shamsofcourse dot blogspot

2010-09-09T19:11:00.000+08:00

the worst and most miserable raya i could ever get. work full day, not going out and break fast alone.

WHITe & NErdY

2010-08-31T02:45:00.004+08:00

Mini HD Camcorder or PS3???

2010-07-27T03:13:00.001+08:00

SONY BLOGGIE

http://auscamonline.com/issue/december-2009/article/sony-unveils-new-bloggie-mobile-hd-snap-camera

Ze Strokes New Album Artwork?

2010-07-26T02:37:00.001+08:00

This Guy Shall Be Perished

2010-07-25T16:44:00.000+08:00

http://www.todayonline.com/TalkBack/Sports/EDC100724-0000103/FAS--Wed-love-to-work-with-Brazil-coaches

A Testimonial for DSWM

2010-07-25T16:05:00.000+08:00

The DSWM provides an unparalleled learning experience for those seeking in-depth exposure and knowledge in almost any business area in the sport and wellness industry. High-calibre guidance, incomparable infrastructure and a diversified group of coursemates help open up several learning opportunities. With Singapore aiming to be one of the top ten sporting nations in Asia and as a sports hub hosting major international sporting events, I strongly believe DSWM is the perfect career launchpad.

the way it is

2010-05-14T13:14:00.000+08:00

hates it when you cannot control the problem
hates unnecessary problems
kl trip was a good decision afterall

Karim's Birthday Celebration

2010-03-30T20:57:00.002+08:00

From the album Karim's 22nd

Photo of the Day

2010-01-23T00:50:00.005+08:00

INSTALLATION CEREMONY '09

Photo of the Day

2010-01-22T01:27:00.004+08:00

Bishan with Whitney

2009-12-05T12:19:00.000+08:00

http://twitter.com/shamsofcourse

2009-11-27T22:12:00.000+08:00

chose nt 2 attach myslf 2 any1 2 b strng in situations. time 2 chnge. turns out i cld b strong bt hel, i knw notng abt pblm solvng
6 minutes ago from web

Julian Casablancas:

2009-11-08T13:27:00.002+08:00

'Does my mind just go blank? Yeah, all the time'He says the Strokes will be recording again – but in the meantime the New York band's singer has his own album out – and some confessions to make about Phil Collins

Gaby Wood
The Observer, Sunday 4 October 2009

Julian Casablancas, The Griffin, Manhattan, September 2009. Photograph: Neil Wilder

When I turn up to meet Julian Casablancas, he is having his picture taken in a bar that's not yet a bar. Drills are whirring, workmen are heaving baroque sofas about in the half-light, while the lead singer of the Strokes, now launching his solo career, has silently become part of the fabric. In a blue velvet-upholstered wall there is a deep, square indentation; he is sitting scrunched up in it, wearing sunglasses. He has dyed black hair with an orange-blond streak, ruffled forward over a face of almost childlike pallor. He rests his forearm on his knee, inclines his head and closes his eyes. The effect is surreal: a basketball-booted porcelain doll in a luxurious padded cell.

Afterwards, Casablancas and Voltron, his dog (a shiba inu named after a Japanese animé series he liked as a kid), wander with me out into Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Sometimes, Casablancas says, all of New York feels like Times Square to him. He moves slowly among the busy city crowd, like the only person in focus in a long-exposure photograph. He's had a bit of a disorientating day. He was working in a studio around the corner from here until 5am, then he went home to the East Village to catch a couple of hours' sleep before doing an interview with Zane Lowe on Radio 1.

And by the way, he feels bad about that. He was asked if he missed performing and he said no, which was kind of an asshole-ish thing to say. He didn't really mean no, and if he'd had more time to think about it he would have said "Yes, but…" He would have been able to describe that feeling of really missing it, and then right before you go on stage just wanting to be at home watching TV. But on the radio, you just have to give an answer, fast. Do you ever get that thing, I say, where your mind goes completely blank?

As soon as I've said it, I realise this is quite possibly one of the stupidest questions one can ask of a rock star.

Casablancas looks down at Voltron (who is making a meticulous investigation of the gutter), shakes his head, then looks back up at me with a broad, slow-breaking grin.

"All the time," he says.

