all-ness. The singular battery of the iPhone/Pod is just horrible - not to mention that it is not hot-swappable (though you have to turn your phone off but that's really better than doing on the spot take aparts of your high tech pebble). And Sunday's episode of the Simpsons (Season 20, Ep 2) on the unhealthy obsession of US youths with 'better' phones was really apt in this topic of discussion.

3 more chapters and I'll be done with Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone; the following would be some reflections on the previous 10 chapters - I love reading non-fiction books because you keep living the fantasy of having to consume all the print till the very last page but really - the bibliography and grossary just pops up like that long overdue life buoy. I recall Critical Path by Buckminister Fuller getting really dry progressively no doubt interesting content but it's just not the kind of book you are eager to get your hands on after a depressing line up of activities related to school. Prisoner's Dilemma is not just a book about Game Theory, it brings into context events before, during and after the Cold War and how what started off as a Hungarian genius' obsession with poker turned into now highly regarded field of applied mathematics (please don't correct me on that since I'm referring to it's impact on other areas e.g. genetics) and most importantly about the genius himself - John von Neumann. The book is illustrative of von Neumann's life and where I've stopped it is around where his life ends and it was really one heck of a ride. You can almost feel for that guy ailing on the deathbed (he died of bone cancer attributed to the Operation Crossroads blast). Perhaps that is just applies to me a couple of similarly styled writings have been implanted into my head in recent times which include Buckminister's book above, Richard Feynman's Surely You Must be Joking Mr. Feynman, Species of Spaces by Georges Perec, Umberto Eco's How to Travel With a Salmon and Illuminations by Walter Benjamin. There is something so similar about these writings and my familiarity with Los Alamos due to Mr. Feynman is further elaborated with the workings of RAND in Poundstone's book.

While non-fiction writings may be interesting, the covers are somewhat contrived and demeaning. Pure evil, if you decide to be extreme. But that is not quite untruthful either since packaging can often be referenced to the poison apple in Snow White or if you're more of a 'modernist', Desperate Housewives advertising and opening sequences. After all, Labyrinths of Reason dealt my mind a cruel shockwave in addition to bad reading conditions on the latest Euro IV Volvo buses whose interior is just so puke encouraging already. After all Mr. Alan Fletcher once said, "if you let keep your mind too open, lots of rubbish tends to get in." I can't quite remember how it sounded like exactly since I haven't got Ways of Seeing at my disposal and my Moleskine for recording seemingly obscure workings of the mind has been mailed off to a friendly female 'Chuck' for safekeeping. Congrats if you're reading this whoever you are - you're now the new Intersect...

Ahh and yes, imagining the ideal cellphone, here's a starting point and I'll try to progressively work from here and come up with a decent render by the end of the study period:



So much for Core77's 1HDC - they need you to video yourself doing it in one hour? What is I need 7 days to create my mini world? Say 1 hour is like a metaphor for 7 sevenths of an hour time intervals? It's too much trouble and they must have assumed everyone uses a Mac with a built-in in-your-face webcam.

Don't expect too much out of me - I'm no Johnny Ive designing Macs and Wall-Es.

Oh yes, and one last thing to add about Game Theory - for those of you who know much about it the Minimax Theorem and Zero Sum games might suggest that the best possible account is a case whereby both players defect, the Game Theory is a rational attempt at contemplating the game. While Poundstone has succinctly pointed out that the Game Theory is yet another reflection of the highly competitive and shrewd nature of human behaviour (or the world in general ) I perceive his insight as a further emphasis on the importance of emotions (irrational behaviour as it is referred to in better mathematical likeness) for it stops us from defecting all the time to reach the ultimatum of mutually assured destruction (MAD). So yes, go scream, cry and laugh rather then turning into a measly logical stooge. Von Neumann might have just realised that when he was about to die, seeking emotional refuge in religion despite a largely atheistic life.

