The Exclamation Mark Blog!

The age old adage goes "to forgive is to forget" -- or not, because I've never heard anyone say that except for my pastor.

Honestly, I don't know how true that statement is. We can certainly forgive without forgetting, right?

I've forgiven many people. Many times. Grit my teeth and told myself to let everything go because at the end, it's me that's at the losing end - hatred does eat away at you slowly but surely.

People have brushed me off the wrong way more than once, and I've been wronged many times. But in the end, I will - and always - forgive them, not least because i am motivated my religious conviction.

Then again, it's never really easy to forget. I mean, a sure sign of forgiving is if you're willing to go the extre mile to try to forget. But then again, if something has scarred you so obviously to the extent you regard the act as a trespassing on someone else's part, then it's never easy to get it out of your head. This Christian here has prayed many times regarding forgiveness, but God never waved a magic wand to take away all my memories.

While it is not possible to "make" yourself forget, it is, I believe, possible to make yourself make it not matter anymore; you know, like say, in the way how no one really cares what the heck Janet Jackson does anymore .

Some overly-pragmatic people will go: " Why is holding a grudge such a bad thing? Not all things are worthy of forgiveness" . And even if we forgive it, or at least *forget* it, do you still have to be nice to people who wronged you? Doesn't that just give them the IN they need to wrong you again?

But life's too short to hold on to all that baggage. I'm just into my 20s and there's a ton of skeletons in my closet to clear. Imagine, how by the time I'm 50, if I'd made the erroneous choice not to forgive, the emotional baggage I'm carry (or dragging) on myself must be weighing more than a freaking bulldozer. And I'm not one who wants to die prematurely of a sudden cardiac arrest. It's not worth it being a slave to hatred because it'll just be an impediment to our progress - in our careers, in our personal growth, in our relationships etc.

Anyhow, the memories will not be washed away in an instant, but their power over my life can surely be dissipated. Like how painful memories dun make you flinch anymore. And how previously angry thoughts don't make you just want to strangle someone to death.

I guess in our life, we pay for everything. We have to deal with the consequences of our choices, and more importantly we have to deal with our past.

I can't change the past, and not even forget it, but I can - and will - use the memories to fuel my motivation to excel in the future. to use it as my trump card in the end.

And yes, often enough, our not-so-bright past can be turned around to become our advantage, our trump card, like say, how most of the social workers for deliquent juveniles were also once former gangsters, using their own past experiences to counsel the deliquents.

Yeah, God certainly works in mysterious ways.

Singapore is an insanely tiny country. Some people prefer to challenge this claim and choose to think Singapore is actually a lot larger than we think it to be. But to me it's still tiny as an ant because no matter where I go, I meet people either I don't necessarily want to talk to or people I just don't feel like meeting.

Imagine me chilling to some good music or reading a book on the MRT or just generally stoning and zoning out and indulging in my daydreams and fantasies (non-sexual kind) during my bus rides. Then some acquaintance of mine boards the bus and proceeds to sit beside me or chat me up as if we were sworn brothers or something.

It sucks because I rather be by myself when I don't feel like talking. I'm not anti-social, at least not in the extreme, but I dislike talking to people I don't feel like talking with. I mean, I have my talk cock buddies like Kenneth and Dale, but sometimes silence to me is as purposeful and soothing and therapeutic as fun, idle jabber. I generally only talk a lot to people I either like, can clique with, or if they're really great people.

Next time any acquaintance drops by, I'd rather not oblige to engage in conversation because:

1. if he or she was so important in the first place we'd have kept in contact already via MSN or email or something

2. I find banal conversation infinitely emotionally draining.

3. I don't really like gossipping, and it seems the conversations with those friends i bump into tend to gravitate to bitching and slandering others, which i absolutely loathe.

Well, if you are one of those thatI'm more than happy to talk to, you'll be able to tell from my facial expressions and tone because I'll be smiling and talking chirpily. If i'm droning on like my former lit tutor Mr Y, then you know I'm not giving any thought into the conversation -- which is a telltale sign either I'm tired or lazy to engage in conversation, or simply that I don't really like you.

