first isshi, then that splendid photoshoot of aoi and uruha. now asagi.

makes you wonder about these men.

or at least I'm wondering. been wondering, rather.

the bidding results are late. incredibly. crystal and I are getting ocd from refreshing exchange man. or at least I am. like doesn't the damn computer do this for you? collate bidding results, decide on the bidding results and send out automated emails. they gave themselves 6 hours to do that too.

oh whatever. we all know the failures of administration. very unfortunate, but very true.

and tomorrow I'm going on an ominous lunch. not superbly ominous, but still ominous. and I am going to bed.

this has been such a random entry.

I have been on a gazette pv spree these couple of days. watched cassis (again), silly god disco (again), reila (again), ruder (again and again), shadow VII II I, and now cockroach. I'm waiting for cockroach in its vob glory, but itchy me decided to view the whole music video in lower quality first. I've seen some clips from it and I liked that image they had. better than ruder's, really.

so although the pv looks inspired by luna sea's shine (from the checking self in the mirror to the change from dark backgrounds to brightly lit studio), ruki's costume is apparently a complete ripoff from marilyn manson's circa 1999, the english is terrible, aoi has a strange out of place looking cigarette, uruha's wearing that 'they make my arms look fat but I don't care' costume, and they're playing in the damn toilet (or rather, it's a dim studio with urinals attached to one wall),

I like the song, and the image, and that's why I'm waiting for its vob version.

and I really should go sleep. it's been a damn long day, and another damn damn long day awaits. indeed I am sick and tired of the whole thing, but yet I know we cannot perform in this state. this is not going to bode very well. yet I have so many disagreements and I am also sick of trying to explain myself and being heard but not listened to.

is it a form of my controlling nature? I haven't a clue. but there are things I don't agree with, and that's pretty much that. I have valid reason to stand for, but little energy left to even stand.

and so since I can't stand it, I shall go sleep now.

that's what I told our pickle-to-be toothpaste. and I will say it again. the island is too darn small and the net is way too advanced.

I've had the strangest people popping up on facebook. sarah lau added me because she's just having fun with facebook, adding anybody who looks familiar, I suppose. yet another notification arrived, and I was like huh who now. my eyes nearly popped out. siobhan. I haven't seen that girl since...since. it's been so long. and she suddenly adds me. later I realised she probably found me through may (who migrated to canada without telling me!).

just when I thought the weirdness was pretty much done, another notification flew in. I was like man who is it now. it's like answering the door you know, and when you look through the peephole you get a shock of your life, but because you know the person, you open the door anyway and let them in. so I let yenn weii in. and apparently she's now friends with shiqi and adibah, probably no thanks to me.

I just logged into facebook once more. another notification. this time it's a new user of facebook. rather apparent, because the profile page is virtually blank, and all the notifications are of her getting all her friends. this time it's melissa yeow. and we have a mutual friend. guess who?

sarah lau.

MY GOODNESS. what on earth is the world coming to man. granted, we're all fellow mates in green pinafores, but this is just, weird. it's come to a point where I don't really want to let these people in because I barely know them or talk to them or talk to them anymore, but I can't really leave them out there because it's not as if we're complete strangers.

I have no further comments.

like what on earth is that. ruki proudly proclaims, "I am ruder!" in the song 'ruder', but seriously, what is ruder? what is a ruder, who is a ruder.

who cares.

I'm updating because I've compelled myself to. why keep a blog and leave it empty. but anyway, my archives have been fully transformed into text, with the exception of may-july 2003, because those were not archived by me properly. so now I will have to dig out the blogspot address to find those archives and turn them into plain text html files. not too difficult, but I'm so horribly lazy.

besides that, I've made a lovely header picture for my archives page. it's not really the loveliest, and it's rather unprofessional (in my opinion because you can still see the outlines) but what did you expect out of an uninspired afternoon? I happily opened photoshop, and then I realised that I hadn't even thought about who I wanted on the damn picture. but anyway it's a completely sepia effect red filtered picture of aoi from gazette, which fits in with the idea of archives. old stuff.

while converting my archives I read through my stuff. somehow I can see why my buddy finds my old letters entertaining and my recent ones oddly unexciting. because for some reason, my blog has undergone the same problem. my old blog entries were pretty entertaining, full of reports and simple thoughts, strong feelings and pure sarcasm. but now it has ceased to occur. I seldom report anything, and any form of report is so brief you wonder why I even brought it up. my thoughts go deep and non-contextual these days, and I found myself void of violent reactions nowadays. vicks called me the other day expecting an earful, but I told her that I've found myself very placid these days.