Regarded as the most exciting thing to have come out of New York since the CBGBs scene of the mid-1970s, the Strokes released their first album, Is This It, in 2001. Everything about them seemed perfect – the fizzy throwback sound, the jackets, the shaggy hair, the fact that they had met in posh schools around the world. They became the band that launched a thousand imitators, not least Kings of Leon, who were once billed as "the southern Strokes".

Of the band's five members, Casablancas – the singer and chief songwriter – was the mystery observers most wanted to crack. He was often self-critical, mostly drunk, and had all manner of unpredictable musical influences. Things are different now (though his influences are just as hard to predict – when asked which song he would most like to have written, he cites a funeral march by Benjamin Britten). He's sober, his own much-awaited album, Phrazes For the Young, is coming out, and his wife, Juliet, is five months pregnant.

"Lately," he says after we've found a diner to sit in, "everything feels very… both weird and exciting. So I try not to think about it that much. I'll assess it a little later on and then see which one took hold, the weirdness or the excitement."

Also, he's considering a move. Far away, like the forest, or a beach. "Hawaii," he says. "If I could get everyone I knew to move to Hawaii…"

How many people would have to move to Hawaii before you'd move to Hawaii, I ask.

"Um," he says, "probably about six to eight."

So, that's all of the Strokes, your wife…

"No, actually, the Strokes would be a deal breaker." Casablancas smiles. "I'm kidding."

There were rumours that the Strokes would split as early as 2002. Although they released Room on Fire in 2003 and First Impressions of Earth in 2006, their critical momentum was slipping and they have been on a sabbatical ever since. Casablancas is reluctant to dwell on the reasons why, though he does concede that "a lot of things" have been involved. "Stylistically," he goes on, "I think I used to do everything and then people had a problem with that within the band, so we're doing more of a communal thing."

The inference from this is that the band have recently started to work together again in a new way, and a new Strokes record is supposedly on the cards. Meanwhile, Casablancas can do his own thing on his own.

I ask him if he's a control freak.

"Not any more with the Strokes," he insists.

But were you?

"Was I? Not a control freak. I mean, I guess you could say I'm a bit of a perfectionist.... With the Strokes now it's... in a minute it'll be about everything being great, but this second, it's about everyone being happy. If we can get to that point, I think the rest will fall into place."

And how far off is that?

"It felt super-duper close… then it was postponed again, not by me. It's going to be great, it's just: to get everyone back, in the same spot, and feeling good, is tricky. But we're working on it."

As for his own work, Phrazes For the Young – a fun, stylistically diverse and often lovely album – should allow people to look at Casablancas in a new way. The title, incidentally, was inspired by a book by Oscar Wilde, though, in habitual undercutting mode, Casablancas claims only to have read two books from cover to cover – The Odyssey and Crime and Punishment.

The first song he wrote for the album was Ludlow Street. "Everything seems to go wrong when I stop drinkin'/ Everything seemed to go my way last night", he sings. "Nauseous regrets/ They're calling me on the phone/ My shoes seem to be my only home".

Casablancas doesn't drink at all now – sometimes, he jokes, "I'll order something cheesy and pretend it's for someone else – 'He'll have a virgin pina colada!'" – but there was a time when he was physically sick if he didn't drink. When he gave up, he says, he had a hangover that lasted two years.

Now, he says: "I'm happy. I'm like a happy person. Everything feels like it's on the right track, where in the past it felt like a random track… I kind of lost control."

In the past, he has suggested that he inherited regrettable habits from his father, John Casablancas, the founder of the Elite model agency. He married Julian's mother (Jeanette Christiansen, a model and former Miss Denmark), they moved from Paris to New York, and when Julian was six his father had a well-publicised affair with Stephanie Seymour, who was 16 at the time. One might imagine that the younger Casablancas might seek to live in contrast to that, but now Casablancas, to his credit, won't be rude about his dad. He says they get on "great".

He started drinking before he was a teenager, cadging tequilas at 9am, to the point where he was enrolled in an after-school programme that was a form of rehab. Later, he went to a boarding school in Switzerland (he met Albert Hammond Jr of the Strokes there), and dropped out of a high school back in New York (where he met Fabrizio Moretti and Nick Valensi). He describes his upbringing as being "kind of like that movie, Kids".