Also, I prefer to just shut up sometimes because:

1. I don't want to sound silly if I don't have anything to say.

2. Mindless conversations vaporize my brain cells more than anti-matter. (I read that line somewhere recently)

3. Silent is the new loud. I think being silent makes quite a 'loud' statement for yourself, no?

Too bad, as long as I'm living in Singa-tiny-pore, I'm doomed to suffer from these banal conversatons with long lost friends forever. "what are you doing now" or "where you working/studying at" or "what happen to XXX friend do you all stil keep in contact" blablablablabla boring old crap questions just drive me nuts. If we're truly comfortable with one another, the ability to be absolutely silent around one another is the surest confirmation of that.

From the episode 'Orpheus' of Tv Series 'Angel':

Angel: Faith, get up!

Faith(in staggered breaths): Angel, I'm dying...

Angel: Yeah, it's a lot easier than redemption, huh?

....

Angel: I'm not perfect, Faith. even with a soul, I've done things I wished I could take back a thousand times....

And I thought I could make up for it by disappearing.

Faith: I did my time (in prison).

Angel: Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything.

Faith (in pain, both physical and emotional): It hurts.

Angel: I know. I know.

The above are the excerpt pieces of dialogue fro the episode of Angel that I meticulously jotted down on paper because I loved them so much. For the uninitiated... Faith is a rogue Vampire slayer, supposed to be a champion of good, who later on went on to murder two people, but although cold on the outside, she was literally breaking on the inside. And the only one who never gave up on her was Angel, the vampire with a soul (which basically means he's the only good vampire around), who never stopped atoning himself for the crimes he committed when his soul was absent from his body.

Those lines were amazingly resonant to me. I'm no former jailbird or cold blooded killer - hell, I don't even litter because I'm afraid of being fined- but I relate to the kind of pain Faith was facing. 2 things I would like to point out.

Angel did most of his crimes when he was devoid of a soul, a conscience. Yet when he had his soul back, it wasn't as if he has a brain transplant with an angel and suddenly became all Pope Alexander. He still did wrong things, made wrong choices - ones that he made rationally, with perfect knowledge of the consequences.

The parallels with my Christian life are evident. I'm a Christian true, and my life's changed a lot since when I became one. But I'm no perfect saint; I've done wrong things, many of them in fact, and the guilt sometimes eats away at me.

People sometimes tend to get too critical of Christians. People lie blatantly, they get away with it scot-free; we tell a white lie, we get flamed mercilessly for it. Our faults are often magnified and scrutinized upon. I should take needles and puncture my skin till blood oozes out to remind them that I am like anyone else, a human being.

We all still make mistakes and we have to deal with them.

***

Angel also mentioned him trying to make up for all his past faults by disappearing. Retreat into some obscure corner of the globe and become a recluse, fading into oblivion. Faith tried shutting herself from life permanently by wanting to stay in jail the rest of her life, hoping that would offer some sort of shelter from the hard-hitting reality of what she had done. And yet here's the line I loved most:

Faith: I did my time. (in prison)

Angel: Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything.

Well, hurts doesn't it? But I'm guessing its true. When I was younger I did so many wrong things, some of which had effects on me which I'm still trying to come to terms with. In the past I often lapsed into a perpetual state of self-flagellation, then found my escape by entering into a bout of depression that kind of sheltered me from more emotionally decapitating thoughts.

But true redemption (or rather, repentance, for me) is not about escapism or guilt. It's about dealing with your past faults. Moving on from the past. Making better choices in the future.

Some people say they can't leave the past behind because the past won't leave them behind. That they can't win against their past.

But I don't think the battle with the past is always there to be won. It's there to be fought. To fight, to try to redeem oneself, to go into the future making better and more responsible choices. And that's what makes humans so strong.

Then again, my battle has already been won for me by A Friend in A Higher Place.

Recently, Lancerlord posted on Tomorrow his discovery of some new online program/applet/whatchamacallitthing that allows you to listen to a post. Yes, that's right peeps, the program/applet/whatever actually gives the reader an option to listen to a blog post entirely in audio, if the blog owner decides to integrate that program into his blog. (they call this embedding right?)

I think this program sucks.

(Lancerlord, if you reading, you generally posts great links, this is just one of the rare few horrendous discoveries...)

Some blogs tend to be filled with highly emotional posts and replete with great feelings of intensity. Even via reading about a person's feelings online, a lot of that intensity and rawness have been filtered out.

