Sunday, February 28, 2010 . 4:04 PM

AAARRRGGGHHH I'm damn sian.

After painstakingly playing through Mass Effect for a 2nd time, making sure I made all the choices I wanted so that the story would carry over like I had planned for Mass Effect 2, spending about a week finishing the damn game with all its super-many side missions...

I FAILED TO GET LEVEL 60 WITH MY CHARACTER!!!

He's BLOODY stuck at level 59! AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I thought what Raghu said was right, that the level doesn't matter if you're carrying the character over from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2, but IT DOES!!! You start at Level 5 instead of 1, and have extra resources and credits if your character is level 60! AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

LEVEL 59 ONLY!!!

DAMMIT!!!

Looks like I'll have to play through Mass Effect again. Oh well. At least it gives me the opportunity to get the "Krogan Ally" and completing the game on Insane difficulty achievements.

I thought I could start on Mass Effect 2 today :( Damn this OCD tendency for being a completionist in all my games.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Monday, February 22, 2010 . 1:55 AM

I.

HAVE.

WORK.

RELATED.

STRESS.


















DAMMIT.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 . 7:33 PM

This is like the cutest thing ever!




Bwahaha watching this movie really made my day yesterday. Reminder of why Jim Carrey is such a class act... Singing, acting, dancing all rolled into one excellent package :)

Sunday, February 14, 2010 . 11:37 PM

My goodness. This is damn creative.



"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Saturday, February 13, 2010 . 4:05 PM

Arghhhh suffering from football withdrawal.

Stupid exams.

Thursday, February 11, 2010 . 3:10 PM

Argh what a frustrating match to watch.

The good news - that Aston Villa drew and Tottenham lost so Liverpool still held on to 4th place.
The bad news - that we failed to capitalize on the dropped points by the aforementioned teams, and that Man City has equal points as us with 2 games in hand.

It's not as if Liverpool played much worse than their opponents... Actually both teams played equally badly. It's just that Liverpool were forced to substitute arguably their best defender for a subpar right-back, and it was exactly that subpar right-back that cost us the goal and the game.

It had been a main feature of Liverpool's first half of the season. I'm not sure of the statistics, as Tomkins would love to refer to, but each time I watched I was appalled by Glen Johnson's inability to pick up men at the far post when crosses came in from Liverpool's left. He aerial ability and man marking are poor in that respect, and it was the same thing today from Degen that cost us the goal from Diaby. It was a great cross from Rosicky, but Degen should have (especially after the rest of the defence delayed the initial cross coming in from Bendtner) picked up Diaby at the far post... Instead, he let the Arsenal No. 2 run past him for a free header and a goal as a result. Very poor defending. I wonder if we would have conceded had Jamie Carragher remained on the pitch. It's no coincidence that Liverpool's defence has been much improved since Glen Johnson got injured and Carragher was shifted out to right back. It's no coincidence either that our defence shipped so many goals in the 1st half of the season after Arbeloa was sold to Real Madrid. Glen Johnson and Philipp Degen may have attacking quality in spades, but their defending leave a lot to be desired, and that's supposed to be their primary responsibility!

Two other glaring mistakes that Degen made today were the awful return pass to Dirk Kuyt after Liverpool had won possession, allowing Arsenal to counter, which won them a corner, and the other one tapping the ball out of play while trying to do a step over after receiving a 50-yard diagonal ball out on the right wing from Gerrard. In a great position to cross and he fluffed it. No wonder they say Liverpool's bench is weak.

I still don't get why Benitez keeps leaving Babel on the bench. He came on and played just 13.5 minutes, but in that 13.5 minutes, he became the player who took the most number of shots for Liverpool, and was the closest to scoring. Why Ngog starts before Babel is a mystery to me. I think Riera should have come on as well, Maxi was incredibly ineffective. Lucas played well I thought. He's really improving and maybe he's not as sucky as I make him out to be... He was excellent against Everton and was solid again today. Had a chance on goal and took a good shot given the angle, just couldn't keep it down.

Sadness. We must beat Man City at the weekend. That game is worth 6 points to us now that we've failed to consolidate our 4th place.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Monday, February 08, 2010 . 1:24 AM

WOW this was so coincidental that I just had to blog about it.

I've recently started watching the Bourne movies again, and while watching The Bourne Supremacy on my laptop, I was also gamecasting the Chelsea vs Arsenal game on Soccernet.

In the 56th minute, this was printed word for word on the Soccernet gamecast: The cameras have just picked out Matt Damon in the stands alongside his director in the Bourne series of films, Paul Greengrass.

