Right In Two by Tool

I think it has been more than half a decade since i started penning my thoughts here. A lot of things have had happened since then. Well, this is the end of it as my writings has been cut and divided RIGHT IN TWO.

Bicycle Race By Queen

I am writing to express my wrath for bicycles that I have owned. Just yesterday my key could not unlock my bicycle lock after locking it for less than 10 minutes but that's just a tip of the iceberg.

Let's start with my first bicycle. My father bought for me my first bicycle. My brother borrowed it and parked it at Woodlands Badminton Hall complex to go swimming. He saw a group of people stealing my bicycle and reported it to the police. And then there was another case of me learning to ride a bicycle using my friend's bicycle. As I was cycling, another friend sprayed some party foam into my face and I fell because I was still learning. He did that to amuse himself. But there are a few times when having your own bicycle was fun such as having a BICYCLE RACE or cycling to other neighborhood nearby to play soccer. I also cycled to my secondary school almost everyday and sometimes I race with the bus. Some days I win, some days I lose.

Fast forward a few years, I bought a new bicycle. The model is GT Aggressor, I forgot which brand though. So my family migrated to Johor and I left my bicycle in Singapore. I used it several times in Singapore before forgetting where I parked my bicycle. Either that or somebody stole my bicycle. I used that bicycle to cycle to Republic Polytechnic before we migrated to Johor. Regardless, I made a police report.

After I finished National Service, I took my step-brother's bicycle which my brother took. The bicycle was parked at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and so I had to cycle from Ngee Ann Polytechnic to our new house at Outram Park. The brand is Raleigh which is a reputable brand however the back tyre keep having a puncture and I think I have replaced it at least 3 times. So I decided to sell that bicycle.

Next bicycle I bought was through Carousell and the owner brought down the wrong color so we had to meet the next day. The brand was Crolan and it cost me $159.I got in an accident with that bicycle. A van was stationary on a zebra crossing and I just zoomed past it however the driver did not see me. Luckily i went away scratch free but the bicycle's rear wheel needed a replacement. After cycling on it a few times after the accident, there was a problem with the left paddle and so had to replace that also. After replacing it, the bicycle repairmen said that i needed to replace a different thing or the paddle will coming loose. That replacement costs 1/3 of the bicycle price so it wasn't worth it.

I planned to move out of my family's home and rent my own place but the delivery guy made a stupid mistake. There wasn't any space for my bicycle to fit into his car, so I just left that bicycle under the block. After a few weeks, I came back and realize that the seat has been stolen. Once I have moved out, I bought another bicycle. The brand is Oaklan. I parked it under the block at different place but this time, the seat was stolen and there was a problem with the gears. So i got used to cycling without a seat because a seat cost 1/4 the price of the bicycle which isn't worth it. And then yesterday, my key couldn't unlock the bicycle lock. So now I don't plan to buy any new bicycles. I should just buy a motorcycle instead.

22032018 update; my bicycle is stolen and I don't care.

Sound of Silence By Disturbed

After I completed my compulsory 2 years of service serving the army, I walked from SAF Ferry Terminal to Bedok Camp to Pasir Laba Camp, which in total was approximately 50km long. I planned to do this in my last year serving the army and I planned to complete it in 1 day. On the day itself however, I didn’t manage to complete it and so the walk was completed over 3 separate days.

I planned to do this walk for several reasons. The main reason is because it’s to tell myself that I’ve officially completed serving the army. Movies like Into the Wild & Wild also inspired me to do this. Another reason would be I wanted to experience walking long distance. To see Singapore when everybody else is sleeping n also to experience the SOUND OF SILENCE are other reasons. By sound of silence I mean no handphone or music, just you and your mind just like when you are swimming. I also wanted to see how far I could push myself and, it’ll be a representation of infantries all over the world as walking over long distances is an integral part of any army. The longest march I did in the army was 32km with a heavy bag and, so I wanted to see if wearing sport shoes with lesser load would help me cover longer distances in a shorter amount of time.

