Indulge...

Sundays never fail to make me feel extremely lazy and not want to do anything but just chill out on my own. So I ended up watching videos all day long, and here are some of the great ones I stumbled upon. Enjoy.





I think this is one of the best advertisement I've seen so far. A really smart one. It is very well-crafted, and it can actually double as a public service announcement. Hahaha!! Way to go, Swedes. Singapore seriously needs this, public toilets here are no better than those in third world countries.







This is why I always say guns are for faggots... Sorry for those who don't understand Japanese. Basically it's a challenge between Japanes Katana and Colt 45 Government pistol. The katana not only was left untouched, but the bullet of the gun was sliced into halves. See what I mean now?







You think Mr.Bean is funny? Think again... Many people probably only know him as that particular character, but Rowan Atkinson is way more than just that. He's still the funniest when he talks.

Shameless Ignorance

You know what cracks me up the most about this video? It's not the stupid answers (some of them are not though) they gave, but rather, themselves. Look at them. Who are they to comment on Asian guys when they're like that themselves? LOL!!! It is pretty apparent to me that the real reason why they go for whites is because they failed to get the attention (not to mention interest. HAHAHA!!!) of Asian men like us! Asian guys are shy? Asian guys are smaller? Hahahaha!! Shameless pathetic bunch of ignorant fools... The best birthday present you could ever give these kind of people is none other than a giant mirror, just so that they can take a much better look at themselves, and hopefully that would knock some sense into their empty air heads.

I think a lot of guys will agree with me, we're not offended when we see these kind of girls prefering white guys to us. In fact we're more than happy. I don't know if any of you have realised this, but most of the Asian girls who go out with white men are those particular types that we Asian guys would never want to touch in the first place. Majority of them are just plain... never mind, I'd rather not say (Those of you who know me well enough will know). HAHAHAHA!! :p Very few lucky whites actually got really good ones. Most of them end up with rejected products that didn't pass the quality check. So yea, there you go. We're not complaining. By all means, have it your way if that is how you want it to be, while we savour whatever good things that are left and saved exclusively for us.



Maybe someone should make a male version of this video, on why Asian guys prefer [insert whatever non-Asian category here] girls. We'll see what happens then. HAHA!!! I probably won't be a part of this though, unfortunately. I have yet to lose my faith, if you get my drift. Maybe someday I will. Who knows.

COM 125 Week 2: Instant Messaging

What do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night, suddenly recalling that there is something extremely important that you have forgotten to do, and the fact that it is a group work does not help at all? Decades ago, people would have to resort to calling each other (remember those old school telephones?) and gather at someone’s place in the wee hours to finish the job. Such a hassle has since been eliminated with the development of technology. What we do now, is to log on to MSN or Yahoo! Messenger, or even ICQ for some of the more hardcore users, have the work done and send it over to other people instantly without having to leave home. Such is the magic of Instant Messaging technology.

Instant Messaging or IM is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet. [Instant Messaging, 2006] A lot of people may not know this, but Instant Messaging is in fact a not-so-new technology which first made its appearance back in 1970s. It was a feature that mainly functions on operating systems such as UNIX, which was designed for programmers of interactive computers who needed to be able to build tools for each other, share those tools, and propagate successful throughout the programmer community. (Rheingold, 1993) The earliest form of IM was a text-only platform resembling the MS DOS black-and-white format.


ICQ users would find this familiar as this particular platform is still being used in the classic versions of ICQ. Some of these IM tools require users to get connected through a variety of servers, like in the case of IRC. With the development of Graphic User Interface (GUI), IM has become really fanciful and the fun factor has since become yet another selling point for it. Users can now display icons and pictures as an enhancement to the way they can express themselves. The use of different skins and wallpapers in customizing their own user interface has also been made possible. As years go by and technology advances, what began as merely a text-only channel of instant communication has now evolved to a versatile and highly interactive tool. The peer-to-peer connection between users have now allowed file-sharing to be done, and voice chat as well as video conference have been added to its feature, making IM now an all-in-one function.



The key importance in the function of IM is not only the convenience it has created for people, but more importantly, the fact that the ongoing communication between users is real-time. This is a very important development as far as Internet technology is concerned, and it has truly revolutionized how Internet is being used by people like us. Back during the days when E-mail was still the main mode (it still is today, although its prominence has significantly dropped ever since IM became popular) of long distance communication, there is a time lag in information flow that we had to deal with. Not to mention that in cases whereby vital information was sent to the wrong address or for some other reason did not reach the receiver, it could actually cause a lot of unnecessary trouble. The existence of IM has eliminated this problem almost entirely, with instant information access strictly kept between the senders and receivers involved. In a way, we can also say that information security is pretty much insured. Time lag in online communication has always been a concern to a lot of people, especially in the business world where time is money and information flow need to be as swift as possible. Especially when it comes to global business or even international communication itself, the presence of time difference in different parts of the world is another barrier to prompt reception of important information. IM has provided us a way to bypass all these problems and get our messages and information across to the recipient just in time, even more so for emergency situations like the example shown in the first paragraph.

