Read Malao's new blog, The Junkyard. Looking @ the songs listed under "songs that bring back good memories" really brought back memories. Some of those songs are songs that I've liked back then. How long was it ago? Definitely more than a decade it has been. Breakfast at Tiffany's (Deep Blue Something), Semi-Charmed Life (Third Eye Blind), Peaches (Presidents of the U.S.A.), Charmless Man (blur), One Headlight (Wallflowers)... manz I've really kinda forgotten about those songs & those bands already already. And yeah, more importantly, I've forgotten how Me was back then.

Music sure does have the ability to turn back the clock.

Am listening to those stuff on youtube and remembering how I used to watch those music countdown on tv back then, chatting with my 1st bf on the phone when I do it, obtaining stuff from Napster... much more. Yeah that was like way back in Sec 3-4 I reckon. The days of Alamak chat, study groups, ECAs, soccer-watching. omg. Itz really been that fcking long.

Thinking back, those were probably the happiest days of my life (childhood excluding - thatz just happiness due to innocence/ignorance). Though I wasn't really a popular kid in school & had few friends, I got by fine. Real fine, no sarcasm here. Even with those incredible mood swings that continued till today; the self-multilation that stopped eventually; the teenage angst that never faded... etc. Despite all that, I could actually smile w/o being sardonic. I could actually laugh w/o being cynical. These days I'm just so bitter, skeptical & "emo". Mehhh where did that person back then vanish to?

Don't think she'll ever return though.

Guess am gonna just listen to stuff till I sleep...

Attended Evelyn's bday chalet @ Aloha Loyang (omg what an ulu area!) earlier & watched part of Beyond's concert there. Mhmm been a while since I heard anything frm Beyond. Told myself to check some vids on youtube when I get back. One thing leads to another and ended up listening to X-Japan stuff.

The 1st vid I watched was a performance of Forever Love at Hyde's funeral. The MTV can be found here. Nice song, isn't it? Can't say I'm a super huge fan of X-Japan but I do really like quite a number of their stuff. Endless Rain, Rusty Nail, Kurenai... the list goes on. Itz just a shame that I can't comprehend their lyrics 100% (did study Japanese till JLPT 3 but due to limited exposure & sloth I can only manage very basic stuff). Am pretty sure I'll appreciate the songs much more if I do.

Which brings me to thinking (this was kinda sparked by Malao mentioning that he can't decide his Top 10 movies of 2008)... my Top 10 songs ever. Am supposed to post like this list of my Top 10 songs a long time ago. Heck, it was supposed to be my 1st entry for this new blog but I never got about to doing it for various reasons. One of the reasons being I'm afraid that I'll miss something out - ain't a easy thing to think of on the spur of the moment coz there's like tons of great bands out there that play wonderful tracks.

*takes deep breath* In no particular order, the numbers are just for counting purposes, here goes...

Top 10 Songs
1. Hotel California - The Eagles
2. Lithium - Nirvana
3. Toy Soldiers - Martika
4. Fade to Black - Metallica
5. Venus - Theatre of Tragedy
6. Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple
7. Bed of Roses - Bon Jovi
8. Melancholy - Iced Earth
9. 18 & Life - Skid Row
10. Don't Cry - Guns N Roses

Yeah yeah surprise surprise!! It ain't all heavy metal. Ask me list my Top 10 fave bands, they aren't all heavy metal too. Common misconception by many I know: just coz my favored genre is metal, I ain't able to appreciate other types of music. Hogwash imo. I do listen to other genres too. There are many other songs I adore, I just can't fit them into that list. Careless Whisper (George Michael), Love Me (Colin Raye), Smells like Teen Spirit (Nirvana), Karma Police (Radiohead), Wide Open Space (Mansun), Sunny Came Home (Shawn Colvin)... blah blah, and yes I even like Lemon Tree (Fools Garden).

Mhmm... so how did I select them? No specific criteria I guess. I like some coz of the acoustics, some coz of the lyrics... but I guess itz mostly based on how the songs made me feel. Damn. I swear someday I'll learn to play Fade to Black.

Clubbing. Partying. Common activities for the festive season.

Kinda silly to indulge in those though. Firstly, the cover charge is gonna be murder. Furthermore, despite the cover charge there will be a ridiculously long queue @ the entrance if u don't go down uber early. Also, the clubs will be packed way above their capacity so there's gonna be a great deal of shoving, mashing up against sweaty bodies... etc. Not to mention, the no. of drunk ppl who gonna be rolling in their own puke after closing hours. Sounds appealing?