Labels: Handy Dandy, Random Rubbish, Rant

Okies, this I have to admit is one of the bunch of more recent less effort paced (which explains the current lack of visual glory) posts. Yes, upbeat music - what plays on the iPod while in the gym or rather out pedaling. This is my take on it:

1. The Wreckoning - Boomkat
2. Hush - Deep Purple
3. Sea Lion Woman - Feist
4. Atom Bomb - Fluke
5. Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode) - Groove Armada
6. Rich Girl - Gwen Stefani
7. Hush - Kula Shaker
8. Life in Mono - Mono
9. Voodoo Child - Rogue Traders
10. Good to be Here - Rooster
11. Only Love Can Break Your Heart - Saint Etienne
12. All the Things She Said - t.A.T.u.
13. Club Foot - Kasabian

If you're asking where's the usual favourites like Oakenfold and Overseer - I got sick of them already.

Labels: Random Rubbish

Alright, either there's something wrong with my head or the world just hates me - but really even if there's something wrong with my head it is because the world hates me ultimately... now nevermind that circular logic since we're all stuck in this human device of thought. While I'm listening to covers of Hush by Kula Shaker and Deep Purple (of which the latter is so infamously featured on the Jaguar XF tv spot) in an attempt to sooth and comfort the unbearable soul due to the failure of driving test once more (the mistake was much more stupid this time), I shall contemplate the possible existence of a possible biological kink in my brain. As circular as you can get people! It's like asking if the madman knows that he's mad. But really, in some rare cases you do get to know if you there is a biological kink like when everyone appears to you as potatoheads which is well ideal - since you don't really need to bother about non-human organisms.

That aside, there was this punk ass on a full suspension bike with a Pike front shocks. Why is he a punk ass? Firstly, it could be due to bravado or simply moronic behavious that while navigating pedestrain walkways, it is not polite and practical to speed up fast only to come to a stop in a few blinks of an eye. Even more idiotic, quick acceleration in front of a bus stop when there is already an incoming bus unloading passengers. Of course with the bob of the badly tuned rear suspension, he not unlike an idiot on a pong stick with two wheels. After the bus stop comes the long stretch of road with a traffic light. Ah, the thrill and rush of the evening wind beating the road light with the peak period crowd - perfect setting for teaching that punk ass a lesson. While he was struggling with the bob of the suspension and shifting, I was already hot on his tail at 32 km/h maxing out at 33.7 in a blink of an eye. Sweet. And now it seemed that the stinking world was woozing by until I caught sight of a police car on the left of junction. That ended my short transcendental session of windtalking. No really the wind does talk if you listen hard enough.

In short, with increasing toll gantries, rising fuel prices and a spiteful grudge which the world has against me, biking seems to be last bastion of the feeling free. If you were wonder, free was meant to be literal and non-literal. Life in mono - void of colour, lacking the splendour in which Death perceive the world to be in Zusak's Book Thief. 33.7 is the top speed recording since the purchase of the Velo 8 cycle computer or speedometer as so many people know it to be despite the Cateye website clearly stating as the former. And if about the apparent greyscaled downcast ending, I'm using a Vista machine to do up this post. I figure that the absence of my wife (the Macbook with a busted fan and power management unit), the lonesome sadness and disoccupied gaps of time has turned me into a shrunken, writhered creature arching over on a crooked back, very much like a gargoyle. Anymore of such blows and I'm gonna turn to stone and give up on life completely, transferring my consciousness to the epitaph sinking into eternal sleep while the flesh rots.

The stranger sang a theme
From someone else’s dream
The leaves began to fall
And no one spoke at all
But I can’t seem to recall
When you came along

- Life in Mono, Mono

Oh and I almost forgot - the moral of the story about the punk ass is to not try to compete acceleration on a full susp. with a hardtail - you'll only get hurt without lockout.

Labels: Random Rubbish, Rant, Speculations About the Universal Law of the French Toast

Firstly I would like to apologize for the crappy paragraph formatting
courtesy of blogger-mail scriptun kinks.

