Subpoena'ed

Something short to relate

2011-12-27T03:35:00.000+08:00

Edited the original stanza, but thanks Claudia.

Dead-Lines

The pen hovers unexpectedly
Blue scrawls with little meaning
tell her she's hit a dead end in reason
And this page is suddenly dead seeming.

She sighs, and stares at window panes
the midnight has not the oil to last
There aren't that many grains
Left in her own personal hourglass.

Ah the poor battered spouse to achievement
having put all her eggs into one basket
she struggles, her hopes chained to a tyrant
As she toils a slave in the academic market.

On giving and taking

2011-12-26T02:58:00.002+08:00

Started as a one stanza reply on FB and now is a goddamned freaking poem. Thanks Kah Mun. Thanks.

Ebb and Flow

There flows a river that
meanders, feeding a sea
Fed by a single spring thaw
Melting itself, a fuel for thee.

Is to love a better quandry
A day, a while, forever
To spend yourself thirsty
Filling a well that is ever deeper?

There is a a summer rain,
That washes the Serengeti
Endless as it fills the plains
with growth and savagery.

Is to be loved, a better worry
To drink a spring of attention
That cares not for any fancy
Pausing not for apprehension?

The river runs dry
A tide ebbs to flow
Yet life returns from fire
Much like our own emotions.

Love that you can be.
Love as if no one can see.

Foot in mouth with a grenade.

2011-12-10T00:45:00.001+08:00

A Minefield is a Noun

Today I wound a friend,
Aimed, shot through the back,
As the fallout descends around us,
There is guilt, dripping down my neck.

There is the collateral damage,
The witnesses walk away silent
Wise and too polite to speak,
but judging my actions so evident.

Say what you want to,
But live with the consequence,
your crime of war so obvious,
in this conversation salient.

There are your fringe zones,
where you may sidestep the fray,
And yet there lies that DMZ
Where conflict is a syllable away.

Tread lightly my comrades,
Mindfields, in this cold war
Turn words and excuses
Into your own tripwire fuses.

Back in the 5-seat.

2011-11-28T13:27:00.001+08:00

Dedicated to Carmen despite not needing the ego inflation.

Spattering

It's a painting, a portrait,
Moving within my mind,
A scene, a Rembrandt,
Reminding me of a smile.

Memories, so beautiful,
So diligently remastered,
A glow here, a smile here,
That never was remembered.

I'm watching a pretty story,
A fabrication for a penny,
So convenient and plentiful,
On repeat, for a dreaming fool.

I want so much our own reality,
The one we share in person,
We can fabricate more memories,
Concrete, and without illusions.

Observation: Singapore MRT

2011-11-25T11:24:00.001+08:00

Picture unrelated.

TL:DR? http://soundcloud.com/tarrant-kwok/observation-singapore-mrt

It's hot, it's sweltering, Singapore bakes today. As people shuffle onto the train, I find a seat so wonderfully vacated by a salaryman. The train continues, half filled, with the remaining unlucky souls having to content themselves with standing, swaying with every jolt and shudder of the MRT.

There is paraphernalia on the windows, cheerful messages on the walls, all demanding in the nicest way, that you be courteous on the train, to give way, to let the needy have your seat. A flower offset on the window behind every seat repeats the message in sweet tones. I observe all this, and smile.

There is a pretty girl, a petite species of Chinese. She's standing, folder in hand, clutching a pair of headphones, the other arm wrapped around the metal pole to keep her from being dashed by the train's bucking. Suddenly, she is gone. The train stops, and the doors open. The miasma of heat is followed by equally steamed commuters, streaming into the city-bound train with unknown agendas.

Among the new immigrants to this moving peep-show is an Indian lady, most likely of Northen descent. She is heavily pregnant, yet due to her broad shoulders, loose dress and strong posture, does not convey the laden feeling that so many other women do.

There are no seats in front of her. I sit in one, three youths and a woman to my right, and two more teens to my left. I would have gotten up, but I decide to play a game of chicken with my fellow bench fellows.

The train rumbles onward, joints and wheels grunting and squealing like pigs in a pen. The lady is expecting a seat. Her plump legs, tattooed with hints of purple patterns on brown flesh, shift with the hint of impatience.

I stay in my seat, which is, a non-priority seat. So does everyone else, even those in the deep blue of the "reserved" seats. She doesn't betray a hint of her demand. She stares straight ahead, not making eye contact with any of the incumbents on the chairs. Not that she would have to - not a single one barring me is even looking up, desperately tilting their heads away and down, or submerged in their phones. Which is quite the shame.

The lady meanwhile, clings to the metal support pole as the train judders around a curve.

We come to a stop at the next station. A man gets up. She makes a slow but obvious movement to this vacancy - which is halted as a rather dexterous man slips by her and claims ownership of the seat. His gaze is forever locked downwards from then on. The lady stands, returning to the pole.

We are halfway to the next stop. There is indeed a flicker of discomfort on her face as she stands in front of me.

I'm sickened. I'm disgusted. At myself, at my bench fellows, at the bench occupants opposite me. I'm despicable, for noticing so much yet doing nothing when she arrived on the carriage. At the same time, I needed to know if all the media around me was actually being comprehended by a nation which boasts a 95% literacy statistic.

I make a motion to get up, and I lock eyes with the lady. I'm a dozen stops away from my destination but it is only the right thing to do. I motion for her to sit, and I try to arrange an apologetic look on my face. She smiles, that mysterious brief smile, laced with a hint of malice, but mostly of thanks.

I leave to the next carriage, where at the next stop I see an elderly couple which got on receive seats from commuters not far from their age. I continue to smile.

Review: The Polynomial - Space of The Music

2010-10-17T21:21:00.008+08:00

Now, I resume my blogging habits by opening with a review. This is all purely this blogger's opinion, and should be taken as such. Though he would think his opinions did mean something, even as a lay-gamer.

Taste the rainbow!

Anyway, on to the review.

The Polynomial - Space of The Music (here forth known as The Polynomial), was/is developed by a chap called Dymytry, and was first sighted in 2009 as (as I understand it) a fractal generator for sprucing up your GIMP shoops. It has since evolved into the product we have before us today, being available on Steam for 9.99 USD. I am reviewing Version 1.

It's full of stars...

The Polynomial is a strange being. It has the rudiments of a shoot em up, with enemies, power ups, bullets, and a score system. It even has a stat tracking system which shows you how many times you die, how many friendlies you hit, how many enemies you hit, and a couple of other nifty things. However, all similarities end there as The Polynomial takes a massive hit of acid and pumps the colours through the roof, all the while to your favourite music, more on the music later. Did I mention it was pretty?

Yeah I feel like that in the morning too.

Lets get the gameplay out of the way.

There is no context for the gameplay in The Polynomial. You begin in front of a floating billboard detailing what is what, and what you can do. There is no ham handed story about you being in the part of some interstellar war between master races and so on and so forth. Nada. Your enemy is what I can only describe as a nega-Pacman (called Nom-Noms, who are really robot nazis, but nega-Pacman sounds cooler), forever chasing down helpless ghosts and chomping down on them, prompting a squirting of rainbow viscera from the hapless ghost. The ghosts are your friends by the way. Eat them and they give you health and a speed boost. Did I mention the nega-pacmen shoot you?

Nega-Pacman:1 Ghost:0

There are other spatial anomalies which do stuff, ranging from diverting your bullets in wacky directions to providing a safe zone. There are powerups, ranging from an auto-aim to a speed boost. Shooting the nega-pacmen give you points, and so on and so forth. The controls are simple, much like a flight sim in that you can control your velocity and you steer with the mouse and perform barrel rolls with A and D. The UI during gameplay is minimal, with icons for all elements on the field, and there's even a handy 3D radar in the bottom left of the screen, displaying all elements on the field. The stat block is in the upper left hand corner.

I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate.

So yes, gameplay is... wanting. (edited)

Having said all this, you might think that playing The Polynomial must be dull as a brick dipped in concrete. Well, to the hyperactive hardcore teenager who's only goal is to blow up stuff and get a direct feedback on how smashing their gaming skills are, YMMV. Death simply nerfs your score line, and defending your little flock of health pickups can be quite exhilarating, and the online leaderboard is good for e-peen waving, once you figure out the scoring mechanism.

Not an oilspill, not an oilspill...

Yes, this current iteration of the game is not too compelling on the surface, at least for me. Dodging bullets with a barrel roll is slow and takes balls, and it takes a fair amount of time to get used to the hitboxes of things for when you want to eat the ghosts, snag powerups or warp out to a new arena (new fractal seed). But it's a pretty good game once you get under the icons and chaos. However, I think one must look a little further into the dark murky depths of The Polynomial's menus to find where this game also shines. This is where The Polynomial is more toy-like, with a game structure tacked on to it. Which is not a bad thing.

They love the taste of ghosts in the morning.

The Polynomial offers a robust fractal generation tool, and this is then coupled to a rudimentary music player which you can point to the direction of your music folders, and even set up playlists (though you can't save playlist unfortunately). I would thus recommend making a playlist folder though, as it saves you a lot of hassle. A huge caveat is that the audio formats supported are limited, so you might want to beware of that. It turns the game into a massive interactive visualizer with you, the user, able to generate your own fractals and fly along side the generated lightscapes, and if you so wish to, kill some nega-Pacmen along the way. Also,did I mention that The Polynomial is 3D enabled? It blows my mind how much thought went into the toy bits of the game, which is a good thing may I add.

If you shoot a Nega-Pacman, does he not bleed too?

All in all, The Polynomial is not a must-get game. It is a game you purchase after considering the risk of epilepsy, much like Beat Hazard (which I however strongly recommend as a game). Unlike Beat Hazard though, The Polynomial still can be a toy - a beautiful toy, which you can yes, play as a game. This is a game you judge based on the utility you can derive from it's toy like nature, like for instance, using it as a visualiser for your 6 hours of Brahms, or putting it on a 60" screen at a party and watch as the stoners trip out to the visuals. So yes, if you want to appreciate fractal art to the beat of your own music while blowing up nega-pacmen, by all means, get it.

Nega-Pacman are also like giant pinatas.

I will comment though, that the trend of music based gaming has taken various turns, at least for the PC (seeing as I am a PC elitist). Look at Frets on Fire, then move on to games like Beat Hazard, with it's algorithms that use the music beats to spawn enemies and dictate your firepower, to things like Turba, where following the beat jacks your scores into the stratosphere. The Polynomial is an exception however, as the music doesn't affect gameplay at all - it is there for ambiance, your own selected ambiance, both aurally and visually, like synaesthesia for the handicapped, which as long as you can understand the concept, is great.

I end with a few more pretty pictures.

The sun knows how to groove out, also pictured, ghost.

Rainbow Road, fractal style.

Yes it's a mexican wave.

Did I mention that the program can capture a 50MP screenshot because it writes straight to memory and not through the display? It is siiiickkkk.

Relapse.

2010-10-15T09:04:00.000+08:00

Despite their best efforts, I'm not exactly feeling the love. Must be the rain. Did I mention that I have stuff to wash and it's pissing down like this?

Also hey there.

So apparently I'm a depressing read, but at the same time that means I invoke some kind of emotional response from my readers, so I guess that's a small consolation.

But thanks anyway. :]

Because if no one else, I will be there

2010-08-16T00:43:00.000+08:00

Non Resolute

There is no more to say
When he has courted
With a ring on his hand
Concealed under a glove

There is no more to trust
When he has cursed you
Thrice to shame
Thrice a fool.

There is no more to hold
When he cares no longer
To leave you alone
Confused and cold.

There is no more love
When you know not why
You love him any more
So let the burnt bridges die.

Abstraction.

2010-07-27T21:35:00.000+08:00

I cannot think.
There is no feeling.
Truths sink.
Without meaning.

I exist.
I reside.

I must scream
But I cannot.
For it is all I have
That keeps me existing inside.

Fill in quote with context.

2010-06-27T13:32:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, you have to make sure you're still alive.
So I got on my bike in nothing but a cotton short sleeve and a pair of jeans.
And in the middle of a sunny winter day, I went grocery shopping.

Pain shows you, you are alive, and not just existing.

Strength means nothing to the wind.

2010-06-18T08:33:00.001+08:00

Nightmare

Dreamless within these rooms

I am curled weeping softly
Waking from the nothingness
Like a soft hand grazing gently
The dawn breaks the darkness

Faithless within this world

The wool offers no comfort,
This trepidation knifes bone,
Oblivion is not easily forgot,
Like screams, that keening tone.

Clueless at what looms

Blue, broken by pink bands,
This colour spreading slowly.
Azure touched by gold strands,
This day beckons so coldly.

Joyless words softly purled,

Courage manifests, hope enduring,
Action begets the results that follow,
Failures inflict the pain in trying
A lesson learnt, one Life will allow.

As Fate writes your many dooms.

Slightly messed up in the head. Or more.

2010-06-16T19:10:00.002+08:00

Orange and Grey

There is a crowded scene.
All the roar of life around me,
With all these faces to be seen.
In this warm humanoid sea.

There is a silence,
Only located within,
Outside, aural violence,
A penetrating din.

There is a footstep.
My own, my echoes,
Always over this step,
Alienating my inner woes.

There is a movement.
And Solitude discovers me.
And for the longest moment,
I suddenly cease to be me.

There is a gaping void,
Where the fire was.
What I once enjoyed,
Now I see no cause.

There is a breath,
Visible in the chill air.
An embrace like Death,
This frigid affair.

There is a breeze,
Rustling dead on the floor.
Colour in this grey freeze,
Piled in drifts by the door.

There is one last leaf.
Hanging by a stem,
In an existence so brief,
Hanging at Winter's hem.