The greatest positive influence on his life has been his stepfather, Sam Adoquei, a classical painter who taught his mother and entered his life just in time to hand Casablancas a cassette of a Doors album. "He's the wisest person," Casablancas says of Adoquei. "Everything positive I've ever done I feel I owe to him."

What did you grow up listening to before then, I ask.

"Phil Collins."

Casablancas grins. "You know, he's back in fashion now."

From the beginning, with the Strokes, the aim was to make Velvet Underground-calibre music that would be mainstream and thereby raise the bar for mainstream culture altogether. "You know they always say: instead of making important things interesting, you should make interesting things important?" he muses.

In the hours that we spend together, he comes across as an ironic dreamer: romantic, funny, faintly old-fashioned – elusive not because he's avoiding you but only to the extent that he lives in his head; a person who really does want to heal the world but will cut himself off before he finishes any sentence that smacks of pretension or prescription.

"My heroes are like Benjamin Franklin," he says at one point, "who did a whole bunch of weird shit. I don't know, I want to invent random things. I'm saying too much. I feel embarrassed. Everything is at such an early stage… But I feel like right now the best thing I can do is do music, and maybe that's all I'll ever do, and that's fine, but… yeah."

Phrazes for the Young is released on 19 October

MOST FULFILLING WEEKEND ... SO FAR

2009-10-17T11:51:00.031+08:00

It's Deepavali weekend. Great opportunity for me to enjoy a great weekend yo. Caught 500 Days of Summer on Friday after booking out at Cathay Cineleisure and this has got to be the best movie I've ever watched. It is great in every aspect, the storyline, the twistofcourse, the videography.. just everything. This would be one of the movies i would buy off from iTunes and keep it in my iTouch. Ups. What happened after the movie ended was a silly move on my part. haha. My friend and I were heading home and i suggested we take a night walk down to City Hall and take the train back home. Best way to feel the amazingness of being able to book out friday right, when else right? Like being followed by two tranverstite and seeing sports cars drive past you including the freaking AUDI R8 just cruising slowly in front of us to avoid the horrible hump but little did i know it was reaching midnight and by the time we reached City Hall, the last train has left. HONG GAN. Lucky i had two greatest things needed for this. Night Rider and bus guide in my iTouch.

My parents wanted to bring me out to get my birthday present from Fred Perry but I had other better ideas and i needed new wardrobe inputs. So off we went to Uniqlo @ Ion Orchard on sat where we got this striking luminous-like red slim fit straight pants somewhat similar to the green one dominic from Muse(top) is wearing. I got inspired luh. Mum said since it only costs half of what we could get from Fred Perry and i was also looking for a checked shirt, might as well get one too but i couldnt find any to my liking so we decided to look elsewhere and elsewhere was Zara. So there you go. One shirt and one pants for me. I like. This was also the place i bumped into Kevin and all officers speak funny. Like so gentleman and we have specialists ending every sentences with vulgarities. Come do my job and you'll know why... and while we were finishing of our conversation i saw Nicole and her friends.

When i called her out and we talked, i felt weird speaking to a non-irritating, non-bullying Nicole. Only god knows how terrible it was sitting next to her in class. Only i can survive from that, that's why she changed after leaving.

Suharto and Nicolai

haha. It was her birthday and i happened to wish her the morning before and the mini convo that happened after that and there she was, live. It was funny la actually. After speaking to Kevin, i went over to Nicole and Kevin was like eh, your parents are over the other side and i said yeah, but my friend is over there calling out to Nicole in case she walked away too fast. Fauzy was calling me on my phone at the same time too and my parents thought i was lost looking for them. So i had 3 things to overcome just to talk to Nicole and i was so damn distracted.. all we could ever come out with was agreeing and disagreeing who grew fatter and thinner. haha. well i hope she like what i said about her coz i saw her straghtening up and smiling after i double confirm what i've said by looking at her waist and reiterated myself. still distracted.

Saturday night was set aside for soccer with Yunus, Linda, CK, Fauzy, Ben and Faizal. First time playing at FICO sports hub. Indoor soccer with carpet grass and i had fun but my stomach wasn't doing well after eating nasi lemak at ananas cafe. damn. and then down to a makan place at pioneer with a lousy teh peng but atmosphere was good enough. all the way till 3 in the morning.