I've been taking more time to think about what I say and what's going on rather than my usual babble verbal diarrhoea. I don't really think I've mellowed per se, but indeed I have quietened down. I talk less, I comment less, I argue less. I talk slower, more deliberately, and sometimes very directly.

why am I doing my introspective stunt AGAIN. I find that I constantly think and reflect upon how I've changed over the years.

I should continue my layout archives. and get those 3 months out of blogspot. ugh.

after being stupid and lazy for 2 months, I have finally found out exactly how I can get s2 layouts to look the way I wish. honestly I hate css and if I could I'd just do plain html. but nooooooooooo livejournal must torment me with css. bloody tables. 2 million subheadings. my next mission, is to find a stylesheet that has the correct configurations, or rather, easier-to-edit configurations, and use that.

indeed my layouts are going to look exactly the same, with the exception of the header picture, that is. but who cares.

gosh. that way I'll have to tell nani-kore that she can drop me. I'll stick with lj. to save me all the shit, I will clean up my archives by archiving them in text and hosting them somewhere else. hmmm. or maybe I should keep the nani-kore account just to stuff my archives and layout pictures. yep that's what I'll do!

alrighty! my archives shall work once more. but first, I need to go turn my archives into pure text-only form. which is way easier than trying to ensure the full layout goes along with it. after all, I'm concerned with keeping the text, to hell with the layout. and the layouts I use are very duh, so I'm only concerned with the pictures that appear on it, which are currently archived (albeit not very well archived).

cool.

and then and then I must finish my last library book and embark on my next pilgrimage to the national library. I also want to romanise psychedelic heroine!! I insist. my layout looks a little dark now, and I'm going to have to read all my friends' entries this way. I shall either 1. get bloody used to it, or 2. create a brighter one.

I am, however, very pissed with the fact that my entry title is misaligned. I can't seem to find the right field to get it corrected.

I always just need a little mental push with the "dammit get it done and over with once and for all" attitude to get things moving, done and working. before that is pure excuses, laziness and perfect procastination.

I'm pretty happy with myself all of a sudden.

haha actually I don't know why I bothered clicking 'update journal'.

there's nothing to say.

I just can't believe nobody romanised psychedelic heroine. I am going to try doing it by myself. it is going to half kill me because my kanji isn't as good as before. crap. and because ruki sings so bloody fast, after a while actually I won't really know whether I've romanised it right because he sings it in a blur anyway.

psychedelic heroine. what a title. I'm quite puzzled as to why people prefer regret over psychedelic heroine and worthless war. I like the 2 c/ws more than the single release man. I'm quite a sucker for b-sides, that's true. but regret spoils the 'regret' single, while rich excrement (please don't ask about the stupid title either) spoils the 'filth in the beauty' single.

ストロベリーの白い煙. reminded me of crystal. haha.

time to sleep, really. it's 1am already. going out tomorrow! and I need to finish up my final library book. shouldn't prove a problem. kurt vonnegut rocks, and the book isn't immensely thick. I've fallen behind so badly in this batch of books man. oh and I've drawn up my next list of library books to borrow. bad books. my decadent volumes are returning to this house. tsk tsk.

I am bored, as usual.

listening to 12012. properly. took an album torrent and rid myself of the initial mess. true, I'm probably missing a bunch of songs right now, but oh whatever. until a decent full discography/single collection one comes by the torrents, I shall not bother myself with it for now. spikiegirl didn't upload their discography, so I shall just leave it for now. otherwise I could collect it like the gazette and suga shikao. those came rather painstakingly but at least, complete.

oh that was old news. listening to the nodame cantabile soundtrack. the best 100 classical collection. rachmaninoff. yes, the one where chiaki played with the A orchestra, and then later with crazy nodame in the piano studio. and then eto sensei decided to take her in as his student and almost vomitted all the blood he could vomit.