I started off the walk in 2016 after June. Bought 1.5l of 100 plus and did a few stretches. I got excited and jogged the start instead which was a mistake. I remembered an Indian guy asking me for directions to the airport and I told him it was a very long distance and even after checking google maps, I couldn’t figure it out myself. I reached Bedok camp and that will be last time I will see that disgusting place. 12km completed. I had Macdonalds, continued and quit at Dhoby Ghaut MRT because my feet were in a very deep pain. From Bedok Camp to Dhoby Ghaut MRT is 14km. There was a sharp pain in my feet every time I walked. I visited the doctor a few days after that and he reassured me that the pain will vanish in due time.

I continued the march after July 2017 because I was working full time from December 2016 to August 2017 and did manage to have the time to it. I decided that I wanted to complete it because I must fight the habit of doing things halfway. I alighted at Dhoby Ghaut and planned to march to Jurong East MRT, but I completed it at 4AM. I had about 90 minutes to burn while waiting for the first train to get back home so I decided to continue and ended it at Boon Lay MRT with 30 minutes to burn. I finished 18km on that day. I could continue and try to end it on that day itself however I was starting to have blisters. I decided to quit because I did not want to repeat the same mistake as before. A few days later I walked 6km and finished it. It was by chance there was a graduation ceremony at Pasir Laba Camp when I reached it and that made it a sweet ending. Overall it was a positive experience. Since I walked from the east to the west of Singapore, I plan to walk from the north to the south of Singapore and maybe it could be my first house in Woodlands to a rented house we lived in in Outram Park.

The Unnamed Feeling By Metallica

The purpose of this writing is to tell myself to wake up. It has been 3 months since I have completed national service. During those 2 years, I always wondered what I could have done with that 2 years instead and I wrote a long to-do list after ORD. 3 months have passed and looking back I did good but I could have done so much better.

The 3 major goals in my life are simple. They are music, investment & Islam. I want to be a world famous musician as a vocalist & bassist. The thing that is stopping me right now is that it’s hard to sing and play bass together; the bands that I am in are progressing very slowly because they are schooling and also working and as such, weekends are our only free time. And as such, I bought an acoustic guitar & an electric so that I could write my own songs. Life has taught me not to depend on people and so it is paramount that I write my own songs since I am free 24/7. And then we arrive at another problem. I need to learn how to play acoustic guitar which I have not been doing so well in as I am unmotivated and lazy. I am in this band Carnage and I wish I can quit that band; however I have little hope in them. That band has no direction and we’re slow in composing our songs. Barren Wasteland however has direction and that’s great.

I need to work so that I have money to invest in. That is the excuse I give myself because you don’t need money to research companies and learn more about investments. I have gained a 4% profit for investing in Lippo Malls and I am happy however my other stock Raffles Medical is not doing so well. What I always wanted to do is to write down the basic details of Lippo Malls, Raffles Medical and Hongkong Land as I own them however I am just plain lazy. Next would be to research stocks that I have shortlisted based on my criteria. Then when I’m working, I would slowly buy those stocks. People collect stamps, guitars, books but I collect stocks.

I don’t know where to start for Islam. I only did my Friday prayers and that’s about it. I wanted to watch videos on Youtube to inspire me but that has never happened. Maybe the plague destroyed my motivation. I tried learning Arabic online but gave up. I can’t believe I am lazy to pray at home also. I am slowly drifting away.

Then there’s the general work that needs to be done. We’ve just shifted house and there’s a lot of never ending nonsense to be done. I also have my basic admin work to be done some of which include exercising, paying bills, helping family members and also indulging myself in light entertainment such as gaming and watching movies. However though, this light entertainment has become somewhat heavy. I also want to quit hearthstone as they have this daily quest that makes me glued to the game and I am angry with myself for this because I just can’t seem to quit something so simple. Maybe I should write down the time I spent doing each task daily to see where my time flies. Sometimes what stops me from being efficient is my mom calling me every hour or so to help her with something. I also waste my time looking at things on carousell, drifting in 9gag and facebook & also being consumed by THE UNNAMED FEELING.