Another key concept behind IM is networking, which is basically the biggest aspect as far as the Internet is concerned. The revolution of IM has also brought about the surfacing of not-so-instant networking tools allowing people not only to connect with their friends or families, but also to make new friends and build a whole new network that might not have existed previously. I am talking about social networking websites [History…, 2006] like Friendster, MySpace, Xanga, Hi5, Facebook, and many more sites of such nature. Back in the earlier days people make new friends through online chatrooms; something pioneered by IRC which was very popular back in 1990s.


Strangers logged onto the same servers will make friends, some of them go on developing a more in-dept interpersonal relationship and become “real friends”. Such is the concept behind networking sites like Friendster and MySpace – to get friends connected to each other, make new ones and build a wider network. With this particular development, Internet is no longer just a wide source of information and a tool to get messages across between users. It has since become a virtual space that caters to more personal needs of the users.

One would have realized by now how far IM technology has taken us as far as the use of Internet is concerned. From a network built for the purpose of disseminating information without it being able to be physically destroyed, to an interpersonal tool that connects people, shrinking the globe and bringing people closer to one another. It has since become a part of (almost) everyone’s daily life. And as time goes by, we are bound to witness more revolutions that will change the way Internet is being used.



REFERENCES:

History of the World Wide Web. (2006, September 5). History of the World Wide Web. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_World_Wide_Web&oldid=73974490


Instant Messaging. (2006). Instant Messaging. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging


Rheingold, H. (1993). Visionaries and Convergences: The Accidental History of the Net. The Virtual Community. New York: Perseus Books. Retrieved January 27, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/3.html

A fine day to die?

The title of this video says "Columbine Leak Security Tape", and it is indeed a very detailed video of a school shooting. However, I did noticed that the date on the video says "May 1, 2001" instead of "April 20, 1999" which is the actual date of the Columbine shooting. Not only that, the name of the guys seem to be different here, one of the guy was called Andre or something. They looked pretty different as well, in terms of physical attributes. My guess is that this is actually a footage of a different shooting incident at a different school years after the Columbine incident, and someone might have posted the wrong video up. Anyway, apart from that, this video vividly lets us see what actually happens in there when an incident like this takes place. I chanced upon it while doing my assignment and I thought I'd just put it up and share it with everyone. It is a very detailed video, you can clearly see what they're doing, hear what they're saying, gunfires and girls screaming, etc. and it ends with both of them kneeling down together, shooting themselves to death. You've been warned... View at your own risk.

Anti-Hero...

I am not a very big fan of God Forbid, but the video above depicts perfectly how dirty humanity has become. The dollar note in the video is a testament to everything that it has witnessed as it was being passed around.
Atrocities that birthed abominations indeed...


Anyway, with regards to today's case-study on the Columbine schooting incident, I'd just like to point out a few things.


When something like this happens, people only know how to point fingers at the "evildoers". They only know how to blame, that is all they know how to do. Who actually thought of the real underlying cause? How many people really think? I'm telling you, if guns are readily available in Singapore, WE WILL WITNESS A SHOOTING LIKE THIS EVERY SINGLE DAY!! Those two kids are victims of school violence, something that many of you can never understand because you probably never got to experience it yourselves. But those who did, those who have gone through it, will totally understand what it is all about. I'm not justifying the use of violence in solving problem. But a problem is not solved until the root of it has been removed. What we need to do is not to point our fingers at them nor the media but instead, stop racial prejudice and bullying in schools!! This is a highly persistent problem even in Singapore, a problem that the government has turned a blind eye on almost totally. We need to do something about this.

Remember sometime last year there were quite a couple of cases right here in Singapore, whereby murder victims' bodies were brutally mutilated by the respective killers and the different body parts were dumped at different locations. Remember those cases? None of the killers are listeners of heavy music of any sort. Now on the other hand, I am someone who listens to what I listen to like how living things need air. Even when I go to sleep I listen to bands like Dark Funeral, Marduk, Darkened Northern Slaughtercult, Cannibal Corpse, Aborted, Carcass, Decapitated, Prostitute Disfigurement, and many many more bands of such nature (note that I'm not only a listener. I even play in these type of bands!). These are bands that are much "deadlier" than any of those nonsense that the two kids at Columbine listen to, stuff like Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, etc. Screw that! Those are what I call "pussy pseudo-metal for kids". Now with that said, shouldn't I be the one committing such horrendous crimes? Not only that I did not do any of these nonsense, I'm always the one, and truly the only one (screw you all uncompassionate corporate pest!!!), who always give up my seat in MRT and buses to those who need it more than I do while others pretend to sleep or simply ignore the existence of these people. So who's more human now? That lucky guy who almost died of epileptic seizure in front of Plaza Singapura was saved by Mike (my guitarist), a metalhead, not all these so-called "normal civilians" who not only did nothing but also tried to discourage him from saving the guy, asking him to leave that fella alone. Mike had to shout at all those bystanders before any of them actually called the ambulance. Again who's got more sense of public awareness?