after all my years away from classical training, it still comes back full circle. I still listen, and still appreciate. it isn't boring, there's always something new. I'm not a classical music buff, (more like a bluff, sometimes) but I still remember some of these pieces and no I don't think opera's funny (unless it's meant to be). it often irritated me, when people would laugh at the vibrato voices. I always felt like telling them, don't laugh, unless you can sing better than that. for operatics are not the most common people around, and that is what causes rise in value -- rarity, and in this case, hard work and training counts too. so unless one can prove that something is of less value than we believe, or they deserve, nothing should be laughed at like this.

completed hanakimi. the comic, that is. heh. sometimes you wonder why you go on reading/watching something that you know the ending of. but you do anyway. it's so obvious where hanakimi is headed for in the comic, and now that I've finished it, I'm still going to watch the drama. but that's partly because the drama isn't entirely based on the comic. and they're all such funny characters. although I'm sad that nothing turned out of umeda and ryouichi, it was still a good laugh.

lento assai. HAHA. I remember ms tye split us up into small groups for a little mep quiz thing, and asked us to name our groups. we were listening to some piece, and we were so terribly amused by the word 'assai', we named our group that. it was such a joke.

I have a vision of chiaki conducting. terrible, terrible.

昔は有りえないから、未来は有りえない。でも何故あたしの脳も今は…分からないよ。 
was thinking about it. and I still fail to understand myself. I still fail.

現実は残酷だね。

for a very long time now.

but I haven't anything to write. and it sucks writing something out of nothing.

my eventless days are taking its toll. but even events don't make it onto my blog anymore. I'm simply too lazy to write about things that happen, things that I did. it's too much. I don't know if I've lost my 'reporter' spirit, or I just felt that reporting all the stuff that happened is so meaningless. or perhaps now too much runs through my brains with every event, that I find plain reporting doing myself injustice.

oh I suddenly remember what I wanted to talk about. nothing really. just that I listened to more stuff yesterday. perhaps I should listen to the studs and exist trace right now then spit out a whole bunch of paragraphs. then my entry would look more decently long.

let's take everybody I listened to recently. I'm suddenly into this review thing, ain't I? so that's stacked rubbish, ruten rinne, didn't see us coming, studs, liquid and nephilim. here we go.

and now while I've finally figured out some things on fireworks mx, I still can't get that gif to be my userpic. I'm so sad. and aoi looked so classic in that animated gif. wails.

actually I can add one more album on that review, but I shan't. otherwise I'd have to add on a bunch more. just wanted to go through those to kill some time. terrible me. killing time. poor time has died more times than kenny in south park.

and I'm stuck on hanakimi. comic, drama, everything. OH DEAR. my addictions, my obsessions.

I'm falling in love with umeda all over again. oh no.

indeed I hate waiting for the week to pass. I wonder how they do it in japan. but perhaps they look forward to more than 1 drama a week, and so the week passes a little faster. but I here, have to wait a whole week for the episode to come out in japan, wait another day for the episode to be uploaded, and then wait a few more days for the subtitles to be released. my goodness.

makes me wonder sometimes, why I bother.

crystal actually tried planning tutorials. I decided to start, but found it difficult without it1001's tutorials' release. I can run around from one venue to another in arts, but while running in arts is detested, running from faculty to faculty is impossible. depending on the time of the day, the bus can take ages to come, or you can take ages to actually board a bus (because it can get so awfully crowded). I'm hoping that it1001 has 2 million tutorial slots to choose from (since it is an intro module) and then I can slot it anywhere I wish.

and nm2220's slots suck real bad. so I foresee that we're all going to fight like shit for the NON 1800-2000h slots.
and I'm headed for school everyday. again.
and I'm determined to end school earlier this sem. it looks possible thus far.

and I'm downloading scanlations of hanakimi. heh. I stopped at book 14, I think. but that was in sec 4, and I barely remember anything beyond the basic plot and random incidents now. oh and I read it REAL fast, because there was only ONE set, and I think there were about SIX people in queue for it. I was the third or fourth I think. something like that. so I had to read it real real fast otherwise the next few people in line after me would be screaming. oh and I think it wasn't complete at that time either? haha I don't really remember anymore. (crystal you want to try watching japanese hanakimi? hahahaha) and for some reason or another, there are a lot of anti-ella people on the jpopmusic forums.

speaking of which, death note continues to sit in my cupboard, unread. oh dear.

can't wait for wednesday. 18th july. ikenai taiyou's release, and 7 samurai sessions release!! yes it's hana kimi's insert song (which I am oh oh so so addicted to) and miyavi's remix of old songs via his wonderful new spunky band lineup.

