My DVD collection.
Sorry that I haven’t written anything for a while. I’ve been quite busy with a few things.

It takes a person with a mind of deceit to suspect deceit in others. This is quite true for me, at least. When I deceive others, I always have this paranoia about how people perceive me—especially that they think a bad thing about me but tell me how good they think of me. On the flip side, when I free myself of negative thoughts, I free other people of any negative perceptions I put on them.

Then, it’s easier to build friendships with them. Because, now, love has a free hand in my life, and, as a result, my behaviour to others will be kinder and more compassionate. I will become a more approachable person.

At the same time, it is still a reality that some people will continue to have negative thoughts about me. This I cannot control. I will have to learn how to respond to this negativity coming from others. I can choose to follow either of two actions: i) to regard this person with detachment, or; ii) to overcome the wrong perception by showing it up with the right action, to build relationships, out of love.

Nana and Bearyjean bought me a present. What could I possibly want from Women’s Secret? The same question came from Hamil the security guard who guards the entrance to my home. I told him, ‘Yes, a moment ago, I wondering about that too.’ Well, so we took a look at what was inside the bag.


It turned out to be sham. Although the paper bag outside said ‘Women’s Secret’, inside was a Storm Trooper version of Mr. Potato Head, which is actually quite cute.

Other gifts I’ve received: God Is In The Small Stuff (and it all matters) by Bruce & Stan (I love little books about prayers! This one’s from Rachel, a sweet and big-heart lady); Kinokuniya book vouchers, which I used to good effect (from Kangcore & Lili) and; a gorgeous little bouquet of flowers from my cousins Sharmaine, Germaine and Yorklyn. I got cards, SMSs, phonecalls and MSN messages from several people too, including my sister who is so far away in Boston. But most importantly, I got a big, big hug from God.

Thank You, Jesus!

Perhaps Love was really good. How come no one watches it? It’s not an art house film, so to speak. It is a musical, a story about three people caught in a struggle for love. And it’s not your regular cheesy kind of film too. I won’t comment too much else on this. Go watch it. It’s a bit psycho. The cast is not bad: Zhou Xun (she’s awesome!) and Jackie Chan, among others.

Jon Voight acted in the recent TV production John Paul II. It’s a touching life story of Karol Wojtyla, our previous Pope. Jon Voight did a lot of justice to the dignity of the Pope. And they also really got someone that looked like Ratzinger to act as Ratzinger.

My clock fell off the wall while I was sleeping. Like the previous clock, the glass face smashed to bits. So, apparently, it’s not such a good idea to use stick-on hooks (these ones were supposed meant for heavy stuff) to hang anything other than clothes.

One can take lifetime of defining what ‘techno’ refers to and not get anywhere. I’d just pretty much given up analysing music into very specific genres when suddenly, I feel like I should define for myself what in the world ‘electro’ refers to. Here’s why: it’s one or more of the following – hip-hop, breaks, 80s retro, New Wave, a breed of techno, a breed of tech-house. It’s gawky but danceable, old school but cutting edge, simple but smart.

People don’t realise how much house and techno (and/or electro) they are listening to when they visit a place like Zouk (on the weekends). They say they really like that kind of music. Then the next moment, they say they don’t like house music, techno, etc. They say house music is just noise, and techno is for a certain Singaporean stereotype called the ah-beng, who blast the Initial D or DJ Crazy Frog soundtrack out of their two-thousand-dollar sound system in their Honda Civic.

Oh yes, I just read an interview of DJ Crazy Frog in DJ Magazine. There’s nothing wrong with making money, as long as you know how some purist will react to your ‘selling-out’.

Another birthday celebration for me today. This time, it’s by my cousins on my mum’s side of the family. I brought Taboo along but we’d end up watching Catch Me If You Can.


The kendoka practicing tsuki. Photos: Law Kang Jie.

Seems like a few of friends feel jaded these few days. For myself, I spent quite a bit of time alone the last 1 or 2 days just to quiet myself. But in any case, one cannot stay hidden forever.

Today, I turn 25. My parents are not in town. And so it is the first time I’ve spent my actual birthday with friends. Honestly-speaking, all I wanted was their presence for the night and I got that. More than that, they wished me well. So that was good.


The new face of what Insomnia used to be.
We went to Bugis Village today, to where the club Insomnia used to be. It’s now a foodcourt. I ordered a beef steak which was quite good, even for $8. I think I want to go down there again one of these days.

Oh my, so many places to go!

After leaders’ meeting tonight, Shawn Aussie, JonC, Shawna, Rachel, Yen, Bearyjean and myself ate dimsum in Geylang. We ate past midnight. I felt oozy after the meal, but most of the food tasted good, especially the soft-shell crab.

Sorry. Short post tonight. I’m a bit pooped.

Tonight, our Wednesday group decided to have a dinner at Reuben Yong’s place. His mum cooked for us and aside from the incredibly nice food (tori karaage and other stuff), I quite enjoyed the interiors. One thing about the place is that it’s completely designed by Reuben Yong’s mum. All the paintings that hang on the walls were done by her. Quite super.


Rueben Wong enjoying the couch.


Eddifier enjoying the couch more.

Nostalgia is really something. I just dug up an old copy of JUICE magazine and remembered that I’ve been featured twice in 2002. This is an excerpt from the later article, part of New Generation of DJs, written in October 2002.