My point here is that if you are screwed up in your head, regardless of whether or not you're exposed to all these media violence, you're still gonna be a psycho anyway. But if you're not, no matter how much media violence you've been exposed to, you will know better what is right and wrong. In fact, it will only give you a greater sense of awareness and might even serve as a form of deterrence to some. Media violence is NOT the cause of violence in reality but INSTEAD, the CURE to it!! It is people like us who've been constantly exposed to all these that would never do such things in real life, because we all have a channel through which we can divert our aggression and stress onto. We get to vent it out while people like those murderers did not. In every man there is that diabolical side in him that will surface if not supressed. I remember my late grand-teacher once said, "It is people who know how to kill that will not kill, because these people have come to realise how easy it is to remove one's life, how fragile life really is. And that's when you will treasure things around you even more than you ever did." He was right. Trust me, nobody knows this better than I do. If you've been through what I had in the past, you'll know what I'm talking about.


There's something that the public has failed to understand. For people like us, listening to aggressive music with gory lyrics are exactly the same as how avid horror/gore flick fans love their movies. The only difference is that for us, it comes in audial form. It's all fantasy and entertainment, nothing harmful. The music is what matters to us, and it shall only remain that way. Now get that in your head, morons!!


Oh, another thing. There's no such thing as Goth culture. It's been dead long and gone forever. The only remnants of it now are but poseurs who've been trying too hard to be one without understanding what it really is all about, much less about what it takes for one to be one. Nothing but a skin-deep fashion trend.



Revive not the human race...

Descend The Shades of Night...

This is dedicated to all the idiots out there who think Metal is about all things ugly. It's definitely not the best, but it's good enough to prove your sorry @$$ wrong.


I dunno what's gotten into me but the whole night I have been listening to Machine Head almost non-stop, a very rare occurence ('coz normally I like my Metal a lot groovier, speedier, darker, more brutal and definitely more technical) which had only happened to me once before when they just released their "Through The Ashes of The Empire" album, and then listening back to their debut "Burn My Eyes" album which is just plain brilliant. Awesome stuff. It's bound to happen again once they've released their upcoming latest album "The Darkening".













Damn it I can't wait till I get to play this big a venue, to this big a crowd...
Europe here I come!!!

In Grind We Trust...

Disgust The Vile by Visceral Bleeding

This is one song that can't get out of my head right now. I was practising the drum parts for this song as I suggested to the band that we'll do a cover of this for our next overseas show in Thailand, along with other cover of Infidel by Vital Remains. And then I found this video. Amazing. It's simply brilliant, it's got a very good setting to it and sends off the right vibe. I just love it, and I find it so irresistable to put this up despite knowing the real purpose of this blog. Whatever really, I don't care. Watching this makes me more impatient now, about our own upcoming music video that is. We'll have to put this on hold till we come back from the Europe tour most probably. Once it's done, I'll put it up as well. So in the meantime, enjoy or suffer!!!

By the way, more shots...

Thus Spake The Nightspirit...

6th March 1986 -- while to many it was just another day, those who have been granted the knowledge, or cursed as some of them may have claimed, will find it hard to forget. It happened right at the centre of a town, in the middle of nowhere, that this very being was brought into existence. A year he took to alienate milk, another year he took to stand on both feet, and then soon it was time that he started on what he was sent down to accomplish. It began with the Keys, then came the Strings, and when finally the Hammer was bestowed, he was all ready for the invocation. A journey he must make in order to summon and gather the other chosen ones, and together they must form a legion... a legion that is to rule for as long as they breathe...

Alright alright cut the bullshit, business time! Welcome whoever you are staring at this very piece of writing. This is Hans, yoroshiku!! I'm a hardcore RPG player, I've been playing keyboards since 4, guitar and drumming since 10, I play a bit of flute, saxophone and harmonica as well which unfortunately I hardly touch these days. Prior to doing music I've been involved in theatrical arts as well, even martial arts too. I've played in a military band before, lots of sessioning in other bands as well back in my JC days. I was also a Student Instructor in Guitar Ensemble. Currently I play in my own bands now, namely Absence of The Sacred and a couple of others, including my solo projects as well. With Absence of The Sacred I've released our debut album last September, it's still available from me (t-shirts as well) and all the major Metal music stores. I have since been doubling as marketing manager for the band as well. A new record is on the way, songwritings have almost been completed, recording should resume by end of '07 after returning from the European tour I'm about to do with the other projects. The upcoming record will be scheduled for release in early '08.

So, that's it for now.

The Saga continues...