熱く奥で果てたいよ.

I'm bored to death.

went out with kaiting last night. not bad. well I didn't predict anything bad about it. I told her that I don't go on ominous outings. if I think that it's not going to be pleasant, or it's going to be weird, I'll not appear. she said I was evil. I think it works better that way. save us all the awkwardness and sarcastic remarks.

but I am very sorry to ky, jia en and the yi fangs. it would have been nice to meet you guys, (some of you again) but I decided against that. kaiting and I have tried arranging a dinner since eons ago. and I mean eons. when her bus came she was like hey we'll meet again okay. and I said yeah yeah, like 1.5 years later is it! because that's how long we've been trying to meet. or thereabout. just as bad.

I'm in the mood for icons. so be prepared for a slew of icons coming your way. and I mean a slew. the first icon post I put up had like 40+ icons. the next one had 60. so these 2 batches plus a few more I use and don't put up plus some I think are a little too disgraceful to put up PLUS a small batch I haven't put up yet,

it's bleeding 142 icons.

oh dear. heck. I'm making moreeeee!!

XD

I haven't a clue why gazette named their latest album 'stacked rubbish', but as far as it's going, it's pretty far from being rubbishy. there isn't anything particularly catching for now, but there's nothing really gross about it. so that's pretty good for them. it was released a week ago but I didn't listen to it until now. I'm not one who gives reviews, but just that gazette continues to rock my socks. seriously.

watched kagen no tsuki last night though. indeed hyde's presence is as good as none, but somehow that rat-tail that he borrowed off the moonchild set looks way better on him than on gackt. for some reason or another. perhaps it's because no matter what hyde tries to do to himself, he's just too good looking. oops that sounded vaguely biased.

in any case, I liked the two little students who tried so hard to help her. the storyline is somewhat like those chinese dramas where the soul is stuck in between dying and being alive, that sort of thing. but the complication is that the stuck soul is the wrong one, and it gets confusing for the poor girl who is stuck in a coma, and it confused the boyfriend and the students too.

but I really love the song. although it was so overplayed in the movie, you just can't dislike it. the entire movie gives that dark dreary feel, and you wish the light would break through, because it's so dark, literally and metaphorically. you wish for a good ending, you don't want mizuki to die, you want adam to be happy, you want to know what's wrong with these souls, you want it to be all alright at the end.

and yes, hyde throwing piano keys into the raging sea makes sense now.

on a brighter tone, I watched the first episode of hana kimi last night too! it isn't like outright slapstick funny, but it's cute all the same and horikita is simply pinchable. this drama seems more touching than funny, although there are hilarious bits stuck inside too. the taiwan version was funny alright, but it was so slapstick, exaggerated and overdone.

but that also, well, explained why singaporeans liked it. sigh.

meanwhile, waiting has paid off. SARS has released its hardsubbed version of hana kimi which is good, because then at least I ensure good quality subs with 98% accurate english, at the very least. I swear the nodame one was SO horrible that if I didn't know that squee bit of japanese to tell between a positive response and a negative response, I'd be terribly confused. the one on nomanymore isn't so good, because those are probably softsubs done in a hurry. sometimes I think it's not that the subbers have absolutely atrocious english, but really that sometimes they do it in a hurry, and through the night to rush it out asap, that they end up committing so many typos it's amazing.

but I'll still watch it on nomanymore, I suppose. it's faster that way. unless I miss a week or something and d-addicts is faster. which usually cannot be because SARS takes up to a week to do its subbing, while softsubs tend to appear 2-3 days after the RAW is released, and then nomanymore will piece them together and upload. thus I will be able to watch every episode about 5 days late or so. I am too lazy to take the RAW and wait for soft subs. I'm not that desperate to watch it. and when school starts I will slow down this watching thing. my goodness.

