To-do List (and cleaning up the unfinished leftovers)

This is beyond my league.. too much Tonyness in it :

Withdrawals, Art trip

I'm experiencing multiple withdrawals at the same time I guess, from a proper com... english... Guit... Of the 3, I suppose the English part is hitting quite hard. It is a weird feeling that you find yourself unable, due to the lack of a recipient, to carry out a conversation in English... The Guit withdrawal is hitting the worst that I am going around hunting for Guit shops to just play a few tunes... Oh well..'

The Taipei trip is fruitful to say the least. Though I skipped out on the standard stuff (shopping etc), the art exposure itself is enough to justify the cost of the whole trip.

Van Gogh is a emo man, as much as his circumstances are messed up, his emoness is what eventually ran his life short, just when things were going to take a turn for the better. Then again, maybe he won't be so awesome if he had not been emo... Ohwell.

Cai Guo Qiang's stuff are awesome, though some of it is a bit gimmicked because he's a big shot and using gunpowder to paint is a totally revolutionary way to do art. Well, big shots have prerogative to do things like that I guess.

The stuff in the contemporary art museum blew my mind. Even if they are pros, there should be some limits to their awesomeness... I'll let my shots do the rest.





I am really behind in keeping this updated... I will try & get to the brain intensive stuff tomorrow (or later today)... It is X'mas afterall

The trip & Awesome Architecture

I ran out of excuses to skip out on the blog after I left China. Procrastination and sloth got to me after all.
The trip had been blissful, I was fortunate enough to land myself in between two "cool currents" (no idea what is the exact term lol) for my stay in China. With nice weather and all whole lot of visiting relatives and big meals, it is nice to be hit by nostalgia, to see the amount of change & development, also to recognize the very favourable position that I have been placed in. (I'll write a full reflection when the trip is over... Assuming that I am not too blown away by my results)

Finally, on the subject today. My time in Taiwan can be summarized by these statements: Awesome people, Awesome food, Awesome Architecture. It is interesting to see the blend of both the modern and rural in a single city (Kao Hsiung as they translated it... Weird huh?) done in the right way, with clean streets (minus the motorcycles with their noise and air pollution), very friendly people. It's pretty contrasting to my stay in China, where pretty much the opposite have happened to my home island. It is sad to see in Chinese metropolis in the making that the rural friendliness have been replaced with cool indifference, that the cleanliness of the urban landscape is nowhere to be found, that pollution is all round.

Complains and unbalanced comparisons aside, the architecture of this port city is something that I am thoroughly impressed with. I suppose it will be too much for me to expect the same for Singapore, where land is of severe shortage, the integration of architectural sophistication into practicality is sadly nowhere to be found in S'pore. Then again, this is all to be expected when economic efficiency takes the primary focus over artistic appreciation (This is beginning to sound like my EE over again).

Just 2 pictures of a MRT exit, more pictures will be available on my FB soon, as soon as I can be bothered about them..

Thoughts & Reflection, perhaps a conversation with God

I'll try to post something with brains this time, though physical state might not be really apt for this kind of mental exercise right now.

It is funny how sometimes you end up buying some arguments even though you know that more than 50% of it is bullshit. That sort of happened to me for Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story". Perhaps it is his way of presenting his view, or perhaps it is that hint of pain and heartache behind all the sarcasm in the "documentary". Cocky as I may sound, I sided with the argument before I have seen the show, now I just have a problem with his "telling only one side of the story" type of delivery... Not to say that that is a bad way of arguing convincingly, I just have a problem with its claim as a documentary, that it presents the truth, just not the whole truth.

I guess that is enough digression about Moore's filming, the focus of today's long winded crapping is about how messed up the world is, and how to fix it. Capitalism is an ingenious system, a system powered by the greed of humans. The basic assumption that "all firms are profit maximizing" that is taught as a plain fact across all economic students is a painful statement about how pathetic the human race have fallen. But I guess, for those practical ones, Capitalism is the obvious way out since not everyone on the face of this earth can remain 100% honest so communism which is based on such values are doomed to failure due to the inherent greed that all human have. I guess the conformists are either too ignorant or cynical to recognize that what this option of capitalism means to say is that "Since we can't assume that no one is greedy and there won't be corruption, let's build a system that assumes everyone is greedy". A system that turns everyone greedy, a system where personal benefit overrules morals, where the profit motive takes predominance over social welfare, a system where everything is degraded to a price tag.