Thinking thinking thinking

2010-06-06T01:13:00.001+08:00

Shifting Shoals

Today I am searching.
Tomorrow I will be lost.
A crucial clue in greeting,
Hidden under a fur of frost.

Today I am struggling.
Tomorrow I will regret.
This play with theorising,
Damns truths to be reset.

Today I am pondering.
Tomorrow I will realise.
This quest of dousing,
Was on bad advise.

Today I am watching.
Tomorrow I will be seen.
This dream chasing,
Was all a plotted scene.

Today, I am waiting.
Tomorrow I will be gone.
Played by all the scheming,
A tragedy that's never done.

Inspired by all the other stories.

2010-05-17T19:12:00.001+08:00

Written after a meal of experimental meatballs and to the tune of the album Look Alive by the one and only Incubus.

Primeval

The light flickers out weakly
And I am alone, seperated
The silence descends meekly
A peace, wryly negotiated.

The darkness is welcome
But there is another in the room
This small space that I own
Something horrible does loom.

The window fogs up quickly
A stutter in the silence fleeting
Like a shudder in the air, softly
Like something else breathing.

I am powerless, weaponless
Fighting this never-ending fear
Primordial, viciously pitiless
Oppressively silent as it nears.

Flight is a strange creature
When all it serves to provide
Is a steadily worsening picture
Of the reality still outside.

Sleep consumes me
In this pitch black
Where all i can see
Is horror staring back.

An unorthodoxed way at dinner.

2010-05-16T18:16:00.001+08:00

Staring at a pack of ground beef that I bought, I was at a loss at how to deal with it. It had been sitting in the fridge for a whole two days, and I knew I had to do SOMETHING with it. Silently it sat there, mocking me as I struggled with which to end it's taunting.

This pack of ground beef was going down.

What do you do with ground beef? Apart from the usual beef and cabbage stir fry, which needs no recipe, there are a couple of other things you can do. IKEA-style meatballs, bolognaise, lasagna, cannoli, meatloaf, slavink, chilli, oh the possibilities for pulverised and ground up cow can be as endless as the eternal dark sun within your mind.

I digress of course.

"But wait!" I hear you scream, in your impotent rage, shackled to your computer table, unable to grab and shake my frame in an attempt to knock some wits into me, "what about burger patties?! WHAT ABOUT THEM!? THEY'RE GROUND BEEF TOOOO!"

Well yes I know that. What else do you think a beef patty is made from? Wood shavings mixed in with rejected goat offal? Wait that's Macca's patties. I apologise. The point is, is that you can make some really good tasting patties with ground beef and some little extras. Of course the whole shaping thing and potential for failure as the patty turns into a crumbly sloppy joe of fail is an inherent danger in not using industrial paste as a binder but good judgement can save everything.

Experimental Clay

Makes 2 thick patties OR meatballs for 2

Ingredients:
250-300g of nice beef mince
A good splash of balsamic vinegar
Black pepper
Garlic/herb/whatever seasonings
A little salt
A shot glass of fine bread crumbs
A shot glass of milk (use discretion)

Combine beef and vinegar and seasoning.

Add milk and crumbs, mix all delicately.

Shape into patties (or meatballs, you elitist prick) roughly palm sized (which can vary from person to person) and thick (this is so it doesn't break up into fail).

Wrap delicately with clingwrap. Let it sit, ruminating on the inevitability of it's existence with the balsamic vinegar for a while.

Suggested cooking methodology:

After you have decided that the patties have had enough time to ponder their ultimate purpose in the greater scheme of the universe, ring a medium sized onion and toss it onto a hot, oiled frying pan (yeah you sick freaks saw the innuendo, do you want a medal?) and sauté until, well it turns nice and brown or whatever floats your culinary boat.

After that happens, carefully introduce the patties to the samsara that is a hot frying pan. Let it sit there for a good 3-5 minutes then caaaareeefulllyyyy flip it. Use whatever crazy methods you have to do so as delicately as possible. Repeat as necessary. Lower heat and lengthen cooking time between flips if you want a well done patty (though why would you want to run the risk a dry patty is completely beyond me).

Next, arrange burger however you like, and consume.

Blogger's Final Comments:
As I said, this experimental method of preparing a patty makes a delicate piece of meat. It doesn't take too well to the abuse of flipping (as mentioned, I don't care to know for the binders the big guns use, yet) but yields a really flavourful piece of mashed meat that simply works.

Look! Carbonara! hur hur hur

2010-05-02T23:46:00.000+08:00

So yeah, we're all busy people.

But like I told Mel the day this appeared - "Hey, look out your window!" It's not everyday you have a rainbow plonked right outside your window, silently screaming "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME GODDAMNIT BEFORE I DIE A HORRIBLE ANGLE INDUCED DEATH." So yeah, it pays to look away from the screen for a moment or two. But not now, I want your attention focused here on my words. Because we all know on this blog my words count.

It's going greeaaaat though. As you know photography is a passion - more accurately an obsession, and here it helps illustrate my other passion - food. As any of my housemates might attest, I like food, a lot, maybe a little too much - when I end up nagging people about the pantry door being left constantly open. I don't want to get potato poisoning, so please just close the damn door. Also, as my friend Sean will tell you, I get psychotics when microwavable rice is in the vincinity. I'm a die hard for the rice cooker or stove method of cooking rice; despite all the claims of convenience that heretical invention purports.

And yes, I stand by my words, women who do not appreciate the goodness that is proper cooking methodology should not be allowed to function in a kitchen. Hell, any person, male, female, hermaphrodite, cthulhoid abomination from the deepest abyss in this planar existence should never be allowed to cook in a kitchen unless he/she/it knew what to do and what not to do with simple products, like couscous. Also, a knowledge of thermodynamics and expansion/contraction physics will also be welcome.

But hey,if they want to learn, and won't potentially put half the kitchen ablaze due to a bacon fire or turn half the stove into a quagmire of congealed material because of an boiled over pot of pasta - I'm all game for that.

But on to the matter at hand. I promised you carbonara, and by my words so I shall deliver.

Of the foods that I really enjoy, carbonara has got to be up there with osso bucco and pork ribs. Or that spinach/feta crepe that they serve at the Pancake Parlour. Or good chorizo served with salad and olive oil drizzled on crusty bread. I digress - but yes, carbonara holds a dear (albeit not as highly ranked) place in my heart. But of the carbonara I have eaten, a large number of them have been creamy affairs, with more sauce than you could shake a spoon at, and of course of varying quality from delightful to the downright dreadful, affairs so foul you wish you could be put out of your misery eating such affronts, much like what Matt (I'll get to that) had suffered through. Though that one deep fried pasta experiment was amazingly good.

So when I found a absurdly simple recipe from Perth based blogger Matt of Abstract Gourmet, I was sufficiently motivated to take it upon myself to test this recipe he posted (which also is a humourous rant about the inedible nature of school dinners) . Of course I cannot find Guanciale in Geelong (darnthosestupidMelbourneartisans) so I had to settle for a hundred odd grams of some decent qualite pancetta.

To be fair, I duplicated his recipe almost to the letter, also I followed the suggestion in the comment box about omitting stuff - however I discovered that I had only Penne and Spirali pasta. Curse my lack of planning! I decided the Penne would hold the sauce a little better.

Carbonara

100~ grams of spicy pancetta (or Guanciale should you be able to get it)
3 Eggs
1/3 cup Romano cheese, grated
500g of Pasta (prefer spaghetti or Rigatoni, I used Penne)
Freshly ground Black pepper and my lots of it.

First, prep your pasta. You want it to be al-dente just as you finish frying the pancetta. While that happens chop up the pancetta into centimetre square pieces.

Crack all the eggs into a bowl and beat the cheese into it.

Then heat some oil up in a pan and toss the pancetta on it. Fry it until it just about browns nicely.

As the pasta should be finished by now, drain and transfer the pasta onto the pan with the pancetta, toss for a moment.

Now for the maaaagic. Remove the pasta and pancetta off the heat. Quickly take the egg-cheese mix and dump it onto the pasta/pancetta and mix it through thoroughly, so that every bit of pasta and ham is covered by the egg. The heat actually cooks the egg/cheese mix so it turns into a really simple and downright tasty sauce! Crack lots of black pepper on it if the pancetta doesn't impart the oomph needed.

Simple, quick, really hearty. Serve with salad (I made a lettuce/mushroom salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil with a good dose of leftover grated romano.).So now I know, cream and carbonara? It's gonna be hard to look at it seriously any more. And bottled Alfredo? Don't make me laugh. I'll get back to the not so similar Alfredo pasta another time.

Proceed to eat out of the pan while watching the 2010 Logies. And then complain when Paul McDermott of Good News Week doesn't get the Gold Logie.

Have fun.

Here's to 23 because I [verb] you so much

2010-04-25T12:05:00.000+08:00

State Of Affair

Rainfall on a steel rooftop,
Flowing into the gutter below,
A hissing wind that won't stop,
Driving rain into my window.

The room is spartan within,
Impenetrable without,
Here my musings begin,
And here I put myself out.

Life goes on inside the house,
As I watch the world's tide,
Listening, quiet as a mouse,
To the screaming inside.

Entropy dances throughout,
My brain, theirs, the space,
A constantly decaying bout,
As no one cares for this place.

Each has tried, and each has not,
Perhaps none will ever continue,
Still we deny the problem we've got,
Leading us to bicker and argue.

Here I stay, tired and in isolation,
The brazen rain stops clattering,
A light shines, a tiny consolation,
To the horrors inside all gathering.

It's a huge metaphor. Of what I shan't say.

2010-04-24T20:43:00.000+08:00

Wonderful, unique, a snowflake, so is every single one of you. Coagulating, merging, growing in all angles and lengths, into a single graupel of brilliance, a new you. Now in rapid descent, so full of aspiration to be caught on someone's tongue, to fizzle out with the most emotional impact you can. In all likelihood you won't make it. You'll land on the ground - like the rest.

As you land - you drift lightly to the top of the pile and are quickly squashed and stifled by the following snowfall, and the next and the next. If you're lucky, you and a millions of others are scooped up, packed into a ball and hurled with deadly precision. Or perhaps you are taken and formed into a majestic construct of pure aesthetic design - nothing more, nothing less.

And in the inevitable entropic, gravity fed crunch, so many of you will become the snow pack, indiscernible,a dense layer of powdered ice. Codified over the years you become a historical glacier, disturbed by tremors you are an avalanche of derision.

And when the thaw comes and melts every bit of ice around - will you become homogeneous, and free of your utility to me.

It's recipe tiem!

2010-04-23T11:32:00.001+08:00

Well hello there. After last night's musing, I awoke in the following hours feeling rather ravenous. Having had numerous spud related discussions - I decided to make Rösti. Originally a

So, in a glorious return to culinary experimentation and rediscovery, I present to you:

Dirty Rösti
Serves 1, or side dish for 4.

Ingredients:
1 large potato, preferably waxy
Olive Oil and/or butter
Lots of black pepper
Some salt
Curry powder/hot spice

Suggested Methodology:

First, par cook the potato in a microwave or pot of water - not too long, otherwise it will get soggy later.
After they have cooled sufficiently, grate them into little strips. Go ahead and cheat with a food processor, you douchebag.

Now you may if you have it, squeeze the water out of the grated potatoes using a muslin square, but since I didn't have it I just winged it - but it helps with making the Rösti crispier and less soggy.

Mix in black pepper and salt to the grated potatoes, not too much, you can add more later. Be careful when mixing, you don't want to mash the potato strips.

Heat a non-stick sauté pan or frying pan with olive oil and when ready, plonk the potatoes onto it.If using more than 1 potato or if you're making small but numerous Rösti, you might want to do it in batches.

Press that mass of potato down till it's only about half an inch thick. You want it to cook all the way through.

Cook this one side for about 5-ish minutes. You might want to lower the heat a bit and extend the cooking time if you're worried about burning the outside but having the inside uncooked.

Flip the Rösti after that - small Rösti can be carefully flipped using the spatula, but I would suggest taking them out for a moment. Larger Rösti have to be slid out onto a plate and flipped carefully onto another plate and then transfered.

While the Rösti are out of the pan, add more oil/butter to the pan, let that heat up, and now cook the other side for about the same time as you did for the first side. Be careful not to burn them!

Once you're satisfied that the Rösti is sufficiently golden brown remove from heat and serve.

Serving suggestions or modifications:

with sour cream and sauteed mushroom and ham - my personal favourite lightning brunch, just toss the mushrooms and ham on the pan right after you're done with the Rösti.

along side a steak - acts much like any potato based side dish to the glorious steak.

with cheese on the top - turn it into a pizza while you're at it!

adding onion/bacon into the grated potatoes prior to frying - it's an omelette but not an omelette.

On physical correspondence

2010-04-22T20:33:00.000+08:00

Good Evening.

We've come a long since runners and homing pigeons. Communication has become so easy nowadays - almost effortless. Given that we have instantaneous mail and convenient VOIP, you wonder how faceless e-mail has become, a mere tool really meant for nothing more than mere functionality.

If we're to trust what we have become, that is a highly dependent race, shackled to technology, sometimes a return to the past is a much more refreshing activity there is struggling for the future.

People decry the old forms of communication, but I must contend that what we are using now will eventually become as old as what we call old now. Will we have stalwart defenders of our current forms of communication when the time comes to make them obsolete?

I suppose it would be foolish to say that post will experience a miraculous revival and return to the forefront of communication -it is simply too inefficient compared to what we have now. But I will say that for all its efficiency or lack thereof, there is something in a letter that electronic mail cannot replicate - arguably the tactile sensation of holding a letter in your hand. Sure, some of us do not have the handwriting that others possess - beautiful flowing languid lines, or perhaps instantly legible yet strong and pleasant - buthave you considered the quaint aesthetics of a typewriter?