Now, they come out with this thing that reads posts out with an absolutely monotonous, robotic voice. It sounds horrible and dull -- and the first time I actually tried it out and listened to the voice, I vaguely recalled nightmares of eternal hell in Mr Young's horrendously boring literature classes.

Someone please enlighten me why in the blue moon would anyone want to use such a program anyway?

Even the thought of the apocalypse doesn't seem so bleak now compared to the increasing popularity of this Talkr program thing.

I've wanted to comment about a rather pressing issue for some time now. Last week I was reading The Brown's post about not buying a certain CD because it was Copy-controlled. Instead he opted to buy James Blunt's CD -which is definitely way overrated- simply because it wasn't copy-controlled.

A certain statement he said made quite a profound impact on me.

mrbrown said:

"I prefer to give my money to companies who do not penalise their customers or treat them like criminals."

I was rather taken aback, but could still empathise with why he made such a statement. However, as usual, certain comments to that post really annoyed the hell out of me again.

"If a CD I want to buy is copy-controlled and I can't rip it into my MP3 player, I'd rather just download it off the Net than waste my money. By treating potential customers like pirates in a bid to prevent piracy, these companies are just encouraging it.' -- said a certain someone.

One other reader said: "Piracy is not killing music- stupidity is!"

I certainly understand the opinion these people have on music and copy control and their frustration with rigid anti-piracy rules. And sure they do have reasons to justify their stand on copy-control. But I feel that these people are certainly pushing the boundary too much with their flagrant disregard of the law in public.

Anyhow, I am a purist at heart. I love music, and love its myriad mix of colourful genres. More than that, I am passionate about music. I love what the good record artistes are doing -- putting their heart and soul into creating communal works of art -- making music without pretension (although that's in the minority... there're a ton of pretentious acts out there) and generating aural pleasure for we music lovers.

I relate to music artistes, because I know how much effort most of them put into making their music. They sleep little, eat meagre amounts of food, are often fatigued and exhausted, but they go about making their music, travelling round the world doing gigs, doing interviews and media conferences. It takes commitment and sacrifice and a whole lot of passion to keep going at something so exhausting as being a music artiste.

And the purist that I am feels that the commentor on mrbrown's blog who said that she'd prefer to download the album off the net if a CD is copy-controlled is one of those robbing good artistes of their bread and butter. Some of these artistes deserve to earn more because of the effort they put into their music, and because of their great talent. Downloading albums off the net is simply repulsive to me. It's selfish.

I mean, I'm not going all Mother Teresa here and say that I've not downloaded mp3s before. I have, in fact, but I'd never ever, EVER, EVER download more than 3 songs from any certain album. If I think that album is good, i'd download 2 or 3 songs and sample them to see if I like it. But I'd never ever be such a grotesque person as to download complete albums off the net.

Seriously, if you actually download an entire album off the net, it means you like the artiste. If you like the artiste, and you think his/her/their album is great, what's so hard about cutting down on an expensive meal and buying their CD instead just to support them? What's so freaking hard with forking out about $20 to purchase a CD you genuinely enjoy? You can eat your cuisine, you can drink your cocktails, you can smoke your cigarettes, and you can pay for your petrol, but just $20 --such a meagre amount-- is a problem to someone like you?

I'm not being a prude here saying that you can't download music (the law says so though, we're all subject to it. So download legally. please.) so I'm not exactly burning in righteous fury here, what I'm saying is that we have to think for the music artistes. If we keep robbing them of their moolah by downloading music (illegally in this case), sometimes passion itself is not enough to sustain your career. Not having money for the family and for luxuries isn't exactly an endorphin release to music artistes. Worse still, they might compromise on their artistic integrity and go all out to commercialize their works, destroying all credibility they've built up for themselves previously.

I still believe that many record companies ARE indeed big, evil, bloodsucking corporate machines. However, it's the artistes I'm more concerned about here. I can't bear to see my current favourite acts like Franz Ferdinand or Death Cab for Cutie go kablooey and self destruct from a lack of income.