There you go, my wonderful weekend out. Wait, did i hear karaoke for sunday night?

WHAT IS CONSIDERED THE UNATTAINABLE

2009-10-04T01:47:00.000+08:00

Have you always listened to love when it has come knocking on your door? When you heard the unfamiliar pounding, did you respond with a welcoming hello? Love can be all around us and we could miss it if we are not careful. Sometimes we must look and listen to various expressions from our loved ones very intently for the love they contain. Love can be a mother nagging her child to get better grades in school. Love can be calling a brother that is away overseas. If we look around often we can recognize that love has always been there waiting for you to open your eyes and trust.

Are you a patient person when it comes to love? If you do not know the answer to the question then I want you to ask yourself if you are a patient person in other aspects of your life. I have been told that I am a patient person but I am really a brat of sorts. I just do not let anyone know if I need anything. Are you guilty of trying to be too perseverant? Are you like a kid at Christmas when it comes to wanting to have things go your way? I see it
everyday. I see people that not only go after what they want but they get it. I know that this has not worked out for everyone for every thing and maybe it is not supposed to.

In your life, money matters, love and home stance, have you always been a solid person of goals? I have always tried until I felt the need to stop. I have always felt young and tried to go after what I wanted. I have stepped back when I felt like I could not achieve my goals and I always will. I have patience when it comes to many aspects of my life. When do you give up and just throw it all away? Do you ever believe there is a time to walk away? Is it acceptable to you to just stop loving and living and walk away from life’s problems? I try to love and live to the best of my ability. I try to love 100% with no equivocations even if it will always be that unattainable dream. Sometimes I fall short and I fail the one that I love.

What is an attainable dream? I have heard that it is peace for the world to share and for all of us to hold hands and light candles and sing Kumbaya. That is an extreme in itself. For now I do believe that one day will happen. Is love the unattainable dream? I think that it is attainable if you let love come to you. This is like asking the question” Why are we here?” Anyone have that answer? If love and peace are so attainable, then why is there so much misery and hate and heartbreak in the world. Your neighbor beside you can suffer heart ache and strife just the same as your fellow man, so why do we even try? What is so great about dreams?

If we did not dream, would we be able to love deeper, ask our friends to remember us, and tell them that “ I will be there to catch you when you fall”? I want to some day to get the chance to live the unattainable dream. Until I find
out what that is, I will just live like I will never get a chance to do it all again. I never want to stop dreaming.

What do you think is the unattainable dream? What is the reason for us to hope and push through to have a better future? Do you go after things just because you know that they are out of your reach? Why do we want things that we can not have?

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you
shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.“
~James Allen

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves."
~1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Peace of mind is attained not by ignoring problems, but by solving them.
~ Raymond Hull

There are hundreds of tasks we feel we must accomplish in the day, but if we do not take
one at a time and let them pass through the day slowly and evenly, as do the grains of
sand passing through the narrow neck of the hourglass, then we are bound to break our
own physical and mental structure.
~ Ted Bergernine

RIGHT AND WRONG

2009-10-03T04:40:00.001+08:00

Come free of the net of being right and wrong.

I want to be right. When someone tells me I'm wrong, my first reaction is to feel invalidated and threatened. I have a desperate desire to strike back. I don't want to consider whether they're right; I want to insist that I'm right and they're wrong.

If I were able to add up the amount of time and energy I've used to prove myself right, I'd be shocked. (Just imagining it, I'm shocked.)

Sometimes I need to be right about little things, like an insurance claim, drivers who tailgate, or the fact that my bank needs more tellers. I may also need to be right about really big things, like politics and war. I confess that I also need to be right in any relationship conflict.

The Big Picture

The need to be right begins in early childhood. Very young children are still sufficiently connected to infinite wisdom and a sense of the eternal nature of their souls to be free of this need. Older children, having lost or weakened that connection, feel insecure in a big world loaded with rules, prohibitions, and unexpected punishments. They think their survival depends on knowing what's right.

They feel most threatened when someone suggests or they suspect they're wrong. They've learned from their parents that nothing is more important than being right. If they hear adults arguing, they may easily come to the conclusion that being right is a matter of life or death.

