Lost In Translation

Not that I'm getting a holiday from birthdays. But I'm getting a holiday from birthdays.
First it was Sharene's, followed by Ly, Alex, and Charmain back to back. 29th till today. It's time for a break.

Last night was fun though when we celebrated Charmain's 21st. We headed down to Docklands and dined at Medici (again, yes). The food there is awesome. It's a pity they took off the salmon pasta though. I was craving for that last night only to find out they took it off their menu about three months ago. Nevertheless, my carbonara didn't fail me.

The birthday girl was funny.

Had half a glass of sparkling wine and she was staring into blankness and not finishing her sentences already. Thankfully she didn't continue, and after a few glasses of water, she was back at the table. We sorta surprised her with a Brunetti's Black Forrest cake (let me hear those yums) and I wish it was my birthday instead. The cake was yummay.

After dinner we headed for a walk along the quay, not forgetting to end the night with the obligatory photos by sculptures. Which was just fine, really.
I love Docklands.

not in photo: ant and i

On another plane of matter, apparently Pak Lah's down in Melbourne on Friday. The organisation heading it, MASCA (some Malaysian body), is kinda desperate to get people to come listen to him talk, I think. They're paying people $10 to go. Melbourne Uni needs about 10 more people. Very fascinating. I'm still not sure if I should go because I'll have to skip a class to go. I'm sure Pak Lah wouldn't be too proud of kids skipping classes to see him. But apparently I get to take a photo with him. And ask him questions.
"Do you have a position in your office? No, I mean your office."
Okay, I'll slap myself for that lame joke. But still contemplating if I should go.
My exam timetable's published already. I start on the 4th June till 19th. Not bad a timetable.
Maybe I shouldn't. But if you're interested, let me know. I may just be able to 'hook you up'.

The gf is in Sydney for some work conference.
The housemate is in Sydney too for the weekend.
I have the whole place to myself. I can walk around my entire apartment half-naked if I wanted to.
House party!

I'm such a handyman.

Seriously, what's up with my apartment and broken door handles? Last time it was kg's room. This time, it's the bathroom. And thank God i hadn't closed the door yet when this happened. I would've been stuck in my bathroom (no phone inside, no housemate outside) over the weekend and be found dead a few days later when the stench has reached the neighbours. Okay, so that's exaggerated. But think of the possibilities.

..........................................

But Esther grossed out and forced me to switch the channel.

Nevertheless, how crazy is that?! What gets to me most is how unaffected I felt after watching that live autopsy. My mind has been dulled by the senseless violence and graphic scenes we generation y-ers have been exposed to in the movies. Think about it. Would such a program ever make it on tv about 10 years ago? It's crazy! Graphic! And whatever its excuse, let it be for educational purposes or something perverted; it's on tv! Anybody could watch it.

Which brings me to a frightening thought of what the future generation would be like. The generation of OC, Family Guy, Spongebob Squarepants (who apparently is gay), and Big Brother.

We thought our generation got it bad. I'm worried for the future.

I had a weird dream again.
This time, I was back in school and was in my dreaded History class. Except that this time, the teacher was, for some reason, teaching us the history behind how durians were discovered in Malaysia. And apparently they originated from Malacca, discovered by people from Kluang (my hometown). Interesting, eh?

So apparently back in the 1800's, some rich tycoons from Kluang sent some slaves to Malacca in search for the mythical fruit - never seen, only heard of by traders - that tastes like paradise. Apparently. So there they went, looking for a fruit no one's ever seen or even know what it looks like. These days, it takes only about two hours to drive from Kluang to Malacca. But back , they either had to walk or ride some animal nonsense ride or something. But since these guys were slaves, they obviously walked the whole 250km+.

Eventually, after a grueling, tiresome journey, they reached there only to find that people there didn't know what they were too. It was pointless. Impossible - unless they ate a lot of unnamed fruits and whichever was the best must be the durian.

After weeks and weeks of searching, they finally came to a conclusion that such a fruit did not exist. They could not find anything that matches the descriptions from the rumours. But at the same time they also know that if they headed back empty handed, they'd be punished by the rich tycoons. Tired and frustrated, they decided to heck with it, they're gonna find the ugliest, most repugnant smelling fruit they could get their hands on to bring back to their masters.

And lo and behold, they found this...

I guess they liked it anyhow.

Ant found this really cool site the other day and introduced it to me.
It looks like this Red Interactive Agency's some innovative web design//marketing company, and for their website, they decided to create this amazing interactive environment open to all.

Basically you get to choose a character (all hilarious), explore the environment, and at the same time, bump into other people just like you and chat with them. It's basically like a chatroom. But with visuals. And funny actions.

click for larger image

And did I say the environment they made is amazing? Yes I did. It's beautifully drawn and rendered.
So cool.

Oh, and I guess ADSL helps too.
See you there!

So iris was screaming about this rad video on youtube...

"Rad". Right...
Anyway, I had a bah kut teh-cum-science of sleep night at my place a couple of nights back, and midway through dinner, someone found a lone potato in my fridge which has been sitting there for a coupla weeks, I think. You do the math.

So Lydia and Iris got hyped about it. They were literally screaming in my apartment while poor kg was doing his work in his room.

Per the video's instructions, they first sliced a thin line around the potato.

We were boiling some eggs for dinner as well at that time when Lydia conveniently decided to dip the potato in to cook as well.

Then, they took it out and dipped it in a bowl of iced water.

And here's the magical bit - they peel it in an instant!

Again!

Maybe not. Try the cold water again.

And again!

...

IT DIDN'T WORK!!
The bloody experiment failed!!! But the video was so convincing!! It had illustrations of how the layer of potato skin would crumple away due to the change of temperature! Iris even tried to speak to the potato in Japanese, thinking that might help but it failed!!