Heh ~ anyway I didn't do much. Went over to ellone's house for steamboat-bbq dinner and basically had a movie marathon after food - a marathon that continued way into the night & after we woke up: Transporter 3 (boring), Tokyo Gore Police (amusing), The Day the Earth Stood Still (alright), Pineapple Express (hilarious), The Orphange (pretty good) & Dumplings (interesting). Mhmmm apparently they watched Day of the Dead somewhere in between, but I was still in dreamland then. After all that it was dinner at Bakerzinn Jurong Point, a little chit chat over cigs, then home sweet home.

Pretty nice Christmas it was imo ^-^

The icing on the cake? Managed to drag my bro, Ael & Huggis to get the Christmas hat for Erulisse from Nexus when I got home!! Achievement done!! Now itz just 2 more winter veil achivements before I can get the title of [Merrymaker]. Got pretty lucky with the gift-opening too - managed to get reindeer, snowman & green helper. Hopefully the AH price of red helper will drop within a couple of days. Right now, my pet tally is 48/50. Gonna get the skunk pretty soon!! With determination, am pretty certain I'll be able to get that title for Ainarielle too.

Anyway, [Triple Moons] is no more. Well, the guild still exists literally, but the members who matter are no longer there. The guild has been gradually dying since awhile ago - nooby recruits, impatient members, lack of activity... those reasons caused a few gquits. It didn't help that the GM from [Defiance] has been steadily trying to poach the members with relentess determination. To those who left to join other guilds: good riddance to bad rubbish, and good luckk with fitting in. For those who are left, well the choice is theirs. Us officers have reformed under the name [Eclipse], and we'll be xtending invitations to those whom we had fun with during BC. I wonder how many of those will form our core raid team in future - most of them are just really really causual players it seems.

Come to think of it, itz kinda weird. Why am I still so focussed on my warrior when my rogue has made it way ahead in terms of gear & progression? ffs, Erulisse isn't even 80 yet even. Maybe it is the company that matters. In [Eclipse], it really does feel that I'm among friends. Perhaps my social circle isn't as small as I think it is afterall =)

Merry Christmas.

Caught [Yes Man] @ GVPS yesterday with a long-time friend I got to know via the mIRC. Mehhh... it was good! Heh, tbh, I was 100% keen on watching it due to Jim Carrey. Yeah, he's supposed to be a funny guy and his movies are supposed to be funny... but toilet humor & exaggerated face contorting tends to get old after awhile - to the point of pure aggravation. I get the same kinda feeling when I watch Stephen Chow too. Bahh!!

Anyway ~ I agreed to watch it coz the synopsis sounds interesting. And interesting it sure was.

In short, the movie is about this not-too-interesting guy. His life is a repetition. Dead-end everyday job, single, nights alone watching rented dvds. He doesn't socalise much, he doesn't go out much, always making up excuses when his friends ask him out. Apparently he does so coz he reckons he doesn't have much to give and is afraid that ppl will find out about it. His life did a complete u-turn after he attended this seminar that resulted in him making a covenant with himself: to say Yes everytime a choice presents itself.

Guess that applies to real life as well. Everytime a person says no, the person closes the door on a probability. Perhaps we should learn to take the plunge more often & not worry about the outcome too much. Life is short, we should enjoy it while we can. How many times have I heard that line already? Everytime we hesitate, we do so out of fear - and that fear is most likely our downfall. Mhmm... yeah, I guess it's easier said than done. Ignoring those nagging thoughts and give ourselves a go ahead. We all just need to say Yes more often. Obviously it doesn't mean agreeing to something against our morales/values and all. As the protagonist in the movie eventually found out, saying Yes depends on the situation.

Makes me wonder. Should I try that out for myself??

Published my last entry on Contradictory Ramblings a couple of minutes ago. Entry 1,070. 4 years it has been, since I first started blogging. Have been keeping diaries since much younger though. No idea if those books have been discarded or are still stashed in some obscure corner of my ever-messy room. Would be interesting to read them if I still have them though. But yeah... it's been 4 years since I decided to keep a blog. Mehhhh ~ how quickly time passes.

Slightly more than an hour. That's how long I took to personalize the template. What a far cry it is from what it was. The design remains the same. There's nothing I can do about it. Honestly I'd like to remove "clara" from the picture. It's annoying. That ain't my name, but that of the author. Guess I owe her, whoever she is, that much for the skin.

Doesn't matter. I suppose.