And more than empathising with music artistes, I personally feel it's extremely hypocritical for you to call yourself a fan of XXX band or singer if you don't even have the decency to buy his/her/their album. I'm seeing more and more cheapskates downloading tons of mp3s of their favourite bands off the net and still professing that they're a fan. The purist in me just eagerly anticipates the day where I get to eviscerate such morons.

The thought of the iPod being such an ubiquitous commodity now is in itself a turn off. I hate seeing everyone nowadays carrying that slimy metallic thing in their hands as if its such a cool fashion statement. To me, it's so 5 minutes ago. the CD walkman will FOREVER be in vogue, and forever relevant, at least in my very biased opinion. The sight of kazillion people all over the world grooving to the music played out on their ipod, iPod clasped firmly in hand, is the reason why Prozac and Zoloft was invented anyway.

Yes I am a purist, you can save the trouble jumping on my back crying bloody murder, because this time I know i'm right. I remember in secondary 1 and 2 (equivalent of high school, in case any non-Singaporeans are reading this) I would starve myself during recess so that I would save enough money in 2 weeks to buy myself an album. And back then, I only got $25 a week, so you could imagine how much I saved.

You know, that's precisely what I miss. That living on the edge a little, being mocked for following a passion you relentlessly pursue and love. There was always this thrill of having people call me a freak because I would eat so little during recess, cut down on the canteen socialising sessions with classmates, and then pool my savings together to get my CD. I so miss that, giving something that is a sacrifice to me, because I love it so much. Treating music as a free commodity just extricates the passion from the music.

I think this is a lesson many need to hear.


Listening to: Jacqueline -- Franz Ferdinand

Today I went to watch GOAL! with a few of my church mates, Dale, Jieyong and Jasmine. The highlights of the day were not, quite ironically, the movie or anything about it, but rather me being mercilessly teased (haha) by the few of them about... the 22 October. (it's a secret...)

Anyway, since the show seemed pretty promising at first, I just decided, rather grudgingly, to tag along to watch the movie. I mean, it's a soccer movie, soccer stars are gonna make cameos, so initially I kind of expected it to be a hoot, a really rad movie. And even if the movie really sucked, I'm pretty sure Dale or Jieyong would have loved it still because they're big soccerholics who unfortunately are mentally stunted enough to become Liverpool fans. (*ahem*) Even if it was a pure waste of brain cells, they're probably vouch their unwavering support towards the show anyway. And you don't even have to bother asking for the opinions of any Newcastle fans.

All right so here's how the story goes: this guy, Santiago Munez moved over to American from Mexico with his family, consisting of his gradmother, his brother and his really grouchy, overly pragmatic dad. Among his prized possessions he brought over is his soccer ball -- he is a kid wildly passionate and amazingly gifted at the game.

And soon, all the trials and tribulations are brought in, blahblablah got scouted by talent scout, blahblahblah agent never turn up and protaganist disappointed, protaganist sad and proceeds to be disillusioned and wallow a little in self pity, some miraculous stroke of divine intervention takes place and voila! Another route opens for him. Then he faces tons of other trials like parental objection, temptations, the seduction of fame, the jeering of fellow teammates etc etc.

In short, it really is your Average Joe's rags-to-riches immigrant fantasy cliched. Some call it the American Dream, although soccer is a little too British to qualify for that term. And the movie is an absolutely typical feel-good sports show. Of course, by superhuman determination and lady luck as a friend, Mr Protaganist overcomes all his adversities, makes it big and becomes a Newcastle hero, along the way reconciling broken relationships and building new ones. Of course, he hooks up with a hot girl too. And please don't say I spoilt the story for you because anyone with half a brain would know that's the typical outcomes for such movies.

I can understand why people would enjoy it, especially guys. Emotionally it's appealling, especially to the Average Joe, because these average Joes vicariously revel in the glory of the protaganist, whom they easily relate to. Yeah, so momentarily, especially during the climactic scenes, the guys ( or girls, for that matter), place themselves in the shoes of the protaganist and absorb the splendour and glory of that sweet moment of victory.

Which is what makes it exploitative, if you may ask. I'm sick and tired of tried-and-tested, politically correct nonsense aimed to paint a delusionary portrait of real life and aim to inspire the blind masses so much they decide to tag friends along to rewatch the show. If you ask me, me being the idealist that I am, I would say I believe that dreams are important, and dreams should be fervently be pursued. From a Christian perspective, we all have destinies and purposes in life and we dream to accomplish something significant in our lives. But when I think of my dream, I don't always believe the pastures are greener on the other side. But I may think that, the grass on the other side of the other side might be greener (if you can follow the convolutions). What I mean is that, the pursuit of dreams is a long, tumultuous journey.