The impact is lost to be honest, if a backlit screen burns the image of words into the back of your retinas. A soft, pleasant cream paper provides a wonderful contrast to the deep black of ink. Even the pedestrian white sheets are preferable to a screen. Yet the failing of a page compared to the screen is it's lack of hypertextuality - something this generation has been raised on and will be hard pressed to be weaned off. A page of script does not allow you to immediately post a retort or a praise - the processing in replying to a letter involve so much more than hitting the Reply button.

That is the beauty of physical correspondence - you know effort was put into it's transmission, along with a good dose of praying that the postal service didn't lose it along the way.

Wheee prose dump

2010-04-16T02:09:00.000+08:00

Babylon

We build and we build
Constantly adding to this
Unwittingly do we wield
Something to crush us with.

Complexities spread unbidden
At the foundations of it all
Buried treasures stay hidden
As we converse about the fall.

Struts come loose and yield
As we play this hide and seek
Scavenging on a dangerous field
A metaphor lost on the meek.

There is a finality to this game
One where there is no escape
Going out like this is no shame
Into an oblivion of a landscape.

So little can be said by so much
And with a little nudge does it,
In all it's fragility and such
Come crashing into a final heap.

Prose dump again and again

2010-04-14T22:53:00.000+08:00

Showpeople

It's a matinee of sorts
Playing out less like life
Showing good reports
Pretty with little strife.

There is the alpha male
And the ubiquitous good wife
And the oddball complaining
Petty piping with a fife.

He struts she struts they strut
Keening in their own pride
Obliging their stereotypes somewhat
Peddling loud insinuations so snide.

Is it so hard to follow the script
When all you require is done
And you walk it through with wit
Passionate without an ounce of fun.

All collapse as the stage goes black
A curtain falling on their throes
A single actor grasping at the light
Dead, till the next daily show.

Bulletin lecture

2010-04-13T08:38:00.000+08:00

So, I don't have a single post for the entire month of March. Indeed, there's a massive gaping hole in my archives that is March. I could march on from this failure that is march but I'm not sure after March I can march let alone make a coherent post about marching on after March. But I digress.

Lots of things have been happening. Apart from the fact the kitchen is still an abominable mess, Life progresses at a pale trot, moving with the semblance of fulfilling productivity, dotted with a festive smirk here and there. It functions.

Be back with a prose dump soon.

Prose Dump

2010-02-21T22:04:00.003+08:00

Amour

It's a strange world we live in
Tempered by our old dislikes
Where we throw ourselves
Willingly on emotional pikes.

That which our hearts cannot stand
Is an acceptable risk to brief joy
And wherever our broken bodies land
We continue, like a damaged toy.

And when we see our comrades turning
From all they have held dear inside
We wonder how tender the act of loving
Is repaid in broken hearts brushed aside.

And yet we persevere in our masochism
In pursuit of something free of lucidity
And in our minds, our own catechism
Keeps us pursuing her total affinity.

Realising I actually need her
More than my own sanity
Has me instead wanting her
In spite of my own vanity.

In which his emminence rants

2010-02-16T17:07:00.004+08:00

Lygon Street, Melbourne

I should have done this weeks ago honestly.

The assailable notion that I have no free time is of course that, assailable in the most vulnerable of positions. Indeed, my abundance of free time has in fact caused me to have run into the problem of figuring out what to do with this hitherto bountiful resource. Having said that, indeed the concept of free time is a relative term - if you fill your organiser to the brim with activities, free time is turned into nugget like vacuoles of uninterrupted idling, where the person is then shunted back into activity, productive or otherwise. However, if the organiser is not filled - or there is a lack of things to do, idleness creeps in and the machine that is the human stalls and falters into entropic torpor. So it can be said free time is a product of a lack of doing, and that the creative force is a bastion against which free time is dashed upon and rid from this world.

But I digress.

To be honest such a chart is predominantly true. I believe I have followed this chart somewhat well, having dived deep into the HDR hole, and emerging a more knowledgeable individual, gone through the phase of burst firing and knowledge gathering, and am now on the slow, and excruciatingly tough climb to betterment.

Having said that I never shot cats and fucking flowers with the compact. And my kit lens was a fucking good kit lens, AND I was using the PASM modes right off the bat. So yeah, not quite to the letter.

But I digress.

Marshall Station, Geelong.

The point is that it's easy to take a photograph. It's easy to point a compact camera and record your memories. That's how we sell the cameras on to you, easier to use, easier to share, easier to make you look pretty (Casio I'm looking at you), and while compacts are wonderful things to record, they lack (with certain very high end exceptions) the control and latitude needed to exert full potential. Sure, there are many, many absolutely stunning shots taken with compact cameras and I concede that with enough effort one can make a compact camera work.

But that is also, my counter point.

I don't think most people are motivated enough to push themselves. Not nearly enough force of will to think a little more. And that is, my beef with people. To them a camera is an accessory, a camwhoring tool, a tool to document the passing of their lives, something our ancestors had to work hard to preserve. That is not wrong. Not in the slightest. Everyone is entitled to record their lives. But what I do hate - is when you have all the good gear, the kind of gear that is sufficient and begs to be pushed and tinkered and experimented with, and relegating it to capturing mundane drivel.

The fault is not of the camera and it's kit lens, the problem is with the mindset of the wielder. As mentioned this contentment with compact cameras is unacceptable when applied to more advanced and more complex machines. It is wrong of me to make generalisations - but having seen it happen, makes me sick to my gut.

The problem is not the people, it is the mindset that shackles people - and while they are in their absolute right to do so, it is a waste of potential - of all kinds of cameras, simply by being simple.

Carlton Park, North Carlton

A Quote from your Blogger

2010-01-24T05:21:00.002+08:00

I believe in every candid, even the most embarrassing ones, because not only is that true of what you did do, it is a reflection on your personality, whether you're secretly silly or just plain funny.

Return of the Sandwich

2010-01-22T16:25:00.002+08:00

Haikuuu

2010-01-21T00:59:00.001+08:00

Absence

She's like life support

Yanked from me I despair

Words cease to flow there.

Free Verse, almost ish.

2010-01-18T04:24:00.003+08:00

Swedge

They gave you dreams to build on
I tore down your castles
I wrote on the wall for you
I broke you for selfish dues.

Across the room with a smile
You're beckoning to change
For a more dangerous play
A deadly game.

Dramatics make us harmless with
Butterfly knives in clenched fists
Circling and smiling like such
a dance with thrusts and twists.

There's blood on my hands
covering the floor and picture
of you holding me close
Neither of us a victor.

Hold me close once again
And twist that blade deep
And I'll return the gesture
And let our cares fade to sleep.

Duality

2009-12-27T23:44:00.003+08:00

Haemorrhaging, oh so slowly haemorrhaging.
Makes me feel quite human indeed.
But I digress.

It's been rainy out. Life is like the rain, flowing, crystal, transient. Here when it's grey, gone when it's shining. Collecting in the depressions, stagnating in the foulest of them, gone when the heat turns up.

Tetapi, juga boleh dikatakan kehidupan adalah wayang yang tak akan berhenti.

Satu adegan diikuti dengan adegan yang berikutnya, dengan isi-isi yang tersirat dan tersembunyi, dengan agenda yang berlainan tujuannya.

Dan dalam kerenah-kerenah yang dibuat untuk sandiwara ini, boleh kami menanya diri, bagaimana kami hidup dengan kebenaran ini.

Faces smile, faces change, faces make their way through the crowds not realising the derivativeness of their performance. A charade we all carry on because it is the only way we can live with ourselves. Eventually, we're convinced of it - eventually we are consumed in our very own fairytale that you can't find your way out of the warren.

Asalnya terowong ajaib, sekarang perigi yang dalam.

I just want to know, whether the charade you're running is a good show, or is it like all the others like us.

Hurting

2009-12-21T19:20:00.003+08:00

An Ending of Sorts

It doesn't call for hate
Though it hurts like a pin
Even knowing the place
I was placing myself in.

I fell for the signs I was seeing.

You say sorry, I'm okay
If anything I should be sorry
That I led you into this fray
This charged, tangled quandary.

You're not to blame for my folly.

We're still friends, always
I'll be there when it breaks
I'll smile for your better days
Don't go cold, whatever it takes.

It's not worth throwing away.

Thinking, is actually not that bad.

2009-12-14T01:21:00.001+08:00

Stages

Maybe in hurting

Do I throw my fears aside

Becoming stronger.

Expressed.

2009-12-12T23:52:00.002+08:00

Despair

Stop giving me hope

Because it's okay for me

That I cease to feel.

Thoughts.

2009-12-11T02:10:00.002+08:00

Now playing: Rage Against The Machine - Voice Of The Voiceless
via FoxyTunes

If it's one thing I can do when in turmoil, it is to write. Wondering does nothing, contemplating only makes up for half of the workings, And going blank is just lazy. Papers are everywhere, littering this table, receipts, notes, a music sheet from a friend, envelopes of hazily remembered notifications. A crumpled dollar note lies in a corner, next to the

----------------
Now playing: Metallica - Sanitarium
via FoxyTunes

tiny dustbin to the left of this battered laptop. I sift through the mess, looking for a strand of thought I might have salvaged from my transient musings. No luck. An empty cup lies directly to the left of my hand, empty of the cold liquid from hours ago. An organiser lies unused, awaiting the arrival of the new year. My hands rummage through the pages, looking for even a scrap with my own scribble. Nothing.

A deck of cards, ornate, lies on the second table. I shuffle it out, and play a game of solitaire. I lose. The deep sky blue wall opposite me exudes age - discolouring at the windows, and wherever moisture was concentrated. A battered torchlight sits hanging on a hook,

----------------
Now playing: Muse - Time Is Running Out
via FoxyTunes

serving no purpose except to illuminate the room when blackouts hit. A cold marble floor is punctuated by a clothes horse and a rug. A bed lies in the opposite corner. My eyes travel to the jeans crumpled on the floor. I shift it, almost meditatively to the clothes horse, and hang it neatly. The towel is dry, bearing no hint from my earlier bath. I look out the window.

A single sodium light fills the street in a dull warm light. The bougainvillea plants outside glint the orange glow off their waxy leaves. My eyes survey the quiet scene with derision. It's been seen so many times before.

----------------
Now playing: The Beatles - Something
via FoxyTunes

My mind reflects, when did this night scene ever change. Fireworks perhaps. A party. None of them changing this orange hue, staining everything this sickly shade. The cracked wall on the other side of the wall looks even worse under this lighting - like entropy teasing me with a taste of things to come.

----------------
Now playing: David Bowie - Let's Dance
via FoxyTunes

A cat passes on the road. Gaunt, ginger and wary it moves along the orange road. It pauses and looks my way. I don't know if there was a connection, but it scampered to the other side of the road. It paws at a garbage can before jumping into the drain.

I mull the entire experience up to this point in time. If I cannot find what I have done, then I must redo what has gone. If I cannot recover what I

----------------
Now playing: Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax
via FoxyTunes

will lose, then I must find a way to retain my ruse. If I cannot understand, I must dissect it till I can. I return to the computer, slightly contemplatively, completely subdued. My fingers dance on the keys.

Filling in

2009-12-09T14:36:00.002+08:00

Stopping and Looking

Grounded and shivering
Like a bird in precipitation
It's a terrifying feeling
This word, trepidation.

Sometimes I wonder
In being so vulnerable
Human and full of blunder
Do I enjoy the pleasurable.

I chuckle a little coldly
Maybe I am too far in touch
That in hurting myself so boldly
Enjoy your company so much.

Wooooo

2009-12-04T00:05:00.001+08:00

Appreciation

A truth in this world

For one beautiful thing seen

Hundreds forgotten.

blargrargrable

2009-12-02T11:03:00.003+08:00

Unbidden

Restlessness, contemplation
Courses through complication
Of my personal consternation
Much to my own infuriation.

The thoughts flow freely, unbidden
Emotions tacked along, subtly hidden
Seeping in my bones, in my veins
Gathering in my chest as dull pains.

I cannot feel the clarity of purity
Not with this red haze of enmity
Damming all progress, halting me
Anxiety builds, my poltergeist to be.

Screaming silently in this formaldehyde jar
A frozen face frozen with many a scar
I cannot speak my mind for fear of hurting
Those I wish to keep from my hate causing.

Can't speak, it's all said in eyes of anger
Blind to my own random acts of danger
There's a storm coming, dark and cleansing
Roaring, buffeting, ultimately mending.

Insomniacal poetry, inspired.

2009-11-19T03:08:00.002+08:00

When it comes to the will, there will be a way.
Like how when you want a word, there' s a pair to tie them together.

but I digress.

Disordered

Bleach out the foolish words
Iron away the stubborn creases
Filter the whey of the very curds
Your perfecting never ceases.

Bully the incorrigible into congruence
Hammer the wild into seeming supports
Undo the knots into straight convalescence
And watch entropy undoing your efforts.

Paint the mismatched so they complement
Adjust oddities so they are woefully decent
Prod the misshapen into a shapely garment
Ah, did they try this so many times so recent

What with our own feats of clean arrangement
Don't trust your little brain in its advancements
It'll come apart just as you're idly complacent
Basking in your own self touted achievements.

Gastric musings

2009-11-16T15:01:00.002+08:00

I say human hamster balls are wonderful child containment devices.

I think I am angry.

Is it because I failed to get my camera out in time to capture the scene of school children with their scooters, in the middle of an empty underpass, waiting for their mother to catch up? Is it because I was stupid enough not to bring the camera bag and instead rely on a laptop bag to carry all my gear? Is it because I don't recognise some of the emotions flowing through me at the moment?

It is complicated, to say the least. One could argue it is all of the above. One could argue it is only one of the above.

But on the other hand, I think I am also happy.