The video was a scam! Either that or my potato just sucked after being in the fridge for a coupla weeks.
So much for being a scientist for the night...

I think i need a coffee fast.
It's seriously getting out of hand. It's staining my teeth like dye. The caffeine isn't even keeping me awake when I need it most. The only compliment I can give it is that when I'm feeling really full from a meal, I can sip a cup of latte and it helps me feel a little better. Oh, and I like the taste of it too.
But today I've had two cups of latte (oh wait, make that a mug and a cup) and even my piss is starting to smell like it (I can hear some of you going 'yumm').

So yes. Despite it being my swot vac week in just about a week's time, I'm going on a coffee fast for two weeks. If ambitious, maybe even a month. But we'll see at the end of my two weeks.
This is a huge step, I say. It's like taking the cigarette away from the smoker. Well, not that bad, really, but I'm in a melodramatic mood at the moment (I've just finished off my last assignment of the semester and it was a pain in the neck).

On another note, I'm deprived of my slr for a week. I've lent it to a friend for a couple of days as she holidays in some exotic place this week. You should've seen me the night I passed it to her.
I went home feeling... empty.
Hehe. Like I said, melodramatic. It wasn't that bad. In fact, we actually traded cameras for a week. So I've got a new toy now to play with at the moment.

So sleek.
It's been a while since I've only got a digicam to use. I'm beginning to like it since it's so small and slim (and check out the black!), making it oh-so portable. Much more flexible indeed.

It's gonna be one heck of a trigger-happy week...

This entry has nothing to do with any resistance/rebellion of any sort, really. It just sounded French, that's all. And I like French at the moment. I don't know how it started, but it's probably got something to do with the movies. All of a sudden, I have a few French movies and I like Michel Gondry. I mean, I've always loved Eternal Sunshine, but as of recently I've been noticing the creator a little more. Very, very nice works I've seen before over the years, I just didn't know they were done by him. But yes, I've been watching a couple of movies from Hors de Prix (with Audrey Tautou), the Science of Sleep (which is semi-English) and soon Paris Je T'aime (which I have but haven't found the time to watch).

And just last night, a couple of us headed down to the Acmi Centre at Fed Square to watch 100 creative ads from France, in an advertising event called ADdict. Very interesting stuff. Ant found out about it a couple of weeks back and so organised for a few of us (Denise, Charmain and I) to check it out. Charmain had to pull out at the last minute so Esther came in her place instead, which suited me just fine, really. :P

The French really are crazy with their ads. Just before the film began, some (bigshot?) guy was giving a little speech and he mentioned of how politics, economics and advertising were very closely intertwined in France, and this was proven by one director who needed to film an ad for Citroen (I think), the car company. He wanted to film the ad (for what I thought to be one heck of a hideous car) with jetfighters, a navy ship and a submarine. This was in the 80's too, might I say. So all he did was ring up the President of France and asked if he could have jetfighters, a navy ship and a submarine, and the President gave him a go.
Siao!

But I must admit, some of the ads were just shocking and hilarious (not together most the time too). This one was probably my favourite, though. It really caught me off guard. Hilarious stuff.
And speaking of hilarious, well, not really hilarious, but after the film, there was a cocktail party to follow. They had these huge red and white balloons bouncing around the bar which we thought would be fun if we could take one back with us.
So I asked if we could.

You should've seen the looks I got walking up Swanston Street that Friday night. Drunks asking if they could touch it or burst it. We even stopped in at Nando's to meet up with Charmain for a late dinner. I thought it was awkward. Nevertheless, fun. There wasn't much space to park the balloon at, so we placed it by another table. I was worried we would break something. After the meal, we headed across the street to the State Library where we took funny pictures jumping around with the balloon.

all photos by ant

That was fun too. Some randoms even walked up to us and commented on how awesome they thought our balloon ball was and asked if they could take some pictures with it. So we took some pictures with some randoms too. Pictures that I unfortunately don't have at the moment. Ant was the photographer of the night, so I need to get more photos off him soon.

All in all it was an awesome night. Haven't had such fun for a long time now, doing silly things. I think we need to do silly things more often. Well, I think I need to, at least. Spice life up a little with some humour.
I just wish my exams weren't in a week's time. That's right, folks, it's that time of the year again where I disappear into my little antisocial shell for a month or so. I have to say that this has to be the fastest sem I've had all my life. I could swear I just got back from Malaysia not too long ago. But then again, I guess I say that every new semester. I just can't wait to get my exams over with right now.

Viva la resistance!

p/s: my coffee fast is still going strong. i've been 'sober' for five days now. hooray.

Everybody loves my red balloon ball. Probably more than they love me too, in fact (how is that possible??).
So I've decided to keep a record on how the ball's been over the past few days, just so you guys may know too (i'm so selfless).

As you would probably remember, my big red balloon was impressively huge that night. If it were filled with helium, you might not have seen me ever again. But as the days go by, it has disappointingly been shrinking faster than I thought it would, making it less fun that it seemed on the first night. Perhaps it's the cold weather. You know. The cold shrinks? Heat expands? Science talk here, don't mess with me.
Anyway, take a look at it yourself.

I used my left arm as the benchmark. I know it's hard to notice, but I am stretching less as the days progress (bet you didn't see that till i said it).
By day 03, the balloon had started to take an odd cherry-like shape if you can see through the unfocused lens. And as you can see in day 04, the dieting alone isn't good as it leaves stretch marks.
Tonight, that is day 05, it's reduced to but a mere regular party balloon the shape of a thornless durian.

Tomorrow, I shall attempt to re-inflate it to see if it'll burst, when procrastinating taking a break from my studies.

Only 5 more sleeps to my first exam paper. Yay-not.