Today was one heck of a day - and I'm still typing this at while
waiting for the train. I set off to use the time gap before and after
driving lesson to hunt them a few of these items. They are: Topeak
Aero Wedge Pack (it's a saddle bag for the bike), some Egmont
published cartoon about this brother and sister pair with an
experimental monoplane if which the name I can't seem to recall since
the last one month plus and lastly the Schick Quattro Titanium
Freestyle as advertised on TV. You guessed right if you thought this
was just another possible bad denting opportunity just to spice up my
miserable life a tweeny bit. Oh hey - I bought a new ten year series
today too - ain't that neat...

So before lesson began I ventured into this monolithic brutalist
building otherwise known as a warehouse in search of this basement
bike shop - tea I found it alright but the whole place looked and felt
so blardy huge that you had to be twice the man or something to feel
normal. After a few liliputian walks away, I managed to locate the all
so secret lair of two-wheelers only to be greeted by lousy customer
service. A cross on Item 1 it seems. According to the random fella I
sought directions from, there is another bike shop on level 3 - which
really means nothing when the building is compartmentalised into 9+
blocks. So eventually I found it - it
was another shop renowned for bad service thus gave it a miss and
another cross for Item 1.

Item 2 well, what was it again? Oh yea the books, well no 'x' marks
the spot again as try weren't there outside the display anymore after
an hour plus session of dealing with an almost worn out clutch. Item 3
was found but it didn't have a price tag on and the addition of a
trimmer, dildo-like sized vibrator handle and the same quattro 4
blades just made it seem kinda crap. Gleen people GLEEN - that us the
word fir do not always buy that shiny gloss that covers advert
renderings. Cross.

Another cross goes to Item 1 again since another bike shop on the
return trip was closed. On the bus I was enjoying a bout of Piazolla
tango pieces and Peréz Prado's mambos. What a way to ride into the
evening rain. Really reminds me if the days interning at the architect
firm returning home exhausted with a failing brain trying to keep up
with the bamdeneons.

Alright, my left thumb hurts now due to a flexible joint not present
on my right thumb. Congrats you human interface developers at Apple -
what's with the non-existent landscape mode in Mail.app? Oh and my
Macbook has been sent for repair due to an apparent fan failure. In
addition to a hotbook, a mishevelled Dad got misled into believing it
was a harddisk failure that costs about a bike to replace and
service. Next time check if it is your son that you're enquiring about.

And after installing new meters, the power agency decided it's time for a price hike. 'Incoherent' bullshyt just doesn't quite say it.

Labels: Random Rubbish, Rant

While being inspired and attracted to the eponymous song by Depeche Mode I shall highlight a few of my eclectic obsessions with silence:

1. Cars should be blardy quiet. Modified exhausts are irritating. Sound = Vibration = less efficiency so go figure.
2. Mouse Clicks - need I say more?
3. Keyboards - try working with earphones or music.
4. Bike Free Hubs - and on a serene trekking trip beside the sea, that farkin' clicking sound totally upsets the mood.
5. CPU fans - please we don't need anymore pseudo asthmatic wheezing at rapid intervels.
6. Harddisks - ditto above
7. Fans - as in wall fans, ceiling fans that shouldn't sound like WWII Merlin-powered aerial attack craft
8. Air-con - ditto no. 4 and 1
9. Television (CRTs) - the humming noise from a really old set was used to make the lightsaber buzzes you know...

Update
10. Rain hitting on stamped metal a.k.a car
11. Windshield wipers set at 'high'

Labels: Random Rubbish, Rant

Actually this is just another one of those posts to make the Public folder empty (a.k.a. removing photos from my phone). I can't help but get reminded of the end scene of Turn Left Turn Right whereby the umbrellas belonging to the couple in love were placed together implying cohabitation (or rather they ended up together). The shot of my bike and my friend's bike were purely coincidental. He was away getting a sugar cane drink (yes one, since all he had a coin pouch and I didn't bring money so we had to 2-straw-a-drink because that place overcharges) and I was bored. Now he's away in the states studying and the bike has been left to the father to be underutilised. That was the last and only time we went out for a spin together.