I think I am happy, because I don't recognise what I'm feeling. Something so foreign, yet so familiar, skirts the edge of my mind. Pain is but pain, and all it is is pain. The biting strap of my Crumpler holding several kilos worth of electronics, and my backpack containing the comparatively lightweight wad of dirty clothes, can't be denied. But I feel conflicted – glad, worried, elated, paranoid, hopeful, doubtful, impassioned, calculated. Pain registers, but is shuffled down the pecking order of stimuli – it is simple existence, my samsara for coming down here. Thoughts register briefly, contemplations noted fleetingly, and feeling, becomes an overwhelming priority. Feeling what? That which I don' t recognise, am incapable of defining, this also frustrates, angers me, as I search for a word that describes the nebulous. But I am happy.

Bleargh?

2009-11-06T00:49:00.006+08:00

She runs though my mind,
a spectre.
Her whispers flit and wind
a rogue factor.

Such breathtaking discord
a cacophony in tune.
All falling into one accord
A beauty so roughly hewn.

With her is like a dinner
a liaise so covert.
Neither of us a winner
A wonderful dessert.

Tales of Cassandra, again.

2009-10-29T00:44:00.002+08:00

Now, please refer to my post below, for the poem in question.
The logs themselves are lengthy, so I'm posting highlights.

(12:55:52 AM) -Subpoena'ed- OLIVIA LOVES SHOTACON: So...
(12:57:49 AM) cass: huh?
(12:58:38 AM) -Subpoena'ed- OLIVIA LOVES SHOTACON: how bout the poem?
(1:00:48 AM) cass: i can relate to that...
(1:00:48 AM) cass: (:
(1:01:12 AM) -Subpoena'ed- OLIVIA LOVES SHOTACON: ?
(1:01:22 AM) -Subpoena'ed- OLIVIA LOVES SHOTACON: You're lesbian?
(1:01:51 AM) cass: HUH WHAT!!! WHATTTTTT
(1:01:54 AM) cass: nooooooooooo

And then...

(1:04:08 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: Like what? I SPECIFICALLY DENOTED THE GENDER
(1:05:30 AM) cass: i know! but i think of it the other way round!
(1:06:54 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: So... you like butch women?
(1:08:13 AM) cass: noooooo.

And then...

(1:13:55 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: Well, you said you could relate, and I addressed a female in the poem... so you... related to being enamoured by females.

And then the next day...

(12:25:32 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: Can't have you trying to lie about your orientation can we?
(12:26:14 AM) cass: huh what is that supposed to mean?
(12:26:24 AM) cass: i lie about my sexual orientation?
(12:26:29 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: Mhmmm.
(12:26:47 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: Since you've come out of the closet, it's only fair that people know
(12:26:51 AM) cass: BUY IT IS THE TRUTH
(12:27:09 AM) cass: ( but
(12:27:13 AM) cass: oops
(12:27:14 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: Ah so you do admit to being a lesbian

AND THEN!

(12:32:28 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: You made a smiley.
(12:33:53 AM) cass: haha. but it is just a smiley -___-"
(12:34:00 AM) cass: that's all!!
(12:34:05 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: Which indicates...?
(12:35:07 AM) cass: a way to pass through the conversation?
(12:36:08 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A LESBIAN: ah, so you're saying you're a bold faced liar, and a backstabbing viper?
(12:37:45 AM) cass: nooooo!! what i mean is.normally i would add a smiley or some other emotican after typing!!
(12:38:11 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A BACKSTABBING LESBIAN: Which is then interpreted as an expression of your emotion, non?
(12:38:44 AM) cass: yepyep!!
(12:38:54 AM) cass: but i could explain about that smiley!!
(12:38:55 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A BACKSTABBING LESBIAN: And if you DID NOT mean that emotion, even in a playful manner, then isn't that a bold lie?
(12:40:15 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A BACKSTABBING LESBIAN: Actually, you have to mean it, even if the modicum of it was minor.
(12:40:16 AM) cass: but i mean it!!!
(12:40:29 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A BACKSTABBING LESBIAN: SO YOU DID RELATE TO THE POEM HAPPILY
(12:40:30 AM) cass: really!!
(12:40:34 AM) -Subpoena'ed- CASS SOO IS A BACKSTABBING LESBIAN: AHA
(12:40:36 AM) cass: omg

HELLO

2009-10-27T23:01:00.004+08:00

Riverbank

She's like a sliver
Ever elusively slipping
In life's swift river
I'm behind, stumbling
Among the gentle spines
Splashing in the blood
And as I listen for signs
Of where she once stood
Whispering her sighs
Carried to me by the wind
Returning my wistful replies
And as I wade half blind
In the murky memories
I'm glad to be burning
I can live with the fallacies
I remember this feeling.

A Birthday post.

2009-10-15T03:56:00.006+08:00

Note to FB leechers, the layout may not be as pretty as on my blog proper. And if I see either image anywhere else without my permission I will not be a happy person.

Now, back to my post.

I guess I should blog.

Happy Birthday me
It's a quiet morning scene
I sigh, continue.

I have an exam today.
Yes I am studying.

But seeing as it's my Birthday, I might as well blog a little.

Beauty is that which you wish to comprehend, but choose not to. If you chose to believe in the fact that life should be appreciated, not dissected, you might just appreciate beauty.

If you choose to be beautiful, expect to be subjected deconstruction. Expect them to ask why, expect them to publish a million articles on your secret to success. Expect the masses to want to know how you got your hair to have the tousled morning hair apparent in every magazine advertisement about hair care.

And expect the magazines to pander to that demand.

Expect the questions, the autographs, the hate, the fan mania - because you're beautiful.

And expect to fade away. Expect the diminishing press coverage, news stories of you spiked in lieu for the next upcoming hotshot. Expect ever more obscure papers to profile you, while you bide your time as you make your next news worthy article.

The media is a wonderful microscope into the culture that is a human. We coerce, cajole, trick you into exposing that elusive exclusive, and as time goes on, we strip you bare of any factoid you may want to keep private. After that, we keep you enthralled, ever willing to submit tidbits, as we feed you the stories excised from others.

Such a wonderful life we live in.

Why hello there world.

2009-09-05T21:35:00.003+08:00

You know that feeling you get in your head? That sharp pain like you've gouged out something from your skull and now it hurts like a bitch and it won't go away? yeah. I think I'm experiencing that.

Why waste my fingers shouting when I could be dancing them to a meter.

Well first off academic writing is mostly the former, albeit more staccato styled dictation rather than impassioned cries.

Though I must admit - it's somewhat fulfilling in some perverse manner.

To wit a slick rhythm
So your joy may persist
Is in our solipsism
What makes it all exist.

Damn you why must you do this to me brain

2009-08-16T01:40:00.004+08:00

A short one, to relieve the white noise within me.

One of the lines in this poem is not original (taken from someone who I assume took it off a song somewhere related to a Coke advert, who is being mute again...), however I find it pans out quite lovely, making a very coherent theme.

Span

I can't see the sun for the skies
Noting all the clouds I can see
As I bask in negativity's lies
There's a ray of light over me.

You never got a happy ending
But they never seem to count
Faithful, never down, fighting
Radiant like a shining fount.

The bridge between us is a rainbow
And while we can't see it for the pain
We're bathed in a multicoloured glow
People stare on, soaked in the rain.

grawrbrawral

2009-08-16T00:45:00.004+08:00

Guilt.

Among other things.

That is all.
Have a haiku entitled Catch:

Speak, please do not turn

For your visage breaks me so

All said unspoken.

3AM.

2009-08-14T00:52:00.004+08:00

This is an exercise people, and exercise in simulation.
By the by, this post is dedicated to you Jo Yee (who never blogs anymore). I love you *this* much for being an insomniac slacker (who is not actually insane) like me.

On second thoughts, this could be a drill. Or this might not be a drill. This could be an accurate reflection of the inanity flowing through my head, that's blocking out the coherent and vital thought processes that I need to ensure my own freaking survival. I'm inundated in so much white noise that even thinking about writing about the white noise in my head is hard to pull off.

Worse thing is that I can see every single pixel of this noise. And all of them make no sense. All of them make absolutely no damn coherent sense. It's like following the mad hatters ramblings and trying to build bridges. There's a pattern, but I'm not deranged enough to see it.

I'm not even lucid right now.

There are the normal black thoughts, the ones with white outlines, floating around the grey of the other thoughts, the ones that say do this, do that, run that cat over while riding with a hat, MAKE SURE THE BUS DRIVER HAS A MISERABLE MORNING, so on and so forth. I have not been able to find the hide button for these kind of updates from my lower psyche, so I have to handle them on a case by case basis every time I get this pop up. However the latter suggestion sounds so tempting right about now.

Do I think in monochrome? Or should my thoughts be more actively represented as an oil bubble rainbow, ever swirling ever changing, ever fluid. But there's a pattern, there's breaks - inconsistencies- the bubble is perfect, because it needs to stay that way, or it is gone forever, collapsing into a single droplet of liquid, that comes to terminate itself on the Technicolour grass below it. My thoughts could never coalesce like that - on a backdrop of kaleidoscopic thoughts, I must force coherence, I must blot out black pixel, I must string together images, I have to make the droplet, so I may apply it unto it's termination.

What am I doing?

Short gone crazy post

2009-08-13T21:03:00.006+08:00

So much to do, so much to write down.
So little time.
Icons make it fun though.
Must get lovey dovey with Illustrator.
rawr.

Anyways, on to the other things:

Oh god my head why do you do this to me
Must you consistently go on like a mad hatter
seated snugly and smugly in my frontal lobe
but thats the problem, I can't lobotomise me
because in doing so I cease to be what I want to be
To live the worst experience for a bibliophobe.
Irrationality is a part of all of us,
like hot skitty on wailord action.
God this life is insane.
Wouldn't have it any other way.

Updating an irrelevant percentage more frequently.

2009-08-12T17:53:00.005+08:00

I sure as hell am not blonde, but my hair sure as hell does that. for now. I think.

Hello my blog readers.
I apologise for the absence.

Pain is mostly physical nowadays. Physical pain, especially when self induced in a gainful manner (ie going to the gym and/or running and/or indoor soccer on Tuesday) tends to blot out the petty insecure thoughts that bubble around in the cauldron that is my mind.

Occasionally meditation is preferred, but not everyday can one dedicate a full two hours sitting motionless contemplating a hat. But it works, especially when you do it on a table in an unheated living room. Where every neuron in your mind is dedicated to answering every dissenting voice in your head, where debates between ideological facets are allowed to play out, so that you might exhaust the dissenters, silence the fanatics, and contemplate the hat, and eventually, nothing.

Mental angst (in the strict definition, not pop music or existentialist interpretations) tends to wash away when you wince to a lecture though. You're conscious of every movement as your body reacts to damage self inflicted so gleefully. You make conscious movements so as to minimize your immediate sengsara. Not that I am complaining, but I describe the feeling because it pertains to what I am about to say.

It highlights to me, especially in my endorphine/stillness induced lucidity, that we are impatient. This world is impatient, by choice, and thus by design. We also are thoughtless in some aspects, driven by advertising so wonderfully driving into our minds the normality of musicals within homes and the wonders of buying that plasma TV (not that screen space is a bad thing, mind [Oh the irony])

The recent spate of communication lectures do not help the contemplation. New media, and all that it entails, is an exercise in immediacy. We want so much, and we want it all now. Twitter allows a mother to give blow by blow accounts of her birth. Facebook allows keeping in touch with everyone you know around the globe, without sending letters and waiting a week (which I still relish though). It is also an exercise information bombardment - not that Gen Y or Gen Now's ability to absorb information can even hold a match up to an experienced verbatim court reporter or one of those finagled musician virtuosos.

We, I would argue, are more sponges than processors. I've always known that, but the contemporary comm lectures and tutorials practically cement that theory with me. Is there a conscious effort by the bulk of us to analyse why such is said and why that is said? Why use that skimpy lady instead of a homely wench?

Again, we have been normalised to the stimuli nowadays. Like accustoming oneself to a colder climate, we've been brought into an age where bikinis are mostly not taboo on adverts, where the female presenter of Hi-5 is featured in risque magazines at kids eye levels (which is not wrong in my opinion, but that is an argument in defence of her free will, and also of her being attached to the stereotype of being a- I digress) and midnight hour telly is filled with sex ads back to back with evangelistic brimstone.

It's an age where we absorb media like sponges, regurgitating memes ad verbotem in some sort of self gratification. I won't deny, it's fun. One wonders, how long it will take before memes actually become proper cocktail party talk. One wonders, how long before LOLcats stops becoming the gold standard for internet humour. One wonders, how long it will take before the Simpsons finally get eaten by the shark they jumped a couple of seasons back. One wonders, when we will stop only consuming, and contribute.

One sees that already happening, what with interactivity - but democracy is only capable via transparency, and media outlets aren't exactly the ideal version of a window pane. It's coloured, tinted, and ultimately biased. They have to serve bottom lines, avoiding the red like the plague, which in this current economy is hard to do. Decisions are made, reality is faked, while the journalism is most of the time pretty fair. I guess people have double standards, demanding transparent journalists while letting Moot of 4chan not get voted Time's most influential person of 2009 despite a clear majority.

Alas I will not take this any further, because I need the toilet and I want to go NOW.

Condensed thoughts for your easy consumptions.

2009-08-06T19:47:00.004+08:00

Narcissism

It's a travesty

Only those close to me see

My chef d'œuvres

Haiku for the tired

2009-08-04T17:01:00.002+08:00

On Patience

A key turns eyes search

Only your letters address

The pain of waiting

insert euphemism that Pia understands

2009-08-02T22:25:00.002+08:00

Syllable Retail

All our words are cheap
Sitting piled in the bargain bin
Some hurt some put to sleep
Some heal some draw us in.