I think the only thing that makes this album sound anything like rubbish, are my rubbish speakers. I swear my monitor's speakers are so awful, everything sounds bad out of it. for a rough idea, they sound something like laptop speakers. and that sucks. seriously. I should stuff this into my mp3 player to do it some justice.

but as usual, I am too lazy. =)

the following post is a rant to myself about 3 jrock concerts. I have nobody to rant to about these, so I shall rant to myself.

so, over the past couple of days I've watched 3 concerts. on my computer, that is. 3 different artistes in 3 different places.

OH finally finished this post. it took so so so so long. so much for my own reference.

人各有志，无须操心. 人各有志，何必难过. with reference to why the resistance.

indeed each to his own, there is nothing to worry about, there is nothing to be upset about. but it always depends on what opinion it is in the first place that warrants such reactions. I suppose we live in this little island where our stability and peace rests on letting everyone have their own opinion and exercise their own freedom of choice in everything possible and then everyone's happy about that.

it's true that I try not to impose my ideals upon others, because that's a hard and painful road. and that's not quite the right way to go about it either. but since I believe my true happiness rests in christ alone, I wish everyone I know the same. you are entitled to believe in your own sort of happiness, but it doesn't mean that I will cease my worrying and cease my sadness. maybe you think that the burden is not mine to bear, for if a person believes then a person believes, and if the person doesn't, then so be it. but if the burden is nobody's to bear, a belief shall never come through.

indeed, such things are touchy and sensitive and things we don't fancy talking about. but to me, eternity is at stake here. this isn't just about him. that entry was written with regard to him, no doubt. but my last paragraph applies to all, to all who are like him. for there are only 2 reactions to God: accept, or reject.

I could choose to be indifferent. of course. that is also my choice. for God didn't make us a bunch of robots. but it is a conscious effort to choose otherwise. indifference and ignorance are very natural choices for humans, if you ask me. the other way is harder.
 
I am not writing this to preach. but I seek understanding as to why christians evangelise as they do. some people find us a nuisance, some people think we're all mad. but I think that if you could see that we carry a love for others and wish others real joy, then we would cease to be the original impressions.

I just finished watching the japanese drama recommended by ky. yes the drama's a little slow for such an exciting script, but I stuck on and held on to the end, and a wave of pathos came over. LIAR GAME is a drama about a tournament set up by an extremely rich man, to pit people against other people. he gives the contestants each a large sum of money at the beginning of the game, and the aim of the game, no matter what the rules are, is to obtain as much money as possible from others to add to your own original sum. cheat, lie, coax, persuade, whatever. get the cash. and at the end of the time period, if you failed to win, you would owe this rich man the difference between whatever you have left (if any), and the original large sum of money given. so that was how the game was to be played.

but one contestant, kanzaki nao, refused to play the game this way. she insisted that this was an unhappy way of conducting a game. for why should people cheat one another, be greedy for money, and land others in debts? but every other contestant thought her stupid, naive, innocent, pathetic for thinking so. because it was human nature to be greedy, to win, to control others, to lie. but kanzaki nao continued to insist that nobody would be truly happy this way, for the winner will feel guilt, and the losers will feel hurt. for kanzaki nao believed that the money would not bring happiness, but bring everybody down. the best way was for everyone to constantly break even, and so there would be no debts, and everyone is equal in terms of monetary status.

very interesting show. very. it speaks of human nature, as ugly as it gets, for the sake of money, in this case. it speaks of how humans are all selfish, greedy, and want to dominate other people and control them for their own benefit. it talks of betrayal, revenge, hatred, anger, swindling. it speaks of pain, strife, struggles. and so kanzaki nao sticks out, because she does not behave like the rest of them. she does not behave in accordance to human nature. she willingly sacrifices her own gain, she carries no hate for anybody, even though she was cheated along the way so many times. instead, she holds out love and forgiveness and salvation for those who want it.

a couple of characters laughed hysterically at her, and told her, exclaiming loudly, that it is IMPOSSIBLE, absolutely impossible, for everybody to be happy in each liar game tournament. they decided that it was impossible, because they thought that happiness lay in the amount of money they got out of the game. but kanzaki nao's mind wasn't on the money -- it was about the emotional baggage each person carried to the game. the conscience that people have. kanzaki nao knew that money brought physical wellness, but emptiness inside. for it had turned some of them so evil, and the because money equated power, the immense surge in power had driven some over the wall.