Now if that wasn't coincidence, I don't know what else is. Haha.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Sunday, February 07, 2010 . 2:47 PM

It's very hard to argue your point when you're arguing it against people who have not experienced the feeling before, yet feel a need to impose their will upon you and give you answers that basically demean you and say "You're not dedicated enough" when they have not lived the experience before and understood it.

It's also damn hard to argue a point when you have a judgmental person sitting at the table keeping silent and knowing that in her mind all negative thoughts will spring up to add to the already negative thoughts she has of you as a person. Yeah, I'm not as good as her, I'll admit that. I'm not as dedicated, smart, or hardworking. I'm not even f***ing happy with my life.

Sure, I'm not good enough at the art. I thought I was of a certain standard, but so many "more dedicated" people have sprung up, raised the bar, and put me into submission. You know what the word "demoralized" means? Why bother competing just to prove a point? When you have lost your passion, you have lost your passion. 7+ years of experience will count for nothing here. People just want to see how big and how powerful your equipment is, and how much jargon you can spout out without understanding a bit of it. What starts out as fun and leisure is then turned into a competition of "I'm better than you" or "I'm richer than you so I have more powerful stuff than you, ergo I'm better than you". I'm sick of that.

You don't understand that. You won't even let me argue that. If I had wanted to become a professional in the art, I wouldn't be studying my ass off for this bloody medical degree, getting scolded or insulted by docs from time to time and being shunned and ostracized by people in my faculty for not being able to fit in.

I'm not a genius or an overachiever that so many other people in medicine are. There are only so many things that I can do with my life.

Screw it. No one will understand the situation I'm in now regarding this, and they'll all just assume I'm bitter and being negative about everything. No. Nobody understands me.

I don't think any of you reading this will care either.


I was gonna write a long article on why video games can be a potential art form, but I was too lazy. I shall just let the music speak for the game :)

On a side note, Marouane Fellaini is the biggest cheat on the planet (yes, it was a two-footed tackle by Krygiakos, but if you watch the replay closely you can see he stamped two-footed on Krygiakos' ankle on purpose before falling over... Not to mention before that he punted the ball into a prone Dirk Kuyt's face after the referee had blown the whistle for a free kick and when he wasn't paying attention), and Martin Atkinson is the blindest referee in the world.

Well, we still won with 10 men, so it goes to show that cheaters never prosper. Heheh. Come on you Reds! Prove me wrong and get a top 4 finish!

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Thursday, February 04, 2010 . 8:41 AM

MUSE @ BIG NIGHT OUT 3rd FEB 2010.

My ticket for Pen B cost me $121 and it was totally worth every cent. Muse are incredibly epic live. Freaking awesome.

The show opened at 1900 with Saosin, a band which I've not heard of before but they impressed with their first few pieces, although their songs pretty much sounded around the same to me so I kinda tired of it after a while. Full credit to them though for putting up an energetic performance.

After a short rest, Rise Against then took the stage, with a great opener, before going on to play "Re-Education (Through Labor)". I totally did not know of this band until they started playing the intro to this song then I was like "isn't this a Guitar Hero World Tour song???" Damn, I'm a true geek and that proves it. It was a really pleasant surprise though, cos that song is both nice to listen to and to play on Guitar Hero =D haha and it doesn't hurt to hear something nice and familiar. I really enjoyed Rise Against's acoustic set as well, really good stuff. Before they ended with their last piece they roused the crowd by asking "ARE YOU READY FOR MUSE" which drove the crowd totally wild.

After a rather long intermission for Muse to set up their stuff, during which the ushers came round with cups of water for everybody (talk about welfare, A+ guys), Singapore Indoor Stadium then went dark and everybody went crazy as Muse entered playing "We Are The Universe" as an intro before (predictably) breaking out in "Uprising" which naturally drove everybody nuts. They then carried on mixing their most famous hits with songs from their latest album: "Supermassive Black Hole" followed by "Map of the Problematique" then "Resistance" before going into "Interlude" and then knocking everyone dead with "Hysteria"! You should see Chris do the bass for this btw it's absolutely stunning. They then carried on with the brilliant "Stockholm Syndrome" and brought it down a notch with "Niche" then "United States of Eurasia" (which I was a bit disappointed about cos Matt didn't tail off the end of the piece with Chopin's Nocturne in E flat major, Op. 9 No. 2 cos I love that bit of the song).

The greatest surprise (to me at least) of the night was the next piece: Sunburn! The LAST song I expected them to play (1st track off their first album and a damn good track too) but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Once Matt started the piano riff I went nuts. Damn awesome. They then did an instrumental, "Helsinki Jam", which I've not heard before but was awesome all the same.

They then continued with their current album songs with "Undisclosed Desires", where they used lasers to light up Singapore Indoor Stadium, which I thought was a very nice touch. "MK Ultra" came next, before they wowed everyone with "Starlight".