As they grow older and go to school, they learn more lessons about the importance of being right. Failing to know the right way to spell, punctuate, or solve mathematical problems leads to low grades and big trouble in school and at home. The wrong clothes, attitudes, or background can lead to ostracism and adolescent misery.

Right Equals Safe

On a very basic level, then, in order to be safe we have to be right. Being right means physical and social survival. It also means emotional survival.

It gets tied up with that most important emotional need: self-esteem. If we're right we get to feel good about ourselves. If we're wrong we get to feel bad about ourselves. Since feeling good about ourselves has a lot to do with survival-in the sense that people who feel good about themselves have happier and possibly longer lives-being right takes on deepened importance.

But is it important enough when we consider the costs?

The High Price of Being Right

As I mentioned at the beginning, it takes a lot of time and energy to consistently be right. Business and organizational meetings take much longer when two or more people are determined to be right, and it takes a lot of energy to verbally overpower someone else who has the nerve to think (s)he's right.

People also need to devote a certain amount of time and energy to developing thick skins so that they can fend off the hostile vibrations of those people who think they're really wrong for needing to be right. During and after a meeting that went on an hour or so longer than it might have, the "right" people will encounter a lot of this.

Someone who needs to be right also doesn't get much chance to relax. If you're going to be right, you've also got to be on your toes, in order to notice when someone else is wrong. You also need to protect against the possibility that you might make a mistake and be wrong. Stress and tension are generally not very good for physical/emotional health. You may notice that people who need to be right may suffer from digestive disorders, neck, shoulder, and back pain, and any number of other imbalances.

Those who need to be right also find that there's little room in their lives for growth and transformation. When people start to tread on unknown ground, it becomes more difficult to know what are the right and the wrong things to do. They might make mistakes; in fact, they probably will. That fear alone has kept many safe and unhappy in dull, predictable lives.

Love is Right's Victim

The greatest cost, though, is paid in terms of our relationships. How many marriages and partnerships have been destroyed because people decided it was more important to be right than to be loving?

You can't be both at the same time. Imagine love as a flowing river that gets interrupted by a series of dams that weaken and drain away its force. Any conditions block the natural flow and power of love.

To say, or in some other manner convey the message, "I will love you as long as I feel what you do, say, and think is right," is to make a statement that has nothing to do with love. This is approval, and approval is to love as the heat from a flashlight is to a roaring fire, i.e., cold comfort.

You can test this for yourself. Think of someone who's important in your life, a person who's wrong about something important. When you think about how wrong they are, do you feel love for them?

Coming Free of the Net

Have you noticed that the more you tell others they're wrong, the more likely you are to have people in your life who tell you you're wrong?

Here's one way to look at the net of right and wrong. Think of it as a volleyball, tennis, or badminton net and wrong as the ball or birdie that the players on either side propel at each other. However, unlike these games, which have specific rules, the game of right and wrong goes on until someone stops playing.

It might as well be you.

"But how?" you may ask yourself. "We're dealing with some real issues here: people who don't clean up after themselves, people who make terrible business decisions or don't do their homework or are inconsiderate or spend more money than they should."

I know about those people, and the world would probably be a much better place without their wretched behavior. However, as long as I'm looking for people to be wrong, I'm certain to find them. The only one in the world I can really change is me, in terms of my feelings and behavior.

Moving Beyond Right and Wrong

The first step is to fully acknowledge and own that you, too, do things that others might consider wrong. This is tricky because some people are all too ready to do this and to take this step even further by blaming themselves, making themselves completely wrong, and feeling very guilty about it. Then, because guilt is a particularly unpleasant feeling, they will take that wrong ball and throw it at someone else. And the game continues.

One way to keep this from happening is to make this whole business of right and wrong less important. Probably there are only three or four eternal truths; everything else is someone's opinion. That doesn't mean people shouldn't put the milk away; it does mean that failing to do so hardly even counts as a misdemeanor.

Some conflicts can't be put away as easily as the milk, like how the children should be raised, where you and your spouse want to move or how you see your relationship. These are probably far less questions of right or wrong than they are relationship and communication issues.

I recommend you visit http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/news/newsa.html the web page where past articles from this newsletter are archived, and look at the articles under the heading, About Relationships. You may also be interested in our email course on love, which you can read about further along in this newsletter.