All our words are meaningful
Gone with the speed of sound
Arriving for a while, wrathful
Scarring deep and marring profound.

All our words are dangerous
Their sacrosanct obedience
We can expound melodious
The falsity of their convenience.

All our words seek to remain
That which does not fade away
Becomes history of our domain
And lives for others to nay say.

Glimmer. Completely unrelated to the other arc.

2009-08-01T20:41:00.003+08:00

There is nothing but a sliver of light at the end of the hallway. A long streak of light, coloured a sickly orange by the sodium lamp outside. There was a curtain.

He had never opened the curtain. Never in his life had he moved the curtain. It had always been, for years, like that. Closed, but never closed, sealing off everything, but that sliver of reality. Did he want to change that?

He walked down the corridor. Soft, muffled steps echoed pointlessly down the hallway. At best, he thought, it might reach past the third door to the right. At best, maybe someone is there, typing away at a machine which hammers out words in black ink, that reflect the reflections of the owner of the fingers that type the words in. At worst, the room is empty, unkempt and dusty, but ultimately, empty.

Perhaps, he will look into the room. Just to prove his own musings right. Maybe there is a person inside, maybe he or she is hammering away at a keyboard, soft furnishing muffling the sounds of the world and their own furore insulated from the predations of exterior criticism. Maybe there are piles of paper, both blank and filled, that he may browse while the writer, consumed in their own passion, is ignorant of their surroundings.

He was half right. There were piles of papers, piles and piles of papers, crumpled, pristine, scribbled, typed, drawn, in this room. There was a typewriter. Old, well worn, and still. But the typewriter's owner, was missing.

He closed the door. Maybe, someday the owner will return. Maybe some day, the owner might bind the papers together to form their magnum opus, and exit this dank and dusty room. Maybe they'll find a good publishing agent one day, and maybe they'll make a whole pile of money. Maybe they can shed the starving author image they've cultivated and enjoy the benefits of having a padded wallet.

The possibilities were endless. The corridor he was in however, was not. The dimly lit passage was lined with doors, and the door on the end said "Exit". It reverberated down the corridor, shaking him to the bone.

It was a most peculiar observation.

Capitalist Updates

2009-07-21T22:28:00.003+08:00

There are stars, and then there is the Milky Way.
Either way, it is eye candy not many people can deny exists.

As you also have noticed, I have set up a FanFlow. What is a FanFlow you ask? It's something for me to market images that I believe will be of use to someone who requires a pretty photo or two to flesh out whatever it is they need to do.

I also update the FanFlow frequently, so in time, subscribers, old and new will be able to access a plethora of images for a diminishing cost per image over time.

I don't expect anything to come of it yet, but I believe it's an interesting take on stock photography. Of course, I might get into that too, but I don't think so.

Of course, I intersperce stuff with my poetry or commentary, so it's not all just eye candy.

So if you're interested or are in need of some material, do have a look. First one's free.

In other news,

Life is good, and I have assignments galore, and one of them is a rather aggravating issue, but that is an issue for a nother day of discussion.

I also have acquired a red checked scarf, in which I have worn to good utility and aesthetic effect.

And also, I have returned to table top RPG geek/nerd-dom. As a player, a thinker, a Game Master, a story teller.

Toodles.

Iron sounding noun

2009-07-17T00:38:00.003+08:00

Conditions

Could I love a pretty face?
That doth sing magically
One goddess in lace
Lust marbled physically?

I could, but nay I'd lie to me
What truly gets me going
is not for shallow you to be
Nor for the gallery judging.

I want the fire of clarity
The grin of Queen Mab
The trenches of subtlety
And the love of a lab.

I want the dream of villains
The cheek of a helquin
The grace of one of Athens
The wanderlust of the Bedouin.

Grim news they say,
I am but a knave out of his place
Ah, I smile, and me thinks this way
Maybe I will settle for that pretty face.

----------------
Now playing: Digitalism - Anything New
via FoxyTunes

2009-07-15T19:46:00.002+08:00

Filler of the day:
EVE Online.

Frigid Musings

2009-07-06T21:34:00.002+08:00

I think, that one of my pet peeves would be pessimism (for reference, view this) and ambivalence.

The delicious irony being those two nouns also happen to be my favourite traits.

A quip before I leave.

2009-07-03T20:45:00.002+08:00

"Sure, they will accuse me of having a monotone wardrobe. But will they find a first year who has shirts as well ironed as mine?"

~Tarrant, to self as he irons.

Bulletin.

2009-07-01T16:49:00.002+08:00

Who needs to wash their face when the wind outside performs exfoliation for you? But I digress (not that I don't wash my face).

I also happened to see a rather bizarre sight today. Imagine, Lassie on a BMX being pedalled by a white teen. I had my hands (and face) full with a souvlaki at the time so I was unable to record the... conglomeration of things as it passed me by.

That's all for now.
Toodles.

Oh Cassandra... you moron.

2009-06-28T23:15:00.003+08:00

[01:00] cass: ...one day...i'll try it...once i overcome the oven fear!
[01:00] -Subpoena'ed- Winter and Grain: ...

The conversation continues...

[01:07] -Subpoena'ed- Winter and Grain: I cannot believe you are afraid of a temperamental oven.
[01:07] cass: I AM NOT AFRAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[01:08] -Subpoena'ed- Winter and Grain: Then?
[01:09] -Subpoena'ed- Winter and Grain: someone was going on about oven fear several replies back.
[01:09] cass: ...if only the thermostats works!!
[01:09] cass: hahaha yeah!!
[01:09] cass: so pressurised
[01:09] cass: aiyo
[01:10] cass: ...but it doesn't mean that i'm admitting that i'm scared of oven!!!
[01:10] -Subpoena'ed- Winter and Grain: did you just contradict yourself twice?
[01:11] cass: i dont think so.............did i???
[

More Recipes!

2009-06-28T11:48:00.005+08:00

Improv Ribs
Serves 1 ravenous Uni student

1 small rack pork ribs
3 tablespoons hak yau
1/2 teaspoon char siew sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 garlic clove, smashed and chopped
1 slice ginger, sliced
1/2 an onion, finely ringed
Hot water
Salt and Pepper

In a small bowl, combine hak yau, curry powder, char siew sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, ginger, and just enough hot water to turn the combination into a thick sauce. Let sit at least 30 minutes.

Prepare the ribs by rubbing some salt and pepper, and some curry powder into it. Let rest 10 minutes.

Heat oven on fan bake to 200 degrees celsius, place ribs meat side down in a shallow baking dish, put into oven for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, remove, turn, place onions on top, and pour sauce all over ribs. Return ribs to oven, turn temperature down to 175.

After 20 minutes, check on the ribs, to see if they are cooked through. Remove, transfer to serving dish, serve with finely mashed potatoes. The ribs are best eaten with hands.

Author's Note: The quantities for the sauce listed was enough for a 6 rib rack, plus sauce for the mash. Might want to tweak with the quantities a little based on the size of the ribs. Also I don't recommend thinning out the sauce, just prepare a big batch of sauce and working off that instead of deglazing and simmering it down. It is that good.

My head hurts.

2009-06-26T20:18:00.002+08:00

Diagnosis

She writhes in her isolation
Trapped in her paranoia
No amount of conversation
Can alleviate this hysteria.

She speaks in sentences broken
And it is a rather bleak prognosis
With her veiled intents unspoken
Her walls helping no catharsis.

Laid hands are thought as knives
To stab her with a soft smiling sigh
She wonders of what of our lives
Like a surgery gone horribly awry.

I writhe inside, knowing I only hurt
She needed empathy, I did smite
Truths, sharp , succinct and curt
All in her drawn tears I did write.

But truths are truths, cushion or none
That which we have faith in is useless
And what we revile is but common
A cosmic travesty, one must confess.

A game where one can win, unlike others.

2009-06-26T14:25:00.004+08:00

There are pawns, and then there are the pawns of those pawns.

It is ignorance, that makes the Pawn give himself up for his Knights, and the Rook to kill in the name of his King. The pawn is slowed by his blindness, and the Rook has tunnel vision in which to focus his manipulated zeal.

It is fealty, that drives the Knight to slaughter those who oppose his King, as he knows just a little more to know what to fight for.

It is cunning that gives the Queen her lethality, touching all of those who dare cross her. But in her schemes lies her undoing, a victim of over-reaching.

The Bishop too makes plans, conspiring with his opposite counterpart, side stepping the masses, discreetly removing recidivists, and facilitating the expansion of their tithe regions.

All the while the King, like Azathoth, mills around in his compound, almost harmless, lulled into a false sense of security by his walls of pawns. Unlike Azathoth however, he is impotent, dulled by the years of decadence, watching his morbid games play out until it is far too late.

And when Pawns become veterans, the King welcomes them with open arms, oblivious to the fact that these new Queens scheme as hard as their mistress.

This chequered battlefield is consumed in plans and counter-plans, locked in a battle of wits in which the only escape is capture and a swift execution.

Generosity.

2009-06-19T09:54:00.006+08:00

When a braising ceases to be simple, does it become a stew?
Or does it stay a braised meat?

Maybe it's Osso Bucco. Maybe it's just another mundane dish.
But by the supernatural entities I owe fealty to, is it good.

And since it tastes that good, I will share it with you.

_______

Tarrant's Braise
Serves 1 ravenous Uni student.

Thing's you'll need:
1 deep frying pan with lid
1 small sauce pan with lid
Several hours to burn.
No fire alarm.

Ingredients:
1 beef shank (cut perpendicular to the bone)
1 large carrot, cubed.
1 large onion, halved and quartered.
2 small potatoes, quartered.
2 large cloves of garlic, smashed and roughly chopped.
2 tomatoes, halved.
500ml beef broth
1 stick of butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon whole peppercorns
2 tablespoons tomato paste (NOT ketchup)
1 tablespoon finely diced basil
1 tablespoon finely diced parsely
Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

1. Using a fork, stab the meat of the shank on both sides so that it is now covered in holes. Then rub salt and pepper onto the shank and let rest for 10-20 minutes. In the meantime heat the broth with half a tablespoon of whole peppercorns in it.

2. In the pan, heat up the butter and olive oil together until combined and bubbling. On a high fire, sauté the garlic, onions, carrots and potatoes until the onions demonstrate some browning. Add the shank and sauté until both sides of the shank are nice and brown. If it starts to smoke a little, just keep going.

3. Add enough broth to the pan so that the liquid covers 1/2 to 3/4 of the side of the shank. Might want to scrape any brown bits that go stuck on the pan during the sautéing and incorporate it into the liquid. Add the other half of the whole peppercorns to the deep pan.

4. Turn heat to low (or better still move it to a medium sized burner and set that to low), and let simmer for 1 hour with lid on.

5. Check on the steak after the hour and turn it. Close the lid and let braise another 1 hour. If the liquid level is too low, top it up.

6. Now, turn the steak again and add the tomatoes. Also stir in the tomato paste, basil and parsley to the liquid. Replenish the liquid again. Let simmer another 1 hour.

7. Now, you have two options. You can let it simmer another hour with the lid still on, OR you can let it simmer for half an hour more, but the during the last 15 minutes, remove the lid. I personally prefer the latter as it thickens up the liquid and turns it very rich.

8. Remove from heat, let rest 5 minutes, transfer to serving dish. Serve with rice and greens, or have it with some good bakery bread.

Author's Notes:
The reason I chose this particular cut is because of the marrow in the bone. During the braising, some of the marrow will seep into braising liquid and give it a wonderful flavour. If you're lucky enough, by the end of the braising a good deal of marrow will still be left on the bone, jelly like and succulent. Extract, spread on bread, and enjoy. Also, the meat will slough off the bone and become extremely tender due to the long cooking time. Wonderful meal for a miserable day if you ask me.

As for scaling the recipe, if you're planning on serving several people, it might be prudent to use an oven and substitute the pan for a deep dish. Also, cooking time will differ depending on the temperature used, which comes down to eyeballing the done-ness of the meat.

Also, like any stew-ish type dish, it gets better the next day due to flavours seeping into the meat and veggies. Keeps for 3-ish days in a fridge.

A Bulletin of sorts.

2009-06-17T10:37:00.007+08:00

Find Mars on your campus today!

People in my outer circle of acquaintances have contracted H1N1.
Australia's H1N1 rate is set to breach the 2000 mark.
H1N1 also happens to be a pandemic, not that the word bears any increased threat to me.
I'm perfectly fine and not set to succumb to any goddamned flu.

My system however, runs off Mother at the moment. Soon, I will be like Bane. Not that I mind.
On to other news.
Photographing star trails here in Australia is not a pleasant affair. The results on the other hand are quite something.
Picture this:

I'm in the middle of a golf course north of Deakin University. The ground is wet and I'm in pants I do not wish to muddy. My white loafers are completely ruined. The black scarf keeps the cold air from settling into my coat, which does it's job in keeping out the chill and the wind. The leggings underneath my pants serve less efficiently, but they serve nonetheless. The gloves dn't stop the cold creeping through my fingers. I turn towards the camera.

The air is cold and I can see my breath in the torchlight. It's 7pm and it is pitch black, save for the stars that hang overhead. The torchlight strapped to my head illuminates my meagre set up, involving an aluminium tripod, Noreen the D90, and a remote release cable.

The 18-105mm lens is at wide angle. Its lens hood is on so that the pin pricks of light from Deakin's admin block doesn't smother my image in orange pea soup (to quote Norman Chuo). The watch on my wrist has the countdown timer set at 40 minutes.

I set the lens aperture to f/4.0, and the exposure to bulb. The flashlight goes off. I set the timer to 6 seconds. I reassess the positioning of the lens, hoping to catch Polaris in the frame. Satisfied, I lock in the remote release, and wait for the shutter to open.