They then proceeded to "Time Is Running Out", which I'm trying to transcribe for a cappella at the moment, before ending off their first set with "Unnatural Selection". They then thanked Singapore before disappearing. Naturally shouts of encore started emanating from all corners of the Stadium and after about 5 minutes, Muse dutifully obliged, coming on stage while performing the amazing "Exogenesis: Symphony, Part 1 (Overture)". "Plug In Baby" was next (and the only song from Origin of Symmetry to make the set-list... Incredibly sad that they didn't do "New Born" and "Hyper Music" but I guess you can't have everything can you =P).

Then came the most AWESOME moment of the night. KNIGHTS OF CYDONIA. Zomg this song is so awesome live my description won't do it justice. The first 6-7 notes when they come in, and everyone starts singing together and pumping their fists in the air, all going crazy and singing along with the guitar riff at the beginning, Matt Bellamy doing his incredibly high falsetto along with us, everyone jumping and fist-pumping as one, singing along with Matt, the lights strobing and flashing in unison with the song, Chris' awesome bass, Dom giving all he has on the drums, the part where everyone sings "No one's going to take me alive/Time has come to make things right/You and I must fight for our rights/You and I must fight to survive" and the last jamming portion, before ending off with a bang... It was just freaking god-like. I was in heaven for 7 minutes.

Phwoar to see these guys live is inspiring. All 3 of them are geniuses at what they do... Matt with his brilliant vocals and guitar/piano, the fleet-fingered Chris with his scintillating bass and fabulous backup vocals, and Dom with his never-tiring percussion. Brilliant! I loved that given the limited time that they had (1.5 hours only) they played as much as possible, giving us like 18 songs within that time frame, talking very little to us, just jamming out and giving all of us what we came for. I'd love to see a full concert from Muse someday, a full 3-4 hours of Muse would be heaven.

Officially the 2nd most awesome night of my life (2nd only to Coldplay's Viva La Vida tour here in Singapore). What an epic night.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel

Tuesday, February 02, 2010 . 2:22 AM

It's very disturbing to think that one day I may not be able to continue with singing.

Singing a cappella is probably the only thing I've ever been good at; although according to senior Resonance members' actions, this is probably a very arguable statement to make.

Since Aca Champs last year I've been hoping for an opportunity to join a group and make this a permanent fixture of my life. I had the chance with Blue Intentions asking me to audition but due to the possibility of joining another group (that has kind of bombed) and due to ET leaving Blue Intentions in the near future I declined the audition and now I'm regretting making that decision.

I've always questioned my ability as a bass. People come and tell me I'm good but I don't take their word for it. If I were that good, I wouldn't still be in Resonance without professional status. Groups like After 6 and EnD's Sunday leisure group have overlooked me, I think based on pure ability (or lack thereof). I wasn't even asked of my availability or interest in joining, which really sucks.

S and L told me recently that perhaps it is due to my future career (provided I pass my exams) that maybe I would not have the time to practice or perform and hence that guided their decisions somewhat, but I think that if someone is good enough to be considered to be in the group and the group really wants him/her, they would at least ask for the person's commitment level and interest. At least that's how I would work.

People have also asked me, so why don't you just form your own group then? I can't say I haven't thought of this at some point in my life or another, but I want the validation. I want the validation from people I view as experts in the field that I'm good enough to cut it at this stage, rather than forming my own group and forever questioning myself if I really am good enough.

Hence the only reason I can fathom for this situation is that I'm not good enough to cut it at the professional stage. Heh. What a morale booster: the only thing you ever thought you were good at in your life is really not something that you're good at after all.

So where does that leave you?

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel


Sometimes I wonder whether people ever take me seriously at all.

I mean what I say, you know. I'm not the kind to lie to your face just to make you feel better. If you're a close enough friend to me, I'll tell the truth straight to your face, although I may try make it sound nice (just ask SJ or JT). If you're not, I'd rather say nothing than lie. That's how I work. So if you don't believe in what I say to you, then that's your problem, because I definitely truly believe in it.

I guess I shouldn't say anything to anyone anymore cos it feels as if whatever I say just passes the person by. Two conclusions: Either they don't like me or they think I'm spouting nonsense. Given my experiences I'm very inclined to go with the former.

I don't seem to make an impact in any way on anybody... I guess I should just save my breath and saliva, and become the ghost I'm being treated as.

I'm very disillusioned with the people around me. I'm very disillusioned and disappointed with myself for being unable to cope and letting it get to me all the time.
________________________________________________________________________________________

I can't do it, I really can't.

"You'll Never Walk Alone"

Archangel