No this has nothing to do with Greek homosexuality/Platonic love. It a random titling but stereotypical mind out there might feel that it's more resembling of in Indian flick with if it was a coconut tree.

Labels: Random Rubbish

I have to admit, that Italian Job infatuation has come a long way and leads up to this post about architecture in Turin. You would have heard of Turin as Torino is the Italian name for the city, host to the Winter Olympics of 2006. First up, we have the Lingotto Fiat Factory of 1921.



If your sharp eyes have caught sight of what looks like a track on the top of the building, you've just got the money shot.




The building was an ingenious response by Mattè Trucco to the Futurist Manifesto (speed, technology, the car to name a few). It was a multi level complex, with raw materials for car assembly arriving at the bottom level and moving up each level as the car was being completed, finally ending up on the test track roof for final evaluation. This makes multi-storey car parks of today seem like a cheap and bastardized rip-off. Shown below is the brutalist Gateshead Car Park in UK built in the 1960s.



Ok enough of Gateshead, the Lingotto Factory is now a mixed used complex housing a posh hotel, exhibition area and music hall revamped by renowned Renzo Piano Workshop.





The music hall is of particular interest to me since I once read a book of music/performance related projects by Renzo Piano Workshop and thought that the space was somewhat incredible and just right for the suit and gown totting violin and piano players (no pun intended). However at that point in time, I didn't have much that much an impression of Lingotto other than being another industrial building churning out cars reminiscent of the Tate Modern conversion. The picture on top shows the entrance while the above the interior and the entrance is towards the background of the picture.

So how is the Lingotto Factory related to the Italian Job? It's not just it being in Italy and if you have watched the movie, you probably wouldn't be asking this question. Below are Caine and buddies in caper action:






So what about the next item? It's also the building of which it's roof the Italian Job gang went up on.





The building is called the Mostre (below), built for the Italia 61' exhibition to commemorate 100 years of the unification of Italy. Note that it is considerably advanced construction as it is only supported on a triangular platform by 3 cornerstones. It feels somewhat similar to Calatrava's Gare de Saint-Exupéry TGV Station (bottom) despite beings less convoluted in lines.





And for non-architecture buff Motorola SLVR users, there is a default wallpaper of a tension drawn bridge. It's the Puente del Alamillo by Calatrava:


Puente, evidently stands for bridge.

Not too long ago, TheDieline featured Ikea food packaging (below) as, 'a study in utter simplicity and straightforwardness'. Pasta seems to be Italian in origin, not quite a traditional Swedish food me thinks. That aside, while I am not sure if Ikea's Moose Pasta originated from China given the severity of Melamine-doped food products, the 'value' (another word for cheap under the guise of simplicity therefore little/lesser regard for lifespan and quality) furniture would have to do with cheaper labour to keep prices 'competitive'.



Not so far away within Europe, news of toxic sofas manufactured in China have surfaced.

Labels: Random Rubbish

Ah yes, the miracle of Youtube - What's My Line? A game show from the 1950s featuring some of the big and famous of society then (yes I used society because the contestants and guests come dressed formally in suits, gowns and even gloves). It's really like a game of Guess Who? whereby the contestants direct yes/no reply questions to the mystery guest blindfolded. Of course questions asked are not the descriptive type asked in the board game. Here are some of the better-known personalities featured throughout the series:

1. Frank Lloyd Wright
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Salvador Dali
4. Judy Garland

The Salvador Dali game was memorable - a representative of Random House Publishing (Vintage Books is the imprint it is more commonly known as/for) asked if a book by him was published within the past year when they ran out of ideas, simply hilarious. Notice how Garland's voice had to be omitted by the bell or the click in order to avoid instant recognition and I must say Judy Garland's signature looked quite atrocious compared to the rest.