There is a swift clack of the mirror flipping up, and my countdown begins. 40 minutes in the cold is a long long time to the idler, who also happens to be engulfed in pitch black surroundings. I call a friend and she and I catch up for a while, but she requires dinner and leaves. The iPod battery fails me halfway through the exposure, and my legs slowly feel less attached, as do my fingers.

Patience is a virtue they say. Here, patience determines your success. Here, the impatient or the undetermined pack up halfway through the exposure and complain of the harshness of the art. Here the half hearted take two full exposures and give up when both yield unsatisfactory results. Here, a person learns to wait. Here, there is no leaving (unless you want your set-up stolen, but thats your call). Here, you can witness wonders.

I saw two shooting stars while waiting. More for me I guess.

The timer counts 30 seconds remaining. I approach the tripod. I slowly grasp the remote release, mentally counting down the seconds. 0 seconds. I click the release off. The mirror clacks back into place, and I turn my flashlight on to inspect the camera.

Condensation covered the lens and camera. If you were nearby, you would probably have heard a loud stream of expletives echoing through the night. It was too late to do anything, except to keep shooting and to keep wiping off the condensation with each exposure.

I took 6 long exposures and 4 short exposures during that frigid night. By the time I got back, I could barely feel my fingers. But it was all worth it.

A descriptor of today.

2009-06-13T18:00:00.001+08:00

"I can't feel my face. But I have ham."

~Tarrant, on biking in the morning for groceries.

A perchance to dream.

2009-06-12T23:56:00.004+08:00

Spins.

I awoke today to the Moirae in my room
constantly spinning threads on their loom
I asked them what they wanted of me
of a man, jaded, broken never free.

They spoke in unison, none behind
Speaking in a tongue alien to mind
But I could gather what was spoken
Of ruin, despair, and backs broken.

I shudder, cringe and weep
For me, the truths pierce deep
And I am cast into the spotlight
Reliving crimes as others might.

'Tis a horrible way to dream
That I am washed with steam
and bound by my own string silk
That I may be scrubbed by Guilt.

I scream, hoarse in my mental agony
That it may stop, for fear of sanity
And they ask me again in unison,
For others, would you make that decision?

There is a pause, a pregnant silence
As I bow my head, rid of defiance
I ask them a final question,
That which I fear, becomes my obsession?

The crones laugh, a guttural giggle
and so spoke the crone in the middle
That which you cannot comprehend
Will haunt you till your very end.

I awoke this time to my empty room
No crones, no strings, no deathly loom.
All I can feel are the scars of the strings
And the ominous feeling of future stings.

I have a letter but the stamps are burning

2009-06-06T12:58:00.007+08:00

Some days the words don't make sense.
It's all a disjointed jumble of phrases.
So alien, so grotesque, so uninviting.
Days like these I yearn for simplicity in life.
Days like these I search for something called peace.

Do I ever find it?

Not when my mind continues to pour a torrent of chaos into my consciousness, as if my sub-conscious is allergic to the unconscious knowledge it has absorbed. Concepts, theories rush by me as I am engulfed in information, both within and without. I want to stop the flow, I want to not think.

The best I can do is stop and not sort the chaos, and drown. In a sense it is the same thing - but unbidden thoughts are tenacious worms - that burrow their way into my asphyxiated mental state. Possibilities, are dangerous in that they change the final probability of your actions with every new possibility. Is it better to know every agonising alternative than be shackled to a path blissfully ignorant of the road less travelled? Sometimes, I wish I was - but I know that egotistical inertia makes budging a person from their single path takes massive effort. The marginal profit in trying to change someone's life course makes it uneconomical. Yet we all try. I is illogical, it is insane, it is generous.

If there is something that redeems the majority of our species, it is that we understand charity. Not some greater good or pack loyalty, but actual goodwill. However, humans are also questionable beings. Our motives make no sense to economic and emperical analsis.

Volunteer workers, the redshirt army of charity organisations - do they do it for the work or do they do it for the glory, or do they do it for the sheer fact they want to help? Does the man flip a coin to the hobo wearing the ushanka out of pity, conditioning by school, or out of his own goodwill? Our subjectivity makes us oblique.

Is that our AT field?

Musing me 36 hours awake.

2009-06-05T12:22:00.003+08:00

Sometimes I stop in the middle of doing an important ritual of life (of which there are so many), and exclaim (out loud or internally) WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?

I proceed to mull the rhetorical question for a few minutes, and forget completely about what I was doing originally.

Never actually get to answer myself you know. It's such a layered question. Am I referring to my ritual? Am I referring to me doing it at 3am in the morning in a freezing laundry room? Am I referring to me having to interrupt my session of Cortex Command (which is a totally awesome game to begin with) to perform said ritual? Or am I actually trying to comprehend the gravity of my entire enrolment in Deakin University? Or is it me thinking I'm crazy for thinking of something else that I originally didn't intend to think about and now am in complete utter denial about recognising said thought?

Sometimes I just go to sleep after that. It's just so tiring.

2009-06-02T22:27:00.002+08:00

Coming to cafeteria for dinner?

THERE IS NO SPOOOON!!!

~Tarrant, in reply to undisclosed person.

Insomnia thoughts

2009-05-30T03:53:00.006+08:00

I thought Dennõ Coil was a rather well worked piece of anime.
(sure, I'm 2 years late, but whats a guy to do)

I mean sure, it had it's faults, with the rushed plot, the overly brief background exploration - but it was well condensed. Sure, some motivations went unexplored, but really, it was still a very very tight story. A plot hole here and there unresolved, but all is forgiven. Lovely art direction too - very... traditional animation at first, with quaint doraemon style stuff, then suddenly whizz! bang! zwing! eye candy all over the place. Character design too - nicely worked.

Also, the concepts outlined in the anime itself were very very interesting. Here I was thinking augmented reality with glasses. sweet as. Makes the geek look quite the in thing. Then we discover consciousness - not souls, but consciousness. A typical bhuddist derived concept (and no, your eternal soul does not count). Then we discover cubes with lazor beams. I so want one of those. And Isako is such a wonderful tsundere. Of course, any deviant thoughts go into the loli zone. tut tut. Shame on you. Having said that though, the sniff of a lesbian/incest sub-plot makes it all so much juicier an anime.

And then we discover the chessmaster behind the main plot. Still, an interesting way to put an adult-ish theme in an anime filled with children. If you ask me, it almost was like the end bits of Evangelion, but felt more justified. Very well paced too might I add. Starts from what seems to be slice of life mixed in with cyberpunk to all out GITS style chase cams, to Evangelion montage monologues. I approve. Sequel? I don't think so. Too tight woven plot.

But surely, the entire point of this show was highlighted in the 23rd episode I think, when Yuko (and everyone else) gets their glasses confiscated. Technology - and total reliance, and how it can, if not used right, burns away our spirit of kinship.

Slowly but surely, that is what it can do. We give ourselves up to convenience, we ignore pointless appearing but symbolically very impactful habits (rituals? routines? the word escapes me) and we resign ourselves to our own private pursuits, in which it helps oh so well. Co-operation, temporal, virtual groups coming and going, never coherent. No emphasis on actual relationship building. All... superficial.

But that is the generation we are. Generation Y. The great new hope. The great new generation, stepping in to fill the shoes of Gen X and Baby Boomers, who right now are fighting the greatest enemy of all. Time. Like Isako, who had a twisted Peter Pan in the Coil Domain, I have a feeling Generation Y has grown up spoilt.

We've been fed consolation prizes for everyone. An excuse in every loss, instead of a lesson in every loss. Are we going to be spoiled further by technology? It's happening. It's what you do with the technology that makes a difference.

Technology provides the power to connect. Now we have this power, are we going to trivialise our friendships? Are we numbing ourselves to this abundance of trivial human contact that we crave so much, that we are immune to the very drug that sustains our psyche? Shallow contacts. No regard for consequences. Shallow minds. Instant gratification and the pursuit of fortunes. It's happening. And you know it is. What are you doing about it?

Dwarven Warriors

2009-05-24T20:58:00.005+08:00

"A caravan from Dakost Etur has arrived"

The dwarven traders had just been sighted. They arrive in their caravans, bearing bales of pig tail cloth, heaps of cut gems, bors of precious metals, and of course, the precious commodity so frequently requested by Kubukashok, better known as Lancetimes, top grade dwarven alcohol.

Urvad Litastadil glanced to his caravan guard, a burly swordsdwarf.

"Looks like we're going to make a killing this trip round my good friend. Our brethren here never pass up the alcohol and gems."
"Aye, lets just hope this time we make the killings. You remember what happened to Iteb Mengingtak and Fath Olinteshkad?"
"Fell to goblins, I remember, bright as fire agate. Armok smote some of them, the rest of them ran like cowards."
"Armok protects Lancetimes jealously, but only up to the edge of the statues remember?"
"Aye. I hear from the human traders no goblin siege has ever made it into the courtyard of Lancetimes, even in the middle of trading with them."
"Goodness, is that a obsidian statue decorated with shells?"
"Sure is."

The traders entered the arch of smoothed obsidian into the trade depot. They unloaded their goods, spilling gems all over the depot, clumsily stacking barrels of booze and wheat on top of bars of platinum and electrum. A tanned and toned dwarf dressed in spider cave silk robes approached them. Zasit Melbilom the trader was a familiar face, having taken over from the overworked Tarrant Mozirlikot, the City Manager and founder of Kubukashok.

"Ah, good of you to have brought the goods. We have some special stuff for you this autum."

At his behest, dwarves bearing bins of silk goods and basalt crafts rushed into the depot.

"Lets trade shall we?"

Zolak Amxusnamoz the goblin Master Lasher sniffed the air. He smelt dwarves, and when he smelt dwarves, he knew there was blood to be spilt. With a gutteral screech he beckoned his goblin minions to charge this petulant dwarven stronghold, seemingly protected by the gods. His glorious siege will crush the tales once and for all. Where his moronic peers have charged and died, he will prevail.

"A vile force of darkness has arrived!"

Shem Rulushshorast the Philosopher saw them first. He ran to Mozirlikot, who was hauling a covered wooden bin to the trade depot.

"It's a siege! Everyon-"
"No. The traders will run. This Autumn trade must not be disrupted. It is too critical."
"But the goblins-"
"Bring our Champions into active duty. Have them crush the goblins utterly."

__

Litast Sakrithunib was sparring in the barracks when the call to arms rang throughout the fortress. Rarely were they ever called to active duty. The first was when Kima the Dragon threatened a fledgling Lancetimes, when he was still a Leatherworker. The Champions then paid dearly to stop the rampaging dragon before it reached the fortress walls. The second time was when Ronux Etogzedan, a second Dragon, threatened the fortress, but this time, Ronux was swiftly killed, pierced by crossbow bolts, his stomach fluids spilling onto the smoothed obsidian. Litast picked up a stack of bronze bolts, raring to kill goblins this day.

A wall of copper clad dwarves lined the outer perimeter of statues, steely eyes watching for goblins. Children, tan as their parents in the Champions, frolick ignorantly among them. Dwarves were never well known for their parental guidance - it was a lot more monkey see, monkey do, monkey learn. Still, the Champions stood fast against the oncoming goblins.

Zolak Amxusnamoz saw the copper clad dwarves. Fools, he thought, these dwarves are a flimsy defence against the might of his goblin siege. Zolak screamed in bloodlust and charged.

The Helmed Orbs saw the goblins charging alright. They even saw the raving mad Master Lasher leading the pack. The Champions stepped forward and let loose with their crossbows.

Too late did Zolak see them raise their weapons. A crossbow bolt pierced through his Iron chainmail, sinking deep into his flesh, then another, and another and another. Zolak gurgled once and fell, as the rest of his minions received similar fates. A surviving goblin, already bleeding from a bolt received a vicious uppercut from a copper crossbow wielded by a charging champion.

The Champions turned, and saw a charging pack of goblin wrestlers and axe wielders. Swift crossbow bolts from The Grasps of Winding hit them, and both squads charged as one, having spent all of their ammunition. The goblins were cut down to the man.

Mato Snodubuxzo's flanking group of archer goblins crept forward, noting the ineptitude of Zolak, and his fitting death. Mato thought to himself, that his archers will kill off these puny dwarves, and claim this glorious fortress for himself.As they crept into firing range, he noticed a group of copper clad Champions standing on the bridge leading to the fortress. Then he noticed the steel bolt lodged in his chest.

The two parties traded fire as goblins fell to crossbow bolts, while the Champions merely shrugged off the arrows smacking into them.

"Mommy!"

Alath Mengmorul was on the ground, two aluminium arrows stuck in her. One was lodged in her right upper arm, the other in her left lower leg. Her screams hardly rattled her mother, who was unloading crossbow bolts into the invaders. She was seething with anger, but her training kept her from going into a berserker rage.

As the bulk of the goblin forces fell, the rest of them fled, no doubt gone to spread the terrifying tale of Kubukashok and their dread defenders.

Alath continued to moan, as the aluminium arrows had lodged, and caused her immense pain.

"I'm thirsty."

The rest of the dwarves knew the drill. Once the invaders cleared out, all their metal gear was to be salvaged into usable items. Dwarves streamed out in grim efficiency, stripping armour and weapons from the still warm goblin hands. Alath lay there, moaning, and begging for water.

Mozirlikot noticed the moaning child. He swiftly grabbed an Iron Bucket full of water and brought it to the suffering child. Having sated her thirst, he took her up in his arms and took her to the barracks, where she could recurperate. It would be many seasons before Alath would walk again.

The dwarven traders watched all of this, down to Mozirlikot bearing the stricken child to the barracks. Mozirlikot returned to them with his covered bin.

"A gift, for our Queen."