Being Patient: With Them and With Yourself

Making people wrong is usually the habit of a lifetime, and you probably often practice it without knowing it. Begin to catch yourself. If you feel particularly brave, ask someone to tell you when you're doing your right-wrong routine.

Choose this person wisely, making sure they aren't going to tell you how wrong you are for making other people wrong. Likewise, don't make yourself wrong for making others wrong. It's just something you do, and you're going to get over it.

Learn to separate people from their behavior. This is especially important with children, who have less distinct boundaries between who they are and what they do. However, when it comes to being wrong, many of us feel like oversized children.

When you're about to launch or are immersed in an orgy of right-wrong, ask yourself these questions:

* Will this matter five years from now? How about five months? Five days?
* Is the love (or liking) I feel for this person less important than pointing out his errors?
* Is it more important for me to be right than to be happy?

The more you can answer "No" to each of these questions, the closer you are to releasing judgment from your life.

The Right Crystals

Green calcite is excellent for releasing the emotional rigidities that often are part of a need to be right. It's especially helpful in releasing the stress patterns that accompany this need.

Charoite, which essentially deals with fear, helps to bring to the surface the fear of being wrong. Once we are able to honestly look at the fear, our ability to release it increases.

Amethyst, the color of twilight, helps to teach us that, just as at dawn and dusk, the distinctions between day and night blur, so can, if we allow them to, the distinctions between right and wrong.

From a distance, the difference between right and wrong is also difficult to see, and Hawk's eye helps to provide an aerial perspective. When we are entangled in our notions of right and wrong (or any fixed pattern of being) hawk's eye can help to provide distance.

The Right Essences

Beech, the classic Bach Flower Remedy for judgment, teaches us that all judgment is self-judgment. We give ourselves an enormous gift when we take Beech to release this attitude.

Some people are not happy being right unless they can enroll the world in their right beliefs. They can benefit from the Bach Flower Remedy Vervain, which helps us to allow differences in beliefs and practices.

Beaver (Wild Earth Animal Essences) is an animal of great flexibility who builds several entrances and exits to its den. This animal has no worries about the right way to get in and out, and its medicine helps us to be more flexible in how we build our own worlds.

One of the best antidotes to the seriousness of being right is the energy of playful Otter (Wild Earth). How important are right and wrong when you're having a good time?

Come free of the net of being right and wrong.

MORE COMING YOUR WAY.

2009-09-02T12:13:00.006+08:00

Me and My Hobby.

As you can see I'm in full steam producing vodcasts of all sorts. Well not exactly. I just got a new motivation for this hobby of mine after taking a break from it for so long. It's my iPod that's causing all these. See, when you own one you'd have the ultimate portable media player you could find around currently. All sorts of media! and before this device could serve you to the best of its capability you've got to search for best quality media. That's when i became a frequent visitor of YouTube. The rest as they say, was history.

I found out how to download high definition videos from YouTube, how to create high definition videos from YouTube and that's basically what motivated me to continue producing vodcasts. I bet that story touched your heart right down to your left testicle, if you have it anyways. So there you go. I wonder what's going to motivate me the next time to get better in producing these vodcasts. I mean it's really amazing now. It used to be me having to wait all day to render the videos or upload it up to the netdom since my computer can only do so much especially when it comes to video editting. Now that my iPod is wi-fi enabled, i can surf the net on my iPod while waiting for videos to be ready or uploaded up. I can really spend all day editting. It's the only other thing i can trial and error with besides girls. oops.

Me and My Hobby.

IF THIS DOESN'T WORK... MOVE ON!

2009-07-19T13:00:00.006+08:00

This Just In.

Like Paris Hilton's single, the girl whom you a few months ago kept creeping into your mind on repeat. Thing is that you don't even listen to pop, so how the hell did that song, like her, sneak in there making you hum along. Every moment you're awake, the thoughts somehow seems to return to something related to her.

In her company, you seem to lose sense of time and space when you're usually quite grounded and aware of your surroundings. You stayed out with her until 5 am when the self imposed curfew was originally midnight because you had to wake up at 7 the next day to attend class. You could spend an entire day just watching her without getting bored for even a moment. Walking down Orchard on a crowded Sunday, the only thing you noticed is that strand of hair that hung down the side of her face. You remember the color of her contacts on the second day you met when you usually have trouble remembering people's faces after meeting them for a week. There isn't anything you wouldn't do for this girl. No thought to spending $300 on something for her when you only have $9.52 in the bank and an e-z link card.