Now I really don’t know what to do to improve myself. Should I get a driving license? Should I work full-time or part-time? Should I continue learning the acoustic guitar via Youtube videos or electric guitar via rocksmith? Should I improve bass by scottsbasslessons, rocksmith or youtube videos? How do I start pursuing Islam? How do I start researching investments? What are somethings that I have to do that actually doesn’t need to be done? 

Never Too Late By Three Days Grace

If people come late for school or work by 5 minutes, it is excusable. However, many of my friends are always late and awfully late. I live much further than them but they live much closer and yet they're late. So, here's my guide on being punctual.

Set a buffer time for yourself. If you're supposed to arrive at 8, please aim to arrive at least 10 minutes before. Shit always happens and that 10 minutes can just fly by. Sometimes you might just miss the bus, need to go to the toilet & sometimes there's a traffic jam.

Get enough sleep. This is one of the things that will make you NEVER TOO LATE. The recommended amount of sleep for almost everybody is 8 hours. You need more sleep if you are younger & lesser if you are older. Most of the times we are able to wake up even though we are still sleepy, but there'll be a greater tendency to off our alarm and straight away go back to sleep. This also happens to some of us even when our alarm is on snooze mode. Some find it hard to sleep early and this might be because you've slept in the afternoon or you woke up late.  If you still cannot wake up, then you have discipline problems.

Get the estimated travelling time correct. It is wrong to assume that our estimated travelling time based on a single travel. You need to at least travel 5 times and average all of those and that's how you get your estimated travelling time.

You must prepare your things the day before and not before you leave your house. Even though this saves you less than 5 minutes, you might miss the bus due to this. The more important reason though is so that you do not forget to bring your things because we are more careless when we are in a rush.

Finding the fastest route also saves you time. The most fundamental is finding the fastest public transport or if you have a car or motorcycle, find the fastest route. The fastest route might not necessarily be the shortest route as traffic has to be accounted for. Traffic also changes with time & day and you must also take note of that.  On the other hand, I have taken things to the next level. I always walk fast before reaching my bus stop even though I do not know if the bus is coming because there’s always a probability that I might just miss the bus if I walk instead & then I can rest in the bus. Going on a more extreme level, I utilise the idea of Pythagoras Theorem.  If the walking distance is shorter by cutting across and not walking on the pavement, I simply walk on the grass. I call it Pythagoras Theorem because there’s always one side of the triangle that’s shorter than both sides combined.

When you wake up, there is an organized way of things getting done before going to work. You should know immediately what to do after showering, dressing up or eating and there's no rests in between. I take it to the next level and multi-task, for example, eating while getting dressed.

If you can do some things at your work place or school then do it there instead. Estimate the time needed for doing your work and arrive that early at your workplace/school so that you can do it there instead. Note though that you should not have a lot of things to do over there as you might not have enough time to complete it or you still need more sleep.

Lastly, if you know you’re going to be late, inform that person who’s expecting you and tell him/her/them where you currently are and/or your estimated arrival time. Nothing makes me more irritated when a person replies, I'm on my way.

No Ordinary Love By Sade

These holidays were the best! It was a 3 months holiday that stretched from July 21st to October 21st. It was even better then the holidays after the dreaded GCE 'O' Levels examinations. This is because I did many things during the holidays, including things that  did not wanted, also because it was after my internship which I hated & I spent most of my holidays alone in a 1-room flat in Singapore. There were only 3 things I hated during these holidays and they were that I spent a lot of my money, travelling back to my Malaysian home several times & also the low quality Jbing sessions.