Labels: Random Rubbish

Paper was a disaster today. Well at least I thought i understood the cyclotron/linear accelerator bit well but that's not quite enough to scrap past either. Had to escape from the clutches of the scary head matron figure to prevent myself from going downward spiral again. I guess not one really understands that. "I'm sure there are many things that you know," the head matron person said - but hey things aren't always what they see, which reminds what Stephen Hawking once said,

Changed the front tire to another Crossmark after the escape that required the summoning of a disgusting amount of courage. Yea it was worth it - both the escape and the money spent. The front Panaracer Dart was cracking and due for change anyways. Evening came (the bike shop owner was kind enough to give me a new fixture to mount the old tail light on the now larger seatpost) and the Crossmark pair was put to the test! Awesome. I meant BRilliANT - since words like wonderful and great are too often used by the seemingly all-embracing and sugar coating attitude commonly potrayed by Hollywood people and the corporate word like a blardy influenza. BRilliANT is more like David Tennant from Dr. Who hmm... Correctamundo! That's a word I would never use again... Ok, cutting back to the chase (in this case literally), ride quality was almost plush and dreamy, I enjoyed every stroke pedalling (in addition to the consistently present feedback of getting back on a hardtail). Add in the Alps and daytime as the backdrop and it would be like the iconic scene of the Miura cruising to that Matt Monro song.









Just so you know. 'Brilliant' was spelled that way reminiscence of mechanical typewriters - those using a lowercase 'L' for the number '1'. Spelling the same word in different cases screws up my memory image of the word now. Crap. Yes, I read things in a generalised form manner - not really by recognised individual letters. Again another just so you know fact, the Crossmark was designed by Christoph Sauser, Swiss mountain bike cross country champ. See the connection between the tires and the Alps.

And yes, you shall now find the original Italian Job featuring Michael Caine (for the non-oldies, Alfred from the Dark Knight/Batman Begins) and Bande á part by Jean-Luc Godard. Anna Karina had this unsaid attractiveness in Godard films and she couldn't have said it better in the 1964 New Wave flick, "people on the metro always look sad and lonely." Zazie dans le metro totally upsets that statement when I comes to mind. If left to me, a misanthropic son of a b*tch, I'd say we gotta send everyone in the metro to the ghettos.

What I really meant was guillotine. Please forgive the impudence of lesser images and links to click around - the idiot is having exams now or rather an excuse to be downright less dutiful.

On lighter note, House M.D. is back - so is Season 14 of MadTV. Now all that's left is Chuck and Knight Rider...no Hasselhoff though. And one more thing:



Notice the similarity between The Italian Job poster and Michael's tattooed body? We can all see how the emphasis of having well-defined curves shifts from flesh to graphics.

Labels: Random Rubbish, Rant

Yes creepy women.

The first belongs to the Unknown Woman of the Seine - according to the most popular urban legend, the face belongs to a girl who drowned in the river Seine and had an expression so serene and peaceful that a guy working at a morgue decided to make a death mask out of it and hung it at his shop window. No one really knows who she is.

Then came along the CPR duo who decided to use the face of the girl - if someone performed CPR on the drowning victim, she would have been saved.

Audrey Tautou being part of this is due to the poster of the movie, La Fabuleux Destin d'Amelié Poulain bearing that somewhat creepy look. With a bit of imagination, they all seem to be the same face - the film was meant to be distinctively French to begin with.

Henceforth, the Unknown Woman of the Seine is the most kissed face in the world. The End.

Labels: Random Rubbish

Yea the title says it all - I was fast and I wasn't looking - so was the pigeon until it heard me coming.



So much for the first ride - I had to go through mud, grim and shave off grass. Talk about off-road pedigree. But I have to say that the stock Kenda Klaws aren't as zippy as the Maxxis Crossmark. If not for supply shortage, the pigeon might be leading a new life in heaven now.

I'm assuming there is one. Flying + Pigeon - anyone noticed that? Nvm.

Labels: Random Rubbish