It scares me to think that this is the kind system that I have to dive myself into the heart of to change the world. I had been thinking about this for a long while now, my idealistic/ over-ambitious attempt to fix the situation by massing enough cash to manipulate the economies itself, to address the income inequality issue, the root of most social issues itself. I do realize, after a period of reflection that this solution is only skin deep, where I am attempting to fix things with cash. Well intended as it may be, this solution fails to address the greed issue and the systematic issue (I suppose these two go hand in hand).

I suppose I have been granted some divine guidance, hints to help me figure things out during the Church Camp (there will be reflections about other important, right now I only have time for one i guess), noting things down for personal reference for now.

1. Solution to humanity's failing is the Christian viral system. Small groups/ discipleship is necessary to provide the platform to get involved with another's life enough to change/ impact them. Start small and watch the exponential multiplier work itself out.

2. Be communal. My greatest takeaway from the DUMC visit is not the sermon which I have sadly fallen asleep in (I'm still pissed off at myself about that), but the concept of the design of the church, of how community based it is. In a environment where such facilities are not provided by the government, the concept is imo, a great way to be both light and salt of the world.

3. This is sort of a reassurance I guess. That my attempt to fix the world with money, though very imperfect, is endorsed by God. Though a lot of things that stems from that plan will require sacrifice and discipline.

So where does all these leave me? Nothing definitive I guess, but then again, God's way is never the easiest way and this is going to take a lot of thinking. Looking a the whole post from a non-Christian point of view may make it look like some ranting from yet another idealistic moron who goes around doing things the hard way and going to ended up with nothing done. I guess that is what it is going to be until I come up with something. Someone once suggested a Christian communism, the way of which the original apostles operated. A tempting idea, but closing oneself off from the world on the other hand is definitely not the way to go.

Once again, there's much to do, and very little time.

I'm beginning to doubt the "life after IB is slack" statement

Off for dental~

To do list:
Packing
Shop for BS material & a chinese bible
Do a reflection on liang wei's lesson.
Edit these pictures:

Days gone by

For some reason they removed the fonts option so for now, bear with times new romans.

Just a short record of what happened in the past few days, will get back with proper posts eventually when all the craziness has gone away.

My final days of peace is very quickly interrupted by a call from aeromedical centre, where my pilots application's delayed response from cmpb's arrangements finally took place. Whether this will mess up my enlistment timings etc, only time will tell.

A small medical checkup turned quickly into two nights out with Ariel.
Stoning/ failed guit hunting/ and a long hangout for the first night.

Dental on day 2 and a session with my shepherd,
A visit to sks bookstores to skim through the catalog for cell's next topic
(note to self: hold a meeting with as many people as possible to decide the actual book to study),
A nice stroll through the city from holiday inn to clarke quay to city hall and had some proper guit shopping finally. (Note to Jun Hao if he ever sees this: It's Luthers guitar go google for the web, they have numbers and address and everything, just call them)
Caught Mulan at Cathay (wasn't as bad I thought it would have been, so I guess I'm pleasantly entertained)
Pool/Cyril at Ariel's place.

Things To Do:
Practice for worship: GGness
Write up for chruch camp: GGness
Packing for camp: GGness

Yeah... so much to do, so little time, Sounds like life..

Pick & Nails

My sore throat meds took me offline for a considerable amount of time. Apparently there is high dosage of sleep inducing components inside >.>

Anyway, it is about time I posted something about guitars.



This is my taylor, one which I had plans to resale and upgrade but instead decided to keep permanently. Sticka top and ovangkol back & sides, a warm instrument. Enough geek talk, and more on topic (less geeky but still quite technique focused).

It have finally occurred to me that acoustic fingerstyle have no place in a band, where electrics are filling up the rhythm and melodic lines and keyboard & sync filling up the chords, there's pretty much nothing left for an acoustic guitar. With perhaps the exception of giving the lead singer something to do with his hands or to add that "percussive rhythm" for the band. As much as that may feel like an insult to my instrument, I am switching back to using picks for the upcoming worship service.