This movie obviously had the common elements of conflict and later, resolution. Unfortunately, the conflicts are always resolved so conveniently and so quickly. Some battles are not won in weeks or months, they are won over years. And when I think of my dream, I'm guessing that kind of battle would be spanning several years too. And the danger with this movie is that everyone watching it goes all warm and fuzzy and touched and inspired and ______ (insert adjective of your choice similar in meaning to Positive).

It is exploitative because it obviously is playing, even patronizing, the average Joe movie audiences, making it seem like Lady Luck will come to your rescue eventually no matter what, when really, life can be unfair and brutal and harsh at times, and some things can't just be resolved by a snap of the finger. Not to mention, which guys doesn't dream of being a soccer star? Count the benefits: play your favourite game, make great mates for the soccer club your play for, gain glory for yourself, get your name plastered over front pages of newspapers over the world, earn tons of cash, hook up with hot chicks and get laid. Except... erm... I don't really care for the get laid part because I don't believe in pre-marital sex. (I'm a Christian prude* and I admit it.. don't jump on my back crying bloody murder!)

So, in short, if you go to watch the movie, leave your brain at home, because that way you'll enjoy it more. If you try to think too much, you might still enjoy it like me, but at at the same time you'll end up getting mildy annoyed too. For example, in the middle of the show, this Santiago guy was going through so many trials, tribulations, persecutions and crap that when I returned from a short toilet break, sure enough! Tragedy struck! Something happened to his family! *smacks forehead in exasperation*

Before I end this post, I sum it up in a rough sequence of events: guy from poor family, talented in game, works in an absolutely dead-end job. Plays soccer in free time. got scouted. got ditched by agent. scout believs in him and helps him again. More adversity in the form of family. some Higher Being obviously intervenes and voila! He makes his way to England. screws up initially, got sacked, got back into club,plays well, learns his mistakes, becomes a hero. And in case you didn't know, I wanted to type BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH for this entire sequence of events because that's what the whole plot is -- blah -- but for your benefit I decided to spell it out for you guys.

Anyway I never realized how much I could talk about a single movie. I haven't even gotten to the part where David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane inexplicably roots for him. Like YEAH?, David Beckham is sooo going to take a break from his training and games and family commitments and shopping and sleeping around and filming lousy Pepsi advertisements to actually go up to a relatively unknown newbie to proclaim his support for him? GIVE ME A BREAK!

Ok, I'm ending it here. More tomorrow.

In case you're thinking the title of this post makes no sense, then you're right. Well, at least it's not pertinent to what I'll be blogging today. It's just that, I love Franz Ferdinand so much that I borrowed a line of their lyrics to be my blog title.

What's more important is.... I'm going to sing myself a song.




Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to R******, (not all know my real name)
Happy Birthday to me!!!

*balloons bursting and people cheering in the background*

Birthday wishes pertaining to blogging:

1) Meet Up the different bloggers/readers on this blog... Let's see: (too lazy to link, if you guys wanna check out their blogs find it in my blog links scetion)The Hungry Bunny, Ball.Of.Yarn, Julian, Zenith, Ms.b, lil Dow Fro etc etc... ESPECIALLY MARILYN!

Just a bit of trivia here: How long have Marilyn and I been virtual friends?

Answer: 6 years!!

We have to meet up sometime!

2) Get my freaking template together so that the comments section gets fixed.

3) Start some blogging for world dominance campaign thing not unlike Adrian.

4) Continue to never use the f*** word on my blog. And cut down on the s*** too. It's not really a secret that i'm a Christian right?

5) Come out of anonymity someday, when the time is right.

6) that Lynne will return to Singapore and do a meet-the-readers event.

7) That annoying, scandalous sites like Xialanxue will have a huge paradigm shift and become a blog of positivity?

8) that I will be the first Asian male blogger to get endorsements! (yeah, like real, with me and the whole anonymity thing)

That's all, I'm going out and gonna celebrate my birthday!