Let's start of with a list of how much money I spent during my holidays. 117 dollars on discounted computer games & most of them were crazy deals as such, I did not regretted buying them. Most of expenditures on computer games were actually not games, but downloadable contents for Napoleon Total War & Shogun 2 because I love those two games very much. I'll be spending my money on another game, Rocksmith 2014 which is will be out around late October. I spend 78 dollars Pokemon Platinum which is actually an old Pokemon game but I bought it because I wanted to catch as many Pokemon as I could and I have like around 30 more Pokemon to catch until I complete my non-event pokemon Pokedex. 188 gone due to dental fees as I had 3 stupid cavities. This is because I usually do not brush my teeth. Adding on, 220 out of my wallet because I went for a Metallica concert. It was worth it because it was my first time experience & they are a legendary band. I was generous and treated my sister and my mummy to a day out at a Malaysian Pizza Hut outlet and spend 50 dollars over there. 44 dollars gone thanks to 3 polyclinic visits. I spend 45 dollars on 2 good board games and I wanted Joshya, Muhaimin, Jbrien & myself to split the cost but only Jbrien paid because I was scared to ask Muhaimin and Joshya for money in which they did not agree upon. Lastly 94 gone to miscellaneous stuffs of which are boring to explain to you but they are excluding food & transport.

Breaking Bad was the best series that I've watched over the holidays and season 5 is just pure awesome shit. I have feelings of NO ORDINARY LOVE for Breaking Bad, but rather extra ordinary love! Next would be Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood because it's not so much of the cliché' good versus evil to me but more of tagging along their the brother's journey & there were some funny moments. Third in the list would be Spartacus War Of The Damned because politics was lacking in this season & Spartacus' downfall was predictable. Second last is The Pacific because I just get confused with who's who. Lastly is Alan Parson's The Art & Science of Sound because this is not for entertainment, but educational because it relates to on the modules I will be taking. I have black lagoon & Game Of Thrones in my laptop but I'll watch it when I'm really bored.

I've watched a lot of movies. And I mean a lot, 28 to be precise. Here's the whole list of movies I've watched, flight, preaching to the perverted, glengarry glen ross, all the rocky balboa movies, bittermooon, 21 & over, American Psycho, 120 Days Of Sodom, Life of Pi, Kill List, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Pasts, Murder Set Pieces,Audition, Big, The Green Mile, Hancock, Initial D, Fast & Furious 1, Fast & Furious 4, Fast & Furious 6, Iron Man 3, Martyrs, Irreversible & The Departed.I watched We're The Millers alone in the cinema because I wanted to see Jennifer Aniston in lingerie on the big screen. I also watched The Internship with my sister at the cinemas. I'd recommend Rocky Balboa up to the fourth one, Bitter Moon because it left my emotions fucked after watching it, The Green Mile because it's inspirational & The Departed because of many twists in the story.

The Napoleon Total War campaigns was the best games I played during the holidays. Other games that I've played are Need For Speed Undercover, which I completed around 24 hours because the game was very easy, Red Alert 3, Batman Arkham City which was enjoyable because it was the first time I played this kind of genre, Ridge Racer which was much easier than Need For Speed Undercover, Sim City, a handful of Civilization V campaigns & completed half of grid. It's sad because I have many other games that I have not touched. I also played Pokemon Soul Silver Japanese Version & Pokemon Platinum because I wanted to completed the Pokedex.

One of the reasons I loved these holidays was because I did things that I did not wanted to do & they were downloading more music, swimming, jogging, playing bass, reading Koran, learning how to drive & reading a book. I wanted to read the Koran in because there's this English Koran at home but I preferred the on the net however there's no internet at my Outram home and as such, I only read the first 3 chapters. I prefer swimming to jogging because there's pleasure in each stroke and I keep getting better at my freestyle. After a swim and giving myself a day's rest, I find that I jog faster and I love this. I jog mainly to stay in shape for the upcoming NS NAPFA as I do not want to waste 2 months in Physical Training Phase. So, in total, I swam more than 100 laps & jogged more than 20 km. I also jogged at Mount Faber Park & I reached all the way to top however I walked most of the time. The view was spectacular and this made imagine what's the view like on top of Bukit Timah, the highest natural peak in Singapore. I feel happy after managing to play songs on the bass that I previously wasn't able to & I guess I must really take it slow & easy when it comes to bass. I do not want to learn how to drive but my mother wanted me to and I agreed because she's paying for it. I only read 1 book and that's Intensity by Dean Koontz because one of my friends gave it to me. I do not like reading it because the words were small, chapters were long, & I still did not understand some parts even after the author tried to explained it but the best thing about the book was how the story was resolved giving the readers a sense of satisfaction. By the way, I'm happy because this post is more than a 1000 words long!