She is gorgeous and stunningly beautiful, but that isn't why you're interested and totally infatuated. You were more excited seeing that sliver of skin between her jeans and tank top than any porn sites you "stumbled" across. You'd give anything to be alone with her for a night in a hotel room, but it's more than that. It's that feeling somewhere between your chest and stomach that makes you want to see her day in and day out. She's the one that, even with a few moments a day or a short chat on the phone, could make you smile when your usual facial expression is neutral.

You write and rewrite every simple SMS with such vigor that if you did the same with your papers you'd be sure to graduate with highest honors and distinction. Every reply message is anticipated with much excitement and then dissected and analysed in such a detailed manner that Mindef would call you up to decode secrets for them. When you think of her, your stomach does flip flops and your hands feel like they're dripping water. The number of hits on her blog in a day from you alone would rival the clicks on Google and Yahoo combined. Every time her MSN signs on, you are tempted more than an alcoholic let loose in the Tiger Beer brewery. But she doesn't know.

Then it hits you like the smell of durians. Maybe you did or said something that scared her away, or maybe you're a pessimist, or maybe you found out she has a boyfriend. He doesn't appreciate her and doesn't have any redeeming qualities, while you have 84, even during a hangover. But you're too nice to disturb her happiness, so you try to give some space. You can only hope for a second chance with her, to learn from the mistakes you made. Either way, your chances with her aren't what you thought they were. So you're forced to write an article that says how you really feel, which could be taken the wrong way.

So cut this out and give it to her, see what happens and then move on without the regret of not trying enough. (Tell me how it goes)

by Aston Lim, UC Santa Barbara
editted by Shamsofcourse

This Just In.

ENTERTAINMENT HAVEN

2009-06-20T19:48:00.002+08:00

learning more about HD videos on YouTube and MJ.

I remember very clearly watching a documentary on MJ's life on tv when I was in secondary school. The closest I can get to his personal life and he's just super interesting. Being famous for his unique voice and dance moves since very young. Imagine earning a lot since very young. It's really sad though, to be reminded of his sad life but quite glad at the same time to know all those suffering has come to an end for him. My take on his life issues is that well it's important to have a positive childhood and when it comes to giving out love to children, let's just say women can do it better. MJ went the extra mile for the kids and made an impact. Like everybody else, I'm proud to say I lived in the era of MJ too. Rest in Peace, Michael.

On a less formal note, i got my iPod touch baybeh. It's 16gb and it primarily stores all my video entertainment. Well initially when i uploaded a 16:9 video into my iPod and played it didn't went well at all. It got converted into a 4:3 and i felt damn lousy. I even felt like getting my PSP screen fixed and used it back for it's 16:9 video compatibility UNTIL i found some friends who owns an iPod touch too. All i did was to write something on my facebook status about my new iPod and that's where i found them. One of my friend mentioned some converter and i went to look it up. Found a free one and immediately started converting all my videos. There was one instance where the com was busy and it didn't convert the videos properly the first time. The output file couldn't even be played so I quickly uninstall it afraid it contains virus but after stumbling upon it's own website I downloaded it back and this time after running lesser programmes it converted the files successfully. SO damn happening. So now my iPod plays 16:9 videos and better still, the converter converts the files into smaller sized files so i'm able to put in more videos. It is damn cool like that.

It didn't end there and by it i meant the good things. I ran out of videos to convert and i had like 10 more gigabyte of space out of the 16gb i had and movie videos are like longer to convert so i went looking for great videos on youtube. The only great ones were thos in high definition so i didn't get them UNTIL i found a video after many viewing of those HD videos on how to get the HD video in it's HD format straight away. Ok, that's it i thought. I am king of the world now!

So there you go the adventures of my wonderful expensive no, value for money iPod touch and I. This is my second apple product since I used to own a 2nd generation iMac years ago, when it wasn't so advance as today. I'm a Samsung and Sony person though but I'd rather have the best of every world. Two two tarik two one two, Echo!

learning more about HD videos on YouTube and MJ.