Since I'm absolutely hopeless with html, I'll be waiting till Marilyn comes online and get her to incorporate Haloscan comments back onto my blog again. It's a little trickier with this template, but in the worse case scenario, I'll make do with blogger comments.

Please be patient with me.

Meanwhile, my law student friend stumbled across a really funny story, enjoy!

Here it is:

One day, God was touring Heaven and noticed that the Pearly Gates were terribly scratched and worn.

So he asked St. Peter, "What's happened to the Gates?" St. Peter replied, "It's from all the sinners who struggle and grab on when they're told they're going to be cast into the bottomless pit."

God said, "If this is the work of sinners, then it's Satan's responsibility. Tell him he has to pay for the repairs!" B

ack came the reply from Satan, "So sue me!"

God read Satan's words, sighed and shrugged. St. Peter said, "What shall we do, Lord?" God replied, "There's nothing we can do. He's got all the lawyers."

Franz Ferdinand's album is darn solid stuff. That is all.

I don't think I can ever be in a better mood. I was initially feeling a little low spiritually, even emotionally, but the things quickly changed as the day progressed, and I will embrace this day fervently because of some great stuff that happene to me.

I was free today, so I met up with my friends Dale and Kaishing at cineleisure for some aimless roaming. Don't ask me why, but for guys we tend to break stereotypes in many ways; guys usually go out to the streets with a specific goal in mind, while we just met up not knowing what we'd do. So we just threw up all the ideas... we went through some shops at the Heeren. (Trust me , guys have to hunt for stuff sometimes too ok?) So I went to look at some tattoo designs since I do fancy body art done tastefully. And when I mean tastefully I don't mean a whole lot of tribal tattoos all over the arm and back and above the butt. And definitely not pictures of dragons being plastered all over the chest skin.

Anyway, we came up with possible leisurely options: Xbox shop at dhoby Ghaut MRT? Lan shop? Arcade? it came down to 3 options I guess. While we decided on the Lan Shop soon, I managed to coax them into taking some time out to chill at HMV... which turned out to be the best decision I made today, and I'll explain later.

Also we went to Starbucks and it was my treat to them for me being late again. If there's some disease for being late all the time like lateotimeohophosia or something, I must be sufferrer of it in the chronic stages. Side effects include having to treat friends to food and drinks to make up for the lack of punctuality.

I'm not one to usually go to great lengths on the things I eat for my meals and all, but today the stuff I had at Starbucks was so good I just had to post them up.



butter scones. With jam and butter applied in the soft core of the scones. you just bite into the crust and it's hard on the outside, and when your tooth hits the core, it's like an explosion of sweetness and there's this incredible whooooooooosh of sensations sent to your brain, not unlike an orgasm. (*ahem*) Scones courtesy of more-moronic-than-Mr-Moron Dale.



This is Passion Tea I just tried today. It looks black in the photo, but it's actually red. Crimson red. It's sour, but refreshingly sour. Think sparkling mineral water with a dash of lime and some good ol' English tea. That's the best attempt to explain the tastes to you guys.



A close up of the Passion Tea. I am a passionate person in whatever things I do. Music, God, friends, film and Warcraft3? Same applies to relationship. Girls who want to apply for a date with me please e-mail me. (*cough*)

***

3 people playing Battlefield 2 on their own isn't all that bad. Especially when the newb one, partnering with a computer bot, managed to win in the end. The computer bots make me look good. heh.

***

And now, to the best part of the day, I just acquired for myself, the albums of Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab For Cutie. Wow. I just finished listening to the whole Death Cab For Cutie album, and almost done with Franz Ferdinand's one too. Radical stuff...

Guys go get their album please. You have to. Their music is awesome, and in case you're thinking you should buy their album because they're so alternative and indie and edgy and cool and listening to them will make you look cool, don't be daft. Death Cab For Cutie and Franz Ferdinand are both getting increasing popular and are getting more commercialised now. But still, they deserve every ounce of credit they deserve, because they're brilliant. Especially Franz Ferdinand. Every single song's great.


Thanks guys for the day of mad fun. I think with practice I'll kick more butt in the next game of Battlefield 2. Back to Warcraft 3 for now.

Geek police, I'm here, com'on get me man...