There are some other things that I wanted to do by the end of the holidays however I did not achieve it. The first one was to draw my dream house, the second one was to be able to read, write & speak Arabic. Followed by producing music for my portfolio, finish existing r4 games & download exciting r4 games for my Nintendo DS. Lastly, I fail to download photos of cars & making a screen saver for my laptop.

Wherever I May Roam by Metallica

I think I’m losing interest to blog but I need to blog about this concert I went to because it’s Metallica! First of all, the ticket cost me 191 bucks. I wasn’t sure if I would buy it because of the price but then I made up my mind because it’s a once in a lifetime experience and I’ve told myself that I’ll only go to concerts by my top favourite musicians which only includes Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Bon Jovi, Avenged Sevenfold, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice in Chains, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Guns N Roses, Beatles. However as you can see, Avenged Sevenfold, Aerosmith & Iron Maiden came to Singapore before and it’ll be a long time before they come again. Bands like Nirvana, Beatles, Ozzy Osbourne & Guns N Roses are “dead”.

I wasted 20 bucks for a taxi ride because I forgot how to take public transport to go there. Drinks and foods over there are expensive but luckily I smuggled my own burger into it. The demographics were dominated by Malays followed by Pinoys, Eurasians, Indians & finally the Chinese. These show that the Chinese just don’t know how to rock even though they make up a lot of the Singapore Population. I went alone to the concert by the way so that I won’t feel shy when I scream loudly, also because I am anti-social & I want to go WHEREVER I MAY ROAM. I met Jijie at the concert with a bunch of his friends though. There was nothing spectacular about the stage. It had one main screen and two side screens. As I had completed my internship about a month ago, I took down the number of lights they had at the concert and also because I was bored. The lists is as such, 20 8 lite mofay, 132 VL, 24 atomic, 10 moving led, 56 foh speakers & 160 side led screens.  Note though that’s it’s not accurate.

Opening for Metallica was The Sacrilege & Anvil. The Sacrilege sucked because it was like a heavier version of Paramore however the lead singer of the band had nice racks & Anvil was not bad and some people came to the Metallica concert for Anvil and I’m like go back home.

This is the set list for the concert starting with Hit The Lights, Master of Puppets, The Shortest Straw, Ride the Lightning, Fade to Black, The Memory Remains, Broken, Beat & Scarred, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Sad but True, ...And Justice for All , One, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Blackened, Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman, Creeping Death, Battery, Seek & Destroy.

Once the Metallica was on stage the crowd went crazy. Everybody was pushed from all directions by everybody else’s body and within five minutes, the girls had to be pulled out from the crowd. I screamed through most of the song lyrics ad it felt great although I was thirsty, tired & hungry. Luckily I was smart and place my spectacles in my spectacles case because metal concerts are violent. I was smart because yesterday I went to a local concert at Republic Polytechnic and my spectacles was disfigured but luckily it could be repaired. Everybody was squeezed was so tightly. I even had to place my hands in front of me & you can feel the sweat from the other person’s body rolling down your arms. One of the many great things about Metallica was that during their concert, they rarely took a break even though they’ve aged & singing metal and you rarely see that in musicians. To add on, 4 days before that, they’ve performed at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and a day after performing at Singapore, they performed at Indonesia.

The concert ended and I didn’t wanted to find guitar picks which Metallica threw onto the crowd because I wanted to catch the last bus however I failed. I had my late dinner at a coffee shop which was very far from the concert venue. I saw my friend at the coffee shop and he was surprised when I told him that I’ll be sleeping around the vicinity. After that, I sat on a chair and slept with my head on the table which belonged to a close restaurant. I did not want to take a taxi because it was expensive. I woke up early to catch the first bus. I smelled like shit and there’s at least 20 guys’ sweat on me. To conclude, the concert was worth every buck however I wouldn’t go to another Metallica concert unless I’m rich because I think it won’t be worth the money going for the second time.