___

The traders stumbled through the door, covered in mud and grime.
Goden Odgubolon, Queen of Dakost Etur welcomed them personally, inquiring about gifts from the rest of the dwarven holds.

After all the rest of the more mundane gifts were produced, a single bin was produced, still covered by the cave spider silk cloth. Goden pulled it off.
7 aluminium crossbows, of the finest quality, were stacked neatly in the bin. Each were decorated in gems and shell. The traders themselves gasped at the works. Goden smiled to herself.

"A gift for a Queen indeed."

Journal of 'Tarrant' Mozirlikot, Summer 14

2009-05-24T11:05:00.004+08:00

"A vile force of darkness has arrived!"

Dear Journal,

Today the damn goblins besieged us again. Caught the lumber haulers out in the open too. Thankfully they scarpered before anyone got skewered. Those dumb goblins even brought along one of their Hammerlords to come dent some dwarf skulls. I'd love to see them even try. Their first group came running into the weapon traps in front of the trade depot bridge and got pulped almost to the man. I believe I heard a satisfying crunch as one of the mauls cracked open a ribcage or a skull. It gets a little hard to hear clearly when I've gotten a tankard of wine in me belly.

Still, the rest of the screaming, dumb, moronic and bloodthirsty horde of goblins came frothing right into the main smiting field. Ah dwarven craftsmanship, you make such wonderful weapon traps. If it wasn't for all the copper we found down in the mines, we'd never have been able to build such elaborate traps. I remember one trap which impaled a goblin with two spikes, getting hit in the gonads by a bronze pick, and then getting decapitated by a giant copper axe blade. Ah, fond memories.

This time - ugh what is that? A goblin lower arm? Must have been sent flying by the giant serrated saw blades. Oh damnit. The front porch is a mess again. Damn dwarves only want to clean the inside of the fortress. What would the traders say? Those damn pissy elven weaklings already complain we cut down too many trees - fucking hypocrites sell us logs too. Irony at it's best. The humans already feel we have issues. If I have to listen to the damn Mayor complain about the syphilistic sycophantic diplomat they keep sending...

Still, that damn Hammerlord manage to survive 3 weapon traps before getting sliced up. Hard as nails that bastard. That last trap sure got him good. The axe blade took his right leg off in a fountain of blood. Armok would be pleased.

I have just been informed that our alcohol reserves have just fallen below 400 units. As I had stated last year, 400 units of alcohol is the lower limit for the safe functioning of this fortress. How is a dwarf to go about his day without his daily intake of alcohol? Even the damn elves, wooden weapon wielding, unicorn riding imbeciles that they are, appreciate the goodness of a good fisherberry wine. Lancetimes makes some of the best dwarven wine around, and wait what?

We're almost out of Barrels. Again. I have no idea where those barrels go - I just ordered 20 built last winter. Must be the damn prepared meals the nobles keep demanding. Gah. All they care about are their rooms, their tombs and their frigging babies. The damn Countess has 7! Such shortsighted morons, sacrificing alcohol production for prepared meals. If I had my way, I'd lock them in their rooms and have them fucking starve to death, just like what we did to the last Hammerer.

I will write soon, apparently the goblin armour reclamation has begun in ernest. I must go supervise them.

"Oddom Kalanvucar, Planter cancels Brew Drink: Needs Empty Barrel."

Chronicle of a Dwarf

2009-05-23T17:06:00.002+08:00

15th Felsite, 13.

The mostly sober caravanss to the overland kingdoms have just returned. It's interesting how they actually get anything done in their sobriety - a good dwarf should never need to go without a good tankard of dwarven ale, though that human sewer brew has a damn good kick.

The caravans returned, dust and mud encrusted as usual, stumbling through the hold's door. There's a smell of stale vomit - it's been a very long while since this batch of traders were sent out. If you ask me, it's a dwarf's place to be in the great rock halls we build, not prancing in the sun - only trade forces us out. Do I hate cleaning the trade depot when that happens.

Seated with our ruler, the tired dwarves regale us of tales from the elves and human kingdoms they've passed through along the way. It's mostly much of the same, bar brawls, brisk trade, chugging contests, toss the elf, the occasional zombie elephant that gored their latest caravan guard, so on and so forth.

What got me most were a few scattered mentions to an outpost turned county called Lancetimes. One trader rambled on about some whore of a Baronness thought it'd be a great opportunity to grasp, and from what I've heard, all she does is pump out babies and rant about demands. Husband's not so differnet either. Armok curse these damn nobility. Now she's a countess. There ain't no justice no more.

Liasons to Lancetime speak of holds filled to the gills with food and drink, and stores filled with gems, silk and totems, bins of leather and cloth - and firey furnaces churning out weapons of war, beside grand statues of metallic aluminium. We never really took their word for it, liasons being the soberest of dwarves.

There's a lot more to Lancetimes though than a snooty baby machine clad in purple. From the tales of the traders, it seems that Lancetimes has a brutal brutal history. Some even say the ground is blessed by Armok himself! Surely I thought, our stronghold, an even greater city of dwarves would be more blessed by Armok? Do we not send armies to do battle against those thrice-accursed goblins? No, it would seem within a decade, Lancetimes has gotten a brutal, brutal reputation.

The traders pause for a tankard of ale, as the rest of us. Lancetimes is a fortress located next to a magma pipe, and also next to a brook. Lucky bastards I thought to myself. They continue, muttering about a fortress of smooth obsidian and basalt, every block engineered to the finest precision. The front of their fortress, right up to the brook, is smooth obsidian. The roads, paved obsidian, precisely engineered, as should a dwarven hold be. Lancetime's dwarves dig deep and wide, mining out vast reserves of copper, and they have even discovered a chasm, which they harvest for cave spider silk, fast becoming a major export. The traders smile though, and note the amazing amount of booze and wood they trade for the silks - Lancetime has an enormous appetite for alcohol, more than their barrel production can cope.

However, upon closer inspection of the area, our traders found a strange, almost frightening thing. In front of the fortress, is a half ring of statues, extending from the fortress wall, tens of metres out. Beyond them, was the expanse of smoothed obsidian. Within this ring, lay bloody pulped corpses, each more brutally rent than the next. It is said that those entering who have not Armok's favour are smote there and then upon the smooth obsidian, their blood flowing to appease Him.

The elves, damn hypocrites and weaklings that they were, told the same story to the traders. Goblin siegers, lusting for blood, struck in Spring, when the elf caravan trades at Lancetime for their famed cave spider silk. The goblins, so eager for the kill stepped within the ring of statues, and one by one suddenly exploded in fountains of gore. Those that survived, were confronted by an equally terrifying sight.

Dwarven Champions, the greatest of our soldiers, spartans of war, juggernaughts of slaughter, forever dedicated to bloodletting and combat, defend Lancetime. None of them recruits, nor normal soldiers. Each trained until they become champions, tough as the rock they defend, as brutal as Armok's fury, forever warriors till their deaths. However, whoever runs Lancetimes is also a wise and cunning one. As strong and as lethal are their own bare hands, each also wield a crossbow. No sooner had the goblin survivers regrouped did a hail of crossbow bolts rain down upon them, piercing organs, spraying blood all over the smooth obsidian. It is said that some of these same champions killed Kima, the mighty fire breathing Dragon, riddling its body with crossbow bolts, each never flinching as her battle-brother was boiled alive in his own armour.

The elves also whisper about another ill fated Spring caravan to Lancetimes. A goblin ambush had caught Lancetime's own philosopher out in the open. While the philosopher ran, goblins left and right of her exploded into bloody pulp. Then the second wave of ambushers arrived, striking straight into the trade depot itself. The elf traders thought they were doomed when suddenly the Dwarven Champions burst through the depot doors and unleashed their fury upon the goblins. A traumatised elf muttered about white slivers impaling goblins to the smooth stone walls, and the chainmail clad dwarves using their own crossbows to bash the goblins to death. Needless to say, there were no elf casualties, but they got blood all over themselves. Serves them right.

Still, the silks the traders have brought back from the elves who traded their goods to Lancetime speak for the quality of their industry. Finely crafted bales of silk greet us, and it is said that there is only a single, legendary weaver in the whole of Lancetime, and he even harvests his own silk, collecting them from the perillous depths of the mining operations which stumbled upon the chasm.

And what struck us all as outrageous, absolutely downright insane, was, according to the traders, who swore upon their mothers, that they were all tan. Every single one of them, down to the burly miners, were tan, and idling in the al fresco fortress courtyard. You'd expect them to party in a great hall of sorts within the obsidian fortress, feasting on the spoils of their wars right? By Armok, they were tan! Some of them even said they enjoyed working outside! Preposterous!

"Migrants were too nervous to travel this season"

My fortress, Lancetime. More to come.

Poempoempoem

2009-05-15T09:20:00.003+08:00

Habit

Withdrawal
is horrible
from a drug
which pacifies
and satiates

That speaks
that whispers
that entertains
that empathises
that understands.

Humanity, oh mine
How I am partial
to the intelligence
of your choice children
Allergic to the dregs
and faceless products.

I am spoilt,
I am grateful,
I am addicted.

Prognosis.

2009-05-14T15:26:00.004+08:00

Empty kind of safe.

Expression,

Be my silver chalice,
That I may save
Me from the malice
of my mental grave.

I am passion,
Unbridled, unfettered
bursts to flame in a fashion
Never silted, never settled.

I am sobriety,
Never slurred, always nagging,
scorning a wastrel's folly,
Occupied with rationalising.

I am depression,
A slave of esteem,
Like a deaf confession,
Like a shattered dream.

I am anger,
A by-product of vengeance,
A sign of sure danger,
Just one destructive chance.

I am denial,
The grove of tears,
Refuting things so menial,
Egged on by primal fears.

I am fellowship,
Merry making fun
a prequel to friendship,
Stronger as the day is done.

I am love,
An eternal rose bloom,
An eagle's flight, a cove,
A warm kind of doom.

I am finality,
A surety, none a bend,
As taxation and fatality,
I'll be true till my end.

Post Processing calms, but not soothes.

2009-05-13T03:33:00.004+08:00

Switchboard

I am wrathful.
I have emotions, lost
Uninhibited, my deceitful
Self almost takes the cusp

Of killing my conscience.

I feel myself reaching
for the switches
I cannot risk hurting
Everyone's wishes.

I need to stop myself.

Will you forgive this one,
As I turn off myself
Run by an automaton
Indifferent to yourself.

I'll be back someday.

Moved.

2009-05-09T06:09:00.005+08:00

in all nuances of the word.
I think I am turning narcoleptic.
Not a good sign.
But first-
A two part work.
If you can bother.

.. .-. --- -. -.--

I find irony in my craft.
That which we want to say,
is hidden somewhere aft,
Subtly colouring your day.

Perhaps it is my cowardice,
that makes me hide it so far,
But in doing so mean no malice.
I am tactful to a flaw.

Sounds made effortlessly,
Words are cheap,
Text typed carelessly.
So salient, cutting so deep.

I however give you mine,
Clouded as you can find,
Meanings oblique and fine,
Sincerity from my mind.

. -. -.. ...

Don't despair.
Words are no avail for you, I can tell at least that.
There is no qualification save from experience that can empathise.
But Faith - is all you can have here.
There are things you cannot control, cannot affect.
You feel betrayed don't you?
This existence is an amoral one. I think you know at least that.
Don't let your fear and rage demolish the single standard left, however nebulous His intentions.
What has come has gone. Now it is time to pick up the pieces and move on.
I'm sorry for you.

Quotes 6

2009-05-07T21:25:00.003+08:00

"Whoa, looks like someone turned the Hot-O-Meter to 11."

~Tarrant, on the late bloomer peer.

Inspired by some investigation.

2009-05-06T04:07:00.003+08:00

Saccharine Tea

If there is pain,
she will bear it.

She will weep alone,
hidden from her own.

Her visage, a smile,
Her psyche, a shroud.
Her mind, a cairn.

Her feelings, untended,
Her wants unsated.
Yet she remains, undaunted.

With each day, she hurts,
With each shun, she bleeds.
Yet she remains, clinging.

She cries, oh she cries,
But she cannot look away,
A thrall,
of emotion.

I really should go to sleep.

2009-05-03T17:46:00.007+08:00

Writ of conducts

Less ways to earn your trust,
Countless careless ways to lose it.
As many look at you in lust,
Some look for gems you have hid.

Contrived are your fellows,
Revelling in empathy and spunk,
Hiding insecurities of shadows,
And dreams all but sunk.

Many offer no safe harbours,
Only the embrace of pity.
So many wear bright colours,
Like a rogue pixel in a grey city.

Are you lonely or are you alone?
Is some chiselled marble, uncaring,
Your token to weather the cyclone?
Or do you brave it without sharing?

There is no solace in faceless masses,
None in the sweet embrace of Death.
Your love, you tingle as he passes,
Mine, sweet descant with all my breath.

Look! More mechanisms to bare my soul to the world! What sluts we all are.

2009-05-03T17:46:00.002+08:00

Rule #1:
If you open this you take it.

Rule #2:
You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages you and asks.

Rule #3:
Tag 17 people.

Answer True or False

Q: Kissed someone on your friends list? F
Q: Been arrested? F (almost)
Q: Do you like someone? T
Q: Held a snake? T
Q: Been suspended from school? T
Q: Sang karaoke? T
Q: Done something you told yourself you wouldn't do? T
Q: Laughed until you started crying? T
Q: Caught a snowflake on your tongue? T
Q: Kissed in the rain? F
Q: Sang in the shower? T
Q: Sat on a roof top? T
Q: Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? T
Q: Broken a bone? F
Q: Shaved your head? F
Q: Played a prank on someone? T
Q: Shot a gun? F (well, not the lethal type)
Q: Donated Blood? T

Just be 100% truthful.

