this bird has flown.

the king is dead. long live the king.

so i've been back for about a week now. and the haze is starting to clear.

i've gotten used to the heat and perhaps even a little bit to the crowds.

i get reminded of familiar things such as when you drink from a cold bottle of water there is so much condensation on it that it trickles all over your clothes and feet as you take long cool swig.

familiar things such as the constant cling clanging of the chai dao kuay seller's twin spatulas resonating into my room from downstairs. also the once in a while wafts of aroma from his cooking.

the bulk of the upgrading work in my neighbourhood has been completed. it's nice to be able to not return to a construction site again. the neighbourhood looks changed enough for me to feel like it isn't my home. i haven't really soaked in the new environment but i guess it'll be just like home soon.

the goons in perth got diarrhoea over the weekend due to some suspect nasi briyani consumed at the perth royal show. my mother said, "you tell them 'see lah! you not there only they all get diarrhoea!'". if only i had such powers of protection. i do miss my world in perth but i'm grateful i wasn't there to fight for the toilet with them.

so now starts the job hunt and the quest to be fiscally useful and self-sufficient.

i've uploaded some videos of death cab and okkervil river at youtube if anyone's interested. no vids of sigur ros cos i didn't get to record much at all and no broken social scene cos i was standing right next to the speakers and the bass distorted the sound something really horrible.

okkervil river rocked out more than i expected. real small crowd. prolly like 200 or 300 people. again i could not drink because i drove there and i was alone. i met my pal from school, tim, there though. saw a few other familiar faces from school. what an indie hive the arts faculty at my school is.

this is prolly the last gig that i will go to in perth. it saddens me greatly as i learned recently that the new pornographers, modest mouse and pete yorn among others are coming to perth in the near future. it will be a hard step to take onto the plane home knowing i will miss these gigs. but it does make it a bit easier knowing that when i come back my cousin's stomp gigs will be on.

local music here i come.

yesterday was my first kind of free day as a graduate. i spent it looking for soil around the neighbourhood to fill my pot and planted some basil seeds. if all goes well, it will be fully grown around the time i leave.

there go the holidays.

well, technically i'm still on holiday since i'm done with uni. but still today is the first day of school.

so, my mother left perth yesterday. i think she had a nice time here. many, many photos but i don't think i'll post them up.



went to the death cab gig while mother was here. chatted with this fella while i was there. well, he came to talk to me cos i was all by my lonesome self. he just wanted to promote his own band in some semi-final of some band competition really. death cab were good. ben gibbard wouldn't keep still though and kept swaying to and fro which resulted in shit photos. well, i wasn't very close anyway.

there goes uni life.

the fruit juice, which expires in 2007, has by itself somehow become carbonated and cider-like. most interesting. and also, tasty.

i hope it has no detrimental effects upon my well-being.

last saturday was free comix day and we scored these two comix. i picked justice league not knowing it would be of the cartoon. oh well. by the way, superman, do you only know one damn pose. god knows if batman's got the same stance going on in the justice league cover too.



and today i scored this for myself. hellz yeah gonna check them emo boys out after this sem ends.

go mario go!

so, yes, the toaster issue still chews at my mind every once in a while, mostly whenever i make some toast. so today i was mulling over what snack i should have to tide me till when my housemate comes back from work cos we have dinner together when she gets back around 10. so i decided, well i'll have myself a bit of toast. right.

so this is how it is. lately i've been keeping the last few slices of bread in the freezer cos due to a general profusion of other types of foodstuffs, we have in this semester on some occasions neglected to finish the bread before it decided to grow mould on itself. so yeah, into the freezer they go.

so yes, my snack. now. you remember there is the issue of the toaster setting. so, taking the bread out of the freezer, my mind started mulling again. and i had a breakthrough. perhaps it goes up to 7 because people toast frozen bread. so i'm thinking hellz yeah that's it. so i'm like i'm gonna just stick this frozen slice of bread in and toast it. so, bolstered by my conviction that i had solved the puzzle, i turned the toaster all the way up to 4, yes 4, and i even didn't stay around to monitor the process, as i am usually wont to do, due to my quite anal ways about some things. i pushed the plunger switch down and i went to...i can't remember what i went to do. it was possibly something to do with the toilet.

so well, yeah. after the slice of bread popped up, i ended up having to scrape the black off my toast with the butter knife over the sink again.

yeah, so the issue still stands. i am contemplating finding a company email address online that i can pose this question to.

go watch this animation:

Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006!

zombie smashing fun.

riddle me this, batboys and batgirls:

why does my bread toaster go up to 7 when toasting at 3 as good as almost burns it?

the most satisfactory answer gets some toast, at 7.