Aside from the inconsistencies in both strumming and plucking and having to get used to the whole feel of the pick again, the differences between fingerstyle and pick is minute for general music, where chords dominate. The only significant difference would the noise of which the pick makes when strumming, which is a nuisance when it comes to fingerstyle, where the clarity of notes and their sustains are focused. However in this "percussive rhythm" guitar thingy, this "chucking" noise is pretty much all that you can hear for an acoustic guitar in a hillsong song.

Question here is as to exactly what is the role of an acoustic guitar in a band? What happened such that an full blown instrument with tonality of its own is left to be a background noise to that adds some texture to the music?

I can postulate some answers, but I guess anyone's guess is as good as mine. A simple answer will be that acoustic guitars are bands of their own, as all voicing of an complexed melody can be reflected by the instrument along, much like the piano. Thus having a band removes the necessity of the acoustic guitar in playing specific parts, for instance, melody taken by electric lead and chords taken by keyboard/synth. This is apparently taken to the extreme in "contemporary" music as my extremist friend Garry claims and the acoustic guitar's role is left to simply have a bit of the raw sound of resonance of wood into the whole mix.

Well I am glad that I do not follow any of the "contemporary" trends in this case, an acoustic's too awesome for me. Here is something that I have been killing myself over with, for those that are puzzled by my sudden Card Captor craze.



Off to snooze~

Drugs & Me

I have been down with all sorts of random stuff for about a whole week now. It is probably the first time I had been in this bad shape since I was a 8 year old or something. It started with a slight flu that could have went away with proper rest (which I missed out on for 3 days straight), turned into a bad cold with a fever that had be bedridden for one whole day. What's left I suppose is this sore throat that almost went away but instead deteriorated whenever I think I am getting better. Many would have stopped self medicating somewhere along the long process that got me into this mess right now but I guess I am too stubborn for such. The list below is to remind myself not to commit the stupid mistakes that have me in the bad spot right now.

1) Sleep.
Yes Sleep, even thought I seem to have "sleeplust" whenever I was studying, I can some how stay up to 5 playing with the com/guit/camera. So much for having self-control...

2) Panadol is better than prescription drugs
Well, that's not exactly true. They're pretty much the same thing, paracetamol, just that panadol have it in greater dosages... and panadol extra comes with 15mg of caffeine!!! No wonder I couldn't sleep >.>

3) Strepsils = fail.
Having taken 3 tabs of those, i.e 18 of them, and here I am with the throat that is still hurting. Here's the tribute for the day:


Eventually, it feels like the only that's working is the box, of which looks as if it contained some cure that can take the pain away. Now I am left wondering if it is just some sweets in a medicine's package.

4) Pray hard that you do not end up sharing a place with smokers.
I think I have just discovered the reason for the number of relapse into the sore throat.

5) Hydrate yourself.
Drink water, He Sui, Lim Zhui, nuff said.

That's enough whining for a single day i guess.

Yet another one of those "I've finished IB so I'll talk about life" post

Took me forever to decide on what I am going to post about today. I can complain about how 10 hours of sleep failed to satiate me or how far Expo is from my place (went to SITEX today, it's so normal to the point that it's not even blog worthy) or how I have managed to filled up my hard disk again. A visit to Brian's blog sort of reminded me that it might be better to leave something that I can reflect about in the time to come.

2 years of IB just flew by, which is pretty much how we feel about everything in our lives. I remember complaining to Mr Alistair Chew about how messed up things are during the process, but I suppose that was just stress getting to me. All I can say is that, I guess most of the things went according to plan. Not everything of course, I did not expect NYAA's paperwork to be painstaking enough for me to give up on the award even though I have finished all sections; I did not become a parade commander to a non-existent parade and to many's disappointment, guitar orchestra failed to get a Gold at SYF, let alone an honours that I was expecting. However, I will lying if I said that a year spent in the school is un-awesome and that definitely holds true for the last 2 years of my life.

A list of things that I have learned I guess:
1) I met God.
That should be "nuff said" but I like to spam I guess. I have seen how every bit of my life had been an miraculous arrangement of coincidences that resulted in the conversion of one of the most unlikely person ever and am burdened and renewed about many things in life.

2) I have known myself better.
About how irritating my INTJ personality can be to people around me, about how my lack of tolerance of incompetent superiors is due to that personality and about how dangerous my ambitions can be. Oh well.

