Piece of Mind

...days left of my study week... i'd better get some work done... and yeah... the g3 live in tokyo 2005 cd and dvd has been released... only just a few days ago... was browsin' torrentspy when i found out about that ;) gonna give it a listen after finishing dream theater's a sort of homecoming bootleg... which i just obtained... and so just u'd know... petrucci is in both of the concert recordings... gonna go... start doin' somethin' productive

well it's been 25 hours and i haven't slept yet... the recording wasn't really fruitful due to many reasons... but i did manage to record the whole drum track relying solely on the metronome clicking through my headphones... it was quite boring having to play pitchless music... if u know what i mean... haha... back in my room now... after a refreshing bath... it's definitely bedtime for me... don't wanna fall sick at the wrong time...

thanks to a brilliant recommendation from a friend... i had a sinfully enourmous carnivorous buffet at McD... well... i've never knew 'bout such a promo all throughout these years during ramadhan.... so i decided to grab this opportunity to indulge myself to my heart's content... and boy were we stuffed... a malay guy there was jokin' with us and kept on makin' funny remarks... like he was an old friend... when we first entered the outlet and was greeted with a poster stating 'makan sampai puas... satu harga sahaja'... he suddenly turned to us and said... 'makan sampai mati'... then we just smiled... and as we were lining up to register... he asked 'ada puasa ke tak... puasa je boleh buffet'... we just jokingly replied 'yes'... and after we got our food... we immediately got down to business... erm... eating before their imsak time... and he was like 'cepatnya dah buka'... well... the rest of the time we were busy stuffing ourselves... and so was he i suppose... i thought that it would be the last we saw of him... when he suddenly he walked past... and remarked that we were knocked out... and before he left for the door... he showed us an apple pie stuffed in his slacks pocket which he was gonna sneak out... smiled and pointed to his head... amusing antics from a clowny character... downtown jb is very much alive at night... a hive of (mostly illegal and questionable) activity... streets full of shady characters... well... i've never been a fan of this hell of a city really... HELL of a city... study week is for studying... i hope i will not realise it too late...

yesterday was pretty fruitful... serpent sans drummer were in my room... goin' over the new song and newly-written parts which we just composed yesterday... i hope to record more of it today... and finish up the solo part which i am supposed to write (and play)...

we were chattin' till six in the a.m... man have i been sleepin' early nowadays... it's been bedtime at five or six for the past whole week... which i would not wanna continue for long... unless of course the band hangs out at my place again... then it's rather inevitable... hehe... the butterfly effect (i know it was out more than a year ago)... is a pretty enjoyable movie... i just found it tucked in one corner of my hard disk... hmmm... i shouldn't say corner cos it is physically circular... i must have forgotten that i downloaded it... so anyway... it was a nice watch... two whole weeks to enjoy, compose, watch xvids... and probably revise? ;) and maybe some other projects too... which i will announce when i'm done...

my good friend in ipoh just told me that he was in a rather bad accident last week... but luckily he managed to escape with rather minor injuries... the care was in quite a wreck though... and stranded in the middle of the roundabout after the crash...

lesson to be learnt?... don't drink and drive kids... i'm glad he's still around to borrow my dvds... can't take life for granted...

if u can do it... get back to me and claim a mystery gift :) it's easier said than done... this is certainly a good example of that overused saying...

well... i was just told that this will be the final week of lectures... time certainly does fly... maybe i've just been lazing around too much watching time slip away so quickly... anyway i've just finished a test which was all about zeroes and ones... i hope i don't get any binary nightmares... i used to have some weird dreams especially durin' the finals period when i'm crammin' everythin' in a couple of days... all those formulae actually pop out of nowhere disruptin' my few hours of precious sleep before an early exam in the morn... quite haunting... symptoms of a weary engineering student... binary nightmares is quite a cool term i might use it for a song title... haha... if i do get the inspiration to write some suitable lyrics to it... roughly a month left here before it's officially the hols once again... actually it seems like i am on hols all the while besides the occasional last-minute studying... hopefully tomorrow will be more fruitful = time spent usefully = compose some cool solos for the new song we are workin' on... :)

my friend borrowed a scanner home to scan his passport pic so that he could retouch it in photoshop for his resume... so i jumped on the opportunity to digitize all my... well... literally old school pictures ;) so finally i have my whole collection in jpg at last...

hmmm... with no ideas on topics to write on... i might as well share some pics from yesteryear... here are some taken during the last night in ipoh before comin to uni for the first time :) really old school pix...

well... i've just sent in my resume for the industrial trainin' application... and guess where i got the photo for my profile from... i didn't have any existing digital passport-sized photos so... i decided to photoshop somethin' from the past... which i just remembered i had... this is the original photo taken durin' my brother's convo and then with a lil magic... a mugshot of myself was extracted and voila!

well... serpent is finally moving ahead... for the first time... we sat down to write a song yesterday... and we've already got chords and riffs for the intro, verses and choruses... it's a pretty sinister-soundin' metal track which is really really cool for headbangin'... and we're very proud of it considerin' its our first song... and guess what... i can write faster licks than i can play 'em... haha... so i actually have to practice what i've written cos it's too technical for myself... so the above paragraph must be pretty boring and makin' no sense to non-musicians... but nevermind... i'm sure if u're readin up till this far then u must find it interestin' enough... :P i think i need some sleep... had a late night jammin'... plus free weed chicken at u-know-where... and i attendin' mornin' classes for the first time this week... hehe... definitely lookin' forward to finishin' the song in a week's time... after that it'll be revision time for a test next weekend... for now... that's all...

there's this friend of mine who endlessly and unfailingly leaves us in stitches with his seemingly innocent weird mannerisms and antics... it's not like he is a good joker... it's just that he's a good... hmm... joke?... haha that sounds a lil harsh but nevertheless... that's just him... a kind-hearted soul with a tendency of being eccentrically amusing... if i wrote them down... i think it would be less spontaneous... and thus... not really amusing to the reader... what more with my poor descriptive skills in writing... there's around a few weeks left of lectures for this semester... man have i lost track of time... and also the enthusiasm of attendin' classes... everyday's just been like a holiday... my level of diligence certainly has been spiralling downhill... time really flies and i can feel it race past me... well... before i go watch weeds... i guess there's one thing left to do... happy birthday kim! :)

well... i had to write a title for the post so i guess that pretty much is a suitable one... pardon the pun...

it was a long but great day... though 69 family didn't make it past the preliminaries of asian beat 2005... it was good exposure and experience for first-time band battlers like ourselves... many thanks to gobling for supporting us along the way with encouragement and advice... all the best to u guys 2mr... well i know it's a really terribly laughable name for a rock band... but it wasn't my idea... and it wasn't meant to be permanent anyway... after all... the band lineup was decided at the eleventh hour only... partly because we only decided to join a few days ago... the vocalist and bassist were roped in on wed... and the drummer on fri... and there we were rockin' the stage (or at least tryin' to haha)... after three days .. so i had no high hopes of anythin' honestly... but we all did have some fun so it was all good :) i must have been the worst lead shredder for the day haha... so i'll have to work some more... one of the bands were playin' rising force pretty good... clean sweep arpeggios from the guitarist and lightning solos too... man man... hats off... and i still remember the days in my old band wanted where i actually wanted to try for band alert (now known as asian beat)... hmmm... great enthusiasm back then... and finally... after all these years... i actually got into it... and out too... haha... and for the record... dream theater is still number one... no prizes for guessing what shirt i wore today...