at the end of it, everyone understood that kanzaki nao wasn't stupid or foolish. it's true that she did not view money as all important, but in helping others and reaching out hands of love and forgiveness for one another and learning contentment, it was an easier way of living life. a much more pleasant way of living life. a life that sounded utopian, but if everyone worked together to achieve it, we'll get closer.

so it is with the world. however human nature continues to plague. this show makes me wonder if the original author of the comic the drama's based on is a christian. I believe that righteousness is in no man, but we can seek righteousness in christ. he alone can help us to overcome our evil human nature, our fallen selves, and put us on a path similar to kanzaki nao's. indeed the road of christianity is difficult, as people will ridicule us, people will reject us, people will cheat us. but that is how it is to be -- that we continue to shine like stars, we continue to shine like stars in a depraved world we live in today, to live as children of light in the darkness that the world is drowned in, to let out light shine, never to be placed under a bushel.

I need to leave for my next library pilgrimage soon. so here's a little children's song:

I could wish you joy and peace.
To last a whole life long.
I could wish you sunshine.
Or a cheerful little song
Or wish you all the happiness.
That this life could bring.
But I wish You Jesus, more than anything.

I could wish you leaves of gold.
And may your path be smooth.
I could wish you treasures.
Or that all your dreams come true.
And I could wish you paradise.
That every day be spring.
But I wish You Jesus, more than anything.

'Cause when I wish you Jesus,
I've wished you everything.

why the resistance. the tweak in the lyrics.

is it so hard for people to believe in God.
is it so hard to believe there's a higher being.
is it so hard to believe in freedom within boundaries.
is it so hard to appreciate the sheltered life.

is it?

it is, it seems.

it was not written to be a duet. he made it so.
it had a rather clear intention. he made his clearer.

sometimes I wonder if I should be doing something about it.

for I am not an accident, and life is not a coincidence.
there is reason, bloody good one in fact, for my existence.

and it applies to you too.

technically, operation toothpaste, is not accurate, for we are not merely after toothpaste. shampoo, is involved too. although I think we can postpone that for a year and a half, so that he can become dr. shampoo. shampoo has to suffer the same fate because they're such bloody best friends and it will be sad to leave one alone.

so, toothpaste, go eat all the crickets and grasshoppers you want now. shampoo, go watch all the liverpool you want now.

before you both land in 2 handcrafted glass coffins. oh oh don't spend all the money, we'll need to pay for formaldehyde. hell lot of it. and it's not all that cheap either.

we must be really insane about this. but it's insanely funny.

in the meantime, liar game's doing fairly well. 7 episodes are nearly in. they're coming in about 1 a day. and I can see why it's rather addictive. yes yet another addiction. but I'm determined not to get utterly hooked on this one. it's a drama, after all. it ends after 11 episodes. after 11 rather gruelling episodes. but WHO CARES. it's matsuda shota and toda erika, for crying out loud. which spells YAY twice. I don't really know why I like those two but I do. squee.

on a different note, I upgraded my firefox so now it's the spanking new firefox 2.0.0.4. heck, it's firefox2. and because my previous theme cannot support firefox2 (which makes me really upset because I liked it so much but the developer doesn't want to upgrade it), I had to download another new theme. it took me ages to find something nice and bright enough. when I did, I realised that it was awfully small. the icons, that is. so I got myself a HUGE icon set! they're really huge. the back/forward/refresh/stop/home buttons are humongous. they're like 4 times the usual size or something. really huge. really cute, and really lovely.

now my mother will never, never complain that these buttons are so small and she clicked the wrong thing. these icons are so gigantic you simply can't miss them. you might click the same thing twice, though. they're kinda big. hehheh.

woohoo. crystal's joining the pickling efforts. XD

on a side note, I figured why people like putting eyeliner. it's not that they like putting it -- it's just that it's near impossibility to remove it. had spiritflux cd photoshoot yesterday and my GOODNESS bloody eyeliner is nearly impossible to remove. partly because lian sze drew it so hard, and partly because I left it on for so long. which makes me wonder -- what lousy eyeliner does candice use? because hers is forever coming out, and it's weird, because then there would be some bits here and there that aren't outlined. hahaha