peench a keister thees easter, meester!

sigur ros last night was good. they sounded great inside the perth concert hall. it was less a gig than an experience and a performance. as with usual with me when i listen to sigur ros, i got lulled into feeling like i wanted to sleep at some parts. the light display didn't really help either. some of it was so distracting i had to close my eyes, which made me want to sleep even more. BUT, it was a good gig. i didn't get to take much photos cos an usher told me to put away the camera cos "the band doesn't want photographs to be taken of them". still, after seeing many camera flashes going off and cameras being wielded openly by people around me i took some photos anyway. but he came over and said "there's no filming of he concert tonight, mate" when he saw me filming a clip and i was like ... and sian after that so i just didn't bother with any more camera stuff.

so yeah, back to doing my philo essay.

i hope more good acts show up in perth.

list of affected CDs.

all y'all in singapore, get to the arts house and watch this.

on my insistence, we have gotten a basil plant for only 2 dollars. mmm, nothing beats fresh herbs.

access pass admit one.

oh yeah broken social scene was shit good yo. i was right up front at the corner of the stage. it was awesome. as usual my ears are ringing now. i took mucho pics and vids and i might load them up later. off to shower now.

update: i've uploaded some of the photos and you can check 'em out here. the vids are great viewing but unfortunately i was right next to the speakers so the sound is pretty bad cos basically the low frequency sounds as good as drowned out the high frequency sounds.

this shit is funny with a capital HA.

that's right boys and girls. i'm going to see sigur ros. all i hope now is that i'm not blocked by gangly ang mohs.

if you haven't heard, perth is bitch hot but today is much cooler than normal cos there is rain forecasted. but still, it's muggy. well, in my apartment anyway. i must keep an eye on the skies cos i got clothes hanging out to dry.

so i'm sunburnt. but not as bad as my housemate. my face is still reddish. i'm gonna be really slathering on the sunblock tomorrow for soccer. the sun here is really killer. all i did was be in the sun for maybe 2-3 hours. won't be taking any more chances. don't want to the soccer session to turn into a barbecue.

it's kinda hard to start an exercise regime when the sun eats into your face the moment you step out of the shade.

so, grocery shopping today. we got the essentials. though the area that was really replenished was the snack cupboard. it's so replenished some of the stuff has to go on another shelf. i must say i had very little part in that. all i bought was some biscuits and gummies. because gummies rule.

remember the job i was moaning about not getting last semester. well, this sem i got it and i might be starting on monday. the job title is a tad grand for my liking and i am now pressured to live up to "computer support assistant". d00d i am |ike officia||y a g33k. |33t!!1!

speaking of which, if you get the chance, get your geek on and watch 'the IT crowd', this new british comedy about an IT department in an office building. it's packed with gigglebytes of laughs.

so i'm back in perth. i realised as i unpacked and cleaned up the place how much i like staying here in this house. somehow i forgot what it's like to live here when i was back in singapore.

the flight back was a bitch. never had quite an ordeal like it. walked all the way to the end of the departure area to my gate and the security fella there says it's been changed to a gate that's on the other end of the fuckin' place. so everyone has to fuckin' hightail it to the other side and you do realise this is changi airport which is a huge ass place and not perth airport where one push on a skateboard would take you from departures to arrivals. then from the gate, when we finally got through cos there was this line of tired panting people who qualify for "i did changi departure lounge in 10" t-shirts, we had to take a coach to the plane which is sitting out in the middle of nowhere. and so we board real classy and all up one of those staircases on a back of a truck and the plane's air-conditioning is not on. like what gives? then i realise this 223 is not the same 223 i've been taking for the past 2 and 1/2 years. this one's older and shit. then later finally after maybe 45 minutes delay, the plane takes off and the air-conditioning comes on, and it begins to get so cold you'd think frosty the snowman just farted big time. well, anyway, we got here and i had to go through the longest fucking line in customs just to declare 3 packets of sauce while adrian and mindy with more goods to declare than i have sail through other much shorter channels which had practically no line at all.

so hey whatever. anyway, i'm back and the weather's not been a fiery bitch so far so that's good. gots to stock me up some food and stuff. the fridge is empty and cold, much like my heart.

peace out bitches.

hey y'all. i gots myself a pair of indoor soccer boots today. now i'm a hankerin' for some a soccerin'.

anyway, help me do this here thing, alright? in the name of better self-understanding.

that's right, kids. this here be a ticket to a broken social scene gig. much thanks to yvonne for putting in the legwork. now to mull over the usual question of whether to bring my digicam along or not.

sometimes i love perth.

i'd really love to see the arcade fire also. here's hoping they'll hit perth within the next 8 or so months.

so. i had a pizza night.