There is so much that I intended to write about for my 1st entry. But right now, the words just don't flow that well. I guess it's probably time to rest. I've gotta be somewhere else in a couple of hours. I kinda regret making that agreement. I never liked going out in the day. On the other hand, I've got a raid to attend in the night so it's probably the best option. I wouldn't wanna miss it if I have a choice. The guild's attempting to down Maylgos on heroic EoE tonite. I've missed the 1st downing of Sapphiron & Kel'thuzad. I don't wanna miss this. If it happens, that is. We spent the whole of last night wiping in there. It was frustrating. We nearly got it a couple of times. Were so darn close. I know we will get the dragon down.

Hopefully tonight is the night.

Anyway, I spent the rest of last night watching [Heroes] Season 3, ep 1-5. The story is getting confusing yet interesting at the same time. The line between good and evil has been blurred. Mhmm... then again, perhaps there isn't a line drawn in the first place. Everything is a matter of perception, isn't it? Good and Evil are merely labels contrived by the human mind in order to classify things that will not be understood otherwise. Perhaps that is how stereotypes come to exist. Ironic isn't it? When the very labels that that are meant to help the brain rationalise lead to irrational behavior such as discrimination & the inablity to accept difference.

The butterfly effect has also been mentioned in one of the eps - as Angela Petrelli told Peter, crush a butterfly today and years later thousands will die. Yeah, that ain't the exact line (hence the absence of quotation marks). I can't remember the precise words & I'm too lazy to watch the ep again just to find out. Also, the butterfly effect actually refers to the idea that something as insignificant as the flutter of a butterfly's wings might eventually lead to the occurance of a tornado elsewhere. It's also a concept that has been commonly mentioned in popular media that involve time travel. In [Heroes], it's used to illustrate how, by returning to the past, Peter Petrelli has changed the future.

Perhaps the reason why I enjoy watching [Heroes] so much is coz it touches on certain topics that I've always been interested in. "Extraordinary" powers in "ordinary" people. Time travel & consequences. Heroes and villians that can be both depending on perception. Those are some of the many matters that have kept me awake longer than I should be, more times than it should occur. Not tonight though. Words don't seem to be flowing well right now. It's probably my brain telling me that I should rest. And that I will do. Soon.

It's a shame that season 2 came to an abrupt end when the WGA writers went on strike back then. Instead of 24 episodes, it became 11. The volume [Villians] was supposed to be the 4th chapter of the series and aired in season 2, with [Exodus] being the 3rd volume. However, [Villians] ended up being pushed to season 3 and [Exodus] was cancelled totally. Mehh... I'd like to have seen the effects of the Shanti virus. But really, the crew did a great job with the last ep of season 2, tying up the loose ends of the previous eps. It was kinda abrupt, but well done none the less.

It's not surprising to read that [Villians] is receiving poorer ratings & less positive reviews than the previous seasons though. I guess the majority of people would prefer to watch something more "black-and-white" ~ with really obvious good guys vs bad guys thingy. Most people are unable to comprehend, or refuse to admit, that things aren't that simple. Too eager are people to condemn. Too narrow-minded are people to embrace the "grey". Such is the sad state of society these days. Yes, I'd like to think that I'm different from the common folk that constitute the Mob. I do not think like they do. I do not see things they way they see it.

Weirdo? If using that term makes you feel better, so be it. Won't be the 1st time I'm labelled as "weird" anyway. About an hour ago, someone just said I'm weird just coz I said "farewell" in response to his "bye" - according to him, nobody uses the word "farewell". Mhmmm wait a minute, did he just call me a nobody? o.O Nonetheless, I tend to take the label as a compliment. So yeah, it's a good thing. Lol.

Anyhow, am looking forward to see what the rest of the season brings. With luck, 6-10 will be ready for viewing soon.

For now, I must stop writing.

Main Entry: ge.ne.sis
Pronunciation: \ˈje-nə-səs\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural gen·e·ses \-ˌsēz\
Etymology: Latin, from Greek, from gignesthai to be born
Date: circa 1604

Dramatic as I've always been, and always will be, guess it's kinda impossible to start with just a simple little post. A simple post this should have been. Since it's sole purpose was supposedly to test out a template that I've obtained from Blogskins.

My intention was to embark on a different path. To make things simple. I had thought to use one of the templates provided. To deviate from my... "emo" nature; to merely post about everyday life events; to be simple.

Impossible at this point of time.

To be a blog reflects the author. In order to change the way my blog looks, I have to change.

Right now, I don't think I wanna change.

This is Me.