LAST PERSON THAT.

1. You hung out with? Matt, in front of the Telly.
2. You texted? Lynn?
3. You were in a car with? April? I love my bicycle too much.
4. Went to the movies with? ...geezus. Pik Yin, Rachel, Ashwin and Devan.
5. Person you went to shop with? ...no one. I shop alone. (just kidding)
6. You talked on the phone? ...Aunt.
7. Made you laugh? Paul, on vaccination.
8. You hugged? don't recall.

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY...

1. Sun or moon? Sun. Give me my tan please.
2. Winter or Fall? Fall. Less cold than Winter, cooler than Summer, more pensive than Spring.
3. Left or Right? Right.
4. Sunny or rainy? Both. Inspiration is everywhere.
5. Where do you live? Better than where you are I can guess.
6. Club or pub? Pub. Hands down.
7. Are there 1 or 2 people who you can always trust and rely on? Yes. Wouldn't you love to know.
8. Do you want to get married? For the sake of progeny, yes.
9. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? Twirl of course you heretical bigot.
10. What time is it? 19.53 hours at +10GMT.
11. Are you afraid of commitment? No, but focus is important too.
12. What is your greatest hope/wish? To do what counts the most.
13. Do you cook? Yes, unashamedly yes, and I am proud of it.
14. Current mood? Contemplative.

IN THE LAST 48 HOURS HAVE YOU...

1. Kissed someone? Nope.
2. Sang? Probably, if you can count humming.
3. Listened to music? Winamp has been on for close to 32 hours now. Go figure.
4. Danced? Nope.
5. Cried? Nope.
6. Liked someone you can't? Not yet.

22 FIRSTS

1.Who was your first prom date? Kylie.
2. Who was your first roommate? None, because I get the room to myself.
3. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk the first time? Haven't gotten drunk. Whoops.
5. What was your first car? None yet.
6. When did you go to your first funeral and viewing? No memory.
8. Who was your first grade teacher? A Chinese lady, fair, lithe build. Striking asian features. used to wear period appropriate tan short cut skirt. Name escapes me.
9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? US of A. First Class.
10. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with? Never needed to.
11. Who was your first Best Friend? Tim.
12. Who is your best friend? Still Tim.
14. Who is the first person you call when you have a bad day? People call me.
15. Who's wedding were you in the first time you were a Bridesmaid or groomsman? Ringboy, uncle's second.
16. What's the first thing you did when you got up this morning? Checked for pulse.
19. First tattoo or piercing? None.
20. First celebrity crush? Emma Watson?
22. First crush? Now that would be telling...

I tag:
Grace
Amani
Faranza
Julia
Serene.

Quotes 5

2009-05-02T17:36:00.003+08:00

"Well Jitters, why don't you tell me why you were trying to kill us and maybe I'll stop stepping on your broken kneecap!"

~Tarrant, as Gallus, in Dark Heresy.

A long post mostly done out of boredom.

2009-04-29T04:27:00.005+08:00

It's 7am here in Australia. A soft, diffused light filters down to my window as I sit next to it, contemplating the fact my heater does very little in the 5˚C morning. I've finally had a look at all the stuff on every other time sink I've had the luxury of perusing.

A note blinks with my name on the tag listing.
"I wonder, why don't most grown ups believe in the things they do when they were children anymore? Aren't they supposed to be smarter?! "

Oh what a golden opportunity for a morning catharsis and deconstruction (or extrapolation) of a rather innocuous statement.

Please hold while I make some Earl Grey and toast.

Damn it's cold out there. Where was I?

Do I disagree with that statement? Yes I do.

I'm no developmental psychologist nor do I specialise in social psychology, I'm just slightly stimulated by the excellent tea. And the library is closed. And Scholar can't turn up anything directly related. Oh well. Just have to wing it.

Let us begin by deconstructing the statement itself. There are two parties, the "grown-ups" and the "children" - and there is one issue, being the difference of opinion each hold, and a rationalising remark (if it can be called one) that "grown-ups", are smarter. Personally, I would think this is the agonised sentiment of a tween, but that's just me.

What is the threshold for adulthood? Is it age? Is it cognitive development? Is it social-emotional development? I believe it's an amalgamation of all three. A Down syndrome bloke may be 21 but has faculties of a 10 year old. Little kiddies can solve simple puzzles most other adults over-think and bungle. Then there's the in-between (and painful) area of teenagers, filled with growth spurts and the snippets of romance and confused hormone driven thoughts.

For the sake of argument, let us establish the fictional John Doe as a 25 year old graduate, in a steady relationship, has a degree, works 9 to 5 at a corporation doing public relations. Does overtime frequently, but is always sure to make it home for dinner with the significant other on Friday. We'll get back to him shortly.

Still, the question remains, what constitutes a belief? Is it the belief that an obese philantrophist squeezes down your grated chimney once a year to deliver presents whose quality is based on constant year round surveillance? Perhaps. A child brought up in the right cultural and social context would. I say that because elsewhere, chimneys don't exist, and I had the luxury of penning a list of request to my parents in person. Elsewhere, a letter to the North Pole makes it's way to a postbox.

Semantics aside, my last paragraph is a point worth considering. Information - the stuff of learning, that changes beliefs. Most of the time it will outright quash the original belief, as in the case of Santa, or the Easter Bunny, and all those Americanised concepts made to sell seasonal merchandise. For instance, John Doe usually does his Christmas shopping a fortnight in advance, given a head start of what his nieces wish for when they sit on Santa's lap. He knows Santa is Saint Nicholas Americanised, but do his nieces? All his nieces are told is that their presents come from Santa and they need to be good for good loot.

Developing into a grown up requires you to learn - information that undoubtedly will quash and shape belief. While the romance of Neverland may seem ideal, stagnation is a dangerous thing. It breeds arrogance, ignorance and prejudice. These concreted attitudes lead to entrenched behaviour - behaviour that is performed without care for the collateral consequences. John Doe's sometimes blunt sentiments are from years of cultural exposure - and if thrust into an Asian society, may come across as brash. Does he know any better? Probably not, and that's his learning experience.

Where am I getting at with all this?

It is possible belief is an extension of ignorance, accepting the convenient stories, but this is more appropriate for an adult with all cognitive skills to actually look for the truth. I believe (ironically) that childhood beliefs are the learning process corrupted for the sake of convenience and control. Not to mention to stop the unending onslaught of "Why?".

Santa, the Bogeyman, the Tooth Fairy, sate the bored imagination with imagery, and the tactile rewards of such behaviour all contribute to making a parent's life more manageable. Disney (and by extension, Pixar) tends to help that along by providing visual and aural input as well. I'm not damning them, because it really is quite a noble thing they're doing, making sure kids are tied up for hours in front of the TV while the parents can do their thing. Of course there are the drawbacks of addiction - but such is the price you pay.

However, education, formal, self-discovery or otherwise helps the children shed beliefs and adopt more informed views (however, not necesarily mature ones). And these sentiments can only mature with further education. If they so wish, they may choose to believe - but that puts us in the realms of faith and hope, a discussion just out of the scope of this discourse. Some may argue that it rips the wonders of innocence from a child, and it undeniably does, robbing him of a wonderful childhood every other kid undergoes. However, I personally feel the benefits of a marginally more informed kid ready to question information is worth the trouble of controlling properly.

So yes, because grown-ups are smarter, they don't believe what a child would because they know better.

Edit: I will however, concede that children can point out simple truths that adults overlook (or as Terri says, forgot).

Intermission for work.

2009-04-28T00:42:00.005+08:00

"I never said I hated house or trance. I just take issue when it's played at levels that can induce acoustic trauma."
~Tarrant, in his defence.

Author's note: I want a duster. It looks so cool. A little OTT though if you ask me. Maybe just a trench coat? Those are wicked too.

Anyhoo I will be back in Melbourne next weekend. Hope to see someone familiar there.

Too tired to post anything significant, toodles.

Quotes 4

2009-04-24T13:07:00.002+08:00

"It would seem that a large proportion of Finnish women are inextricably hot."

-Anonymous observation

Quotes 3

2009-04-22T20:36:00.001+08:00

"So, why'd you get the zipties for?"

"Thought I might do the handcuff thing in the near future."

- Tarrant, in reply while setting up ropelights.

Interluded.

2009-04-22T13:04:00.001+08:00

In a wry moment of coincidence and mental irony,

Pia did ask a pertinent question.

A poem for loss.

2009-04-21T12:13:00.004+08:00

There is a cradle.
In it is a baby, crying for her mother.
Her mother lies by the cradle weeping,
Tears for her foolish summer.

Helpless as her home is torn away,
Slipping from her fleshy finger,
Leaving her with nothing to say,
But a tent to shade under.

Her husband is locked in crimson,
Struggling in the binds of deceit,
Of layered misdirection,
And honest pawns.

Do we blame his folly and her apathy?
Or do we damn the chess masters here,
And bring us all to ruin and anarchy?
Damn us all at fault, all criminals, so clear.

Damn the labourers pining for homes.
Damn those that listened and schemed.
Damn those who fell in line like clones.
Damn the ruler blind to the fiend.

Quotes 2

2009-04-16T16:03:00.001+08:00

"Pessimism? Look no farther than a Malaysian A-Levels student."

Tarrant, in passing.

Filler again. Hands too cold to type.

2009-04-16T10:48:00.002+08:00

Waiting.

Need to go and get groceries. Wind chill outside is nasty. Argghhhh.

Gone away for a while.

2009-04-10T00:51:00.003+08:00

Going to be away for a while.
Putting Noreen to good use.

Happy Easter,
remember why He took one for the team.

Toodles.

Navel Gazing 2

2009-04-07T00:31:00.001+08:00

Here I am, holding Autumn in my hand,
Gazing at her wanton care,
Laying her cousin Summer,
To fitful rest.

I look into my soul,
Cleansing vile memory,
What it was like to know,
What made my sins so funny.

My nose to the grindstone tomorrow,
Watching for the roses,
But I can't smell them I know,
When I'm tending to the hoses.

A few more hours it comes,
The friendly greeting of the world,
Where the closest of our suns,
bids me welcome nary a word.

I want to see another day,
but the curtains drawn so tight,
Believe, that's what they say,
I do, and yet I must fight.

Quotes

2009-04-06T15:02:00.003+08:00

"You touched me! Inappropriately!"

- Tarrant on Sniper Rifles in Halo MP,
over voice comm.

2009-04-05T23:35:00.000+08:00

Sated frustration

2009-04-05T17:42:00.005+08:00

Stupid goddamned essay.

But I calmed myself with dinner.

Pan-seared Porterhouse steak topped with colby cheese and sauteed mushrooms and onions on a bed of baby spinach accompanied by hot english mustard.

Note to self, replenish Worcestershire sauce next trip out.
____Addenendum: Also replenish milk reserves and potatoes.

Essay to complete now.

Toodles.

Navel Gazing

2009-04-03T22:37:00.006+08:00

It was a good, fluent performance.
Despite being blatant propaganda.
It was still fun.
Don't run in leather shoes by the way.

Autumn is the season of shelf decay. Winter is the season of refrigeration.
Spring is spending the season on a defrost cycle.
Summer is fan bake.
I hope the ex-pinata/ex-charm/voodoo doll survives another winter.
It kinda rubs off on you.

Life is like the wall.
Problem is, a lot of us don't have a belay.
Try not to fall.
Also, need to get more yukata.

I guess we must burn to be bright, and sometimes, burn through the dark hours so we can relish the sun again.

Having said, that was a good day for laundry.
Not every day welcomes the sun on our doorsteps.

Toodles.

2009-03-20T01:04:00.001+08:00

2009-03-17T12:17:00.006+08:00

I can feel the heartbeat in my throat.

It's an alien - somewhat... abnormal sensation.
My own beating heart, beating in my throat. Hasn't happened in my recollection.

The clock idly lingers at 5am, reminding me of the horrors of a few hours to come. What was sleep to me? A vestigial artefact of biology that keeps me sane? I nod off to sleep.

My dreams are vivid, filled with a certain sense of dread and anxiety. A battlefield stretches beyond, filled with the dead, being fought over by the dead. There was no respite for the fallen, being dragged back into service, over and over and over again. Like a French bayonet charge they fall, sink, and are regurgitated at crypts behind their own lines.

I reflect on their sorrow. The black and white scenes flit by my consciousness, filling my head with sensations I can barely begin to understand myself. A lithe girl, a shrunken man, a drifter caught in a snow bank - frozen and stiff. It makes no sense, yet the oddest feeling of correlation seeps into my stimulated mind.

Do I dream in colour? Only in shades of scarlet. Eight pointed stars - remnants of fantasy seep in and sear themselves into memory, grotesque Lovecraftian themes I cannot bear to disclose prostrate themselves onto my mewling consciousness. I experience terror and joy, sorrow and euphoria, regret and disdain, helplessness and omnipotence - I feel, alive.

Suddenly, there is nothing. Darkness. I fall through the cold, cold depths of space, time and mental hallways. Nothing is there. Nothing is to come. Nothing will be my end, as it was my beginning.

The clock shows 7.13am. The room is as frigid as an open window permits it to be. Under the quilt my cold sweat lingers before I get up for class. Outside, the sun is breaking.

Biological Chrono Hard Reset.

2009-03-09T03:00:00.004+08:00

An Exercise

I've got plenty lined paper notes
I've got a pen fully loaded
I've many hallucinogen quotes
I'm scribbling un-goaded.

An acceptable break from reality.

My routines know me
They're my personal dupree
A necessary cringe of existence
Cold without malevolence.

An acceptable parallel of reality.

I'd trade my Sunday
For a blustery Friday
For a sunny Saturday
For my own Groundhog day.

An acceptable twist of reality.