Anyway, here’s some wishful thinking from me:

A bunch of chinks eating Indian food.
Little India again tonight! As usual, we ate at Komala’s. It’s a vegetarian place, and quite cheap. I get a really big meal for under $5, usually 1 thosai (normally with masala), and teh tarik.

And of course, I’d drag someone down to Mustafa. Again. But tonight it was all about window shopping. I’ve to start planning for birthday presents this year.




Eddifier needs to workout a lot before he’ll fit into this one.
Was at Sim Lim Square again before going to Little India. I checked out the Urei 1620LE mixer and apparently, it’s $1000 less than I expected it to be. Still, it’s still beyond my budget.

My souvenir map from LaSalle-SIA
The open-house for LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts was this weekend. I accompanied Drey down to their Kallang premises. She wanted to apply for dance school. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to have a look at an arty-farty school. It’s quite a nice environment, actually. We bumped into a friend, Derek, whom we got to know through Sonic Edge some time back.


Then I went to Shawn Aussie’s place to chill out. Everyone was either playing the Xbox or Bonanza or mahjong. By evening, Josh Barker and me took over the Xbox to try out Lego Star Wars. I think it’s a really cool game.

The Urei 1620LE club installation mixer.
Above is a mixer that has its heritage from a legend in the 1980s. Apparently, up till now, it is difficult for any DJ mixer to beat the sweet (and fat) sounds of the 1620. Now, Urei by Soundcraft has released a limited edition update, called 1620LE. At over $3,000, I can only imagine owning it.

Genshi au naturale comes with a foldable batik hat. (Photo: Shawna Liu)
I met Shawn Aussie at the shop today. We went to Liang Court to browse at stuff at Kinokuniya. I was surprised that they sell gravure picture books. We were actually on the way to Little India to have dinner. So we reached Little India and ate thosai, which cost next to nothing.

We ate a Komala Vilas (again). I bumped into an old acquaintance of mine, Don Kinemat. He was having dinner with some famous friends.

Shawna joined us before we started out for Mustafa. Mustafa is still the best place for some interesting and cheap stuff. I bought a t-shirt and four bottles of Nando’s marinates. Too bad they ran out of the Sony headphones that I was eyeing... but just as well. The Sennheiser HD-25 should be better.

A dying breed.

Sony has announced that they will discontinue the manufacture of the AIBO series of robots. To me, it’s the cutest thing they have come up with. It’s a robot that could recognised people’s faces and commands, played with a pink ball, got attracted to kids with red t-shirts, and avoided walking into walls. It recognised pats as signs of affirmation. It had a built-in video camera to watch over your house. And it had a price tag of USD 2000.

Now that it’s been discontinued, it will become a collector’s item. I wonder how many AIBOs are there in the world.

Three nights outs in a row = very monged.

On Thursday night, I went to the Ministry Of Sound for Edelweiss’ farewell party. The decor of the place was not bad but the music was quite boring. In Smoove, the hip-hop room, I spotted the DJ using MP3 software for DJing. It looks like Final Scratch to me.

On Friday night, Rueben and I went to Zouk to check out Norman Jay just for fun. We didn’t get to see him spin, but we mused about some ideas about a certain workshop we’re working out towards concerning DJing. This reminded me of the time when we worked as DJ instructors in St. Georges Church. The funny thing was nobody taught me how to DJ.

Last night, we went down by Zouk again. This time, it was Satoshi Tomiie spinning. But before that, we had a warm up set by Sonny. Impressive DJ, this Sonny. He didn’t use to sound like that. If I’m not wrong, he used to do more melodic stuff. But last night, he was going quite tech/electro. Tomiie was good. This is the first time I’ve heard him play live. Kampai!

This morning, I appeared at Changi Airport Terminal 1 to see Michelle from SE off to Perth. What a send off! So many people came to see her and her friends off. Maybe 50? It was a bit crazy. And I haven’t had much rest . . . but you know what? I didn’t go home after that.


How did it get to this? (Photo: Gordon Khoo)

We were playing Four Stones. (Photo: Gordon Khoo)
A friend and I went to town for brunch and shopping. She almost bought a pair of shoes. I bought Satoshi Tomiie’s 3D, the Rennaissance (the label) album he was promoting at Zouk. I’m listening to it now.

The Zouk Flea Market was in the afternoon. Back in Zouk for the third time in 2 days. And no, I still haven’t gone home! It was quite crowded and, really, there was a lot of things on sale there. But it was mostly women’s stuff or nothing special that interests me very much. I saw a lot of familiar faces in the crowd. Anyway, I didn’t last too long. Went home and slept at 4 o’clock.

Been watching Samurai Champloo. Quite good, except for the hip hop and rap—damn jialat. Really, really a turn-off. But I’d have to say my favourite character has got to be Jin, the bespectacled ronin.

Had my first sharing in Wednesday group today. I’d thought I would not really have anything to share about, but, as it turns out, I managed better than I expected myself to manage. But what’s better is that I do feel that I should share more.

The bad thing about today was I caught a whiff of dust which induced my sinus, which agggravated my astigmatism and eventually caused me to have a mild cold. Not nice, especially when I’m sharing.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be visiting Ministry of Sound. I’m going only because it’s my friend’s farewell party and it’s free.

Three friends are leaving Singapore this month on a long term basis.