3) I have learned to appreciate art
Like for real, like in a much mature sense than I would have meant when I said the same thing when I finished IP art. And just to repeat what Brian said i guess, life of an artist is the life of a hobo. It was crazy, it was unending, it was tiring, but it was fun. Despite all the worries and anxieties, I will rank visual art as one of the most awesome experience that I had in IB.

4) ToK's good for you... Seriously... And I don't mean it in the "make me think critically" sense
Many may find this astounding, coming from the guy that spent the past 4 years of his life dissing anything related to philosophy or epistemology. However, I admit that the whole "examine knowledge" approach that ToK have trained me to take goes a long way in helping me see things better. Which brings me to my next point.

5) I improved my independent learning.
Being taught be some of the most "reliable" teachers turns out to be a very good training in many ways. To be fair, I had my fair share of awesome teachers and I have also realized that a teacher's "awesomeness" varies for different personalities. Considering the fact that the Singaporean education system have added so much pressure to the school that the concept of "independent learning" became a liability as students make mistakes, we cannot really blame the school teachers for employing the traditional "shove-down-the-throat" methods that works better for more students. Enter our dearest "reliable" teachers who aspired so much confidence that I have chosen my personal judgment over theirs. Cocky and over confident I may sound, the process of learning have ironically became "independent" and in line with IBO's designs I guess.

The list can go on indefinitely but I am too lazy I think.

Some food for thought:

Life's pretty similar to this nub shot of mine: only very little things are in focus in a single moment; we can never see everything clearly at once; and our lives are made of both the things that are seen and unseen. So be happy for who you are, for both the things that are seen, while being expectant, for the things you have yet to come to realize. (I understand that one can see things in the opposite way, but life's too short to be pessimistic about things)

stoning off~

Edit:

Touched up the pic so that the composition is slightly better... Still a nub shot though..

Camera, photos and Prime Lens

I just got my own DSLR 3 days ago. As much as I would like to claim my 2-3 years worth of handling a school owned Canon 450D, I admit that playing around with a camera and owning 1 is of significant difference, and functional photography and set up photography are two complete worlds, apart from one another.

My 500D came to full use yesterday, story boarding for the N6 Cluster SMRT detrainment program. Daylight, ISO 800 (Film speed) and f/4.5 (Aperture Size) allowed me to get away with my not-so-steady hand for the whole day with shutter speed of lower than 1/60 (of a second in case any non geeks are reading this) most of the time. I guess I got complacent after taking a days worth of pictures when I was heading down for prom. The dark ball room with those settings gave me a range of 1/5 to 1/24 shutter speed and the carnage is evident in my facebook album.

The free Prime lens is more than what I could have asked for I guess. Having experimented with it in my art dungeon days on Caroline's camera (the only other camera fitted with prime lens on prom haha), the light that f/1.6 can produce is just plain awesome for the occasion. Well, my stereotypical over reliance on technology still killed many of the pictures when I trusted auto focus completely. Still, the prime lens is awesome beyond words =) and here is few of those cliche-but-still-awesome shot done with the prime lens. The focus is messed, but enough of what it is meant to be remained in the frame.



(Click the pictures for the larger version)

On an emo endnote, it is sad that prime lens are totally un-user friendly. Which means to say that there's barely any good photos of myself on my camera during prom. Oh Wells.

Off to game~

End of Procrastination (or so I think it is)

To be honest, the thought of starting a blog has been floating around in my mind since a long time ago. I even had a blank blog template floating around that I had planned to recycle until I recently discovered that it is non-existent. Whether it is the result of my imagination or systematic errors it matters no more, this blog is started the intention of polishing up my famously horrendous writing skills and hopefully provide an insight, if not an entertainment (on my expense haha) for my dear visitors.

What to expect out of this blog? As the header and the subtitle suggests, things posted here will seem random & jumbled up. Sadly, that's just who I am, a moron who's caught up with too many things and often finds himself in a mess. Emo & self pity aside, you should (emphasis on the undefinitive form) find things about instrumental music, guitars, visual art, photography, epistemology, Christianity, tech talk, games and anime. Yeah, I know, That sounds like pretty much everything underneath the sun but I guess that is what most blogs are about anyway.

Until my html skill have miraculously improved, I will still have to install a cbox onto this thing. So in the mean time, bear with the recent post widget and hope you guys enjoy whatever that is posted here.